Thinking about Pirates

[bvanevery]

Details hi drone

hi drone

MY 2126.  I meet the game's actual, real Red.  None of this Eudaimonic junk / soft pedaling.  This is a Worker, a Worker's man, and he's straight up Socialist. 

"Socialist" in my mod is not Stalinism or Maoism, like the original game seemed determined to represent it as.  "Planned" was just code for Socialism or Communism, and had the right wing or at least neoliberal bias of representing it as inherently inefficient.  Chile was actually working on cybernetic solutions to those problems in 1971, before the USA stomped all over it and installed General Pinochet.  Atrocities and "disappearances" ensued.

Details Project CyberSyn: Operations Room

Project CyberSyn: Operations Room

By Rama
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 fr

"Socialist" is more like what you might see in Nordic countries, Belgium or the Netherlands, or some Central and South American countries where the government changes hands between various political parties.  It's not actually such a good choice early game though.  +2 JUSTICE, well I don't have a big empire yet.  +1 SUPPORT, well we've all got Clean Reactors so that's more like a minor help, or narrative device.  -1 ECON, who the heck wants that??  Yes, making more people happy costs money.  I'm a Democratic Socialist in real life (pointedly, not a Marxist) and redistributing the wealth is a pretty basic concept to any form of Socialism.  In game mechanical terms though, this means Domai is very unlikely to be my friend.  At least right now.

Socialist can be appropriate later, when you get big.  Or if you're pairing it with Police State, or Power.  Domai won't ever do a Police State though.  In my mod, he's not allowed to.  They freed themselves, I presume from either Chairman Yang or CEO Morgan, and they're never goin' back.  He can be Green all he wants, if a human is playing him.  Since this is an AI, I can presume that he and Deirdre are eventually going to war.  And even in my mod, he's very capable of winning such a war.  Deirdre's no slouch though.  None of that anti-POLICE anti-war nonsense, and she's got the tech advantage.  Domai isn't asked to be a moron about tech though.  His RESEARCH is normal.

Details well who likes Socialists anyways

well who likes Socialists anyways

Well it's not as bad a start as with Santiago, but it's not great.

Details you're a lazy sod

you're a lazy sod

I'm not usually cagey about comm frequencies.  I like other factions to get into wars with each other.  I also like getting ahold of everyone else's maps.

Details trade for capability

trade for capability

This one made me think.  My tech is better, but I'm expecting regional enemies Real Soon Now.  Particularly with Thinker's propensity to breathe down one's neck.  It's also been awhile since I climbed the Conquer part of my own tech tree, but I think this is also needed to eventually get to C3 Adaptive Doctrine and the Command Nexus.  Finally, I'm not going to prevent him from obtaining this tech on his own, as he has a partial Conquer focus.  I'm fine with him getting in a war with Deirdre.  He's not as likely to hit me in the ocean, best I can guess.

Details moving it along

moving it along

Right; it's a relatively recent change, so not always fresh on my mind.  But C2 Doctrine: Flexibility isn't "you get ships".  It's you get boring stuff for ships that you don't need.  It's basically a speed bump on the way to what you really want, which is Marines.  Not just Marine Detachment, but actual Marines that attack coastal bases.  This isn't the 19th century.  We're not inventing Marines, or railroads.

He signs the peace.  He doesn't have anything else he's willing to trade, so I sign off.

[bvanevery]

Details new scum unit

new scum unit

I'd dearly like this prototype to be completed for me.  What's war without Teh Lzers!

[bvanevery]

Details nuthin' here

nuthin' here

MY 2137.  Just a bit of fungal slime to the east.  Hardly worth settling, except to prevent someone else from sneaking a settlement in on me.

Details the breeder

the breeder

This is the city that really spits out the population too fast.  I'm currently rich, so this time I get ahead of it.

[bvanevery]

Details found the Nexus

found the Nexus

MY 2140.  Not sure I'm really motivated to get a land colony up here.  I mean, previously I put myself in a very bad way, trying to defend stuff like this.  And it was for what in practice, a few mindworms?  I'm not sure the Pirates should be trying to be Green anyways.  Maybe they should be trying to sink everybody.

