Great collection so far!

It sees a bit strange that ideology only comes from events but never in game activities.I can declare war and invade at will costing billions of lives without any impact but some event on a planet does.

benevolent civs should have a problem being able to DOW against other benevolent civs.

I'm ok with in-game activities like invasion tactics also influencing ideology.  Planetbusting in invasions should be considered the equivalent of a war crime.

Frogboy, "Merciless" feels much, much better than Malevolent. In fact, I think "benevolent" is out of place and should be replaced by "altruistic" or something like that.

A lots of the evil choices in GalCiv 2 could be described as realpolitik. Mercilessness is a good approximation, while evil (while technically true in most value frameworks) sounds like the choice is made just for the fun of having people suffer, while it's closer to "the ends -the glory of the empire- justify the means".

In other words, I think it's time we graduated from D&D :p.

I can't figure out how to see the "Brad Feedback 031014" file. It says it's a PDF, but it's not opening like one.

Rename the file to a .pdf

Agreed!  Agreed!  It is very likely that the future belongs to the Han Chinese.  So leaders will be mostly from that part of humanity.  Also, regarding hair styles (including long, shoulder length hair) has been used to identify whose side you are on.  English Civil war (very polite :)  )  "roundheads" and "cavaliers"  - short and long hair.  Regarding helmets to protect our wigs while on duty: what did Londo malari wear?

I really, really like what I see in the new feedback PDF. I've enjoyed having the opportunity to see some of the inner-workings of game development.

Regarding the ideology tree, first I'd like to say I like the way the tree looks, and I really like the idea of using the tree to influence available planetary improvements (and number of tiles), trade, diplomacy, cultural expansion, etc.

I agree with this--activities and choices in game should, in certain circumstances, affect ideology.

Here are some of my thoughts regarding what we've been shown about ideology (and I realize it is probably still being hammered out)

In the thread "Good vs Evil is too simplistic"--

Maybe I'm not understanding "more specific", but it looks like the idea is to get away from "good," "neutral," and "evil" in a substantial way, which will not be achieved with changes to diction alone. I'm not trying to be critical, but right now, in my opinion "benevolent," "pragmatic," and "malevolent" read very much the same as GalCiv II's ethics system (though the implementation of a points-based tree is certainly different and an improvement).

But the terms "benevolent" and "malevolent" aren't much of a departure from "good" and "evil." They merely express the same basic idea using a different word. I realize that their definitions are technically different, but "manifesting a desire to do good" and "wishing evil toward others" versus being "good" or "evil" is a tenuous difference at best.

I liked the suggestion of "altruistic," as that more generally expresses a "regard for the welfare of others." "Ruthless" and "merciless," however, aren't too different from "malevolent." Neither of these words really describe an ideology. A pragmatic society can certainly be ruthless and merciless if it is most practical (and often, that is the case). And even an altruistic society can, for the safety and welfare of others, make decisions that would be considered ruthless and merciless.

The opposite of altruism would be more along the lines of egocentrism--basically, self-centeredness.

Right now, IMO, the only real ideology listed is pragmatism. Ideologies really deal with the underlying motivation for certain behavior (why is a civ merciless, and can it be merciless in some situations but not others?). Here are some ideologies off the top of my head: altruism, pacifism, isolationism, hedonism, materialism, opportunism, expansionism.

I'm not saying GalCiv III would benefit from having all these ideologies (though making decisions based on a hedonistic ideology could be interesting), but I do think that sticking to three ideologies will effectively result in the same basic dynamic as was present in GalCiv II (a basically "good" ethic, a basically "neutral" one, and a basically "evil" one).

It may help to have more than three ideologies with some overlap, perhaps something like altruism (help others at all cost), pacifism (no violence at all cost), pragmatism (path of least resistance/whatever works best), and expansionism (financial and territorial growth at all cost).

I realize this would be more complicated to develop, but if the desire is to move away from the GalCiv II ethics system into something more specific, I think a little more gradation would be helpful.

Maybe I'm way off, but I think having more nuance in the ideological choices would make gameplay much more interesting. And all that being said, from what we've been shown so far, GalCiv III is definitely moving in that direction.

