18-08-2004 08:48									#1
	Rebalancing the SE choices Get a bigger avatar today!

Inspired by the work done on Aldebaran, I had a bit of a potter around the unmodded version of SMAX. My aim was to try and rebalance the SE values to offer more choices and difficulties when social engineering, as there were certain choices which seemed rather underpowered. I also wanted to modify the future society values and move them further down the tech tree as I always found the game was effectively over by the time I reached them. Here is what I came up with; please comment, as I'm trying to come up with a more balanced version of the game, and other viewpoints will help with this . . .

SE Politics
Police State - No change
Democratic - No change
Fundamentalist - +2 Probe, +2 Morale, -2 Research

The only change I made here was increasing Fundy Morale by +1 to make it a valid choice in the face of a potentially crippling -2 research penalty. Now it becomes a very attractive choice for all out war. Police state and Democratic I've found to be already well balanced so I left them alone.

SE Economics
All unchanged. The often overwhelming advantage of free market is negated by an alternative method of gaining +2 economy as will be explained below. Once FM ceases to be such a neccesity then economics becomes much more interesting.

SE Values
Power - No change
Knowledge - No change
Wealth - +1 Economy, +2 Industry, -2 Morale

I always had problems with the SE values choices, nearly always going for knowledge (research being imo the most important aspect of the game), and switching to power during wartime. Wealth seemed essentially useless unless playing Morgan and trying to avoid free market. To that end I increased Wealths industry bonus to +2, giving it a well-needed shot in the arm, and also making a planned/wealth strategy suddenly very attractive. I toyed with the idea of removing the +1 efficiency bonus for knowledge, but left it as it is for now.

SE Future Society
Cybernetic - +2 Efficiency, +2 Research, -3 Police
Eudaimonic - +2 Growth, +1 Economy, +1 Industry, -3 Morale
Thought Control - +2 Police, +1 Morale, +1 Probe, -3 Support

Cybernetic preq - Optical Computers
Eudaimonic preq - Environmental economics
Thought control preq - Neural Grafting

My thinking here was to have these choices arive when they could still have an impact on the game (and to finally give a reward for researching optical computers!). Obviously this meant making them all less powerful.

Cybernetic loses its +2 planet bonus, and remains an excellent, almost overpowering choice if drones aren't an issue. I have been playtesting on a high difficulty level though, where the police hit is a BIG problem, without the +2 economy reward offered by FM.

Eudaimonic is changed quite a bit. Obviously +2 economy would be gamebreaking, so that has now become +1. This, combined with wealth is a new way of getting +2 economy for non-Morganites, with the counterbalance being the havoc wreaked on your morale. To further balance this choice, industry is lowered while the morale penalty is increased, although +2 growth remains, offering an alternate route for pop-boomers.

Thought control is toned down rather than radically altered - morale and probe bonuses are decreased, meaning thought control is no longer on its own enough to overpower the enemy, although it remains a powerful offensive choice.

There you have it. The changes are in many cases subtle, but my goal was not to rewrite what the player does in social engineering, only to make all choices of roughly equal worth, and to bring modified versions of the future society choices into the main game to add some variety. Any comments, or ammendments?

	18-08-2004 16:53									#2
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Wealth + Golden Age = +2 ECON +2 INDUSTRY

That seems a little crazy.

	18-08-2004 17:10									#3
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I consider Wealth as it is to be superior to Knowledge for much of the game. Making it +2 Industry is insane.

As far as morale penalties, negative morale barely means a thing. Your units can't get worse than Very Green, but when they defend in bases with creches, they get several (+)s. If you get a unit to Elite, it still gets these bonuses, and can defend as an Elite (++++) for +100% from morale! If it attacks from the creche base, it gets the same boost.

So, with your scheme, for most factions I would spend as much time as possible in Wealth/Eudaimonic. Since I need Environmental Economics anyway, I wouldn't even need any more techs. I would use Free Market some of the time for the econ boost, and Planned some of the time for the industry boost. Demo would remain supreme in peacetime.

