Changes to the Social Engineering models

[Buster's Uncle]

I've deleted two posts and sanctioned the authors.



Gentlemen, I got my own authority issues, and dislike having to give orders as a consequence - but if I don't enforce them when I feel I must give them, all the invisible janitor work I put in to keep the place running isn't worth anything.  I want a community where respect flows in all directions, but that does include towards me, thank you.

[Buster's Uncle]

I should add that I don't feel good about that incident.  I always feel like I've failed when I so much as have to edit a swear from a post, let alone doing deletions and giving out vacations. -So some of it's on me.

Kinda sorta SUPER awkward/impossible to talk about SE settings w/o talking about socialism and what-have-you - of course.  It was a saying socialism is evil kind of thing and that mutating into comparisons to current events and politics that was a problem, as current events almost instantaneously bore me out.

And von, you'll perhaps be interested to know that I got an actual communist who swings by every month or so to post aggravating garbage - and he's gonna deal with me thunderously failing if I see him post his usual here any time soon.  I may loosen up later as events indicate is prudent.

-See also last night's topped rules thread post in Council Room.


So IF y'all can leave out the value statements and contemporary politics, PLEASE discuss Planed and how it's socialist and how socialism works.  -And Police State and all that.  None of us have anything to prove to each other; we wanna talk about a fun game and have a good time doing so.  That there's some unity you can believe in, and I'm all for it.

-Carry on.

[bvanevery]

So IF y'all can leave out the value statements and contemporary politics, PLEASE discuss Planed and how it's socialist and how socialism works.

Emphasis mine.  This is somewhat impossible.  I'll explain why.  Even within the Left, there are many strains of Socialism espoused.

Recently, I discovered a new group on Reddit called r/Practical_Socialism.  Its moderator is a refugee from various other leftist groups all trying to shout each other down about really wound up, picky stuff.  You're not doctrinaire this, you're not doctrinaire that!  Your theory is wrong, your history is wrong, your understanding is wrong, your reading comprehension is wrong, yadda yadda yadda.  You are not politically correct enough, Comrade!  So now you are banned for the slightest infraction because you're a "bootlicker" or whatever.

So this guy wanted to start a group, aimed at taking practical action of moving society to the left.  Not all this tinpot forum dictatorship and personal fiefdom garbage that most of the mods are doing, because they're such incredibly immature jerks.  So he roughly told it.  Well I tried one of the other leftist groups and almost immediately got banned.  So I saw his point pretty quickly!  The leftist ecology on Reddit is really as bad as he says.

Anyone who actually takes the effort to pursue Wikipedia, will see that Socialism is a broad subject area.  Articles that I've run into recently, are things like not all Socialists are Marxists.  Isn't that a kicker?  One of those a square is a rectangle, a rectangle is not a square kinds of things.  I'm still wrapping my head around the Nordic model, which many right wing detractors are quick to decry as not Socialist.  But I suspect they are probably halfway wrong.  Workers have more bargaining power enshrined into law in those countries, and that changes a number of things.  As well as some other things, which one could argue are Socialist.  Indeed, people do argue.  All the friggin' time.

In any society, you do not find agreement over what polarized, charged up words mean.  'Socialist' is one of those words in the USA.  It is value laden.  Even among people who support 'Socialism', it is value laden.  Nevermind people who use it as a synonym for all that is evil, wrong, and bad.

This is just what human beings do.  They fight about what words mean.  They are trying to control each other's behavior, through the symbolism of the word.  Or flag.  Or iconography.  Or manner of dress.  Or whatever.  This is what human beings do.  I have a B.A. in Sociocultural Anthropology, I studied this kind of stuff for awhile.

So when you see these terms in SMAC, you have to accept that the words are value laden and that this is deliberate.  SMAC is not a work of detached removal and remote examination.  It is a work of Art that pits philosophical systems against each other.  That's by design, and it even offends occasionally by design.  I tamped down the anti-Christian stuff in my mod for that reason, although dammit, the limited number of game mechanics are kinda pushing me back into the "Theocrats can't research" thing again.

Why did I change Free Market and Planned to Capitalist and Socialist?  Because that's what they are.  If you search xscript.txt, you can see where certain words are used.  Capitalist and capital explicitly appear in the dialogue.  It's a clear synonym for Free Market.  Socialist does not appear, but communism does.  As do nationalized industry, the equitable distribution of goods, and sharing with the lowliest members of society.  This is all Socialist, regardless of the exact flavor.  There's no ambiguity as to what the original game authors were talking about.

