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The good, the evil and those that don't care

tiagocc0

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I've been thinking about a race being Good, Neutral or Evil and what would this imply to them.

Here's a some quick rules I though would add the right flavor to the game, these rules would be optional.

Most races would start as Neutral or on the first level of being Good or Evil.
There would be several levels of being Good or Evil, the last level would make the race "change" to something else.
The Good race would transcend the physical realm and reach the astral plane.
The Evil race would become a Space Monster (I'm still thinking about this one) so it would become extremely dangerous.
The Neutral race would be able to reach a technological level where they would go to another dimension, the Good and Evil race would also be able to reach this, but it would be much more difficult for them.

So when a race advances to the Good or Evil side, it's ability to research new technologies starts to decline with the exception to some technology fields.
A Good race would have for example better Shield technology and the Evil race would have better Weapons technologies, I still have to compile a list.
Being far in the Good or Evil side would also imply in some restrictions, a very high level in the Good side could for example restrict you to use any kind of weapon, while a very high level in the Evil side could restrict you from doing any kind of Diplomacy.

When a Good race transcends to the astral plane they can choose to end the game or to continue and then start manipulating/influence another race making then evolve a lot faster, the race must not be Evil and the goal would be to make them transcend too.

When a Evil race becomes a Space Monster they can choose to end the game or to harass the entire universe destroying everything with a chance of invading the astral plane.

A Neutral race that is able to go to another dimension can choose to end the game or to play on both dimensions, the new dimension could be an entire new game in it's middle stage.

So what do you guys think about this?
 

Destroid

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You might have racial alignments be a little more far-reaching in their effects. For example, perhaps the evil guys can only ever enslave or exterminate conquered populations, while the good guys must treat them humanely and absorb them - resulting in better production but higher chances for them to rebel.

That said, I'm not terribly fond of such crude characterisations of racial demeanor.
 

Cassidy

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Better to have species divided by behaviorial categories like a degree between full supporters of multiculturalism and multi-species peaceful coexistence and those who think all others who aren't like them should be subjugated or exterminated. And then expand to other categories like "peaceful - aggressive" and so on. They shouldn't restrict playstyle, and like in Paradox grand strategy games it should be possible to switch them gradually once in a while. Nevertheless, if a full DEATH TO XENOS faction conquers a planet inhabited by aliens, it should be natural for the existing population to be gradually genocided until only your species remain. Neither should these values be locked one into another, or locked with government types. A democracy that believes all xenos should be exterminated and an empire that enforces multikult are equally possible in sci-fi.

Good vs. evil is too cliché and way too "medieval fantasy" for a sci-fi themed game.

Equally interesting would be to have less aliens and more factional divisions between them, like in Alpha Centauri, that despite having only humans(mediocre expansion aside), is much more interesting than most sci-fi game settings regarding its different factions IMO.
 

Destroid

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Lawful and Chaotic probably make for more interesting behaviours too (or Order and Chaos).

Cassidy, the scifi space 4x that's slowly simmering away in my head (and likely never to see light of day) focuses almost exclusively on humans, aliens would play a minor role if at all. Mostly to do with ideas presented in the 4x workshop threads we did a while back.
 

tiagocc0

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You might have racial alignments be a little more far-reaching in their effects. For example, perhaps the evil guys can only ever enslave or exterminate conquered populations, while the good guys must treat them humanely and absorb them - resulting in better production but higher chances for them to rebel.

That said, I'm not terribly fond of such crude characterisations of racial demeanor.

I would add a lot more effects to them, I just gave a simple example above.


Better to have species divided by behaviorial categories like a degree between full supporters of multiculturalism and multi-species peaceful coexistence and those who think all others who aren't like them should be subjugated or exterminated. And then expand to other categories like "peaceful - aggressive" and so on. They shouldn't restrict playstyle, and like in Paradox grand strategy games it should be possible to switch them gradually once in a while. Nevertheless, if a full DEATH TO XENOS faction conquers a planet inhabited by aliens, it should be natural for the existing population to be gradually genocided until only your species remain. Neither should these values be locked one into another, or locked with government types. A democracy that believes all xenos should be exterminated and an empire that enforces multikult are equally possible in sci-fi.

Good vs. evil is too cliché and way too "medieval fantasy" for a sci-fi themed game.

