Evil ought to be based upon more than a few random acts . . .

If it is militarily superior, the AI may declare war on you. I don't think this has anything to do with alignment... just relations and military strength. Being Good automatically puts you on good terms with other good races though, so in that respect you can prevent a superior AI from declaring war on you...

Or at least that's how I think it works...

Perhaps declaring unprovoked wars should cause a moral drop for good civilizations and a moral increase for evil civilizations? This would be temporary (last 1 year).
A provoked war (where relations are hostile) would cause no bad effects for good civilizations but would still provide a moral boost for evil civilations.

Paul.

That's a cool idea...

Many people, including myself, do not equate pacifism with goodnesss.

Good and evil have to be clear cut and unambiguous.

Hello folks

let me introduce myself my name is nabil i am the producer of Gal Civ at Strategyfirst

i have been the silent watcher on these forum for a while. i decided to post this now though

i believe that if you are playing against a GOOD AI and you are not evil, you should not get attacked. period. some people like myself want to build an empire without the hassle of AI attacks. and build a strong defence before moving on the offensive

just my 2 cents

Cheers

Nabil,

Here is my 2 cents for yours.

So you are saying that missunderstandings can not occur? That is definitely contrary to history, and with the difficulties of understanding a completely different race, it sounds very unrealistic. While I would agree that I would expect what you ask in a perfect galaxy, I don't for a minute think Brad intended Galciv to be one.

Another thought. Don't you think your idea would remove some of the unpredictability away from the game? One of the things that makes this game so re-playable is its tendency to be unpredictable.

And then there is the problem of how to counter the challenge of influence or trade. Good or evil, if a race is at risk of loosing its identity, don't you think it would try everything within its power to survive?

Don't forget, the AI in Galciv has to follow the same rules as the human player. If an AI is whipping you on influence then you are saying you have no choice but to submit. If you are playing good against good YOU could not resort to war to try to survive.

Or are you saying you want the AI hamstrung until you build up a formidable armada? This sounds like you are asking for an unrealistic advantage.

One last point. With the influence you obviously carry as the producer (confirmation from Brad, if you please) you should be very careful about exserting undue influence on someone elses product. Those of us that have paid for this game would hate to see it turned into a whimpy game that was too predictable to be worth playing over again and again.

(Brad, is this guy for real or is he just baiting us?)

I agree with Nabil to a point.

If you a good and an superior AI is good it should never attack you. If you are not provoking and they are not provoking you. That is why you can play good and a good Alien race has poor relations with you.

Want history take the US and Canada I can not picture in my wildest dreams the US invading Canada. If the Us wanted Canada it could own Ottawa today. You may bring up the War of 1812 but at that time there was provocation the Americans just a generation ago rebelled against Britain.

Building starbases in a quadrant you do not even have a system in should be seen as provocation. Then the AI should say it is not happy with the provocation. The relations between races suffer. You should be able to make amends at this point before they declare war.


Just being weak should not be seen as provocation for war.

It's already kinda like this isn't it? I've found that if I'm Good, other Good races have rather high relations with me and are less likely to attack... if you are evil though the Good races are more likely to attack...
The Good races are also usually allied together too...

my thoughts were assumed no provocation are being done on both sides. 2 good civilisations can get into an argument or misunderstanding but those differences are usually resolved peacefully.

was just a thought

I seem to recall that the United States and Great Britain has had numerous wars against each other.

In GalCiv being good does DECREASE the likelyhood of the good AI players wanting to attack you. I.e. play as a good guy in an all good galaxy and you'll likely get along pretty well with the other civilizations.

But there are other factors involved. Some AI players are more aggressive than others and this can have some impact as well.

I can certainly agree with good empires ending up in wars against each other. It does happen. The current method which decreases the likeliness between good empires works well.
I do think that declaring a war against another race where the relations are neutral or better should cause public unrest for a good empire. The important point here is the currant status when war is declared. This is not passivism=goodness. This is unprovoked acts of violence = public discontent. Inversely, an evil empires population would probably celebrate a war increasing moral.

Paul.

The word that got me going was the absolute "period" as in "i believe that if you are playing against a GOOD AI and you are not evil, you should not get attacked. period." I think history can show cases where good nations with good relations had falling outs over missunderstandings. I believe the game should allow for that by providing a slight possibility that a good AI might attack you, even if you are good. Admittedly, the chances of this should be quite low.