	19-08-2004 05:47									#4
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About the changes to Wealth - I guess it depends on your style/proficiency of gameplay. As someone who rarely utilises golden ages, I hardly ever find myself in a position where I can use wealth on its own to reach +2 economy, and this is probably why I always found it an underpowered choice.

re morale penalties. I always play with lots of native life, and have altered the planet ratings to give +/- 20% rather than 10% per level. This means morale plays a key role in surviving alien attacks, and having poor morale has caused me lots of problems. True, this can be countered with creches, command centres, elite units, etc. but it takes a while to build up your units to a level where negative morale becomes irrelevent.
Having played several hotseat games (with the modified SE settings) and trying out the wealth/eudaimonic choice, I have found human players to be much less forgiving than the computer against me while I'm trying to compensate for bad morale.

Having said that, my modifying of Wealth does probably reflect my own style of playing. I am interested to know whether people find the remodelled future society choices to be balanced, and whether anyone else has experimented with getting them into the game earlier.

	19-08-2004 06:11									#5
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The major benefit from Wealth is not the +economy, but the +industry. The +economy is nice, to be sure, as it likely provides 1 to 2 extra energy per base, with possibly boosted commerce. However, with lower industry, *everything* you can build can be built faster. If you want an army, you get at least 10/9 as many troops. If you want formers, 10/9 as many. And so on. I'll accept 7/8 the morale under some circumstances for 10/9 the numbers any day, especially if offense is dominating defense, as happens for much of the game.

No matter what the planet ratings do for psi combat, against native life, defense is viable. Against human opponents, scouts trump mind worm armies, mineral for mineral. Mind worms as pieces of an army can still be quite dangerous.

In one TCP/IP multiplayer game, I shared a border with another player, and both our HQs were near that border. We had a pact for a while, but eventually he betrayed me. We were both playing Pirates, but he was running Power and I was running Wealth. In the initial attack he overran my defenses and took about 3 good cities. However, I was able to build new units faster than he could replace his losses, and I researched Air Power during the war. Thanks to my boosted industry, I could pump out planes with nerve gas to take him out. Morale made little difference in this war.

In fact, Wealth is the only SE choice I will run no matter what in the early game. Free Market is a poor choice when at war, or besieged by mind worms. Democracy is poor when support is important and efficiency is trivial. Planned hurts efficiency and pre-empts Free Market. The other choices are only good situationally. But Wealth is good all the time, until efficiency becomes so important that Knowledge is better, which is at some point well past satellites for me.

The tech for Wealth also comes sooner than the tech for Knowledge, and IA is useful for far more than just Wealth.

	19-08-2004 06:49									#6
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I always found knowledge to be a valid choice earlier on than wealth, as earlier on the difference of +1 to economy is negligable, whereas +2 research is hugely powerful at any stage of the game. While +1 industry is of course useful, 10% never seemed like a game-altering modifier to me compared to other factors influencing production (especially in the early game), such as support, base location, terraforming, landscape features, etc.

Out of interest, how would you change the SE choices if wealth is the one you run the most? What would need to change for you to consider power or knowledge to be roughly as attractive more of the time? I'm assuming of course that it would be a good thing for each SE choice to offer 3 options of equal desirability.

	19-08-2004 07:16									#7
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quote: Originally posted by Col I always found knowledge to be a valid choice earlier on than wealth, as earlier on the difference of +1 to economy is negligable, whereas +2 research is hugely powerful at any stage of the game. While +1 industry is of course useful, 10% never seemed like a game-altering modifier to me compared to other factors influencing production (especially in the early game), such as support, base location, terraforming, landscape features, etc.

Support is nice, but it's hard to get it without an unacceptable cost (--effic from Police State or --industry from Power).
Base location multiplies with industry
Terraforming multiplies with industry
Terrain features multiply with industry

So, though all those other things influence production, having high industry helps anyway. 10% compounded annually is pretty nice. +2 research means you're a tech or two ahead of where you would be without the boost, and is not by any means hugely powerful. With my boosted econ from wealth, I'll make up some of the tech gap directly, and the rest I'll more than make up with more terraformers and more crawlers.

quote: Out of interest, how would you change the SE choices if wealth is the one you run the most? What would need to change for you to consider power or knowledge to be roughly as attractive more of the time? I'm assuming of course that it would be a good thing for each SE choice to offer 3 options of equal desirability.

