More penalites/reward for being good and bad

Just one thought about the good/evil thing - I'd like a way to change your morality without having to get random events. Not instantly, of course, but slowly. And it shouldn't be as "helpful" as a normal good/evil event - i.e. the good penalty should be higher and the evil gain should be smaller, but eventually, it could get you to the morality you want. It's a policy thing, so it keeps going every turn until you change it. e.g. for the evil policy setting, you get a tiny bit of extra money per turn, and your morality drops by a little bit (much less than 1 point, though). So if you keep the evil policy on constantly, you can slowly drop your morality for a bit of extra cash over a long time period. Reversed idea for good, bump morality up slowly, but pay a little bit each turn.

I still think that United Planets voting should count for morality changes. Like voting for terror stars has to make you evil.

And this is my pet peeve. Why does being good have to be viewed as costly? Good is minus this, or minus that.

imo, should be something along the lines of
Evil choice +PQ, +production(slaves), ect..
Good choice +morality, +economy (tithes/offerings), ect..

And balance the damn things out. When you choice is +40 production with a -10 on alignment VS +nothing with a +1 on alignment, the pull for evil to much greater. Make it more balanced.

The other balance issue I have noticed, or at least it seems to be (would have to check it out more). A +19 whatever evil giving a -10 to alignment, and a -19 whatever giving only a +5 to alignment.

DISCLAIMER: But like I said, this is only the impression I have so far, the numbers used are speculative and would require documentation to support the impression.

Being good means putting others benefits before your own. If being good were profitable, how would you distinguish good from evil?

My wish is that the game actually took into acount your "in game" actions to determine your morality. Things like attacking non-hostile empires, demanding tributes, building/using terror stars, aquiring evil techs should move you (and the A.I. empires) toward evil. Giving gifts, helping friendly A.I.s when they ask for assistance, building costly social projects to improve the quality of life of the average citizen; these things would raise your morality toward good.

Playing as good means not taking some easy bonuses and in some cases actually loosing money. That's realistic to me. But on the plus side, being good should help in your diplomatic relations when dealing with the A.I.

I think that there should be population's reactions to you choosing an option that is contrary to your current allignment.

think about it.

your population is used to you being a mean nasty emperor.. then all of a sudden you do something thats good.. i'm sure that they would be shocked and see it as a sign of being week minded and this should be reflected in the game with say a loss of moral accross the board.. then the moral would settle down again over time as they get used to your new allignment.

This is one main reason I have stopped playing GalCiv for awhile.

I play making ALL Good choices and only get penalized for it. This makes no sense at all. That people's only gain when being evil.

Instead of a negative impact on your society when making a "Good" choice you should gain in other areas.

E.g. If I choose to NOT Allow people to work in a highly dangerous environment, I may lose on the profits that come in, but I should gain on my people being content, and thus working harder.

Random events are totally slanted toward being Evil as a way to go, and being Good as something negative.

This has frustrated me from the time I have first started to play GalCiv.

I wish they would address this aspect and make needed corrections.

Toothy

You do 'gain in other areas': people like you more. Isn't that enough? Isn't being good its own reward anyway?
I'm playing on Masochistic difficulty, pacifist style (I never build a combat ship throughout the whole game). It's made a lot easier by the Altarians and Torians not threatening me all the time, because they recognise me as a fellow good guy. If I'd played as evil, they might well have attacked me.


~SDC~

I wouldn't mind if there was a small bonus with good choices or a small penalty for evil choices (e.g. letting your people get squashed by meteors could drop morale a tiny bit as well), but overall, I'm happy with the "good costs, evil pays" idea. Don't forget you get that kick-ass Trade Center if you take the good path. They might do something like have a small morale bonus based on alignment, empire-wide. The evil empires would have to build more morale buildings to keep people in line, and that'd push up their costs over time.

Just one thing about the "in-game" morality tracking - for giving gifts, it should only be if the empire you give it to is weaker than you. Giving a massive empire 1 influence a turn to stop them attacking you doesn't say much about your reputation

What i do so that i get the best of both worlds is go evel first up.. Get the evil techs and build them (what ever can be built) then move back to good moral.. (It takes a while.. but it can be done) and get all of them too.. thus ending on good and getting all 155 techs

You don't only get penalized for it. The benefits of a good alignment just aren't immediately obvious.

Good races have an improved diplomatic relationships (which also has the effect of increasing what you can get in diplomatic trades).
Several good techs have significant bonuses that don't appear in the evil ones (the speed bonus from Hyperwarp is particularly nice if you get to it quickly enough).
Good races don't have to worry about the fundamentalists stealing planets.
Good races tend to get support from other races in times of war.
Good races don't have to worry about the UP anti-trade issue, as it only affects races with an alignment below 40.

