Original 7 & SE settings remix

[Nexii]

Looking for critical feedback on these modifications.  I reworked the original 7 factions to be a bit more in line with how I view them.  They all have 4 positive effects and 3 negative effects (well 2 and their aversion).  The goal was to also give incentives for the factions to choose their preferred SE setting (mostly through IMPUNITY/ROBUST).

Firstly I modified the SE settings to be a bit more in line with how I feel their effects should be:

Police State,    DocLoy,  ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, --EFFIC, 
Democratic,      EthCalc, ++EFFIC, +GROWTH, +ECONOMY, ----POLICE
Fundamentalist,  Brain,   ++MORALE,  ++PROBE,   ---RESEARCH

Simple,          None,
Free Market,     IndEcon, ++INDUSTRY, ---PLANET, ---MORALE
Planned,         PlaNets, ++GROWTH,  +SUPPORT,  --EFFIC
Green,           CentEmp, ++PLANET,  +++EFFIC,    --ECONOMY, -INDUSTRY
Survival,        None,
Power,           MilAlg,  ++MORALE,   ++SUPPORT, --INDUSTRY,
Knowledge,       Cyber,   ++RESEARCH, +EFFIC,    --PROBE,
Wealth,          IndAuto, ++ECONOMY,  ---RESEARCH
None,            None,
Cybernetic,      DigSent, +++++RESEARCH, +++++EFFIC, -----POLICE,
Eudaimonic,      Eudaim,  ++++++++++TALENT, ++++GROWTH, ++++INDUSTRY, -----MORALE,
Thought Control, WillPow, +++++POLICE, +++MORALE,  +++PROBE, -----SUPPORT


Police State had no changes.  It's still very useful for keeping drones under control and maintaining large armies.

Democracy got 1 less GROWTH - thus making population booming more difficult.  It now takes a Golden Age for all factions but the PKs to hit +6 GROWTH.  Democracy is now more of an anti-war choice with the -4 POLICE.  -SUPPORT didn't really make as much sense to me, as this impacts building formers/pods.  It also gives +1 ECON which gives the option of early Democracy with Rec Commons.

Fundamentalism got a boost with +2 MORALE now instead of just +1.  Offsetting this slightly is -3 RESEARCH instead of -2.

Free Market got a large change.  It's less impactful now with +2 INDUSTRY replacing +2 ECONOMY.  +2 INDUSTRY isn't quite as powerful, but with -3 MORALE instead of -5 POLICE, it has less of a downside. 

Planned got +1 SUPPORT instead of +1 INDUSTRY.  This makes it better early in the game and less powerful late in the game.

Green got large changes as well.  +3 EFFIC up from +2, and -2 ECONOMY/-1 INDUSTRY instead of -2 GROWTH.  I feel in theme Green wouldn't really discourage population growth - but it would slow down industry and energy production.

Power - No changes.  It still has its place and is better now with Fund+Power combination, you can get +3 MORALE from SE.  With a Command Center and Monolith you can make Elites without having to be Spartan.

Knowledge - No changes.

Wealth - Now functions more like Free Market with +2 ECONOMY.  This might be too powerful with only -3 RESEARCH on the downside.  The intent was for it to be something you'd go for more for rush building or Population Booming.

The future techs are all much more impactful.  Honestly the game is usually over by this point, so it probably doesn't matter.  Cyber is now extreme for research, Eudaimonia for extreme industry/pop growth, and Thought Control for extreme warring.


FACTIONS:

BELIEVERS:
Bonuses:
^+25% bonus to attack: {Strength of convictions}
^+1 SUPPORT: {Citizens eager to defend faith}
^-50% probe action costs: {Proselytism}
^{IMPUNITY to Fundamentalist politics}
^
Penalties:
^-2 RESEARCH: {Suspicious of secular science}
^-1 POLICE: {Mixed techological views cause dissent}
^{May not use Knowledge value in Social Engineering}


