i think that nukes ar evil. and the countries that posses them are evil too. and i do think that the countries that actually used nukes -- especially when they were used against civilians -- are very evil.

or at least the 'systems' or 'establishments' that run those countries.

apart from that i havent yet heard about any australian-american war, but i will not challenge the fact that women are made from sand [yes ive listened to that game]
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If Terror Stars actually served as a deterrent to war in the game, I'd agree that they are not necessarily Evil. But since the game lacks the complexity and moral ambiguity of the real world, building something whose sole stated purpose is the destruction of an entire solar system (and necessarily every living thing therein) should be considered an act of extreme moral depravity, whether or not you ever actually use it for that purpose.

You don't build a Terror Star so that you can say "I've got more military power than you but I'm only going to use it to enforce a galactic peace treaty." Dreads and Rangers are more than adequate to establish your military ranking.

heh. that kinda narrows the list of countries you think are "very evil". usa, usa, usa! (highlight the happy face to make it look "evil")



what about invasion tactics? most of the advanced ones wreck the planet. instead of 100% of living things, xx% die. are those morale since less than 100% die? to be truly "morale" you'd have to avoid planet quality dropping invasions. after all, the planet basically gets poisoned. you shouldn't trade for it, or invent it, or sell it.

so, trading away evil techs does lower your morality level, right?
or is aquiring them the only thing that you should avoid on your way to sainthood?

All successful military invasions in GalCiv appear to require the complete extermination of all people on the planet. Terror Stars are arguably less murderous, since they only kill the other side, and don't require you to conscript billions of your own people to sacrifice as cannon fodder.

The morality system is simple: It is Evil to kill worms in order to improve the quality of a planet, or to ask pirates for help building spaceships, but starting a war that kills a trillion people is just politics.


~SDC~

you have a point there.
its pretty disgusting and sick if you really think about it.

perhaps that would need to be adressed ánd changed.

or perhaps its playability over realism ...

if i may not say that its disgusting that starting a war that kills trilions of sentinent beings is not considered evil, please dont delete my account right away. i do not mean to insult the game makers in any way.

thx.
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If evil tech was terror start and good tech was friendly star then I think that neutral should get the porn star!!

You might think of the Good/Evil rating for an empire as representing the type of internal society they have. Do they punish the lazy or reward the hard-working? Do they exterminate the disabled or find cures for their problems? Are people who criticise the emperor tortured or tolerated?

The game doesnt judge your military policy since exterminating the Yor might be the only way to stop them exterminating humanity and setting up a cruel galactic empire.

However, you can still choose to be a pacifist if you want. It's perfectly possible to win through cultural conquest. I did that for quite a while as a kind of metaphysical protest. Then I got bored of thinking of the people in the game as if they were real people and went back to killing them whenever it suited me.


~SDC~

to answer the guy somewhere above this post, not all people on the planet die, just all taxpayers: ie anyone the government conscripts for home defense and who can grab a gun.



no game or program can judge the subtleties of morality of war when even humans can't do that today. was the us evil for wanting to end the war in the pacific early by dropping the bomb on a city full of civilians? some say yes, and some say no. i tend to say no: if the us had not used it, most likely a massive invasion would have been launched and given the japanese tenacity in previous battles, hundreds of thousands of casualties would have resulted on both sides.

now take another situation: a minor power sits between three empires. one empire has massive trading with it but is evil. one nation has no trade but is the enemy of the evil nation. one nation also has no trade but doesn't care much about either nation but desires expansion.

the evil nation will want to protect the minor. the second would want to take out the minor to cripple the evil empire. the third would wait for the second to batter the minor and then invade it for an easy addition to its empire.

are they all evil? the second one is fighting an evil empire but does an "evil" thing by invading an "innocent" minor for future ease of destroying evil. the minor is making cash off an evil "death furnaces/eats bone flecked jam on toast/likes delicious enemy skin" empire. the third is invading an innocent minor for expansion but it is merely doing what would have happened anyway except the minor now has a different flag.

sometimes you don't have the choice to survive AND stay pacifist, but have to fight and dirty your hands against evil.

okay, if the minor trades -- without being forced to -- with the evil empire, its evil itself, since it actively supports an evil regime.

if a nation 'desires expansion' by military force, it is obviously evil too.

the only not necessarily evil nation is the one that fights the evil minor and opposes the evil "death furnaces/eats bone flecked jam on toast/likes delicious enemy skin" empire.

my 2 cents.

Of course guns don't kill people, its the bullets!

As a new Paneanist, I heartily endorse Party Stars.

maybe HappyPlanets?

Wow - we got pretty metaphysical here, from my question... Good to see the discussion, though. I did go back and replay, and (maybe because I was paying attention this time) I did notice the different morality-based techs.

One other question - I saw a reference (above) to tech trading affecting your morality, based on evil and good techs - I had thought the only thing that caused your morality to change were the event choices. Anything else in the game move your morality around?

Again, thanks for the info and input!
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That was just an idea. As the game stands, event choices are indeed the only way to change your alignment.

depends on whos talkin .by that reasoning america would be evil and iraq would be good because iraq dont have nukes.i agree that terrorstarsd shuld be reserved for evil civs


~SDC~

depends on whos talkin .by that reasoning america would be evil and iraq would be good because iraq dont have nukes.i agree that terrorstarsd shuld be reserved for evil civs


~SDC~

It was Harry S Trueman's call (ill-advised or otherwise) . . . not the American People's. Mindyou, from that day forth any of the honor found in millitary conflict was lost for-ever . . .

That's what they said about firearms. And crossbows.

Honestly I think you could probably point to a dozen events in WWII that were far worse than dropping the atomic bomb. On both sides.

I pose the thought that honor in a military conflict means sticking with one's social value system despite how dirty the enemy plays. Obviously, many cultures have chosen over the course of history to change tactics in questionable manners in attempts to survive, from plague-ridden bodies to fire ships to A-bombs. So this begs the question: which is more of a "crime", morally adjusting to new times to survive or maintaining old social values in order to culturally identify with earlier ancestors, even if it means possible assimilation or extinction as a distinct group? I personally believe that humanity has shown more of a propensity to adapt in order to survive than to hold onto to too many sacred cows.

what he said.#45

That's an interesting idea... thing is I would guess that most of these "questionable" tactics would have been adopted in a heartbeat by the civilization in earlier times, if they'd only thought of it. So I'm not sure that you can justify the proposition that using, say, nukes is a "break" with old social values when I would guess that, if they could somehow have asked the generals of fifty years earlier, those generals would have heartily agreed with the decision.