Alignment Scenarios: Being 'Good' gets the shaft?

Are better results accomplished by being 'Evil' or 'Neutral'?

from GalCiv2 Forums
First off, I love this game! Seldom have I suffered from such gaming addiction and at my age of late, but Stardock has definitely hooked me into their latest piece of work—and oh what a joy it is! Now, on to my post about Alignment Scenarios and their choices...

Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve noticed that most of the game’s alignment scenarios offer added bonuses to ‘Evil’ or ‘Neutral’ choices with few exceptions, while choosing ‘Good’ seems to almost always result in a more negative tone for your empire.

Rarely have I seen ‘Evil’ or ‘Neutral’ suffer much of a consequence, but rather gives extreme bonuses to PQ, Economics, etc., leaving ‘Good’ empty handed and even undergoing setbacks if anything. On maybe one or two instances has ‘Evil’ suffered any drawback. At least choosing the ‘Good’ option should reap approval bonuses for your civ, but no, that’s not even on the table.

Sure, as stated in the manual, the overall alignment bonuses of civilizations seem to break down evenly, but this of course is something that is chosen later in the game upon researching ethics and such and therefore forcing aligment. Then perhaps by leaning towards ‘Good’, provided of course any of the other civs have chosen this path, might there be a pay-off. Otherwise, why do the ‘Good’ thing, when hardly there's ever a reason to?

I’ve been playing the game for many hours now, hoping that as the game progresses I’ll see ‘Good’ start to receive it’s due rather than getting the shaft. Here’s hoping cause, well, I simply like being one of the ‘Good’ guys.

Thanks
31,941 views 59 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I like the system the way it is.....I mean think about it.....in a lot of situations doing the right or "good" thing is more difficult than doing the wrong thing. Look around the real world....the good must work extra hard to achieve while the evil exploit.

Simplistic example:

Man driving down road notices armored truck spill out a money bag....he can a) Good- return the money and recieve a nice "Thank you for being so honest", b) Neutral ignore the situation c) Evil - Keep the money i.e steal it.

Obivously keeping the money would be a bonus but it's wrong and returning the money is the right thing but not very rewarding (finanically).

In the game the advantage to being good is that other civilizations will be more receptive to you and they'll be easier to deal with. Being evil can make you powerful but it also makes you feared, this of course can be advantagous but it also can be dangerous because the other civs (even neutral ones sometimes) will be more likely to form alliances against you. They'll also try and mess with your empire any way they can to make things hard on you.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In the game the advantage to being good is that other civilizations will be more receptive to you and they'll be easier to deal with.


This is the theory, but it doesn't seem very well balanced - no matter how good you've been, I find even the supposed "Good" aliens to be grade A crankypants. Let's toss all discussion of real life out the window, okay? This is a game, and choices like the moral dilemmas should be balanced in terms of their benefits.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It is hard to be good!

And it's fun to be evil!

These are the messages we want to send our children!!!

In game though, I like it as it is. If I am playing as a good race I tend to stick with neutral for the most part and choose good when the penalties are low or have no serious effect (e.g. a backwater planet far from the frontier that loses 20% planetary defense).... although, even as good, I will always pick the evil route for PQ increase!

It is also very nice when you play to be evil. You get a lot of nice bonuses at the start of the game that help you to specialise your planets more.... playing as Yor, I tend to be as far evil as possible within a very short period of time.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Let's toss all discussion of real life out the window, okay?


okay......jeez.

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
*cough* have you ever had the altarians declare war on you simply for being a "demonic" civilization?

Then the torians.

Then the Iconians (I think just because they were allied)

Although my fleet of psyonic bmw's as I call 'em (beamers, get it? ) promptly defended, and then attacked, and then annihilated. I just wish they had core detinators implemented. I sure as heck didn't use those planets for anything on a gigantic galaxy.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ah, destroying planets. I remember that from my MOO2 days. When it became such a pain to conquer and hold their planets, and you certainly didn't want them picking them up or re-populating them behind you, you just BLOW THEM UP!

That was a fun gun.

Never did understand how a gun that could destroy a planet, couldn't blow up a reasonably tough super dreadnaught.

Odd that.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
The thing about good is that there are more good civs out there (Atleast I think) so acting good will get you buddy buddy with them. Acting evil will get thema ngrya t you, and another evil civ will not always be buddy buddy with you just because you are evil, unless you are way stronger than they are.

