I have a faction leader idea, but I'm not really sure about the details of the faction yet. I've toyed with several different directions it could go. Maybe you can give me some feedback -----------------------------------

Name: Tran Von Ngyuen
Rank: Director
Position: Chief of Construction
Country of Origin: Second Socialist Republic of Vietnam
DOB:
Height:
Weight:

>>13256993

Service Record: Born on a GM crop kibbutz in the partially flooded Vietnamese lowlands where he engaged in all of the construction trade training available to him. Gained admittance to advanced technical training with his thesis on the tensile properties of nu-bamboo. Finished an accelerated regimen with the a post-doctoral degree in civil engineering (International Standard Rank) and subsidiary specialties in metallurgy and applied physics. Served a tour in the state architectural syndicate before choosing to downgrade his expert status to technician's rank to serve as a construction engineer on Star of Asia orbital platform (30% of the stock of which belonged to the Vietnamese state, with the 55% majority share belonging to a consortium of private transnational and foreign public corporations). Defected to Singapore, spending the rest of his term in orbital construction in the employ of one of their corporations, before returning Earthside and gaining citizenship. Returned to work as an architect, founding Ngyuen Superstructures Lmtd. after selling the intellectual property rights to his paradigm-shattering design of the Singapore Babel Tower. Gained quite a reputation among specialty collectors and dealers internationally for some of the pieces of art produced as a leisure activity during this time, notable for their synthesis of classical sculpture and industrial art - inspiring a minor new school of reconstructionist art. A Freemason in the 33rd degree. After seeing his work on the new gravity-reinforced locks keeping Bangkok out of the rising ocean, the UN successfully recruited him into the new international effort to do the same for other low-lying and island states, cashing out his shares in Superstructures Lmtd. Recommended to lead colonial construction efforts on Tau Ceti project.

>>13257000

Psyche Profile: Artisan
Sees himself not as a scientist, businessman, academic, or laborer but as a tradesman and an artist. Values craftsmanship above all else; the standard by which he judges the merit of himself, everything, and everyone around him. Despite complex rejection of communist ideology retains fixation on the concept of honest labor and the virtue of work done with one's hands (possible relic of illegal neuroconditioning performed by the Second Republic of Vietnam?). Works of art contain repeated motif of liberation, the human form emerging from a larger structure, and a posture of rejection towards empty space and the surrounding environment. Excellent teamwork skills; works best in a group but has a tendency to be carried away with the spirit of the group and overextend himself in an effort to keep up morale and cooperation among divisive team members. Ability to foster groupthink among strongwilled personalities invaluable in expert committees and other societies of equals.

Futureworks:
Superstructures In Revolt - An Incitation to Counter-Revolution
Guild Law and the Society of Craftsmen
I Am The Mob
The Tau Cetian Reaction

Faction:

Founding Base:

>>13257006

The social fabric of the group and the mental fortitude of the individual can be measured in simple, quantifiable terms. The maintenance of structural integrity for any complex association of thoughts or beings is tied directly to the resiliency of the organizational pattern and the tensile strength of the component idea or individual.
- Tran Nguyen, "Superstructures In Revolt"

Related Techs -

Doctrine: Crowd Psychology
"Vigilantism is the spirit of permanent counter-revolution, infinitely variegated by place, power, time, and circumstances. In days of peaceful social exploitation it is dormant. In days of growing social unrest it becomes more articulate and sinister. It may become articulate in the esoteric hokum and pretentious "scholarship" of a Pareto or a Sorokin, or in the rabble-economics of a Father Coughlin. But it is always nonsensical, because it would preserve class spoliation by violence without deepening social contradictions. Hence its logic is absurd and its sociology impossible." - The Nation, 1937

OH SNAP. Erm, I'm not the guy who had the crazy cool ideas, but there was talk of focusing on the colonization aspect. The factions are outnumbered by intelligent, yet technologically inferior, alien races. Much of the gameplay I recall being discussed centered on managing relations with the races, from exploiting native populations to species integration.

Does anyone remember anything that came after? I wasn't able to follow the thread for long.

>>13257019

I just remember suggesting a proper faction of the aliens, sort of a "unite the tribes" type prophet/war leader in the vein of Crazy Horse or Geronimo

But yeah, the general principle I got from discussion last time was more indigenous sentients, less MIND WORMS OH GOD MY FACE

>>13257047

That's good. MIND WORMS OH GOD MY FACE worked for the original, but a sequel would need to distinguish itself.

I think an alien leadership race might be good as something introduced after the game has progressed a bit. The question in such a case would be how to make it a viable faction, seeing as if it emerged too late it would likely be curbstomped by anyone else.

>>13257099

Actually I thought it would be fun to play the Indians to the Jamestown Colony from the start. You start out as one pissed off band, but as the colonists spread and piss off more of the indiginees, more join your cause and you gain more resources and knowledge from the invaders.

