Civilopedia descriptions/additions

These are some ideas for filling in many of the empty civilopedia/datalinks entries in this mod. For a lot of these entries, there aren't applicable Alpha Centauri quotes or other descriptions to use, so we'll just have to make them up. It seems useful to have a place for us to combine ideas for what to place in these empty locations.



These are my ideas for the "religions" in the game. I also have a few ideas for social engineering and new quotes for some technologies, so will likely be including them later.

Oh, that reads pretty neatly, but I'm not sure how good it is to have the faction leaders mentioned. While the religions are strongly tied to them, they're not locked in (heck, I once had a game, where Deirdre founded Edenism... it was a weird one, though! And Homo Superior is fairly often founded by any faction but Gaians and Believers, as far as I can tell). Also: While Chiron is the "official" name of the planet, it's not mentioned very often in-game. I think calling it "Planet" most of the time is better - gives it a more down-to-earth feel (like the name "Earth").

Cheers, LT.

I like the religion descriptions in general! Of course for some parts I view the religions differently:

For Edenism, I'd restate their "mission statement" as "reshaping Chiron in Earth's image" instead of "expanding the human presence on Chiron".

Also I'm not sure I agree with your subgroups within the Edenist religion. Your "Natural" Edenists may sound a little too similar to Voice terraforming/chiroforming goals. I do agree you can hace different views within Edenism: one side's goal would be to increase the human population size as much as possible, and their terraforming could as a consequence focus on monoculture farming. The "natural" Edenists could have a more romantic vision, and want to create an ecological (but terran) paradise, which means planting forests, and no focus on population growth at all costs. Deirdre would have this view in the first years on Chiron, before signs showed up the Xenofungus was something special. In a way, the Edenism religion can contain both contemporary environmentalists and non-environmentalists. They both think however that terran and chiron ecologies are incompatible, and that spreading an ecology friendly to humans necessarily means destroying the Chiron ecology. That's why I disagree with your description of the "natural" edenists.

Homo Superior

Who's Diegas Patel? You?

Basically I see two visions on what it means to be(come) a Homo Superior.

One you have covered: through genetics and cybernetics. The other vision (and the reason why Homo Superior is attached to Memetics) says that being a Homo Superior has nothing to do with improvements to your body, but rather is all about reshaping how you think. They favour a Nietzschean morality, and place heavy focus on creativity of all kinds and seeking knowledge: they try to think rationally, using the scientific method, all the time. SMAC's Intellectual Integrity quote fits in this vision.
Most Homines Superiores would to a varying degree agree and follow both visions though.

Ascetic Virtues

Not much to add here. Perhaps mention that the philosophy draws inspiration from Buddhism and Daoism.

I disagree with the factions you think would like/dislike this religion. While I can imagine the Spartans running Ascetic Virtues, I rather see that faction as the paragon Homo Superior (though with a heavier focus on the genetics vision than the memetics vision, compared to Peacekeepers for instance). Also I can imagine not Morgan himself but certainly a portion of the Morganites following Ascetic Virtues. Puritan capitalists is nothing weird. IIRC it is said that protestantism in its early days for instance placed a heavy focus on work ethic and not consumption, which meant that capitalists had more money left to invest in new stuff. In any case, an ascetic morality can have synergy with capitalism.

Voice of Planet

I disagree with your statement that "This religion/philosophy was founded amongst the gaian faction soon after the discovery that planet’s fungus and mind worms made up a large, thinking, neural network." Personally I think full realization of what Planetmind is and its connection to psi, mind worms, and xenofungus may come as late as the Centauri Ecology technology. Before that, it are only suspicions.

You could elaborate the description a little by mentioning contact with Planetmind only came gradually. At first contact would only consist of inexplicable dream fragments (such as in the Lalala quote, when Planetmind still had a very childlike consciousness). Later contact could be reached through a trance and meditation. At this point (Centauri Meditation) it began to become a religion. Still, because the ways to achieve a contact were all still very subjective, the Voice was at first a very mystical religion, and its followers were heavily mocked by the University as a bunch of drugged hippies. Only later it would gradually become apparent the Voice followers were actually on to something real.

Lord Tirian said:

Oh, that reads pretty neatly, but I'm not sure how good it is to have the faction leaders mentioned. While the religions are strongly tied to them, they're not locked in

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I don't necessarily agree with that. Even if actual games play differently, there's nothing wrong with having an "official" history.

I'll have another edit for the religions later today (To see if any future edits come in). As for the two recent posts:

On directly mentioning factions leaders, it should be pretty simple for me to rewrite the histories so that non-faction leaders are the ones who actually put together the ideas into something that can spread. (As for Diegas Patel, it's just a made up name, so no cool story here unfortunately.) (I do agree more with Maniac in this, since, for example, Christianity might be founded by the Chinese civilization in a regular game even though it is less common there in actuality, but the adjustment should be easy to make.

