More Ideology Incidents please, and a slight criticism...

from GalCiv3 Forums

One part of Gal civ 3 I really like (apart from the vast customisations) are the ideological questions you get when colonising a planet or an incident takes place. I love the 3 Benevolent, Pragmatic or Malevolent choices. It reminds me a lot of old Baldur`s Gate when you had exactly this choice no matter how offensive was the 3rd bad choice- it was always there. Missed those days. Funnily enough I almost never choose the Malevolent choices, but I always read them cos they make me laugh out loud sometimes.

Request one:

Could we have a greater variety of these, I tend to come over the same choices a little too often and in the vastness of space they should almost never repeat.

Request two:

Have even more difficult choices that cross a political line such as Feminism, SJwisms, communism, capitalism, etc with the 3 clear choices good, neutral and bad. I doubt it`ll happen, but I ask anyway.

 

Slight criticism:

Is it me or is Pragmatic (which I choose most of the time) sometimes treated the same as malevolent? I tend to choose Pragmatic because it`s mostly commonsense and balances the line between being too soft and or too harsh. But Pragmatic has some negitive bonuses or is treated exactly the same in its rewards as malevolent.

Also came across a Benevolent race and they totally hated me because I was Pragmatic; it felt like I was Malevolent the way they were acting. But then again, perhaps that`s realistic when I see how people are today compared to 20 years ago...

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Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Yes, the AI seems  to view ideology as a binary choice - either you share their ideology and they like you, or you don't, and they dislike you.  Choosing pragmatic doesn't get you viewed any more favorably by a benevolent faction than choosing malevolent.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

One would think that the diplomatic penalty depends on the "distance" between ideologies, so that malevolent versus benevolent would take the biggest hit compared with all other combinations, but whether that is so I cannot say.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

One of Horemvore's mods offers extra Colonization events.  I highly recommend it.  I am not impartial, I contributed a couple of the events in the package.  Otherwise, I agree that I would like to see all the Event lists extended,  Sounds to me like a nice little DLC that would require very few code additions.

I think it would very unlikely to have some sort of "official" inclusion of contemporary or contentious Ideology decisions.  There really is no upside for Stardock in doing that.  It would have to be a mod somebody put together.

It's not completely Binary as I understand it.  It is thresholds that trigger reactions.  They can appear like absolute binary, but there is some range of comparisons going on, I am convinced. A range of text reactions to go along with that would be an interesting addition, but that is actually a lot of work to set up. 

Also, it is not Binary as far as Ideologies go.  Pragmatic is not a middle path along a two ended spectrum.   Benevolent, Pragmatic, and Malevolent are three very different paths.  They don't really mix well and those who are ambivalent about their Ideology choices tend to disappoint everybody else.  It is possible that the human tendency to look at things in an absolute binary Good versus Evil paradigm doesn't really apply to the overall political and cultural ecosystem of the Galaxy.  It is just not that simple out there.  And not particularly friendly about it, either.

 

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Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

@erischild is correct.  Don't think of it as linear with pragmatic between the other two.  Think of it as a triangle.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Publius, reply 4

@erischild is correct.  Don't think of it as linear with pragmatic between the other two.  Think of it as a triangle.

Ok, I understand what you mean. But is that just your personal opinion or does the game really work like that?

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Not being a developer I can't say how it's implemented.  But my experience is that the Altarians hate me just as much if I'm pragmatic as they do if I'm malevolent, and ditto for the Drengin whether I'm pragmatic or benevolent.  They only like me if I'm the same as them.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Publius, reply 6

Not being a developer I can't say how it's implemented.  But my experience is that the Altarians hate me just as much if I'm pragmatic as they do if I'm malevolent, and ditto for the Drengin whether I'm pragmatic or benevolent.  They only like me if I'm the same as them.

Since I seldom play malevolent I cannot speak for the Drengin, but the Altarians got nearly always hostile towards me, although I usually take 50% benevolent and 50% pragmatic choices. That was before Crusade, not enough data for Crusade 2.2 yet to say for sure ;)

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting erischild, reply 3

One of Horemvore's mods offers extra Colonization events.  I highly recommend it.  I am not impartial, I contributed a couple of the events in the package.  Otherwise, I agree that I would like to see all the Event lists extended,  Sounds to me like a nice little DLC that would require very few code additions.

I think it would very unlikely to have some sort of "official" inclusion of contemporary or contentious Ideology decisions.  There really is no upside for Stardock in doing that.  It would have to be a mod somebody put together.

It's not completely Binary as I understand it.  It is thresholds that trigger reactions.  They can appear like absolute binary, but there is some range of comparisons going on, I am convinced. A range of text reactions to go along with that would be an interesting addition, but that is actually a lot of work to set up. 

Also, it is not Binary as far as Ideologies go.  Pragmatic is not a middle path along a two ended spectrum.   Benevolent, Pragmatic, and Malevolent are three very different paths.  They don't really mix well and those who are ambivalent about their Ideology choices tend to disappoint everybody else.  It is possible that the human tendency to look at things in an absolute binary Good versus Evil paradigm doesn't really apply to the overall political and cultural ecosystem of the Galaxy.  It is just not that simple out there.  And not particularly friendly about it, either.

 

 

That mod sounds interesting.

Also I agree that an extensive Three Ideologies DLC would be a great idea and I`d certainly pay a reasonable fee for it. However the situations would need to be interesting, with realistic effects/consequences, but also unbiased. Sometimes even Malevolent has a choice that I feel is better than Benevolent or Pragmatic depending on the circumstances. I know there`s one Malevolent option I chose because it seemed to me wiser than the others, can`t remember what it was though...

 

Thanks for the input, guys.