Equally interesting would be to have less aliens and more factional divisions between them, like in Alpha Centauri, that despite having only humans(mediocre expansion aside), is much more interesting than most sci-fi game settings regarding its different factions IMO.

Good vs Evil is what came to my mind, but they don't need to be everything that represents being evil or good.
You will be able to switch them gradually during the game.
In spite of this I will try to come up with a better name.

About restricting the play style, I will add it as an optional feature, you can choose so all races fall under these categories, or all races minus you fall under this category or nobody uses this at all. AI works like that, they restrict what the race can do as to a personality devised. Like expansionist, peaceful, industrialist and so on.
So at least for the AI it would fit nicely and if the player want they can participate in this kind of play style.


Lawful and Chaotic probably make for more interesting behaviours too (or Order and Chaos).

Great idea.


I've been thinking about a race being Good, Neutral or Evil and what would this imply to them.

(...)

So what do you guys think about this?
Drop this shit.

It would be optional. :P
 

tiagocc0

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I've been thinking about a race being Good, Neutral or Evil and what would this imply to them.

(...)

So what do you guys think about this?
Drop this shit.

It would be optional. :P
Optional shit still costs time and effort to design and implement. And it's still shit.

Hm, it's not set in stone yet, I will take this into consideration.
If I'm not able to expand this concept to a decent level on this thread I'm dropping it.
 

tiagocc0

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RaceTypes.png


C1 - Exterminator
This race is chaotic, it strives to eliminate all life forms excluding their own.
They tend to go for Order Races first, then Neutral and lastly other Chaos Races.
They advance on the Exterminator meter by declaring war and eliminating other races, for example.

C2 - Manipulator
This races is chaotic, it doesn't like to declare war on other races, instead it likes to diplomatically "order" races to do so for them, they get a bonus on diplomacy and they are great at manipulating other Chaos Races.
They advance on the Manipulator meter by successfully ordering other races to wage war and by supplying them resources to win the war.

C3 - Impersonator
This race is chaotic, it doesn't like to be viewed as chaotic so they make everything they can to appear to be a Neutral or Order Race, but internally they act just like other Chaos Races. They can wage war to defend a weaker race but just to be able to go to war, everything they do have a second intention. Other Chaos Races may even attack them thinking they are a Neutral or Order Race.
They advance on the Impersonator meter by acting as if they were Neutral or Order and then backstabbing whomever they can.

O1 - The Shield
This race is orderly (don't know if this is the correct word), they help whenever they can Neutral and Order Races, they don't like to go to war but if necessary they attack their enemies until the other races are safe.
They advance on the The Shield meter by protecting the weak as long as they are not chaotic.

O2 - The Sword
This race is orderly, they attack openly all chaotic races, not to eradicate them but to leave them on a state where they would not be able to become a major threat.
They advance on the The Shield meter by declaring war to Chaos Races.

O3 - The Wall
This race is orderly, they won't declare war, they only defend themselves and their allies that would be only other Order Races they trust. They despise war and try whenever they can to stop other races from destroying themselves.
They advance on the The Wall meter by defend itself and by persuading other races stop their wars.

N1 - Technologists
This race is neutral, they only care about technology, they research, steal and bribe other races to get it.
They advance on the Technologists meter by getting technologies by stealing/trading/spending heavy amount of resources to get a technology.

N2 - Xenophobics
This race is neutral, they just want to be left alone.. (I need to think more about this one)

N3 - The Balance
This race is neutral, and they want to live in a universe that is balanced by order and chaos, so they help whichever is on the losing side. (I need to think more about this one)

EDIT: If they reach the maximum for Order they can start being Good, and the same applies to Chaos and Evil.
 

tiagocc0

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nah, just an idea

EDIT: I'm may not be thinking about this as too much because only a few races would have this, not all of them, and the player would be able to pursue any of this if wanted, not like you have to be one of these

EDIT2: now allow me to cower and cry
 

Destroid

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tiagocc0 , could you please explain to me why do you insist on sticking bastardized version of D&D alignment that is even worse than original into a sci-fi game?

Since he put the order with good and the chaos with evil I'm guessing he's not actually familiar with the DnD alignment system, which is what I had in mind when I made the suggestion (although I still don't like the good and evil titles much).
 

