So, Lone Starr, now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.

The OP is correct, from all I can see, and this has been discussed frequently in these forums. A few rare individuals have tried to make a case that good is in balance, but I'm far from convinced. The only real debate is whether evil or neutral is best. I have been playing "evil" in the TA betas, after playing mostly "good" in my metaverse games. I have been a bit surprised how much advantage is gained by the evil choices, now that I am taking them myself. The conventional wisdom is that playing as "good" equals playing at one higher difficulty level. I don't know why that is at this point, but I agree that it would be nice to see this aspect of the game balanced properly.

One possible partial work-around now is for a player to take all of the "juicy" evil bonuses when colonizing, and then "repent" by "buying" good when you research Xeno Ethics.   You get to keep all the early "advantages of evil" while finishing the game as "good." That's pretty bad theology and ethics and I would not recommend the practice in real life, but this is, after all, only a game! Still, since this game involves "role playing," and many of us would like to role play as "good," it would be nice to see the ethical alignments such that each one may be played without penalty.

I do think Evil is a bit overpowered, but I'm not sure I'd like to see a big boost to taking the Good path. Here's my thinking, and it's based on (imagined) sci-fi "realism" and not abstract game balancing:

A mature planet-wide civilization might eventually reach a point where a "good" path is eventually adopted, within that civilization. Our current world civilization isn't there yet, but it's a much less brutal planet than it was in the Middle Ages. We wiped out any close intelligent competitors long ago (Neanderthals), so we can afford to settle down and try to get along with our fellow humans.

But what happens when you go out into the galaxy, and meet other intelligent species? That starts the Darwinian "survival of the fittest intelligence" battle all over again.

A Good-aligned civilization would have no natural advantage there, and in fact it would probably be a handicap. That's the premise of the Human/Kzin conflict in the Niven novels. The humans had achieved world peace, and had to re-learn how to fight wars after meeting the Kzinti. Not all alien species might be that bloodthirsty, but you'd still have to learn what nasty tricks you could, even to compete with a benign trading race like Niven's Puppeteers (who actually aren't all that benign, as it turned out).

So, yes... in game balancing terms it might not be fair, but I can see a justification for setting it up this way. Nice guys finish last, etc. At least you're not absolutely forced to take the Evil path, unless you're going for high scores. Neutral works pretty well for just solo gaming. That's usually what I go for, unless I'm just itching for a fight and want to role-play the bad guys.

This is what creates that little pause when you have a moral dilemma isn't it?Although I can see that if being good makes winning tougher it should be reflected in the game scoring.You would probably have to chose good every time to get the score bonus,no I'll go neutral on this one so the Arceans won't attack me now.
but then good traditionally gets their reward in heaven while evil seems to enjoy it in the material world  

Fundies only take planets from evil players, IIRC. JK is an equal-opportunity annoyance, though.

yeah but I only see thier appearence once out of every few games I play so it doesn't handicap an evil player that much, plus they respond like a minor race which are usually a minor annoyance at best. I've seen in the suggestions post to make minor's more of a threat, which would be nice, being that the last time that I felt actually threatened by a minor was back in DL.

I pretty much always go for neutrality myself after picking mostly evil choices during colonization. The approval bonus, the Neutrality Learning Centers, the extra trade routes (if you go evil you usually get all but one trade route outlawed), the bonus on ground invasion against non-neutral opponents, the extra income from the temple, free terraforming for tiles, and you're usually in a better situation diplomatically than if you go evil.

In my mind the only thing that makes evil that great is the mind control center, the rest are relatively smaller perks. I'd prefer the multiple decent bonuses of neutrality to the big bonus of evil plus a bunch of minor perks.

The problem with good is that it only consists of minor perks and there is nothing big to make going good worthwhile. To be fair they did change the tech trees for the Altarians and the Thalans and made the choices more balanced in TA. So I'm pretty sure they are looking at this to some extent, but I don't know if they planning on changing anything in DA.

If you are good then you do not have sin weighing on your soul.

That IS the reward/bonus.

Okay, I'm laying down the gauntlet right here. Explain how "evil is better by nature."

You don't in games, which is a shame, because in real life, you also don't. That is until your 'citizens' revolt and freaking SHOOT YOU. REPEATEDLY. IN THE FACE. I hope stardock decides to include how unpopular tyrannical governments can get.

But yeah, in most games, evil is easier. It shouldn't be, though because there are consequences. For example, if you go on a robbing spree where you kill anybody who tries to stop you, the SWAT team won't show you any mercy. If you take over a country and kill your people to maintain control and happen to be taken from power, your people will find you. And then hang you. It'd be cool if GalCiv reflected this.

yeah, the reward should be not having to duck and cover when the rioters come for your head because there aren't any. That's a real reward.

Yeah, I did get a bit carried away with the exaggeration, didn't I? My point is that running an evil empire, no matter how well you cow the populace, isn't good for morale. Even if you appeal to your race's feelings of superiority, all the other groups will be pretty ticked off. For example, in Nazi Germany's empire, even though the actual Germans were pretty happy with the setup, everybody else was kind of angry.



You want to know why so many barbarians hated the Romans? I think the whole 'slaves' thing was a pretty big part of it, and that type of unpopularity would be a neat feature in GalCiv. And I doubt that whole Spartacus business would've happened without slavery. Also, considering the turnover rate of emperors at the hands of the praetorians, I wouldn't use Rome as a case for the safety of running a corrupt, "evil" government. I should've specified that lynch mobs weren't the only danger that arises, but the point is that there tends to be a much less satisfied population in "evil" empires, and bad, unproductive things happen when people aren't happy. Also, the budget the Romans put into bread and circuses was enough to run a few small kingdoms, so when you factor in that many morale buildings, it's hardly surprising that there weren't that many riots (not counting the ones inspired by the chariot races)



A lot of the reason for that was they took brilliant advantage of pre-existent racial enmity. I'm not saying that evil empires should be fearing for their lives, just less popular.



Considering that a rather autocratic type of rule was the norm, it's understandable that the resistance to these countries' reign wasn't always the least popular thing, but there were a few uprisings: Philippines in a state of guerrilla warfare (US), Warsaw Riots (Nazi Germany), Czechoslovakia and Hungary (USSR). These reflect a low level of morale in the brutally subjugated outlying colonies, something a morale modifier would accomplish.



Don't forget the revolutions of 1848 that happened in pretty much every country in Europe. Those were a pretty big deal, even though they didn't overthrow the rulers, an equivalent rash of riots would've caused some serious problems in GalCiv. But these failures show how delicate a balance running an "evil" empire really is.



Yeah, sounds about right. Some alignment penalties for war would be nice, can't help but agree there. An influence and morale bonus for being good would help guide "good" civs onto an influence/diplomacy path, and the bonuses for good are more desperately needed than the penalties for evil (but those are important, too). And you aren't crushing their culture, you're 'enlightening' them, and incorporating them into the 'greater good' See the Warhammer 40k tau for how to run an occasionally violent, aggressively expanding, but "good" empire. Remember, "good" is in they eye of the beholder, and morality is relative. It seems that the "good" races are "good" in the same way that paladins in Dungeons and Dragons are: moral and incredibly stuck up about it, and completely willing to justify killing most things by saying that they were evil or 'not good enough' and their destruction was justified, and even necessary.

He probably meant sanctimonious. Which, yeah, since the idea of Paladins were inquisitors like Torquemada... that's a pretty fair assessment. The problem at least was that in D&D, they WERE justified, as it as never really an issue. Slaughtering a town of heretics might be justifiable as good, but is still an intrinsically evil thing, but it works for Lawful Good all the same.