Evil prevails in this world because evil will do anything necessary to win.
Simple.

If one takes a no-holds-barred approach against an opponent that bars certain holds, then of course no-holds-barred will win - unless the opponent is more knowledgable, and intelligent in the use of that knowledge.

Which is why I choose Neutral. Greater research ability = increased knowledge = greater firepower and defense and economics and diplomacy - more quickly.


I choose the good path of non-aggression.
But I am capable of wiping out any civ that challenges me, through superior research.

Balancing of the game deals with Human verses AI, or even one race verses another. I think the races are pretty well balanced. To say that good is harder and that makes the game unbalanced is wrong. You have he choice in the game, i mean thats like saying the game is unbalanced because missles are better than mass drivers. Its just a different choice.

I am playing good now for only the second time on a difficulty level i thought might be out of my range to play (masochistic). I won the first and will probably win the current game as well. I dont find that being good has hampered me, i am taking advantage of the defence +'s, free with certian techs (something evil dose not get, not even for offense). The biggest thing i can see that has led me to bing succsessful is that the other neutral and good races in the game like me. I was attacked and was given ships, the Alterians even fougt for me. I think that made the game easier. I were eveil i would be fighting everyone and probably losing.

The good pluses aren't as obvious as the evil but they are there. I can't wait to see if the building i built makes anyone surrender to me. With eveil, even those great weapons arent the end all, the are only good during the mid game. A good race can reserach to better weapons than the evil-only ones. AND still have the % bonuses to hot point and defenses. The defense techs are cheap enough thatyou can get ll of the bonuses. So its +15% to ship defenses and +5% to hit points without buildinga thing.

I think your alignment will effect the victory you get. Evil = military more often and good = alliance more often. (OF course it depends on the alignment of the other races) So, if you want a military vicory as good, yea it might be harder, try to get and alliance victory playing as evil. You'll then say that good is easier.

As for the ethical choices, you CAN pick and evil or neutral choice and still be good. Just dont pick those al the time. I didnt pas up the additional PQ one or the neutraul choioce for a bump to a planet's research and i was still able to be good for free.

That's fool's logic right there.

Dungeons and Dragons is a "single player" game too, but it still goes through massive balance adjustments and playtesting.

Of similar note - the same thing can be said of Baldur's Gate games. Certain classes were too weak, others were too powerful. Bioware releases a patch that adjusts them.

Does imbalance matter as MUCH to single-player? Not so much, no. A minor cost adjustment would be a big thing in, say, an RTS, not so much for the single-player campaign part. However, balance is important all the same.

Wow, missed the point entirely. I wasn't saying that it doent need to be balanced because its a single player game. I was saying that its not unbalanced in the first place. Good vs. evil, missles vs. lasers, it may arguably be said that one is better than the other, but that doesnt make the game unbalanced.

In your example you compared classes of characters. If this thread were about different races and unbalancing (i would disagee but) i would at least see where your example was applicable. Now if you would say that a sword is beter than a mace, THAT would be a better example, but does that make D&D unbalanced?? Is being lawful good just as easy/hard as being chaotic evil? Someone should playtest D&D...

One of the nice features in GalCiv2 is that you can win without firing a shot. The non-military victory conditions won't appeal to everyone but those who pursue them will have kinder words for the neutral and good alignments than most who have posted here. If Metaverse scoring encouraged the non-military victory conditions the tone of this thread might be quite different.

If you really want to go that route, it is entirely possible to win a conquest victory without firing a shot, as well. Just turn off influence and tech victories, and win by assimilation. That counts as a conquest victory, I've done it. On a large map, it will take a while though.

Your point regarding maces and swords is a good one.

However, the fact is that maces and swords are balanced in D&D. In fact, Third Edition D&D went to great pains to ensure that as far as possible, all the weapons were balanced. In general, maces and other blunt weapons either require less skill to use or do higher multipliers of critical damage, while swords and other slashing weapons require more skill and have larger critical threat ranges.

In fact, all the major and common weapons are very finely balanced to make them reasonable choices, within certain bounds, for almost any character.

