Changes to the Social Engineering models

[Dio]

What about making a set of factions without any social bonuses or penalities to go with the modified social engineering table? My rough and untested example looks like:

Gaians:
TECH, Ecology, FUNGNUTRIENT, 2, FUNGMINERALS, -2, PSI, 25, TERRAFORM, 0, ENERGY, -100

Peace:
VOTES, 2, TALENT, 4, FUNGENERGY, 2, FUNGNUTRIENT, -2, POPULATION, -2, INTEREST, -5,

Morgan:
ENERGY, 100, INTEREST, 0, POPULATION, 3, COMMERCE, 1, HURRY, 75, TECHCOST, 125,

Univ:
TECH, 2, SHARETECH, 3, TECHCOST, 75, RESEARCH, 1, DRONE, 4, MORALE, -1,

Spartans:
MORALE, 1, ROBUST, EFFIC, UNIT, 11, FREEPROTO, 0, HURRY, 125,

Believers:
FUNGMINERALS, 2, FUNGENERGY, -2, FANATIC, 0, MINDCONTROL, 0, MORALE, 0, RESEARCH, -1,

Hive:
IMMUNITY, ECONOMY, IMPUNITY, Police State, PENALTY, Fundamentalist, FACILITY, 4, INTEREST, 3, COMMERCE, -2,

[Nexii]

They're all Firaxian wannabes!  Kidding, this looks pretty interesting and a good concept.  I'm a big fan of giving factions IMPUNITY on their preferred SE.  But this might be tough to balance if you give every faction IMPUNITY like Hive gets.  As they are these look fairly balanced, would be interesting to try.  The -100 energy on Gaia doesn't cause any issues?

Univ may need a small boost without the Network Nodes, perhaps TECHCOST down to 60 or so.  Drone/4 on top of -1 MORALE is kinda painful.  Believers with Morale 0 and Morgan with Interest 0?  I assume you meant + bonuses of some type there.  Hive looks really solid.  Though in a peaceful game he would suffer with the minus Commerce...interesting penalty there.

With a set like that I would probably re-design some of the frontier bonuses/penalties.  I'd try to put all factions to -1 in all SEs to start, other than RESEARCH (due to the 5 turns thing).

How about this for a really simple set?

Gaians - IMPUNITY Green and free Biology Labs.   Free Centauri Preserve on discovery.
Hive - IMPUNITY Police State and free Recycling Tanks.  Free Genejack Factory on discovery.
Morgan - IMPUNITY Free Market and free Energy Banks.  Free Perimeter Defense and Tachyon Field on discovery.
University - IMPUNITY Knowledge and free Network Nodes.  Free Fusion Lab on discovery.
Believers - IMPUNITY Fundamentalism and free Recreation Commons.  Free Hologram Theatre on discovery.
Peacekeepers - IMPUNITY Democratic and free Children's Creches.  Free Hab Complex on discovery. 
Spartans - IMPUNITY Power and free Command Centers.  Free Naval Yard on discovery.

Perhaps a bit boring/plain but I may try that, and yours above.  The impunities make them hard to judge.

Edit: Seems facilities can only be given for the entire game.  May cause some imbalances, but I'll try it out.

[Impaler]

I've also played around with free Facilities for each factions, and game up with mostly the same combinations (the factions starting tech tends to dictate the choice for you).

But I was still using the classic Perimeter Defense for Hive, but am reconsidering it, their really isn't anything in Hive ideology that dictates a high priority on Defense, if you really think about it the facility feels like something randomly bolted onto Hive during the balance process.  One possibility I've considered for them is the BroodPit (which I renamed "Indoctrination Center"), it's police and probe bonuses seem vary appropriate for a police state, and I've moved it Doc Loyalty already (see how this is all fitting together thematically).  Perimeter Defense is now available without a tech prerequisite which helps everyone deal with more aggressive native life.

