Original 7 & SE settings remix

[Nexii]

Yea I meant the non SE bonuses also don't show (for example TECHCOST 75)

[Kilkakon]

Ah well yeah they are calculated separately. Not such an issue for my mod as I don't use many of those at all... only the 1 in 4 talents for my own faction because I'm huggy.

[JarlWolf]

For Free Market I suggest have more drones as to less police, because there is more discontent people in this form of society. And it makes sense for Fascism (Police+FM) because in a fascist society you'll have a repressed group of people, and often a targeted group who will try to revolt/strike against the state. For example, Jews, Communists, Gypsies and others who were in Nazi Germany. But the tight controls of the government and its policing will help counteract that.


Add in the drawbacks/advantages police state has, it makes overall sense for a fascist faction to combine this form of FM with Police state.

I suggest taking a look at my Iron Regime faction in my custom faction's thread, they are a fascist faction.

It'd be
Police has better methods and can counteract those drone problems, but there must be an actual police force to do the work or else the repressed people's/scapegoats will try to break free of their repression. Much like in real life. Add in the extra support for a large army+organized industry that fascism promotes, it also matches the ideal.

And then add in the industrial/economic boost with the penalty to efficiency and planet, it makes sense even there because you have a very invigorated industry/economy with the fact that you are culling individuals and businesses just because of their heritage/background, which is highly inefficient, and that the massive amount of industrial ambition and other things is stressing on resources and the environment.

[Nexii]

Yea.  I put FM to -1 TALENT for 1 more drone per city.  It doesn't sound like a lot but it really is.  How does -2 TALENT play out?  That seems extreme, your starting units wouldn't be able to leave a size one town.  As well you'd always need +3 POLICE or more just to pacify.  I guess it works, though.  If I were to give more drones for FM it would need stronger bonuses (like +2 ECON again). 

[Nexii]

Did a few more tweaks to Democratic, Free Market, and Green.  If anyone's bored and wants to try these SE settings I'd love to hear what you think.

I think Free Market might be a bit on the weak side, but it is really good paired with Police State to stabilize (for a Fascist gov't...PS/FM was rarely used before).  To run Demo/FM though I find you really need Psych facilities.  Fundamentalism is still a much better politics choice over PS for war. 

I'm a little concerned Planned and Knowledge are a bit weak.  Planned's +1 SUP is really good though paired with PS/Knowledge or with non-PS/Power, for pretty much all free Clean units (+3 SUP).

With Power actually being good for war, and Wealth being more extreme for fighting/building, Knowledge kind of falls in between as maybe not that useful (as it always did).  But +3 RES or +2 EFFIC might make it too good?  --PROBE isn't a big downside really.  It would have been better if PROBE actually affected probing costs and not just probe %s.

Police State,    DocLoy,  ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, --EFFIC,
Democratic,      EthCalc, ++GROWTH, ++TALENT, ++EFFIC, -----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

[LastConformist]

I tried playing a couple games with these SE choices. I've also given some thought, independently, to what I think are the right SE changes. I agree with you that -POLICE should be associated with Democracy, and there are other changes I think are also key. However, there are problems with some of your changes, and in particular you've nerfed Green beyond all possible usability (-2 Economy is really bad).

Here is what I would propose (with some comments afterward):

Police State,    DocLoy,  ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, --EFFIC,
Democratic,      EthCalc, ++GROWTH, ++EFFIC, ---POLICE
Fundamentalist,  Brain,   ++MORALE,  ++PROBE,   --RESEARCH
Simple,          None,
Free Market,     IndEcon, +ECONOMY, ---PLANET
Planned,         PlaNets, +GROWTH,  ++INDUSTRY, --EFFIC
Green,           CentEmp, ++PLANET,  ++EFFIC, --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, ++SUPPORT, ---MORALE,
Thought Control, WillPow, +++POLICE, +++MORALE,  +++PROBE, ---RESEARCH


As for Democracy, the Police penalty is appropriate. I'm actually not sure why Democracy gets a bonus to Growth (seems at odds with reality), but it is well-established, and I'm not sure of the appropriate alternative. While a boost to Talent sounds much more appropriate, I really think Talent bonuses and penalties ought to be avoided. (You might replace ++Growth with ++Talent.) Without the Talent bonus, the Police penalty is reduced to not be devastating; it only causes pacifism drones if used by the Gaians or Data Angels. (Edit: On the other hand, I realized that the way Police is now designed, there's no way to get -5 Police, and even -4 Police is only possible as the Gaians or Data Angels. Perhaps a Police penalty somewhere else [Wealth, instead of the existing penalties?] is appropriate.)

