My Custom Faction(s)

[ComradeCrimson]

I've decided after playing Alpha Centauri after so many years and seeing so many lovely custom factions, that I'd like to try my hand at custom faction making.

However, I am also aware of other factions made, and I don't want to copy or otherwise fill roles already filled. Like a Geneticist faction already exists for instance as do Bolshevik style (I'd almost say Trotskyist given their whole aggressive "by the barrel of a gun" revolutionary style Communists (Sorry Jarl, I know thats gonna miff ya!), to revisions of the vanilla factions even, amongst others.

So I want to try something new.

I thought long and hard on this, and I came to this conclusion-

No one yet has made a City State faction. A singular city is all this faction would have. As for its bonuses I need to think about it; but essentially this would be a single city faction.

How would you make this ingame, or at the very least, encourage it by hindering expansion of colonists to the point making another city is just unprofitable to the extreme?

How would one go about this?

Please post your thoughts on how, and whether this would need some crazy coding outside of standard faction value editing.

And yes, I am aware on how to make custom factions in terms of notepad. So no biggie there- its just what would create the desired effects of this?

[Yitzi]

I've decided after playing Alpha Centauri, that I'd like to try my hand at custom faction making.

However, I am also aware of other factions made, and I don't want to copy or otherwise fill roles already filled. Like a Geneticist faction already exists for instance as do Bolshevik style (I'd almost say Trotskyist given their whole aggressive "by the barrel of a gun" revolutionary style Communists (Sorry Jarl, I know thats gonna miff ya!), to revisions of the vanilla factions even, amongst others.

So I want to try something new.

I thought long and hard on this, and I came to this conclusion-

No one yet has made a City State faction. A singular city is all this faction would have. As for its bonuses I need to think about it; but essentially this would be a single city faction.

How would you make this ingame, or at the very least, encourage it by hindering expansion of colonists to the point making another city is just unprofitable to the extreme?

How would one go about this?

Please post your thoughts on how, and whether this would need some crazy coding outside of standard faction value editing.

And yes, I am aware on how to make custom factions in terms of notepad. So no biggie there- its just what would create the desired effects of this?

A huge EFFIC penalty would be key, as that will pretty much eliminate energy income from all non-HQ bases.

[ComradeCrimson]

Huge efficiency problems, check.

What else would prevent this? Mind, I still want it to be viable to play as so I don't mind it being extreme.

So far I was thinking:

The City State ideology and story wise, I am unsure of. I could make it mirror my own ideology, which is of a regionalist, communalist sort of mixed economy type society where capitalism exists but mostly for luxury and entertainment industries whilst natural resources and infrastructure is the responsibility of the state. Not a libertarian society or completely socialist society, but one that generally gives more power to regional and municipal decision making with a supportive socialist government handling vital areas of industry and infrastructure whilst the market, whilst regulated to some degree, has a degree of creative freedom and means to make a good solid enterprise, often having partnership options where one can get gov't support.

But there's already some factions kind of like this... so its questionable there.

So I mulled over it further, and came up with this conclusion:

This City State, instead of going out to conquer others or expand exponentially decided to follow a path where it'd create an independent, sovereign city state made up of people from various backgrounds (including defectors and refugees from other factions) where it wants to seek human perfection, and allow people to pursue their ideal of perfection and to, whilst not create a perfect society, allow every citizen to be transhuman and to reach their goals and ambitions and overall, pursue their passions. It would still require the initiative of said citizen of course, this is no nanny state really and work would still be performed by citizens here and there; (though many manual labour/low skill positions would likely be automated.) but overall everyone has their most basic needs provided for and the opportunity to proceed with their ambitions there for them.

The "visions of perfection" people may have may vary quite a bit, varying from physical desires and wishes to alter their bodies in different ways, perfecting a skill and accomplishing great works, being famous and renowned for something or simply living life the way they wish to, within the confines of the law of course.

It does this by ensuring each citizen has enough resources to survive so the economy is mostly socialist, providing natural resources and well funded education, healthcare and infrastructure for its citizens, but not prohibiting their financial ambitions of enterprise (with the exception of aforementioned industries/faculties, as the City State completely and uncompromisingly controls this) and if this faction were to be summed up:

It is a Humanist, Communalist City State. It's very insular about spreading its ideology, content on keeping it to its own city and allowing others the choice to embrace it, and its not particularly about Socialist (or humanist) revolution, nor is it completely about being a plutocracy either. And neither is it a true meritocracy either.