Plus, maybe there were more colony pods than factions? A crashed pod, most of the colonists dead, found by one of the tribal nations of the indiginees. They take the pod (their starting base), the stuff in it, and have enough surviving colonists to adopt/enslave and teach them how to use the stuff.

How one deals with indiginees (or with humans, for the indig faction) should be a civics setting. Everything from a campaign of eradication to aggressive isolationism to slavery to indentured servitude/tenant farming/second-class citizenship/to the ability to become citizens.

Being able to interact with the indigs well enough to make treaties with the non-Faction tribes and bands would require a Tech.

Oh god yes. This needs to happen.

>>13257166

I see now. I would think a combination of civics and base facilities would do the trick, describing not only government policy but actual use.

How far would you want to extend the focus on colonialism? I know some folks are really attached to the harder science of the first game, and going all the way into the politics of interbreeding would likely require lowering that a bit.

>>13257344

Interbreeding would be a mid to late game Tech wouldn't it? I mean if you can make Genejacks you can figure out a way to fuck productively, but it should definitely not be available out of the starting gate.

>>13257595

True. Should it be one tech for all of it or a branch like the native life/psi techs of the original? I realize that by mid-game starting a new branch is risky, but I thought I'd raise it as an option anyhow. Also, how would these new beings be integrated? Just more alien units, a separate chassis type, a special ability, or something else?

I must confess that lately I'm obsessed by dynasty and breeding mechanics, so pardon my one-track mind.

>>13256993


My initial inspiration with Tran Von Ngyuen was the reactionary sculptor from THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, a member of the utopian society of the retrofuture who leads a mob revolt against the high council's attempts to send a man and woman into space with a space gun, calling it unnatural and calling for an end to the relentless march of progress, for a time of rest for humanity.

Anyone considered making this as a mod for Civ4 or Civ5? They're both good modding platforms, much easier to work with than SMAC, I believe. Not to mention there's already a large modding community around that you could draw assistance from.

In any case as long as the same feeling from SMAC was preserved (to the extent that's possible) then I'd be happy, either as a mod or a tabletop setting.

Hmm, if this is going to be a tabletop setting, maybe factions should not be based on exceptional leaders but be more coherently conceived as organizations/movements first and foremost? Or would that destroy the Alpha Centauri feel?

Or maybe it wouldn't. That way players wouldn't have to play the faction leader to be able to publish a book or build up a clique and basically establish currents within the movement, as always happens to real life ideologies. The founding writings of a society might be by a whole slew of different authors, several of whom hate each other, rather than by a single visionary.

Though having a party with Trotsky and Stalin both in it would probably be worst than just playing citizens of a well established doctrinal organization.

>>13257738

So what's his "thing"? It seems like sociology and the management of groups, with a few unwilling Marxist tendencies taking form in his focus on class conflict and liberation from social structure, but how does this translate into his traits as a leader?

So I don't know if it's been mentioned outright in any previous discussions, but has anyone said much about making the natives much more prolific than, say, the city states in Civ5? As in, they would cover pretty much all the good habitable land on the planet, so right off the bat you'd have to decide how to treat them, though actually beating them in a fight would be really easy.

>>13257783

It depends on the scope. Are the players factions and of themselves, or just players within the factions? I like the idea of faction springing up around a particular leader's writings, but as time goes on more and more authors spring up proposing (and furthering) diverging view points.

The functional immortality of Alpha Centauri leaders makes this interesting, as it means that the ideological progenitor never dies.

>Tau Ceti

The colony ship's name must be Marathon.

>>13257851

I think it was suggested, yes. The Civ5 situation was not mentioned, but the fellow who suggested the "natives" concept proposed that the aliens FAR outnumber the settlers. Something like millions of aliens to a few hundred thousand colonists.

>>13257805
That's my problem. The idea of someone who uses sculpture/architecture/construction as a metaphor for sociodynamics is interesting, and the role of a vigilante/counterevolutionary is interesting, and the philosophy of reactionaryism/guilds/rejecting-the-labor-capital-divide/return-to-the-old-ways-of-doing-things/roma
nticizing the past thing is a clearly established philosophical trend.

But those are all disconnected from each other.

A shenji-yang or miriam as an architect/artist trying to create a strong/beautiful new society is mildly interesting but somewhat derivative.

A counterrevolutionary/white army/vigilante type actually could be distinct enough from the Spartans I think, but doesn't really have any sort of coherent philosophy. How could you basically make one of those Citizens Grand Jury / anti-socialist vigilante American First Liberty Committee types / White Army generals have interesting quotes and a coherent philosophy? A reactionary distributist/guild socialist/social credit/feudalist/aristocracy/type craftsman/artisan type philosophy could be interesting but there's not a lot of intrinsic conflict - its more of an interesting philosophy in real life or a cool society in a nonviolent scifi short story than a faction in a contentious scenario.

And that's even before the whole society of artisans reactionary form of society thing spun into a Freemasons/Guild structured faction riff in my mind for a while.