Also, re: US & Canada, note that I was pointing out that the risk of missunderstandings is greater with uncommon languages than with a common one, and by extension, uncommon means of communication, as might be the case between the different civs in GC.

Personally I think GalCiv is about right in the amount of risk there is for a good civ attacking another good civ.

Some random thoughts:

'I do think that declaring a war against another race where the relations are neutral or better should cause public unrest for a good empire.'

Isn't this covered by the senate vote (assuming you are beyond imperialism). If public opinion opposes war, then that is reflected in the vote.

Remember that Western democracy (which seems to be the moral model for 'good' societies in GalCiv) is only about three centuries old; modern democracy (1 adult, 1 vote) is less than a century old. A policy that today’s electorate might reject out of hand might not have even been considered any of their business by yesterday’s citizens. This would have been especially true of women and non-landholders.

As the descriptions state, changing your government to a form of democracy is a double-edged sword. Greater economic output is accompanied by a greater chance of public dissatisfaction. Even the most benign non-democratic government shouldn't have to worry about internal public opinion or morale. Of course, malign non-democracies must always worry about dissent and all governments must worry about subversion.

As far as good vs evil, I think it would help to recognise that even in modern democracies government tends to consist of ambitious, pragmatic, and often morally ambiguous leadership. The 20th century is full of examples of the difference between what a society views as 'good' and what the leadership views as 'good for society'. The current uncertainty about war in Iraq shows us how leadership can attempt to sway the opinions of a ‘good’ society toward war. Does a ‘good’ society turn ‘evil’ if they are caught up in an unjust war? Can war appear ‘evil’ today, and ‘just’ tomorrow, or vice versa? Sure. Attitudes change. Yesterday the Torians were our friends, today they think our colonisation policies are avaricious and overly aggressive. Prepare to die.

I think GalCiv models diplomacy extremely well, especially considering the complexity of international politics.

End transmission.

A few points I would like to add, since I started the topic:

1) I agree, pacifism does not equal good. However, IMO, neither does unprovoked agression. As you say, good and evil should be clear - and it appears to me they are not.

2) The issue is not "predictability". If you want pure unpredictability, you can get it by rolling the dice with the other races at the beginning. The issue is consistency. "Good" races shouldn't attack each other without good reason. Example, in two of my games, the Alterians attacked me unprovoked, merely because my military was weaker than theirs. That's not the action of a "good" race to me. If they attack me, it should be for a reason. I do like the example given where if I am trying to exert influence in their zone, that it lead to war. There are probably other rational scenarios we could come up with for a "good" race to declare war.

PS, don't know if you can do this with spying, but it would be cool if you could "frame" other civs - this would be a legitimate cause of war in a sense.

3) As said previously, good doesn't mean wimpiness. If I attack a good AI, I have no problem with them wiping the map with me and conquering all of my systems to eliminate my threat. But I think they should have a good rational reason to launch an unprovoked attack - especially on a good or neutral race. Or like someone suggested, a substantial morale penalty. I don't think there should be a penalty for attacking an evil race though or vice versa - that's just what good and evil empires do

4) Is there a morale impact to declaring war, or having it declared upon you? Is there a morale impact to winning or losing? I think both of these should be considered.

5) The US and UK have not had numerous wars - just two - a war of independence and a subsequent war 30 years after independence. All other disagreements - and there have been a number of very serious ones - were worked out through negotiation - not war.

6) I'm not trying to take advantage of the AI here either, as someone claimed. Without a good reason for declaring war, I think a) my civ should take a heavy morale hit with related election of govt problems suffer a much greater possibility of civil dissent - maybe lower productivity or lower money generated c) greater possibilty of some sort of rebellion. It would be cool to get a popup stating a "March for Peace" was held on my capital planet And these should increase the longer the war goes on. And should increase even more every time I do this. This would keep me from a cycle of declaring war, taking a planet, making peace, and doing it all over again - without running the risk of substantial problems/penalties. This would really take the game to a different level - Civ tried this with making it harder for demos to wage war - but it never really functioned in terms of good vs. evil actions. I think GalCiv can do more here.

