"Bad Girls Have All The Fun," or An Analysis of Alignment

[Fried-Psitalon]

Well, I'll go ahead and stick my toes in the water here and attempt an analysis of a facet of the game, and see where it leads me.

Caveats before I begin: (I'll probably put this at the front of all my GalCiv articles...heh.)

1) I play exclusively on Gigantic maps. I enjoy the colossal nature of things on this scale, and the potential for ultra-high scores. What I do may or may not work on smaller maps.
2) My current game as of 4-10 is set to Challenging; I have crushed the computer by large margins on the lower levels and so far what I do is working great there.
3) I do not claim to have the final word or even the best word- I write this as an attempt to generate carefully reasoned, documented arguments with lots of thought put into them.
4) I assume you as the player are using unmodified game files, and that you allow the races to remain at their standard alignment, whatever difficulty you may choose.

Without further ado, I'd like to take some time to talk about the three potential alignments in the game, and the benefits of each, comparatively to one another.

Let's start with the one you start the game as:

Neutral Alignment Benefits

Relations
As a Neutral player, you do not automatically offend either the Yor/Drengin side or the Altarian/Torian side. You can get moderately good deals with either side of the spectrum, and can probably move your relations with anyone you choose to the positive side with moderate ease.

Technology
As a Neutral player, you are limited to the standard tech tree.
Technologies Missed:
Cure For Depression, Smuggling, Xeno Trade Persuasion, Thought Police, Xeno Intimidation, Xeno Brainwashing, The Better Way, The Dark Side, Advanced Slavery, Benevolence, Hyper Warp (is this correct on the research tree?), Hyper Trade (again, uncertain if this is correct?), Mind Terror Weapons, Master Race, Galactic Pacifism, Galactic Domination Philosophy.
Technologies Gained:
NONE.

Moral Decisions
The ‘neutral’ moral decision path is generally the one with the least effect. In some cases, you get a small bonus (discovered starship with crew, for example) and in some cases you get a small penalty (alien bug race civil war.) Generally, although not certainly, there is a slight overall positive bonus trend for neutral choices, although bad luck could stick you with a lot of neutral-penalty choices.

Overall Analysis of Neutral
Probably if not certainly the weakest of the three choices. You receive none of the long-term advantages of being good (trade routes, The Better Way trade centers, etc) and none of the short-term and draconian advantages of being evil (slaves, sometimes outstanding bonuses for moral choices, raw production power of the various evil-only techs.) The diplomatic flexibility is nice, but by no means unachievable in any other way. If Brad and the GalCiv folks want Neutral to be a realistic choice far into the future, they need some “Neutral Only” techs at the very least. Right now, it’s just not worth it.

Moving on to the alignment that is probably the hardest to achieve, or at least the most painful:

Good Alignment Benefits

Relations
“Good” civilizations tend to enjoy positive relations with the Torians and the Altarians, unchanged relations with the Arceans, and typically bad relations with the Drengin and Yor. This may be the best possible state of relations, as in theory at least, the Torians and the Altarians are a bit less likely to backstab you or reneg treaties than any of the other civilizations. Relations with the Drengin and Yor can be reinforced with heavy trade to those civilizations, although it seems that every good moral choice is another blow to relations with that group, so you could be fighting a losing battle.

Technology
Technologies Missed:
Smuggling, Xeno Brainwashing, Thought Police, Xeno Intimidation, The Dark Side, Advanced Slavery, Mind Terror Weapons, Master Race, Galactic Domination Theory.
Technologies Gained:
Cure for Depression, Xeno Trade Persuasion, The Better Way, Benevolence, Hyper Warp(?), Hyper Trade (?), Galactic Pacifism.

Moral Choices
The good moral choices are, unsurprisingly, generally the painful ones – at best they give no bonus and no penalty, and at worst they give a horrendous penalty. Depending on the map conditions and your situation, you can take the ‘smaller’ penalties to nudge your alignment up into the ‘good’ range, and opt out of painful brutality by taking the neutral choices when things like the “Worms in the planet soil” choices come up. Typically, good requires more moral choices to achieve than its opposite.