>>13257877

Very nice. How about their level of technology or type of society? Would they be stone age, to heighten the whole Native American angle, or something like Medieval or even Industrial age for something a bit new?

Or, I suppose, more realistically, a number of different levels of development.

>>13257889

So yeah. While the whole totalitarian philosophy done in structural engineering metaphors thing is a fancy coating, a lynch mob IN SPACE or Russian White Army general IN SPACE or Fascist IN SPACE or G.K. Chesterton IN SPACE is not all that interesting.

And that's not even getting into the brief tangent of SPACE FREEMASONS YEAH.

This is what I saved from the previous thread...

These are from a few different anons, so


I've had an idea kicking around for "Sid Meier's Tau Ceti"

So, the Unity is sent off, and then the Earth governments realize "wow, we fucked up big time, those reactors were made with a design flaw that won't let them get half-way there, oh and by the way the latest results from out astronomical scans of the Alpha Centauri system show that the planet we thought was habitable is too close to its primary star, they won't survive"

So they band together for one last push, send colonist to Tau Ceti instead. Of course the same shit happens, Captain assassinated blah blah blah. We can get a new set of ideologies and beliefs pushing these leaders, but I can't ever think of any good ones.

(cont)

>>13257931
- Native alien populations. Those who befriend them gain certain advantages in the long run, and lose others. Those who violently displace them gain early advantage, and lose long-term. Those who play the ethical "middle ground" gain and lose some of both.
- The different ideologies from SMAC are fairly universal, with everyone getting their pluses and minuses. They can be reused, albeit with different personas and personalities.
- The more primitive aliens that can be displaced are actually heirs to a bygone and powerful alien civilization. Players can gain advantages by researching ancient ruins and technology, but the natives can give them bonuses in doing so.
- The Twist: The bygone aliens transcended, in their own fashion, and their higher-level tech and philosophies will have a devestating impact on all those human civs who discover them (think like gunpowder to Native Americans).

OK, so for factions we can have a religious person who wants to convert the natives for god, obviously we can have an industrialist who wants them for labor (they can be biologically different enough from humans to be very useful in certain aspect of production or such), we can have a group of Human First survivalists who want to exterminate the natives and replace everything with humanity.

(cont)

>>13257889

Don't worry about how derivative you may or may not be. Focus on how those qualities you've described would manifest in-game first, then worry about making them distinct.

I can definitely see some form of Industry effect, but I'm not sure what. Clear focus on production, but the "personal approval" part means things aren't as fast as they might be. Maybe an Industry plus but a Efficiency minus? And that's just for starters.

>>13257943
Ecological impact. In SMAC polluting the planet caused the mind worms to rise up and nom nom nom delicious human bases.

In Tau Ceti it could cause the natives to die out, cause them to rise up.

If we make it so that most economic activity is actually done by the humans USING the natives instead of done by the humans themselves, then the natives dying out, revolting would really suck.

Lets say our hypothetical world starts with oh say 500 million natives, and these oh say 50 thousand colonists from earth arrive. Obviously they can't just conquer. Instead they are scattered, and each pod crashes down in some part with a few thousand colonists, whose awesome tech allows them to set themselves up as leaders/gods/caretakers of the natives.

This means that the vast majority of economic systems is actually done by natives, a few thousand colonists cannot create a civilization from scratch, instead they are trying to graft their existing ideology onto the native populace.

This can create some interesting dilemmas.

>>13256960
>spiritual sequel
"I don't want to make a game like it but I would like to make use of it's popularity!"

>>13257969

Oh hush.

>>13257964

There needs to be some balance between native relations and faction survivability. While having a bad Planet value in AC made things less easy, you could do perfectly fine without it. A heavy alien angle is fine, but we must remember that this is inspired by Alpha Centauri, not Pikmin.

>>13257964
I like the idea that the planet is already populated. However, in the first game you build colony pods, how would you expand in this one? Would there be "cities" to capture/conquer/sign treaties with? Maybe the natives are spread pretty evenly across the globe and you simply bring territory under your control in order to gain access to them. Also, how teched would the native be do you think? Pre/post industrial? Maybe feudal, maybe even tribal in some places?

>>13258041
Low planet rating kills the natives, but allows you to expand with human colonies instead. I think part of the dichotomy would be between those who use the natives and those who exterminate them. Using them gets you bonuses to production, exterminating them allows you to expand with your own people (who are already versed in modern tech and so get research bonuses).

Gah, I can't type what I am trying to think, but there should be a way to live and thrive even while you're fucking over the native planet.

Or instead of use/exterminate it could be caretake/exploit

>>13257944

- Mob rule, given eloquent and coherent ideological form. Like fringe militia movements in the U.S. feel that citizens are qualified to form ad-hoc tibunals and serve as judge/jury. Vigilantes.


- Counter-revolutionaries, trying to smash the coup that occurred onboard the ship, reminiscent of anti-socialist movements everywhere from the White Army to America's xenophobic Liberty Committee during WWI or America First during WWII. Reactionaries.