Meanwhile I've found that free Command Centers for Spartans are problematic, they cost maintenance equal to the reactor technology of the owner, where as other free facilities cost no maintenance, this significantly cuts into the Spartan economy which is already one of the weakest in the game.

Some of your late game free facilities look very interesting as well, I believe I may try these out.

Lastly I've been thinking of a fairly deep redesign of Belivers, I've always found them boring in the sense that they are so narrowly focused on being aggressive dicks, and I've always thought that was the nitch of the Spartans.  I want to carve out some kind of strategy which is unique and more intermediary on the builder-momentum axis.  I'll keep the core 'good probe/poor research' aspect but I'm looking at GROWTH and a different kind of combat bonus such a PSI bonus rather then Fanatic.

[Buster's Uncle]

Some of those insular radical religious types are real industrious builders/businessmen, witness the Amish or the Hasids.

[Nexii]

Yes, well even less insular religions; the Protestant work ethic is a big reason the US became the #1 world economy.  Jewish being heavily involved in high finance.

There's no way to give free facilities that I know of 'upon a certain tech'.  Either you get them or you don't.

I never really felt PROBE befitted Miriam, personally.  GROWTH I can see (and is something I put on Fundamentalism to a small degree).  +INDUSTRY might be more fitting.  Then they're kind of similar to Hive though (who IMO should get POLICE/PROBE).  PSI perhaps, it would definitely be a remake.  Currently their religion is to believe in the Christian God as the higher power - not Planet.  Maybe one idea for a remake would be that they see Chiron and god as one.  Though this might be a bit too similar to Cult of Planet.

Hive was supposed to be living in underground bunkers, I believe is the reason for perimeter defenses.  I think it fits although Hive should have gotten the space penalty not Morgan.  Underground = space cramped.  At least that's how I see it.

Did you mod perimeter defense to help vs native?  That's curious.  Recently I've been modding Empath/Trance to be stronger but also cost more.  Tending more to harder counter system of units.

[Sigma]

Hive was supposed to be living in underground bunkers, I believe is the reason for perimeter defenses.  I think it fits although Hive should have gotten the space penalty not Morgan.  Underground = space cramped.  At least that's how I see it.

Giving the Hive a Hab complex restriction throttles their Growth stat, which is one of their key abilities and biggest strengths. Plus, Yang has no problem with stuffing his people into tubes and lockers so it's not as if they need a lot of breathing room. Compared with the Morganites, where every citizen deserves his own penthouse.

[Dio]

Hive was supposed to be living in underground bunkers, I believe is the reason for perimeter defenses.  I think it fits although Hive should have gotten the space penalty not Morgan.  Underground = space cramped.  At least that's how I see it.

Plus, Yang has no problem with stuffing his people into tubes and lockers so it's not as if they need a lot of breathing room. Compared with the Morganites, where every citizen deserves his own penthouse.

  I think that statement is true. I never understood why the peacekeepers got loosened population restrictions.

[Nexii]

Yea, perhaps.  I found booming the hardest on Yang though - because of Democracy aversion.  I can see the counter argument, for giving Yang the extra pop - but not the fast population growth.  Yang can only get +3 growth with Planned in the default set, and it's tougher to GA boom at -1 ECON/0 EFFIC.  His main stat is really the EFFIC immunity, which lets him go PS/Planned the whole game without too much pain.  Even in my set with PS/Planned/Power at -1 EFFIC each (instead of -4 for PS+Planned), it's a big thing.  Negative efficiency is normally very painful.  I find Yang plays the most different from other factions because of this and his +1 IND.  Especially in my modded set since Planned gets +2 IND instead of +1, totalling +4 IND which is very strong.

[Impaler]

Yes, well even less insular religions; the Protestant work ethic is a big reason the US became the #1 world economy.