And as for a comparison, whilst I am aware the Free Drones are somewhat similar in this, the Free Drones are more of an industrialist welfare society that promotes the working classes. This city state I intend doesn't really have any social classes or real inhibitions, and it doesn't really discriminate against researchers or businesses necessarily; its welcoming of many different creeds as long as its not one of aberrant expansionism or the destruction of the sovereign power of the City State. 

As for its name? I do not know.

Proletaria is a name I thought of originally for my rather left leaning mindset but I don't know if that's really fitting. Given again, its implying a Proletarian social rule when that's not what the society is really about.

The faction is essentially a Metropolis. And whilst its not necessarily purely about being metropolitan as it has its own "local" identity, I wanted this city state to be a gem of human ambition, progress and community in a sense. It would, in its social policy likely be a bit humanitarian, but not to the extent it'd compromise itself I'd reckon. War wise I doubt it'd be very aggressive, but it would be a formidable defender- I want this faction to be able to hold out easily against other factions, and it'd take a Planet Buster or a serious effort to destroy them, or rush them incredibly fast.

Name wise, Metropolia could be a good name. But again, suggestions welcome.

In terms of stats:

Exceedingly high Talent bonus is a must. To what degree, I do not know.

Exceedingly high Efficiency malus, acording to Yitzi, is a must. I want them to be limited to one city.

I don't intend this city they have to be particularly small or limited in population, only that they cannot expand beyond their initial city. If possible I'd like them not to be able to fully conquer other cities either, only raze them or essentially "Migrate them" to the City State's population.

So, possibly growth bonus and free hab complex's off the bat.

Defence bonus is absolutely necessary as they need to be formidable, staunch defenders.

High probe ability would also be wanted, as I reckon they both got very good security and very good spies.

I am open to other suggestions of course.

[ComradeCrimson]

Also, in terms of story flaws:


Metropolia (name pending) would likely be very reluctant to expend on any big alliances, and it may very well be cold to the outcries of others, being accused of being a gated community of elites that is sort of a hermit kingdom despite itself claiming that its an egalitarian society.

One could also point out that the fierce independence of Metropolia is also its greatest weakness- it is unable to expand out of its own borders as any citizens founding a new city from Metropolia's population would likely strike out on their own and not want to be dominated by their former home, instead pursuing their own means of rule.

The fact Metropolia is so small too compared to other factions will mean it plays a very tense game of diplomacy.

[Nexii]

Well as long as you're playing the faction you can opt to play them 'in-character' and just not build colony pods or conquer others.

They sound rather pacifist as described, so probably -MORALE
Agenda: Planned
Aversion: Power?
Try the following modifiers:
-9 EFFIC, -1 MORALE, +2 TALENT, +2 GROWTH
Start with Hab Complex
+25% defense bonus

The power of a one city strategy depends a lot if you mod crawlers or not.  With unmodded you can still be quite powerful (since crawling doesn't get impacted by EFFIC).

Probe not as crucial since your HQ will be your one city, and everything will be close by

[JarlWolf]

Suggestion for this I have is maybe add police problem... your citizen of faction sound rather independent, maybe needy... it would be good to also stop more cities from being made.

I am not sure -morale would be necessary, from what you describe city is still motivated and well trained to fight... I would think some people would want to be skilled soldiers if that was their goal. Being a good soldier and being war monger is not always the same thing, after all.

[Yitzi]

By the way, making it so that particular modules/predesigned units (such as colony pods) are unusable by a given faction would be completely doable via .exe modding...though that would have to compete with other requests.

[ComradeCrimson]

Well as long as you're playing the faction you can opt to play them 'in-character' and just not build colony pods or conquer others.

They sound rather pacifist as described, so probably -MORALE
Agenda: Planned
Aversion: Power?
Try the following modifiers:
-9 EFFIC, -1 MORALE, +2 TALENT, +2 GROWTH
Start with Hab Complex
+25% defense bonus

The power of a one city strategy depends a lot if you mod crawlers or not.  With unmodded you can still be quite powerful (since crawling doesn't get impacted by EFFIC).