How is the civic option not the best way to specify how your society acts, and if different factions have different civics this is even a better way to encourage you to play like your faction.

If I understood the system correctly, I think in GalCiv3 you will be able to chose perks on different ideology trees depending on how many points you have for each.  So you could be say, Benevolent with a touch of ruthlessness.  I might be wrong but this looks like that from the screen shots.

Also, about the wording, lets not overcomplicate it. In part because of what I just said above, the system is quite open. You Can be be altruistic with a touch of ruthlessness.  This is more believable than say Evil with a touch of Good. Anyway, the way I came up with ruthless was simply by looking at the perk tree and tried to find a word that encompassed all the perks as a whole.

We don't know anything for certain yet, but it's likely this benevolent-praqmatic-malevolent choice is only one axis on a multi-dimensional scale. There may be several other axes, such as cooperative-(neutral option)-isolationist. How exactly a cooperative-malevolent or an benevolent-isolationist society could be rather interesting.

Is disagree with that statement. Ruthless/Merciless isn't the same as malevolent. It's a trait that's found is some heroes and many anti-heroes. In politics, it's more akin to the concept of realpolitik: the idea that a ruler should put his nation ahead of any other concerns, even if it costs others, and that sacrifices are acceptable for the good of the nation. The politicians who do this often think of themselves on the side of good. Whether they're right or not is somewhat outside of the scope of this discussion (and would tread dangerous ground), but the point remain that it can still be reasonably distinguishable from evil.

My issue with a benevolent-malevolent axis is that there aren't many case of political leaders who willfully did things "for evil's sake". So in the end, the stuff enters difficult territory I believe isn't exactly suited for a Stardock 4X game (the question of moral relativism vs. moral absolutism). I actually appreciate that Frogboy isn't trying to qualify this or that real-world model of society as good or evil.

That's what it looked like to me. I am curious how the system will deal with items on the opposing sides of the spectrum that are mutually exclusive, or if there will be a way to lose points in a particular ideology.

But right now it isn't altruistic and ruthless, it's benevolent and malevolent, which is very similar to saying evil with a touch of good. However, by making it possible to have points in both ideologies, it is more akin to saying 'mostly benevolent, but occasionally malevolent,' which is fine by me.

What I was really trying to express is that it seemed like the goal was to move away from good vs evil (general) to something more specific. To me, benevolent and malevolent (the words themselves) don't really describe something more specific BUT the new system certainly appears to offer more specialization in functionality.

Several axes would definitely give ideological choices much more meaning and nuance.

I didn't say they were the same. I said they aren't too different, i.e. they are similar. 'Showing no mercy/pity' is similar to wishing evil toward a person, but they aren't the same. But that really wasn't my point. My point is, neither of these terms expresses an ideology. An ideology is the underlying idea that drives a person (or society). As you said, few rulers are evil for evil's sake (the ideology isn't ruthlessness or evilness--these are the means to an end). The underlying ideology might simply be pragmatism, but the actions they take as a result could be considered inhumane and even ruthless.

I agree. I wasn't trying to imply this needs to be realistic; it's a game. To include all the major ideologies would be impractical and probably disastrous. And I also appreciate that it appears the game is moving away from labeling ideologies as good or evil.

Essentially, all I was trying to point out is that labeling the ideology pyramids as benevolent and malevolent doesn't seem very different from just saying good and evil. It still looks like a spectrum of good to evil, just with new headings. That isn't necessarily bad, but if the desire for GalCiv III is to get away from good/neutral/evil, I'm not sure benevolent/pragmatic/malevolent does that.

Re ideology: you pick and choose from different trees to form the cultural identify of your civilization.  Few will be pure.

I have a few questions, wouldn't be surprised if some are off-limits. Can you shed some light on them please? :3

Will there be rewards for diversifying, or perhaps for staying 'true' to your selected path in the ideologies tree?

Will there be more than the three shown ideologies, perhaps addressing different situations?

