Changes to the Social Engineering models

[vonbach]

The main reason I put in Power rather than Police State is I didn't want to mess up the AI's Government
choices namely Miriam. I knew that all the aggressive AI's would pick power anyway so it seemed a natural place to put it.

[Yitzi]

If you're finding that Green is too strong with low or no free minerals, you can increase the base (0 rating) PLANET multiplier; if it's increased from 3 to 6, Green will only cut ecodamage by 1/3 instead of 2/3, and FM will increase it by 50% instead of 100%.

Of course, then you might have to adjust the divisors to compensate...I'm also planning, in the next patch, to give the ability to have ecodamage not increase directly with tech (though it'd still increase with minerals and terraforming which tends to increase with tech)...that would reduce the "Planet rising" late-game sense you get, though, so I also plan to give the ability to change the worms-per-pop formula to help give that sense that way instead.

[Nexii]

Yea, changing the factors works as a balancer but I don't mind it more extreme necessarily.  I like for every tier of SE to give a different feel to the strategy related.  Based on the SE descriptions I feel like going to +3 PLANET should have some ecological benefit over +2.  I am going to try out +3 PLANET with a multiplier of 0 (for no ecodamage), since -2 IND / -2 SUP are harsh penalties. 

Do you think certain terraforming options should be favored by certain SEs (like Fungus/Green)?  Maybe forest can be mineral centric (1N/3M/0E) and thermal boreholes more energy centric (0N/0M/12E)?  When I think of Free Market I tend to think of boreholes like the Morgan scenario.  However with ecodamage fixed, an FM player wouldn't be able to run boreholes.  Similarly I think a Green player should favor Forests.  Planned I guess would be in between, probably more a mix or favoring nutrients.  I tend to think of it as FM - energy, Planned - nutrients, Green - minerals.

[Yitzi]

I tend to think of it as FM - energy, Planned - nutrients, Green - minerals.

This is actually the feel I was aiming to enable with the ecodamage modding options.

[Nexii]

One oddity I've noted (on the FM vs Green topic) is that ecodamage can actually be good with global warming off.  Especially with modding things back to just SMAC native life.  Planetpearls are massive energy income.  Though on the other hand, polluting a lot tends to get formers killed, and re-terraforming land is costly.  Getting those planetpearls can be crucial to replace losses.

I went with what you said and it feels a bit more 'right' - default multiplier of 6; but putting the minimum multiplier to 3 rather than 4 - as the SE descriptions tend to hint that +3 PLANET should be superior to +2 PLANET for ecological benefit.  Ecodamage divisor I just doubled correspondingly to 2000, which feels about right with 0 clean minerals and everything else default.  Would be interested in knowing other's play experiences relating to ecodamages though.  Personally I think the bigger swarms by fungal pop count works pretty good as a mechanic.  Then it's more like number of minor atrocities against Planet.  You can choose whether it's worth running FM a lot as eventually large Locust swarms will hit you.  Once that happens, you can't mop them up easy like mind worms. 

I haven't changed too much lately other than lessening a few default penalties.  There doesn't need to be big default penalties to incentivize taking an SE.  Wealth I'm using less at -3 MORALE but then again, its benefits are very strong just on its own right.  If you can start a Golden Age, Wealth gives +2 ECON for +1 E/sq.  Demo+Planned can be used to boom early with Creche, but early game Demo is hard to control for Drones.

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

And for terraforming, I think I'll put in a few votes next time for solar&mine modding. These two scale kind of poorly.  I tried weakening advanced terraforming but that tended to slow down the game too much on the whole.  Maybe giving Solar/Mines a boost at a certain tech like EcoEng and/or EcoEng2 would be okay.  1/3/0 forests and 0/0/9 borehole seem about right, and lended to some variety in base types.  A minor bug I noted is that the AI can construct Sensor Arrays without the requisite tech.  Have to test this more but I suspect it may be able to build any improvements without the tech.

[Yitzi]

One oddity I've noted (on the FM vs Green topic) is that ecodamage can actually be good with global warming off.  Especially with modding things back to just SMAC native life.  Planetpearls are massive energy income.  Though on the other hand, polluting a lot tends to get formers killed, and re-terraforming land is costly.  Getting those planetpearls can be crucial to replace losses.

