Alright. Now that I finally have a working version of this (Buildings only for now, but the issue solves would have prevented any other segment from working), I'm going to post about it. ;)

First off, here's the post I'm basing this on.

I'll copy this across from the team forum - it shows roughly what I have in mind, though the causes of alignment shift would be far more numerous than the examples given. Broader Alignments is basically still the same mod Grey Fox made and I imported around 020-ish. It has always been considered "to be finished", but is basically untouched to date.

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Team Forum Post
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The original plan - each change had a rate and a maximum shift. Public Healers for instance might be +2 rate and a maximum shift of +300, meaning that it continues to add +2 to your alignment every turn until it reached +300, then it is no longer counted. Likewise there could be negative modifiers and these are all summed to get an overall "per turn" modifier.

If the total shift for a value would take it beyond the limit, only enough to reach the limit is added.

Runes of Kilmorph - +5 per turn, max shift of 200
Fend for themselves - -1 per turn, max shift of -100

Turn 1
Alignment: 194
Valid shifts: Runes (+5), Fend -+1)
Net shift: +4

Turn 2
Alignment: 198
Valid shifts: Runes (+2), Fend (-1)
Net shift: +1

Turn 3
Alignment: 199
Valid Shifts: Runes (+1), Fend (-1)
Net shift: +0

(stabilized at 199)

===

With Order (+7, +450) and Healers (+2, +200)
Fend (-1, -100) and Slavery (-3, -200)

Turn 1
Alignment: 194
Valid shifts: Order (+7), Healers (+2), Fend (-1), Slavery (-3)
Net shift: +5

Turn 2
Alignment: 199
Valid shifts: Order (+7), Healers (+1), Fend (-1), Slavery (-3)
Net shift: +4

Turn 3
Alignment: 203
Valid shifts: Order (+7), Healers (+0), Fend (-1), Slavery (-3)
Net shift: +3

Turn 4
Alignment: 206
Valid shifts: Order (+7), Healers (+0), Fend (-1), Slavery (-3)
Net shift: +3

(increases until it gets close to 450)

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The problem arises where two values reach the limit at the same time...
Runes and Healers (+5/+2, both max at +200)
Fend and Slavery (-1 and -3)

Turn 1
Alignment: 194
Valid shifts: Runes (+5), Healers (+2), Fend (-1), Slavery (-3)
Net shift: +3

Turn 2
Alignment: 199
Valid shifts: Runes (+1), Healers (+1), Fend (-1), Slavery (-3)
Net shift: -2

Turn 3
Alignment: 197
Valid shifts: Runes (+3), Healers (+2), Fend (-1), Slavery (-3)
Net shift: +1

Turn 4
Alignment: 198
Valid shifts: Runes (+2), Healers (+2), Fend (-1), Slavery (-3)
Net shift: +0

(stabilized at 198, but has the oscillation at 199/197 - which is confusing for players.

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Now, we'll be applying alignment shifts to Buildings, Units, Civics, Religions, and Events. Nothing else particularly needs the mechanic, and some like Units will get it but probably won't use it. This will quite honestly be applied mostly to Civics/Religions, with a few important buildings as well. It will still be a much more dynamic system. ;)

Now, for the point of this post... Which items should have the new tags? How quickly should they shift your alignment? I'd like to hear what you all think.

And no, this is NOT all that's planned for the BA expansion... The other aspect is being kept secret for now. :p

I'll add some screenshots soon.

Here's a screenshot of how the information is displayed (This building was edited for testing purposes only):

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc310/Valkrionn/Civ4ScreenShot0008.jpg

Well -5 seems a bit strong for a single building, when thats what having RoK will give in total :p

None of the values posted are any more than an example. ;)

I used -5 to test the system, because I wanted to make sure it cut out at it's max. Was using the Emperor, so it's only 20 turns of shift to get him to the max there. ;)

Ahh, will spells also be making alignment shifts? Like sanctify would be a positive, while all the death spells would be producing negatives for example.

