realistic growth

[bvanevery]

I find myself contemplating why factions are any different from each other.  It's as though they have "preconfigured" technologies that are immutable.  Whereas, from a realistic simulation standpoint, what would stop the Hive over the very long haul of history from settling the ocean waves?  Why wouldn't they figure out whatever the Pirates knew about extracting minerals from the ocean?  I could say the same thing about any given faction's starting conditions.  They've got a + in one direction and a - in another, why?  What would stop them from all becoming the same thing over time, or at least having the same choices given long enough?

This makes me think that the social engineering model is the core of meaningful choice, in a game of long historical duration like SMAC.  So I find myself contemplating whether the social choices are adequate as is, or whether they could be improved.

Growth bugs me.  I've studied UN population data, to try to figure out when Earth is going to be up to its neck in people.  Long story short, I think we've got 500 years.  Industrial democracies do not stimulate growth.  They cause a reduction in population growth rate.  All the UN data says so.  People seek education, take demanding complex jobs for more money, put off having kids until later, and have fewer kids.  It's the back-asswards agrarian societies that breed like rabbits.  There, having more kids is like a kind of human capital.  Minions to work your farm.  They also just don't have birth control, or sometimes even education about sex.  They have rapes when women go out to collect firewood.

Maybe Frontier or Survival societies should be the ones with increased Growth rates.

I think a Police State should decrease Growth, if anything.  If people don't feel basically safe, I'm betting they don't breed as much.  I guess that calls into question whether Police State = Unsafe.  China is a police state, they've got gazonkers people.

A Fundamentalist state might increase Growth.  Be fruitful and multiply!  The cult demands new children to indoctrinate.  I think it would have been accurate to call the Nazis a Fundamentalist state, as well as a Police state.  That's another big problem with the realism of the game, the artificial distinction between a Police State and a Fundamentalist state.  I've never heard of a Fundamentalist state that wasn't also a police state.  Think of the Taliban, ISIS, or the Ayatollah Khomeni.

Democracy wouldn't increase Growth.  A Free Market should decrease Growth but raise Economy.  Also I think the idea that Free Markets are anti-police is complete bollocks.  How many shootings have I read of blacks by police in the past 2 weeks, both nationally in the USA, and locally in Winston-Salem NC?  Well, a lot.  I'm thinking it's Democracy which is a bit anti-police.  At least, you don't get to do Police State stuff, if that's what we're defining as "police".

What would be the point of retooling these social choices with more realism?  It may end up that some social engineering choices, have clear advantages over others.  But we still have the ideological tension in the game that some factions cannot choose those things, and will declare war on those who do.  Now, if only we had an AI threatening enough to make good on war.  For an experienced player at least, the predilections of most factions, you could just blow off.

[bvanevery]

Details growth mod

growth mod

I've started modding.  I've been at it for a few hours, tweaking the settings this way and that.  One dimension of a mod job I hadn't previously considered, is whether the entries in the Social Engineering screen "look substantive" or not.  I tried to juggle Support into other categories, for instance, but it ended up making Police State and Democracy look a bit thin.  Democracy in my current rendition still looks thin, but I think it has important game mechanical consequences to leave it that way.  Other thinness problems, I solved by going back to the default design.

For those that don't automatically get it, here's the growth philosophy.  Real world evidence is that Democracies and Police States do not change people's basic birth rate.  Look at the USA and China.  Plenty of people, and it's because they already had plenty of people.  The USA has less people than China because it was settled by white people much later in history.  The indigenous people walked or boated from various directions, and they were about 10,000 years behind the Old World as far as getting a population going.  Or anything else for that matter, like techs.  USA population swelled up from Old World immigration for awhile.  Then laws ended that, and we only get large influxes from people who can actually walk here.

Fundamentalists, on the other hand, do have credos that up birth rates.  Look at Mormon families.  Look at Islamic extended families.  Now, I'm not entirely sure if my statement here is evidence driven, but I'm running with it for now.  Fundamentalists are the population booming social choice.  What's gonna happen, is they're gonna get up to their ass in people, who are then going to be unhappy.  Then they're not going to like Fundamentalism anymore, and they're gonna go Democratic.  Which is how I expect it'll actually turn out for all those Islamorepublics out there.  We've sorta seen half of that with the Arab Spring.

The other major point is that industrial wealth-driven societies lower population growth.  That's evidence driven, all the UN data says so.  Women end up with something to do other than sit around getting knocked up and having the men boss them around.  They get careers.  They have babies later in life, or not at all.  Families have less children because they're an expense, not an asset like in an agrarian society.