Probe not as crucial since your HQ will be your one city, and everything will be close by

Agenda Planned sounds reasonable, though Euidamonic sounds very much like their end game goal. I do notice a lot of factions have that as their agenda, however. And even though I am rather left wing/egalitarian myself, I don't want to limit players necessarily economically- someone might want to make a more environmentalist version of the Humanist City State, or a more Capitalist/Free Market one.

Even so, I reckon the mentality of the city state would render it more friendly towards planned economics. Especially considering the efficiency is so abysmal that you might as well ignore any positive modifiers for it because nothing is going to really improve it so that it is "good," so an efficiency malus wouldn't really change anything.

So, lets review each option.


-Government wise,

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they could follow suit with a Police State by being a bit more controlling and regulated of the liberties of citizens, claiming their best interests are within the confines and safety of the law and offering a more "guided" approach to their pursuits of passion and talent, for better or worse... but on the other hand it also somewhat conflicts with their rather relaxed attitudes towards what sort of path a person wants to take, provided it doesn't break the law.

They could easily follow Democracy, given that the city state would likely value their citizens welfare, happiness and overall progress as human beings, and thus respects their choice in decision making. And out of the three political choices I think this one would make a hell of a lot of sense, though oligarchies and more authoritarian groups could form.

As for Fundamentalism, a faith could spring up and convert the City State, but faiths tend to dictate the morals, creeds and the overall lifestyle a person follows so I highly doubt the government would adopt such an intrusive thing and remain for the largest part, secular...

-Economy wise,

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the economy of the city state could truly vary. Free Market could see wealthy patrons and organizations taking more steps in the society and reducing the government to a bare minimum of maintenance where the businesses fill the void, depending on a person's interpretation. If a problem arose as to where they are not adhering to the laws/constitution of the City State I'd likely see there'd be big outlash from both the government and citizens. Though with the safeguard controls I highly doubt enterprises would get so dominant in the first place.

Planned would make the most sense, as the state wants to ensure the continuity of the City State and its people in an organized and careful manner, and support their endeavours.

Green could also make sense if the government got a bit more protectionist over the environment of the City State and a more naturalist bent to its population and I'd like to keep it as a potential option for players.

-Values wise,

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the City State could take on Power if it wants to be a political enforcer, by killing rivals and razing them or by simply being a prominent regional police force. I do doubt they'd arise to be a global police force of any means though, and whilst they aren't complete pacifists I don't see them as any sort of aggressive or highly interventionist warlike faction any time soon.

Knowledge would make a hell of a lot of sense in this case, as would Wealth, because citizens may want to exceed the boundaries of knowledge or grow massively rich and live luxurious lives. So either or could work fine, as the ideal of one's peak status and potential will vary as to what it is depending on the person.

-Future Societies,

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Only 2 of these would really work. Thought Control is completely out of the question because the whole point of a person following their passions and taking initiative to get their potential (albiet with the resources provided to do it) is that they have the free will to do and decide what they want, otherwise its just forced application.

Cybernetic could work, as a cybernetic society could very well be fitting to the high technology, high talent society that is Metropolia, but there may be dissidence for those who feel like this community is way too sheltered and too much a gated community of talented elites, not sharing its progress with the rest of the world.

Eudaimonia would fit rather well because its the personal happiness and potential achieved through help by the city state and its community for all its citizens.

So, mulling it all over...

I think the stats and agenda would result in something akin to this:

Agenda: Torn between Planned, Eudaimonia or Democracy. Perhaps I could go with preferred Planned, but maybe have a bonus to using Democracy or some such, thought will be needed.

Aversion: Thought Control or Fundamentalism I would say.

3+ Talent

1+ Growth

9- Efficiency

Start with Hab Complex

25+ Defence Bonus

1+ Probe OR Research, or another bonus I thought of: Free Prototypes. I reckon Metropolia to be rather inventive as much as it is passionate over its ambitions and progress, and quick to adopt the fruits of its citizens labours.

Pacifist AI would likely be the smartest option; with a possible coding for no colony pods being able to be produced being another.

Suggestion for this I have is maybe add police problem... your citizen of faction sound rather independent, maybe needy... it would be good to also stop more cities from being made.

