Changes to the Social Engineering models

[Nexii]

Sure, if you're going with Autarky +GROWTH what I'd do is make Prosperity back into Wealth. Give it +2 ECON like Free Market but with different downsides than FM. I kind of like the idea of having two options to get to +2 ECON (and honestly +4 ECON could be worth all the downsides). Maybe -3 POLICE, -2 MORALE or something like that. +1 ECON is rarely that good. Yea you can do it on +1 ECON factions, or try to keep Golden Ages going... but still. The latter is too much micromanagement for me. With +2 ECON you should be able to put enough into PSYCH to control drones.

Power at -1 EFFIC, hmm. Well, it might be ok now that Police State gives +1 EFFIC. I really don't want any factions going under 0 EFFIC. After comparing it to Civ2. I remember even Despotism how bad that was. But a Power-PS pretty much is Despotism. I get the spreading out, but I'm going to limit each SE to 4 total +/-. Past that and it doesn't display well... yea I know TALENT doesn't :/. Which is why I might remove all TALENT with some more tuning. Democratic might be the only one that truely needs it. There's no other way to offset an early -2 POLICE, than big economy like stock FM. So Green could get 1 EFFIC I guess rather than TALENT. Prosperity is fine without it.

So:
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier,        None,    None
Police State,    DocLoy,  ++POLICE, ++PROBE, +EFFIC, -GROWTH
Democratic,      InfNet,  ++++EFFIC, +TALENT, --POLICE
Fundamentalist,  Psych,   ++GROWTH, ++EFFIC, --RESEARCH
Simple,          None,    None
Free Market,     IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --SUPPORT, ---PLANET
Planned,         PlaNets, ++SUPPORT, +INDUSTRY, --ECONOMY
Green,           CentEmp, ++PLANET, +RESEARCH, +EFFIC
Survival,        None,
Power,           AdapDoc, ++SUPPORT, +MORALE, +POLICE, -EFFIC
Knowledge,       Integ,   ++RESEARCH, +PLANET, +PROBE, -POLICE
Prosperity,      AdapEco, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY, --MORALE
None,            None,
AI Controlled,   DigSent, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, ---PROBE
Utopian,         Eudaim,  ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, ++GROWTH, ---POLICE
Orwellian,       WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH

Another thing I modded as a sort-of morale fix was free armor. It never makes a unit more expensive to put better armor on it. All the cost increases come with higher weapons and faster chassis. So morale can help a lot more on defense. And with native life running around at +3 planet, it would scare me a bit to combo FM+Prosperity.

May try this out a bit. I feel like a sort of fascist build might be very strong (PS+FM+Power). The bad efficiency offset by free drone control. I'm probably overestimating it though -1 GROWTH is pretty bad.

[vonbach]

Sure, if you're going with Autarky +GROWTH what I'd do is make Prosperity back into Wealth. Give it +2 ECON like Free Market but with different downsides than FM. I kind of like the idea of having two options to get to +2 ECON (and honestly +4 ECON could be worth all the downsides). Maybe -3 POLICE, -2 MORALE or something like tha

I might. I'll change it up and see how it goes. Oh by the way I changed the mindworms like you modded them in your thread. I like the change.

[Nexii]

Cool. I feel like Green probably should have some downside. But giving it anything makes it not so great.

Was kind of toying with a radical idea where Green is +2 ECON like FM but has different but equal downsides. Perhaps something like
Green,           CentEmp, ++ECONOMY, ++PLANET, +EFFIC, ---INDUSTRY

Now due to Agenda logic oddities, Gaia and Cult wouldn't pick Green when it was their Agenda. But they curiously did pick it most of the time with no priority set. And seems to like it a lot more in peace time. Especially when I set PLANET as a SE priority (though I'm unsure if this does anything for certain). -3 INDUSTRY might be a bit much but it does show the AI doesn't completely hate the negative INDUSTRY like I thought before. +2 ECON must have a very high value.

I'm trying it out in a Gaia game now. One downside is that you don't get the +1 energy on fungus. It's more an issue for Cult as I designed them than Gaia. So far I seem to be keeping about even with other factions, rushed to Fundamentalist-Green Economy. I have the most pop but only #3 on power due to lacking in military and tech due to Fundy. I might go Democratic but Gaia already has great EFFIC. One good thing about crazy high EFFIC is the lack of B-drones.

