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Alignment Scenarios: Being 'Good' gets the shaft?

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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
31,943 views 59 replies
Reply #26 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm playing evil now and I have two allies and two other races that are relatively friendly . The two allies have been long term and the two friendly's are 1) Yor which have been that way for a long time and just don't want to become allies with anyone and 2) Arceans, who I terrorized, destroying dozens and dozens of ships and bases after they declared war on me because I was weak (I quickly fixed that problem ). I don't find being evil stops you from getting allies, it's just harder and costs more (intensive tech trade and gifts) but once you get one or two you are just fine.
Reply #27 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What are the evil techs like? Do the weapons they get really compare that well against the Nanoripper (probably the best weapon, for good at least, in the game given where it appears)? I find Good's defensive techs, save telepathic defense--which is truly mediocre, great. As for Tel. Def., there's good reason to go to the end of the missile defense tree, as you can build a trade good which gives you a +20% research bonus.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #28 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It would be cool if there was a slight chance that after picking the good choice in an event, an unexpected bonus would be given. The only event from the game I can think of right now is the one with the pre-industrial race that lives on the planet you are colonizing, and the good option has you stay away from their lands and leave them alone(I don't remember if this penalizes PQ or what). What could then happen is that there is a chance that after you select the good option, a window pops us informing you that a representative from this race(which is in awe of your superior technology) brings you a gift of some ancient artifact, which would in turn give you some kind of bonus(could be anything really). While this wouldn't be a common occurence it would be kind of cool if making the good choice could result in you being rewarded.

I guess in the same vein you could add a chance that choosing the evil choice could potentially penalize you in some way.
Reply #29 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
That's about what I was thinking, Aaron, only I would delay it for several turns. If you run into another race on the planet, for instance, and leave them alone then there's a very small chance per turn that they will hand over a new technology to you, or perhaps decide to join you increasing the PQ, population, and maybe give a free entertainment center and farm. The chance would be very small so maybe only one in five planets would do this over the course of an entire game. Picking the neutral response would give an even smaller chance. Picking evil would give no chance.

BUT - I'm relatively new to the game so I haven't really seen the diplomatic implications and how they play out in game balance. Maybe good/evil/neutral is more balanced than I think.
Reply #31 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Gotta say, I think that the present implementation works quite well. Evil gets a quick bonus but longer term penalties. Good gets an initial penalty but a longer term bonus. There's definitely no reason to make good get an initial bonus and a long-term bonus, as there'd be no reason to pick anything else.

I think the biggest problems in the current system are that
(1) The Good/Evil alliances don't form as cleanly with more AIs in the game. In GC1, you could pretty much be assured of Altarians/Torians vs. Yor/Drengin. Maybe some AI tweaks are needed here.

(2) The player's choices are not permanent. You can take all the evil colonization events, and then buy your way back to Good when you research Xeno Ethics. The thing that made GC1 fun was that the ethical choices carried a real cost - you really want that +40^% planet quality, but you know it's going to bring the Altarians down on your head.

For my money, the only real change required is that buying your alignment with Xeno Ethics should simply be removed - your alignment should be determined by your choices, period.
Reply #32 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
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.

If you're looking for instant gratification, "good" may not be what you're looking for. Nor should it be; being "good" is all about making short term sacrifices to uphold your ethical standards, which hopefully pays off in the long term. Being evil gives you perks right away, but in the long term it should not be as beneficial as being good. Neutrality, obviously, should be somewhere between the two.

In terms of gameplay, the moral dilemmas should be a matter of taking a bonus now or a bigger bonus later. That makes alignment a part of the bigger strategic picture. I don't have enough experience with the game to really say whether it usually works out that way or not, but I haven't had too much trouble playing "nice" as an evil civilization and maintaining decent diplomatic relations with other races. It would be great to see the AI take alignment into greater account, polarizing the universe into a more clearly defined battle of good vs evil in the mid/late game.
Reply #33 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I will say that I have only three real problems with the current setup, and they are related.

First, as Drank said, it is too easy to buy your way to some other position. While it is extremely expensive to be evil and then switch to good, being neutal and switching to good or evil and going to neutral is fairly painless. For example, if you are aiming for good this makes it very easy to be good when it costs little or nothing and neutral when being good will be a hefty price. Depending on how things go this will result in either a 2500bc fee for a good alignment or no fee (depending on the events you get and what order you get them)--I am fairly certain the order does matter, later choices seem to count for more than earlier ones.

Somewhat related to this, I find that some of the choices don't really reflect the good/evil conflict very well. Unless you are mixing old school Star Trek into your philosophy, then Good does not equate to indecisive and totally unwilling to see anyone die or a culture change.