Well, I never liked the way negative morale worked. A faction with -5 Morale *should* have Very Very Very Very Green troops with -62.5% in combat (-87.5% when attacked by soporific gas). Low morale should hurt in combat, but it doesn't. In fact, it helps on defense because creches more than offset the penalty. So, for starters, I'd make negative morale work. But, I can't do that without altering the game files.

Adding -1 support to Wealth would dampen its early power, perhaps even a little too much, but it would be worthwhile to test. Morgan with Demo + Wealth would have the horrible rating of -4 support (2 mins to support each unit), though.

Maybe -growth would be appropriate instead of -support, as wealthy families are small families. This would make Wealth mostly incompatible with pop booming, and would reduce the compounded effects of 10/9 production with lower population. Also, Wealth's prereq comes too early relative to Knowledge's and Power's. Putting it on Ecological Engineering might be more appropriate, though that's a big tech already. Maybe Adaptive Economics or Planetary Economics?

If you want the SE values choices to be similar in strength, Power needs to be boosted. Reducing its penalty to -industry might be sufficient to induce me to at least consider it in wartime. On the other hand, its advantages could be boosted, with +police or +probe, or +++support, or some combination of these.

	19-08-2004 09:27									#8
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Spartans would be insane getting a +2 Morale that early into the game with Fundie. That gives them +4 Morale which gives +3 morale to all units, and I'm not even counting the command centers.

	19-08-2004 16:56									#9
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The Spartans can already go up to +3 morale total with Fundy. +4 isn't that much higher, and if they scrap their research for it, they'll suffer. So, no, it's not insane for the Spartans to get 1 more +morale from Fundy.

+3 morale:
Spartan raw recruit (without command centers): hardened (+)
Spartan recruit (with command centers): commando (+)

+4 morale:
Spartan raw recruit (without command centers): veteran
Spartan recruit (with command centers): elite

That actually might make the Spartans worthwhile, the ability to get elites without depending on a monolith.

	19-08-2004 20:53									#10
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Smac is geared towards gaining benefits from increasing SE choices over time. Each new choice should therefore make the game that much easier. But we all know that many of the SE choices are just pretty cruddy in most situations. I agree with CT that increasing the benfits of Power makes sense. Wealth/Knowledge are already fairly balanced with each other and are neither overpowering, nor essential to most strategies. That makes the Value SE section like icing on the cake.

If Power is improved, I'd consider improving Police State and Fundie to a similar degree, and improving all 3 economic choices to a lesser degree. The penalties of FM hurt only the inexperienced and the AI. Planned is reasonable, but reducing the penalty to -1 would cushion it, making it more of a long-term solution. Likewise, Green becomes meaningless to either FM or Future Society players. It could be gently improved as well.

Word of Warning. Even small changes in the SE table have huge strategic implications. This is especially true with the ECON and POLICE settings when watching the AI. I really like the small nature of the changes you propose. Mainly these changes will not alter a players overall strategy. This makes them reasonable as 'rebalancers'.

=S

	20-08-2004 01:44									#11
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Col, being the creative type myself, I HATE to stifle others creativity. But when it comes to game design, balance is king. So while I have to state that your ideas for SE are way off, don't let it stop you from looking into improvments.

I suspect your reasons for wanting these changes is because of your own style of play. The reality is that the SE effects are very well balanced, if not a little illogical at times. But since balance is king....well, you know. I guarantee you, if you point out a preceived weakness in a faction/SE, someone here will be able take that faction/SE and make it work. There are people here that can kick your a$$ with the Cult of Planet

I somewhat agree with the Fundy change, but only because of builder domination. It is really too close to call if the extra Morale bonus is needed or not. Wealth SE is perfect in its original form. -2 Morale really isn't that big of a deal. The only SE I have a bit of an issue with is Power. It seems that the only the Hive and Drones can absorb the steep -2 industry, it is completely crippling for any other faction which is better off going 'survival' in time of war IMO.

