07-11-2001 14:38									#1
	Communism vs. zero-point Fundamentalism Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Hi all im new here so i hope i don't say anything deliberately dumb.

I was wondering if anyone used these strategies with regards to social choises.

Ive been playing SMAC off an on for awhile but only recently came back to it, with the intention of playing the game 'hard', with the difficult to justify social choises. Communism (Police State/Planned) is probably the hardest to pull off, but as Santiago i found that it was infact nearly unbeatable if you do it right. Basically overcentralize everything around your capital, and be sure to make your capital as large as possible. All the bases up to about 1 screen away, with childrens' creche, can still function more or less, and can be used for research as well. farther away the bases will lose all their energy irregardless. All other bases, if not 'factories', are 'specialist' farms. Works great and seems to reflect a planned economy as well ^^ I remember how much i hated Communism in the game, and thought that only Yang could pull it off, but in fact it -does- work, its just that your bases will be built 'very' differently than otherwise. It also makes switching to democracy almost impossible since you have little infrastructure to handle drones in outlying bases, using police /SP instead.

Zero-Point Fundamentalism (knowledge/fundamentalist) because its the only option in the game where you literaly get something for nothing: a net gain of +Efic and +Morale, and no negative bonuses. I was wondering if anyone had discovered this combo for civs like the Gaians or Lal for ex.

Im sure that others have written about these before, but of course i can't read back several months to catch up!, ok ya i could ya i know what your thinking.... ^^

	07-11-2001 23:09									#2
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Welcome vostok!

Nothing dumb about finding new ways to keep the game fresh and challenging.

You have raised several interesting ideas. On the something for nothing SE (Social Engineering), I believe that someone has worked out both the combinations which result in no negative bonuses and the combinations which result in an unambiguous improvement over the starting default SE settings. I remember seeing the former at a different SMAC website.

But it seems to me that either a no negatives approach or a unambiguous improvement of SE would not be as good as an optimal approach which often means playing to your strengths and often even accentuating them. But your other comments suggest that you are looking for more challenging SEs than the easiest.

Police State/Planned does indeed sound like a challenge. Because of his unique Police State advantages, Yang is not too bad with this approach. It is a surprise to me that you did so well with Santiago though.

The specialist base idea is strongly supported by several of the best players even with SEs that result in less inefficiency. I have been trying this for about a month now and I confess that I am not very good at it. Commerce is a huge part of my game. If I understand correctly, your cities are matched with your pactmates' and treatied friends' cities based on size. When you hit the hab limit and you have many cities of the same size the game seems to look at energy from worked tiles and exclude energy from crawlers and of course, specialists, for matching purposes. So I get hit with declining trade income and poorly allocated trade income when I go the specialist route. But I have yet to try this approach with only far-flung bases that have low trade anyway. It should work. But I always seem to be working on basic infrastructure on these bases until late in the game.

You mention that you use a different strategy for bases near your HQ. One screen away? Do you mean the default or do you zoom out three times like I do?

	08-11-2001 04:16									#3
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quote: Originally posted by RedFred It is a surprise to me that you did so well with Santiago though.

Santiago already has +1 POLICE and giving her another 2 with the Police State, she gets the maximum +3 which not even Yang can egt unless he runs Thought Control, which is too far in the game. Imagine +3 POLICE - Up to 3 police units AND double police effect! And what if the unit gets the +1 police power (the ability I don't use and don't know what's it fully called )...

	08-11-2001 04:47									#4
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Well, there is the Ascetic Virtues, with which any faction besides Deirdre and Roze can get the +3 Police.

I'll have to try that. Three 1-1-1 Police garrisons keep NINE drones under control for a measly 30 minerals. Upgrade them cheap to Clean when available. (I think I checked that a Police unit with "double police effect" SE quells 3 drones). Also remember that police quells the "double-drones" into content workers, so the bureaucracy drones don't bother you.

Incidentally, there's another faction that can run Police/Planned well: Deirdre! That gives her a low but workable -2 Efficiency. Add Knowledge and it's -1, add a Creche and it's POSITIVE! As Dee, if I'm not going Green for a quick worm conquest, I'm usually in Police/Planned/Knowledge for well into the mid-game.

Further-away bases can be quite usefully used to produce Secret Projects while your capital and nearby bases concentrate on economic/research infrastructure.

	08-11-2001 07:53									#5
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quote: Originally posted by T-hawk I'll have to try that. Three 1-1-1 Police garrisons keep NINE drones under control for a measly 30 minerals.

Does this really work? I thought all units counts as Police means that all units counts as police not that all units gets double police effect (police double effect but can you really double the double effect of police?)

quote: Incidentally, there's another faction that can run Police/Planned well: Deirdre! That gives her a low but workable -2 Efficiency. Add Knowledge and it's -1, add a Creche and it's POSITIVE! As Dee, if I'm not going Green for a quick worm conquest, I'm usually in Police/Planned/Knowledge for well into the mid-game.