As for Maniac's points:

Edenism:

The change to "expanding humanitie's presence on chiron" was more to bring it in line with how it works in game (where edenism spreads influence rather than directly effecting terraforming, though it does synergize with the terraforming oriented strategies), with the idea being that converting chiron to be more earth like would, by and large, go along with it. (It does seem plausible to make the two elements both important elements, though)


Homo Superior:

This one will probably just require some extra editing to make the "education/creativity" elements clearer. (When writing the description, I had imagined things the way you did, although instead of two types, it was more of a continuum, and with genetics and cybernetics used to improve the mind as well as body, so these changes will hopefully be simple to make)


Ascetic:

Morgan should be simple to add (Since the different types of asceticism aren't really described in this one).

(Personally I see Morganites as more of a consumerist, "work hard/play hard" faction, since that seems to fit Morgan's own personality, and the personality that I've heard a lot of investment and corporate types have, though it's pretty clear that different players have different ways of imagining what the factions would actually be like.)


Voice of Planet:

The suggested changes should be pretty simple to make.

Maniac said:

I don't necessarily agree with that. Even if actual games play differently, there's nothing wrong with having an "official" history.

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Hmmm... the reason why I don't like it is two-fold:

1) In Civ4, you replay human history, you know that there is an "official" history. A part of SMAC (and hence Planetfall) is, for me, that it's also a bit of exploration. Discovering the unknown and making you connect the dots yourself is part of the fun - I think strong hints are more interesting.

2) The varying interpretations of the religions. I like that they have different interpretations depending on the context and the faction adopting them, having them associated with a leader may make them read as "the Gaian reli", "the Hive reli" etc. instead of keeping them broad and flexible.

In any case, it's a minor thing, matter-of-taste and all that, in fact.

Cheers, LT.

Pickly said:

(When writing the description, I had imagined things the way you did, although instead of two types, it was more of a continuum

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I agree it's a continuum.

(Personally I see Morganites as more of a consumerist, "work hard/play hard" faction, since that seems to fit Morgan's own personality, and the personality that I've heard a lot of investment and corporate types have, though it's pretty clear that different players have different ways of imagining what the factions would actually be like.)

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I too see the Morganites as you see them. However I don't think the religions' description should specifically say the Ascetic Virtues and Morgan don't mix. Not being able to think of a way how the Morganites and the Ascetic Virtues can match, would cause a lesser enjoyment of the game when the faction actually ends up following that religion in a game.

Maniac said:

The other vision (and the reason why Homo Superior is attached to Memetics) says that being a Homo Superior has nothing to do with improvements to your body, but rather is all about reshaping how you think. They favour a Nietzschean morality, and place heavy focus on creativity of all kinds and seeking knowledge: they try to think rationally, using the scientific method, all the time. SMAC's Intellectual Integrity quote fits in this vision.

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This is how I have imagined HS since the beginning, so you're certainly not alone. The "artificial evolution" interpretation is interesting and I hadn't imagined it.

As for the Ascetic Morganites debate, there is going to be inevitable tension when we have non-culturally neutral religions and, on a deeper level, when we have factions defined by similar ideologies to those which inform the religions. Deirdre's choosing Edenism would be "wrong" in this way, in my opinion, and Morgan's canonical praise of greed would be a similar problem in his case. But why limit mechanics just because of a subjective interpretation of one's goals?

This is how I have imagined HS since the beginning, so you're certainly not alone. The "artificial evolution" interpretation is interesting and I hadn't imagined it.

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The "genetic enhancement" element is based on the original alpha Centauri description. (they do work together pretty well, though.)


I've also made some adjustments to the religion descriptions, and also wrote some descriptions for ecological civics. for the religions, most of the concerns mentioned in this thread were pretty simple to include, for edenism I went for somewhere in the middle. I've also added a bit of extra description for how asceticism gets applied for different factions.


In the ecological descriptions, the quotes for terraforming and biodomes are made up (I didn't see or remember any fitting quotes from SMAC itself, though some may be lurking in there.). The quote for hybrid was moved from Voice of Planet, since planet talking about mixing species seems to work better here. (Though the original SMAC hybrid forest quote might work as well.). The starting ecological choice (I forget what it's called) doesn't get it's own quote, since it its more of a default than a full policy. (I'm not sure if quotes are as useful here, but they are inin case people think they would be useful.)

I must say I'm still not entirely happy with the religious descriptions. I'll probably edit it myself to get the description how I want it.

Pickly said:

In the ecological descriptions...

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Nitpick: In the biodome description, you mentioned "hostile atmosphere", which is wrong. The atmosphere isn't very suitable for unassisted human breathing, but it's not hostile for plants - on the contrary, plants appear to thrive there:
"Planet's atmosphere, though a gasping death to humans and most animals, is paradise for Earth plants. The high nitrate content of the soil and the rich yellow sunlight bring an abundant harvest wherever adjustments can be made for the unusual soil conditions."