- Freemasons. Brotherhood is a wonderful thing. Craftsmanship as a metaphor for society/religion/philosophy/mankind. Secretive, highly organized, pyramid-scheme, cell structure. Hokey old traditions are apparently a match for a blaster, elegant society of a more civilized age.


- Distributists/producerists/guild socialists/social credit unions/agrarians. Nostalgic for the past, romanticize history, believe in the family structure as the basis of society - be it a clan, a guild, a community. Don't like the labor/capital divide, think that hierarchy without division is necessary for mutual obligation and harmonious relations (sort of like the Confucianists).

>>13258051

I like the tech level varying somewhat by group. That way your policies impact each alien-type differently. The "I AM YOUR GOD" approach may work better on, say, a tribal group than a group in the middle of the Industrial Revolution.

Depending on the answer, there's nothing that says you can't use colony pods. It might take longer to set up a base, as you might need to pacify the region, but there's nothing that says you can't show up a start plopping down settlements. It might create a balancing act between expansion and relations, helping to reduce the appeal of Colony rushing.

>>13258087

These are all the same group, or separate factions?

>>13258084

If you just shoot the Aliens, you can take their land and develop it more quickly. However then you'll have Aliens stealing into camp every night, marauding bands attacking you, etc.

If you subjugate the Aliens, it takes longer to develop but you gain more manpower and it creates buffers and ways to more easily assimilate other aliens.

If you avoid/isolate yourself from the Indians, you can just start developing on any land that is not in active use without getting more than the usual background violence against you. But you accidentally get into a tiff with a major settlement and you've gone into full option 1 mode as far as they're concerned.

You can play the Aliens against one another, trading with them and hiring one group to fight other groups, buying slaves from opportunistic gangs, etc.

You can try some sort of diplomatic relations.

Or you can integrate/assimilate aliens peacefully. This will actually cause other alien groups to attack you just as much as conquerors/eradicators, as you'll be seen as changing the future of their people, but on the plus side this allows you to gain a steady stream of easily integrated manpower - whereas conquest/slavery/vassal-states are never able to be utilized to their full potential.

>>13258149

Only one of them would be a faction. Basically I'm trying to hone in on my idea for a reactionary/counter-revolutionary type faction. These are the different aspects I'm trying to sort through and pick one from.

>>13258151
Yeah, so I'm getting a "The colonization of America" feel from this.

imokwiththis

Different tech levels of natives could work, if you land near very low tech ones then they are easily pacified, but won't contribute much to your empire for a while, higher tech ones will probably have centralized authority and governance, so be harder to pacify, but they have the infrastructure and ideas in place to take off and become a working part of your empire.

Now, I'm trying to see how this would look on a computer screen in my mind. Hmm. So I guess it could be that the colonists land all across this new planet, but it's already populated with "bases" of natives. Some are factions in their own right, but a lot can be treated like the "barbarians" from most civ games, except with more options for interaction (you could buy their base/take them over with a probe team? sign a treaty and they become your vassals? something else?)

The question is what will be the benefit/tradeoff aspect, such as there was with Planet rating and eco-damage in SMAC

>>13258158

I see. In that case, the third and fourth sound better for a player faction, as they feel more like a society. The second feels far too limited, more like an individual than a rising civilization. The first can work, I suppose, but it needs more detail. Right now it feels more like a series of civics than an actual faction.

>>13258158

Bah, getting back to my original inspiration from Shape of Things To Come, I just have this vision in my head of evil humanists, of the Soviet Union and Ayn Rand having a freaky hatechild.

Ugly, menacing brutalist buildings with with massive classical Greek style figures celebrating the beauty and the perfection of the human form jutting out of them.

Reactionary humanists go?

And I don't just mean anti-alien racists, I mean a regime out to smash the dehumanizing forces infecting society - whatever those may be.

>>13258220

For the non-faction aliens, would it be possible to do something like Fall from Heaven 2's Lairs? You have a location that periodically pumps out barbarians, but can be explored/destroyed. It would clearly be complicated, but something along the lines? Come to think of it, movement and diplomacy/espionage will need a fairly big makeover for this project. Lots of non-ally stacking, interactions from outside a square, and lots of interplay between alien species. You aren't just running into a place that happens to have barbarians, you are setting foot in an entire system of alien social relations.

Could you make the graphics better than SMAC's, OP? They truly sucked, even by the standards of the day. Thanks.

>>13258321

Can we worry about aesthetics after we have more of the mechanics and fluff laid out? I'm not sure we even know what the medium is yet.

>>13258312
Yeah, this definitely wouldn't be "Civ, but on Tau Ceti!" or even "SMAC, but on Tau Ceti!" this would require a complete overhaul of diplomacy, never one of Civ's strong suits to begin with.

But man, if it could be done...