Have to call BS on this one, when people use the term 'Protestant work ethic' it strikes me as thinly veiled self-flattery that Protestants work MORE and/or HARDER then other folks, primarily Catholics, but all other non-Christians as well.  Their may be different cultural values about WHY to work but I've never seen any evidence that Protestants are more productive.

The primary factors for the US success were clearly access to an entire Continent of resources, and a cultural and legal climate that encouraged risk taking and advancement of the regular man, with lenient bankruptcy laws being key.

I never really felt PROBE befitted Miriam, personally.  GROWTH I can see (and is something I put on Fundamentalism to a small degree).  +INDUSTRY might be more fitting.  Then they're kind of similar to Hive though (who IMO should get POLICE/PROBE).  PSI perhaps, it would definitely be a remake.  Currently their religion is to believe in the Christian God as the higher power - not Planet.  Maybe one idea for a remake would be that they see Chiron and god as one.  Though this might be a bit too similar to Cult of Planet.

The problem with PROBE rating in SMAC is that it combines offensive and defensive aspects, their is no way to make a faction leak information like a sieve AND be good at getting it from others.  I think Believers being good at security is logical, but for them to be great infiltrators strikes me as odd, they are not the Data Angels by a long shot.  Perhaps just give Believers the Mind Control immunity and take away all the Probe bonuses?  Also I've been looking at a Support bonus for Believers, no one else has support bonuses and it could synergize with the GROWTH bonus and help them to field large low tech (out of necessity) 'zerg' armies.

Hive was supposed to be living in underground bunkers, I believe is the reason for perimeter defenses.  I think it fits although Hive should have gotten the space penalty not Morgan.  Underground = space cramped.  At least that's how I see it.

I have to agree with Sigma and say that when I hear the word 'Hive' it sure sounds like they are packing em in like Sardines and should getting a pop limit bonus.

Did you mod perimeter defense to help vs native?  That's curious.  Recently I've been modding Empath/Trance to be stronger but also cost more.  Tending more to harder counter system of units.

Well it's partly a water-cooler logic thing for me, everyone should be able to defend themselves, it shouldn't require technology to do such a basic human activity.  When I'm giving everyone a -1 PLANET and the native PSI bonus at +25% per planet level it seems prudent to let defenses get built a bit faster.

[Nexii]

Yea, PROBE didn't really go with the Believers mindset.  I think it's more a willingness to spy, propagandize, and steal knowledge/energy.  I think it was by design that PROBE was also defensive, Knowledge society could be viewed as too ethical to steal/plagiarise (discover over spy).  See The Planetary Datalinks quotes on their philosophy, the more open you are about information, the harder it gets to control that information flow.  For the same reason, being open about information would make it much more difficult *to* spy on others.  I think PROBE works as it is.  Given the Cold war and how Police States operate, I felt +PROBE went more with Police State politics, rather than Fundamentalism (and Miriam similarly).  Civ2 had Communism as giving spy bonuses also - and Fundamentalism with more traditional army bonuses. 

As a faction bonus, I think subversion immunity works fine for Miriam.  Generally subvert costs are rather high for non-AI, but its good against the AI.  Believers do get +2 SUP by default (+3 in my set with running Fund).  Meaning huge swarms of stuff typically - could be formers (FM), traditional troops (Planned), or mind worms (Green).

PLANET at 25% PSI seems very strong.  Did you boost Empath/Trance also?  FM isn't so good if you can't attack native life at all, at least in my experience.  And Perimeters don't help vs PSI, so I'm a bit confused on that part.  That's something I'm struggling on balancing.  Making FM good but not so good you can just ignore ecodamage without Clean Minerals.  And then Green has a huge benefit of native life.  At 75% I think mind worms would run over most things.  Similar balance issues, the MW rush vs keeping them viable to build by non-exorbitant costs.  I suppose delaying that rush via -PLANET helps some (been trying this lately on Survival tier).