While I was at it, I've always found the Free Market -5 Police penalty to be rather obnoxious and over-the-top.  Ever heard of Haliburton?  Private security contractors?  -3 means that you get to use one military unit per city without penalty.  The other part of the Police penalty is shifted to Democracy and to Wealth.  So if you go Democratic Free Market Wealth, you've got -5 Police, same as what a Free Market in a standard game would be like.  I don't think the idea of having 2 drones per military unit "out on campaign" is bad, I just don't think it should all be due to having a Free Market.  What would the USA do?  Draft everyone and send them off to Vietnam.

Note that the Pirates end up with a NEAR ZERO-POPULATION GROWTH penalty with this mod.  I checked their actual population growth and it isn't near zero though.  It could be that Children's Creches keep that from being a problem, as do cities in a Golden Age.  I'm a little unclear on the upward portion of city growth.  Maybe I've been experiencing Population Booms in many games and didn't realize it was happening?  I always thought I needed The Cloning Vats for that, but the wiki section says I just need a a +2 Growth social choice, a Creche, and to keep a Golden Age going.

I have toyed with moving part of the Police State SUPPORT bonus to Planned instead.  And not having Growth be part of Planned, or lessening it.  But I'm worrying a bit about how one achieves the high end of the Growth rating.  The dynamic ranges aren't equal, with tiers going to +6 on the positive side, but to -3 on the negative side.  Taking the +2 Growth out of Democratic makes it hard to reach the upper tiers.

[bvanevery]

Details realism mod

realism mod

Here is another attempt.  This one accepts that it won't be easy to get a lot of Growth.  Population boom becomes hard to achieve.  I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.  One would need to make use of a Children's Creche and allocate enough of a Psych budget to keep a Golden Age going for a bit.  It makes The Cloning Vats and Eudaimonia more valuable.

Support is more fine tuned.  +3 Support is actually all you need to get all the benefits possible.  There's not really a way to make Support choices go into the negative, unless your faction has that liability to begin with.  That's just Morgan, and he's definitely got the most crippling penalty of any faction IMO.  Well, ok, technically Thought Control can make you go negative on Support.  But it's very late game, and who gains that without also building The Cloning Vats?  In single player at least, pretty much you're going to get that anyways.  Thought Control also provides pretty useless benefits in Single Player, because by then you've probably got The Cyborg Factory and advanced weaponry that totally blows your opponents to smithereens.

Fundamentalism is now a bit more attractive.  Instead of just being a research cripple with a marginal military advantage, you've got one of the rare ways to increase your population.  Islamic extended family will prevail!  Go Mormons!

Police State doesn't give you as much stuff, but also doesn't penalize you as much.  This makes it easier to choose to be a Police State.  I mean really, the Nazis weren't so bad at this stuff.  Neither were the Soviets, at least militarily.  It's their collectivism and 5 year plans that really got them into trouble.  The Nazis didn't do that, so you could think of Nazis as Police State Free Market Power, sort of.  Well, maybe not, as that's a net Police of 0.  Kinda hard to model Fascism with these options.

In this mode, I'd feel obliged to give Yang +1 Police.  Santiago gets that, and I just can't abide Santiago being inherently more Gestapo than Yang.  The idea is it should be pretty easy for Yang to get to his traditional +2 Police rating. 

Green, I've changed from "capturing mindworms" to an actual business model.  That's more like what we think of when we say "Green" today.  The so-called Green economy that some pundits say will create all these new futuristic jobs, and conservative Free Market pundits say doesn't work, is a distortion of the market by government interference, etc.  A company at the forefront of these questions would be Tesla.  If we had much better battery capacity, going Green would be much more of a no-brainer.

The best mindworm capture is at merely +3 Planet.  I'm not convinced Deirdre should automatically get that, just for going Green.  +2 is still pretty good, and I've never been sure of greater advantages than that, playing various factions.  Sometimes I think I can't capture a sloth!  So, you could be Deirdre controlling The Manifold Nexus, or Cha Dawn just going Green, which seems like a reasonable distinction between the 2 of them.  Cha Dawn also kinda sucks, hardly ever builds Secret Projects, so I won't feel bad if I've subverted his "no Wealth" limitation by throwing some cash his way.

[bvanevery]

Details population weapon

population weapon

In this version, Fundamentalists aren't thought to be any better at fighting.  Evidence in Iran and Iraq is they're better at dying.  What Fundamentalists get instead, is a population weapon that nobody else has.  Well except for Faction bonuses, of course.  I suppose Miriam would need to be Fundamentalist Planned Survival to get +3 Growth, accepting a -2 Efficiency to do so.  A Children's Creche would put her to +5 Growth in a given city.  Hmm, I'm thinking her faction needs +1 Growth to get that up to +6 in a city, triggering a population boom.  It would be hard to sustain a Golden Age with only 1 Police and -2 Efficiency, and she does have "lotsa followers" after all.