[vonbach]

I usually give green economy penalties and call it autarky. Basically its good for everything but making money.
Planned usually gets something else. I like to make it compliment police state sometimes. I'm starting to like the
idea of a talent penalty for planned. I'm going to restart soon and see how it goes.

[Nexii]

Providing an alternative set where Green is more about growth. I think Green giving growth makes sense, better nutrition would be a benefit. To avoid overstacking GROWTH I made Prosperity into an alternative Free Market. Decadence and avarice are downsides represented by morale and probe negatives. Interestingly I saw Yang eat both penalties once just to hit +2 ECONOMY. It's quite rough to do so though.

Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier,        None,    None
Police State,    DocLoy,  ++POLICE, ++PROBE, +EFFIC, -GROWTH
Democratic,      InfNet,  ++++EFFIC, +TALENT, --POLICE
Fundamentalist,  Psych,   ++GROWTH, ++EFFIC, --RESEARCH
Simple,          None,    None
Free Market,     IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --SUPPORT, ---PLANET
Planned,         PlaNets, +SUPPORT, ++INDUSTRY, --ECONOMY
Green,           CentEmp, ++GROWTH, ++PLANET, +EFFIC, -INDUSTRY
Survival,        None,
Power,           AdapDoc, ++SUPPORT, +MORALE, +POLICE, -EFFIC
Knowledge,       Integ,   ++RESEARCH, +PLANET, +PROBE, -POLICE
Prosperity,      AdapEco, ++ECONOMY, ---MORALE, --PROBE
None,            None,
AI Controlled,   DigSent, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, ---PROBE
Utopian,         Eudaim,  ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, ++GROWTH, ---POLICE
Orwellian,       WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH

[Nexii]

Anyways I went back to the set I was using, it felt much more balanced. I gave Democracy +1 RESEARCH, it was just a little lacking. Hate to keep buffing but honestly going from 2 to 4 EFFIC wasn't a big deal for going from Fundy to Democracy. EFFIC has pretty strong diminishing returns although the benefits to B-drones are linear. And 2 GROWTH was usually just better than -2 RESEARCH. Now it's a bit closer. PS I feel can be very strong as well if played right.

Green went back to traditional benefits, since that was a total of +5 RESEARCH. I'll probably never really figure out how the AI picks things. Oddly Green factions seem to be liking this version of Green that they didn't before. Negative industry ended up being omitted. I think the only way I could get it in would be to give +2 ECON to green and that made it too similar to Free Market. Especially where Industry and Support are similar-ish penalties.

Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier,        None,    None
Police State,    DocLoy,  ++POLICE, ++PROBE, +EFFIC, -GROWTH
Democratic,      InfNet,  ++++EFFIC, +RESEARCH, --POLICE
Fundamentalist,  Psych,   ++GROWTH, ++EFFIC, --RESEARCH
Simple,          None,    None
Free Market,     IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --SUPPORT, ---PLANET
Planned,         PlaNets, ++SUPPORT, +INDUSTRY, --ECONOMY
Green,           CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC
Survival,        None,
Power,           AdapDoc, ++SUPPORT, +MORALE, +POLICE, -EFFIC
Knowledge,       Integ,   ++RESEARCH, +PLANET, +PROBE, -POLICE
Prosperity,      AdapEco, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY, --MORALE
None,            None,
AI Controlled,   DigSent, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, ---PROBE
Utopian,         Eudaim,  ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, ++GROWTH, ---POLICE
Orwellian,       WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH

[vonbach]

Will the AI accept a talent or economy penalty for green?
Democracy is now overpowered. Mostly though both look good.

[Nexii]

It seems the AI will still pick Green if it's -2 ECONOMY or -2 TALENT. But this is only factions that have Green compulsion. Others don't care for it most of the time even if there's no penalty.

The one the AI hates the most is negative MORALE. The AI will rarely pick Prosperity due to this. I don't want to buff it any more though, it's already super good. I gave my Pirates Prosperity immunity and compulsion, they pick it =)

Edit: I need to find a way to show the graph I made for EFFIC's diminishing returns. Unless you have bases really far from your capital it's not much of an increase. Though I think I'll make Democracy -3 POLICE to compensate. Democracy should be mostly peaceful. It's funny to look back at Civ2, Democracy was basically -5 POLICE. Republic was -4 POLICE. But both did give +2 ECON effectively. So basically those became Free Market. A Democracy running Power could get back to -2 POLICE and not have P-Drones.