[Impaler]

+75% would require every single bonus possible before Future Society (Gaians, Green, Manifolds), a real edge case.  Most factions are looking at +25% if they run Green as they still have to deal with a -1 PLANET from None Future Society.  FM is a -2 PLANET so if a typical faction is taking that they are at -75% vs Native life, I would hope that they might actually lose some units or bases at that point which is my goal, native life should be hell, not a mere nuisance.

I've never lost a base to worms after getting Fusion, as your troops all have double hit-points at that point and HP is hugely determinative in PSI combat.  The whole reactor = HP thing is from my perspective the biggest flaw in the Unit Workshop as it cripples native life and lets you steam roll any other faction that your not 3 generations behind on weapons tech.  I'm still looking for ways to get rid of the whole HP variance concept entirely.

[Yitzi]

+75% would require every single bonus possible before Future Society (Gaians, Green, Manifolds), a real edge case.  Most factions are looking at +25% if they run Green as they still have to deal with a -1 PLANET from None Future Society.  FM is a -2 PLANET so if a typical faction is taking that they are at -75% vs Native life, I would hope that they might actually lose some units or bases at that point which is my goal, native life should be hell, not a mere nuisance.

I've never lost a base to worms after getting Fusion, as your troops all have double hit-points at that point and HP is hugely determinative in PSI combat.  The whole reactor = HP thing is from my perspective the biggest flaw in the Unit Workshop as it cripples native life and lets you steam roll any other faction that your not 3 generations behind on weapons tech.  I'm still looking for ways to get rid of the whole HP variance concept entirely.

I seem to remember that PSI combat actually isn't affected by HP.

[Nexii]

It's not.

I did some general tweaking to balance my set.  Instead: -1 to all SEs other than RESEARCH to begin (due to the extra turns of 0 research).  This encourages you to pick an SE despite them having generally have as much downside as upside.  100 starting energy (so Yang can avoid -3 ECON, by going PS off the bat).  +1 energy a base which speeds up the early game and makes SE switching out of Anarchy/Traditional less onerous - and less dependent on pod luck. 

PS boosted somewhat - with PROBE how it is right now, it wasn't all that compelling with the SUPPORT gone.  A nice boost for sure, but I lessened the downsides.  Green got weakened to -3 IND.  Green is really powerful with clean minerals taken out.  I feel that -GROWTH is needed to balance Green from GA booming, but thematically -GROWTH doesn't really fit Green.  In an extreme Green viewpoint it might, I guess: ideology of sustainable population growth unlike Earth.  Power got boosted, -GROWTH isn't quite as painful as -INDUSTRY.  Take it as Eugenics-type values.  Knowledge now results in less trained armies (more academics than soldiers, & free information hurts military operations).  Similarly Wealth drives up the cost of military (thinking of army becoming more like mercenary forces) and research (more engineering focus than theoretical).  I still feel Wealth is a solid pick (+IND/ECON being arguably the strongest SEs).  FM boosted slightly with taking out the -SUPPORT.

Early booming is made harder with -1 GROWTH on the values tier.  If you really wanted it to be harder early then put -GROWTH on Future SE, and put in -1 RESEARCH on Survival.  But I personally prefer to have booming, as overpowered as it seems.  The growth SEs have a lot more downside in this set than before, where Demo+Planned was a super easy way to boom.  Now to run Demo+FM it pollutes a lot and you can only pull this off during peace.  Alternatively, one of these can be replaced with Wealth for +2 ECON and a more PSYCH based GA boom.  Or, Demo+FM+GA with the +2 ECON and ignoring Creches until later in the game.

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

[Nexii]

Some more rebalancing, after a lot of testing.  It's kind of interesting that in general I trend back to the original set (but can't completely, as this set is still 'balanced' for min/max possible).  I have to say that in general the developers had a pretty good default SE set aside from Fundamentalism and Power.  FM was probably overpowering previously with clean minerals.

