Beyond Earth Factions

[Karl0413]

IMO, Barre is the easy answer, as I love a story about vengeance or success against the odds.

But what I can't really wait is the article about Kavitha! I hope it's the transcript of a public speech or something very passionate.

Well, that should be coming next Friday. Personally, I like these flavor pieces; it's a good indication that the dev team gets at least part of what made SMAC great.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Well, that should be coming next Friday. Personally, I like these flavor pieces; it's a good indication that the dev team gets at least part of what made SMAC great.

Yeah, the vignettes are reminiscent of the pre-planetfall stories aboard the Unity. Seeing how there's probably less internal strife on the seed ships, this fills in nicely and sets up some history (or conflict) between the factions already.

 

[CaterpillarKing]

I would say it is nice for this to have a lot of non-euro nations.


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

[poom3619]

After Great Mistake, 3 Factions "miraculously" recovered while Pan-African Union are ironically have the same economic problem like they have today.

If they want to imply that Africa (at least sub-Sahara) would never get out of these problems. Shame on them.

If they just want to make faction go along with today's stereotype we found in all of the 4 factions so far. Fair Enough and shame on them.

If they want to tell players how messed up Africa are and tell that to player whenever they will reboot this in distant future. Well. That's noble cause and shame on them.

I would say it is nice for this to have a lot of non-euro nations.


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

When there are Germany, Britain or Scandinavia faction in the future and we can continue talks about euro-centrism

 

[3of5]

After Great Mistake, 3 Factions "miraculously" recovered while Pan-African Union are ironically have the same economic problem like they have today.

Yea, smelt fishy to me too, thats why i called it out.

 

[CommunistCookie]

After Great Mistake, 3 Factions "miraculously" recovered while Pan-African Union are ironically have the same economic problem like they have today.

If they want to imply that Africa (at least sub-Sahara) would never get out of these problems. Shame on them.

If they just want to make faction go along with today's stereotype we found in all of the 4 factions so far. Fair Enough and shame on them.

If they want to tell players how messed up Africa are and tell that to player whenever they will reboot this in distant future. Well. That's noble cause and shame on them.



When there are Germany, Britain or Scandinavia faction in the future and we can continue talks about euro-centrism

I'd say it's the opposite of the first point. This, Africa launching their own colony to start of anew, is them finally rising after centuries of exploitation. It's implied that, in some form, the great mistake shook the entire globe, so it only makes sense that countries with infrastructure already in place would recover faster.

As for stereotypes, I'd say they're doing a fairly good job of walking the line between keeping the civs relatable to our current world while showing they've changed and progressed in a lot of ways. PAU's peaceful demeanor and -religion attribute is a good example of that.

 

[GeoModder]

After Great Mistake, 3 Factions "miraculously" recovered while Pan-African Union are ironically have the same economic problem like they have today.

If they want to imply that Africa (at least sub-Sahara) would never get out of these problems. Shame on them.

If they just want to make faction go along with today's stereotype we found in all of the 4 factions so far. Fair Enough and shame on them.

If they want to tell players how messed up Africa are and tell that to player whenever they will reboot this in distant future. Well. That's noble cause and shame on them.

The PAU description in an earlier article seemed to imply "law and order" came to the continent out of stable "enclaves" after the Great Mistake. Do not mistake a single resource scarcity in Barre's letter with economic troubles.

 

[TPangolin]

Oh man, someone should really start a /r/civfanaticsinaction, some of the stuff that is said here is hilarious. Half the time you can't tell if it's satire or not.

Anyway, is anyone else semi-bored off the current 4 and fully on board the hype train for more for the Slavic, Poly, Franco and Brasilia civs? I swear that I've googled Polystralia so much that my phone now regularly predicts "Polystralia" whenever I type in "P".

 

[poom3619]

I start to wonder if there are any Pan-Arab faction in the future... Look like North African is somehow sharing the same fate with PAU.

Anyone else notice the "headline" of the 3 message we got from faction leader so far? There is a seal that probably represent the faction and to be used in-game

The PAU description in an earlier article seemed to imply "law and order" came to the continent out of stable "enclaves" after the Great Mistake. Do not mistake a single resource scarcity in Barre's letter with economic troubles.

How lack of industry, infrastructure, education and technical profession isn't economic troubles? Unless they end up exhausting raw resources or Great Mistake beats them all to pre-industrial age (which doesn't seem to be that case)

Yes, their political stability is improvement, but I found PAU being depicted as most desperate to being part of seedling is kind of sad. "We had to trade resources and lease launch facilities, because we had too much of the one thing and the Seeding requires a thousand different things."

 

[CommunistCookie]

I start to wonder if there are any Pan-Arab faction in the future... Look like North African is somehow sharing the same fate with PAU.



How lack of industry, infrastructure, education and technical profession isn't economic troubles? Unless they end up exhausting raw resources or Great Mistake beats them all to pre-industrial age (which doesn't seem to be that case)

Yes, their political stability is improvement, but I found PAU being depicted as most desperate to being part of seedling is kind of sad. "We had to trade resources and lease launch facilities, because we had too much of the one thing and the Seeding requires a thousand different things."

