How many good races have you seen?

Its bad to be good

from GalCiv2 Forums
I saw it mentioned in )another thread that good aligned races are getting the shaft and I want to add to that but its in such a different way that it didn't seem proper to simply add it to the other thread.

Firstly I'm curious to see the response as it may invalidate my entire point: Other than yourselves and the Altarains has anyone ever seen another race select good as their ethical alignment? Also note that I don't simply mean 'leaning good' I mean when they do the research (or more commonly get given the tech) and make the ultimate choice.

Worse still I've yet to have a game where the Altarain's, unless I support them judiciously or give them an AI a cut above the others, don't get themselves into a war that ultimately results in their destruction.

It seems to me that most of the bonuses for 'good' are only beneficial if others have joined you in your alignment, not to mention the difficulty of having the evil (and commonly neutral) races taking your alignment personally enough for them to go to war over it.

By comparison the Drengin and the Yor are two of the most powerful races in the game and always go evil. I've also seen the Korx and the Icon's turn evil from time to time.

Rather than polarising the galaxy into good and evil the war between which ultimately ends in either peace or enslavement it seems to pit every one in the galaxy against a single good race ensuring war for years to come.

I propose that at least one other race should be given a good alignment (say the Torian's or the Acraceans) and perhaps one other given a tendancy to lean in that direction as the Icon/Korx do (I'm thinking the human's who I believe were only made neutral to make them better traders/diplomats, all the storyline surrounding them seems to suggest they are not only allied with the good races but leading that alliance
12,921 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Torian are usually good. I've had the Drath go good in my current game. In my current game I've gone Neutral and most have gone that route as well. Drath are good and Drengin evil. However I have an alliance with both them as well as all Neutral races. Only ones I'm not allied with are the Yor and Krox (both evil). I about ready to start a war to wipe them both out.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Torians go good most of the time for me. Iconians, Drath, and Arceans have all gone good for me at least once. Heck, I've even had the Dengrin go good once due to a special event. That was hillarious. They messaged me up just to wish me a nice day and a happy, long life. Cuddly Dengrin...

-Dewar
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The Torians have always been good for me, and I am always nuetral. The humans go good as well most of the time. I think it matters much more on the quality of planets the races get to begin with on whether they become a power or just fodder.

The game Im currently playing, the evil races who were whooping up were decimated when the fundamentalist event happened. A handful of turns later I get a message saying the Drengin have turned into an good and just force in the galaxy, which was interesting. This, combined with my defeat of the decimated Yor and the ganging up on the Korx by everyone who was Neutral and Good actually pretty much wiped evil from the galaxy entirely. Now its a race to see who can dismantle the lizards #1 military and the drengins #1 population #2 military (plus that damn artifact that makes them stronger every turn). No tech victories in my galaxies either, and Im not lettting anyone get a diplomatic
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Torian Drath and Altarians are good.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I played one game where I went evil and the other 4 civs went good, including the Thalan and Drengin...so aggravating, I suspect it a snowball effect as in one powerful civ goes good and the others follow to develop better relationships.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
A major unbalancing issue is psyonic beam
What can the good powers do in the face of such a weapon ?
in games i have played i tech straight for it and i am 100% secure as far as millitary goes for the rest of the game
If anybody dares challenge me i send in exterminators (med or better large hulls with a couple of engines and as many beams as i can fit) and simply remove their millitary
I dont know if the AI will ever build ships to use it, but what has good got to balance this up ?
not much as far as i can tell

anyways in every game i have played the altarians "act" good
i dont know if they actually have the good/evil tech
The iconians often play the good game and those funny looking green guys seem to aswell
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Good isn't that bad. Defense is very under rated, and if you get just one of the good defense techs going + the project that gives 20% bonus to defense you're in real good shape.

I think the problem is the AI not using the good/evil techs well enough. IE when you play evil you're very strong but the AI's don't take advantage of the good side's defensive techs. (vice versa when you play good)

The real problem is that trade isn't strong enough. In GC1 a huge portion of income could be generated by trade, and one war or going evil could really hurt you. Money seems much more ez to come by in 2, but yet the trade routes seem to bring in even less money. (even with all bonuses and startbases)

Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Good is not getting the shaft, their technologies rock.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The psionic beam is ridiculously over powered. With proper positioning of my fleet (outside of their border) I dismantled the entire Arcean navy (second strongest in the game) in one turn with heavy hulled, psionic beam equipped, engines. It was a mass murder with 4 billion troop carrying transports scooting right behind them.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
im usually evil, because one time, the Altarians actually demanded that i give them some money, and, what would you do in a situation like that? Pillage, enslave, all that evil stuff, so i just decided to go evil
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Interesting, almost immediately after making this post I did in fact see the Torian's go good. Interesting that I've played so many games and only just seen that happen. Thankyou all for your input , I see now that I simply hadn't collected enough data.

Also RE the good ethics techs (since it came up). Having used them personally they are handy but they don't seem to be the real game ender that the Psychic beam is. In a conquest game on a huge galaxy (as evil) I destroyed just over 900 ships and only lost 30, the majority of which I lost prior to reaching that technology. Admittedly my foes could have reacted better but none the less I could not have accomplished such a ratio with a less weapon.

It seems to me that if the Psychic beam is going to be attack 12 then the rebound shield (and its ilk) should be somewhere around defence 11, to have a comparable effect on game flow. The current issue seems to be that in order to have competitive defense with your enemies weapon stacked ships (psychic weapons aside) you end up with low attack values and all your opponent has to do is throw one defense on their ship and you're in trouble. By comparison as evil you can throw one psychic beam on a ship to get attack 12 and still stack it with defences, result:
Evil attack: strong, defense: strong
Good attack: weak, defense: strong
Or formats thereof

Also lets not forget that evil races generally have significant attack/defense bonuses, making them more formidable than the simple values.

As was suggested it is also possible to correct this by decreasing the power of the Psychic beam but one of the things I appreciate about Gal Civ is the way certain techs/events really upset the balance of power. I prefer the idea of balancing it out like this:

Instead of giving the good races a shield, armour and point defence half as strong as the psychic beam why not give them a single device that does all three but is, as before, only half as strong. Thus in the same way that the Psychic beam makes an almost unstoppable blade the good techs will provide an almost perfect circle of defence. Good and evil will become the most formidable combatants and neutral can be just that, a neutral trader/diplomat race, formidable in their own way.

Oh and of course hand in hand with this is what has already been said: if we are going to do this 'battle between good and evil' thing seriously we need to see the AI using the ethics weapons. Indeed it might even be nice to have a button in the game setup that lets you disable the ethical superweapons if you're looking to have a less polarised game.