Who here likes the new ethic system?

I'm going to agree here. I don't think the "pay a fine" approach works particularly well - what I'd like to see Xeno Ethics do is to just freeze your current alignment.

Hannibal Lecter doesn't become Mother Teresa by paying off his overdue parking tickets.

He doesn't? Oops.. wait a sec..

(Go take back Lecter! He lied!)

I agree 100% It would be better if your choices directly affected your alignement.

Hmm, I agree with these as well. There are good things that come out of being good as well, right? Like, the good races ally against a bad foe, etc.? I seem to have read that somewhere...

I actually like the way it is now, since you have more tangible benefits of each alignment.

I always proposed dilemas where doign somethign evil might not be as beneficial, BUT that would only resault in neutral being overpowered :/ All in all I think ti was designed to work that evil provides instant bonus and good late bonus. But with the ability of picking good after you been doign evil things the whole game, it's just not cool. I always advocated instead of a slider have a triangle with neutral/chaotic good and evil as 3 sides of the triangle. You start at the center, each coince moves you closer to one of the 3 sides, and further from two other coinces. In the end it would only leave you with 2 choices when you research the tech to choose alignment. Or it coud lelave you with 3 if you perfectly balanced your choice, one here one there and one for third option.

I like the new ethics system, although neutral might be a bit too powerful. At least, on paper.

Well, the moral dilemma choices DO affect your overall alignment standing. I like to think of the ethics research tech as kind of like a nice little lie you can tell other civs. It's almost like a political party in the sense that you're announcing you're taking a different moral stance - even if it's a lie.

I never waste time on it anyway since I always play like an evil bastard.

im kindof disappointed by it because as a good guy i always pick evil choices and can still choose the good alignment costlessly.

the alignment armor and weapons are extremely costy and make the ships they are put on very very costy not making them very very much better then their weaker but cheaper counterparts combined. 2 laser is not 2 times as good as 1 damage to, because the 1 damage almost always does 1 damage but the 2 damage has a chance to do only 1 damage even though it has 2 damage.

I don't think the "pay a fine" approach works particularly well

Well, think of it like this. You've discovered that your natural tendencies are viewed as quite evil in the galaxy (XENO ethics). You say to yourself, "Crap. Well, how do I act more like a responsible galactic civ?"

The easy answer is to make life better for everyone. So, remember that +20% production bonus you got when you enslaved those neanderthals? Remember the 20 million people who died when you zapped them with solar energy in the name of science? Remember those microscopic space farers whose ship you dismantled to figure out how they got it so small? Well, now it's going to cost you 20,000 BILLION CREDITS in reparations. In the eyes of the other aliens, that's a very good step in becoming "good".

Or, you say screw it and do your best to embrace your evil nature and point out that the rest of the galaxy has been wrong all this time. Preferably from under your boot.

It would be nice if one would still have moral decisions after picking the alignment. I do NOT mean that you can switch to another alignment for its bonus. Rather, if you choose to be good through xeno ethics and you deviate from good by selecting choices that are evil, you would temporarily lose the bonus you have acquired through your alignment. You will regain the bonus once you have accomplished enough to get you back to the range of 'good.'

It would be rather easy to shift alignment while there are still planets around. When you run out of planets to colonize, however, it might take 10 turns or 20 turns for a moral-decision to come around. Even then, you aren't guaranteed to get the alignment back to good.



If moral choices will stay fixed after alignment is chosen, the 'evil' decision shouldn't be the only beneficial choice. Good and neutral should also get some sort of benefit, in a different way. This is largely because there is none of those "instant bonus for evil and late bonus for good" and thus good should get benefit just like the evil alignment. I suspect the system is the way it is because the Devs decided on the current xeno ethics system but just directly imported the rest from galciv I instead of revising it.. oh well

Are there really that many random ethical events? After every planet's been colonized, I mean.

Well, think of it like this. You've discovered that your natural tendencies are viewed as quite evil in the galaxy (XENO ethics). You say to yourself, "Crap. Well, how do I act more like a responsible galactic civ?" The easy answer is to make life better for everyone. So, remember that +20% production bonus you got when you enslaved those neanderthals? Remember the 20 million people who died when you zapped them with solar energy in the name of science? Remember those microscopic space farers whose ship you dismantled to figure out how they got it so small? Well, now it's going to cost you 20,000 BILLION CREDITS in reparations. In the eyes of the other aliens, that's a very good step in becoming "good".

I guess the problem is that the penalty is too small. If it cost you 20,000 BC/week, that'd be more like it.

Besides, just paying reparations doesn't make you instantly a better person, even in terms of public opinion. It just makes you a little less evil.

Dola,

What I'd like to see is dilemma choices where the Good choice gives a long term bonus, while the Evil choice gives a short term bonus, and the Neutral choice gives a mix.

E.g., for the Hi-Tech Starship around Planet Event.

Good: Befriend the aliens. Small +% to starships
Neutral: Ask the aliens for help in your galactic conquest. Get a free ship.
Evil: Take their ship and sell it for parts after studying it. Large BC lump sum + random weapons technology.

I guess the problem is that the penalty is too small. If it cost you 20,000 BC/week, that'd be more like it.

For how long? I'll just say that the example I provided was from my current game. At the time, 20,000BC was about 4500 more BC than I had in my treasurary. It would've required a significant change to my game had I made the choice. I just wonder if it scales.

I agree, however, that the long term benefits of being "good" are comparatively intangible when compared to evil. I prolly haven't played the game enough to see any moral choices that really favour the good choice, other than that feeling of moral superiority.

I liked how the interface changed in the first when your alignment changed. I miss that feature.