I am not sure -morale would be necessary, from what you describe city is still motivated and well trained to fight... I would think some people would want to be skilled soldiers if that was their goal. Being a good soldier and being war monger is not always the same thing, after all.

I wouldn't say that a huge parasitic culture would really develop on this environment because citizens are also, to some extent, pressured by pure social factors to have a sort of ambitious and hard working mentality due to both the state and peers being so supportive (and expectant) of them. Plus Talent bonus typically conflicts or cancels out Police negatives from what I understand.

Though I would say you are spot on for the soldiers; though I wouldn't say its enough to give them a morale bonus whilst in Combat. Merely a defence bonus due to the inspired loyalty to their City State.


Also the more I say "Metropolia" the more I kind of dislike it and find it weird. I am looking for name suggestions, if you folks have any.

[vonbach]

You want some advice? Keep it simple. If your looking to make a mod don't get too ambitious.
I'd say minus to support for added talents. That handles the peaceful society genre nicely.
Though in real life socialist countries actually experience negative growth.

[ComradeCrimson]

You want some advice? Keep it simple. If your looking to make a mod don't get too ambitious.
I'd say minus to support for added talents. That handles the peaceful society genre nicely.
Though in real life socialist countries actually experience negative growth.

Well this is just a custom faction, not a full blown mod. I've done custom faction work before and know what I am generally doing, and have gotten great advice from many topics on this forum, digging around.

Even so; the concept of this City State isn't that its necessarily even completely socialist. It tends to lend itself to that but its more so focused purely on Communalism; its a very autonomous city state that focuses completely on the human development and welfare of its citizens, encouraging them to not only foster a sense of communal attachment and loyalty, but also fully invest in their skills, passions and give them the liberties to pursue such things.

As for the negative growth in Socialist nations, it fully well depends upon which nation we are talking about and their policies at the time... population growth has happened with government sponsorships to mothers and family support systems like government provided daycares and schooling, and talent has been cultivated in nations like Yugoslavia and Cuba and Sweden (and other Scandinavian nations) where university costs are mitigated (or in the case of the latter 2, completely free!) with various programs to support artists, scientists and other career paths and help people pursue improvement and development over their skills and passions, albeit often within line of the confines and desires of the state itself.

But regardless, the shtick for this City State is that it's so focused on its own, singular development, where all the control and development over infrastructure is condensed into a smaller, more manageable area that the immediate effectiveness and malleability of policy is much faster than that of a full blown, larger nation state. The city can grow large and it can become highly specialized as it becomes very centralized, and there is no real issues with centralization in this case because of the rather smaller scale this entity is.

Plus, I am ambitious. I go big or I go home, its just in my nature.


Further thoughts on this, I am thinking that with my revised stats I am going to rock with the following:

Agenda: Planned Economics- Through carefully guided measures, citizen growth and potential can be cultivated.

Adverse: Thought Control- Free will, even if under a system of guidance is of the utmost importance to citizens.

Impunity towards Eudaimonic- Citizens are motivated to defend the interests of the City State, and feel no fear towards shedding blood for their beloved city.

-9 Efficiency- Stupendous amounts of municipal independence creates massive problems for standardization and large scale management.

+1 Growth- A supportive community encourages family growth.

+2 Talent- Numerous programs and facilities exist to harness and cultivate development amongst citizens

25% Defence bonus-Citizens will defend the City State and their fierce independence with zeal.

Now this is an important bit I've been thinking over, and I am unsure that it would be overpowered or not.

Giving them Industrial Automation as a free technology instead of merely Hab Complex's. This would allow them a slight production edge and allow them crawlers, hab complex's and other nifty things off the bat, but I am worried that even as a singular city state, would this be too broken? If it is, what would balance this out?


Storyline of the City State, of which I have now named The Páthos Bastion as its faction name and its capitol, Komunumo, is the following:
 
The leader (who I may make a self insert, who knows) of this movement saw to it that the Peacekeepers with their burgeoning bureaucracy and rather stifling, stagnant society became too focused on expansionism and whilst it was a relatively democratic and at times, egalitarian nation state, the Peacekeepers were far too neglectful of the rights and needs of their various cities. Proper representation of the needs of various populaces was not being met, and the overall populist and seemingly overpowering Peacekeeper ballot power it had in the planetary elections was, back at home a relative oxymoron as voters were starting to feel that their local affairs were being ignored for more internationalist aims.