GAIANS:
Bonuses:
^+25% to PSI combat: {Attunement with Planet}
^+2 PLANET: {Environmental safeguards; can capture mindworms}
^+1 EFFICIENCY: {Experience with life systems & recycling}
^ROBUST ECONOMY: {Green economic tendency}
^
Penalties:
^-1 MORALE: {Pacifist tendencies}
^-1 POLICE: {Freedom loving}
^{May not use Free Market economics}

HIVE:
^+25% bonus to defense: {Stoic-mindedness}
^+1 POLICE: {Brutal serfdom}
^+1 SUPPORT: {Aggressive military focus}
^{IMPUNITY to negative Police State effects.}
^
Penalties:
^Need HAB COMPLEX for bases to exceed size 4: {Underground bunkers}
^Extra DRONE per 4 population: {Oppressive authoritarian society}
^{May not use Democratic politics.}

MORGAN:
Bonuses:
^+1 ECONOMY:  {Understanding of economic behavior}
^+1 INDUSTRY:  {Industrial conglomerate}
^COMMERCE: {bonus increases value of treaties, pacts, loans}
^{Begins with 100 extra energy credits}
^
Penalties:
^-1 GROWTH: {Followers value luxuries over family}
^-1 MORALE:  {Prefer trading over war}
^{May not use Planned Economics}

PEACEKEEPERS:
^+1 GROWTH: {Attracts intellectual elite and refugees}
^May exceed HAB COMPLEX population requirements by 2.
^Receives DOUBLE votes in elections for Planetary Governor and Supreme Leader.
^Revolting bases tend to join PKs: {"Humanitarian" intervention}
^
Penalties:
^-1 EFFICIENCY:  {U.N. style bureaucracy}
^-1 PROBE: {Belief in free flow of information}
^{May not use Police State Politics.}

SPARTANS:
^Two MORALE upgrades for all units:  {Well-armed survivalist movement}
^+1 POLICE:  {Highly disciplined followers}
^Prototype units do not cost extra minerals.
^{IMPUNITY to negative effects of Power value.}
^
Penalties:
^-1 INDUSTRY:  {Extravagant weapons are costly}
^-1 ECONOMY:  {Focused on military over economy}
^{May not use Wealth value in Social Engineering.}

UNIVERSITY:
Bonuses:
^+2 RESEARCH:  {Brilliant research}
^{-25% additional reduced discovery costs}
^ROBUST PROBE: {Halves negative PROBE effects}
^One BONUS TECH at beginning of game
^
Penalties:
^-1 SUPPORT: {Advanced laboratories require mineral upkeep}
^Rush costs increased 25%: {Academics favored over construction}
^{May not use Fundamentalist Politics.}

[ete]

Interesting.. Notes on SE settings:
Thought Control with that large negative support is terrible for war (unless clean reactors), even with large boosts.
Power could probably do with a buff
FM is likely underpowered with the eng boost gone and two major penalties.
Wealth is likely overpowered, especially mid-later?

[Nexii]

Power might be a bit weak, even with the buff to Fundamentalism.  I'm going to try some games with just -1 IND as the downside and see how it plays out.

Thought Control, Eudaimonic, and Cybernetic...ah what to say.  I don't feel that the descriptions in game (and in Datalinks/literature) matched their SE bonuses at all.  If anything I think Thought Control deserves negatives to Research and/or Growth.  Cybernetic should have negative Support and/or Probe.  Eudaiomonic, well it was closer to the Utopian ideal in its bonuses.

Wealth is actually super powerful early and becomes less so later on.  +1 EN/sq is 2x or more energy early so even with -30% labs you're up by 40% on research.  Economy is a really hard SE to balance.  I wish it just gave commerce and energy credit modifiers and didn't also play into labs (that's what Research SE is for).

The modified Free Market...I'm not so sure yet.  +2 IND is actually a really good bonus and you can get it early.  I think I'll tweak the Morale to give -2 instead of -3 and see how it plays.

[JarlWolf]

Surprised you removed the Police penalty with FM, given Free Market often has a lot of disparity between rich and poor+lots of crime and corruption, more so then other society models...

I think with Cybernetic the drawbacks should be negatives in police and probably probe: It's a very vulnerable network that's very hard to monitor as everything is digitized essentially. Thought Control should have halved research+some sort of energy cost given the impediments on free thinking and other things...