[vonbach]

It seems the AI will still pick Green if it's -2 ECONOMY or -2 TALENT. But this is only factions that have Green compulsion. Others don't care for it most of the time even if there's no penalty.

Maybe you might want to try a different tack with the economic systems. Make all of them decent at making money but Free Market the clear king for real penalties.
Something like this. Free Market ++economy +effic --planet --police or support. Planned ++support +economy - talent or morale. Green ++Planet +economy ++effic  -talent or industry.

Edit: I need to find a way to show the graph I made for EFFIC's diminishing returns. Unless you have bases really far from your capital it's not much of an increase. Though I think I'll make Democracy -3 POLICE to compensate. Democracy should be mostly peaceful. It's funny to look back at Civ2, Democracy was basically -5 POLICE. Republic was -4 POLICE. But both did give +2 ECON effectively. So basically those became Free Market. A Democracy running Power could get back to -2 POLICE and not have P-Drones.

Its more the talent that would push it into overpowered mode. I've always hated Democracy it was always overpowered in the original game.

[Nexii]

Yea I suppose maybe Democracy should just be +4 EFFIC, +1 RESEARCH, -2 POLICE. Second citizen in a town doesn't get quelled other than facilities. I kind of want to avoid TALENT because it doesn't show up in the UI. And the goal was to differentiate it a bit more from the others. For small empires Democracy isn't any better research rate than Police State. I guess it had +1 GROWTH but the police units are better. EFFIC only matters once you get bases beyond distance 10 or so.

If all economics are +1 ECON then it's kind of the same as making the base square 2 energy instead of 1. I think they'd have to give different amounts of ECON to be more interesting. Like 3/2/1 or or 3/2/0 or 3/1/0 or 2/1/0. Kind of leery about that too cause +1 ECON SEs have to have mild downsides for the AI. While the human player can Golden Age to get the all-important +2 ECON.

[vonbach]

Yea I suppose maybe Democracy should just be +4 EFFIC, +1 RESEARCH, -2 POLICE. Second citizen in a town doesn't get quelled other than facilities. I kind of want to avoid TALENT because it doesn't show up in the UI. And the goal was to differentiate it a bit more from the others. For small empires Democracy isn't any better research rate than Police State. I guess it had +1 GROWTH but the police units are better. EFFIC only matters once you get bases beyond distance 10 or so.

The ++++effic democracy isn't that bad it really depends on what the add ons are and what the penalties are. Maybe just make it -police or support.

If all economics are +1 ECON then it's kind of the same as making the base square 2 energy instead of 1. I think they'd have to give different amounts of ECON to be more interesting. Like 3/2/1 or or 3/2/0 or 3/1/0 or 2/1/0. Kind of leery about that too cause +1 ECON SEs have to have mild downsides for the AI. While the human player can Golden Age to get the all-important +2 ECON.

Well the idea is to make a baseline to work off of. Make all of them "ok" at making money and then adding more.
Like Free market much better at money and maybe growth but at serious costs. Planned realistically should have growth or morale bonuses or talent.
While industry penalties fit green.

Kind of leery about that too cause +1 ECON SEs have to have mild downsides for the AI.

What downsides would those be?

[Nexii]

Generally I like the Politics tier a lot. But I agree, the -2 ECON planned is a bit punishing on most AI factions. I've built a few that get around it, Hive with free recycle tanks, Cult with good energy in fungus. But for the others it's too much mineral benefit at the cost of too much energy. Increasing the base square I don't really want to do, it leads to ICS even on something like energy.

It will probably be FM with +2 ECON, Green at +1, Planned at 0. Because ECON doesn't do a whole lot past +4. Takes a lot of test games... I have some ideas

[vonbach]

I like removing nearly all of the penalties social engineering sometimes. Mostly to help the AI.
Out of all of them I think I like the "alternate" one with the green with growth the best.

[Nexii]

Simple,          None,    None
Free Market,     IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, -SUPPORT, ---PLANET
Planned,         PlaNets, +SUPPORT, +ECONOMY, -PLANET
Green,           CentEmp, ++GROWTH, ++PLANET, --INDUSTRY

Perhaps this

With Prosperity modified, since its an abundance of +GROWTH. This version might be better called "Infrastructure"

Prosperity,      AdapEco, ++INDUSTRY, -SUPPORT, -MORALE

[vonbach]

Its not bad. Not a fan of prosperity honestly though.
Just the concept in itself. Wealth seems to fit better.