Anyone else thinks Good vs Evil is too simplistic? Especially when you are dealing with alien races ehich might not even understand morality in the same way as we do. I think the alignment should be reworked with more than just good and evil, which would also allow for more variety in boni and random events.
I think if it was me I would do something like a chart with two axi, one would be cynical - idealist, while the other would be authoritarian (orderly) - anarchic (free); thus you could have a civilization be kinda authoritarian but idealist (paternalist), or anarchic but cynical (like everyone for their own).
Idealist-Opportunist would probably be a better way of naming Good vs. Evil
A chaos-law scale (Authoritarian-Anarchic) would also be interesting. Am currently re-watching Babylon 5, and the Law-Chaos conflict is the crux of the show.
We've taken a different track in GalCiv III than that.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! You are ruining what made GalCiv so.. soo.... GALCIV
Good for you. Alwyays thought it was a clunky and relatively arbitrary mechanic.
Do you mean different from GalCiv II too?
Yes. As in there isn't "good" and "evil" like that anymore. It's a different system that's more specific.
OH!!! THAT MEANS SOCIAL POLICIES!! CivV-style!!
YES
YES!!!!!
Ill take Order and Honor for a Domination win across the Galaxy please......
That's good because labeling things good and evil is quite simplistic and boring. Let the player decide what is evil and good. Races/Species should get along or have conflicts based on attributes/beliefs and actions. Like one race is the merchant race where individualism is prized, and another prizes collectivism. Just a bunch of traits like that (Warrior vs. peaceful). Some will races/species share a lot traits and others will not have much in common, and that's where the conflict comes in.
Right there with ya, and you my friend, have excellent taste in scifi One of my all time favorite shows, infact, I was thinking about starting to rewatch it again.
I always (when having the options and controls) approached it as a somewhat laid-back dictator. Kinda some of the perspective I had in a job from my youth, a bouncer. I was (still am) quite sizable, polite and well spoken and am inclined to leave you alone if you follow my (the bar's) rules, if you go against the "Law of the Land" to got a VERY firm grip politely asking you to decist, if you choose not to, you will be removed, by any level of force necessary. Basicaly, ingame, cross me at your own peril as you will find out how much of a totalitarian dictator schmuck I can REALLY be, otherwise I am rather amicable.
I prefer the old Good / Evil crossed with Lawful / Chaotic (9 possible alignments). The Lawful Evil folks really hated the Chaotic Good, but were more likely to get along with the Lawful Good people.
Yeah, traditional D&D alignments, that could definitely work.
The lawful evil folks only get along with the lawful good ones in the sense that the law shields the LE folks from the LG ones, not because they in any way like each other. LE really hates Chaotic Good because of fear - CG folks won't be deterred from stopping an evil act simply because it's legal, and that makes them more dangerous.
Speaking as someone currently running a D&D campaign, I don't like the alignment system a whole lot. In a game like GalCiv it wouldn't make a lot of sense, I mean if you're the leader of the Drengin Empire what is "law" other than "whatever I say it is because I have the biggest guns"?
Good vs Evil only works if you're applying human morality to every race in the game, which is pretty blah.
Yeah Good vs Evil is Old fasioned now, I like how it's done in Sid Meiers Alpha centauri, where you pick from a set of policies Each faction would then like you better if your policies were ones they liked, and would hate you more if you didn't do things their way.
sidenote: does anyone else always wipe out Miriam at earliest opportunity?
GalCivIII could have many many more policies to choose from than in SMAC.
I didn't knew there was a gameplay strategy that didn't called for wiping out Miriam as soon as possible. The bitch always had it coming.
Personally 'alignment' doesn't really work in GalCiv. for my own campaigns alignment was more about the 'broad' morality that a character adhered to. And to be honest I'd only really pin them down on it, if the lawful good paladin suddenly thought that burning down the orphanage full of kids so they could make their escape from the trolls was a 'great idea'.
If you're going to introduce alignment it really needs to be more than some 'checkbox' of how a race is. Gameplay wise how does that matter? Would it impact diplomacy? Would making sepecific choices in quests or such mean your alignment 'shifted'.Does being of alignment A mean that if you do action B your diplomacy would be more impacted perhaps? Would you receive a specific production bonus/penalty for any buildings, units, policies?
I'd only really want it if alignment actually MATTERED in the choices I make. Not some box in the intro screen that I'll never ever see again.
Some of the choices were little bit odd gameplay wise. Or does somebody feel option to kill 1B people (without any gain) instead of just 10M like a good question?
Yep. I find her "holier than thou" rants and "religious proselytizations" very anoying. But I think that was a big part of the game's purpose, having a number of contentious character traits.
Alignment mattered in the previous GC games. It did impact diplomacy, ability to negotiate, etc., and your alignment did get shifted by the choices you selected on random planet and galaxy events.
I think what is being asked for is that the alignment mechanics should be more multi-dimensional than GC1 and GC2 was.
Ah yes.. Fresh Slaves!
Love that option, screw saving the colonists and new indigenous inhabitants...."Fresh Slaves'....yep I'm evil....
disintigration rifles -sound like my kind of people (+33% starship bonus) ((hell yeah))
I don't think that Lawful vs Chaotic is workable too. Just look at Dregin. Are they a chaotic people? A militaristic race usually into law and order more than Democratic ones. And Yor, I can't find a robotic nation could be chaotic / anarchy. Every race has law, and I don't believe that a race that survive into space age has chaotic / anarchy mind.
There is always the splinter faction for the chaotic/anarchists, take for instance victors of a recent slave revolt. They would have access to the highest tech of their former rulers but likely no government in place. This would also make up pirates, terrorists, and criminal empires (to a certain extent).
I wonder if they'll go with some kind of socio-economic compass.Sword of the Stars 2 uses the compass in an interesting way: many things that you do in the game nudge you along an axis and so, over time, you gravitate towards an area of the compass corresponding with one of the nine government types. Different modifiers come into play based on your government type.More in depth description here: Sword of the Stars 2 Codex: Government
Perhaps they could do something similar to Fable; multiple different "Alignments", like Good/Evil or Pure/Corrupt, with each alignment describing a different facet of that civilization's behaviour.
Say you conquer a planet. A pure civilization will integrate the conquered people into their society, a corrupt race will exterminate them or enslave them. Or perhaps something along the lines of "idealistic/Pragmatic", or "Authoritarian/Democratic", with different situations feeding into different morality scales.
As long as it's not just a single slider; one-dimensional morality is pretty lame.
Agreed that one dimensional morality is pretty lame, how many dimensions before its over complex and un-useful?
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