Here are a few examples of what I mean:

Event 1: You find a rich mining area on a moon, but it is also extremely hazardous. The good option is to not mine, the neutral mine a little, the evil is poor people in there like crazy. It seems to me that if it is really that rich, then the wealth collected from there might be worth the loss of some lives to save the lives of many more people later (perhaps funding a war against an evil race or something more mundane), hence being "good" shouldn't mean completely ignoring a resource.

Event 2: There's a ship orbiting the planet your colonize. You can try to take it over (evil); ask them about their tech (neutral); or leave them alone (good?). Honestly I don't see how contacting aliens and asking them for information on how their technology works (if they would like to share) is ungood (akin to the mine above, the tech could be used to do great good). It would be better if the neutral position was bribing a member of the crew for information, and the good position was just asking nicely.

Perhaps I just have too much of an interest in ethics and morality, but these things bug me (but strictly speaking I know it is NOT a problem with game mechanics, just presentation). There are a quite a number of things like this, however.

Lastly, it seems like once you align yourself, then you no longer get any events like this. It would be nice if they continued to do SOMETHING with your alignment through events. Perhaps still have ethical choices, and if you act against your alignment then bad things will happen (perhaps good races will view you with contempt if you are supposed to be good, or perhaps your people will become disillusioned with you). One thing that could happen more is lesser races asking for help from the good races in staving off aggressors.
Reply #34 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Lol, to be completely honest, I avoid xeno ethics like the plague... I'd research technological victory before researching that. I find that the random events give me a thousand times more benefit than picking an alignment (planets that have 50% bonus to ships? are you kidding me???). Usually what happens is I play an 'angel' race (one who starts with 99 alignment, aka: altarians or custom) and then pick every beneficial evil event that I come across. Having started at 99, I rarely ever drop pass 50. For events that being really evil doesn't give much benefit, I either chose the 'good' if it isn't very bad, or the neutral simply to keep my alignment from turning demonic. With this method, my soldiers are practically invulnerable (I get tons of zombie super soldier events), and whenener an evil race declare war on me, all the good ones gives me their starbases for support (bases are their most powerful ship). In most games, I end up with a ton of bases in allied territory because of this, which I then use to culturally subvert them... lol. Talk about idiotic AI behavior.
Reply #35 from Stardock Forums Top
"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."

Yes it is just you. Playing Evil yields imidiate benefits (And some later on benefits if you live that long!)

Being evil will get you a nice pet talk from the Drengin poiting you to a good civ you both should work against. But it usually gets you shafted from all the other civs! Especially good ones. Neutral will work with you, but most good civs will go to war with you and gamg up on you.

Only good thign about evil is the weapons and ofcourse the No Mercy center, which is a frikin life saver on Gigantic map. But you usually need the weapons just to stay alive. The No Mercy helps if you are going military route.

Play any game and see which civ gets knocked out first. It's usually Yor or Drengin. Unless these two have a very good starting position, where they have someone isolated, they are usually destroyed by a group of good civs.
Reply #36 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Personally, I go for neutral for the tile instant upgrade (really useful) and the trade routes (ditto). But I've got events tweaked so you become evil very quickly, I wouldt make it so good takes a bit longer to regain but morality weight is a fixed value both ways. This means the choices made actually mean something: I can no longer take big payoffs while angelic and expect to go no lower than neutral. It makes you put more effort into what alignment you are. I remember one game I played as custom race (demonic) and turned off Yor, Drengin, and Korx. Ow, ow, ow. There was a big alliance that I didnt realise about, and had about 4 ciivs at war at any one time. I had only 1 trade route, and got smashed to very, very small pieces. The one change I can't make is the price of the ethical choices. If it was multiplied by ten, decisions made would be VERY serious. 100,000bc to change to good from evil makes you think what you want to do with your people.
I also like the idea that the AI should go good vs evil ala galciv1. There is a scenario for this, but I hate being humans. Foolish apes
Reply #37 from Stardock Forums Top
100,000bc to change to good from evil makes you think what you want to do with your people.


Not really beacuse max debt is 2000 BC. You can make the price gazillion for all I care. I'll be out of debt in 3 turns.
Reply #38 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Not really beacuse max debt is 2000 BC. You can make the price gazillion for all I care. I'll be out of debt in 3 turns.


if you don't have the 100k it will tell you that you will be paying 100bc per turn for 1000 turns or something.
Reply #39 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have seen one event selectively nasty to Evil civ's: it was a united planets resolution 'do you agree to cap trade routes for Evil civs to 2 routes only?'

Maybe the same can occur on Neutral and Good civ's, so far I have not.
Reply #40 from Stardock Forums Top
if you don't have the 100k it will tell you that you will be paying 100bc per turn for 1000 turns or something.


