Does alignment actually do anything?

I find if you don't have a strong military, everyone will demand tribute, and either you go broke or you go to war. At this point the alignment doesn't seem to matter.

Being good or evil doesn't mean that automatically you have good relations with like minded civs. The Alterians are actually Neutral and are a pain in the arss in almost every game I've played. Too keep them off your back you need a strong military and it helps to have a couple trade routes with them. Any of the civs are less likely to go to war with you if a big part of their economy is because of trade with you. They'll go pick on someone else first. Personally I hardly ever trade with the Alterians because even if I'm doing a peaceful game I want to wipe them out. I rather like the Drengin in comparison.

As for game mechanics, there are techs specific for evil or good that the other can't research. In general being good gets you better relations at start with the Torians and the Arceans and evil *may* get you better relations with the Yor and Drengin, but not always. Your actions and diplomacy ability will override all that in the end.

Bobo say alignment matter. Bad make scary music. Bad give different techs than good. Good or bad not really mean others act more or less friendly. They stab you in back when can. Just like real people. It great fun.

Hello Bobo. Once again, I must agree with you and with Paguna.
George Jones,
you can believe what the others told you. In my 3 latest games, I've tried to go another^path in my development, and everytime since I fell behind military, I find myself being pushed around by all others civs. The evil ones tell me that they'll either eat me or use the fumes of my burning flesh to fuel their engines. The good one to surrender immediatly and prepare to be part of their empire. The neutral ones that resistance will only make things harder.
So in all these 3 games I've been crushed quickly, despite the fact that I could get several planets in the early rush.
And finally, just to make sure that good/evil don't really interfere, the Yor set to Pure Evil, surrendered themselves to me! (I'm rather "good").
So now I'm about to quit this game since they all got themselves together in order to slice my empire. Good ones, evil ones, all the same, when they have the gun (and you're in front of it)

So I'd say that it applies mostly to the way the relations evolve (provided that they see you as their equal, at least in firepower) and to the techs avalable to research.

Okay, I guess that confirms what I've seen. I'm not sure that its a good game design in that it makes one variable (the alignment) more or less worthless. Since playing good involves taking penalties at the time of the decision, and gives no diplomatic advantages later on it would seem that the best strategy would be to be evil.

Personally I play defensively (war party and I always get the Tri trade good) with loads of HP, never bothering to get much in the way of offensive power. For the most part all that happens is the Alts wreck their ecomony trying to get thru my defenses; at least at intelligent I've been able to win with either culture or tech victories almost every game. It just seems to take something away from the diplomacy aspect of the game in that I never start wars and I'm always in wars despite trading heavily with everyone; the diplomacy part of the game feels pretty empty.

Not sure I see the problem here. Weakness should be "punished" by the strong in a dangerous galaxy. However, match or at least compensate for military strength with lots of trade and see which races come to your aid faster: it will be the one's closest to your alignment more often than not.

This is politics, not Sunday School. There's no survival advantage to letting the weak flounder - milk'em or absorb'em, or at least give them a reason to get up off their butt

How does being good affect relations with Tor and Altarians? Usually when I meet up with them I'm still Neutral, not having racked up enough points to be good. I don't notice any changes after I become good. Will my becoming good help anything, or do you have to be good when you first meet?

George,

Be sure to build some ships with high attack value. The AI will fear those more then some defensive ships with high hit points.

And diplomacy if *very* important, even late game. Play a few more games, try differing alignments, higher difficulty levels and I think you'll see.

Paul,

It is dynamic from game to game. I had one game where I was pretty evil but my best friend was the Torians because I had 3 trade routes with them, traded tech to them all the time and defended them from invasion twice. There wasn't much I could do to make them angry at me other then invade them. Eventually they gave up rather then be overrun by the Yor and gave me all their systems.

So being evil or good can, in general, give you decent relations with like minded civs, it's not a given as the game is very dynamic from game to game and even within the game.

My current game I have tried to be good for only the second time and the Yor and Drengin are my best buddies along with the Arcean. Alterians hate me (well, they are gone now) and the Torians used to be wary of me but now fear my military might and are giving me gifts.

So I don't think you can say there is any hard fast rule on relations and alignment.

Assuming the defaults

Good gets you some trade and diplomacy techs. Even when you are most powerful, it's genuinely harder to intimidate others. Good civs will more often than not like you more than if you are evil (but this doesn't guarantee peace with them). Usually the cost for good is negative planetary results "we'll just use the poles and leave all the good zones to the natives -20%productin."

Evil gets you some military and imtimidation techs.
It's harder to trade with others. Though it's easier to intimidate em. The evil civs don't hate you any worse than if you were good and like you no better. The Good civs don't like you and if they at all have an upper hand its war baby. Some Evil players report a mass uprising where half their colonies break away.

And of course you get goodies for evil decisions like +pq or production when you "Kill the bugs or worms or enslave the natives."