DraQ

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Bleh.

If you want to describe behaviour and psychology of alien races, it's better to do it descriptively rather than normatively. Not only is the latter quite retarded in this context, but also unnecessarily limiting.
 

Phelot

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I don't really like alignments either since they can pigeon hole entire races. I think building a sort of psychology for each race is much cooler than labeling this one as chaos and that one as good or whatever. Even having an obligatory insectoid alien race with hivemind mentality is cooler than the old DnD style Good, Bad, Neutral system.

I do think it's a cool idea to create different races/factions and give each one a specific and unique way to victory, but as DraQ says, it would be better to base these conditions around your own made up descriptions for each race rather than resorting to IMO boring alignments.
 

DraQ

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Better yet, try to make some sort of general civilization behaviour model:

-is the race aggressive or defensive?
-is it xenophobic, trying to get rid of potential hazards in form of other sapients, xenophilic, trying to benefit from them or neutral?
-how expansive it is?
-is it more likely to jump around looking for suitable worlds, or patiently terraform anything nearby?
-what if those suitable worlds are already colonized?
-what's its ecological requirement and affinity (table - max population per unit of environment type)?
-what's it optimal to max population ratio?
-what's its sociopolitical compatibility/affinity (tables)?
-is it isolationist or interventionist?
-how (if) does it meddle in the affairs of the others - exterminatus, assimilation, what?
-what's it population growth?
-how does it react to changing conditions (how fast, with what tendencies, etc.)?

etc.
 

tiagocc0

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I don't really like alignments either since they can pigeon hole entire races. I think building a sort of psychology for each race is much cooler than labeling this one as chaos and that one as good or whatever. Even having an obligatory insectoid alien race with hivemind mentality is cooler than the old DnD style Good, Bad, Neutral system.

I do think it's a cool idea to create different races/factions and give each one a specific and unique way to victory, but as DraQ says, it would be better to base these conditions around your own made up descriptions for each race rather than resorting to IMO boring alignments.

They will have different ways to win, as in Distant Worlds.


Better yet, try to make some sort of general civilization behaviour model:

-is the race aggressive or defensive?
-is it xenophobic, trying to get rid of potential hazards in form of other sapients, xenophilic, trying to benefit from them or neutral?
-how expansive it is?
-is it more likely to jump around looking for suitable worlds, or patiently terraform anything nearby?
-what if those suitable worlds are already colonized?
-what's its ecological requirement and affinity (table - max population per unit of environment type)?
-what's it optimal to max population ratio?
-what's its sociopolitical compatibility/affinity (tables)?
-is it isolationist or interventionist?
-how (if) does it meddle in the affairs of the others - exterminatus, assimilation, what?
-what's it population growth?
-how does it react to changing conditions (how fast, with what tendencies, etc.)?

etc.

Yep, this will definitely be in the game, I need this to set a suitable AI.


The good and evil thing was just a system I would put on top of those two things above mentioned. Mainly to give additional win victory conditions but also to give a way to continue the game in a different way.
Let's just put apart the good and evil thing, I most definitely want those 3 conditions where:
One a race would transcend and go to an astral plane (would become ethereal) thus drastically changing it's needs (would not require food anymore).
One a race would be able to technologically develop a gate to another dimension that would be a different game being played in it's middle stage.
One a race would merge all of it's population to become one giant sentient being (thus explaining partly how those beings exist in the universe).


Victoria II's Pop Demand Mod had quite a nice value system

Each set of values gives you different modifiers and different events
http://popdemandmod.wikia.com/wiki/National_Values

Thanks I will take a look!
 

tiagocc0

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It would be like they have just one spaceship to control on the entire map.
When you turn into a spaceship the game will compute your score to determine how strong you will be.
But instead of acting just like a spaceship the space monster would be like a planet where you could still do research (would be a totally different tech tree) and would be able to start spawning minor versions of the space monster.
This is what I thought so far.
 

Destroid

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Perhaps you have to eat ships and colonies to grow bigger/spawn children. Or at least planets with biospheres (rendering them barren).
 

tiagocc0

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Perhaps you have to eat ships and colonies to grow bigger/spawn children. Or at least planets with biospheres (rendering them barren).

Great idea, that would fit nicely!
 

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