Hmm, actually I wasn't paying good attention, because one of my units got dimensional gated.  This is in my backyard!  I'll do more scouting, but it might be feasible to settle on the land here.

[bvanevery]

Details early useless

early useless

MY 2145.  Mag tubes are available fairly early in my mod, and take 2x as long to lay down.  That does make you somewhat think about where you will put them.  I'm unlikely to build them for quite a long time, if ever, as it's definitely a landwards commitment.  They're on the way to C4 Doctrine: Initiative though.  At one time during my modding I had it parallel with C5 Doctrine: Air Power but decided that was a little much.  Cruisers aren't that good.

[bvanevery]

Details filled the bay

filled the bay

MY 2147.   I think I've reached a limit where cranking out more Sea Colony Pods is not going to help.  The rest of the Sargasso Sea is not really ready to be settled yet, and pretty much represents the natural extent of where my "perfect circle" empire should be.  The northwest is annoying deep ocean, a wedge in the circle.  I keep trying to make a Clean Synth Laser Foil completion and not managing it.  I just don't have enough explorers out and about.  I start making Laser Foils, expecting I'm going to get some drone riots as I fail to build Rec Commons and people become unhappy.

I've been doing fairly well on the military agenda of beelining for both C3 Adaptive Doctrine and C4 Doctrine: Initiative.  It's worth noting that when the AI plays the Pirates, it doesn't do that.  Instead it's going to get that Rec Commons without problem, avoid violence, and get to Advanced Ecological Engineering faster.  The military special abilities are "fill ins", as likely to be obtained from trade as anything else.  The Pirates simply don't need to do what the original game expected them to do, and in my mod, they're not really going to do it.

They don't really need to build the Maritime Control Center either.  They're gonna get free Naval Yards everywhere anyways, even if their ships don't move as fast as possible.  Similarly, once they finally do learn Adaptive Doctrine, the Marine Detachments are instantly added on.  It's not something they have to develop and make sure they get.

Since Adaptive Doctrine gives the Command Nexus, it's far more likely to be discovered first by one of the militant powers.  In this game that would be me.  Until it's proven to my satisfaction that I don't need to do it.  I've had enough of everyone else getting Doctrine: Initiative but me.

[bvanevery]

Details hi Jesus

hi Jesus

MY 2148.  I fish Miriam and a loaf of bread out of the water.

Details who will convert who

who will convert who

She wants to learn about Christian Socialism.  Recently in real life, I learned that's actually a thing.  I monitor a Reddit group about it, trying to wrap my head around whatever they're on about.  It's odder to me than EcoSocialism, which has its own divergences and problems.  Usually, not thinking about workers and businesses enough.  There's a reason in this game, Socialist and Green shouldn't be the same thing.  However, pitting them as violent opposition makes no sense, and is just a weakness of the game's ideological modeling.

Christian Socialism was actually occurring in my mod often, before I learned about it in real life!  I can't remember in what revision of Theocratic it became such a thing, or if it's still a thing now.  But Domai sure has found God more often than not.

Details you're not backwards enough

you're not backwards enough

The most controversial thing I seem to have done in my mod, in a few people's opinions, is jettison the anti-Christian stuff of the original game.  There are no derogatory comments about this lady being a "religious freak".  She is not called the Fundamentalist in the faction selection menu.  She's called the Christian.  She has no RESEARCH penalty and can research Knowledge just fine.  She cannot under any circumstances choose Cybernetic, per the quotes and videos where she loudly declares her objections to such several times over.  Anti-Planet penalty is gone, as it was a throwaway in her faction configuration that has no other narrative support anywhere in the game.

I really think that Firaxis came up with a cartoon character "Church Chat Lady", from Saturday Night Live, at the outset.  This is true of a lot of the factions' diplomatic dialogue, this one dimensional over the top ham-fistedness.  Later on, perhaps either as a matter of hiring a writer, or just how long it took in the production process, most of the original 7 characters got nuance and depth.  This is a lady who talks to you about High Energy Chemistry.  She doesn't actually have a single anti-science line at all.  Whether it was out of place to give her the High Energy Chemistry line or not, and just a case of spreading dialogue around, nevertheless they did it.