It being sad isn't grounds to shame the devs. It doesn't imply that the PAU is incompetent or not industrious in their own right; it implies that European and Asian powers haven't stopped exploiting them for long enough to get on their feet.

 

[3of5]

I start to wonder if there are any Pan-Arab faction in the future... Look like North African is somehow sharing the same fate with PAU.

How lack of industry, infrastructure, education and technical profession isn't economic troubles? Unless they end up exhausting raw resources or Great Mistake beats them all to pre-industrial age (which doesn't seem to be that case)

Yes, their political stability is improvement, but I found PAU being depicted as most desperate to being part of seedling is kind of sad. "We had to trade resources and lease launch facilities, because we had too much of the one thing and the Seeding requires a thousand different things."

Funny how they initially located the PAU in the subsaharan region only to subsequently seemingly to encompass nothern africa (and a big chunk of the middle east) too. Well at least it explains why there is a shuttle launching from egypt (even though equatorial regions would be better suited for the launch facility).

I agree that the insinuation, the PAU could not manage to leverage its plentiful ressources into a more diversified economy (maybe the most important economical development goal for every subsaharan nation right now today) and serious infrastructure, and all that in an era where resssource prices go though the roof, is poorly thought out at best and seriously insulting at last. It is true, that the economical success of the asian tiger states seems not replicable today, because the parameters have changed since then. But 200 years with one single goal is a hell of a lot of time to accomplish it, even if there would be setbacks by climate change, wars, contracting markets and lasting global economic downturn. Jut look at how many gulf states and nigeria have leveraged oil revenue into some serious financial infrastructure (for what good that does them) in only 30-40 years.

disclaimer: i'm european

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Funny how they initially located the PAU in the subsaharan region only to subsequently seemingly to encompass nothern africa (and a big chunk of the middle east) too. Well at least it explains why there is a shuttle launching from egypt (even though equatorial regions would be better suited for the launch facility).

I agree that the insinuation, the PAU could not manage to leverage its plentiful ressources into a more diversified economy (maybe the most important economical development goal for every subsaharan nation right now today) and serious infrastructure, and all that in an era where resssource prices go though the roof, is poorly thought out at best and seriously insulting at last. It is true, that the economical success of the asian tiger states seems not replicable today, because the parameters have changed since then. But 200 years with one single goal is a hell of a lot of time to accomplish it, even if there would be setbacks by climate change, wars, contracting markets and lasting global economic downturn. Jut look at how many gulf states and nigeria have leveraged oil revenue into some serious financial infrastructure (for what good that does them) in only 30-40 years.

disclaimer: i'm european

The PAU has not existed as a stable entity for 200 years, it sounds like it might only be a few decades old.. ie Barre was involved in putting down insurrections where they didn't get enough material.

Also, the "good government" of the PAU may be only slightly better than the current range of governments in Africa. They have a degree of 'resource curse' and so may not have spent as much on development as spending it on oppression/propaganda, etc. (after all they conquered an entire continent... think of something like the Roman Empire.. they built roads and aqueducts, but they also needed to spend on legions to make sure taxes were extracted.)

That said, it seems like infrastructure, education, etc. v. resources merely means the PAU has more resources than it can use, while the ARC and PAC have less resources than they can use.


The PAU probably has more infrastructure than modern N. America, but you need much more infrastructure to utilize all the resources of Africa and turn them into starships. (which the infrastructure of modern N. America cannot do)

 

[GeoModder]

How lack of industry, infrastructure, education and technical profession isn't economic troubles? Unless they end up exhausting raw resources or Great Mistake beats them all to pre-industrial age (which doesn't seem to be that case)

The PAU presumedly lacks the knowhow and sufficient industrial infrastructure to launch a colony ship on their own account. What you're saying is similar to saying China doesn't count in today's space ventures because ESA, NASA, and Roscosmos are technically more advanced then them.

Yes, their political stability is improvement, but I found PAU being depicted as most desperate to being part of seedling is kind of sad. "We had to trade resources and lease launch facilities, because we had too much of the one thing and the Seeding requires a thousand different things."

You seem to have missed Barre jumped from the one occasion to the other in the same sentence here. As I read it, he compared the Congo situation he and his brother were in where they had to exchange (part of) the ammo they carried in for other necessary things. And uses this example to tell his brother how he signed agreements on the use of PAU equatorial launch facilities and raw resources in exchange for the knowhow and finished products/parts of colony starships and perhaps supplies of the trade partners like PAC and ARC.

The PAU has not existed as a stable entity for 200 years, it sounds like it might only be a few decades old.. ie Barre was involved in putting down insurrections where they didn't get enough material.