I guess if you cant take the cost upfront it would be different. Still with an average game being 10 years, and usually you wont get xeno ethics till really into it, 100 bc ber turn is a steal. Game will be voer long long before you pay off the lease.

I have seen one event selectively nasty to Evil civ's: it was a united planets resolution 'do you agree to cap trade routes for Evil civs to 2 routes only?'


Bah that's not that bad, you might aswell leave UP at that time, but then again you do make money from other people's routes. Also being evil you get extra 1bc per turn for freighters in your sphere of influence. I would however elect to leave once they pass the law about limiting starbases to 2 moduels. Thern it's ez mode for you and your enemeis will have really weak starbases.
Reply #41 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i think when you go evil you loyalty should go down while when you do good your morale goes up


I don't know.. Maybe it should be that Loyalty goes up for evil since everyone else who isn't loyal to me would already be in concentration camps or have already been process into baby food.
Reply #42 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Yeah dont the united planets punish only evil civs? Thats another downside to being evil you all forgot about!

Its always a good civ that wins in the end, normally Arceans it seems in my games!
Reply #43 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There should be some realistic benefits to being good.

Being Trusted
As a good race, you would be more likely to be trusted in diplomatic situations. Other races would know you are fair and just to deal with and less likely to suddenly attack them for no good reason

Population Morale
If a population knew you would treat them poorly then they would be unhappy. Nobody likes to know that their lives could be thrown away because of a greedy leader. On the other hand, knowing that their ruler puts a higher value on their lives than on a quick profit would mean they are more loyal and more likely to do things for you

Influence
Why would a planet switch to a race that they know to be evil? They might be forced to, but they wouldn't openly do so as easily as they would a good one... especially if the one they are coming from is evil. People tend to flee oppression for a nicer place to be. Thus there should be a bonus to switching when coming from evil to good

Internal Strife
If you breed an evil empire then things like assassinations would be more likely, while a good empire would be more geared towards handling things diplomatically. Thus there should be certain events that only occur to those of certain alignments. Want to be evil? Get the rewards... but risk the dangers as well.
Reply #44 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Arceans are neutral .
Reply #45 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, if you research Xeno Ethics, you'll notice that the extra tech's for the "Good" people are a heck of a lot cheaper than the extra techs for the "Evil" people.

Size 6, Armor Defense 5 cost 60 armour is hot;

Size ~10 (? Brain freeze ?), Beam attack 10 cost 140 == lots of turns to make your super ship.
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It's all about Xeno Ethics; You research that, you get a bonus with other good civ's, and it makes it easy to build a "federation" type alliance of 3 or 4 empires, which, if you are lucky, are very strong.

Evil Races are really just the Korx and the Drengin. (? Others? Brain Freeze again O_O )

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Reply #46 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree that choosing either Evil or Good choices for "moral dilemnas" should be a tactical choice. However, as it stands, this aspect of the game has no tactical value because there isn't a real choice to make:

As it stands right now, it's a no brainer to choose all the evil choices for the added upfront benefits (which are too often too good to pass up).

The majority of moral dilmenas arise at the beginning of the game, during the inital colinization perioid.
Couple this "frontloading" of dilemnas with the ability to later choose your alignment via a relatively short research path -- there effectively is no choice in these moral dilemnas.

The "right" choice becomes the evil one. The most efficient alignments are Neutral or Evil.

The benefits for choosing good should give upfront (but different) benefits, and the cost for choosing a radically opposed alignment via the Good and Evil tech line should be doubled, to discourage players from both making evil choices and aligning themselves with Good.
Reply #47 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree, the choices in the Moral Dilemma should have a bigger impact on your alignment, and the cost to pick your alignment bonus should be more hefty.
Reply #48 from Stardock Forums Top
Ok to get people to calm down, how about we add a bit more spice to Good alignment. You must realize we cant add too much because then pickign good would be no brainer. I wouldn't mind if good got some extra modules for starbases that made them more defensive. Like a module that adds +7 to each of the 3 defenses.

I think overall neutral is jsut fine. I do like the ground combat bonus. They could use somehting more than the terraforming bonus, since it's a bonus you can get if you get the galactic achivement orbital terraformer

I think that temple of evil sucks thou. Evil does need a better temple. Overall I havent played good on a map where I would even use the good techs. I use the evil techs all the time, but the guns are pricey, so putting 3 or 4 on a ship can really make the time it takes to build a ship long.
Reply #49 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Evil Races are really just the Korx and the Drengin. (? Others? Brain Freeze again O_O )


Yor as well

-Dewar
Reply #50 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
They could use somehting more than the terraforming bonus, since it's a bonus you can get if you get the galactic achivement orbital terraformer


Yeah, but the neutral bonus doesn't require you to even research those techs at all, which is nice because the last one in the chain is fairly expensive.

-Dewar