The thing is there should be several different ways you can interact with natives such as (and I'm just brainstorming here):
Become my vassals/whatever: they keep doing what they are doing, but contribute (low tech) units to your empire. Maybe you can also draft units at the cost of them being mad at you. They contribute nothing to your economy or research, but ask for nothing but protection in return.

Come under my control: now you can try to build them up, build base facilities and shit, you know tangent right here

We take for granted a lot of the things we have, and how hard it would be to start from scratch. If you want to build an information network on a feudal world, you don't start building computers, or even a power plant, you start by mining the copper and shit you need to build a power plant, build a computer, build telecommunication lines. Human bases that are build from scratch come with these ready-made, but natives would have to be built up a lot further before they would make meaningful contributions.

Anyway, once they come under your command you can try to build them up. They might give a TINY bit to your economy and/or research, but they won't be good for much more than cannon fodder until you have build up their industrial base
(continued...)

Nobody realize the the Warhammer 40k connection.

>>13258406
You can also exploit them, this would be something like "come under my control" except it would be different. Maybe it wouldn't be much different,actually maybe the difference between a benevolent dictator and an exploiter would be based on what Social Engineering choices you make, anyway you send in your own industrialists who are given free reign to treat these people... the way industrialists treated their workers in the 19th century. This would contribute more to your economy and such, but it would anger and possibly slowly kill the native.

Also you could simply exterminate them.

Those are a few ideas I've had.

It might be interesting to have the religious faction not be the luddites. Have them be good, or at least neutral to technology. Maybe go for the old 'We perform science to discover the wonders of god's creation' Be good at science and decently green but pretty poor at drones and offencive streagnth due to being rather open about what they are doing.

>>13258406

So we're looking at redoing the tech system as well? Because in AC establishing the Industrial Base was a first tier tech, and if you were prioritizing Build you'd probably get either it or Social Psych.

Any systems you'd want to use as a launching point? I was thinking maybe, and I actually don't like this system that much, the tech method for Hearts of Iron 2. New technology is researched in parts, as opposed to all at once. This, if modified properly, would let you keep the depth on what it takes to adapt and expand the fluff of what a particular development entails.

>>13258481

Why not Catholic Transhumanists in the vein of Pierre Tielhard DeChardin?

>>13258485
Well, the difference is between the Tech called Industrial Base and the thing that it is. The tech established an industrial base because your faction was 2 thousand guys and a couple of pods, but on a world of half a billion establishing an industrial base is much more than just researching a tech. Also, the colonist came with much of the knowledge of how to be industrialists already in hand, natives need to be shown or taught if they are pre-industrial.

So, there could be a tech of "industrial base" which is a pre-requisite for trying to actually ESTABLISH an industrial base amongst the native population. From there you can build an industrial society among the native populations, and from there they will begin to make meaningful contributions to your empire.

Here I'm thinking that establishing an Industrial Base would be like a Base Facility. But it could also be something that is done naturally (the base would have something like "15 turns until industry established, and that number could be brought down by trying to build industry instead of building cannon fodder as soon as you get the natives under your thumb/boot)

>>13258481

That would be neat, but... Where are we drawing the line between civic and faction? Is a faction an ideology formed of multiple civics directed at a specific goal, such as Yang's Planned Police State for the pursuit of an almost spiritual concept of enlightment? Is it a general goal, the exact details of pursuit being something left to the civic selection process, much like the University?

>>13258519

That could work very well. It would also be a interesting difference to the usual 'Religion = Luddite'

It would be like Zakharov with more morality. Which has its upsides and it's downsides.

>>13258481
I'm thinking the religious faction should have a good relation with the natives. They see them as God's children just as they are, and try to integrate native religions into their own. They would get a bonus to assimilating natives, but perhaps a penalty to.. oh let's say Police/Support/Moral? Perhaps these would be Pacifist religionists to contrast them with Miriam.

>>13258567
So like Zak meets Deidre, plus the downside to being Morgan.

>>13258553

I was thinking characters. After all the factions all had a very distinctive leader that had bonus' and disadvantages.

>>13258567

A penalty to police and moral sounds good. They don't like fighting and prefer a less controling system.

>>13258606
Father Manual of the Lord's Chosen
+2 Natives, believe all are God's Children
+1 Research, knowledge is a noble pursuit
-1 Police, freedom loving
-1 Moral, pacifist tendencies.

Cannot exterminate native populations

>>13258642

That works very well.

>>13258642
I am now imagining Alan Davies doing his Spanish accent.

>>13258642

Dear god that man would whore alien technology like there is no tommorow.

"Oh, this? Our friends showed it to us, quite a marvel"

>>13258588

Oh! In that case I have no complaints. It's an idea that is not used often enough in modern sci-fi, and a welcome break from the Luddite/Tech-priest dichotomy established lately.

>>13258548

Hm, an interesting concept. There would have to be more diverse methods for speeding up the seepage time, though. Otherwise factions which tech quickly and take a diplomatic approach risk a small number of high-tech settlements vastly outnumbered by far weaker native groups. It may be realistic, but wouldn't be entertaining.

