GalCiv2 Forums
When you're playing as a race with a "good" ethical alignment, is there anything to discourage you from aggressively warring?
I'm playing as The Terrain Alliance and I can't imagine that I can go around declaring war like I was playing as The Drengin or The Korath without penalty.
Thanks in advance
Nothing at all stopping you. You can backstab allies, you can ambush freighters or even set up fleets right next to planets to 1 week exterminate another Good race w/o penalty to your ethics.
... but can your conscience take it?
THe only thing effecting your ethics are the base alignment of your race and the chooices you sometimes get when colonizing a planet.
Lots of times I play Terrans as good. I get as many allies as I can and pick off the rest, good or bad.
These things don't sound very "good" ethically. I know that GCII:ToA isn't suppose to be Star Trek, but I at least partially see the Terrain Alliance as something like The United Federation of Planets. Can you imagine The Federation (of Kirk or Picard) backstabbing allies with surprise attacks to conquer their planets? Even if they didn't have their Prime Directive, I doubt they'd do such things because they're a "good" democracy.
Even if you don't want to use the Star Trek comparision, "good" democracies on present-day Earth don't openly launch surprise attacks for territorial gains. I'm not saying that they don't have alterior motives when they fight wars for "noble" causes; but, for example, the present-day United States would never launch a surprise, un-provoked attack on an un-suspecting, innocent Canada for the purpose of expanding her northern border. If you play as a "good" Terrain Alliance, then you probably should be considered more enlightened and less beligerant than the democracies of Earth in the 21st century.
I think that maybe "good" races should only be able to declare war on other aggressors (so not other "good" races). This would also create a needed advantage for "bad" races, as they would be able to declare war for any reason; without having been provoked.
That is correct, but the OP asked if there is anything discouraging him from acting against what would be considered as 'good'. The ONLY thing limiting him is his own conscience. You can be a ruthless ruler and still run the flag of Good.
Just remind yourself, Good or Evil is just a matter of opinion and view. The USA may beleive they are Good, but plenty of other countries beleive them to be Evil. People who view themselves as Evil know that what they do is wrong, but they don't care. So actions don't determine one's morality as much as knowing that something is wrong and going against one's own better judgement.
An Evil Korath will know that slavery and incernerating people's Aul (soul) is wrong, but they do it none the less. A Good Korath will see that it's a nessesity and it's in the betterment of the galaxty to do these things.
Which one of those two are more twisted? lol.
Aside from all bonuses & advantages handed over to the players when their choice of Ethics actually dictates a "tricky" strategic pattern against many differently aligned AIs to winning hard & sharp at specific victory conditions, though.
In GC2, "ethics" don't mean what you think they mean. It's best to look at "good", "neutral" and "evil" as A, B, and C. There are rules about what happens when you choose A, B, or C, as well as how other races look at you based on your race's natural inclination.
Races of ethical alignment A tend to get along with each other more than the other two. Nobody much likes races of alignment C, even other races of alignment C. And so on.
In short, "ethics" in this game doesn't restrict your choices; they're just a set of rules that the game and AI tries to follow.
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