I have the same problem. I want to be evil... but I just feel too sorry for my people!

I know, a little pathetic.

Apologies for the repost- I originally posted this on Apolyton, and since it's popped up here, I'd like to see what people have to say about it. Caveat: I've never seen the Fundamentalists yet. ::Shrug::

Repost follows:
10-04-2003 13:08 | profile | pm | search | buddy edit | quote link | report | ip

"Bad Girls Have All The Fun," or An Analysis of Alignment


Well, I'll go ahead and stick my toes in the water here and attempt an analysis of a facet of the game, and see where it leads me.

Caveats before I begin: (I'll probably put this at the front of all my GalCiv articles...heh.)

1) I play exclusively on Gigantic maps. I enjoy the colossal nature of things on this scale, and the potential for ultra-high scores. What I do may or may not work on smaller maps.
2) My current game as of 4-10 is set to Challenging; I have crushed the computer by large margins on the lower levels and so far what I do is working great there.
3) I do not claim to have the final word or even the best word- I write this as an attempt to generate carefully reasoned, documented arguments with lots of thought put into them.
4) I assume you as the player are using unmodified game files, and that you allow the races to remain at their standard alignment, whatever difficulty you may choose.

Without further ado, I'd like to take some time to talk about the three potential alignments in the game, and the benefits of each, comparatively to one another.

Let's start with the one you start the game as:

Neutral Alignment Benefits

Relations
As a Neutral player, you do not automatically offend either the Yor/Drengin side or the Altarian/Torian side. You can get moderately good deals with either side of the spectrum, and can probably move your relations with anyone you choose to the positive side with moderate ease.

Technology
As a Neutral player, you are limited to the standard tech tree.
Technologies Missed:
Cure For Depression, Smuggling, Xeno Trade Persuasion, Thought Police, Xeno Intimidation, Xeno Brainwashing, The Better Way, The Dark Side, Advanced Slavery, Benevolence, Hyper Warp (is this correct on the research tree?), Hyper Trade (again, uncertain if this is correct?), Mind Terror Weapons, Master Race, Galactic Pacifism, Galactic Domination Philosophy.
Technologies Gained:
NONE.

Moral Decisions
The ‘neutral’ moral decision path is generally the one with the least effect. In some cases, you get a small bonus (discovered starship with crew, for example) and in some cases you get a small penalty (alien bug race civil war.) Generally, although not certainly, there is a slight overall positive bonus trend for neutral choices, although bad luck could stick you with a lot of neutral-penalty choices.

Overall Analysis of Neutral
Probably if not certainly the weakest of the three choices. You receive none of the long-term advantages of being good (trade routes, The Better Way trade centers, etc) and none of the short-term and draconian advantages of being evil (slaves, sometimes outstanding bonuses for moral choices, raw production power of the various evil-only techs.) The diplomatic flexibility is nice, but by no means unachievable in any other way. If Brad and the GalCiv folks want Neutral to be a realistic choice far into the future, they need some “Neutral Only” techs at the very least. Right now, it’s just not worth it.

Moving on to the alignment that is probably the hardest to achieve, or at least the most painful:

Good Alignment Benefits

Relations
“Good” civilizations tend to enjoy positive relations with the Torians and the Altarians, unchanged relations with the Arceans, and typically bad relations with the Drengin and Yor. This may be the best possible state of relations, as in theory at least, the Torians and the Altarians are a bit less likely to backstab you or reneg treaties than any of the other civilizations. Relations with the Drengin and Yor can be reinforced with heavy trade to those civilizations, although it seems that every good moral choice is another blow to relations with that group, so you could be fighting a losing battle.

Technology
Technologies Missed:
Smuggling, Xeno Brainwashing, Thought Police, Xeno Intimidation, The Dark Side, Advanced Slavery, Mind Terror Weapons, Master Race, Galactic Domination Theory.
Technologies Gained:
Cure for Depression, Xeno Trade Persuasion, The Better Way, Benevolence, Hyper Warp(?), Hyper Trade (?), Galactic Pacifism.

Moral Choices
The good moral choices are, unsurprisingly, generally the painful ones – at best they give no bonus and no penalty, and at worst they give a horrendous penalty. Depending on the map conditions and your situation, you can take the ‘smaller’ penalties to nudge your alignment up into the ‘good’ range, and opt out of painful brutality by taking the neutral choices when things like the “Worms in the planet soil” choices come up. Typically, good requires more moral choices to achieve than its opposite.

Overall Analysis of Good

Second place. Good has a lot of things going for it, but it seems to definitely lean towards a culture/alliance based victory- except that in many cases, evil has just as many influence increasing technologies! Technologically speaking, although Good has a few shining stars- The Better Way being chief among these – their ‘bonus’ techs don’t seem to make up for the lost techs. Good appears to have a slight edge in trade route acquisition, while giving up the edge to evil in revolt-resistance and production. Having trustworthy diplomatic connections with two, perhaps three civilizations can be helpful, but whether or not it is worth the penalties from the moral choices and the lost edge in production….. is questionable.