>>13258642
Just looking at that from a SMAC perspective, that's a really good bonus for not much drawback.


Now, Tau Ceti is about 2 to 3 times as far away from Earth as Alpha Centauri. Should the ship taking humans over there be a generational ship?

>>13258729

Yes and then he rofflestomps the faction that declared war on him with an old alien flying battleship.

>>13258789

If it is too strong maybe increase the moral penalty so they need the tech and friends to hold thier own.

MoralE, dangit, moralEEEE.

Still, need more factions made to compare against. Natives plus technology seems like it could be mind worms with needlejets.

>>13258789

I'm tempted to say no, because Alpha Centauri has clearly established longevity treatments and clinical immortality is not that far away.

On the other hand, it could create more interesting characters. If we did that I would want the option to choose different leaders for your faction, though. While the idea of Zakharov's grandson who is not as good a scientist but motivates his people better is interesting to me, some people just want to have a mad scientist and ignore the backstory part.

>>13258846

Natives are explicitly not mind worm types. Besides you already had mind worms with needlejets, they were called Locusts of Chiron.

Just some ideas

Malcolm Xavier (Spain)
Chief of Staff aboard Marathon
>Born to a priviledged spanish home admist turbulent times
>Economic collapse produces the second spanish civil war, Malcolm forced to flee and leave his family
>Went abroad and with wealthy connections excelled in studies of economics, philosophy and literature
>Maintained and built up connections with upper society, helped lead various international donation campaigns during various events. Clear candidate for UN mission for tenacious work ethic and substantial donation to UN missions
>On planetfall, develops a somewhat paternalistic feeling for the "lesser" natives and drones

Staunch believer of educated elite ruling the lesser masses. On paper those who excel are propelled up the social ladder and those who cannot are sent down, in reality they have a clear caste system in place.

Sets up an aristocratic system of control, with himself as the so called "philosopher king".

+25% Improvements (Aristocracy well educated to run their fiefdoms)
+25% infantry build (Forced conscription)
+1 Natives Control (Landed aristocracy easily control native populations)
-2 Native Relations (No one likes a prick)
-2 Drones (Constant social upheaval)

>>13258846

By the way, the pic is saved. On a more serious side, I think the idea of tech seepage would keep it from becoming Battlefield Earth.

>>13258789
>>13258811
Father Manual of the Lord's Chosen
+2 Natives, believe all are God's Children
+1 Research, knowledge is a noble pursuit
-1 Police, freedom loving
-1 Moral, pacifist tendencies.
-2 Support, fears military-industrial complex

Cannot exterminate native populations

>>13258846

>MoralE, dangit, moralEEEE.

Whoops, sorry. Moral they are strong at, Morale, not so much.

Maybe a Botanist? Less reseach and hippies more being a really efficant group with a understanding of all this new planet can bring.

+Green
+Efficiant
-Natives as they have no issues throwing them off their land for humans.
-Something...dunno

>>13257943
Ok, I've only read up to here already and I already have a powerful urge to play this game.


FUND IT.

>>13258923

Ah yes the faction name:

The Enlightened

Official nation lines are a libertarian paradise, where hard work and personal struggle will be rewarded.

Actually there are deep rooted social issues where the absolute bottom of society cannot escape grinding poverty.

The actual elite are well educated and ingrained with a sense of care for the nation and its people... but a care as a king would care for his subjects, very protective yet patronizing at the same time. Society is run efficiently but the divide between rich and poor grows everyday.

I think factions should start from the leader first, rather than just straight reusing the niches from the first game or just playing with civics combinations right now.

When I attempted a faction with Tran, I started with the character profile format from the old website.

http://www.firaxis.com/smac/factions.cfm

Leader Karl Asmuss
>As we learned on Earth, division equals death. Many nations brought many ideologies, many conflicts, and in the end we torn apart our own world. If we are to survive on this new one, than Humanity must be our watchword, and it must bring with it a singularity of purpose. The Many fall, the One survives, the Many flee, the One stands strong, the Many struggle, the One preservers. Humanity must then be as One, with One banner, One mind, One heart, One purpose, One nation, One leader, One will. We will make Humanity as one, or die trying

+2 Police, strong centralized authority
+1 Support, militarism a central ideology
-1 Econ, the needs of the economy are often made subservient to the needs of the military
-2 Natives, humanity first

May not use Democracy politics

>>13258995

Xavier can be a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta - which has official UN status in real life you know as a sovereign nation, and he basically sounds like the Kaiser - absolute monarchy, retention of feudal landholding and serfs, with just enough progressivism ("practical christianity") to keep things dynamic. Enlightened feudalism, "practical christianity", aristocracy for the modernizer.

He's starting to sound like a Conquistador with good PR.

>>13259048
>Leader Karl Asmuss
*skwint*
>THE GOD-EMPEROR OF HITLER-KIND

>>13259048

My Vietnamese sculptor would make a better repeat of that Austrian painter than your German something or another.