While the boost to Fundamentalist was kept, I removed the increased Research penalty. Fundamentalist is already a weak choice and could use the small boost. As an alternative to increasing the Research penalty, I think reducing the Probe bonus makes flavor sense.

On Free Market. There has been much debate here on the drone-causing aspects of Free Market. While I agree that that is the case, it fits extremely poorly with the flavor and effects of a negative Police rating (preventing the use of police--hardly unknown in actual free market economies; and reduced support for overseas warfare--sounds like Democracy, not Free Market). If there were an SE stat that just created drones, like the University penalty, it would be appropriate, but there isn't. On the other hand, an Industry but not an Economy bonus to Free Market makes no sense at all. Market economies are very good at creating wealth, but their effectiveness as engines of industry, without government intervention of some sort, is less clear. Plus, Morgan's whole schtick is making lots of money, and Free Market is his SE choice (though perhaps Wealth should be). +Economy is far more appropriate. Since I couldn't settle on an additional penalty beyond ---Planet, I reduced the bonus to +Economy. Now getting +1 energy per square requires running both Free Market and Wealth (or being Morgan), which is effectively a penalty in itself, since you can't get the advantages of Knowledge or Power while getting ++Economy (again, without being Morgan).

As to Planned, I removed the Support bonus and restored (and increased) its Industry bonus. An Industry bonus makes a lot more sense for Planned than a Growth bonus, for one. Additionally, Support reflects a society's ability to field an army, which seems to me related more towards a society's values and political choices than its economic ones. I kept the reduction in the Growth bonus to make pop-booming harder.

For Green, I increased the Industry penalty but removed the Economy penalty, which really ground to a halt anyone's economy who used it. It seems to me a bit political to be making Green such a weak choice compared to the others, and on the modified version it really only had military application for planet-warrior strategies. --Industry sufficiently reflects Green hesitancy towards development, I think.

For Wealth, your changes really made Wealth the old Free Market without the drone problems. Penalties to Support and Morale are much less significant--you can still wage war effectively with --Morale, and ---Support is made irrelevant by Clean Reactors (always something to remember when using Support penalties). Instead, I reduced the Economy bonus and the Support and Morale penalties to one each, which makes Wealth synergize nicely with Free Market but otherwise be a minor choice. I'm a little hesitant here as the new Wealth is probably weak, but I'm unsure what else to do with it.

For the Future Societies, I mostly cut the penalties. I also scaled back Eudaimonic a bit, and got rid of the Planet bonus (which really doesn't make any sense) in favor of a bonus to Support. I would have restored the Industry bonus, but that also makes sense with Cybernetic, and I didn't want two FS SE choices to have the same bonus.

[Nexii]

I'll try and keep the discussion about a theoretical faction with no pluses or minuses.  But it's good to keep in mind how up to -/+ 2 of each SE might impact the SE re-work.

I will say +ECON is about the hardest thing to re-balance, because +2 ECON is such a huge increase compared to any other SE.  Ideally I wish ECON was just a % modifier to all energy (or economy allocated energy) and commerce rather than a per square bonus. 


Democratic:
The problem with giving Democratic -3 POLICE is, yea then no P-drones for most factions.  I tried +2 GROWTH, +2 EFFIC, -5 POLICE but then it seemed a bit weak.  I agree ++TALENT is excessive.  I think +TALENT is required or Demo isn't really usable until the mid-game.  On Transcend, your second drone always riots and this was the reasoning to giving it +TALENT.  For the +2 ECON FM, you could allocate PSYCH but Democracy doesn't give the Energy to do that.  So I was finding it got outclassed by Police State / Fundamentalist.