7) But I am not just talking about the AI here. Another point I was making is what makes me evil. I think if I declare war for no or wrong reasons, then my empire should tilt towards evil. That should also have a greater impact than my attitude towards sea creatures, lost starships, deserted alien cities, etc. These seem to me to be small exceptions to what should have greater impacts - foreign and domestic policy.

I've already written about foreign policy, but with respect to internal policies, democracies should rate higher good, and imperial govt should rate more evil. I probably could think of others internal factors to consider if I gave it enough time.

I guess right now my point is this: the evil vs. good thing in the game is a great idea - no other game has it - but I think it's implementation is weak, and based upon relatively trivial factors/issues, while ignoring more important issues that determine "good" vs. "evil". At least how history often sees it, IMO.

Grifman

Grifman,
one game that does an excellent implementation of civil unrest is Europa Universallis. It models both country stability (which suffers when declaring war, especially if unprovoked or against friends) and also province unrest (which suffers with war fatigue). While I would love to see Galciv implement some of these concepts I expect it will not occur in version 1.0.
As for democracies being good and imperial gov being evil, I disagree. There are far too many examples through history of imperial governments being good. Sure they may have lower productivity (as already modelled) but they are not necessarily evil. I could just as easily imagine a democracy where the citizens were inherently evil and cruel.

Paul.

I also am a fan of EU. I'd love to see some form of Causus Belli implemented in the game - just list the reasons a normal player would start a war and program the AI accordingly. You could even have the AI threaten - do this / stop doing that, or we'll go to war. Or you could threaten the AI.
Good civ's shouldn't be allowed to go to war w/o a clear Causus Belli (Afganistan, WWII, Korea, Kuwait). Good civs shouldn't invade their neighbors just because they are weak. In fact, strong good Civs should ally with weak ones to protect them, much as the US tends to do (with Taiwan, S. Korea, W. Germany, etc.) or intevene to protect them (Kuwait).
Starting a war w/o a casus belli should be considered an evil act and should cause your reputation to decline with all other nations, much as King George II's unprovoked war of agression on Iraq is pissing off most of the world. (You people do realise that he intends to invade Iran next, right? Iran is #2 on his axis of evil speech, and a victorious battle hardened US military in Iraq will be in a perfect position to do so).
I'd also like to see an implementation of Imperialism's idea, where small nations (minors) you are friendly with will join your empire if someone goes to war with them. Simply fix up the surrender code so that accepting the surrender of a minor race places you at war with their enemies.
Finally, we need to take into account the "permanent causus belli," such as the one between England and Scotland in EU. My suggestion is that there should be a permanant causus belli between any two civs with opposing philosophies (Good vs. Evil).
(FWIW, I consider Baby Bush to be Evil, or at best neutral / stupid.)
Dunno how much of this can be implemented for 1.0. Possibly 1.x?

Good races tend to Ally.
When there is porvocation between Good races then relations suffer. This may led to war.

What I do not agree with is two good races with excellent relations then in the next turn without warning they are at war with each other.

Or that a race which is good invades a weak good race. Now I admit I do exactly this all the time. For example I invade minor races which I find useless. This should ramp me quickly down the path to being evil if the minor race is good. On the other hand if you have a minor race which is "EVIL" like Iraq. Then you are doing every race a favor. It would be cool if you can vote on conducting "police actions" against a weak power.

Can picture it now,
The "insert race name here" is commiting acts of
terror which must be stopped.

I urge the members to vote on a police action against
the "insert race name here" so that one day we may all live in peace.


This next point I think is already true when both civilization are good, it is easy to end the war and
build relations again.

Evil races of course exploit any minor power which is weaker than them.

Don't we have this? In my latest game a "new" minor civ was going around doing terrorist acts on a variety of Civs (except me). Within turns everybody had whomped on them.

Unless you want to consider the United States and Great Britain "evil" then you may want to reconsider that, Tech.

We're not going to get into the business of making a political statement by labeling imperialism as "evil".

No the US and Britain are not declaring war with not reason.

If you have a game with two major races one called the US and the other called Britain. A minor race called Iraq harbors terorists, makes illegal weapons, invades undefended countries.

The two major races US, Britian get together with the other major races and minor races "like the race called Canada" and decide the race called Irag must be stopped.

Nothing the major races within reason would make them more evil.

Only if the major races US and Britian get together and wipe out a minor race like Canada which generally does nothing evil. Would the major races be deemed more evil.

