Suggestion: REWARD FOR BEING GOOD

I think the developers attended the Dark Helmet school of philosophy and ethics.

Being good is its own reward.

You don't have to stand in the corner for 5 turns.

Being good is it's own reward. Notice that if you are good, none of the other "good" races will attack you. Notice that if you are evil, the other "evil" races will stab you in the back just as quickly as everybody else. Evil has short term, obvious benefits. Good has long term, subtle benefits. I often tend to lean good if I'm sandwiched between the Altarians and the Torians. That's two borders you often don't have to worry about.

Evil is a good choice if you don't mind fighting everybody else on the map.

The more I play the game, the more I think the developers have got it about right.

Has anyone just sat there and watched what the other Civs do to each other? Has anyone noticed good or evil prevailing more than the other? It is fairly balanced, but I would say if anything the good guys beat up the bad guys. Certainly the Dregnim and Yor are possibly the strongest individual AI civs, but in my games the good guys tend to gang up, trade with each other and just out last the strong lone wolf civs.

Is "good" fun to play? That is another question... I hate it. Sitting there being nicey, nicey with those smelly Torians... shame they don't have the de-odourant tech, they won't even take it for free when I offer it to them. You have less problems being good... but I want power, I want to rule the Universe not sit at home and listen to the Altarians with their whiny voices tell me how the've save the Universe from unspeakable evil. So if your afraid of your own shadow choose Good... It is probably safest. You'll have playground friends and they may not even call you names.

Heh, I don't give a damn, if Evil means I get Star ship bonuses, loads of money at the expence of my populace, then so be it.....

When I feel like it I just click on Xeno Ethics, then choose neutral or good. Especially now I have made three techs for each one (Good - a path to 'Utopia, Neutral - a path to a 'balanced' society and Evil - a path to a 'Tyrannical' society) With nice fat juicy ability bonuses, but they cost a lot, so it balances it out a bit.

Oh, and those techs require the relevent tech before they can be researched.. i.e. concepts of righteousness / malice or balanced vision....

And if anyone wants a notepad version of my tech tree ask me to e-mail it to you - dark_storm@tiscali.co.uk

Just copy n paste it into the tech tree file

Wheather or not you choose Good depends on your play style. For those who want to conquor the galaxy, of course their not going to choose good! Their going to complain about how awful it is! However, I do believe the Good allainment to underpowered, and their needs to be a few changes. I have come up with a few to get started.

1) Increase relationship and diplomatic boost between both Good and Neutral Civs (I think this is already being implemented)
2) Make Evil Civs hated more by Good Civs (and Vice Versa)
3) +25% trade income with both Good and Neutral Civs (instead of just Good)
4) Make Good defences a little less expensive
5) Give Good its own special planetary improvement. Neutral gets one (learing Centers), and so does Evil (Propaganda Center). Why doesn't Good?

That is all I can think of right now. If anyone else wants to take a shot, go right ahead

Good should just get a moral bonus. I see loyalty, but I look and look and can't find where this is noted in my game. Also same for "approval", only morale I see.

Good is actually good for playing a militarisitc race. You have better defensive tech and AIs are more likely to surrender to you.

Also same for "approval", only morale I see.

Approval and marale are different names for the exact same thing.

I think evil is the most difficult to play. All those planet bonuses don't help much when an Altarian AI with a 200% bonus decides you're too evil for this galaxy.

If the good path gets also nice planet bonuses and special buildings, then what's the point of being evil and have the whole galaxy constantly attacking you? I think neutral is too powerfull thou.

The Nutmeisters of the Dark Snathi concur the foolish forces of Good are not set in appropriate balance to the forces of neutrality and evil.

We would choose to see two changes: As has been mentioned afore, there is no nifty planetary improvement...
Secondly, each of the other alignments has a clear advantage in seeking a victory. Evil has many advantages to conquer, and Neutral has the almighty NLC to speed to Tech Victory. Good has no clear path. Is this fair?

My gut says, "Maybe"

Good should have a more tangible advantage to pursuit of an influence victory. The Diplomacy bonus helps keep other good nations from attacking you when their worlds flop over to you, but that is nothing compared to the advantage of an NLC or a shredder.

How about:

Shrine of Goody-Two-Shoesness : Build Cost: 500, Planet's Influence +50%
This has the same cost and effect as two Cultural Exchange centers.