Also note the biggest point of Demo (getting to +6 GROWTH easy) is gone with hitting Planned's +GROWTH.  With this setup a faction needs +1 GROWTH and both Demo/Planned available to do the non-GA or 'easy' pop-boom.  Granted this also has the effect of *having* to run Demo to pop-boom pre-CV/Eud.  I also considered putting Demo down to just +1 GROWTH and that might be possible.

I'm thinking something like:
++GROWTH, ++EFFIC, ---POLICE; OR
++GROWTH, ++EFFIC, +TALENT, -----POLICE


Fundamentalist:
++MORALE, ++PROBE, --RESEARCH is probably fine.  It's a pretty steep cut to your teching rate.  If your morale is at a base of 0, it's only +2 MORALE on defense.  Admittedly it does become a lot more powerful paired with Power and/or Thought Control - or even to counteract -MORALE.

Free Market:
Ideally I wanted each SE choice to be compelling on its own and not only paired with certain others.  The reason for this is because if you set an Aversion, the pairing then also becomes useless.  I think unfortunately giving it and Wealth both +1 ECON make it so they have to be paired or they're otherwise weak (unless you have +1 ECON as noted).  But pairing them would give ++ECON, ---PLANET, -SUPPORT, -MORALE which is probably a little low on the downsides (granted its 2 SEs).  For the same reason it was hard to have Green at -2 ECON because it negated Wealth.  Not that those ideologies usually go together but still.  Similar was the problem of +3 and above ECON not being much better than +2.

Note that --TALENT isn't -2 Talents; it's +2 Drones per base. With the Drone fixes Yitzi put in that really stings and is a strong downside.  Granted DRONES/TALENTS per X would be ideal but flat isn't *too* bad until that's patched in.  --TALENT of course means that it can't be used early on unless you have a good POLICE rating.  And that's really the issue with it.

---PLANET has to stay for Free Market.  I'm not sure that +ECONOMY is enough that I'd ever pick it on its own unless a +1 ECON faction like Morgan.  Losing to Mindworms is pretty bad, not only the unit but the free Energy.  Maybe +ECONOMY, +INDUSTRY, ---PLANET would be a little better.  I'm not sure what else it could get.


Planned:
+GROWTH,  ++INDUSTRY, --EFFIC I think is fine thematically.  It's pretty much swapping +1 GROWTH for +1 INDUSTRY from the base.

Green:
Another SE that is really hard to balance.  ++PLANET,  ++EFFIC, --INDUSTRY is probably fine.  It would help to take down Green a bit more late and boost it early.  Later in the game --ECON is insignificant but --INDUSTRY remains so.  --INDUSTRY is also hurtful early - I'd argue it's a bit worse than --GROWTH is now (which isn't really a logical penalty).  Yea while part of being Green is sustainable population increase, it's not like there's a lot of humans on Chiron like on Earth.

Wealth:
Ah what to do here?  It ties in with Free Market really.  I had the thought of keeping Wealth at the extreme +2 ECON but giving it harsher downsides.  Maybe it's more the pursuit of Wealth that creates discontent rather than Free Market?
Perhaps ++ECONOMY, --POLICE, --MORALE, --TALENT?  There's a lot that could fit in here, --SUPPORT would too.

Cybernetic:
I think its a lot stronger than the other 2 Future SEs.  Mostly because ---PROBE isnt really that detrimental.  But also because +IND/EFF/RES are three of the top late-game SEs.  Thematically it makes sense but I was thinking perhaps it should get -3 SUPPORT instead (there's no -SUPPORT SE, also pairing it with Knowledge is a bit too good).  The extra machines would require more mineral upkeep?  Not too sure if thats too much of a stretch.  Alternatively Knowledge could have a different penalty (-ECONOMY or -MORALE).  Probe to me is more about the conversion side than susceptibility to knowledge theft.  At least when you consider it's Fundamentalism/Thought Control that get the +PROBE.