Wealth driven societies are also not thought to be bad at combat, they just complain about it a lot.  Look at the USA!  Santiago and Svensgaard will still complain bitterly about anyone who isn't spitting on their boots to polish them and yelling "Yes sir!"  If you're not sporting the double eagles, you're a wimp.

[bvanevery]

Details be fruitful and multiply

be fruitful and multiply

Miriam gets 'em when they're young.

Details growing and knowing

growing and knowing

A spread of her with +4 Growth.  I also made her Reserch penalty not quite as bad, primarily so it will fit in her faction modifiers window better.  It looks really awful when there are 2 research penalty icons in there.  It's primarily an aesthetic decision, but I rationalize it by saying I took 1 of her Supports away as overpowered.   Also she won't be getting any +1 Morale bonus if she goes Fundamentalist.  I'm not sure that being able to grow better makes up for that.  Anyways I think the game would be more challenging against the Believers if she wasn't quite as retarded at tech.  Narratively I think it also works better.  She's got an awful lot of quotes in the tech tree and doesn't come across as a complete dummy to me.  If she can deliver High Energy Chemistry how much of a Luddite can she really be?

[vonbach]

I gave up on realism a long time ago. This game really isn't that realistic. I changed fundamentalism to nationalism and made it something of a cross between Democracy and a police state while not being as good as either. +Morale ++Growth + Police.  I simply removed nearly all of the penalties from the choices. Mostly to make it easier on the computer. So it looks like this.
Frontier          +Growth
Police State    ++Police ++Support +Growth
Democracy     ++Effic ++Growth - Support
Nationalism    +Morale ++Growth +Police

Frontier          +Effic
Free Market    ++Economy --Planet (This is another one I'd like to change. Both the name and the effects. Maybe to something like Capitalist +Effic +Economy)
Directed         ++Growth  +Industry
Green            ++Planet  ++ Effic +Growth (I'm probably going to change this one)



Simple           +Morale
Power            ++Support  ++Probe ++Morale --Planet
Eugenics        +Effic  +Research --Probe
Wealth           +industry +Economy -Support

Cybernetic     ++Planet ++Research ++effic --Probe
Eudainomic    No changes
Thought control ++Police ++Morale ++Probe -Growth


I buffed the believers a long time ago +Growth ++Support ++Morale, fanatic, techsteal and Immune to mind control I think. Oh and a -research.
Miriam was made to be a parody for atheists to laugh at. She's the "church lady" from Saturday night live. The game is notedly hostile to religion actually.

[bvanevery]

You can add bonuses and penalties to the base category?  Coulda sworn when I tried that, I got an error about an invalid key.  I will try again.  I had wanted to implement one of the base categories, like Frontier or Survival, as having a higher reproductive rate until a more advanced social form was taken.

Realism is always going to have problems on close inspection, but I think things can be improved over the default vanilla.  When realism can't be addressed, I am conscious of preserving the narrative of the game.

Your own objections, in particular, have made me think of a "less cartoon character" interpretation of Miriam's religious belief.  She actually doesn't come across in any of the voiced quotes or videos as an Evangelical Yahoo anyways.  I'm an atheist, but I have no axe to grind against religion per se, only what people do with it.  I have a conservative Christian friend of mine, and although we definitely don't agree on some rather important things (i.e. homosexuality), I wince at the idea of cartooning him.  I have a Pentecostal brother in law who was actually improved by that, it made him a better man.  Sure I don't buy it, but "the religion" and "the person practicing the religion" are distinct things.  He is too much of an inherently good person to begin with, to be ruined by any indoctrination.  Even if Pentecostals on superficial inspection might be a little on the yahoo side of things.

I often play Miriam as Democratic.  It sometimes bothers me that certain faction leaders can't be thought of as something other than their stereotypes.

The realism I'm trying to implement, is Europe is up to its ass in Muslims now.  Whether that's a good, a bad, or a neutral thing, I leave to other people's opinion making.  But it is definitely a mass phenomenon and I don't think it was happening in the time SMAC was made.  Yes the Civ franchise had Fundamentalism all the way back, and Radical Islam was cartooned.  The "yi yi yi yi yi!" stuff in Civ II: TOT is priceless, it's totally unsympathetic.  I like the idea of someone actually having a "population bomb" compared to others in this game.  It remains to be seen whether the rule changes I've made, actually implement that.

I'm also just irritated that anyone thinks industrial democracy does something other than lower birth rates.  It's stupid.

[vonbach]

You can add bonuses and penalties to the base category?  Coulda sworn when I tried that, I got an error about an invalid key.  I will try again.  I had wanted to implement one of the base categories, like Frontier or Survival, as having a higher reproductive rate until a more advanced social form was taken.

