Changes to the Social Engineering models

[Buster's Uncle]

SMAniaC is what got me interested in modding in the first place, too.  We all owe Maniac a considerable debt.

[Geo]

Politics, Economics, Values, Society
Primitive,       None,    +POLICE, --EFFIC

Barter,          None,    --GROWTH, -ECONOMY

Survival,        None,    +MORALE, --RESEARCH

Primitive,       None,    -PLANET

Seeing the SE tabel again, I wondered what would happen if these four were linked to a technology. Would the game crash, or would we have an extra SE setting?

[Yitzi]

Politics, Economics, Values, Society
Primitive,       None,    +POLICE, --EFFIC

Barter,          None,    --GROWTH, -ECONOMY

Survival,        None,    +MORALE, --RESEARCH

Primitive,       None,    -PLANET

Seeing the SE tabel again, I wondered what would happen if these four were linked to a technology. Would the game crash, or would we have an extra SE setting?

My guess is that you'd start with them active, but once you switched from them you wouldn't be able to switch back without that technology, and they also wouldn't show until you got that technology.

[Geo]

Looks like they're hardcoded to be selectable, even when linked to an undiscovered tech.

[Nexii]

Interesting, didn't know the default SEs could be modded.  Note though that -2 GROWTH by default makes some of the SMAX factions unplayable (Pirates, Aki go to -3 GROWTH which is no pop growth).  Only way to get any population is to discover Demo Planned or FM.  Which on just one size-1 base could take awhile.  May want to lessen that to -1 GROWTH

[Geo]

May want to lessen that to -1 GROWTH

Or keep it to make things more challenging?

[Nexii]

Lol I think it'd be almost impossible for those factions.  I noted a minor bug that when you click to optimize say "GROWTH", it doesn't account for negative default SEs.  Been playing with yet another set since this was noted that frontier SEs could be modded.  I do like the idea of putting in default penalties, because overall a 'balanced SE' set where you can get any SE modifier to its min or max is more penalizing than the default SE set.  There are some penalties not used such as -ECON and some positive modifiers are really easy like +EFFIC.

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

So the default is -1 to all SE other than POLICE and MORALE (arguably these would be the priorities immediately upon planetfall).

I've found with this there's more viable combinations than before.  There's 3 ways to hit +2 ECON (2 of: Demo, FM, Wealth). Kind of a pick your poison for the penalty.  What this does is allows you to have a free choice in any tier.  So you could go Fund or PS and have +2 ECON.  Obviously not with Planned, but Demo/Green/Wealth, and Demo/FM/Power or Knowledge also give +2 ECON.  Planned can still go decently with Demo and/or Wealth to take the sting out of the -3 ECON, but generally it's more suited to momentum style.

The pure production and war SEs got a relative boost.  Fund is a lot more powerful but also has a higher downside.

With +2 GROWTH on Demo and FM, Pop Boom is back.  I think it needs to stay in otherwise builder SEs tend to be very weak.

EFFIC being much harder to raise and lower changes the game a lot.  It's much harder to have a vast empire with Demo and Green at +1 EFFIC each.  On the other hand, it's now possible to run PS+Planned.  Generally makes for a longer game as outright conquering distant enemies gives very little energy.  The strategy of base returning is more common I would say.  You can get to +4 EFFIC fairly early with Demo/FM/Knowledge but with Knowledge's -MORALE and Demo's -5 POLICE you aren't going to be conquering anyone.

[Geo]

At first glance, it's an interesting 'sectioning' of certain groups of social choices.

But keep in mind the effect of some secret projects like the Living Refinery (huge support boast) and Cloning Vats (removing the negative effects of certain SE choices).

[Nexii]

Yea it's a balanced SE set in the sense of ignoring faction bonuses and SPs.  Network Backbone and Telepathic Matrix being the other two SE altering SPs.  But these are all fairly late SPs, and there's no guarantee you'll get them.  Of all the SEs I kind of feel that Power,Cyber,and TC might be a bit weaker in this set anyways.  But I'll have to play more to see.  Everything is kind of weak so it's a different feel.

[JarlWolf]

I think Green isn't balanced that well in this- for the bonuses it gives is way more beneficial then the issues it has- maybe add -1 ECON on that as well, or -1 Growth. After all, those said green policies may be fairly expensive or limiting to people.

[Nexii]

Yea I should have mentioned I modify ecodamage settings.  I play with zero CMs, 16 as the mineral divisor, and 1000 for the Ecodamage divisor, and -1 extra ecodamage per base.  If anything this makes PLANET more important though not less.  Maybe try this a bit and see if you find Green dominates.

If I was going to tweak Green down it would get -1 GROW from PS or -1 IND from Power.  Power then might lose its +1 SUP to PS in the latter.  I do think -2 IND is pretty steep though.  Players always used to say the default Power SE was terrible, because it had -2 IND...

Edit: another possibility would be to give Green the -1 SUP from FM

[Nexii]

Another thing I discovered was that frontier SE penalties apply as though they were faction penalties.  For example -RESEARCH applies the ~5 turns of no research.  Perhaps this is intended in the sense that you start the game with -RESEARCH.  Starting with -2 RESEARCH thus means Believers and Drones have to wait 20 turns to research anything.  On the other hand, anyone other than University/CyCon has to wait 10 turns.  It might not be that unfair...Univ does have some pretty big penalties.  CyCon maybe less so but they were already #1 in my books.  Although, Fundamentalism aversion hurts a lot more now than previously.

Another effect of -2 EFFIC starting meant that Pirates couldn't run PS early (as it would put them to -4).  PKs couldn't get Planned as a first choice which I didn't really like.  More or less if you put -2 EFFIC in one category, it makes any other category with -EFFIC as a first pick unviable.  So I moved -EFFIC from Survival, removed -SUPPORT from Autocratic, and added -RESEARCH to Survival.

Made a few minor tweaks then, reducing Green slightly and boosting Police State slightly.  -ECON from the start was too harsh for Hive+Cult because it's more penalizing at negative amounts early.  Hive couldn't get any early energy unless lucky enough to be on a river or monolith.  -2 ECON was really bad for Cult also as they don't have any sort of early offsetting bonus.  Instead gave Barter -EFFIC,-IND,-PLANET. 

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

I felt like Power might be a bit weak (vs Survival) so I gave it -PROBE as well.  Generally taking penalties from similar tier works well...and flavorfully sort of works (simple governments with no guiding principles/morales would be more susceptible to infiltration).  As far as Power, it now combines much stronger with Fundamentalism.  +4 MORALE/+3 PROBE is really brutal to fight against.  Especially when the -IND can be offset with the new Planned.

Demo/FM/Knowledge obviously now being the ultimate techer/builder SE.  Planned+Wealth in periods where you need to pop out improvements/SP.

[Nexii]

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[JarlWolf]

Why would bartering cause negative planet? That's just directly trading resources without a currency system/energy system, don't see how it'd be devastating for environment..

[Nexii]

I want players to be incentivized to get into an Economic system quickly.  One thing about a Barter economy would be that you would be trading physical goods around instead of energy.  So all that extra shipping to facilitate exchange would cause some minor economic damage.  Thematically -ECON for Barter probably makes the most sense but for balance reasons it won't work that well.

Maybe "Traditional" economy is a better descriptor?  It's similar to Barter in a sense.  Outdated economic systems from Earth should have some negative Planet I feel.  Thematically the environmental devastation on Earth is mentioned.  So that could be a sort of 'hold-over' - and/or that humans haven't yet realized the fragility of Planet's ecosystems.