Yet, this is not even a requirement for GalCiv2, but it still falls down a bit in balancing the ethical choices. I think Honshu's proposals in reply #33 were good, mostly small tweaks to the current bonuses, to make Good a more viable option, especially for a peaceful victory.


As to the comparisons to real-world situations, though, I'm not sure this is entirely productive, as I think it is clear from the game that "good" and "evil" in GalCiv2, while recognisable, are not the same as "good" and "evil" in real life, certainly not in the post-WWI West. I'm sure most members of the in-game Terran Alliance would consider themselves to be good people who hold good beliefs (even if they're horrible people with terrible views), but there's a very good reason why the Terrans are neutral: No human in their right mind would identify with either galactic philosophy.

The only problem I see with good is they get no bonuses. Neutral gets the instant 10% morale, evil gets the 100% economy and 50% military. DA is not going to change, but what they should have done was give good a bonus somewhere. With alignment techs varying per race in TA, a lot of this discussion may not apply. Let's hope we see some better stuff for good alignment there.

Pray tell why?

Well i explained that in my post. Here goes, Ahem... they are different, right? But each has its good points and bad. Each will help you with certain aspects of the game and win certain victories. See above for more detail.

To CraigHB: the good alignments DO get bonuses, to defence and to hit points (to a small degree). Just by researching the defence trees which are not all that expensive, you can get an additional 15% bonus to your defenses FREE, in addition to some more powerful defense techs. Then theres the 20% boost to defence you get with that building, not sure whats its called.

You get additional dimplomacy too. The effects, like i said, arnt tangible like thy are for evil. But you can stay out of wars longer since you'll be liked more. You can buiold the structure that will give you a much better chance that you'll be surrendeered to, without even fighting a war.

The arguments of play balance might be reasonable if we were only talking about the Xeno Ethics effects, though I still think good to be slightly less attractive. However, no one seems to even attempt to argue that the "ethical choices" are balanced at all. As it is now, playing "evil" it makes sense to postpone researching Xeno Ethics until the colony rush is over, so as to get all of the great bonuses. The one wanting to play for "good" had best get Xeno Ethics as soon as possible to "stop the bleeding" which the choices inflict. Some above suggested that you can take the best of the "evil" choices and still manage to choose "good" for free. Yes, you can (that's what I often try to do), but that is counter-intuitive to the "role playing" aspect of the game (why not just put numerical choices there and omit the text), and an admission that this aspect of the game is unbalanced.

A related question along this line: Does anyone know if the AIs get the same choices with the related benefits/penalties? I do not recollect ever capturing a planet with, say, a "50% starship bonus" so I am guessing that they do not. Either that, or that the effects do not carry over when a planet is captured.

I second the request above for an "official word" from the developers. Do they consider the present system balanced, and in no need of change? Or is it unbalanced on purpose, as part of the flavor of the game? Or do they recognize the need for some "tweaking" which will hopefully be done when time permits?

Let me add "with regards to the Xeno Ethics branch" for my last post. When comparing bonuses in weaponry and defense, I acknowledge "good" gets some stuff there (neutral doesn't get anything). However, evil gets the incredible Psyonic Beam. I've won games with that weapon alone.

I've played a lot of games with good alignment and I understand what you're saying. Like I said before, there are game scenarios where playing "good" can be rewarding, however, none of them are going to do well on Metaverse. Evil pretty much has the monopoly on that. I don't know if it's a favorable thing or not, but that's how it works out.

Arguably, Good defense techs are more powerful, even, that Psyonic Beam. The trouble with Psyonic Beam is that it costs a lot to produce and maintain. Good-aligned Civ ships with all the defensive trimmings can expect to take on the entire sizable Drengin fleet alone and come out with heroic level XP to boot!

The boost Defense got since DA was patched has put a real premium on those defensive techs and upgrades that Good gets with Xeno Ethics (and yes, it pays to research it early to get to the good stuff and stop the colony bleed). You actually can expect to rule a Large universe with a few Medium ships relatively early on. Can't do that with Psyonic Beam (or Psyonic Shredder, for that matter).