Sure you just have to be careful of the spacing. The Alphax is touchy but you can mod it in many ways, same with the faction files.

When realism can't be addressed, I am conscious of preserving the narrative of the game.

I modded the game the way I did so I could preserve gameplay narrative. The problem with realism is it
would leave some choices simply unused. I've made extensive changes in the past but it can mess with the AI.
Thats why I kept it similar to the original.

The realism I'm trying to implement, is Europe is up to its ass in Muslims now.  Whether that's a good, a bad, or a neutral thing, I leave to other people's opinion making.  But it is definitely a mass phenomenon and I don't think it was happening in the time SMAC was made.

Its the rough equivalent to simply marching into cities and taking them over with unlimited money and probe teams.

[bvanevery]

Its the rough equivalent to simply marching into cities and taking them over with unlimited money and probe teams.

Hmm I don't think so.  War refugees, economic refugees, and economic opportunists, are simply an undirected mass swarming into Europe for a better life.  Much is made of source governments trying to create conditions to move people this way and destabilize Europe, but the falseness of the narrative is, Europe does far better than the [poop]holes these people are leaving from.  It is obvious to any self-interested person what they should be doing in such circumstances.

This is easy to see from a US perspective on immigration.  People flee Mexico because it is a [poop]hole; they can do much better here.  Until they can't, which did briefly happen here during our Recession.  Mexicans and OTMs went home for awhile.  Couldn't make the money here.

No nefarious foreign entity is destabilizing the USA by these movements.  It is simple economic reality.  The USA also wants this cheap exploitable labor pool.  It grows you lettuce and asparagus.  I worked a Property Rights ballot initiative in WA state a number of years ago.  I got told point blank by a 60+ year old farmer in Wenatchee, he hadn't seen a white person work the fields in 60 years.  I suspend judgment that it may happen somewhere, some time, but if he hasn't seen it, that's a data point and the truth of it has to be taken at face value.  The fields are picked by Mexicans and OTMs.

I guess strictly speaking in a game sense you're right though.  The game has no way to model a giant influx of poor people into your society.  If someone in the game is the USA, the Believers can compete by becoming some kind of gigantic Brazil and then making tanks to invade with.  That teeming mass of humanity doesn't actually get sent over as the weapon itself.

[Buster's Uncle]

Language, man.  Catch those philter phails and clean up your own mess, please.

[vonbach]

Its the rough equivalent to simply marching into cities and taking them over with unlimited money and probe teams.

That teeming mass of humanity doesn't actually get sent over as the weapon itself.

That is exactly what is happening actually. Its genocide.

[Buster's Uncle]

von, we're not going to get into a problem political thing, are we?  As an issue of game design, fine, you know I agree somewhat about Miriam - but let us not wander into debate on the RW, okay?

[bvanevery]

I do not believe in using the term "genocide" casually.  The United Nations has a legal definition of genocide.  Since the UN is in the game, and you can even vote to repeal the "Atrocity Prohibitions", I'm going to take the time to post the legal definition of genocide.  This should inform attempts to model it in the game:

Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as

    ...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

        (a) Killing members of the group;
        (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
        (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
        (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
        (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
        — Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2[4]

That's not "war refugees, economic refugees, and economic opportunists".  To model those, I'm wondering if one could create a kind of Specialist that has negative economic consequences, and cannot easily be gotten rid of.  There are of course sticky wickets as to just how much good or bad they should do.  Illegal immigrants are growing your lettuce in the USA, after all.

Another modeling problem, is how populations would be transferred from one faction to another.  Do they create a kind of colony pod in their home cities, decreasing population over there, walk over the border, and create an "immigrant specialist" in a new city?

While we're at it, revolts are kinda weird in SMAC.  You simply cannot put a modern US city into revolt, for instance.  It's not going to join Canada or China or any other nation.  SMAC doesn't have any model for how strong a central government has to be, to be immune to revolts.  Civ II actually had it closer to correct: if you were under a Democracy, your cities could not revolt.  In SMAC, a faction has to be sufficiently Fundamentalist to be immune to revolts, and that doesn't really make any sense.  It should have to do with how egregiously unhappy the citizens are, and what the central government is going to do to them if they express unhappiness.  North Korea isn't going to have cities going into revolt either.

[Fibonacci]

Details Binary Dawn Social Engineering choices window

Binary Dawn Social Engineering choices window

Have you looked into adjusting the starting social engineering choices as well? Binary Dawn, http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=19644.0, has some good examples of what you can change.

[bvanevery]

My 1st cut of modifying defaults, I couldn't do it!  I will try again.  They are modifiable in plain vanilla SMAC yes?  No Yitzi patch required?

Part of me thinks a mod manager is needed.