Easy to get to, probably the easiest to win with…..

Evil Alignment Benefits

Relations
Unsurprisingly, here is where evil suffers the most. You do NOT get particularly strong relations with the Yor or the Drengin as a result of being evil, though those relations are not at all difficult to maintain once you have them. Whether or not treaties with the Drengin and Yor (Alliances in particular) can be trusted, however, is uncertain. The Arceans, as usual, don’t give a hoot, but relations with the Altarians and the Torians can be quite difficult, if not impossible, to maintain- every negative moral choice you make drives them further away, and trade and gifts are an expensive form of maintenance, though you may have trade running to them for other reasons.

Technology
Technologies Missed:
Cure for Depression, Xeno Trade Persuasion, The Better Way, Benevolence, Hyper Warp(?), Hyper Trade (?), Galactic Pacifism.
Technologies Gained:
Smuggling, Xeno Brainwashing, Thought Police, Xeno Intimidation, The Dark Side, Advanced Slavery, Mind Terror Weapons, Master Race, Galactic Domination Theory.

Moral Choices
Whenever a moral choice pops up for an Evil player, you’ve just gotten a bonus. The amount of the bonus may be small, or it may be massive, but no matter what, something good is coming your way. The only possible exception to this that I’m aware of is the “Virus Juice” and “Money From Heaven” choice, where the evil option gains you BC but loses you population. Small bonuses can be found in many choices, and a few of the choices give staggering benefits with strong effects in the long term (Starship bonuses and planet quality bonuses foremost among these.)

Overall Analysis of Evil
I feel rather strongly that at the present time, Evil is the best alignment choice in GalCiv. Not getting Trade Centers is offset by Artificial Slaves, Master Race, The Dark Side…. Missing out on Benevolence is cancelled out by (possibly) smuggling, Xeno Intimidation, etc. Technologically, evil has the strongest standing- more techs available, arguably more potent techs, etc. In the results of moral choices, evil is obviously the most powerful choice. In relations, while evil is in the worst footing, the Drengin and Yor are not THAT likely to backstab you, and the significant production bonuses of being Evil are likely to furnish you with enough of a military presence (even if only defensively oriented) that you can stand alone in a conflict if need be.



Closing Comments On Overall Alignment Balance

Not surprisingly – and entirely acceptably, given the age of the game – the alignments are a bit out of whack as far as giving each of them an even chance. (I don't find fault in this; there are much more important things Brad and his crew should be doing right now than working on alignment balance.) Evil’s production bonus makes sense, but it would be better if Good had a slightly more pronounced Economic edge to compete with that. Perhaps a slight tweak to the diplomatic system that would make evil’s allies a bit less dependable and good’s allies even more rocksteady would also help. Neutral is in BAD shape – no tech bonuses, no real advantages of ANY sort. True, you also experience no real penalties as a neutral, but you could argue that the LACK of bonuses is a penalty in and of itself- since the penalties for being Evil or Good aren’t particularly bad at all. Honestly, I think Evil should be strongest in production (shut up and WORK, slave!), Good holding sway in commerce (C’mon now, I helped you out without any benefit to me this many times, you can surely work out a deal with me now….) , and Neutrals dominant in technology – on the theory that they can sample from both sides of the spectrum unflinchingly – and this perhaps could be implemented through a series of “Neutral only” technologies, or access to some (though obviously not all) of the technologies currently available only to Good or Evil. (Advanced Slavery and Xeno Trade Persuasion come to mind, or maybe Master Race and Galactic Pacifism, though obviously there are balance issues here, too- Evil just has stronger techs!)

I've thought (and still think) that many of the Good choices should involve a Morale boost. I mean, if you spend huge sums of money to save your people then you should probably have better morale than otherwise.

The big problem I see is that currently you can pick up tech of any alignment when you trade. Not sure if Brad & Co. consider this a bug or not, but I certainly do. Because the result is that you can have all the benefits of the Evil +colonization bonuses and all the Good tech goodies as well (most notably, hyperwarp). I'd like to see tech trading have the same restrictions as researching: you can't trade for it if you don't have the alignment requirements to research it.

What I'd like to see long-term would be a better distinction between Good, Neutral, and Evil tech (currently no neutral, and evil and good tech is often just different names for a +1 trade bonus). I'd like to see the current aligned techs replaced with the following tech tree types of tech:

1. Good: +morale, +influence, +cultural resist

2. Neutral: +trade, +diplomacy

3. Evil: +soldier, +attack, +hitpoints

Then replace the events with ones that reflect similar sentiments. The result would be very distinctive game styles depending on your alignment.