Code: [Select]

#SOCIAL1CAT1BAD2
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"It appalls me that you seek to perpetuate the crimes of the unjust
capitalist system here on this young world, $TITLE0. I must appeal to
your basic sense of justice, $NAME1, and implore you to consider a more
equitable distribution of goods."

#SOCIAL1CAT1PACT2
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"$TITLE0 $NAME1, I have warned you against these evil capitalist economics
you have embraced. My warnings have gone unheeded, however, and it is now
my moral duty to renounce our $PACT2."

#SOCIAL1CAT2GOOD
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"Your society's willingness to share its prosperity equally among even
its lowliest members sets an example we should all follow, $TITLE0 $NAME1.
I commend you."

#SOCIAL1CAT1WAR2
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"$TITLE0 $NAME1, I have warned you against these evil capitalist economics
you have embraced. It is now my moral duty to eradicate your faction
before such an unjust system can take root on this young world!"

#SOCIAL1CAT2WAR1
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"I see my warnings have gone unheeded, $TITLE0 $NAME1. I shall not
allow your Planned economics to stifle the just and proper
flow of capital on this planet. I shall now use all means at my
disposal to rid this world of the evils of communism and
nationalized industry! Vendetta upon you, $TITLE0 $NAME1!"

#SOCIAL1CAT2PACT1
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"I see my warnings have gone unheeded, $TITLE0 $NAME1. I shall not
allow your Planned economics to stifle the just and proper
flow of capital on this planet. I must now renounce our $PACT2 lest
you plunge this world into the abyss of communism and nationalized
industry!"



[Buster's Uncle]

For the purpose of I brought it up and I do encourage members to discuss moderation policy when it isn't an attack on me - and unfortunately, that last is a frequent problem- I'll allow this time, not least because you're not wrong.

However, do make a good faith effort to keep discussion from going to the obvious places -and respect when He Who Pays His Own Money To Provide You This Place Free and Works To Run It if he says to dial your talk back- and we'll be fine. 

I want this to be a community of Responsible Adults, cordial, if not all friends, though I hope for friends.  There's a lot of hard work and hard thought behind that over many years I've been doing this since I accidentally got into forum management.

-Also, I misspelled "Planned".

[t_ras]

Hi to all. Most of you are not old enough to know me, but I am one of the moderators.
I would kindly ask every one in the modding forum to keep the political discussion in the context and level of modding ( like "for this ideology is expected such behavior" and then "such configuration" ) and not dragging it to pure, unrelated, political discussions. Feel free to move with those to recreation commons.
Let as all enjoy with very long modding posts, and not other unrelated ones.
Thanks you.

[Nexii]

So this is my most recent set. Lessened research penalty on Fundamentalist, it was just too much at -2.

Theme wise Free Market got -2 SUPPORT (mercenary armies) instead of police penalty. Knowledge got -2 POLICE (more open society) instead of support penalty.

Cybernetic I gave -2 ECONOMY which may seem strange. The idea is along the lines of the original description, that it may cause great poverty amongst the lower classes (and thus all of society).

Eudaimonic and Thought Control are more in line with original designs.

I'm tempted to give all Future Societies -3 penalties, as getting +6 in benefits is really powerful.


Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier,        None,
Police State,    DocLoy,  ++POLICE,   ++SUPPORT, -EFFIC
Democratic,      EthCalc, ++EFFIC,    ++MORALE,  --POLICE
Fundamentalist,  Brain,   ++GROWTH,   ++PROBE,   -RESEARCH
Simple,          None,
Free Market,     IndEcon, ++ECONOMY,  ---PLANET,  --SUPPORT
Planned,         PlaNets, ++GROWTH,   +ECONOMY,   --PLANET
Green,           CentEmp, ++PLANET,   ++RESEARCH, -INDUSTRY
Survival,        None,
Power,           MilAlg,  ++MORALE,   ++SUPPORT,  --GROWTH
Knowledge,       Cyber,   ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC,    --POLICE
Wealth,          IndAuto, ++INDUSTRY, --PROBE,    --MORALE
None,            None,
Cybernetic,      DigSent, ++INDUSTRY,++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC,  --ECONOMY
Eudaimonic,      Eudaim,  ++GROWTH,  ++ECONOMY, ++PLANET, --MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE,  ++PROBE,   ++MORALE, --RESEARCH

[bvanevery]

Recently I made similar changes to my Theocratic and Thought Control as well.