Overall Analysis of Good

Second place. Good has a lot of things going for it, but it seems to definitely lean towards a culture/alliance based victory- except that in many cases, evil has just as many influence increasing technologies! Technologically speaking, although Good has a few shining stars- The Better Way being chief among these – their ‘bonus’ techs don’t seem to make up for the lost techs. Good appears to have a slight edge in trade route acquisition, while giving up the edge to evil in revolt-resistance and production. Having trustworthy diplomatic connections with two, perhaps three civilizations can be helpful, but whether or not it is worth the penalties from the moral choices and the lost edge in production….. is questionable.

Easy to get to, probably the easiest to win with…..

Evil Alignment Benefits

Relations
Unsurprisingly, here is where evil suffers the most. You do NOT get particularly strong relations with the Yor or the Drengin as a result of being evil, though those relations are not at all difficult to maintain once you have them. Whether or not treaties with the Drengin and Yor (Alliances in particular) can be trusted, however, is uncertain. The Arceans, as usual, don’t give a hoot, but relations with the Altarians and the Torians can be quite difficult, if not impossible, to maintain- every negative moral choice you make drives them further away, and trade and gifts are an expensive form of maintenance, though you may have trade running to them for other reasons.

Technology
Technologies Missed:
Cure for Depression, Xeno Trade Persuasion, The Better Way, Benevolence, Hyper Warp(?), Hyper Trade (?), Galactic Pacifism.
Technologies Gained:
Smuggling, Xeno Brainwashing, Thought Police, Xeno Intimidation, The Dark Side, Advanced Slavery, Mind Terror Weapons, Master Race, Galactic Domination Theory.

Moral Choices
Whenever a moral choice pops up for an Evil player, you’ve just gotten a bonus. The amount of the bonus may be small, or it may be massive, but no matter what, something good is coming your way. The only possible exception to this that I’m aware of is the “Virus Juice” and “Money From Heaven” choice, where the evil option gains you BC but loses you population. Small bonuses can be found in many choices, and a few of the choices give staggering benefits with strong effects in the long term (Starship bonuses and planet quality bonuses foremost among these.)

Overall Analysis of Evil
I feel rather strongly that at the present time, Evil is the best alignment choice in GalCiv. Not getting Trade Centers is offset by Artificial Slaves, Master Race, The Dark Side…. Missing out on Benevolence is cancelled out by (possibly) smuggling, Xeno Intimidation, etc. Technologically, evil has the strongest standing- more techs available, arguably more potent techs, etc. In the results of moral choices, evil is obviously the most powerful choice. In relations, while evil is in the worst footing, the Drengin and Yor are not THAT likely to backstab you, and the significant production bonuses of being Evil are likely to furnish you with enough of a military presence (even if only defensively oriented) that you can stand alone in a conflict if need be.



Closing Comments On Overall Alignment Balance

Not surprisingly – and entirely acceptably, given the age of the game – the alignments are a bit out of whack as far as giving each of them an even chance. (I don't find fault in this; there are much more important things Brad and his crew should be doing right now than working on alignment balance.) Evil’s production bonus makes sense, but it would be better if Good had a slightly more pronounced Economic edge to compete with that. Perhaps a slight tweak to the diplomatic system that would make evil’s allies a bit less dependable and good’s allies even more rocksteady would also help. Neutral is in BAD shape – no tech bonuses, no real advantages of ANY sort. True, you also experience no real penalties as a neutral, but you could argue that the LACK of bonuses is a penalty in and of itself- since the penalties for being Evil or Good aren’t particularly bad at all. Honestly, I think Evil should be strongest in production (shut up and WORK, slave!), Good holding sway in commerce (C’mon now, I helped you out without any benefit to me this many times, you can surely work out a deal with me now….) , and Neutrals dominant in technology – on the theory that they can sample from both sides of the spectrum unflinchingly – and this perhaps could be implemented through a series of “Neutral only” technologies, or access to some (though obviously not all) of the technologies currently available only to Good or Evil. (Advanced Slavery and Xeno Trade Persuasion come to mind, or maybe Master Race and Galactic Pacifism, though obviously there are balance issues here, too- Evil just has stronger techs!)

Well, there you go. An official foray into the realm of GalCiv theory by Friedrich. Enjoy, PLEASE comment, and let’s do everything we can to get Apolyton to the top of the Empire chart.