Either way, I never picked good as my alignemnt so I dont ven know the bonuses. I usualyl go evil but lately I liked neutral.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It makes sense in so much that being evil is the easy way out and that being good is harder, but I have to say that a little something for the good people would be nice.

I'm not talking about flipping things so that bad always suffers and good always wins out. I mean you have 4 choices, all reward evil and hurt good, then you get a 5th choice and it helps good and hurts evil. Just even things out a bit more. Of all the choices I've been offered I can only remember one that offered good the best deal, and it was 13 bc .... a big fricken 13 bc.

Of course being evil myself it doesn't impact me all that much, but it is completely one sided.

I mean why not have your race randomly discover a cure to serious illness:

You can be evil and keep it to yourself, which sends a negative message to researchers that their research may never be used (-17% research on planet)

You can be neutral and offer it to the other races, only asking that they cover your expenses which gains you some small respect (+100 bc, +5% influence on planet)

You can be good and provide it for free to the universe and earn the good will of the empires and create the image that your empire fosters creative minds (+10% diplomacy, +34% research on planet)

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Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
DarkTalon, that example is good, but to balance it out you would have to throw in somehting for Evil, say a pop bonus.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
*cough* have you ever had the altarians declare war on you simply for being a "demonic" civilization?


Nope, but I've had the Altairians declare war on me (a Good civilization) for having too small a military...
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i think when you go evil you loyalty should go down while when you do good your morale goes up
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have a game going with the Yor, Korx, Drengin, Humans, Iconians, Arcaens and Torians. I am Altarian. The "good" civilizations have all slipped into "leaning neutral" while I decided to declare myself good regardless. Only the Torians and Humans can stand me now (probably because of trade) while the rest are hostile. My fleet's pretty good, but three of these races are ganging up on me now. The bottom line: Good puts you at as much of a disadvantage as evil does in terms of diplomacy, it seems.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Of course being evil myself it doesn't impact me all that much, but it is completely one sided.

I mean why not have your race randomly discover a cure to serious illness:

You can be evil and keep it to yourself, which sends a negative message to researchers that their research may never be used (-17% research on planet)

You can be neutral and offer it to the other races, only asking that they cover your expenses which gains you some small respect (+100 bc, +5% influence on planet)

You can be good and provide it for free to the universe and earn the good will of the empires and create the image that your empire fosters creative minds (+10% diplomacy, +34% research on planet)


Exactly DarkTalon. All of you make good points (no pun intended), but what I'm talking about here, however, are the alignment scenarios which come up from time to time in-game. Seldom if ever does choosing the 'Good' option afford the player any bonuses. Nonetheless, a friend of mine suggested that perhaps when selecting 'Good' your planet's approval rating remains steady (that is when at neutral or good alignment) as where choosing 'Evil' it drops--not sure on that one, as it is just a friendly suggestion and not official.

As for overall alignment concerning diplomacy and the resulting actions of other civs based on morale standing, I'm not actually refering to this particular issue of alignment, but rather the pro's and con's offered SOLELY in the random scenario's presented in-game where the player has to make a choice and hopefully receive some sort of immediate PQ, etc., benefit out of the deal.

Thanks everyone for your input.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Not sure what difficulty everyone is playing on, but in the games I've been playing (at Tough lately) the good and neutral races tend to gang up on the evil ones, and while the evil ones are friendly with each other they don't necessarily help each other out. I've been playing evil for the most part, with the end result that I wind up in a 3 or 4 directional war mid-game with a few friends but no allies.

I like the system as-is. The bonuses on any particular world are relatively minor on the grand scheme of things; mainly you are just choosing how you want to play the game. Your ethical alignment of course affects what benefit you get from the Xeno Ethics tech, and those bonuses are tailored toward certain approaches to the game. If you go evil you expect to get into some fights, going good implies you want to find other ways of dealing with your problems, even if that is a bit more costly and troublesome.

Now if you play as good in a game where you have mostly evil-tending races, yeah good is going to rub most of them the wrong way. But for the most part I've found that good is the path to an allied victory, the times I've gone good I have found myself with the stolid support of 2-3 other races. I got a lot more gifts thrown at me as a good race than as evil, so what goes around comes around.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Right now I'm playing on Normal and I started trying to be a goody two-shoes... unfortunately the *TERRANS* - supposedly the other "good race" - decided to rid the galaxy of my people on account of us having the weakest military. I decided that since they were good, they would probably admit they should be nice to me if I killed a bunch of their ships and then sued for peace. I paid them off with three very valuable techs and sent a freighter.