[Dio]

Perhaps you should consider giving Free Market - x Talent as a way to balance it instead of -5 police.

[Kilkakon]

I personally don't like the TALENT stat as it doesn't appear on the SE screen. But it is an option sure.

[JarlWolf]

I think if anything should get the talent drawback, it should be Thought Control and Fundamentalism. Free Market is chaotic, but a penalty to talents, I think not.

Maybe change out the -2 Morale with -2 Police? Soldiers in a Free Market probably wouldn't be bad, because in reality a very tense competitive environment like that is going to breed professional soldiers, as the demand for well trained and equipped troops for... dealing with business rivals or even the faction itself hiring mercenaries/soldiers is going to be important.

[Nexii]

I see POLICE as more of a willingness(or unwillingness) to use extreme methods to suppress the population, than drone tendencies.  I don't know that I'd say Free market has high crime/corruption. (which is more like -EFFIC than -POLICE).  In today's world countries that have more free markets tend to have less social unrest if anything.  Pollution (-PLANET) is an obvious downside.  I could try FM at just +2 IND / -3 PLANET? 

To me Democracy is more tied to -POLICE than Free Market.  It's democratic societies that have more limits on how they can treat civilian dissent. +1 TALENT for Democracy might be better than +1 ECON, to offset the no police sentinel.

Cybernetic, I'm not sure if the -POLICE really makes sense either - at least from the poverty angle noted in the game.  -PROBE is logical (more production tied to machines, so more vulnerabilities).  If anything I think Cyber's bonuses are really off too.  Having machines run things would more likely increase research, industry and efficiency.  Perhaps something like +2 IND / +2 EFFIC / +2 RESEARCH / -2 PROBE.

Eudaimonia should probably be a more extreme version of Wealth - a massive bonus to ECON/GROWTH and being the best in peace time.  Downsides would seem to be MORALE or POLICE (pacifism).

-RESEARCH makes sense for Thought Control, certainly more than -SUPPORT.  When I think TC I think Orwellian society...they were stagnant in technology but also advocated less procreation. With purges as well I could see -GROWTH as a believable downside.  Wealth has to be reworked.  Otherwise you can sort of stack all the -RESEARCH (Fund/Wealth/TC) as it caps out at -5.
How about something like +3 MORALE, +3 PROBE, +3 POLICE, -5 RESEARCH for TC?

I'm thinking Wealth might go to +2 ECON / -5 MORALE.  Let's face it the rich are never the ones to fight in war.  But I'm not entirely convinced this is enough of a downside...+2 ECON is very good.
-SUPPORT is another idea for it.

As an aside does anyone know how to remove Believer's mod for no research until 2110?

[JarlWolf]

It's tied to their research drawbacks I think.

Police in game is treated both as the reluctance to discipline a population and the actual unrest is creates.

And as for unrest in a Free Market economy, most Western nations actually have some forms of Socialism and government controls on things, if you want examples of a Free Market society you look at the United States, many liberalized third world nations and my country now. The Laissez Faire capitalism era in my nation under Yeltsin was horribly unregulated, numbers of people died due to crime and poverty and criminal activity rose to an all time high. It's why the Oligarchs have so much power in my country now, because of that lack of authority to combat them and that lack of regulation. Plus look at the United States: Many parts of it have corporate corruption, and the United States has a very high crime rate compared to more Socialist nations. Compare Sweden to the USA for example.

I don't know if you seen the crap end of the stick in a Free Market society, even if you live in one, but lots of people do and they are very unhappy about it. And it's not just lowlifes like me who see it, working class families that have both spouses work numerous jobs just to make ends meet, needless to say there is lots of discontentment and inequalities within the spread of wealth that creates a lot of problems.

[Nexii]

No, it doesn't seem to be tied to that.  I can give believers + to research and they still get no research for 10 turns.

But yea, unfortunately there's no real 'socialist' option for economics.  Socialist might correspond to something like Democracy/Planned rather than PoliceState/Planned (communist) and PoliceState/FreeMarket (fascist).  This is something to think on too for more appropriate planned and democracy benefits.

