Killing giant worms = Evil?!

Just remove the event

That's because you're evil.

No it's survival of the fittest Matthew. Either they walk over our bodies, or we walk over theirs.

Yeah, yeah, avoid the problem, why don't we? No way! Worms must be dealt with.

I can always give a little free pirate advice: we say kill the worms now (and any time they show up), take the PQ bonus, and try to sort out the morality later. Who knows, maybe one will have the opportunity to be kind and generous in other events later. Then again, maybe not. Short games mean fewer events and less chance to reverse the evil trend that a worm slaughter forebears.

Heck, I've played all across the board alignment wise. Assuming the aliens are pretty balanced alignment wise, being good or evil just gives you two are so different problem aliens than what you would have had. Of course, if we got one of those players who make all the aliens a single extreme alignment type, alignment becomes a bit more important in the course of that type of game.

Fear not going evil, though. It just means packing a little more military muscle and maybe a bit of extra bribery to keep the good guys off your back and the evil ones respecting you.

Not unless, of course, one has an undue fear of Fundies coming along and taking a bite out of all the evil players. One of my pet theories of why the Meta is packed with blue faces is not that a lot of people want to play nice necessarily, but they are afraid of Fundies. Bah! I fear no Fundies, even though they have taken a bite out of my evil empire in a game or three along the way. I just deal with them with extreme prejudice if that happens.

Firstly, you would say that. You're evil. Secondly, worms don't 'walk'. They wiggle. Thirdly, the good way of handling the situation would be to let the worms screw up the soil on your planet, find a better planet, wipe out all the Alexians on it, and take over. Truly, goodness is its own reward.

Once again I must reiterate. It's our lives or theirs. A little red icon beside my medals has nothnig to do with it. Any giant worms that show up on Earth and destroy soil should be destroyed. Also, "walking" was a metaphor, I hadn't expected to explain it to you.

Or you could always take the neutral approach, of course, and take no penalties in the worm event. Which is what I prefer to do before I know what alignment I'm going to be.

"While not the most advanced form of life we've seen, these planetary worms seem to congregate in small scattered colonies and can communicate through seismic vibrations in the soil they are rooted in."

Landing on a planet inhabited by a race of primative but apparently intelligent lifeforms and exterminating them so that you can use their home for farmland is evil. In your analogy the worms are invading your planet. In the game, it's the other way around.

~SDC~

I agree with Fleetlord Atvar. In situations where I'm playing a good empire, and a huge penalty vs. huge benefit situation comes up I usually just take the neutral solution, usually ignoring the moral and bonus effects, and take good points from other events.

Although, being a fan of the Dune novels, I generally find there are a lot bad effects from killing giant worms
[Message Edited]

Need that spice!

Since when is killing sentient beings considered evil?

Some of us can spare the worms and win anyway. Keep practising, you'll get there in the end.

From a practical standpoint, it would have been nice if a similar event had been added. Only in this case, a good choice would get the PQ bonus and evil get the penalty. Then one would hope to get that event, if they're planning on a good empire.

I used to not kill the worm and thought that I'd see some eventual benefits; however none came. Since I play long games, I just kill them if I think my PQ will go up substantially. In these games, I still get to keep my good morality because I get more opportunities to choose good.

This thread has brought up a question on something that I noticed in the newest release of GalCiv AP. It seems killing these worms don't generate a huge bonus as in earlier version. If I colonize a planet with PQ 16 and kill the worms, I'd get a PQ of 17.

Has Stardock fixed this exploitable event?

What was the random PQ bonus for killing worms? It need at least 13% to get PQ 18 for a base PQ 16.

Being good by design choice can't generate (immediate) bonuses. No evil ruler would choose to lower their PQ for the sake of immorality.
The benefit from the 'good' choice is a higher morality, which means better relations with the good civs, which in itself is often a game-winner, protection against fundies event and access to good-only techs. They are long-run benefits, but they exist.

I don't think it's changed. Every bonus or penalty is a random number between 1 and a maximum amount.

On the bonus amount comments:

I have not played any 1.5 AP games yet (just some later build 1.49 AP Betas), but the worm bonus and the life force drainer event bonuses were still pretty high in some cases. Like at 37%. It is a highly variable bonus for the evil pick. But the penalty for taking one of those real nice bonuses was as much as twenty alignment points.

Bah! My minions will just run a Galactic Charity drive later, maybe sponsor an orphanage for Torians, later on. No, wait. That was Good Gerakken. It's Evil Gerakken's watch right now. So, instead, I'll let my minions make some Torians orphans instead after killing the worms. Then, we'll try a little bit of a draft to feed some hapless citizens to the alien life force converter event for a nice PQ jump as well. Afterall, it is so much easier to keep those planetary governor palace grounds greener on a high PQ planet...

I have two questions:

Why does feeding your pop to the life-force converter make people happy?

And how come that for some events chosing the netural option is worse than the good option. Ex. for the ice-cap event, I had a -5% prod for good and a -20% prod for neutral. Guess witch one I took....

I have had similar things happen with the bug-war event.

The Earthworms can go up to 40% and the Life Force Artifact to 50%.



Less overcrowding. Jamming 100 billion people onto a planet tends to make for alot of angry people packed in like sardines (and a lack of space for growing food, so they're probably starving too...). Look at how many problems Earth is having with a mere 7 billion.



Random chance. As was stated, it's really a range between 1 and a certain maximum. The game makes no provision to ensure one value will be above another.

~SDC~

It's not that many. Yet.
http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/popclockw

Thanks. I only knew it was pretty high, but not how high, exactly.



Just give us time. If there is one thing we are better at as a species than killing each other, it is reproducing. It is said that roaches will survive a global nuclear war. I contend that people will be one of the survivors of any predicted nuclear holocaust or whatever the megadisaster de jour will be, as we, like roaches, have a habit of seeping into all the nooks and crannies of Earth. And even beyond, eventually.

Whatever grand disaster scheme awaits us in the near or far future, it had better be one that like obliterates the planet itself. Else some of us are simply going to set up shop underground now, or on some space colony in the future. Never underestimate the human will to survive, either as individuals or as a species.

I agree. Genocide is impossible for that reason.