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Author Topic:   Democracy = -2 support?

Smeagol posted 04-12-99 10:12 PM ET
I've found this disturbing since I started playing SMAC... it seems to me that a democracy in general can support a huge army. I think a -3 Police rating is more realistic, given the democratic public's response to large military deployments. Would this make the game unbalanced? It just makes more sense to me.
dbrodale posted 04-12-99 10:36 PM ET
I prefer to think of it as the balance that must be struck in "guns or butter" economies ... large armies would require greater resources so as not to take away from the funding of social programs and/or development of infrastructure in a modern/future welfare state ... it could also be modelling, as per the manual, suspicion of military build-up. The boosts to efficiency and growth offset the support penalty in time - larger # of bases and greater population permits greater mineral output and the ability to spread a large army over mny bases (limiting the impact of the support penalty). The lack of a police penalty will actually make it easier for democracies to go to war - no disruption on the homefront as your units leave each base to crawl across the map.
Democracies with large military forces would most likely value "Power", which counter-balances the support penalty, solving the problem you offer for consideration. I guess the point here is to look at the totality of a society in SMAC, not just its politics [or economics, whatever].
d.brodale
Smeagol posted 04-12-99 10:40 PM ET
Yeah, that does make sense. The game is balanced well for the most part, so I guess it isn't too big of a deal. Still, I do happen to believe it should have been a -3 Police.
dbrodale posted 04-12-99 10:47 PM ET
One more thought ...
Adding the -3 police penalty to democracy in place of -2 support would make a free market democracy untenable in SMAC. -8 police? What could one do, then, but curl up and let the people run through the street wrecking their own bases?
Again, for the police penalty, if you want some approximation of a real-world(tm) government, just mix democracy with free market and there is your penalty It's all about the SE choices in concert *with* one another, rather cordoned off *from* one another.
Just chalk up the present penalties and bonusses to play-balance.
d.brodale
Schoop posted 04-12-99 11:50 PM ET
Actually, the Police chart bottoms out at -5. If Democracy also had the penalty on police, there would be no point in NOT using it with Free Market.
dbrodale posted 04-12-99 11:56 PM ET
Schoop -
True, but it would also prevent amelioration [ten-cent word] of either Mind Control SE or the Ascetic Virtues SP ... you are right that one would then go Free Market because the dam had already busted on civil controls [police], but it would put one at a severe disadvantage because it would put anything other than a -5 police rating out of reach.
I should have been more clear to begin with,
d.brodale
dbrodale posted 04-12-99 11:58 PM ET
Er, that should be: "ameliorative effects from" ... darn those ten-cent words to heck!
S_Carton_Esq posted 04-15-99 03:47 PM ET
Actually, I think that -2 support may be more realistic than -3 police. Historically, democracies have been quite willing to field huge armies durring wartime, if sufficiently provoked. At the end of WWII, the US had almost 15 million men under arms, almost as many as the Soviet Union. So I think that a -2 support reflecting the increased costs of civilian control may be the more realistic penalty for a democracy. Also, don't forget that interests of game balance and playability supercede those of realism. Even if a -2 support were less realistic than a -3 police, it might still give better overall balance to the social engineering choices.
StargazerBC posted 04-18-99 05:03 PM ET
-2 Support b/c having large armies also set us into Deficit Spending, exponentiated by Reagan when he tried to have a large army/military research. The large amounts of military men are War Time Drafts. USSR had a standing military of that much? Granted, it did get us out of the Depression.
Zoetrope posted 04-23-99 06:35 AM ET
Yes, democracies can bear to field large armies when driven to it. To return to the Ww2 example, Australia, then with only 7 or 8 million people, fielded 1 million troops (half the adult male population) in the SW Pacific. The other 2 or 3 million adults (men and women) were mostly building munitions.
Comparison between manpower policies of the Allies and Axis during ww2 are quite surprising: the allies had many more of their population (proportionally) committed to the war effort! Combine that with their larger total population, and you can see why the allies won.