With reason is definded as something like if the Major race the US, nukes a minor race like Iraq.

This would be deemed evil even by the population of the Major race. The US would no longer be deemed Good by any race. Even if all the races in the galaxy agree the minor race Iraq is evil and must be stopped.

I'll keep my mouth shut about the States declaring war with no reason...

But, you need to think of this as a GAME. Not a simulation. Each AI is trying to WIN. It doesn't matter what their alignment is, they want to win. If the human player is Good, but is also the only thing in the way of the AI winning, the AI should realize this and get rid of the human player.

I really like the game the way it is now. I can also uderstand people who just want to build there race and not worry about war.

Yeah, I've played - and loved EU - and I like how it handles for. As for saying that there are too many examples of imperialism being good, well name one

Maybe you can find examples of "good" empires occassionally in history, but most totalitarian govts - and an empire is one - are not. Total power leads to abuse of power and corruption because there are no checks and balances - it is the nature of the beast. I'd also add that most likely any "good" empires you name will have existed before democracy was more widespread - and that they were good only because they were the best of the lot at the time. For example, I think for much of its existence, the Roman Empire was "good" - it brought, for the most part, peace and prosperity, common language, eventually religion, etc to the Med basin. But only in comparison to it's contemporaries. Compared to a modern democracy, Rome was terrible - an autocratic military dictatorship, with slavery, limited rights, etc.

As for imagining "evil" democracies - well, that is what you would have to do - imagine them. For the vast majority of democracies are "good" - they don't oppress their citizens, they allow free speech, freedom of religion and assembly, etc. While I have no trouble coming up with actual "evil" empires . . .

I do wish that peaceful "conquest" or "assimilation" of the minor races was as viable as military conquest. I think that if you really want to roleplay good vs. evil in the game that should be a real option. Another suggestion would for minor races to request the assistance of other races if they are at war with major races.

Grifman

“What about unprovoked wars and attacks? The Altarians are supposed to be good - but they just launched an unprovoked war on me - how can that be good?” - Grifman

“being good does DECREASE the likelihood of the good AI players wanting to attack you… But there are other factors involved.” - Frogboy

I think Keith Bennett’s EU-based suggestion for including a Casus Belli meter would go a long way towards explaining “unprovoked wars”. With the appropriate level of espionage, you should be able to see/measure another civilisation’s attitude toward you. [I.e. “Economy: opposed (competing trade routes?) / Military: neutral (no alliance) / Morality: good / Opinion: highly unfavourable” would explain why a “good” civilisation has just attacked you.]
A Casus Belli or “public opinion” meter could also work well with a generic complaint function. That is, if you go to the UP and lodge a Level 1 protest against culture A and culture A ignores your protest, it increase your chances of successfully persuading your people that culture A is a legitimate target for war (the Casus Belli meter is incremented or the public opinion meter is decremented). This would also put you in position to lodge a Level 2 protest, etc, thus escalating the level of confrontation and modelling the diplomatic communications that precede a war. Your actions would then be reflected in potential morale changes and the senate’s support for war.

As far as the good vs. evil spectrum goes, I have to say that I really like the moral/ethical events, although I'd like to see more of them, with tougher choices and subtler effects.
[I.e. The few remaining members of a fallen race appeal to you for help in relocating to a new world before their star goes nova. The race is infamous for past atrocities conducted in the name of science and racial purity. Do you: Follow the golden rule and help them because, in a similar situation, you might want help (good=X+3, money=x-2), help them because your primary religion says all life is sacred and you never question your faith (good=x+1, money=x-2), lobby the UP to make a group effort to preserve the race (good=x+1, money=x-1) allow the race to die with its star (good=x-1), relocate those willing to help your own people conduct similar experiments (good=x-3, money=x+1, research=x+1), etc.] Caveat: I’m not a professional ethicist, insert whatever penalties and bonuses you feel apply.
You know: Is it right to do a good thing if that good thing supports something bad? More options, more grey areas, more varied effects.

Lastly, I think Brad and Technician and Wyrenn have danced all around the relationship of imperialism (and possibly any form of government) and evil: imperialism is self-centred; its side effects can be good or evil, deliberate or accidental.
Expecting morality from your government (as we do in modern Western-style democracy) may be a good thing, but it doesn’t always make for good gaming. Especially if you just HAVE to have that class 31 planet.

End transmission.