Not at all. Spells are one-time effects... They can already increase/decrease your alignment when cast, so they don't need a lasting effect. Events are problematic enough, as they don't leave much behind... Need to set them up completely differently from the others. ;)

That said, more spells will be getting simple alignment modifiers... As will more units and buildings. The Shift mechanic will be saved for large things. ;)

Not at all. Spells are one-time effects... They can already increase/decrease your alignment when cast, so they don't need a lasting effect. Events are problematic enough, as they don't leave much behind... Need to set them up completely differently from the others. ;)

That said, more spells will be getting simple alignment modifiers... As will more units and buildings. The Shift mechanic will be saved for large things. ;)

Sweet :D, i was thinking possibly Master Destroyer having a negative shift mechanic too, while a master protector having a positive(those are the names right, i haven't got to the stage to use the new arcane mastery promotions?)

Hmm... I'm not so certain that it should be that high for buildings. -5 per turn? On a +- 450 or so point scale? You could have that building in every city, meaning that someone's alignment will rapidly shift from one to another, and if you were to change religions and want to become good or something, you would be unable to destroy these buildings.

With just civics/religions modifying things, it isn't that bad as you don't really get that huge a change due to them, so changes come rather slowly. However, adding buildings, with the player possibly having many buildings, could cause someone to change from good to evil in a mere few turns, and be impossible for them to reverse that change.

I would change it so that individual buildings can only add +-1 or MAYBE 2 at most, with wonders providing more. Or, I would change it so that religion has a much wider effect, but also massively increase the scale - so the scale instead of being +- 450ish, would be more like +- 2000ish. The second option would allow for some buildings to have a greater effect than others, without changing your alignment too rapidly.

-Colin

Edit: Seems I arrived at the conversation a little late - what I get for typing this up while in class eh?

this is extremely cool, finally broader alignments will be meaningful :D

Having a cap on spells could be worth the time to code though.

As well as coding in a seperate "TowardNeutral" shift tag which will move you toward 0 based on where you are. Caps for that would be defined by an absolute value (so cap of 100 means no closer to 0 than +100 or -100)

Hmm... I'm not so certain that it should be that high for buildings. -5 per turn? On a +- 450 or so point scale? You could have that building in every city, meaning that someone's alignment will rapidly shift from one to another, and if you were to change religions and want to become good or something, you would be unable to destroy these buildings.

With just civics/religions modifying things, it isn't that bad as you don't really get that huge a change due to them, so changes come rather slowly. However, adding buildings, with the player possibly having many buildings, could cause someone to change from good to evil in a mere few turns, and be impossible for them to reverse that change.

I would change it so that individual buildings can only add +-1 or MAYBE 2 at most, with wonders providing more. Or, I would change it so that religion has a much wider effect, but also massively increase the scale - so the scale instead of being +- 450ish, would be more like +- 2000ish. The second option would allow for some buildings to have a greater effect than others, without changing your alignment too rapidly.

-Colin

Edit: Seems I arrived at the conversation a little late - what I get for typing this up while in class eh?

Yeah, -5 is just for testing. I needed it to work fast. :lol:

That said, I'm actually thinking of increasing the alignment scale, for the exact reason you listed. ;)

Gekko;8610443']this is extremely cool, finally broader alignments will be meaningful :D

My thoughts here too. ;) I've always played with it on, as it's better than flat alignments... But I've always thought it could be improved too. This won't make it perfect, but it IS better IMO. :mischief:



Now, for some screenies... They were delayed while I set it up to allow the changes to stabilize. Initially, it would use the buildings full shift each turn, even if that took it over it's max...

Background: I set the Asylum as shown (-5 per turn, to -200) and the Infirmary to +1, with a max of 500. To test, I ran with JUST the Asylum for 15 turns as the Emperor... Dropped me to -175. I then added the Asylum, and my alignment began decreasing by 4, rather than 5, each turn. Once I hit -199, however, I dropped to -203, climbed back to -199, and dropped again. Wasn't stabilizing.

So I added code to check the difference between your alignment and the target alignment of the building... If smaller than the shift from the building (it's shift, multiplied by the number you have), we use the difference rather than the shift.

I then set it up exactly the same way. At -199, rather than decrease by the full amount, it should only be able to drop by 1... The same amount the Infirmary should increase it by. I hit enter, and.... Still -199. :goodjob:

Screenies: Initial Alignment:http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc310/Valkrionn/Civilization/InitialAlignment.jpg
15 Turns Later:http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc310/Valkrionn/Civilization/15TurnsLater.jpg
Hit 199... Going over? (Sorry about the Hill Giant icon, didn't notice it when I took the screenie):http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc310/Valkrionn/Civilization/Hit199willitgoover.jpg
Apparently not. ;)http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc310/Valkrionn/Civilization/Apparentlynot.jpg

Having a cap on spells could be worth the time to code though.