But then the Police thing kinda loss its meaning since Dee have -1 in police so she can as best only get +1 in police and thats not worth -2 eff although there is the +2 support.

	08-11-2001 09:06									#6
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Yup it works

people thought that a police unit (quelling 2 drones with non lethal methods) should quell 4 drones with the doubling effect but for some reason it works out to be 3.

	08-11-2001 09:08									#7
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I just had to post again as my average posts per day was 6.66

I could not have that

	08-11-2001 09:21									#8
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I think one of the easier ways(if not easiest) to make the game harder is to take away clean units. especially when you're not yang. its quite annoying to have a military of ne size when everything is eating up minerals.

	08-11-2001 10:57									#9
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Yeah, but you barely need an army to beat the AI - use probes instead...

This thread has got me thinking about some different SE settings.
I confess to never using fundie, and police state only as Yang. (I'm definitely an efficiency junkie. Need more support? Just get more mins. Though Dee can get away with PS, and I have used it with her for extra formers early.)
But right now, I'm in an MP game as Santiago and I need some good ideas... (No, not X-gas impact rovers, please!) The other players are Uni, Angels, and PKs, plus AI aliens. Fundie is now on the agenda! I was thinking free market/police state might work OK as well. Anyone done this before (as the Spartans)?

WRT the specialist city thing, it has been my experience that commerce can generally outperform a pure specialist approach. But it's still a good thing to work on, for when everyone pronounces vendetta on you at once. ('course if you've already conquered everyone...) Nutrients are highest priority if you want specialists, and crawlers will almost always be involved. If you really get going, you won't even need drone control after a while.
You won't have any workers! I highly recommend a forum search on the specialist thing. It has definitely improved my game, even when I can't do it very well. Condensers kick a**!

Last edited by vitamin j on 08-11-2001 at 11:12

	10-11-2001 03:21									#10
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Just so you know, in defense of marxism and all, REAL communism has nothing to do with having a police state, brutal mind control and whatever. Just because lenin and mao say theyre communists doesnt mean that thay are, the same way ronald reagan cant make the US a true freemarket just cause he says it is

anyhow, police state is easy to pull of with focus on your military, ane more industrialized factions like the hive (and this is true in real life also)

	15-11-2001 09:50									#11
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ha ha ha...

It's good to hear from my compatriot Xian again. To side w/Xian, TRUE communism isn't Police State/Planned (although in the real world that's what happens). I find the fundamentalism in anything to be rather appalling and that's why I consider any 'fan' of Miriam to be a religious zealot. Jus' kidding, but seriously, with Yang placed with Police State/Planned/Green/Thought Control social planning, he becomes UNBEATABLE!!! sorry, Im just a fan of yang,
HIVE FOREVER!!!!! Masses Unite!!!

	16-11-2001 00:32									#12
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quote: Originally posted by frankychan Jus' kidding, but seriously, with Yang placed with Police State/Planned/Green/Thought Control social planning, he becomes UNBEATABLE

Erm, you can't run planned and Green at the same time

	19-11-2001 14:03									#13
	whoops, sorry bout that..... Remove this text

thanks Cybergod for pointing that out to me....

What I meant to say is running Planned OR Green, he becomes unbeatable. my bad!

	20-11-2001 02:25									#14
	Re: whoops, sorry bout that..... Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

quote: Originally posted by frankychan my bad!

That's meant to be lad, isn't it?

Anyways...

I just love playing Lal, as much as you all hate the AI Lal (and I certainly hope you despise ME playing as Lal ) - He gets Talents!!! This means that I need worry less over drones, meaning less efficiency required in early/mid game and I can run ree Market with slightly lowered side-effects. Try this with Lal-

Democratic, Planned, Knowledge
NET (including faction attrib.): 0 EFFIC, +4 GROWTH!, +1 INDUSTRY, +1 RESEARCH, -2 SUPPORT, -2 PROBE

All you now need to do is build Children's Creches everywhere and you've pop-booms up to size 9! Make sure you get VW and build Net Nodes! Also the +2 EFFIC CC give is very helpful...

As for Communism, there simply is no such thing as true communism on this world. Why? Just because an utopian idea is thought of doesn't mean it can be fully realised without being manipulated by power-hungry animals (eg. Stalin, Milosevic). The only communist leader that really cared about his people, that I can think of at the moment, was Marshall Tito . We could afford a car from a monthly pay! Everyone lived happily until his death and many dreadful truths about him surfaced...

As for Fundamentalism - I believe it a simple design of deprerate measure for desperate people in desperate circustances (eg. when an University impact Rover just pops in your territory and pronounces war and you don't even have Lasers yet!)