Australia alone was able to push the Japanese army back in New Guinea, because the Australian troops there outnumbered the Japanese two to one. When the Americans joined in, it was game over in the SW Pacific.
Even when the Japanese were advancing, that was because of British orders to retreat From Thailand and Malaysia to make a last stand at Singapore. A foolish policy, because Singapore was under-resourced, whereas when allied troops defied orders and attacked the Japanese frontlines in the jungle, the allies usually won convincingly. Then when the Japanese ran out of ammunition they bluffed by demanding that the British surrender, and the British did! (Sounds like some of the follies committed by the AI in SMAC! )
mrdeath posted 04-25-99 12:16 PM ET
Umm.. if democracies can field such large armies... why does the US have to call on the National Guard evertime there is a military situation..
BTW, did you notice that after the serbians took those three prisoners there was a media storm calling out for an end to the war...
Three whole prisoners and the general mood of the US changed dramatically...
I guess you get my point.
S_Carton_Esq posted 04-26-99 05:46 PM ET
You will noticed that I origionaly worte "if sufficiently provoked". The reason why the US seems to be so reluctant to field armies these days is because most people feel that we have no real threats anymore. So what would be more realistic for the game is a system where there were one support cost when you have an active vendetta with someone and a different one when you area t peace. And it should be more difficult for a democratic government to wage aggressive war due to the "Senate" refusing to allow the initiation of hostilities and demanding you make peace whenever it is offered (like in the Civs). To add another layer of realism, if the vendetta is initiated in some particularly dastardly way (such as a sneak attack) the senate would let you pursue the enemey to more or less unconditional surrender. I've often wondered if this was an undocumented feature in CIV II. In that game it seemed that once a rival launched a sneak attack on me, my senate was willing to give unlimited permission to continue with "peacekeeping" opperations against them, even if I was a democracy and did not have the UN wonder (in which situation the senate is supposed to always insist upon peace when offered).
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Author	Topic: Democracy = -2 support?
Smeagol	posted 04-12-99 10:12 PM ET I've found this disturbing since I started playing SMAC... it seems to me that a democracy in general can support a huge army. I think a -3 Police rating is more realistic, given the democratic public's response to large military deployments. Would this make the game unbalanced? It just makes more sense to me.
dbrodale	posted 04-12-99 10:36 PM ET I prefer to think of it as the balance that must be struck in "guns or butter" economies ... large armies would require greater resources so as not to take away from the funding of social programs and/or development of infrastructure in a modern/future welfare state ... it could also be modelling, as per the manual, suspicion of military build-up. The boosts to efficiency and growth offset the support penalty in time - larger # of bases and greater population permits greater mineral output and the ability to spread a large army over mny bases (limiting the impact of the support penalty). The lack of a police penalty will actually make it easier for democracies to go to war - no disruption on the homefront as your units leave each base to crawl across the map. Democracies with large military forces would most likely value "Power", which counter-balances the support penalty, solving the problem you offer for consideration. I guess the point here is to look at the totality of a society in SMAC, not just its politics [or economics, whatever]. d.brodale
Smeagol	posted 04-12-99 10:40 PM ET Yeah, that does make sense. The game is balanced well for the most part, so I guess it isn't too big of a deal. Still, I do happen to believe it should have been a -3 Police.
dbrodale	posted 04-12-99 10:47 PM ET One more thought ... Adding the -3 police penalty to democracy in place of -2 support would make a free market democracy untenable in SMAC. -8 police? What could one do, then, but curl up and let the people run through the street wrecking their own bases? Again, for the police penalty, if you want some approximation of a real-world(tm) government, just mix democracy with free market and there is your penalty It's all about the SE choices in concert with one another, rather cordoned off from one another. Just chalk up the present penalties and bonusses to play-balance. d.brodale
Schoop	posted 04-12-99 11:50 PM ET Actually, the Police chart bottoms out at -5. If Democracy also had the penalty on police, there would be no point in NOT using it with Free Market.