Interesting point...

I went with what you said and it feels a bit more 'right' - default multiplier of 6; but putting the minimum multiplier to 3 rather than 4 - as the SE descriptions tend to hint that +3 PLANET should be superior to +2 PLANET for ecological benefit.

You could even put the minimum to 0 for no ecodamage at +6 PLANET, though only  can achieve that without the Manifold Nexus, and only  and  additionally with it, and in any case it's only late-game.  (If you mod Cybernetic down to +1 PLANET, then it requires  late-game with the Manifold Nexus.)

Personally I think the bigger swarms by fungal pop count works pretty good as a mechanic.  Then it's more like number of minor atrocities against Planet.  You can choose whether it's worth running FM a lot as eventually large Locust swarms will hit you.  Once that happens, you can't mop them up easy like mind worms. 

Of course, the alternative would be to have it depend not on the number of pops but rather on the actual ecodamage value...

[Nexii]

Yea, actual ecodamage values would work for pop intensity too.  Though it seems like chance to get a pop also goes up with higher ecodamage.  So it's sort of a double-effect.  Unless perhaps the chance to for a base to pop was changed to be a flat percentage?  Or maybe capped at a certain percentage.  I'm thinking that if you make ecodamages go arbitrarily high (100+) then what happens is that bases will be popping every turn.

Coincidentally I recently made a game as Cult of Planet, for the first time in months.  They're certainly not a joke faction anymore.  I stomped over the AI pretty quick with +6 Planet (Green, Nexus).  Lately I've been modding with 50% intrinsic base defense (IMO a base should be at least as good as rocky/fungal), and roads as 1/5 move speed cost.  Oddly fungus counts as 'roads' for worms, which makes them pretty strong in fungal areas at that speed. 

In fact I'd say all the factions are a lot closer in power with my SE set.  University and CyCon were the 'best' before but Fundamentalism aversion is a big downside.  If you take booming out I feel it makes Hive well above the others; with booming back they're more in line.  Believers I feel might be the weakest, at least very much so early they can die before getting weapon/armor techs.  I put probes to InfNet tech, this helps them some.  Also some may be playstyle, I feel like maybe forgoing research entirely and just stealing tech alone is better.

[Yitzi]

Yea, actual ecodamage values would work for pop intensity too.  Though it seems like chance to get a pop also goes up with higher ecodamage.  So it's sort of a double-effect.

Definitely.  But having it go up with number of pops is also a double-effect, just one more spread out over time but with less ability to reduce one of the effects.

Unless perhaps the chance to for a base to pop was changed to be a flat percentage?  Or maybe capped at a certain percentage.  I'm thinking that if you make ecodamages go arbitrarily high (100+) then what happens is that bases will be popping every turn.

Hmm...a max pop percentage could be done, although the way I see it if you're hitting 100% pre-VoP then you should probably be overrun in short order anyway.

In fact I'd say all the factions are a lot closer in power with my SE set.  University and CyCon were the 'best' before but Fundamentalism aversion is a big downside.

I think drone and probe changes (drone can be done, probe not yet) would also help with depowering  , and changing  to -2 GROWTH and removing booms (so she can't just boom for a short period to hit the hab limit but has to endure the penalty for the whole game) and maybe increasing hab limits should do it for her.

If you take booming out I feel it makes Hive well above the others; with booming back they're more in line.

That is an issue, although I suspect that it may be better to use some other method to keep  in line (perhaps greater penalties for -ECON?)

Believers I feel might be the weakest, at least very much so early they can die before getting weapon/armor techs.  I put probes to InfNet tech, this helps them some.  Also some may be playstyle, I feel like maybe forgoing research entirely and just stealing tech alone is better.

Could be...although part of it depends on map size and how soon they encounter others.  Also, increasing the value of FANATIC will of course help them.

[Nexii]

I suppose that yes if pop intensity doesn't go up by count and only by ecodamage, then it would be fine.  Pop count does have its flaws like that later game a small base with 1 ecodamage might produce large boils.  I also wondered whether there should instead be an option for native life to not take 100% collateral damage also.  Later game it's a bit crazy to get 500-1000 Planetpearls per stack.  But oddly this rule only seems to apply for Mind Worms, and not Locusts.  SMAX native life is a lot more brutal than SMAC, etc, etc.  I do mod down some of the more powerful bonuses like Empath/Trance to 25%.