No matter how hard I try, I can't get to good. Guess I have to force myself to take good choices no matter what. One evil choice and it seems like you are done for.

Most my games seem to hover in the low neutral territory. I have no problems with my economy and have pretty decent relations with everyone (or can repair them easy enough).

I went evil on purpose twice and got my butt kicked both times. Although the Dregin and Yor liked me and gave me free ships and stuff, the goody-goody races kept declaring war on me every change they got to "clean up my act". It got very tiring and I couldn't ever muster the military to take down all three goody races.

I might try evil again soon and see if I have better luck, but neutral seems a good spot to be and I can trade to get the good or evil only techs if I want them (I agree this should be eliminated).

I posted this in the suggestions for expansion pack thread, but thought it might be appropriate here as well:

Right now being evil nets very tangible benefits (esp. in colonization events), being good doesn't really (o.k. maybe the Altarians like you more, and there are a few alignment specific techs). So basically you're good because you're trying to be good and purposefully giving up often juicy bonuses. You're evil by default if you just want the bonuses, or if you want to be evil you get rewarded. I think that being evil should also be more of a conscious choice, the simplest and most consistent way to implement that meaning that you will also have to forego bonuses/take penalties to take the evil choice.

i.e. the planet is full of semi-sentient worms, keep them and take a PQ hit or exterminate them and get a (sometimes whopping) bonus. Who won't end up as evil if there's too many of these in a game? I did once, 3 PQ choices very early on that I just couldn't resist. Why not counterbalance that with the planet is full of semi-sentient worms who maintain a lush biosphere, keep them around and accomodate them for a PQ bonus and exterminate them 'cause that's what evil civs do and take a PQ hit.

I think this would be the least complicated and least destabalizing way of evening up the good/evil choices, and I for one can't see why the good choice is necessarily penalized and the evil one rewarded, at least in terms of the game mechanics.

Or here's another idea. Make it possible for a colonization event to affect two things. They might roughly balance each other out, but not necessarily so, but the choice reflects on good and evil. So in the above example, the good choice to keep the worms gives a PQ bonus but a penalty to production because largescale industry is constrained because interferes with their habitat. Evil choice of killing them reduces PQ but the joy of the annual worm hunt (remember they are semi-sentient) and of eating food that can say 'mama' gives you a morale boost.

As far as winning the game without cheese tactics goes, my opinion is that good alignments are a better choice. I'll take the evil PQ boost if it occurs on a planet with base PQ >20 and avoid harsh production and morale penalties early on, but otherwise I stick with the good options since the evil ones have very limited benefits anyway.

Good technologies seem better to me than their evil counterparts as well. Trade route techs come earlier in the tech tree and are much cheaper to research, making them very helpful when you cannot obtain tribute. Good diplomatic relations with Torians and Altarians are a plus too, since that frees up additional trade routes I can use to balance the distribution of power among the AIs. Just the simple fact that two out of five races will be less inclined to extort me is a big plus for early expansion. The good races are also more likely to join you in a war against evil races.

I tend towards good, but on various decisions I'll take the middle choics IFF the benefit is significant. I also tend to play as an technological isolationist, which somewhat encourages 'good' play.

So, any of you people that like aiming for "Pure Evil" ever name your empire "8th dimension"? I know, bad reference, but I had to ask, the question went romping through my mind, and it's not like this forum isn't full of references to just about everything else.

Why do you have to know the result of an action before you do it?
Example:Worms -Kill them,leave them be,or limit their habitat?Thats all you should know.Then when you make your choice you find out the result of your actions.

For instance you choose evil and kill them and a box pops up that says:Ooops-It appears the worms were tied closely to the soil richness on this planet:result -20% PQ.

You choose neutral and relocate the worms and a box pops up that says:The worms love their new home so much that they begin to excreet a one-of-a-kind nector that you can harvest.Moral +10% economy +10%

You choose the good and leave them be and the popup says:After a short time on planet the worms enter their mating cycle which occurs once per year and they begin to glow in spectacular colors.It is a huge tourist attraction and also attracts Scientists from all over your empire eager to study them.Econ.+20% Research +10%

Well you get the Idea--There should be a random good,neutral,and bad result for each choice. The evil choice should in general give better bonuses but you shouldnt ALWAYS get shafted by the good choice.

I know this is probably too much work to do but it would be cool.

There's another reason I've recently noticed for NOT being evil.

After a while of taking every evil choice offered, the game kicks in a progressive, recursive cheat. Oh, sure, they give it an in-game reason, even tell you straight out that it's happening, but it's still an AI cheat to compensate for all the benefits the evil choices give. The story 'reason' is that one of the major empires discovered a precursor artifact that steadily builds up in power, enhancing their empire in various ways, with no upper limit. Gee, how legal does that sound?

This event has happened in -every- single game where I played evil to the hilt, and not -once- where I played good/sorta good.