Details social engineering in SMACX AI Growth mod version 1.48

social engineering in SMACX AI Growth mod version 1.48

I have considered bumping Cybernetic to +3 RESEARCH, but I'm in wait-and-see on that.  After all, an ECONOMY bonus is pretty powerful.

My release cycles are very slow now.  I'm not really getting any feedback from anyone anymore.  Not that I got massively much before, but there was a steady trickle.  So, it's all about my own testing, and that's contingent upon me continuing to play my own mod.  I still do, for now, but I see an endgame where I'm finally "burned out" and wanting to do something else with my time.  If I were not held up by my programming language design stuff, if I were actually implementing a new game, I don't think I'd be playtesting my own work anymore.

[Buster's Uncle]

Try pinging Yitzi - he could tell you how he went about teaching himself the .exe modding.  -I assume you don't want to go back to school, which is what scient might tell you...

[bvanevery]

Hm, possible misunderstanding, my programming abilities aren't really the issue.  Rather, my choices, and what makes me miserable.  I'm working on a programming language because I can't stand C++.  Meanwhile, I've always declined to do .exe modding because of the disproportionate amount of labor it would consume, compared to writing a new game from scratch.  The latter is capable of making me money someday.

[Buster's Uncle]

Ah.  A different class of problem, indeed.

[Nexii]

I put Knowledge to -3 POLICE, Cybernetic to -3 ECONOMY, Eudaimonic to -3 MORALE, and Thought Control to -3 RESEARCH.

Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier,        None,
Police State,    DocLoy,  ++POLICE,   ++SUPPORT, -EFFIC
Democratic,      EthCalc, ++EFFIC,    ++MORALE,  --POLICE
Fundamentalist,  Brain,   ++GROWTH,   ++PROBE,   -RESEARCH
Simple,          None,
Free Market,     IndEcon, ++ECONOMY,  ---PLANET,  --SUPPORT
Planned,         PlaNets, ++GROWTH,   +ECONOMY,   --PLANET
Green,           CentEmp, ++PLANET,   ++RESEARCH, -INDUSTRY
Survival,        None,
Power,           MilAlg,  ++MORALE,   ++SUPPORT,  --GROWTH
Knowledge,       Cyber,   ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC,    ---POLICE
Wealth,          IndAuto, ++INDUSTRY, --PROBE,    --MORALE
None,            None,
Cybernetic,      DigSent, ++INDUSTRY,++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC,  ---ECONOMY
Eudaimonic,      Eudaim,  ++GROWTH,  ++ECONOMY, ++PLANET, ---MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE,  ++PROBE,   ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH

Overall I feel they're all quite balanced. AI doesn't like Wealth very much. Though morale is a big deal with how I mod - armor & unit abilities are basically free and weapons are the costly part. So there are more battles where the defender may win as you don't see unarmored units.

[bvanevery]

I don't really get "Cyborgs who can't fathom money", and I went exactly the opposite narrative route in my mod.  But I'll leave that concern aside, and regard your categorization as primarily a game mechanical choice.

A problem I see for your balance, is that you've just superpowered the Network Backbone.  It eliminates the harsh Cybernetic penalty.  You've also superpowered the Cybernetic Consciousness, as they can use Cybernetic with IMPUNITY.  Unless you eliminated that ability of theirs.

[Nexii]

"In the far future, citizens may turn many of the tasks of governing society over to artificially intelligent computers, increasing efficiency and freeing individuals for more creative tasks. But will workers displaced by computers sink into despair, poverty, and possible unrest?"

I suppose it was going with more of the poverty angle. That having most of society replaced by AI and automation would leave most workers without jobs. Which in turn would slow down the economy.

Yea, the SPs that remove penalties are incredibly strong. Especially Cloning Vats. Telepathic Matrix is another, essentially removing Democratic and Knowledge penalties. HSA for Wealth, etc. Not a lot can be done about that, except to say they should come quite late in the game. On the other hand though late SPs have few turns to pay off.

The factions on the other hand can be balanced around. I've tried to avoid IMPUNITY as it tends to reduce choices available. Perhaps if all factions were impune to their preference it'd be more balanced. It would make factions with future SE preferences tricky though. As they'd be weak early and very strong late.