Fascism - now using architectural terminology as euphenisms.

>>13258905
No, those were called Flying Transports, and they moved at slow rates and never attacked my cities.

>>13259048
>>13258942
>>13258938
>>13258923
Alright, so we've got a botanist, a Padre, a Conquistador, a Fuhrer, now perhaps a native faction? I'm thinking something in the vein of an already established power (think like Medieval/pre-industrial states) that has a colony pod crash down. The leaders investigate to find the occupants dead, and the King/Duke/Representative/Head Dude of the country decides to use this. He wants to control all of the planet, and he might have the means to do so.

Faction: The Voice
Leader: The Voice

As the rescue ship to Tau Ceti was underway, it was soon realized that the absolute last few resources of the earth was scrapped together for this last mission. There will be no third chances, this was it. Among the leaders of the world who were not on the priviledge fly list, they pooled their resources together to see how to save themselves and their future descendents and from these endeavours they accidentally unlocked the Singularity.

A technological device that stores every aspect of your personality, as close to immortality as possible. Thousands were joined to the machine and with their incredible influence was placed onboard the ship.

After the crash, the machine emerged, operational and fused into one super sentient human machine god. Using many drone and robots that survived, they established a base of operations and succeeded in enslaving the natives to perform the manual work. From there surviving humans were found and populated the city.

The Voice as it is called, prove to be a benevolent protector of humans and catered to their every whim. To the natives however, it was the devil itself. The Voice doesnt hate the natives, it just seems them as tools and as humankind as the rightful inheritors of the planet.

Soon the Voice gained a cult following (which it allows but doesnt directly encourage). Especially enlightened individuals are allowed to enter their personality into the machine.

Their cities well managed and excellently run, and has a very progressive social stance for humans, it has earned the complete hatred of the native populations. It seems the human machine utopia will be forced to exterminate the native populations.

Always -2 Drone (Their every need is catered to)
+10% production (Machine efficiency)
+25% base defense (Religious followers will die to protect the Voice)
Natives perma hate
Every native settlement conquered grants a certain % of resources towards the next project

>>13259103

The natives are not as crazy as the mindworms. They have some relics that are old and powerful and lead to really good reseach but they themselves kinda suck unless you build them up.

IS THIS ARCHIVED YET? WHY NOT

>>13259151
It is done, check sup/tg/ for details.

How about a colony that was doomed to be destroyed but were saved by some local native aliens. Together they build a communal base and learn much from each other.

The humans found their knowledge helpful in dealing with other tribes and in living off the planet. While the technology makes the natives lives easier. The lack of forward thinking means the human leaders will be directing how society functions but the aliens still play an important role. Over time a generation of natives are raised with human teaching, ensuring greater integration.

Good native relations
Poor production
Unit movement bonus
Lower support
Higher pop growth rate but lower base support

no one else?

>>13259315

I'm running out of ideas. We have a few so far and have managed to avoid recreating the previous characters but I'm running low on things that are not just a redoing of one of the factions with a slightly different leader.

Faction Name:
Leader Archetype:

Name:
Rank:
Position:
Country of
Origin:
DOB:
Height:
Weight:

Service Record:

Psych Profile: [personal description in one word summarizing rest of profile]
[rest of profile]

FutureWorks:

Faction:
Founding Base:

[flavor text quote]

>>13259315
All I can think of is someone EXACTLY like Morgan

Also, we need mechanics. We've had some good ideas for how managing native populations works, anything else? I REALLY do think that it needs to go back to SMAC's "design your own unit" malarkey. It could get horribly broken at times (pumping out 4/1/1 units as the believers backed up only by 1/3/1 plasma sentinels) but it was, in my honest opinion, leagues superior to what we get in most civ games now (that is, "these are your units")

You could customize them as needed, Clean Reactors if you had low Support, you could make them Trained if you wanted to take advantage of Moral, you could make Rover Drop units if that's what you wanted. By game's end I often was building what I called "Riot Police" to protect my innermost bases that didn't need much dedicated protection. 1/1/1 scout patrols with Clean Reactors and Non-lethal methods.

You could even equip them with nerve gas pods if you were an asshole. But anyway, THAT is my mind is one of the many things that made SMAC far superior to the Civ games we've had since.

Now is a time to pool our money (I've got a twenty here, I'm sure you all can find a few quarters in your couch or wherever), go to the offices of Firaxis, and shout MAKE THIS HAPPEN while pelting them with our dough.

Just going to throw my two cents in: There were a couple ideas that I appreciated in the thread yesterday, that I think should be used:

-The natives once had a highly advanced civilization, that has since fallen. (Perhaps the majority achieved transcendence, maybe there was a great war, who knows.) Because of this, Alien ruins become a usable resource. You can investigate ruins, and potentially gain tech, or unleash some ancient defense system.

-Native units (tribes, kingdoms, whatever) provide a separate bonus for making nice with them, including potential military units comprised of natives. (The thought I last saw was each tribe essentially opening a tech tree.) Which would require a few ideas of what sort of "factions" exist within the native populace.