Negative Commerce rating at -ECON as an option would probably make the most sense, since +ECON gives positive Commerce rating. I think I'd prefer that so that -ECON hurts late game and not just a bit early on.

I'm not as convinced Aki is overpowered nor University (with Drone fixes) at least with booming in.  Aki and Yang have a hard time booming which was meant as their balancing factor.  University just has drone problems galore - having to be Police State does slow them down.  I personally favor booming but having it be a bit harder than it is by default.  You have to invest a lot (condensor, borehole tech, Creche, plus psych facilities) to typically pull it off on Transcend.  That's a lot of mineral investment that is dumped in versus say what you could get in army size.   With booming out I found it became much better to ICS with Police State than to go for larger bases.  I think you would also have to make smaller bases grow slower somehow, such as -1N to tanks; that might work better if you like really long games of say 500-1000 turns. 

Good point on Believers - FANATIC is quite strong despite their bad SEs.  I think if their attack bonus worked for PSI combat they'd be fine.  I suspect that perhaps that's why they had -PLANET originally to balance that, but it's debatable what was intended.

[Yitzi]

I suppose that yes if pop intensity doesn't go up by count and only by ecodamage, then it would be fine.  Pop count does have its flaws like that later game a small base with 1 ecodamage might produce large boils.

True, or the fact that it makes the danger of native life scale too fast with empire size.

I also wondered whether there should instead be an option for native life to not take 100% collateral damage also.  Later game it's a bit crazy to get 500-1000 Planetpearls per stack.

Well, you could always reduce the planetpearls multiplier...but yes, having less than 100% collateral damage might make sense.

But oddly this rule only seems to apply for Mind Worms, and not Locusts.

I think air units are always immune to collateral damage, just like they can't do it.

Negative Commerce rating at -ECON as an option would probably make the most sense, since +ECON gives positive Commerce rating. I think I'd prefer that so that -ECON hurts late game and not just a bit early on.

Makes sense, and should be doable.

I'm not as convinced Aki is overpowered nor University (with Drone fixes) at least with booming in.  Aki and Yang have a hard time booming which was meant as their balancing factor.

I'm not so sure it was, seeing as the designers don't seem to have understood how powerful booming would be in the first place...and in any case, I think booming causes more problems than it could possibly solve, by making nutrients largely irrelevant once you have at least +2.

University just has drone problems galore - having to be Police State does slow them down.  I personally favor booming but having it be a bit harder than it is by default.  You have to invest a lot (condensor, borehole tech, Creche, plus psych facilities) to typically pull it off on Transcend.  That's a lot of mineral investment that is dumped in versus say what you could get in army size.

Wait, how do boreholes help with booming?  Or is that just for energy to go to psych because you need a golden age to boom?

With booming out I found it became much better to ICS with Police State than to go for larger bases.

Keep in mind, though, that ICS (which essentially means no multiplier facilities) plus Police State pretty much kills your energy production, as compared to using that same land with a more spread-out layout.  Also, when you disabled booming you did it in a way where the maximum GROWTH was +5 for a 50% reduction; if you can (unless you're Yang, Morgan, Aki, or Marr) get a 60% reduction without a golden age and 80% with one...well, that'll mean things grow a lot faster, especially if you go for nutrient-heavy terraforming (and remember, one of the main reasons I dislike pre-late-game booming is that it means you don't have much use for nutrient-heavy terraforming).

Good point on Believers - FANATIC is quite strong despite their bad SEs.  I think if their attack bonus worked for PSI combat they'd be fine.  I suspect that perhaps that's why they had -PLANET originally to balance that, but it's debatable what was intended.

Making FANATIC work for psi combat is definitely doable...and even makes sense.

[vonbach]

-GROWTH as a Police State penalty might work better.

[Nexii]

I think the devs had some idea the power of booming, for example the AI never builds Creches.  But then again, Cloning Vats

I find that in most games, booming really doesn't get to be used until the mid game (meaning size range 7-14, or 7-20 if you mod up).  Early game you won't have the N production or drone facilities for it to be worth it anyways.  Most of that extra population would be stuck as Doctors at best. 