Won't it be a challenge when friendly Altaria's borders start swelling uncontrollably? Your mighty Drengin warriors speak loudly in crowded bars that they love their lord, but would prefer to fight for the Altarians. Your children run in the streats quoting Altarian holovision characters.

If I should die, tell my wife, "Hello".

Good is actually good for playing a militarisitc race. You have better defensive tech and AIs are more likely to surrender to you.

Well, currently it is not, since in the late game, even with defences the attacking fleet almost always wins. But once v1.2 is released and everyone attacks at the same time: BOO-YAH! Defences will make all the difference in battle! I can't wait

Morale determines how likely your planets are to switch sides if they start rioting.
Approval determines your approval rating.

As for good's advantages, the biggest one is that of improved relations with other races. It can be the biggest advantage in the world to be going 3 on 1 vs Drengin, instead of having 3 vs you. As for defences prior to 1.2, I still think the bonuses can come in handy, especially a 30 shielded cruiser against two or three plasma wielding destroyers. Even if they attack first, chances are they won't get through.

Shrine of Goody-Two-Shoesness : Build Cost: 500, Planet's Influence +50% This has the same cost and effect as two Cultural Exchange centers.

Sounds good, although I suggest you change the name to something that suggests goodness, and make it a Super Project.

Being good is its own reward

my sentiments exactly and same is true of being evil

i too have rewritten some of the diffs between good/neutral/evil, and have a few more on the horizon.

good:
new mil. starbase modules to boost defenses significantly, "refugre fields" +3 to all defenses
new "xeno co-op" farm produces food and a morale bonus
new defense comps: "EM Charge, Rift Armor, and Stasis Field" come after ultimate defenses but cost significantly more
new tech, "ends-means reasoning" improves diplomacy (oh yeah, i removed the diplomacy bonuses from the gov't tech line)
added new invasion tech, 'moral crusade', works like info warfare but better, also provides a bravery bonus
also increased the defense and HP bonuses provided by the other good techs

neutral:
added a new SB module, "merchent's guild", to neutrality shipping, provides a +40% trade bonus
nerfed NLCs just a bit (19/turn, now between inv matrix and disc sphere, still a major advantage though)
added 'omniplex' to morale tech series - basically centers a la The Matrix where people pay to experience whatever they want - since it's 'virtual' the neutral gov't doesn't legislate it at all, so you can dream of murdering your boss or what have you: point being, they porivde a 65% morale boost and a slight eco and infl boost
added two new defense techs per defense type for neutrals; they aren't stronger defenses, but cheaper.

as far as evil goes, i'm still lacking ideas. i'm hesitant to just overpower the military even more. not paying for starbase development is a huge advantage in my opionion, regardless of what type of bases you're building. one thing i added:
new invasion tech, "terror tactics", cuts enemy advantage factor with no penalty, provides a soldiering bonus
but i'm still trying to figure out what else evil could get without overpowering it.

oh yeah. ii also renamed 'good and evil' to 'self-referential philosophies' and 'balanced vision' to 'concenpts of non-duality.' as i said, purely for flavor. but ethics + religion are an interest of mine, and i wanted the game to reflect more advanced, futuristic notions of ethics otherwise what's the point of even having a 'neutral'? at least, that's my thinking.

oh yeah, i wanted to say something about defenses. i've been playing 1.2b for a while b/c i always wanted the combat system that way. in the game i'm playing now, i've got a handful of medium sized ships that fought my way through a war, and some of them have more HP than brand new battleships. when i had newer tech for them, i looked at upgrading the whole class but it was going to be way too expensive. instead i upgraded them to a more expensive medium size class (psyonic beams and double adamantium... everyone else is using mass drivers in that particular game), and the rest of my medium fleet was upgrarded to a cheaper model (a single adamantium, and regular beam/missile offenses). the extra nice perk is that in subsequent battles when my cheap model wins a few times and gains some nice HP bonuses, i can upgrade it to the better model without ever having risked producing a fresh one with low HP that could still be shot down with a bit of luck... the best part is, if i've got a planet nearby and upgrade the ship, i don't even need to wait for it to repair.