Thus a movement occurred in one of the more far flung Peacekeeper cities of a mixed population of former Hive citizens and newly mixed Peacekeepers, which aptly renamed itself Komunumo, forming the Páthos Bastion as a singular city state faction.

It had to fiercely defend its independence upon its birth from invading armies from both the Human Hive under Chairman Yang's despotic thumb and the returning forces of the Peacekeepers, who wanted the city to remain under the political dominance of the Peacekeeper UN council.

Komunumo did not waver, and held out admirably and managed through both diplomacy and gritty defence of their home, fend off and drive back the invaders.

Soon, various refugees and defectors flocked to the city and it grew in size and power, and it developed into a formidable fortress state that safeguarded the human development of its citizens, leading not through force or aggressive implementation of its ideology, but through defiance of will and serving as an example to others to pursue their passions, hopes and dreams.

[Nexii]

Yea I tend to agree.  Keep your faction +/- to like 5 things at the very most, like the originals.  Otherwise you're really losing focus on what makes your faction unique.  Right now you're sitting on 7 so I'd cut a little.

On making Ind Auto less overpowering, you can always mod the crawler crawling penalty.  I play with crawling off (-12/square) but you could do something more mild like -1 resource penalty on crawlers.  Or just increase their cost in the weapons modules.  I guess it's all how difficult you want the game.  Playing on one base is pretty challenging if crawlers are nerfed down.

[vonbach]

Why does everyone here seem to have a fascination with Communism? All it ever produced was corpses
and poverty. Just ask the people of Eastern Europe. Just curious.

[ComradeCrimson]

Why does everyone here seem to have a fascination with Communism? All it ever produced was corpses
and poverty. Just ask the people of Eastern Europe. Just curious.

This faction isn't communist.

I was put into the Crimson Comrade's group as soon as I joined the forum. I don't very much care either way what group I am in, and Comrade Crimson is just my general internet user handle.

I am left wing and communalist, and I am such because of many factors has pushed me to this ideology over a number of years. Growing up in a rather right wing province dominated by oil industry and working for a number of years in said province, (Alberta, Canada) and witnessing the rise and fall of the oil industry and seeing it falter hard( of which has caused me great suffering and undue stress at various points financially and emotionally), especially as of recent and my predictions more or less coming true (lack of diversified industry for instance leading to a sharp decline in jobs across the province as oil related jobs shut down) I am skeptical of capitalism or more specifically, corporatism and corporate backed government; as the oil industry effectively bought out the government here and the former ruling political party that the oil giants had funded essentially gave them free reign over the economy with little to no royalties, and this overly corporatized environment essentially stagnated any growth of other economic sectors and industry. Having worked and been to Latin America and numerous other nations hasn't helped me grow a healthy opinion of large scale capitalism or federalism either. I abhor the Soviet Union's command economy for the very same reasons- negligence and serious problems in management, among other things.

Socialism, like any idea has done good in this world. Workers rights were implemented in many nations due to pressure from socialist parties, and whilst many said workers rights are abused even in nations sporting said rules, the notion of them and the proper treatment of citizens in the workplace and overall work conditions would be far more abysmal if the idea was not popularized. If anything socialism kind of defeated itself in taking root because Marx's original theory was that the conditions of the proletariat being exploited and abused would spur them onto revolution. That pressure and abuse was lessened due to numerous reforms governments made, like Teddy Roosevelt making many progressive changes in the economic sector to accommodate this due to fear of socialists achieving popular support.

I'll finish this conversation with this:

The reason you are probably seeing a rise in people who take an interest in socialism and related ideologies is because of a tangent of economical issues within society and recent events causing lots of stress on the world economy and its overall stability, some regions such as my own being hit rather bad from it. Ideological shifts tend to happen in periods of instability, because people become hostile to older establishment due to increasing problems that said establishment may be causing or at the very least, not really managing or bothering to fix. It's the same reason why autocratic socialism and the bureaucracy and bloated system of the Soviet Union fell and why corporate based capitalism is failing to really inspire anyone of a newer generation inheriting a decaying economy, one ruled by people who often have inherited their wealth and success from the painstaking sacrifices made by a generation before them, allowing them such a vibrant economy to use- when said new generation has to contend with the failing, dying industries that have been sucked dry by aforementioned rulers.

