Moral Dillemas that have unexpected consequences

I never played galciv before and i really like those moral dillemas...

but wouldnt it be cool if those choices u made can come back later to bite u in the ass (or possible reward u with something).
example: lets say u get that dillema where u have discover strange pod-like aliens (plantlike).
soldiers in training can be put inside those pods causing em great pain but increasing their soldiering.

1 u can leave em alone (-% to planet size)
2 u can put volenteers inside em (+% to soldering strenght)
3 u can force all of ur planets poplulation into the pods (huge +% to soldering strenght)

So like i said wouldnt it be cool if the choice u made in the above example would "evolve" and say after 50 or 100 turns or so u get a new dillema based on the choice u made.
lets say u chose option 3 to get the huge soldiering exp. u get the following dillema after 100 turns:

"after a succesfull period of training our troops with use of the alien pods, it seems now there are some unexpected side-effects, and anomalies have formed. Some of our soldiers trained inside the pods seemed to have undergone some mental change and have now turned against us."

1 Try to capture our soldiers alive and imprison them so we have time to research an antidote to their madness (huge -% soldiering small -% research)
2 Leave the anomalies alone, but if they come close to our cities destroy em (small -% soldiering bonus)
3 Try to capture our soldiers alive and imprison them so we can execute them in public to teach our inhabitants what happens when they turn on us. (huge -% soldiering small +% morale


this can also help to give "good" (alligment) players some bonusses instead of beeing punished for beeing "good" as it is a bit now in the game.
lemme explain again:
lets say in the first example you chose to lave the pods alone altoghter, not getting any bonus out of it.
u have some % (much more then an "evil" player anyway) of getting a possitive message after 100 turns like this one:

"The alien pods we discovered while inhabiting this planet have been studied by our scientist and their findings are remarkable. No one noticed this before, but the pods comunicate at a frequency that travels trough sub space. as it turns out the alien pods are higly developed scentient beeings that posses a large collective memory. They offer to share their wisdom with us."

1 Accept their offer and try to improve relations with these beeings (+%research +%diplomatic)
2 Accept the offer ( +% research)
3 Im not gonna converse with a plant. Enslave all of em and put em to work at the research labs (huge +% research)


u might be tempted to go for the bad option (huge % research), but the outcome of enslaving the pods may prove to be fatal for your planet in the future....or not..who knows?
this kinda style of dillemas would be far more intersesting i think.
as it is now , choosing the evil option (always giving you the best %) doesnt really have any consequense.

a well i was just thinking....
really like the game btw.

8,890 views 9 replies
Reply #2 Top
Sounds like a great idea in general.
Reply #3 Top
I really like this idea, and would love to see it in game. As it is now I just go Evil everytime because I see no negative consequences (and good is weak )

BTW, nice work with the examples. Hehe, silly pod creatures.
Reply #4 Top
There are consequeces already in the game if you go good\evil. If you choose good/evil path it affects how other races view you. So the bonus of picking good things is in your relations with other races. Of course if you are intent on total destruction then join the dark side. I am pretty sure that when I leaned towards evil, alot of the vote options that came up were to punish me for those infractions, also other races seemed to be much more negative towards me. On the flip side when I picked all the good choices all the nice races had a very positive view of me.
Also I think it has an effect when it comes time to choose your good\evil\neutral path and there could very well be other consequeces that I have missed.
Reply #5 Top
I'd just like it to play a role a bit more often in the game, and have some more direct effects from earlier choices. While the diplomacy effects are there, they are relatively minor (I've been able to ally with evil minor races even though I am good, and sometimes good races would declare wars of aggression on me--not the same game).
Reply #6 Top
It's great in concept.... and it follows the basic idea I have for an empire management game.... but it would take an awful lot of work. Eventually people would be saying - hey, there's only 3 possible outcomes for each of the first decisions, you need to put in more.... And so on. Basically it's great but a huge huge project.
Reply #7 Top
----------------quote----------------- It's great in concept.... and it follows the basic idea I have for an empire management game.... but it would take an awful lot of work. Eventually people would be saying - hey, there's only 3 possible outcomes for each of the first decisions, you need to put in more.... And so on. Basically it's great but a huge huge project.--------------------------

yeah i was thinking about that aswell.
but on the other hand.......(keep in mind i dont know what its like to develop a game but here goes:)
say they took 2 years to make callciv2 with a team of 10 ppl. (thast a very low estimate)
give 2 dudes 2 weeks to come up with these dillemas and their consequenses like i described above .....then give a scripting team of 4 guys 1 month to implement it.
i think it can be done in that time frame......but then again i dont know shit about game developing.

on the point that ppl might want more and more options.....maybe yeah...but i think my suggestion would really improve the dillemas instead of just having more options.
it would make the balance between good and evil also better then it is now.
atleast thats what i think

stardock devs also read and comment on these boards yeah?....if like to hear their opinion about this.,
Reply #8 Top
they took 2 years to make callciv2 with a team of 10 ppl. (thast a very low estimate)
give 2 dudes 2 weeks to come up with these dillemas and their consequenses like i described above .....then give a scripting team of 4 guys 1 month to implement it.
i think it can be done in that time frame......but then again i dont know shit about game developing.


Of course in that time they'd not be doing all the other critically necessary things. This idea is fluff.... good fluff, great fluff but still fluff. It's more something I'd expect to see in later patches than a core requirement of the initial game. Add onto that the need to balance it all, create screens.... lots of other minor parts that would fit it all together and you've probably added another $20,000 onto the development costs (just grabbing a number out of the air there but based upon the idea of paying those 6 guys a total of 6 weeks salary).

It is relatively.... no it is extremely easy to come up with good ideas post fact. I know, I play games all the time and think "hey this would have been good/better etc" but at the end of the day work must be finished, there have to be targets met and profits made or it just doesn't happen.
Reply #9 Top
oh yeah i completely /agree
it sure isnt a core factor in gameplay and yes it would just be added "fluff" as u put it.
ive been playing games for about 17 years now and many times ive had toughts id like to see implemented in some game....some ideas where realistic.....most where not.

but this moral dillema stuff really set loose my imagination.
id really like to see some more features added to that...even if they do it later on with patches. i can wait.