The so called good races

Some good races are bent on destroying the non good races. This is often true with the Altarians who will destroy anyone not of their ethical alignment.

the Torians also tend to try and colonize every single world, they are the roaches of GC2, thier super breeder ability fits them...... as they breed like roaches lol.

The Altarians are like the Catholic Church but minus the Pope with the cool hat, and the Torians are xenophobes (which came from years of enslavement).

I can understand their hate for evil civ. I am just a neutral guy trying to get along with everyone until my economy comes around. I am playing on a huge map on a crippling setting. Since I usally play small maps, this is interesting on how far you fall behind when there are some many planets involved. The Yor are next door but on warm terms. The Altarians are on the other side and hate me. I love my trade routes with them and hate to lose that cash.

I have been playing galciv since galciv1 was released... in all that time i have not noticed any kind of logical patterns to attitude. There is a little list with plusses and minuses in diplomacy menue but half the time that dousn't explain AI attitude??

My guess is that the randomness of ingame geography, how it affects the way each race expands (especially yours), that is what leads to all kinds of weird and wonderful influences on atitude.

true, I've seen that as well. Although there are often certain traits that keep coming up, I've already mentioned the torians, which are notorious for bieng expansionist, the Iconians tend to keep to themselves, and the Snathi minor race in alot of my games, often try to pick fights with others.

The Ai gets bored too. If you are in his way he will try to go through you, especially
when he has a higher military ranking then you.

Secret to a peacful game for the player is a High Military Rating and High Diplomacy rating. That means getting some of the Super Buildings in diplomacy. Then you will be bored cause nobody will pick on you.

take a chance, don't use espionage spending and let random events cause wars to stop you getting bored

I often believe that The Map Is The Game, but I've also griped around here pretty much along the lines of the OP. Something about this thread makes me wonder if "good" and "evil" in GC2 are mirror versions of an alignment better named "love similar folk and hate different ones."

I've certainly never seen anything from the "good" folk that I think of as good, e.g. intervening to defend a weak empire from attack by a stronger one. When I put that together with my increasingly strong impression that evil folks are easier to ally with when I'm neutral, I've got something to keep considering.

The "Good" is a deceptive word. There is nothing "Good" about them. They kill with the same zelous as everyone else. There are no interventions to save a race. They want to conquer the galaxy like everyone else.

I try the neutral alignment everytime. Making the "Good" choices are never good to your civilization. I can't get myself to be evil either despite the advantages. I would love to say yes to the 25% increase in planet quality question, but I do not want to be considered evil, despite the fact that it really means nothing in the game. There is no morality in the game. Even the "Good" races kill every soul on the planet to take it over.

As much as "alignment" is a nice concept, it's a "per person" thing rather than a "per race" one. You can't really say an entire race is good or evil. That standard depends on how each particular race views good/evil.
Should the Korath have a *minus* 50 alignment or something?   

Yes, you can say an entire race is evil. The Drengin Empire, the Korath Clan are very very evil. The latter more so then the former. There are degrees of evil and good. The Korath are evil to the extreme. They desire extermination of all life besides them. The Drengin simply desire dominance over all life. But both are evil. The Altarians are good to the extreme, while the Terrans are more in the middle.

There are races who are to one extreme or the other.

good point, yes a 'good' race wouldn't turn on the weak like the Alterians do.

might make things interesting if the Alterians would always be nice to good races, imagine, you could choose to be good aligned, knowing the Alterians would automatically come to your aid if an evil race attacked you!

that would be a special advantage of choosing 'good' alignment.

So you mean an Arian (Indo-European) guy trying to exterminate a particular group of Semites automatically makes all Indo-Europeans evil? But wait, there are also really really "good" people that are Indo-European...   



So you didn't understand my comment about the -50 alignment...



... and neither the standards comment. Oh well.
Even among humans, what is evil and what is good is a subjective thing, let alone between alien races...

TOS, stop spraying flames left and right.



Minor race has a good point. When you play the Korath, you have to be very evil. They need to start exterminating planets quickly, or else they'll fall behind. But when you're playing the Altarians, you have to "play nicely" with the other races for awhile in order to get ahead.


Myaticmind, I've found the Alterians and the Torians to be good allies if you're good. They tend to quickly want to ally with good races. That's one reason I don't think good is very far behind the other alignments. It really depends which race you're playing. However, it appears that the majority on these forums plays neutral or evil most of the time. But I've actually found it too easy to play the "good" races, so that's why I play neutral and evil most of the time!!!

Hmm, excuse me? Does this have anything to do with *this* thread?

My only problem with the Alignment thing is that it seems like you get punished for being good. Most of the events that pop up either have negative or no effect if you take the good choice. That seems unrealistic to me. Granted it has gotten better sense the first release of Gal Civ 2 but at least some of your choices should actually benefit your civilization. More on topic, I have noticed that ‘good’ races tend to either get taken out early or, if they survive, tend to be warmongers themselves. The original poster takes issue with ‘good’ races being so aggressive. Here is how I rationalize it, the Torians were enslaved by the Drengin so they are very xenophobic. Don’t agree with me Mr. Arcean? Then you must be the version almost evil! Which as everyone knows is the gateway to evil! So we must destroy you to save you. It says in the Altarians race description that they are intolerant. As, to good always attacking neutral races or having poor relationships with them I haven’t seen that as much. (I am not saying it’s not true I just haven’t seen it so I can’t comment on it, other than to say that maybe difficulty level and play style has something to do with it? I am playing beginner level right now. Maybe on the harder levels you have to work harder a keeping good relationships with your neighbors?)



I think what he is trying to say is that intentional or not your posts have come across as sanctimonious and condescending. He was just commenting on the style of writting you use to make your point.

Not all of them are like that, just the ones where people *deliberatly* "misunderstand" what I'm saying   



Some people seem to confuse style with content. They may not like the style, and that's ok, but is it not the content that's important? The style may not get me many friends around here, but do you really think I'll lose my sleep over it?   

Have you all tried customing your opponents and setting the aggression level to low?? It should be harder for that CIV to get provoked even if it's good vs evil, at least that's the purpose.

I don't have a problem with the fact that they are agressive. I just think they mislabeled the ethics. Good is not it. Maybe change it to more of a political alignment.

Alignments like centrist, police state, Socialist etc. Not every race wants to follow the Democracy rout.

For GC3, I'd love to see alignment choice define your possible political party choices. Seems kind of odd that I could play the Drengin and run them as a Star Federation.

But I'd also prefer to see the current alignment replaced with something a bit better able to deal with a galaxy full of sentient species.

I agree that meanings of good and evil are very context-sensitive or even relative. That's why I think a schema along the lines of a 3D alignment space with axes for Xenophobic-Xenophilic, Aggressive-Pacifive, and Authoritarian-Libertarian would make things more interesting and perhaps enable AIs to choose behaviors that were more logical for their alignment.

How's that for a radical change?

Quote from DL: "The Drengin are cruel, evil race bent on exterminating all those in their path."