Another thing to keep in mind about the future SEs is that by the time you get to them, many of the adjustment don't mean sh!t anymore. By the time you get Eudaimonic the +2 Growth is often worthless because you have already built up your core cities or you have the Cloning Vats. Speaking of which, the CV also means Power and TC are freebie SEs. Any +Probe mean nothing if you get the HSA. By the time I get into future SEs Cybernetic is the only one I give a damn about. By that time, effiency is becoming more important than economy.

	20-08-2004 08:42									#12
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livid imp - I agree that the future SE's in the original setup are largely irrelevant which is why I moved them forward. What do you think of the new placement/ modifications to these?

About choice/balance/disagreement:
While there are some areas which seem fated to remain forever disputed (Who is the best faction, what is the best strategy etc.) there are enough areas of concordance to indicate that certain changes could be made to the alpha.txt file and be largely agreed upon. Just from this thread it seems that Power is thought to be a weaker choice, and Wealth is balanced or if anything is too strong (I seem to be the loan voice who considers wealth to be a weaker SE choice). With this in mind, it seems possible to get a 'general' idea of how to rebalance the future society SE choices, given that they should occur earlier in the game.

	20-08-2004 23:04									#13
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Ultimately your ideas can get the final approval/disapproval in the arena of free thought. Just make your changes, post them, then see if the public like them or not.

Personally, I think the game is already very well balanced with very little rebalancing necessary *cough* choppers *cough*. Honestly, I think you could balance the game 100 fold better by simply making choppers and crawlers a lot more expnsive. If SEs are a problem, they are a minor one by comparison.

Oh yea, one more thing. If you think wealth is a weak SE, then you don't know the power of ICS

	04-10-2004 19:38									#14
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Fundamentalism is seldom used by anyone, except AI Miriam. I agree it needs to be strengthened. I would retain the ++MORALE and reduce the research penalty in half to -RESEARCH. This is very strong for the Spartans, which is great. They should have all-elite units! What's really cool is elite terraformers acting like rover formers.

Power is broken. No one uses it. The --INDUSTRY is crippling. I suggest replacing it with --ECONOMY.

Wealth is somewhat overused. It could use a minor negative besides the morale hit. I suggest -PLANET as a mild additional penalty that also makes sense vis a vis actual reality. One could also argue for adding -PLANET to Power.

	04-10-2004 20:33									#15
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Speaking of SE, I agree with livid imp - they are well balanced and changes are not needed. I disagree even with Fundie and Power unbalanced - not every war you are at is defensive where you can rely on Creches. The best option for me when at war is first to create units on "Wealth" (which I use longer than Knowledge, trying to trigger +2 ECON from Golden Age) and then go to Fundie and Power when it comes to actual fight. And I can't agree with you guys - morale DOES matter a lot for me.

However, I find it strange that you think Police State is balanced. For Hive it's of course standard, but for other factions? Can you explain when and with what other SE you use Police State? It's actually the only SE choice I NEVER take and was thinking about changing from -2 EFFIC to -1.

	04-10-2004 20:35									#16
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Police State is occasionally handy, but is usually a bad choice:

Spartans in Police State get the magic +3 Police, allowing for reckless ICSing. Balance the efficiency hit with Green.

Cyborgs in Police State only go down to 0 effic, and can ICS more effectively and spew out more formers.

Police State is, of course, pretty nice in a one-city challenge.

	04-10-2004 20:41									#17
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Police-Green is a good combination. Gaians and University can make good use of it, as well as the Morganites who can't use Demo very well. Lal can't use it, of course. It doesn't help the Believers, since they don't need the Support. But it's good for Gaians, Hive, University, Morganites, and Spartans (especially!) so 5 out of 7 ain't bad. Never a good choice for the long run.

	04-10-2004 20:45									#18
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Egash, I don't like some of these changes.

Wealth should have a -GROWTH, since decadence leads to decay in family values.