I would seriously like to keep off the topic of real world politics if you don't mind. From the way you made your statement you clearly are either yourself affected by some attachment to the subject or know someone who is, and I'd rather not tread that territory. Death and suffering can be attributed to any ideology; self proclaimed pacifists have in the past committed genocide and murder and those who say they'd protect freedom and liberty have installed tyranny and despotism.

Now, I'd like to ask you a favour and not continue this subject with me here in this forum thread. If you want you can PM me about this and we can take our discussion there, but I'd rather stay on focus here.

But back to the subject at hand.

As clarification, the faction is not communist.

It does not sport the equal distribution of resources or even equity between social class necessarily. And whilst it does fall into the category of supplying resources based on need and prompting someone based on ability, this faction believes that not everyone is of the same needs or abilities.All it offers is that for people who do wish to pursue their own paths of development that the state and community is willing to provide resources for people who showcase initiative and the talent to make themselves great.

If it were in Civilization 5, this faction would essentially be focused on pumping out Great People, if that makes sense.

All this faction is, is that it channels the human development of its citizens and wishes to invest in their passions, pursuits and overall skillsets, to invest in their talent.

If anything its more related to meritocracy than anything else, with a planned economic system to bolster it up; again though I didn't really forbid Free Market nor did I really state in its overall storywise plan that it is opposed to free enterprise. As a matter of fact it can encourage it at points, it just has fierce regulation because it has a fair degree of protectionism due to its rather local based autonomy, due to the way the game works it would probably help with AI behaviour and character, and it makes sense given the means to their ends- they want a planned economy to support their goal of creating a city state full of talented, intelligent and skillful citizenry. One could even say this city state is elitist; so more hard lining "Proletariat minded" socialists would probably have their feathers ruffled at such a social notion. The Free Drones for instance would claim that the Pathos Bastion is probably too keen on blue sky research and other such things, and isn't practical to the work force in a number of ways.

[ComradeCrimson]

Yea I tend to agree.  Keep your faction +/- to like 5 things at the very most, like the originals.  Otherwise you're really losing focus on what makes your faction unique.  Right now you're sitting on 7 so I'd cut a little.

On making Ind Auto less overpowering, you can always mod the crawler crawling penalty.  I play with crawling off (-12/square) but you could do something more mild like -1 resource penalty on crawlers.  Or just increase their cost in the weapons modules.  I guess it's all how difficult you want the game.  Playing on one base is pretty challenging if crawlers are nerfed down.

I'll have to think about bonuses, because I think Industrial Automation would be a good boon; but is it needed? Difficulty wise I play on Thinker level typically, and I don't plan to do any serious exe modding soon, mostly just the basic faction creation stuff unless someone proves kind enough to lend me a specific script for this faction and its specific need of no colony pods.

Playing with one city will be challenging enough I think, because this is far from the norm of Alpha Centauri Gameplay and it can be very hard, even with crawlers.

-9 Effic is also a very big penalty too.

Will need to mull over this more.

Edit:

After thinking, I believe the following would define the faction more and keep it relatively balanced.

Agenda: Planned Economics
Aversion: Thought Control

+3 Talent

-9 Efficiency

25% Defence bonus

Free Tech- Industrial Automation.

Talent will help their economy, and the defence bonus will keep them alive ingame, but the -9 efficiency will cripple them fairly badly and not allow easy expansion at all. And Industrial automation will help keep them competitive.

The only thing I am wondering over is whether or not to change their Agenda to Eudaimonic or keep it as Planned.

I will be creating the custom faction art soon enough! I may use some cities and buildings from the graphics section of the forum, for the theme of this city state I believe I want to go with a Neoclassical, almost Hellenistic look. Statues and Greco-Roman esque architecture and the like.

Leaderhead I will likely make myself.


I also have decided I may be making more custom factions- I have a very interesting one for Thought Control as their agenda in mind.

[Nexii]

Yea Cybernetic/Eud/TC factions can be interesting.  But those techs come so late that it feels odd.  I'd say a faction could maybe start with those techs