Within a year, they attacked me AGAIN. Now they are going to die.

I've received nothing so far for being good except a periodic random event where I had to pay 150 or so BC.

I have few starbases and I think the game is overvaluing them in the military count. I have destroyed tons of Terran ships and lost only four against them (the Torrians were meaner despite being the other militarily weak race). That is, my fleet of Earth Conquest Star medium warships equipped with the 2-damage version of railguns and some shields to stop those puny earth lasers have done it. Our fleets are way more advanced compared to theirs and we have quite a few ships now marauding around and destroying constructors and starbases. Despite that our military rating is still in the toilet. They, on the other hand, have hordes of starbases, although it seems to be fewer and fewer every year for some reason
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Yeah, I don't understand why you get hammered for being good. The good penalties for random events are stiff and have no noticeable effect on your influence or morale. It seems to me that civilizations with a good government should be very hard to influence to rebel while civilization's with evil leaders should be more then happy to. This is not the case though.

In GalCiv2, the evil civs collect one mammoth bonus after another. The good guys, on the other hand, literally finish last.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If you have a weak military, anyone will come and munch you up.
It's just that if you're good, no one but evils will randomly declare war on you. I've had games as evil where I've out militaried everyone, and they were all hostile to me. Trading techs cost me a hand and foot. I was way behind in techs and the only way I got back online was kicking the pants off the nearest race. Granted, that was the optimum path since all my racials were in hitpoints, weapons and soldiering but it was rather scary not being able to trade or research effectively since everyone hated me.
Thing is the AI is rather stupid in tactical manuvers/ship construction. If I throw up a sensor ship and just overhaul my ships with lots of engines, they can run circles around enemies and rip their economies out by slaying starbases and trade routes.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There are plenty of events that penalize an evil player, my friends. Just yesterday, I was playing a game (medium map, advanced AI) wherein the Drengin, the Korx, and the Yor ALL lost at least 35% of their empire (except the Korx, who lost.....get this....100% of their empire in ONE FELL SWOOP!) when a random event had some 'good' fundalmentalists overthrow their evil oppressors and become a minor race of decent power. We goodly races lost nothing, but gained an ally

On a small side note, I lost about 60% of my trade income when the Korx fell, damnit!
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Anyone who played GC1 will realize why good gets penalties and evil get massive bonuses.
In GC1 evil REALLY needed them, and they actually needed more powerful bonuses added to even get close to evening up. (This was as much due to the way the AI was geared towards different alignments as everything else however)

But basically ;

Good still owns.

Evil still sucks.

In the long run, the individual penalties and bonuses for the events are pretty much nullified, whereas the diplomatic implications stay that was the entire game.

Not to mention some of the nastier random events such as the Fundamentalist minor race spawn that only affect evil. (Who decided to put a new version of the nastily overpowered version 1 I-League from GC1 into the game?)

In any case, try being pure evil on something above intelligent and see how quickly the good races try and eliminate you if your military looks even close to weak.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Not to mention some of the nastier random events such as the Fundamentalist minor race spawn that only affect evil.


Fundies seem to be toned down a bit from the GC1 version - at least they've only taken 3-4 of my planets each time I've had them arrive so far. In GC1 I had them completely wipe me out a couple of times (literally, every planet).

Being evil just means you have to prioritise your opponents for elimination... 1: Altarians, 2: Torians, 3. Drath, 4: everyone else I still can't reconcile the thought of committing mass genocide against 9 other sentient races and coming out of it being described as "Pure Good"...
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Good Civs should either get an equal number of bonuses from events that Evil Civs get from events or they should start getting -different- bonuses.

ie; when you pay 300 billion credits to stop a massive plague on your world you should get a morale/approval bonus from your people because they're so moved that you want to keep them so safe. Evil, on the other hand, can get cash from that event by selling the pus (a side effect of the plague) to alien races.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It would make sense that when you choose the "protect my people" option they would reward you with a higher approval rating or morale... Otherwise there is very little point to being good except with the diplomacy issues.
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Never did understand how a gun that could destroy a planet, couldn't blow up a reasonably tough super dreadnaught.


I think I can answer this one. A Core detonation gun does just that, it messes with the core of a planet.
It likely super heats the already molten core so it boils and explodes to be simple about it.

Since a starship does not have a molten core in the middle of it, it has no effect.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You could imagine that the anti-planet weapon takes some time to aim and fire. A ship can just get out of the way.