Notable changes:
- Police State's +2 POLICE is less valuable late game, but now it's always relevant due to the +PROBE (as I mod such that only Polymorphic Software gives probe morale).  Stealing tech is very cheap, and non-PS players have to consider whether it's even worth buying probes.
- Demo no longer gets +1 ECON, gets +1 RESEARCH instead.  Weakens the Demo+Wealth pairing.  Strengthens Demo+FM a bit.
- Free Market instead goes back to +2 ECON, it wasn't that useful later game otherwise.  Increased penalty to -2 SUP (less relevant later game).
- Planned gets +1 GROW, thus booming requires GA for all factions (and all factions can still boom).
- Green's penalties much lessened, but only +2 PLANET.  I play with 0 CMs and lowered native cost life, so it has its niche (exploring, or to contain native life after going FM for too long).
- Knowledge now has -1 INDUSTRY, I feel this fits more than negative MORALE.  The pursuit of knowledge above material things (and vice versa for Wealth)
- Wealth no longer gets -2 SUP, it was a bit weak (and especially with no more Demo+Wealth pairing for +2 ECON).
- Eudaimonia wasn't very compelling against Cyber or Thought Control before.   Especially with two SPs that slant things heavily (Cloning Vats, Network Backbone) to Cyber and TC as is.  Therefore I boosted Eud and weakened Cyber, TC a bit.

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

If anyone wants to try this out and let me know what they think, I appreciate any feedback.

I feel like Gaia probably suffers the most early. -2 POLICE and no early capture really hurts.  However their starting MORALE is no worse than others now, and their EFFIC is much more prized later in the game.  Fund+Green rush to pod pop may be very good.  I play with 3:2 PSI on air and sea which helps for popping, so I'll have to try this out.
I feel Hive also gets off to a very slow start, but the IND from Planned+Wealth is very strong.  I guess it's balanced though, they get out commerced hard in peace.
Believers, aren't that scary early on.  Once they get Fund/FM/Power they can be terrifying though.
Peacekeepers, I don't think these changes have too much impact on them.  Democracy is more beneficial, they can run Demo+Planned easier than others.
Spartans are even scarier in the early game.  If they rush to Fund, they get +3 MORALE when you might be sitting on -1 still (if you go economics before politics).  Police State is very efficient (as it always was), and -1 EFFIC isn't near as crippling as -2 EFFIC was before.  PS/Power is still quite inefficient, but you can produce a lot more military now.
Morganites can still run Wealth for +2 ECON, though research gets hampered a lot.  Less of a pushover than Gaia or University in a war though, I feel (no Fund aversion or -1 MORALE).
University I feel has to run PS early with the Drone fixes in (as they should have to).  Counters a lot of their -PROBE although you'd probably lose most of it with Knowledge anyways.

[Nexii]

After a lot of play, I did some minor tweaks here and there.  Mostly notable was a bit less harsh default penalties.  Generally -ECON, -SUP were the most problematic so those are out.  Even -2 in a category is a high incentive to get a SE pick.  Tried to give them two penalties more in line with the default SE also.

- Fund got nerfed, -5 RESEARCH.  It's still very strong I feel, both early and late for war.  Elite is really strong how I mod with flat unit costing.
- No changes to economic SEs, but I did boost Planet to +15% per in combat, thus making Green better and FM a bit weaker
- Power weakened a bit (-1 IND hurts more than -1 GROW, imo)
- Knowledge increased a bit (-1 MORALE isn't as bad as -1 IND, imo)
- Wealth now gets -2 GROWTH.  I do mod Cloning Vats to be later game, notably, so this is a significant penalty.
- Slight boosts to TC/Eud

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

Overall I feel that Politics SE and Economic SE have more impact than Values SEs or Future SEs in this set.  I guess that's okay, those techs come mid and late game anyways.

I kind of feel Police State is a bit weak, if anyone wants to test for variety's sake feel free.  I think it tends to be much better for certain factions - mostly University, Hive, and Gaians.  Possibly Spartans too, once they get Power value.