The problem is that with hard booming out, I think ICS-PS tends to dominate for growth rate.  Smaller bases grow faster due to +3N from the base tile.  On the other hand, I do agree about the +2N problem and all the micromanaging it adds...it's similar to managing drone riots where a new citizen causes a riot.  I wonder if recycle tanks at +0/+0/+3 and +2N per farm upgrade / 0N condensors would work better with hard booming out.  Been trying that out in a few games recently, it's different for sure.
 
I suppose my other concern was that certain default combinations like PS/Planned were never viable other than as Yang, since -4 EFFIC is so detrimental to E production.  Funny you mention that vonbach too, I was also considering giving PS -2 GROWTH to represent purges and oppression.  Not sure PS would be that corrupt, in fact most Police States are strict against corruption.

something like this maybe? (swapping PS/Power penalties):
Anarchy,         None,    -GROWTH
Police State,    DocLoy,  ++POLICE,+++PROBE,--GROWTH
Democratic,      EthCalc, ++EFFIC,++GROWTH,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist,  Brain,   ++MORALE,++SUPPORT,-----RESEARCH
Traditional,     None,    -EFFIC
Free Market,     IndEcon, ++ECONOMY,---PLANET
Planned,         PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY,++GROWTH,-EFFIC,---ECONOMY
Green,           CentEmp, +++PLANET,+EFFIC,--INDUSTRY,--SUPPORT
Survival,        None,    None
Power,           MilAlg,  ++MORALE,+SUPPORT,--EFFIC
Knowledge,       Cyber,   +++RESEARCH,--PROBE,-SUPPORT
Wealth,          IndAuto, +ECONOMY,+INDUSTRY,---MORALE
Primitive,       None,    None
Cybernetic,      DigSent, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,-GROWTH
Eudaimonic,      Eudaim,  ++GROWTH,++ECONOMY,-INDUSTRY,-MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE,++INDUSTRY,-EFFIC,-SUPPORT

[Yitzi]

I find that in most games, booming really doesn't get to be used until the mid game (meaning size range 7-14, or 7-20 if you mod up).  Early game you won't have the N production or drone facilities for it to be worth it anyways.  Most of that extra population would be stuck as Doctors at best.

True, but when it does become available it still causes problems.

The problem is that with hard booming out, I think ICS-PS tends to dominate for growth rate.  Smaller bases grow faster due to +3N from the base tile.

I think that you do get more population with such a strategy (at least until enrichers come out), but on the other hand you get worse energy production (since building multiplier facilities in each one becomes unfeasible, and of course PS cuts into energy), plus bureaucracy is a significant problem (note that with drone rules mod 8, having small bases no longer places a hard cap on how much drone control you can need due to bureaucracy).  It's a good strategy if you're aiming for a momentum game, but is far from the only viable approach.

On the other hand, I do agree about the +2N problem and all the micromanaging it adds...it's similar to managing drone riots where a new citizen causes a riot.

It's not just the micromanaging; it means there's substantially less space to offer trade-offs between different types of terraforming.

I wonder if recycle tanks at +0/+0/+3 and +2N per farm upgrade / 0N condensors would work better with hard booming out.  Been trying that out in a few games recently, it's different for sure.

It's an idea, though I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with that level of growth...

[Nexii]

Well it's really only +1N per farm beyond the first - so more of a midgame boost to offset no booming than early.  With +2N/farm and 0N condensors you still cap out late-game at 6N a tile, which is the same as a condenser tile with default settings.  The difference is that it allows you to get mines or solar on top of that 6N, which was pretty similar to the condensor+solar suggestion.  The curve is a bit higher but some of that just offsets the -1N from tanks and that I play without terrain raising which hampers solar a little.  A bit higher N curve does have some interesting side effects, like more free N to put into specialists. Since not all your tiles are going to be farms, it was difficult to get even 3N/sq in the midgame. 