[vmxa1]

Glad to see someone jump in and start the ball rolling.

[Fried-Psitalon]

You just wait a minute son, you ain't seen nothin' yet. I'm gonna do an analysis of ship types, examining research costs and abilities of the various vessels later on- examine which ones are worth building/researching, and which aren't. (Battle Hammers come to mind, and believe it or not, Battleships aren't that great either, if you really look at it....)

However, that one will require a lot more pondering of data before I can actually sit down and DO it. (And some spare time! Heh.)

[LDiCesare]

One point I raise in favor of neutrals: Opportunism. It may be a good idea to stay neutral long enough to see which civ is the strongest and then to decide and change one's alignment toward the stronger civs.

[Eric S]

I tend towards good, but avoid the good selections with really harsh penalties.

Even then, I've had games were I was saintly, but still on close terms with the Drengin. I even had one game where I was at about 80 on the goodness scale, and at war with everyone but the Drengin. Then again, I'm not a warmonger, so it's easier to stay on good terms with people of other alignments.

In my latest game, the Drengin are out-teching me, which is coming as almost as much of a shock as the fact that despite my saintly status, the Yor declared that they're on my side of the war with the Drengin.

Of course, the Arceans (who just got the "they'll conquer the universe" random event) are warning me in secret about the Yor.

I'm having fun

[Todd Hawks]

I've noticed that planets from evil civs are more likely to break away to form the I-League or the Fundamentalists. I've only played half a dozen games, so I don't know if that's normal or just a streak of bad/good luck.

[Fried-Psitalon]

I don't think I've seen any evidence of this planet switching- I've played 3 more games as evil than good, though, and I plan on forcing myself to play good in the future to test it some more. As long as you keep morale up, it's never an issue anyhow. (And evil DOES have all those resistance structures....)

The Thought Police are your friend.

[Pyrkaige]

This is an interesting overview of the different alignments, and definitely gives something to think about. Some of my own thoughts on the subject:

Neutral: I definitely agree with the basic point listed here: there is little reason to stay neutral, unless you just don't want to have to deal with alignment issues at all in the game. It might be nice to have some sort of bonus to being neutral, although given that most players will want to take advantage of the specific bonuses from being good or evil, it probably isn't a big deal from a gameplay point of view.

Evil: Being evil can be fun, no doubt about it. Personally, I don't find most of their extra techs that useful and rarely research them unless I get bored. The cultural resistance social projects are generally worthless, if your influence is what it should be. However, the bonuses that come not just from the planetary choices but from random events can give nice boosts to your stats overall. Being evil is like having a bunch of extra anomalies that only you can explore.

Good: The idea that good isn't powerful enough is probably where I disagree the most with your analysis. Having good AI races that love you and will give you ships, help you out, and provide a ton of reliable trade routes is nothing to sneeze at. Plus, being good allows you to get one of my favorite social projects: the Trade Center. This little masterpiece, if you have the time to build it, provides a healthy 15% boost to pretty much every stat that can be raised through a social project (manufacturing, economics, research, morale, and influence.) Getting 2-3000 credits a turn from trading makes it so you rarely have to sell off techs just to maintain a healthy cash flow, as well.

The two main alignments that people actually choose in the game seem to be fairly well-balanced, imo. If something could be done to make staying neutral a viable choice without detracting from the other two, the alignment setup would be about perfect.

[PriestOfDiscord]

I don't see why neutral empires should be as strong as the end of the alignments other than the slightly easier diplomacy for everyone. The game pretty much wants you to go down one of the paths in any given game.

[Nirvana_CN]

There are many reasons i dislike evil.

1. There is a UP proposal that can effectivly cut you down to 2 trade routes no matter that techs you have.

2. Tech Trading is much harder, the Arceans, Alterians and the ET guys generally pay more for techs..if you evil they dont give you anywhere near the money you could as a good guy.

3 .The Fundamentalists!!! You are Royally screwed if this event comes up, you WILL lose up to 67% of your worlds to them! Trust me it happened, turned me from the leader, to the underdog who eventually was wiped out.

4. As evil you regulary have the 3 good Civs allying against you in an attempt to exterminate your evil, as a good guy, you rarely have Evil all unite against you.

