I have never played GC, but it would certainly be a morale-hitter (for the player) to constantly get hammered with these forced "choices", as though the game is laughing at you and saying, "Ha ha, you goody punk, pay the price for your stupid alignment!"
If the weapons techs and other bonuses were suitably compelling, there would be no reason for good/neutral to get shafted in every "choice". Evil races could get +50% production to everything due to slavery, +50% population due to forced breeding and government-built ultra-high-density slums, +50% hitpoints to all ships and soldiers as internal warfare weeds out the unfit people and weapons (while peaceful races rely only on theory), +50% diplomacy versus neutrals who are scared ****less of pissing off an evil race (while happy to snub good races, who are less likely to kill them for it). And so forth. In essence, there is no reason evil must suffer; "good" should not intrinsically get all the advantages through cosmic karma, such that it needs balancing through only negative events.
Realistically, there are many situations when moral/economic alignments force unwise decisions. Take logging, for example:
*** Note - for real world examples - I am not implying that some countries are "evil" or "good", just that they act analogously to the GC usages of those terms ***
Evil: Log everything as fast as possible, and sell the logs to the high bidder! (stupid, destroys the terrain and rivers, and cannot be sustained... the economy and environment both collapse eventually)
Good: Protect everything! Logging is illegal! (puts the majority of any world off-limits, and suddenly there is no lumber, paper, cardboard, etc... the economy collapses immediately)
Neutral: Allow logging limited to local demand, but only on areas designated as tree farms, with replanting of only high-wood-producing species. (not perfect, but economically the best)
In the context of a game, the player will generally choose the neutral path based on its superior bonus profile, and maybe pay a price of losing some "evilness" or "goodness". In real life, this will not happen because...
Option (good) is expensive to enforce, and angers corporations and their employees and families; poor states, 3rd-world-countries, and stupid people are not necessarily evil, but they choose evil anyway, even though it is not the best choice! Good is NOT chosen to prevent a country from slipping toward evil.
Option (evil) is sometimes not chosen because again it angers "good", "neutral", and intelligent constituents; it might violate international laws and cause sanctions/loss of aid/etc; and with a strong internal legal system, opponents can often sue to prevent the "evil" choice (justified or not).
Option (neutral) is, in this case, the most expensive and complex to implement, and has major opponents on each side! It is rarely chosen, because dumb people (the majority) typically gravitate toward pure good or evil, and only think in the short term.
Well, this is just one example, in which neutral comes out on top economically. In many cases evil, and sometimes even good, will come out on top. But the point is that the choice of good/evil/neutral is not one-dimensional, "the more evil, the more bonus" in real life (and of course the developers know this). Games always simplify things, but it seems like this particular simplification hurts gameplay by making the good player feel punished.
So... rather than using events and choices as a basis for balance (which is pretty random) it seems better to make the alignments more fundamentally balanced by another means, and allow the events to be fun for all players, at least sometimes! And, at the minimum, make the choices real, instead of "I'm good, therefore I must choose (1)".
My suggestion:
1) Change the current single cost (balance scale change) into a triple cost.
1a) Cost 1: Balance scale change, toward good, evil, or neutral
1b) Cost 2: Monetary cost of implimentation. Evil will *generally* be the cheapest. Could be up-front or recurring.
1c) Cost 3: Popularity cost. This is entirely dependant on morality; e.g. populace of a good empire would become unhappy with evil choices, and vice-versa. For example, Californians would be outraged by a huge 50% subsidy on monster pickup trucks, while Texans would be outraged by a 50% tax on monster pickup trucks.
2) Scale the costs and benefits.
2a) The cost should be based on morality difference of the empire and choice... for example, Brazil (e.g. evil/lawless) would have to create an entire new vast branch of goverment/military to protect its rainforests, while California (e.g. good/lawful) can simply tell the park rangers to not let visitors chop down Redwoods, at no cost. It depends on the situation, but something cheap for an evil empire might be very expensive for a good empire.
2b) The costs should also be based on the size of the operation. Something that affects a 20-tile world should be more costly than something that affects a 1-tile world; maybe 20x, maybe not.
2c) The benefits should scale too. Even if protected Redwood logging was legalized and monster pickup trucks were subsidized in California, the citizens would not benefit much because they would be unpopular.
3) Add legal concerns.
3a) Domestic: California could NOT allow Redwood logging (in protected areas), because domestic law would prevent it (lawsuits, etc); assuming Kuwait has a real legal system, it would ban any attempt to end oil production.
3b) if the UN were more powerful, France could not do open-air nuclear tests and Japan could not do unrestricted whaling, due to international law, without penalty.
This sounds very complex, but basically, it boils down to this:
Event: "Whales are discovered to be intelligent!"
A VERY Good empire will see:
Choices:
(Good): Ban whaling, and enforce this. (popularity +5%, agriculture -15%, cost 100BC, +1 good scale)
(Neutral): Subsidize whalers to switch to shark farming, and propogandize that whales taste bad. (popularity -5%, agriculture -10%, cost 40BC, +2 toward neutral)
(Evil): Start farming whales; intelligent species are brain food, plus they are smart and don't need as much oversight as cattle! (Your legal system forbids this) [greyed out]
A Neutral empire will see:
Choices:
(Good): Ban whaling, and enforce this. (popularity -5%, agriculture -20%, cost 200BC, +2 good scale)
(Neutral): Subsidize whalers to switch to shark farming, and propogandize that whales taste bad. (popularity +5%, agriculture -10%, cost 20BC, +2 toward neutral)
(Evil): Start farming whales; intelligent species are brain food, plus they are smart and don't need as much oversight as cattle! (popularity -10%, agriculture +40%, cost 40BC, +8 evil scale)
An Evil, lawless empire will see:
Choices:
(Good): Ban whaling, and enforce this. (popularity -20%, agriculture -25%, cost 400BC, +4 good scale)
(Neutral): Subsidize whalers to switch to shark farming, and propogandize that whales taste bad. (popularity -5%, agriculture -10%, cost 40BC, +2 toward neutral)
(Evil): Start farming whales; intelligent species are brain food, plus they are smart and don't need as much oversight as cattle! (popularity +5%, agriculture +50%, cost 10BC, +4 evil scale, +1% chance of God being a whale and crushing your empire with a cosmic fluke)
There are always other priorities, but fun, dynamic, interactive events that reflect and shape your empire in a non-random fashion would be very interesting in my opinion. Obviously not all of this is reasonable to add but a second dimension (sliding implimentation cost) and a change from the "evil always == beneficial" philosophy would achieve the basic objective.
-Cherry
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