Choosing an empire vs making an empire work for you

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UesugiKenshin
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Re: Choosing an empire vs making an empire work for you

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Maybe you want to see how long you can be Terran or a Khaoran or a Cartare or a Rotharian or a Heyoun or an Omega. It's easier to pick an alien species that represents your own ethos. Then there is no moral quandry.

In GalCiv 2, your choices determines the morale check and so set the tone of your species. You had free will and suffered no moral check. You decided.

In BotE, the will of the People is about roleplaying and dealing with the consequences of consistently going against what they want. This is why a modder might create an alien species as alternatives who represent what they would do as they have different motivations and different morality. A modder might create a benevolent Cartare who didn't deal with hardship in the same way, but maybe lived like the Terrans and vice versa. The Terrans might have struggled.
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Re: Choosing an empire vs making an empire work for you

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A malevolent Terran and a benevolent Terran can never get along. Civil War is inevitable. Now where it gets tricky in philosophy is evaluating the veracity of moral quandries and determining what is good versus evil and what is right versus wrong? Both might shout, "Comformist Barbarian", and sneer!

Then philosophically, a thinker muses, "Does objective morality exist or does subjective morality exist? Obviously objective morality does not exist in the galaxy as so many extraterestials...156 of them, have very different motivations and morality and values are not identical. That causes conflict"!

The next question in philosophy is, "Does free will exist"? And then, "if not, do we have freedom"? And "if we do have free will, then freedom is a terrible burden, isn't it"?

If you have free will and then make evil and wrong choices, there are consequences, and one may be one of the few who is good and right, and dwells with evil and wrong people, yet must coexist in some manner or not survive.
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Re: Choosing an empire vs making an empire work for you

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You could just play the game and be obtuse and ignore the larger galactic forces, but then you are a puppet. It's peculiar and ironic as political spindoctors call world leaders "puppets", when their actions as journalists (really propagandists telling you what is "news"), they then desire for you to be their puppet.

Be free and express your free will, but there are consequences in BotE.
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Re: Choosing an empire vs making an empire work for you

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I can't think of many computer games that ever make me think so deeply as BotE. That means it isn't just a computer game, but Art and Philosophy. It's morality versus ethics writ large at the galactic level.

Ethics are what you hold dear as values and morality is what the you feel the People hold dear. And philosophically that creates an inner monologue as some serious intellectual even spiritual struggle goes on.

Puppets think they are free as they are obtuse to the strings and don't care as they get a paycheck and popularity.

Being a moral leader is gutsy as you lead when the People may oppose you.
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Re: Choosing an empire vs making an empire work for you

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People label a leader as corrupt when he or she is self-serving, but they also are corrupt themselves and then criticize leadership who have opposite values

I say I don't care what corrupt people label me...as they are not excellent judges of character. They could never lead. They themselves lack "character" (mental and ethical qualities of an individual)...

... and they are just characters (obtuse puppets on strings to be popular and paid a paycheck).
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Re: Choosing an empire vs making an empire work for you

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The old seventies model of respect was valuing deep thinkers regardless of belief who could communicate their ideas and wanted to be leaders. Young thinkers in academia would passionately debate philosophical ideas, and the rest was skin color and ethnic origin and sexual identity. The last three were just what made people different. They had character and empassioned beliefs.

That kind of leadership and virtue would be needed in astronauts encountering species all over the galaxy in BotE. It is not just waging war but managing conflict resolution as the mob is led by their focus on eliminating people who are different.

Astronauts would have to contemplate scenarios as the mob would destroy what is different that they fear, and the mob is not in space. An astronaut is a veteran soldier, altruist, leader, counselor, and manager whose life is an exemplary rolemodel for the crew of the starships. You cannot be selfish and represent your People as an explorer.

Citizen militia in space would go on "bug hunts" and eradicate.
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Re: Choosing an empire vs making an empire work for you

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http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... Moral.data
So the moral data then awards points to "morale" across the empire based on making some choices and penalizes by subtracting points to morale as well.

And the way this functions is contingent upon which empire you play.

Example
Let's say you like bombardment of alien races. You enjoy attacking with air support so the starships "soften up the target" so your soldiers can go in, in a much safer manner, and begin the ground inasion assault.

The Terrans get a penalty of -5 (The leader is a warmonger and bombing innocent civilians!)

The Heyoun get a penalty of -2 (The leader is a fool ruining future trade and destroying infrastructure of our trading partners. We have to rebuild infrastructure like the Marshall Plan. That is going to cost money! What is he doing toour profits!)
https://www.history.com/topics/world-wa ... all-plan-1

The Khaorans get an initial +6 for correctly using military doctrine and making an assault possible, but once the military has been eliminated then since the soldiers are honorable, and want to fight, then the Khaorans get upset with continual bombardment.
(The leader seemed to be following standard military operating protofol,but then is a cruel dishonorable commander. Maybe he has Cartare ancestry?)

The Rotharians get a +4 for bombarding a sector.
(The leader is wise and keeps bombardment up as long as it makes the invasion easier for our brave soldiers)

The Cartare gets a +4 for bombarfment of a sector.
(The leader is making it easier to take these accursed people and saving us having to feed more near useless slaves.)