This also prevents the wild success of combinations like Democracy+Planned+Wealth. This might make Morgan less attractive though, since the lack of planned for him is already crippling, so an immunity to negative growth effects can be used instead....

quote: All unchanged. The often overwhelming advantage of free market is negated by an alternative method of gaining +2 economy as will be explained below. Once FM ceases to be such a neccesity then economics becomes much more interesting.

Free Market's penalties should be reduced to -Talent, -3 support, -2 Planet. Seriously, free market's +1 energy doesn't provide much till environmental economics in some situations....and just unrest is created, it doesn't cause a drop in police levels. Bonuses increased to +3 Econ. Population's support for troops drop in such an economy.

As stated: Wealth should be: +1 ECON, +1 INDUSTRY, -1 morale, -1 growth.

Thought control should not be tuned down. The +2 probe is useful in covering for knowledge - a doublethink combination in 1984....in fact, I think compared to Eudaimonic, it does not have much appeal...

Knowledge should in fact get a +Talent (yes, its an actual SE effect, but it wasn't implemented in the final SE choice but the bonus is functional) bonus, intellectualism causes this to happen.

Fundamentalist: +1 morale +1 growth +2 probe, -1 Research. Research doesn't really suffer that much in a fundamentalist state, only slightly due to reactionarism. Preservation of family values causes a +1 growth.. a sudden alternative for Yang...heh!

Democratic:+2 Growth +1 Econ +2 effic, -3 Police. Being democratic should do more than just take away one free supported unit and no free minerals away. In essence, its the lack of tolerance for police.

Power: +2 morale +4 support -2 Industry -Talent - power really increases military tolerance, but industry still slows down. Spartans should get robust to power.

Eudaimonic: +2 Industry, +2 Econ, ++Talent, not growth.

	04-10-2004 22:30									#19
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quote: Originally posted by Natalinasmpf Egash, I don't like some of these changes. Wealth should have a -GROWTH, since decadence leads to decay in family values. This also prevents the wild success of combinations like Democracy+Planned+Wealth. This might make Morgan less attractive though, since the lack of planned for him is already crippling, so an immunity to negative growth effects can be used instead.... Wealth needs only a small additional penalty. -Growth is too harsh! -Planet is relatively mild. quote: All unchanged. The often overwhelming advantage of free market is negated by an alternative method of gaining +2 economy as will be explained below. Once FM ceases to be such a neccesity then economics becomes much more interesting. Free Market's penalties should be reduced to -Talent, -3 support, -2 Planet. Seriously, free market's +1 energy doesn't provide much till environmental economics in some situations....and just unrest is created, it doesn't cause a drop in police levels. Bonuses increased to +3 Econ. Population's support for troops drop in such an economy. Too radical a change, when none is needed at all. -3 Support is crippling and eliminates Demo as a choice. As stated: Wealth should be: +1 ECON, +1 INDUSTRY, -1 morale, -1 growth. Wealth needs only a small additional penalty. -Growth is too harsh! -Planet is relatively mild. Thought control should not be tuned down. The +2 probe is useful in covering for knowledge - a doublethink combination in 1984....in fact, I think compared to Eudaimonic, it does not have much appeal... True. Thought control is out the window after other Future Societies come into play. The major change in the table, though, is moving Future Societies earlier in the tech tree. I personally think Optical Computers is too soon. Eudemonia is probably only used for the last 10 or so turns of the game. Thought Control in particular could be useful if it came much earlier --maybe with Biomachinery, the same tech that gives Cloning Vats? Knowledge should in fact get a +Talent (yes, its an actual SE effect, but it wasn't implemented in the final SE choice but the bonus is functional) bonus, intellectualism causes this to happen. Now there's an idea I like! Knowledge does need a bit of a boost relative to Wealth. +Efficiency reduces B-drones, but +Talent would be nice. Fundamentalist: +1 morale +1 growth +2 probe, -1 Research. Research doesn't really suffer that much in a fundamentalist state, only slightly due to reactionarism. Preservation of family values causes a +1 growth.. a sudden alternative for Yang...heh! This has possibilites, too. With +growth (well documented in actual fundamentalist societies!) Fundie could give Demo a run for its money! Democratic:+2 Growth +1 Econ +2 effic, -3 Police. Being democratic should do more than just take away one free supported unit and no free minerals away. In essence, its the lack of tolerance for police. +Econ and -3Police? Too radical --too strong bonuses and penalties. Improving Fundie is good enough --your scheme makes Fundie much better than Demo. Power: +2 morale +4 support -2 Industry -Talent - power really increases military tolerance, but industry still slows down. Spartans should get robust to power. Nobody uses Power except in desperate last stand defense. -Talent makes it even more absurd! And adding yet more support doesn't help. Eudaimonic: +2 Industry, +2 Econ, ++Talent, not growth. Growth is relevant for non-booming factions. ++Talent makes more sense for Cybernetic.