Lady Deirdre Skye, "A Comparative Biology of Planet"

The problems are more the "unusual soil conditions" and that the high nitrate content may make plant products less suitable for human consumption.

Cheers, LT.

Lord Tirian said:

Nitpick: In the biodome description, you mentioned "hostile atmosphere", which is wrong. The atmosphere isn't very suitable for unassisted human breathing, but it's not hostile for plants - on the contrary, plants appear to thrive there:
"Planet's atmosphere, though a gasping death to humans and most animals, is paradise for Earth plants. The high nitrate content of the soil and the rich yellow sunlight bring an abundant harvest wherever adjustments can be made for the unusual soil conditions."

Lady Deirdre Skye, "A Comparative Biology of Planet"

The problems are more the "unusual soil conditions" and that the high nitrate content may make plant products less suitable for human consumption.

Cheers, LT.

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I do know about the quote, but figured there still might be problems, since the atmosphere would still have slightly different conditions (So that plants overall could grow, but some might run into problems due to the different pressure, slightly different gases, different weather patterns, etc., which could still add risks to farming projects.) So perhaps, "different atmospheric descriptions" would make a somewhat better description.

I've rewritten the Edenism and Homo Superior quotes to include the things I mentioned. The rest is basically the same.

Values and economices ideas are below:


For values, I couldn't really think of anything much to say beyond what the values are and what their effects are (Since values are more fuzzy ideas than economic or ecological policies, it was hard to think of, say, where the historical dividing line between survival and the others would lie.) I may come up with some other ideas for these if preferred.


For economics, everything should be pretty self explanatory.


The quotes for Free Market, Wealth, Lal's knowledge one, and the Power one are from the game. The other quotes I made up (again, did not see anything in the game that would really fit these systems well). The "simple" systems als didn't get quotes or much description.

Edit: I should also mention that I attempted to write values somewhat generically, to account for changes between patches, but some of the description does apply to a particular patch.

o.k., these are the actual attachments.

Pickly said:

o.k., these are the actual attachments.

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For what it's worth, I like these bits a lot more than your initial religion bits, but I also liked Maniac's versions a bit better. Maniac's religion write-ups and your new write-ups on economics and values read shorter and more concise - a bit more like short encylopedia entries/paper abstracts than fiction/story. I think such an abstract-style is more suited for a Pedia entry.

Cheers, LT.

Governments included below. These are pretty similar to the values/economics descriptions.

It's probably a safe bet that council/no council doesn't need a description.

I rewrote the Wealth description, but the other Values, Ecology and Religion descriptions will be in the next patch.

Regarding the Economy and Politics descriptions, I disagree with your Democratic and Free Market descriptions.

Re Democratic, personally I still see that civic as indirect democracy, not direct.

Re Free Market, personally I don't think it's really possible to imagine a good reason why a certain technology would be required to allow a free market. Of course for gameplay reasons there has to be an enabling tech.

IMO (especially intrafactional) economies don't use energy as a true item of barter, as your FM description seems to indicate. Rather it could be something like the gold standard: there is some gold actually stored, but in fact most money has nothing concrete to back it up. Likewise trade in SMAC is done not by actual energy barter, but by SMAC's currency unit, the Energy Credit, which doesn't have a full actual energy storage to back it up. Hence your reason for linking Free Market to Superconductor doesn't make sense.

If a reason needs to be given, I was rather thinking saying something like free markets and capitalism only working efficiently if they have a large enough market to operate in. Before the advent of superconductors, which improved transportation, information and communication technologies, all bases were by necessity mostly autarkic (though of course not the more efficient kind of autarky allowed by biofuels).

Maniac said:

Re Democratic, personally I still see that civic as indirect democracy, not direct.

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The new descriptions has this going both ways, (Since I do see more advanced information networks as allowing for much more direct as opposed to indirect). It focused more on the legal elements.

Re Free Market, personally I don't think it's really possible to imagine a good reason why a certain technology would be required to allow a free market. Of course for gameplay reasons there has to be an enabling tech.

IMO (especially intrafactional) economies don't use energy as a true item of barter, as your FM description seems to indicate.

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I realize that this is probably how an economy would actually work. However, for the purposes of keeping the mod consistent, it seemed more useful to give a more focused reason for why the particular economy was tied to the particular advance. (the new description just kind of fudges a vague connection, similar to the planned economy one.)

New ones.

Tier 1 advances here:

I forgot to check the actual game before writing this to see whihc advances have quotes at the moment, which do not. All the advances here have quotes listed, just in case.

Biogenetics, Doctrine: Mobility, Information Networks descriptions and quotes are lifted straight from Alpha Centauri (These quotes are probably already in the game, and probably the same). The xenobiology description is a Centauri ecology descriuption for Alpha Centauri, the quote is original game centauri empathy (I think there alreay is a planetfall quote here, if not, the empahty one seems workable). Everything else is made up.

(Some of the later advances common to this and the original game will of course not be direct copies, those will be adjusted as needed.)