[bvanevery]

Cloning Vats I made late and very expensive.

Telepathic Matrix I made available in literally the last tech of the tree.  Transcendii too.  These are overpowered toys for a sandboxer to play with, IMO.  In my mod they are all but out of the game.  I call this approach "soft removal" of a game mechanic.  Sure it's still in there, but it's so expensive and late as to be irrelevant to gameplay.  A rational player trying to win, will long ago have done something else more profitable.  i.e. conquer Planet with Impact Marines.

My Network Backbone is early enough and affordable enough to be relevant to gameplay.  I have not actually observed it to meaningfully goose anyone's research.  I think the benefit of every Network Node on Planet contributing to your own research, is not as dramatic as it sounds.

I'm against overuse of IMPUNITY, because it just makes factions boring.  One's impune to this, another's impune to that.  Currently I have my Hive as having IMPUNITY to my choices that have POLICE penalties.  The idea is that Yang never takes a police penalty.  So that means my Hive has IMPUNITY to my Knowledge and Eudaimonic.  It might sound overpowered, but the arrangement was arrived at empirically, observing what the AI did or didn't do well with.  Actually I'm not sure the AI knows how to exploit these mid to late game benefits, nor have I paid good attention to whether it's even doing so.  And my jury is still out on whether I've created some kind of major human player exploit.  I don't seem to have benefited super greatly from this new arrangement, so I'm not too worried about it yet.

Playtesting cycle feedback on mid to late game phenomena, takes a long time.  The reality is you'll play many more earlier games, because they're shorter.  You quit when you see a problem, fix it, then start another game.  Takes a long time to play enough long games, to really have an idea whether a faction's long term prospects even matter.

[Nexii]

Agree IMPUNITY/IMMUNITY on too many factions tends to make the game boring. As you're basically forced into the choices with no downside.

I feel this is a little closer thematically to my aims.

Frontier,        None,
Police State,    DocLoy,  ++POLICE,   ++SUPPORT,  -GROWTH
Democratic,      EthCalc, ++EFFIC,    ++MORALE,   ---POLICE
Fundamentalist,  Brain,   ++GROWTH,   ++PROBE,    -RESEARCH
Simple,          None,
Free Market,     IndEcon, ++ECONOMY,  ---PLANET,  --SUPPORT
Planned,         PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY, +POLICE,    --PLANET
Green,           CentEmp, ++PLANET,   ++GROWTH,   -INDUSTRY
Survival,        None,
Power,           MilAlg,  ++MORALE,   ++SUPPORT,  --ECONOMY
Knowledge,       Cyber,   ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC,    --POLICE
Wealth,          IndAuto, ++ECONOMY,  --PROBE,    --MORALE
None,            None,
Cybernetic,      DigSent, ++INDUSTRY,++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC,    --GROWTH
Eudaimonic,      Eudaim,  ++GROWTH,  ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, --MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE,  ++PROBE,   ++MORALE,   --RESEARCH

Police State: -GROWTH due to oppression/purges.
Democracies: ++MORALE and ++EFFIC is a weird combination. I feel that historically Democracies fought wars the best, just not too aggressively, hence ---POLICE.
Fundamentalist: ++GROWTH, they have the most focus on large families. Lessened penalty to -RESEARCH as ++PROBE really isn't that big a deal. May consider +++PROBE.

Free Market: --SUPPORT due to increased military costs, reliance on mercenary armies.
Planned: ++INDUSTRY might be a bit too good. Though its benefits are distinct from other Economics. May consider ---PLANET.
Green: ++GROWTH due to better crop yields/lower pollution. -INDUSTRY seems more fitting for sustainable development.

Power: --ECONOMY, as those extravagant weapons and training are costly.
Knowledge: Not much change.
Wealth: No change. May seem less punishing than FM but --MORALE is pretty harsh with my modding. Defense techs are more relevant, more close battles.

Cybernetic: Settled on --GROWTH, an online society is less social, and inline with CyCon's default penalty.
Eudaimonic: Not much change. ++RESEARCH seems more fitting than ++PLANET. Late-game PLANET stacking is kinda broken anyways.
Thought Control: Not much change. A little more relevant late-game than before as there is less overlap with Politics choices. May consider +++PROBE.

Avoiding EFFIC penalties, the AI just isn't smart enough to avoid going too far negative. Since it loves MORALE I expect to see a lot of Democracy/Planned/Power.