Eudaimonic:
I had +Planet with Eudaimonic because of a lot of the later thematics with the Gaians.  They give the impressions that Planet is more favoring to a Utopian society than a more oppressive one, but +3 PLANET is maybe overkill.  I don't think Support really fits...it's a Utopian society.  Granted this would be another candidate for +TALENTS/X - but lategame Talents aren't that helpful.  Note that by removing the +2 PLANET on Cyber (which didn't really make sense, perhaps machines pollute less but thats a real stretch) there's no way to hit +3 for minimum Eco Damage.  I find that usually later in the game +GROWTH/+ECON/+SUPPORT aren't that great, which is when you get Eudaimonic.  Reason is a lot of tech is from specialists and ECON past +2 doesn't really compare.  Only in the case of being friendly with a lot of factions late does the commerce seem to keep up.  +2 ECON would be good to replace Wealth with a lesser penalty.  I'll have to think a bit more on Eud although honestly the late game SEs don't matter too much with the current state of the game.

Thought Control
Yea I actually ended up doing the same.  -5 RESEARCH was a bit too harsh.

[Kilkakon]

Just a small note on TALENT: if Yitzi has changed how it works, remember that only 40% of us are using his work, which would change its impact as a result.

[Nexii]

Does swapping Growth for Morale on Fundamentalism/Democratic make thematic sense?  In more modern societies Fundamentalist has high population growth from big families.  Democratic, I don't think Morale would be a real stretch either.  But its a bit strange to give Morale to a SE with -POLICE.  I suppose Democratic would then fight well but only defensively?

[LastConformist]

Does swapping Growth for Morale on Fundamentalism/Democratic make thematic sense?  In more modern societies Fundamentalist has high population growth from big families.  Democratic, I don't think Morale would be a real stretch either.  But its a bit strange to give Morale to a SE with -POLICE.  I suppose Democratic would then fight well but only defensively?

The flavor of Morale is better-trained soldiers. While that doesn't fit perfectly with Fundamentalist (much more with Power and Thought Control), it doesn't fit at all with Democratic. Growth wouldn't be a bad bonus for Fundamentalist, but Morale and Probe make more sense IMO, especially as Fundamentalist has to fill the early offensive warfare niche. (Power comes too late for that.)

For Democracy, I think -5 Police is just too devastating to balance without using Talent. If you're using Talent, that's fine, and you could do ++GROWTH, ++EFFICIENCY, ++TALENT, -----POLICE. I think I'd like to avoid Talent and try to balance the SE choices in different ways (because it doesn't show up, and also for the reasons Kilkanon stated), in which case anything more than ---POLICE is probably too much for Democracy. I think the other -2 could be worked into Wealth without trouble, though (over Support or Morale, and restoring its +INDUSTRY).

One thought on Free Market: What if the Efficiency penalty were switched from Planned to Free Market, and Planned were given an Economy penalty instead? That definitely makes thematic sense with Planned, better IMO than an efficiency penalty (Planned economies should be no worse off being large, but overall lower-achieving than Free Market or Green economies).  The efficiency penalty in Free Market then reflects the difficulty of redistributing resources in a market from wealthy bases at the center of your empire to poorer bases on the periphery and of controlling market failures. Flavorfully it's not perfect, but it could work.

Thus:

Simple,          None,
Free Market,     IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --EFFICIENCY, ---PLANET
Planned,         PlaNets, ++GROWTH,  ++INDUSTRY, --ECONOMY (added another Growth because --ECONOMY is really bad)
Green,           CentEmp, ++PLANET,  ++EFFIC, --INDUSTRY

[Dio]

Does swapping Growth for Morale on Fundamentalism/Democratic make thematic sense?  In more modern societies Fundamentalist has high population growth from big families.  Democratic, I don't think Morale would be a real stretch either.  But its a bit strange to give Morale to a SE with -POLICE.  I suppose Democratic would then fight well but only defensively?

The flavor of Morale is better-trained soldiers. While that doesn't fit perfectly with Fundamentalist (much more with Power and Thought Control), it doesn't fit at all with Democratic. Growth wouldn't be a bad bonus for Fundamentalist, but Morale and Probe make more sense IMO, especially as Fundamentalist has to fill the early offensive warfare niche. (Power comes too late for that.)

For Democracy, I think -5 Police is just too devastating to balance without using Talent. If you're using Talent, that's fine, and you could do ++GROWTH, ++EFFICIENCY, ++TALENT, -----POLICE. I think I'd like to avoid Talent and try to balance the SE choices in different ways (because it doesn't show up, and also for the reasons Kilkanon stated), in which case anything more than ---POLICE is probably too much for Democracy. I think the other -2 could be worked into Wealth without trouble, though (over Support or Morale, and restoring its +INDUSTRY).