Let's take a varied base example with defaults and 2N farms:
A size 8 base with 1 condenser, 2 boreholes, 4 rainy farms, 1 tree farm forest (ok, I picked these so the latter would equal 3N/sq).
Default - 3+4+(4*3)+2 = 21N or 2.625 N/sq
2N farms - 2+4+(4*4)+2 = 24N or 3N/sq

at 0.625 positive N, that's 18 turns to pop (90/5)
at 1N/sq it's 12 turns to pop (90/8)

12 is probably about more right as a base, if you're playing with size 8 going to 20 until Hab Dome.  You're typically looking at about 100 turns from mid to late (post Hab-Dome) so that about works out.  I do agree that 1 turn per pop is a bit too much.  12 can be knocked down to around 5-8 with SEs and Creche, maybe low as 3 turns to pop if you go all out.

The other thing about the 7-20 pop range is there's few facilities that knock off drones.  To maintain larger bases it takes constant PSY allocation.  Whereas PS can run 50/50 and be fine.  It's more an issue with how fast PS can expand horizontally.  For that reason I feel like -2 GROWTH would hamper PS a lot more than -2 EFFIC.  EFFIC does hurt but can be gamed around (E production in the core, specialists).  And EFFIC's B-drones don't matter to PS even at 100 bases, since you can control the first 9 population with 3 police units. (6 earlier game, 12 late with SAC).

[Yitzi]

Well it's really only +1N per farm beyond the first - so more of a midgame boost to offset no booming than early.

A midgame capability of 2N/pop surplus still seems like you'll hit hab limits quite quickly, though.

Since not all your tiles are going to be farms, it was difficult to get even 3N/sq in the midgame. 

Ah, good point.  So perhaps 2N/farm would work, based on the assumption that you're not having almost all farms.

Let's take a varied base example with defaults and 2N farms:
A size 8 base with 1 condenser, 2 boreholes, 4 rainy farms, 1 tree farm forest (ok, I picked these so the latter would equal 3N/sq).
Default - 3+4+(4*3)+2 = 21N or 2.625 N/sq
2N farms - 2+4+(4*4)+2 = 24N or 3N/sq

at 0.625 positive N, that's 18 turns to pop (90/5)
at 1N/sq it's 12 turns to pop (90/8)

Of course, having 25% of your worked squares be boreholes seems like a fairly large amount...with that setup and 0/0/3 tanks, your size 8 base is producing 15-20 minerals per turn (depending on whether the farm squares are flat or rolling) and at least 21 energy (possibly much more with mirrors and raising terrain).  On the other hand, you've put some serious former-turns into those boreholes...

12 can be knocked down to around 5-8 with SEs and Creche, maybe low as 3 turns to pop if you go all out.

Yeah, that's the thing...12 turns makes sense, but a creche (which you presumably have) knocks it down to 9, which is a bit quick for a not-growth-focused SE setting.  And if the research formula is fixed to actually be quadratic, it'll also take more time to reach the late game.

Of course, the solution to that may simply be to increase the base number of nutrients per row.

The other thing about the 7-20 pop range is there's few facilities that knock off drones.  To maintain larger bases it takes constant PSY allocation.  Whereas PS can run 50/50 and be fine.

Well, until bureaucracy becomes prohibitive.  But yes, maintaining larger bases does require either psych allocation or specialists (which are more targetable, but less efficient).

It's more an issue with how fast PS can expand horizontally.  For that reason I feel like -2 GROWTH would hamper PS a lot more than -2 EFFIC.  EFFIC does hurt but can be gamed around (E production in the core, specialists).

True.  It would also be less problematic during a conquest drive, which is probably what PS is designed for.

And EFFIC's B-drones don't matter to PS even at 100 bases, since you can control the first 9 population with 3 police units. (6 earlier game, 12 late with SAC).

Firstly, you only get the "police effect doubled" bonus at +3 POLICE, and PS only gives +2.  SAC also counts as one of your 3 (or however many) police units, so you're limited there as well.

Furthermore, it is inaccurate with drone rule 8 active, since at 100 bases on a normal map on Transcend, you're getting 16-17 drones per base.  Because every citizen after the first is already a drone, that means that you've got a minimum of 15+POP drones-equivalent; even playing as  with PS for +3 POLICE, you therefore need 6 units of drone control plus one for each point of population above 9.  (One of the effects of drone rule 8 is that if bureaucracy would put you at more than twice your population in drones, the rest become "phantom drones" and still need to be dealt with.)  If not  and without a non-PS source of +POLICE, it's even worse.