	05-10-2004 05:00									#20
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Natalinasmpf,

All those changes equate more to a full mod than simple SE rebalancing. I would never agree to the massive changes you are proposing within the context of SMAC/X. Besides there are a few that are down right illogical.

quote: Originally posted by Natalinasmpf Wealth should have a -GROWTH, since decadence leads to decay in family values.

Not so. Wealth actually tends to promote growth as folks have more resources to support more childern. That is the entire idea behind Planned growth bonus. As the wealth is distributed evenly, more people have more resources to bear more childern. Rather than the resources being concentraited in a small upper class minority (which of course can only have so many childern) So Wealth in and of itself, has a neutral growth pattern.

quote: Originally posted by Natalinasmpf Free Market's penalties should be reduced to -Talent, -3 support, -2 Planet. Seriously, free market's +1 energy doesn't provide much till environmental economics in some situations....and just unrest is created, it doesn't cause a drop in police levels. Bonuses increased to +3 Econ. Population's support for troops drop in such an economy.

Not trying to get mean, but that is nuts. FM would actually attract Talents, it would just create a lot more Drones to override the additional Talents.

I somewhat agree with the support penalty as in a true FM a soldier could negotiate for his salary costing the state more to hire good soldiers. The Planet rating should remain at -3 as it is a well estabilished fact that corporations tend to trash their own environments. Personally, I think I would have characterized FM as +2 Econ, -2 Support, -2 Police, -3 Planet. This would still make war prohibitly expensive for the Demo/FM SE, without making it so for Fundy/FM or PS/FM. But maybe that would break the system even worse. FM as is, is perfect for game balance, so really it should be left alone.

	05-10-2004 16:16									#21
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quote: Growth is relevant for non-booming factions. ++Talent makes more sense for Cybernetic.

Hardly. Cybernetic merely makes the society more efficient, not more liberated. + Talent is when the people are liberated from oppression and little in the way of becoming intellectual. Cybernetic displaces workers....especially the uneducated.

Anyway, with enough talents one can get constant golden age anyway and still nab +2 growth.

quote: Wealth needs only a small additional penalty. -Growth is too harsh! -Planet is relatively mild.

-1 Planet is not actually that mild...planned wealth will have a net +1 growth, anyway, with a communist-tendency society, perhaps to override that decadence.... again, this is to try to keep Chaos Theory on his toes....

quote: Nobody uses Power except in desperate last stand defense. -Talent makes it even more absurd! And adding yet more support doesn't help.

With Cloning Vats, that +4 support with Eudaimonic could actually be pretty powerful....especially with Living Refinery and cloning vats....
+2 morale +4 support -1 Industry?

Police State should perhaps get +3 support and -1 efficiency as well?

	05-10-2004 19:20									#22
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I disagree with almost everything you said. In particular, SE settings should not require a secret project in order to be viable. In multiplayer, you will not be seeing many secret projects unless you are running away with game and romping to victory.

Power does need a boost. In keeping with your good suggestion to add +TALENT to Knowledge, how about adding +TALENT to Police State? The reason would be very different, of course. The extra talent could represent a more stable society or elite police units. The advantage would be that +2 police is not much benefit unless you are Spartan and get the double police benefit of +3 police setting. +Talent gives improved drone control for all factions, which is what you are seeking with Police State anyway.