Personally, my current idea is that, long ago, Tau Ceti's population got to "lolwhatever" levels of biological and genetic (re)construction. They built their perfect society, and sailed off into the stars.

When the human vessel got to a point about (however many we want) years out from the planet, it activated some sensors. Those sensors activated defensive cloning chambers. Some of the chambers created huge warriors, others diplomats, and other nimble saboteurs. The chambers were meant to bolster the world if invasion was imminent.

The problem was: the chambers didn't include very much in ways of education, as there were supposed to be people standing ready to teach these people. As such, only some basics were maintained, such as ingrained weapons memory for the warriors, and an instinctive dislike for attention among the saboteurs

So when the humans arrive, they find the planet bustling with aliens, who don't recognize each other, and don't recognize the new guys.

Faction Name: Lord's Children
Leader Archetype: Missionary

Name: Amando Manuel
Rank: Priest
Position: Chaplain
Country of
Origin: Portugul
DOB:
Height: 6'4
Weight:

Service Record:

Psych Profile: [Proselytizer]
[Father Manuel is a driven man who speaks with conviction. He appears to believe that god has sent him to explore the universe. Exceptionaly well read and intelligent.]

FutureWorks:

Faction:
Founding Base: Genesis

["We are all Gods Children, wherever we hail from."]

Here's an interesting question, how different should the natives be, biologically from the Humans? Very different would mean that we wouldn't pass on diseases to each other, but we could also unwittingly harm them with stuff we find fine i.e. "what the fuck, you mean lemonade is DEADLY TOXIC to your kind?" or more seriously "runoff from farms producing citrus fruits has found its way into native vineyards, toxifying the soil and laying waste to the crops therein."

>>13259554
+1 internets to you

>>13259576

Far from complete but I don't have time to finish it. Anyone want to give him a backstory?

What are futureworks? Are they unique tech?

Here's my instinct for the new economic guy:

Faction Name:
Leader Archetype:

Name: Archibald Fu
Rank: Lieutenant Commander
Position: Chief Morale Officer and Chairman of The Mess Committee
Country of Origin:The Democratic Thai Republic
DOB:
Height:
Weight:

Service Record:Lieutenant Commander Archibald Fu is noted for being the most decorated junior officer on the Marathon. He has been awarded several medals for meritorious conduct, and service above and beyond the call of duty. His commanding officers report that his control over his mens' morale has proven instrumental in several engagements. Most noted was the sharp decrease in morale when his first petition for Chairman of the Mess Committee was refused. Some mutter that he essentially blackmailed the captain into allowing him the position.

Psych Profile: Bon Vivant
Lieutenant Commander Fu is a notably humble individual, despite his many awards. He claims all the incidents were merely a matter of luck, and refuses to acknowledge any skill on his own part. He spends the majority of his time associating with the men, in a variety of games and conversation, or overseeing the mess, suggesting spices and implementing small tricks for the officers' tables.

(cont)

>>13259743
gentleman, my family demands I share some quality time with them, I shall finish this when I return.

if anyone wants to take a stab at it, in the interest of completion, he's very much an epicurean moral luck philosopher.

>>13259743

I like that. The Economic man is not out for personal gain and is rather humble. Good contrast from the previous game.

Was going to post somebody, realized that most of the suggestions so far are too unambiguously good guy.

>>13260591

We have some that are not. The conquitidor is not, space nazi is not, the very unfluffed biologist is not.

The priest and the economic expert are prety nice though.

>>13260626

I have to make my agrarian populist much less nice if she's going to be an acceptable character to balance out this set; though to be honest I don't think we're going to be using most of these characters that are thought up of in the first thread. Natural attrition will take its toll on us all.

>>13260719

Possibly. We are brainstorming. For all we know we will combine her with another charcter to make something.

>>13259743
Back to finish the job.

Faction Name: The Free
Leader Archetype: Relaxed

FutureWorks:

Free Hands, Free Hearts: The Free Market as a Moral Guide
A Full Life-The Necessities of a Ceti Life
Gambling on God's Dice.

Faction: The Fools
Founding Base: Fool's Gold

"The bravest of men understands that the universe is a matter of chance, that it is only by luck that one lives in this time, in this place. You are alive, and therefore are lucky. It is poor sportsmanship to strive against the other players just because they too are winning. Today's losers are tomorrow's winners, but the house always comes out ahead."

I don't know what starting tech to give him, maybe make a new one, to relate to his lassez faire policies.

Stat ideas
+1 Morale
+1 Economy
-1 Police
-1 support
(NOTE: I do not know what these numbers actually mean, so if this is a terrible balance, my apologies.)

>>13261130
I'm not sure I understand that one. If you believed there was a big component of luck in personal success, so neither failure or success are really earned, wouldn't you establish welfare systems, not lasseiz-faire?
Or do they see themselves as the "house"?