I totally agree. Evil has the best buildings & techs in my opinion, and all the ethical choices reward you for being evil. I would definitely like to see different beneficial effects for good vs evil choices, and some events where the good choice is beneficial, but the evil choice is detrimental, and vice versa. Or some events where each choice at the extremes results in something bad, or good. This would make playing a pure alignment more difficult and realistic. Neutral rewards/penalties should exist, but be minimized copmpared to the good or evil choices.

Sentient species taste better...

yeah beeen good shud be harder

Although evil civs are "sopposed" to have hard time because the "Large" quantity of good civs will gang up on them, but it never happens, I've never seen two races form an alliance (this may not be true in D.A.) unless I was one of those races. Good Civs should get the benifit of relationship, in otherwords, they should cooperate, to rid the galaxy of evil. It should be an even match up, all good fights bad, instead of evil picks the do-gooders off one by one, and wins. Maybe if you choose the good ethical alighnment, one of the bonuses should be,"You can instantly form alliances with all other good civs."

This way evil gets huge benifits, but good has friends.
Neutral would just be in the way.

I wasn't proposing switching the ENTIRE event listing, but I do feel there should be SOME events where the good option is benenficial. As it is now NONE of them are and it feels a bit forced. Also it does not have to be a zero-sum situation, as my example above illustrates. There can still be a bonus for evil or neutral choices even if there is a bonus for choosing the good option.

Yes, it should be harder to accheive a good alignment, but that does not mean that there should be NO events where being good pays a dividend. That was my point. I don't want to turn it on it's head, but there should be SOME times when choosing good actually pays off.

How about this:

The evil benefits remain as now, printed out for anyone to see. For that matter the current good benefits remain, also.

But behind the interface, there is a random chance of other, subtler benefits for choosing good - perhaps an increase in Luck, perhaps an increase in Influence, Diplomacy, Creativity, Defense,...perhaps the occasional unique blessing, like a 10% chance that your ship/fleet can't be hit in the next battle (a charmed life), until the chance actualy occurs.

Here's the kicker: These extra subtle plessings for being good a)aren't guaranteed to accrue from every moral decison, and you get no announcement - they are secret from the player. You've gotta have faith!
(Possibly they could be summarized in the end game reports.)

Perhaps - perhaps that is even what is already happening??
Just food for thought.

drrider

Actually, being good should not be harder... it should force you into a research or influence win, rather than a 'take it all over'.

As for planet decisions, Good, Neutral and Bad choices should ALL have Up and DOWN sides.

For instance, Early Civilization
Good - -5% pop, +10% morale on planet
Neutral - -2% pop, +2% morale on planet
Evil - +15% pop, +1% morale (for the drinking stories told at local watering holes)

This seems like a more realistic treatment of the alignments, rather than Good always taking a SHAFT up the back side.

j

Its not only beneficial to choose the evil path when the choices pop up, but the buildings you get as evil almost make you invincible, at least at the middle difficulties. I mean who needs free upgrades to starbases when you can double your income. The NLC is nice too but with the better weapons and slave center giving you ships faster you will be able to just steal techs as you conquor faster, and free, with the no cost invasion center (or whatever its called).

i think the good-neutral-evil choices can be somewhat equal. i wrote in apost some time ago something like:

A good alignment will boost you in research. Ie. enlightenment. Good should get a better learing center. And still get the defenses. Good alignments should also get a faster flip rate.

Neutral can get the boost in economics, that is neutral trading and the free starbase upgrades. it makes sence since a neutral party will still trade with everyone. As a side note I think the Korx should be neutral because of this. They dont act like mercenaries, just mechants.

And of course evil will still get the weapon techs, the slave center and free invasions. i guess they will still need an economic boost to pay for their military but maybe not 100%.


There was more but that is what i remember from it at the moment. The moral choices can still cross the board with bonuses/minuses when they come up. No need to have the good choice always boost research etc.

right now its just too hard to NOT pick a 15% research bonus over someting like a -5% moal to the planet.

Well, that's the idea, Evil choices have an immediate benefit but you should take advantage of these benefits to put you in a position where you can fend off some of the good/neutral races ganging up against you.
Or for example if the UP Council votes to limit evil civilizations to X trade routes, you should have gotten some manufacturing or other bonus that offsets this trade limitation.
I often go for neutral (neutrality learning centers, trade advantages) or even push towards good if there are more good races that I want to keep as allies or just to trade with.

Evil should be a rush race. Good should be an economic boom race.

Simple as that.

Actually, it was, but it had waay more to do with several decades of global economics than it did with form of government. Its just that in looking at the period of WWII, war buffs tend to focus on a few specific outstanding military devices, and overlook all the liberal democracies advantages in basic processes, production technology, martime technology, electronics, metallurgy, automotive mechanics & reliability, etc, etc.

On the subject of technological potential, you also have to note the brain drain of innovative (but generally Jewish and/or liberal) thinkers who deliberately left the Nazi sphere.

The Nazi's probably did improve the situation (economically and technologically) in the early days, mainly by stabilizing the financial system, improving the investment environment, and massive government contracts (whose bills wouldn't come due until they had some [ahem] 'outside' sources of income).

Later on, the Nazi leadership's micromanagement of research resources into bizarre sidelines often stole from general technological progress, despite Speer's best efforts otherwise.

Does this translate to a general lesson about 'evil' regeimes and technological progress. I don't know. A lot depends on how you define 'evil' I suspect. But certainly cultural systems that place artificial limits on what is 'acceptable' technology and research, and who are 'acceptable' thinkers, are limiting their potential progress relative to those cultures that are open to more sources of innovation.

drrider

too far out

We all need to be wary of applying current fashionable concepts of what is good, or neutral, or evil behavior at the national/civilizational level to GalCiv. The current hegemony-lite of Western, liberal democratic civilization may well turn out to be an historical anomaly.

Throughout most of human history, complete ruthlessness toward your external competitors and systematic exploitation and oppression of a majority of your internal population was a successful strategy for many societies. When Brad Wardell designed GalCiv's ethical choice system, he acknowledged that historical reality and the benefits and costs that are associated with different ethical choices at the societal level.

The cold, hard reality is that the ethical choices defined as Good in GalCiv do not optimize your society's chances for success in the Galactic struggle for survival and supremacy. Except for one Big Advantage: Other Good societies trust you much more and are far more likely to join with you in stable, long-term alliances. Oh BTW, there is nothing in GalCiv morality that penalizes Good societies for conquering Evil and Neutral societies --- and there is no penalty for being completely ruthless in the conquests.

So suck it up in the early-to-mid game as a Good player, then organize the Good AI players into an alliance and systematically crush the Evil and Neutral players. Along the way you should also use the United Planets to impose all kinds of penalties on the Evil players and, whenever possible, the Neutral players. (Those diplomatic techs and cultural influence techs are relatively easy to get for a reason).

This strategy is not a guarantee of success for the player who chooses Good. If one of the Evil or Neutral players becomes territorially dominant early, you're in trouble. If most of the Good players get picked off early or are confined to small territories, you also may be in trouble. However, if you can make it into the mid-to-late game with several Good societies left that are still technically and economically competitive, you are in a great position to execute the Good gang strategy.