	20-11-2001 05:55									#15
	Re: Re: whoops, sorry bout that..... Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by Cybergod As for Communism, there simply is no such thing as true communism on this world. Why? Just because an utopian idea is thought of doesn't mean it can be fully realised without being manipulated by power-hungry animals (eg. Stalin, Milosevic). The only communist leader that really cared about his people, that I can think of at the moment, was Marshall Tito . We could afford a car from a monthly pay! Everyone lived happily until his death and many dreadful truths about him surfaced...

Perrhaps thats true, but all i was saying was that the word communism means the excact opposite of what vostok thought it was, and i thought it was kind of an ignorant thing to say.

and there has never been true capitalism either

	20-11-2001 07:07									#16
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nearly true capitalism has existed. remember true capitalism allows for public works, like roads and hospitals and ****. its not 100% of everything=private.

communism doesn't work because ppl twist the the plan. its because its simply unworkable, it relies on the principle that ppl are altruistic, but they aren't. so ur snuffed.

	20-11-2001 12:49									#17
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democracy doesn't wok in the sense of REAL democracy as the Greeks once practice. Should we then not aim for democracy as we do today (many countries are close enough to make it fair for most).

	21-11-2001 06:43									#18
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quote: Originally posted by yavoon nearly true capitalism has existed. remember true capitalism allows for public works, like roads and hospitals and ****. its not 100% of everything=private.

Thre has never been a government that never interfered with corporations, so lassaiz faire never has happened, and thus, true capitalism has never happened

TRue capitalism has the same problem communism has: human nature. No one can resist taking power from another in the name of humanity.

and im pretty sure Adam Smith would not have tolerated Public ownership of anything, but then again, maybe capitalism doesnt have to be limited to his original design...

There has never been true democracy either, since

1. even in greece, you had to own land to vote
2. Except for Sparta, woemen cant vote

Keep in mind that the greeks hated REAL democracy (I think aristotle wrote democracy is "mob rule"), what we call democracy is constitutional govt.

And no other nation not even america America, has even come CLOSE to a constitutional govt.

America is a representative govt., you almost NEVER get to directly vote on anything, you just choose a party (all of which are currupt and lazy) and hope for the best.

	21-11-2001 07:11									#19
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Adam smith recognized the need for public holdings like roads. so sorry, true capitalism has nothing to do w/ 100% private ownership. I think he also recognized the monopoly spiral effect of true capitalism, so again he didnt even believe complete deregulation.

so for the quintessential true capitalist, he knew capitalism wasn't an idealogy, but a practical method.

	21-11-2001 07:47									#20
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...sorry just had to clear my throat.

quote: TRue capitalism has the same problem communism has: human nature. No one can resist taking power from another in the name of humanity.

I believe this is true. The fact of the matter is this. Human nature is greed...(Morgan would be proud). Capitalism is corrupt because of the exploitative nature it brings. The CEO/PDG (if you're French)/Board members all line their pockets and instead of cutting their pay as well, would rather lay off tens of thousands of workers so their stock raises a quarter of a cent (exaggeration).

Even though I am a proponent of communism...a stalwart advocate of communism, it does have its disadvantages as well. Even though the leader may be 100% altruistic, eventually this person will die and maybe the heir apparent is 100% greedy.

I don't want this thread to warp any further than it already has but like my friend tells me (who happens to be a die hard capitalist and knows I am a die hard communist):

The Bull of the Stock Market versus the Soviet Bear.

I just like this quote so I had to put it in here!

	22-11-2001 16:15									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Xian 1. even in greece, you had to own land to vote 2. Except for Sparta, woemen cant vote

Mmh, I may be wrong, but it seems to me that you had only to be born Athenian to be a citizen, and that all citizen could vote ?

In Sparta, I don't think there had any voting at all. It was a monarchy/despotism, where the older were supposed to rule.

Ok it's been long long time I did not had a look at my greek history, so I can just say stupidities, but well I only risk to look like an idiot, so

	22-11-2001 23:41									#22
	Re: Communism vs. zero-point Fundamentalism Tired of ads?

quote: Originally posted by vostok Zero-Point Fundamentalism (knowledge/fundamentalist) because its the only option in the game where you literaly get something for nothing: a net gain of +Efic and +Morale, and no negative bonuses.

You can also get no negatives by running Power and Eudaimonic, which gives you +2 SUPPORT, +2 ECONOMY and +2 GROWTH. If you wish, you could add the Police State and Green so your total attribs. would look like this:

+2 POLICE, +4 SUPPORT!, +2 PLANET and +2 ECONOMY

The only thing not good with this is that Eudaimonic comes too far late in the game for me to use it....

	25-11-2001 19:21									#23
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Also the hive recieves no negative efficiency from plammed