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Depending on the game I'm making, I may get to be a historian, an anthropologist, an archaeologist, or a military officer. These days, with Alpha Centauri, I'm pretending to be a scientist, a science-fiction writer, and perhaps a philosopher.
At the "Sid Meier School For Better Game Design," a successful design presents the player with a series of interesting decisions - decisions where he (or she) feels genuinely torn between choice A and choice B - and allows the player to win by any of several different strategies.
economics, liberties, religion, health care, military service, education, environment, and information. On each issue, you can choose to take a "ruthless," "moderate," or "idealistic" stance, with a variety of consequences. Choose the ruthless "free market" economy, which promotes efficiency and economic growth at the expense of the environment, or the idealistic "fair market" economy, which encourages citizen loyalty, population expansion, and raw industrial output at the expense of economic growth.Similarly, you may choose (ruthlessly) to conscript a massive, inexpensive, but ill-trained army, or you can (idealistically) raise an all-volunteer, highly trained, and very expensive force. Ruthlessly, you maintain ironfisted control of your information networks, preventing enemy infiltration, not to mention the corrupting influences of pornography and subversive literature. Or idealistically, you open your networks to the free exchange of ideas and information, reaping the rewards of greater creativity and productivity but running the risks of infiltration, corruption, or even open rebellion. Idealistic public health care keeps your citizens happy and healthy, not to mention loyal; a ruthless health care "for profit" scheme encourages economic efficiency, not to mention advanced medical research.[...] You can create literally thousands of different societies in Alpha Centauri - an atheistic, polluting police state with a free market economy, universal education, and all-volunteer military. Or perhaps a devoutly religious democracy with a heavily censored information network, conscript army, and cradle-to-grave health care.
Even when deprived of its optimal strategy, the faction's weaknesses should not be insurmountable.
[...] I've noticed that when I win using a particular strategy, it gets chalked up to "unbalanced powers" (and a new set of attribute rules soon follows); when designer Brian Reynolds wins, it's "superior gameplay."