Good catch. Now I think of it, nothing south of the Congo has been mentioned in PAU's description.
On stability, it can be argued that for instance today's EU isn't particularly "stable" too, since there's still a waiting list of countries willing to join it. Expansion, in whatever means, doesn't necessarily indicate instability of a political entity.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The PAU presumedly lacks the knowhow and sufficient industrial infrastructure to launch a colony ship on their own account. What you're saying is similar to saying China doesn't count in today's space ventures because ESA, NASA, and Roscosmos are technically more advanced then them.

Its not that the PAU Can't launch a colony ship on their own, they just can't launch as many or as fast as they can with help

ie.
PAU... has 1 "Space ship Factory" and 5 "Rare metals mines"
PAC... has 3 "Space ship Factory" and 1 "Rare metals mines"
ARC... has 3 "Space ship Factory" and 1 "Rare metals mines"

PAU could launch 1 all on its own
PAC could launch 1 all on its own (look at the Soucha interview, they are suffering from limited minerals)
ARC could launch 1 all on its own

However, If PAU trades, they can launch 3 (and the others can launch 2)

Or PAU could wait ~100 years build/train its own "Spaceship Factories" and launch 5

On stability, it can be argued that for instance today's EU isn't particularly "stable" too, since there's still a waiting list of countries willing to join it. Expansion, in whatever means, doesn't necessarily indicate instability of a political entity.

EU is actually a good example, countries are trying to join... but its not as if the EU economy is doing particularly well...maybe in 2040 EU "rights enforcers" have to fight golden dawn, eta, the bastille society, opus dei, etc. If so that would put it fairly far behind.

Of course, a 'stable' society isn't necessarily good either (1400s China was stable and unthreatened, so it focused on stability rather than development)



All of this to say they could have been justified in everything from
Africa controlling an empire of all but Asia and N. America
to
Africa has been literally reduced to Iron age tribes/depopulated entirely/a massive slave colony for the Antarctic Federation

As such they went with PAU is roughly balanced in power with the other nations... although it is still resource heavy v. infrastructure heavy

 

[luko18]

Kim Jon Zun ( Kim Jun Un's great, great, great, great grandson- will lead the peoples's spaceship to the new planet to bring true happiness- interstellar communism.

Slavik Republic will save the oppressed alien Ukrainians.

The rest I dont care for

jkn

 

[s0nny80y]

Polystralia and Australia's martian like ruggedness & wave faring ventures, I think, uniquely poises Polystralia as the original intergalactic faction of star mappers.

 

[Josephias]

After Great Mistake, 3 Factions "miraculously" recovered while Pan-African Union are ironically have the same economic problem like they have today.

If they want to imply that Africa (at least sub-Sahara) would never get out of these problems. Shame on them.

If they just want to make faction go along with today's stereotype we found in all of the 4 factions so far. Fair Enough and shame on them.

If they want to tell players how messed up Africa are and tell that to player whenever they will reboot this in distant future. Well. That's noble cause and shame on them.

As some others have said, that's being to itchy.... and missing a key phrase on Samatar's letter

"We didn't have time to build these things up, either..."

As others have said, it is safe to asume the Great Mistake did not change much, anyway, but it did trigger many movements, PAU as one of them. Whether PAC or ARC had to recover, they just had to recover/rebuild existing infraestructure, PAU had to create and grow a new world power... and they are on track...

But the seeding has a deadline, (or more to say, a kick-off line), and they are not reaching it at the pace they are growing. The letter does not say that in 50-100 years more they could not have matched the space programs of other nations, that they could have built an already educated workbase with which to support it. Probably they could.

But by then, the possibility to have an impact on the seeding would have gone away. All competitors could be already mid-way to their destination plantes, and they would reach there to late, without option to compete.

So... they had to trade some resources to speed up production... fair deal?. Samatar does not like it for sure, and probably there were hard negotiations. We are not sure either, if the ARC or Wu went out content of the negotiation table ¿what were their expectations?... maybe the price they paid to Barre was much higher than they expected (altough lower than Barre would have wanted). The key is: all them were on a Space Race, and all them were scarce on some resources (we saw a PAC heated discussion on titanium use in last blog), but all them had to seat and trade what they needed, because there is no time to lose to find another home for man (¿fear of long-lasting Great Mistake effects?). And of course, those who reach first a viable planet will have a great benefit (and Space Race victory )

So far, in CIV terms: Barre traded Aluminium, for the techs he needed to start building right away the spaceship parts he was missing ... now the field is leveled to a production race... whoever can get the parts done first, wins.

 

[Lord Tirian]

The longer I read this thread, the more I wish they had picked names that abbreviate to something more distinguishable than "PAU" and "PAC"!

 

[Algeroth]

The longer I read this thread, the more I wish they had picked names that abbreviate to something more distinguishable than "PAU" and "PAC"!

Don't forget that Polyastria would be probably abbreviated as PA.

 

[3of5]

(¿fear of long-lasting Great Mistake effects?).

Hmm, when ressource depletion is the main longlasting effect of the great mistake...

...then the great mistake must have been capitalism! No wonder Firaxis does not want to write it out in plain, since they are based in the US.