For quite awhile, I had her as the faction with no social engineering Agenda at all.  She could go Democratic, Police State, Fundamentalist, whatever.  The message being, religion is not inherent, it's how you use it.  It had the advantage that you didn't have to worry about becoming Fundamentalist / Extremist / Theocratic.  It had the disadvantage that there was no way to butter up to her.  She was still Aggressive and if she decided she didn't like you, there was flat little you could do about it.

Eventually though, I ran out of game mechanics, and was stuck with the original diplomatic dialogue about God.  I had to make Theocratic have a certain role, and for her to take that role.  It's the "be fruitful and multiply" option.  She's supposed to be getting followers, followers, followers.  Theocratic does have a slight -1 RESEARCH penalty, toning it down from the original game.  My justification is, plenty of Christians did scientific research just fine, most notably Isaac Newton.  That's not just for narrative though.  It's because -2 RESEARCH is really really bad for AI faction performance in the stock binary.

So don't feel sorry for her.  She's a stomper, and she can cough up Teh Lzers just fine on her own!

I didn't bother to ask for a Treaty, sensing she wouldn't give it.  She doesn't know Zhakarov's comm.  She signs off.

[bvanevery]

Details large enough to suck

large enough to suck

MY 2153.  Will they make a Socialist out of me yet?  -1 ECONOMY is not that bad.  In the past in my mod, one would simply go Green.  But recently, I made it take longer to get.  I suppose there's Democratic and Deirdre probably already knows it.  But somehow... I just don't want to talk to anyone.  I want my Conquer stuff.

[bvanevery]

Details scummed it!

scummed it!

MY 2154.  Boy that took a long time, and a lot of setups.  Didn't think it was gonna to happen.  A Skunkworks isn't that hard to get in my mod, but hey, I don't have one.

[bvanevery]

Details can we get down to business

can we get down to business

MY 2156.  Ok, I've got cash.  And my sea colony pods are all paid for.  It wouldn't hurt me to talk to Deirdre and try to buy a tech off her.  I think this is the Thinker distribution of supply pods, but once again, at least in the oceans I'm cleaning them up unopposed.  On land, maybe somebody's been through various places.

Details don't mind Teh Lzers

don't mind Teh Lzers

I want to see if she'll offer me foolish prices again, so I don't explicitly ask for a cash transaction.  She tells me to shove off on the equal trade, so...

Details she got brains

she got brains

Neural Grafting is a prereq for Adaptive Doctrine, so it is useful to me.  I just don't have the dough.  2 abilities comes rather early in my mod.  Makes sense when you think of the number of Clean Reactor units I might want to empower the stock AI with.

She signs off.

[bvanevery]

Details if you're not dumb, you're ugly

if you're not dumb, you're ugly

Might as well try other factions on things.  Already tried Santiago.  She's still into meaningless threats.  I'd pay Domai some cash for a Tier 1 tech, but he's Seething.  He doesn't do it, so I sign off.

Details are you two twins

are you two twins

Cut your same hair together?  Go to Bible Study together?  Seether.

Gosh that was so productive.  Maybe I'll do anti-social stealing.  Like a pirate!  But the ones I seriously dislike, I don't even know where they are yet.

Details the wild wild west

the wild wild west

Frontier Socialist.  "Howdy Pard'ner.  Check out this hammer and sickle!"  I guess the AI is combining with her faction's SUPPORT bonus for +2.

[bvanevery]

Details she raises

she raises

MY 2158.  I don't like this, but the truth is, I still need it.  At least I'm doing well with the pod popping and can afford it.