Actual unrest only for military actions / atrocities.  I think created unrest is more the +DRONE modifier.  To weaken early FM it could have +1 DRONE per base.  I have to admit +2 IND / -3 PLANET would be pretty tempting to go almost every time otherwise.

[JarlWolf]

Communist would actually be Democratic/Survival+Planned+Eudaimonic actually. Communism is decentralized, egalitarian society in reality. You are thinking Autocratic Socialism, which is more akin to what the self proclaimed "Communist" states of the world were. (Note Communism and Socialism are related ideals.)

Socialism is more of just a Planned economy. Whatever slant of it, whether you go Autocratic, Democratic or Communist depends on the other choices.

For FM, put more drones associated+planet penalty, and give it an economy or industry bonus. Capitalist/Free market societies are very unstable and horrible for disparity, but they do advance wealth and technology at a fairly good rate.

While as a more Socialist policy creates more stable growth with more security for citizens, but things can lag behind.

[Dio]

No, it doesn't seem to be tied to that.  I can give believers + to research and they still get no research for 10 turns.

Any faction that has -2 or lower research in the faction file before other modifiers do not accrue research points until 2110. Also, any faction that has Doctrine: Mobility as a free tech starts with a unity rover instead of a scout patrol.

[Nexii]

Yea that's what I meant to clarify - PS/Planned as '20th century communism'.  I know this isn't 'true' communism as Marx envisioned it more like Eudaimonia.

So if Planned provides more stability (I'd argue security/police depends more on PS vs Demo/Fund), then the +GROWTH is ok, and +SUPPORT is ok too.  I thought of toning down a bit to just be +1 GROWTH, +1 SUP, -1 EFFIC but this feels not so impactful for an SE.

But I wouldn't say PS/FM has had large scale social unrest.  I think this sort of fascist ideal is at least neutral.  FM at -5 POLICE say and PS at +2, resulting in -3 POLICE just didn't quite seem right.

Democracy I was going to rework some too.  The intent is to make pop booming harder.  +2GROWTH, +2TALENT, -4 POLICE was a thought

This is what I have now anyways, I'll keep tweaking based on feedback.  Keep in mind I'm trying to balance across the reworked Factions as well

Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier,        None,
Police State,    DocLoy,  ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, --EFFIC,
Democratic,      EthCalc, ++GROWTH, ++TALENT, ----POLICE
Fundamentalist,  Brain,   ++MORALE,  ++PROBE,   ---RESEARCH
Simple,          None,
Free Market,     IndEcon, ++INDUSTRY, ---PLANET, -TALENT
Planned,         PlaNets, +GROWTH,  +SUPPORT,  -EFFIC
Green,           CentEmp, ++PLANET,  ++EFFIC,    -ECONOMY, -INDUSTRY
Survival,        None,
Power,           MilAlg,  ++MORALE,   ++SUPPORT, -INDUSTRY,
Knowledge,       Cyber,   ++RESEARCH, +EFFIC,    --PROBE,
Wealth,          IndAuto, ++ECONOMY,  --SUPPORT, --MORALE
None,            None,
Cybernetic,      DigSent, ++INDUSTRY, ++EFFIC, ++RESEARCH, --PROBE
Eudaimonic,      Eudaim,  ++++GROWTH, ++++ECONOMY, +PLANET, ----MORALE,
Thought Control, WillPow, +++POLICE, +++MORALE,  +++PROBE, -----RESEARCH


Also I did confirm that you're right on the -2 RES and first 10 turns.

[Nexii]

I personally don't like the TALENT stat as it doesn't appear on the SE screen. But it is an option sure.

Yea, and neither do the faction specific bonuses.  It would be nice if more was visible for sure.  I do worry a bit on whether the AI takes it into account though.

[Kilkakon]

The faction bonuses do, they appear on the bottom right side of the main panel, below the ECONOMY, INDUSTRY, etc., list. They are also taken into account on the bottom right. If there's more than 5 icons they don't all show though.