[LDiCesare]

I don't think good/evil makes a difference in terms of trading/warring partners. Good guys mop up on me when I am good if I'm weak. I am currently playing evil and at war only against the Drengin (although 5 months ago, I was at war with everyone but the Drengin).

One good point about evil is that it may be worth it to settle a planet with a low quality (I settled a class 13 for strategic reasons and it went up to 16 thanks to my evil choice!).

[Harry Seldon]

If you're strong and good, you can form alliances with other good races and they'll stick with you. If you're evil, alliances are harder to come by, you'll only get them with evil races, and evil races aren't known for their loyalty.

[Fried-Psitalon]

Even on my challenging game, as long as I kept up a significant military presence, I had NO ONE declare war on me *ever* all game long. Perhaps the AI just doesn't deal well with the distances on gigantic maps, but my "1 defender per planet per system" policy early on makes the AI think I'm a military juggernaut. I build a fleet of 12 frigates later on, and then dreadnoughts when the time is right. The result is that I have *never* had the AI threaten me with war, except late one game when I completely neglected my military going for a tech victory that was very imminent. I paid a little tribute and they left me alone.

I was evil in that game, and never had any diplomatic problems. I'll be playing good next game to test whether or not you really do get better prices/relations.... the Drengin got warm, but never beyond that as evil. I've written down and documented a few things, so I'll be interested to see if I really can improve my relations significantly or not as good. Right now though, I'm not sure that the case for good getting relations even exists - the relations for me have NEVER been problematic, although they've never been ideal either.

[LDiCesare]

One problem with diplomacy is you should never trust anyone too much because there is an event which can cause a race to declare war on you, whatever your relative military strengths. I think it is a cool feature, but you should beware. I don't think it checks for good/evil before triggering.

[Brazuca]

I really don't care about it, i tend to be good, i choose the good path when my loss are smal, but when i had to kill the worms to pump my planet class i kill all , the other things i tend to be good, smash your enemies good or evil, be neutral alows you to take the exclusive good or bad techs by trade, i had master race and benevolence, i an neutral and everybody fear me , ok i had a great fleet and take a total of 6500 mensal tributes , most of they from the I-league, trade 1350 and get 7000 from taxes, the tributes are mensal 200 or 1000 usualy for 72 months, hey the I-league had 100000 Bc most of this from trade 80 % of their economy, they had 5 systens, i an selling frigates to the i -league 5 frigates for 100 x 24 months, i had dreadnoughts but i will not "give the gold to the thief", my eyes ligthned when the i league gave 1000 x 72 months as a war reparation, what i can trade or conquest, i steal

[Madine]

I think Friedrich's analysis is good.

You can trade for exclusive techs though.

Clearly the underlying advantage of evil is all those bonuses you get from picking the bottom option.

The advantages of good and neutral are much harder to quantify and verify. Diplomacy for instance, has many different variables.

[Harry Seldon]

I spent my last game choosing neutral, occasionally good, and evil if the bonus was good. Towards the end of the game, I kept getting the soldier serum event that gives a bonus to your soldiering with the corporate scandal for probably a grand total of seven events. Each time I chose the evil option. Then, I get the plague event and choose the good option because I don't want to see my civ destroyed (-650 mil?!? WTF?) and I get skinned with good, serene music and all. After beating the game, my alignment shows as Pure Good. What gives?

[bonscott]

You can check your current alignment in the stats tab of your empire screen (where you set ecomomics and such).

[Harry Seldon]

I know that but how can I be branded pure good after making seven evil choices in a row then one good choice?

[Garth Vader]

That's odd, I was going to try being good in my current game, so I picked like 2 good and some neutral.

Then comes a killer evil pick, so I did that, and my alignment sinks down to 42. WTF!

[Brazuca]

Not all choices give the same bonus if you do good things for a small price and take a single evil path for a great bonus the evil points will be bigger than the good points, if you do lot of evil things for a small bonus and do a single good thing for a great price, the good bonus pays the evil things.

[Harry Seldon]

I guess that makes sense. I was really pushing for an evil alignment in my last game, though.

[Felch]

Why did you make the good choice then?

Was it one of those disease events or something?

[Harry Seldon]

Yes. The evil choice was -650 mil pop, +685 BC. I had a boatload in reserve cash and 650 million people... I wouldn't have had anyone left.