~SDC~

For those who want to have their cake and eat it too:

The whole point of these random events is to force you to make a choice: Quick profit or better relations. If you get both, then you just weaken the game. You might as well ask for a new button that just dumps cash into your treasurey.

Have not had a game go long enough to build a "good" trade center, but I doubt it's benefits are worth all the eternal* negative hits you have to take to get there. Sure, you may get a few extra BC in trades (not sure tho), but compare those few extra BC to the extra BC you get when you have a +50 evil production bonus event (*that lasts the whole game), and that is only looking at a single planet event. When you start tallying up all the events needed to reach either goal, the slant is obvious.

And sorry, but as for other AIs attacking you because of your evil alignment, I don't see it that often (hardly at all, really). Even going demonic, most of the AI tend to stay at "neutral". I see an AI declare war on me a lot more often because I "am having a negative impact on their economy due to the war with XX-Empire", not because of being evil aligned.



Being good can be very profitable. If it were set up the right way. IRL, being good gives you a BIG warm fuzzy. If you don't think so, then try going out sometime and buy a homeless family a dinner, or give them some of your clothing you don't use anymore. And since in game terms, increased moral = population growth, good choice=+moral it not too much to ask for imo (considering the other negative hits you take). And doing "good" things can mean a lot of moola too, just look at the massive cash donations charitable orginazations get.

Save the Whales, Kill the worms.

Yeah, but the charities can't spend any of their money on battle fleets and infantry units, can they?

IIRC, the trade center gives a +15 bonus to lots of things - morale, research, production, economy, and probably a couple others I've forgotten. With no upkeep fee, either.

Well, that would depend on your POV. Take Trinity Broadcasting Network for example. They take in millions(multi even) in donations. They spend it on TV stations (battle fleets) and missionaries (infantry), all in the name of convincing as many ppl as possible to agree with their POV (and donate to the cause).

BTW, I like TBN, but they do make a good comparison for this LOL

Those bounses sound nice. Look forward to building some.

Couslee, you mainly play small maps judging by your Metaverse submissions. I think the consensus is that good is better on the large maps, and evil is best on the small maps.

If you're on a tiny map and you only get two stars, then obviously picking the +40% PQ bonus is the way to go because you've given half the planets in your empire a +40% PQ bonus. If you're playing Huge/Abundant and you have 40 stars, then the +40% PQ bonus to one planet has only a tiny effect on the overall productivity of your empire, so the hit to relations is more significant.

I still think the game is slanted toward being Evil as opposed to being VERY Good.

Random events always come with a penalty for making the "Good" choice and a bonus for making the Evil choice.

If you play with All Good choices then it takes a portion of the Fun away knowing that every event results in a penalty to your race.

I also seem to have other races not liking me no matter how good I am as well.

GalCiv just loses a bit of the Fun factor for me in this regard I guess. :notsure:

Toothy

i agree with this totally, even if i have the highest military rating, and im pure good, my opponets that are pure good absolutely dispise me for no reason at all, while the pure evil are usually a "cool" relation. Being good has 2 benefits: the trade monument, and trade centers. The extra trade route you get is pointless since the max you can have is 10 anyway. The problem is getting to 90 morality to get the trade stuff means taking hits to production/moral on nearly every single planet you have.


edit: and this lossed production means that you need to upgrade your production starbases more, which takes more constructors as well as costs more $$ for your shield production, which makes the trade centers useless as the extra money they get is used to help pay for the increased production costs.

[Message Edited]

Random Events Need to be just that, Random. Sometimes they will help if you are Evil others they should help if you are Very Good.

As it stands it is Random only in the sense that you do not kow when they will next arrive, but you know that you will gain if you play Evil, and be penalized if you are Good.

Well I put another thread elsewhere but I do mods and want some ideas on making some to help balance this some. I'e noticed this as well and am trying to give good alittle help.

I like it the way it is. Altarians do declare war on me when I'm evil. If I'm evil, I need a space fleet. If I'm good, I don't. If you were good, why would you build weapons of mass destruction in the first place?This means, if I'm evil, I must pay lots of bc in upkeep, whereas being good I pay 0. Even on medium on small map, good is overpowered becuase it is always possible to pay an evil race out of war, whereas you cannot pay the good guys out of their crusade.

How about if the good civilizations could create weapons of mass defense, sort of being able to defeat the evil empire and their weapons of mass destruction, kind a planetary defense that real works, even against normal invasion forces, with the twist that if you are in debt you are not able to keep your defense up.

As a deterrent. I've built large space fleets and never used them. I also never got attacked.



This is a great idea. Personally I think that the anti-matter missle is a bit unbalancing as an offensive weapon. It would make a perfect planetary defense system, though.