Good should have a more tangible advantage to pursuit of an influence victory

good has a clear advantage to pursing an alliance victory. but i agree with you that *if* aligntment is supposed to make certain victory options easier, then influence should go to good. but i don't think it's the case. mind control center (if it worked) is a major help to influence victory, as is free starbase upgrades.

i rarely play with tech victory enabled, or influence for that matter. i'd prefer the victory options be equally feasibile to any alignment. as it is, the advantages to neutral and evil can be used to pursue just about any victory if you're smart. a big military will scare off anyone else as easily as a lot of diplomacy. money and research will give you more than enough of a military edge, i think. i think the defense boosts to good are minor (the value boosts are so small, and the defense components are so bulky i only bother with them if i really need them in a pinch), and the diplomacy only goes so far. maybe the overall advantage to being good should be totally defensive, including cultural defense (i.e., boosts to loyalty and morale). but who knows, i play for fun not for perfect balance.

Evil: Make the non-economic part of the Mind Control Center work properly and they'll be terribly powerful. As is, they're so-so.

Neutral: These guys already rule. Morale, research, free expensive techs, economics, alignment compatibility, Neutral has it all.

Good: Good is gimped, and for no apparent reason. Their pre-officialdom alignment choices are lame. I mean, Neutrals get "mine with remote control bots so nobody gets hurt" and Goods get "let the people suffer with less resources to keep them safe" on one of them. I mean, what the hell? Then, once you're official, good gets shafted--loyalty doesn't usually come into play and it doesn't really help much if it does, the defenses suck compared to the higher-level defenses (that Neutrals will beat you to because of research), their special buildings are dumb, the no-maintenance thing is barely noticeable, and diplomacy doesn't help you when one of the other good races switches sides and eats you for lunch. Good needs an overhaul badly.

i think it would work better if the cost of good was greatly increased, so it's practically impossible to 'buy' good, but then *really* powered it up, so that way, while it still sort of hurts to choose good choices, in the end it is worth it, i'm not sure what bonuses good would get, perhaps a PQ bonus, infuence, some good stuff anyway.

I think good civs should be able to defend better agansit evil civs and be crusader-like (several advantages aganist evil speficaly). Neutral as it is is good but is not very good at fighting either force (being they don't take part in "Galactic Ethical Politics") Evil is quite powerful as it is, but i think they should get better approval because they are forced too (maybe more gulags?)

I still say good simply needs morale bonus.

Umm.. I haven't seen the good tech robot, but the evil one is freaky and horrible. The neutral one looks stupid and annoying. Maybe the good one looks heavenly?

Hey Mek,

Think of it like this:

GOOD is NOT a BONUS ...

IT is really in GALCIV2 a ... handicap !!!!

Like playing at Hard vs Impossible ...

So enjoy the CHALLENGE

And have FUN ...

Good is about making sacrifices so that's the point.

If you only think about the benefits that you get for the choices, and killing people then it's obviously bad.

Anyway being good makes you feel good doesn't it? Evil is horrible...

Why should good have greater morale and influence? Secret police forces do wonderful work in putting the squeeze on enemies of the state without and within, and I am certain the romans with their slaves and brutality were much more loyal to the roman empire then the selfclaimed "good" societies today. Not to mention, "good" societies are supposedly very "free" and "free" people tend to sow dissent and opposition to the government. I know some people who living in russia during the iron curtain times. They think it was a shithole today, but at the time whenever they thought about how hard life was they told themselves how lucky they are to be in russia and not in some horrible place like the US or Europe (controlling the media has that effect). Anyways, in regard to the question. Good civilizations DO have real concrete benfits. Evil civilzation exloit their population and others to get the most out of every planet or sitation and REAP THE REWARDS. Good civilzations loose alot of money and benefits by trying to help everyone (we CAN'T sacrifice people for the greater good/enslave and kill innocent indegenous creatures/etc). But good civilzations are much friendlier towards eachother while evil civilzations backstab like crazy. So being good has real diplomatic benefits, they just aren't entirely obvious like the evil side's "+20 to ship construction" tag on your new planet.

I think it's fine the way it is.

Being good is not the easy road. It's not the free road. It's not the choice you can do without sacrifice. It's the choice where you're lying in the mud, having your face stomped on by a group of football players just to save a random freshman. It's the choice where you are having to watch people suffer and die because you don't want to burn down that rainforest. Good isn't the path where you ascend the hill to glory. It's the path where you crawl out of the sewer with multiple stab wounds, a broken arm, and more teeth missing than you thought you even had, all the while trying your best not to think about what you're covered in.

Good doesn't have a lot of bonuses. But, what it does have is the advantage of alliances. It's a lot easier to conquer the galaxy if you're allies with half the races in it.