dbrodale	posted 04-12-99 11:56 PM ET Schoop - True, but it would also prevent amelioration [ten-cent word] of either Mind Control SE or the Ascetic Virtues SP ... you are right that one would then go Free Market because the dam had already busted on civil controls [police], but it would put one at a severe disadvantage because it would put anything other than a -5 police rating out of reach. I should have been more clear to begin with, d.brodale
dbrodale	posted 04-12-99 11:58 PM ET Er, that should be: "ameliorative effects from" ... darn those ten-cent words to heck!
S_Carton_Esq	posted 04-15-99 03:47 PM ET Actually, I think that -2 support may be more realistic than -3 police. Historically, democracies have been quite willing to field huge armies durring wartime, if sufficiently provoked. At the end of WWII, the US had almost 15 million men under arms, almost as many as the Soviet Union. So I think that a -2 support reflecting the increased costs of civilian control may be the more realistic penalty for a democracy. Also, don't forget that interests of game balance and playability supercede those of realism. Even if a -2 support were less realistic than a -3 police, it might still give better overall balance to the social engineering choices.
StargazerBC	posted 04-18-99 05:03 PM ET -2 Support b/c having large armies also set us into Deficit Spending, exponentiated by Reagan when he tried to have a large army/military research. The large amounts of military men are War Time Drafts. USSR had a standing military of that much? Granted, it did get us out of the Depression.
Zoetrope	posted 04-23-99 06:35 AM ET Yes, democracies can bear to field large armies when driven to it. To return to the Ww2 example, Australia, then with only 7 or 8 million people, fielded 1 million troops (half the adult male population) in the SW Pacific. The other 2 or 3 million adults (men and women) were mostly building munitions. Comparison between manpower policies of the Allies and Axis during ww2 are quite surprising: the allies had many more of their population (proportionally) committed to the war effort! Combine that with their larger total population, and you can see why the allies won. Australia alone was able to push the Japanese army back in New Guinea, because the Australian troops there outnumbered the Japanese two to one. When the Americans joined in, it was game over in the SW Pacific. Even when the Japanese were advancing, that was because of British orders to retreat From Thailand and Malaysia to make a last stand at Singapore. A foolish policy, because Singapore was under-resourced, whereas when allied troops defied orders and attacked the Japanese frontlines in the jungle, the allies usually won convincingly. Then when the Japanese ran out of ammunition they bluffed by demanding that the British surrender, and the British did! (Sounds like some of the follies committed by the AI in SMAC! )
mrdeath	posted 04-25-99 12:16 PM ET Umm.. if democracies can field such large armies... why does the US have to call on the National Guard evertime there is a military situation.. BTW, did you notice that after the serbians took those three prisoners there was a media storm calling out for an end to the war... Three whole prisoners and the general mood of the US changed dramatically... I guess you get my point.
S_Carton_Esq	posted 04-26-99 05:46 PM ET You will noticed that I origionaly worte "if sufficiently provoked". The reason why the US seems to be so reluctant to field armies these days is because most people feel that we have no real threats anymore. So what would be more realistic for the game is a system where there were one support cost when you have an active vendetta with someone and a different one when you area t peace. And it should be more difficult for a democratic government to wage aggressive war due to the "Senate" refusing to allow the initiation of hostilities and demanding you make peace whenever it is offered (like in the Civs). To add another layer of realism, if the vendetta is initiated in some particularly dastardly way (such as a sneak attack) the senate would let you pursue the enemey to more or less unconditional surrender. I've often wondered if this was an undocumented feature in CIV II. In that game it seemed that once a rival launched a sneak attack on me, my senate was willing to give unlimited permission to continue with "peacekeeping" opperations against them, even if I was a democracy and did not have the UN wonder (in which situation the senate is supposed to always insist upon peace when offered).