Details how you be the ball

how you be the ball

Forgot that I recently changed the narrative about how Hypnotic Trance works.  Used to be, I had the Aliens teach it to the humans.   It was given by Progenitor Psych and the Aliens started the game with it.  Then in my last release, I decided the mindworm is the ultimate weapon platform of the game, and needs to be seriously nerfed.  I put Trance here with Neural Grafting so that it's easy to add Trance to units.  It's also following the original game mechanic of costing 0 if your unit is primarily defensive.

It's not completely out of lore, as Neural Grafting gives the Neural Amplifier in the original game.  That's way too powerful to be handing out early.  Instead I have it way late and somewhere way up the Explore tech tree.

I am imagining that if you start sticking a fork into your brain, you figure out Hypnotic Trance.

Hmm, increases COMMERCE income.  That seems like a bit of a relic of some other revision of my mod.  Must make a note about that.

[bvanevery]

Details Well hi Aki!

Well hi Aki!

MY 2160.  Nice to see a friendly face.  Everybody else hates me... how 'bout you?

Details dangit

dangit

Quarrelsome are we.

Details o gmab

o gmab

As bad as Santiago.  Where is Santiago?  Where is Carmen Sandiego?

Details I need a truncheon

I need a truncheon

Gonna beat my citizens into shape.  Beat them.  Beat them!

Details ahora la universidad

ahora la universidad

I go that way.

Details talkie talkie!

talkie talkie!

He tried to extort me too.  The AI must really think I suck.  Probably some metric where Thinker spamming empires are rated really highly, and I'm not.  Well I've got an awful lot of foil probe teams coming.

[bvanevery]

Details fight or run

fight or run

When both of them hate you, who do you slug at?  Or do you just flee?  I don't have the moves to flee.  They can tag me if they really want to.  Well, at least the University can.  I can actually get away from the Cyborg ship, which does have a higher PROBE rating, and reduced mind control costs.  Not reduced compared to the stock binary, everything is 2x more expensive.  Reduced compared to that new threshold of cost.  The Cyborgs, Hive, and Data Angels are the probe enhanced factions of my mod.

Details flee!

flee!

I run like hell north, and hope that the University is more interested in its previous trajectory.  Or that they fight each other.

Details make it free

make it free

I have to design my own clean police unit.  C2 Neural Grafting and C2 Planetary Networks don't converge until C3 Advanced Subatomic Theory, which gives Plasma units.  Actually it looks like I didn't predefine such a unit even then, for reasons of cost.  Stock AI probably didn't make the unit when I did design it.

I can't start with an unarmored Scout unit to make this cheaper.  I tweaked my mod so that such "cost 10" cheap tricks are not available.  The only cost 10 Scout is a plain old Scout.  A Clean Scout costs 20, which is a special dispensation.  Otherwise, you pay full ticket and it won't be any less than it is with Synth armor.

Details viable

viable

Hmm.  I am making an awful lot of probe teams.  I usually think of Police State Socialist as more of an Alien play strategy.  Particularly if they don't want to learn Social Psych and just mess with the humans as long as possible.  But I'm also usually not striving for militancy with the Pirates.  I just assumed that Thinker would give me a rough neighborhood, and so far I'm not exactly proven wrong.

Details fine, do it

fine, do it

Here is irony.  Income actually goes up, because I was losing enough to corruption and waste.  I haven't really checked the price tag on Socialist very often.  Maybe it's a good early game deal, more often than I'd expect.

I tried to talk to other factions just to see if I could buy something.  Most wouldn't give me the time of day.  Domai likes my Socialist choice, but he's still Seething and wouldn't do anything with me.

It's almost 5 AM.  I'm calling it a night!

[bvanevery]

Details one down

one down

MY 2161.  Having skipped a day of playing, I lost mental continuity on what I was doing.  I successfully evaded the 2 probe teams, then completely forgot that was my objective and moved back into range of them.     I decided to destroy the University probe team based on their trajectories.  I'm hoping the Cyborg team veers west and doesn't come after me.

Details make them pay

make them pay

I don't know how much more this makes mind control cost.  I'm doing it for other reasons: lots of foil probe teams soon to complete, and I need to keep my population under control without Rec Commons.