The Omega gets a +2 for bombardment of a sector.
(The leader is wise to make invasion easier for our soldiers, but we hope he won't do it too long as we need worker bees for the internment camps and host bodies for the symbiotes.)
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Re: Choosing an empire vs making an empire work for you

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If you have to besiege a sector for a long time, you know these moral penalties will affect your empire's morale rating and either make you very popular as a leader or your name is a synonym for a curse word.

From "Stupid bozo thinks bombing a sector to smithereens and destroying people and infrastructure is what war means!"
:roll:

To "Give 'em Hell and bomb 'em into the Stone Age!"
:twisted:

Playing as a maniacal malevolent genocidal Terran leader is possible, but you would have to be very popular to start and do things that countered the moral penalty with popular programs like signing affiliation treaties where you get +8 points. If you get +8 and do bombardment in the same turn -5, then you have a net positive 3 to morale, right?

Whereas playing as a maniacal malevolent genocidal Cartare is rewarded.
"Good good, let the evil flow."
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Re: Choosing an empire vs making an empire work for you

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Example
Espionage and Sabotage
The Rotharians, Cartare, and the Omega people all like espionage and sabotage like it's their version of porn.
"Our leader is wisely using intelligence operatives and sleeper agents to crush our enemy without declaring naked war. He's a righteous man saving soldiers' lives, prudent, and frugal. These are economically sound policies."
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Re: Choosing an empire vs making an empire work for you

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So here is the problem.

The AI has goals and likely uses the moral.data to determine an overall strategy, and so the Terrans and Heyoun can also use intelligence agencies, but the Terrans have more opportunity as the Heyoun get internal security modifiers.

But neither get benefits from moral.data values. But both do espionage and sabotage.

Why? It's cheap warfare. The AI will "bottom line" their strategy based on what weakens their opponents and especially if they perceive their opponent (who just was an ally) now is a threat even an enemy.
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Re: Choosing an empire vs making an empire work for you

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And that is why I want to mod sabotage.

Terrans and Heyoun are acting out of character.

You can't blame Cartare and Rotharians as they revel in sabotage like it's a soccer match competition. "SCORE for our side!" +5 for every sabotage.

But the Omega, in my opinion, really DON'T want too much of it as it's just making it more expensive to rebuild. Which is why their morale get a +2 for sabotage.
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Re: Choosing an empire vs making an empire work for you

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Say you have an ally and are enthusiastic about the relationship. If there is a misunderstanding, you know, the length of time you have been best friends then modulates the change in mood.
"This is odd. It must be a misunderstanding due to cultural differences and communication issues..."

But if it keeps happening, then the outlook drops to a lower value.
"This is weird. What the heck are they doing?"

And then it gets worse.
"I'm not happy about this changing policy. This isn't good for our diplomatic relationship."

See it's not all or nothing but increments or decrements as a function of the consistency of diplomatic relations and the degree of outlook or mood.

So the Terrans shouldn't just backstab an ally of many hundreds of turns. It would be weird. That would be acting mercurial..ie suddenly impulsively acting in rash inexplicable ways.

Teenagers are immature and so their emotional development is limited, and the insulation on their neurons is actually in formation, thus causing short circuiting and risky rash behavior. They love someone then despise someone.

You don't want a teenage despot running the Terran empire.
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Omega Alliance

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Consider the Omega sandbox turn#700 advanced saved game.
viewtopic.php?f=107&t=7294&start=75
They have learned all research. Hunger does not exist. Millions are in the treasury. Mining is maxed out in all or most resources. Many are so loyal they are devoted. The Omega colonies and homesector simply cannot be invaded...so all are perfectly safe.

It's a utopia...but problems are arising among some minor alien members. You see, they are not the Terran Coalition. The Omega are written to resist forming treaties and wage war instead. But the Omega colonies are fine.

What sectors are dropping in morale are minor alien members. Now this is weird. They have their own ethos, but have been adopted, and so they now want military victories.

I must give them war or as a leader, I will have no peace, despite creating a utopia.

See, I can fix this by modding the moral.data, but that seems wrong. BotE should be challenging.

What I can do is mod the buildings so morale is higher, but that feels like cheating.

What seems correct and good are "wonder buildings". The Omega Alliance would likely build grand projects, especially on minor alien homesectors, that would please them.

I already built everything that helps them and every building that they want. What I need to do as a leader is build what they need that would satisfy them to distract them from wanting victories.
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Re: Choosing an empire vs making an empire work for you

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Without that, over the next 200 turns as terraforming of the galaxy takes place, then colonizations will happen every turn, and modulate the empire-wide morale score. The galaxy will not be barren, but a place where anyone could live in security and own land.

But every minor alien race will drift lower unless I let the minor races members live vicariously through military conquest, even if they are pacifists!

So the only way, and this is the easiest difficulty, is to keep making wonder projects like massive world parks that restore the ecosystem. Or the eradication of disease. Or the reduction of aging. Or free education for all either as craftsmen, or professionals or as artists.
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Re: Choosing an empire vs making an empire work for you

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On harder difficulties after turn #700, what might happen is a series of revolts as homesectors of minor races want autonomy and self-determination, despite living in a utopia...that they never could afford or create.

Then the Omega would have to decide is squashing revolts or allowing this as an evolutionary process and the cost of being an enlightened benevolent people.

But I think what would happen...is the Omega colonies would resent these revolts and grow angry and think the leadership is too kind.
"He's gone soft as cheese. Next thing all 150 minor aliens will all be under their own authority after our taxes paid for their infrastructure. We've been duped!"
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