Are you going to cripple the 'Good' alignment again? I'd suggest giving good 'intangible' benefits like loyalty, diplomacy, approval, influence and planet quality, neutral can have a mixture of intangibles and pragmatic benefits. Evil can get the full force of tangible benefits, with bonuses to soldiering, weapons, industry etc. I really don't want good players to have to exploit loopholes in the game to be good, I want it to be a fulfilling, and not a punishing slog. 

Froggy there was some thing that is on the game I never understood appearently it is still on the game. You get the least bonus, no bonus, or a penalty for being good or now its called benevolent. You get a more mild bonus. Very rarely it would be the same bonus for being evil. Then you would get the evil bonus which was almost always the most usually significantly. There were never options where the good or neutral would get the most bonus. The game would encourage you to be evil. Now it encourages you to be merciless. You get bonuses and penalties for being either except you get an added bonus for being merciless.

I've came up with two solutions to this problem.

1. You could just give everyone different bonuses for their decisions Ithere are a lot of areas to pick from. The three different bonuses would be different, but fair.

2. This would also work you could create different events that instead of giving merciless the biggest bonuses. There would be ones that would give the benelent  and pragmatic the biggest bonuses. There would have to be an even number for all three.

I'm talking about the random events that give you choices.

I would like to see a game that doesn't only reward you for being evil. Right now it is set up that if you want to be neutral or good you will be weaker. I like the idea of Idealogies. I've noticed that you didn't fix the fact that your choices you make still favor evil.

Your solutions are interesting. A slightly more complicated, but possibly interesting variation could be that sometimes you do not know what will happen for the choices before you make your choice. It is a surprise. 

One example could be something like:

A primitive society already lives on this world. What do you do?

1. Try to educate them and integrate them to your society

2. Put them in a reserve

3.. Exterminate them all.

Five turns later something might happen

a. The natives of the planet turned out to be very quick learners and show a remarkable aptitude for sciences ( + 15% research on this world )

b. The natives formed criminal gangs who plague the cities of this planet,  ( -15% morale )

If you kill them:

a.While bulldozing the remnants of the native cities, you discover ruins of a more advanced society containing artifacts of great value. ( + 2000 BC

b. When you killed the natives, something unexpected happened, part of the ecosystem died with them ( -7% planet quality )

The main point though is that I agree with you: Malevolent and Benevolent are synonymous with Evil and Good, according to the dictionary (it's even more obvious in my native language :p). This is the main thing I wanted to point out, because Frogboy mentioned in another thread that the policy axis wouldn't be based on Good/Evil - but a Malevolent/Benevolent axis is exactly that since those words actually mean Evil and Good, respectively. Now, keeping the Good/Evil axis isn't wrong in itself if the decision is made consciously, but that contradicts the stated design goal.

I just had a look at Brad's new (probably already outdated) feedback, and there is one thing, which really piqued my interest:

Hyperdrive can’t operate outside the galaxy for lore reasons.

Why?

Probably something similar to; you can't drive your car across the ocean.

Everything has to have limits. 

Hyperdrive is really tied to mass.  The more mass in the area, the slower the ship travels in "real" space.  But at a certain point, Hyperdrive reaches a point where if there's no nearby mass, it no longer is stable.  While in theory, Hyperdrive would allow infinite speeds outside the galaxy, the current technology of it can't handle such small amounts of mass.

The Ascension technology is partially tied to this concept in that once you have infinite speed you can be everywhere at once.  But between that point and the creation of Hyperdrive, there are very hard limits on the amount of mass required for it to provide a safe, stable propulsion.

Thanks, that explains it.

Although, what about the Stellar Folding technology the Terrans could research in TotA? Wouldn't it be sophisticated enough to travel between galaxies? Most importantly because it outright stated that "With infinite energy, one could use Stellar Folding to travel to any point in the galaxy instantaneously."

Also, what engine-technology did the Precursor use? It had to be better than Hyperdrive, because, as Tandis explained in the last mission of the TotA-campaign, the Precursor wanted to "deal" with the Andromeda-galaxy in order to prevent it from colliding with ours.

I'm a nub. How do I get most of my Founder stuff. Just got the alpha today since I'm horribly busy, but what about the rest of my cool prizes?