One thought on Free Market: What if the Efficiency penalty were switched from Planned to Free Market, and Planned were given an Economy penalty instead? That definitely makes thematic sense with Planned, better IMO than an efficiency penalty (Planned economies should be no worse off being large, but overall lower-achieving than Free Market or Green economies).  The efficiency penalty in Free Market then reflects the difficulty of redistributing resources in a market from wealthy bases at the center of your empire to poorer bases on the periphery and of controlling market failures. Flavorfully it's not perfect, but it could work.

Thus:

Simple,          None,
Free Market,     IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --EFFICIENCY, ---PLANET
Planned,         PlaNets, ++GROWTH,  ++INDUSTRY, --ECONOMY (added another Growth because --ECONOMY is really bad)
Green,           CentEmp, ++PLANET,  ++EFFIC, --INDUSTRY

On the effect of talents, I hope you only mean how drones and talents work right. As far as I know, Yitzi has not done anything to change the effect of the Social talent catergory.

[Sigma]

Hitting Free Market with an efficiency penalty like that is sort of counterproductive though, since the main issue with negative efficiency is that it cuts into your income the larger your empire gets. +Economy and -Efficiency almost offset one another.

A better option if you don't want a Police penalty is negative Support. The philosophy behind Free Market's penalties is that it makes you incredibly productive at the expense of your ability to field an army. This version would make it serve the same purpose in a different way.

[JarlWolf]

Whenever I think fundamentalist and growth bonuses... I just imagine this.

Every Sperm is Sacred

[LastConformist]

Hitting Free Market with an efficiency penalty like that is sort of counterproductive though, since the main issue with negative efficiency is that it cuts into your income the larger your empire gets. +Economy and -Efficiency almost offset one another.

A better option if you don't want a Police penalty is negative Support. The philosophy behind Free Market's penalties is that it makes you incredibly productive at the expense of your ability to field an army. This version would make it serve the same purpose in a different way.

I agree, though that was (sort of) the point. A Police penalty offsets the Economy bonus in a roundabout way, too, since you're forced to run a higher percentage of your income to Psych to offset the Drones. Support would be a great penalty, except that it becomes all but irrelevant once Bio-Engineering is researched, which might make Free Market too strong later in the game. Though perhaps it wouldn't, since the Efficiency of Green often makes it better later on anyway. And Support penalties are even worse than Police early, since they affect defenders, Formers, Colony Pods, etc.

++ECONOMY, ----SUPPORT, ---PLANET might well work.

[Nexii]

Democracy at +2 GROWTH, +2 EFFIC, -3 POLICE would be pretty bad.  I couldn't see it really getting used over PS or Fund.  Anything with -POLICE pretty much requires +TALENT or +ECON to counterbalance.  Police State is pretty good after the Drone fixes.  Hitting +3 POLICE pretty much means the end of all drone problems.  Early on ++ TALENT is like 2 free police units, but keep in mind this benefit doesn't scale up.   Once NLM is available ++TALENT is only equivalent to POLICE 0 for pacifying.  And it's worse in the case of conquering or large empire size since Police units can crush superdrones.

To me using +/- TALENT isn't a big deal if it fits thematically.  There's a lot of Faction bonuses used that are invisible once you're in game.  You just have to keep them in mind.


I'm going to do a few games with the following (and base factions) to see how it plays out:

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

In the end not a lot got drastic changes.  Demo/FM were sort of swapped in penalties.  Planned I'd say that -2 ECON isn't quite the penalty you think it is.  Hive seems really popular in MP games and has this has a penalty.  However, I am going to try -2 ECON for planned because then it stays relevant all game (-1 energy a base isn't much late).  On the other hand Free Market gets better with Clean and Green gets better as EFFIC and PLANET both are really good later on.  Also Planned/Wealth is really good in this SE set, something to consider.

There are a lot of new FM combinations which might be a bit strong (PS and POWER both negate half the -SUPPORT).  -4 SUPPORT SE is a lot worse than being at -2 SUPPORT SE.