Being neutral has only one advantage. And there's no true negative on the foreign relations side (no positive either) You can play the evil and good civs against each other all the while staying out of the fray. But you don't get special techs unless you start to fade toward good or evil and have a creative modifier, etc.

Paul: With the Torians as long as you can stay toward the good side of neutral, you won't see much difference. If you fade toward evil, they are usually the first to declare war if you have no trade routes with em and they out military you.


I've found (assuming default morality for the aliens) that being good helps with the torians. Doesn't hurt all that much with the Yor. And the Drengins like your skin regardless.
In my games, the Altarians have been all too eager to trade, do anything I want regardless of my alignment so I'm not much help there.

#5

George,

I have found a significant, but subtle, aspect to alignments which the game does implement. Should your alignment deviate by more than 20 from an AI's rating (on a 0-99 scale, 0 being absolute evil & 99 being saintly), your diplomatic rating with an AI will begin to deteriorate. This deterioration will gain momentum ("speed up") both over time and the greater the differential between your 2 positions (ratings).

The only counter to this deterioration is trade revenue (freighters) or gifts (of cash, techs, planets, etc.) to the AI.

At a certain point of deterioration/variance, the AI will turn "hostile" to you and begin demanding tribute. Payment will result in a "correcting" of your rated position towards the AI; the amounts of tribute demanded seem to be linked to the amount needed to improve your diplomatic standing by one level (either towards "neutral" if the variance is "hostile", or towards "warm" if the variance is small).

If you are pursuing an alliance victory, this can be an imporatant factor in your strategy. A neutral empire will ally with an evil one if the price is right.

However, I have never seen the two opposite alignments, "saintly" and "evil" get along, regardless of tribute offered. Frequently, the opposite alignment will not even accept a peace treaty (you can intervene in the diplomatc panel with AI's which like you to request them to settle peace; this is especially useful when a system with which you have a trade route is in imminent danger of being conquered, and you do not want to lose the route. Not only do you lose the income, but on Large or Huge maps, it can take freighters 20-30 turns to transit to the opposite end to re-establish it.)

Another effect I have seen is, the AI will eventually declare war on you, no matter what the current state of your affairs (peaceful co-existence, 2-3 trade routes in place, voting the same way at the UP, agreement to trade techs, etc.) when your alignments are at opposite ends. Once you have gone into the "hostile" zone diplomatically, the AI will evaluate every turn whether it wants to go to war with you.

In one game I am currently playing, I chose to follow the "evil" path on all my choices, and ended up with a "7" rating! The Altarians (std. alignment - "saintly") immediately declared war on me the turn after I first encountered them, stating "...it will be a pleasure to wipe such an evil race as yours out of the galaxy". No demand for tribute, no dispute over planets, no great disparity in military, etc. - just a 1-turn DOW.

If you want to see the alignment stats come fully into play, disable all but Alliance victory. I think you will see a new layer to the game.

~SDC~

Hm, I guess I'll play my next game at the next higher AI level (not sure what's above intelligent, haven't tried it yet). I'm wondering about the fear; you'd think losing 30 to 40 dreadlords attacking defensive positions without killing more than a couple of the enemies ship would be enough that the AI would think the war is pointless. Okay, they do ask for peace, but once they have peace they seem to immediately forget what happened and base their actions on the military number rather than their losses.

Its a great game, but I still find it hard to reconcile being good with attacking another good civilization, especially if in attacking you're losing all your ships.

I had a game where early on I was marginally good but militarily very weak. The Torians were nearby and had the biggest military. They (correctly) saw me as easy prey and attacked. The Altarians, who were off on the far side of the Torain Empire smooshed into a corner, gave me ships on several turns trying to help me defeat the Torians. I had to give up on that one though, the Torians smashed me even with the aid.

Alignment can also get you screwed on the fundamentalist movements. Since they like to chew up evil empires, I watched as suddenly I lost a good chunk of my empire to this new race.

SeanB

George,

Don't get too hung up on a good vs. good thing. Think in our own real history. There are lots of countries that would be considered "good" that went to war with each other just because. How about the Irish vs. the English in today's world. I certainly would declare either one totally evil, but they hate each other anyway. How about all the religious wars in the Middle Ages. Catholic vs. Protestant (actually relates to Irish vs. English too) was a big one. Not sure if either one was demonic or anthing.

Plus good is all a matter of perspective. You ask people around the world about the United States and you'll get just as many "evil" responses as "good".

Anyway, I think you get the idea. Have fun!

I guess the definition of "good" is relative all right; good societies find different ways of rationalizing conquest. Its a good point tho, and I'll keep it in mind.

But I guess it would still be more interesting if alignment made more of a difference; say trade between races of the same alignment was worth more etc. It would add still more options to a game which is a good game because it gives the player alot of options. Why not add more and make a good thing better?

Uggg, really need an Edit button!!!

Original in my post:"I certainly would declare either one totally evil, but they hate each other anyway."

It should be "wouldn't" declare either evil.