As well as coding in a seperate "TowardNeutral" shift tag which will move you toward 0 based on where you are. Caps for that would be defined by an absolute value (so cap of 100 means no closer to 0 than +100 or -100)

Yeah, I actually already thought about that. :lol: Was thinking I'd need a "TowardsNeutral" shift, just haven't added it yet. ;)

Spells should be able to use the same function as the Events pretty easily.... Or do you mean just adding a cap to place on the spell's standard alignment change?

I think he meant doing something like this (at least, this is what I thought of):

Sanctify
Increase alignment +1
cap 200

So it would increase your alignment by +1 every time it was cast, unless your alignment was already over 200.

-Colin

Yeah, that's what I meant by the 'or do you mean... ' part. ;)

That one would be very easy to add.

Wont this system polarize civilization into Good and Evil nations with no space for Neutral?

The only way to remain Neutral is to start at Neutral and then not having any per turn change. And since most good civics will have a per turn effect I don't see that happening.

It's the current system except civics other than religion can change alignment and the alignment change takes time to happen.

I'd add a decay towards zero of about 3+|current alignment|*.02 . Thus you'd need +13 "Goodness" incoming just to maintain +500 alignment, and more than that to get to +500 in the first place. If you have less than 3 alignment incoming per turn you will eventually become Neutral, you just don't care enough.

Having alignment decay would also provide a measuring stick, something to compare sources to in order to know what is high and what is low.

On another note, with decay per turn you wouldn't need maximum alignment for the various sources.


It so hard to maintain a pure purpose. I mean I used to kill slaves, oppress peasants and sacrifice maidens all day. Then to increase my wealth and productivity a little I built some farms, since well fed peasants work harder than starving ones; a hospital, so injured peasants can get back to work sooner; and a goldmine, to issue coins emblazoned with my own profile. I even stopped killing slaves as they are needed to build a 50 meter high statue of my fist with the middle finger extended at the border to Elohim country. And I've run out of maidens!

Suddenly I'm known as Lord Odalrick the Benevolent and I'm apparently the architect of a never-ending golden age.

Wont this system polarize civilization into Good and Evil nations with no space for Neutral?

The only way to remain Neutral is to start at Neutral and then not having any per turn change. And since most good civics will have a per turn effect I don't see that happening.

It's the current system except civics other than religion can change alignment and the alignment change takes time to happen.

I'd add a decay towards zero of about 3+|current alignment|*.02 . Thus you'd need +13 "Goodness" incoming just to maintain +500 alignment, and more than that to get to +500 in the first place. If you have less than 3 alignment incoming per turn you will eventually become Neutral, you just don't care enough.

Having alignment decay would also provide a measuring stick, something to compare sources to in order to know what is high and what is low.

On another note, with decay per turn you wouldn't need maximum alignment for the various sources.


It so hard to maintain a pure purpose. I mean I used to kill slaves, oppress peasants and sacrifice maidens all day. Then to increase my wealth and productivity a little I built some farms, since well fed peasants work harder than starving ones; a hospital, so injured peasants can get back to work sooner; and a goldmine, to issue coins emblazoned with my own profile. I even stopped killing slaves as they are needed to build a 50 meter high statue of my fist with the middle finger extended at the border to Elohim country. And I've run out of maidens!

Suddenly I'm known as Lord Odalrick the Benevolent and I'm apparently the architect of a never-ending golden age.

Not at all. First off, as Xienwolf suggested, I'll be adding a 'Towards Neutral' mod. If the tag is enabled, the shift will move you towards 0. Second, not all religions or civics will move you towards good or Evil... FoL is Neutral. Certain other things will be Neutral, but that relies on the other aspect of this. :lol:

Adding a decay to alignment wouldn't be a bad idea, though. I'll think about adding that in. ;)

Oh, Valk, Valk, Valk =[

YOU DONE IT AGAIN! =] You added an extremely cool feature =] And, I think that the alignments need increasing.
Perhaps to -1000<-->1000 or higher?

I was actually thinking larger than that, honestly. Maybe even scale it exactly as is now, but increase it by a factor of 10? Would mean -5110 to 5110.... Plenty of room.

I dont think the alignment needs a wider range; I'm not even sure what the alignment trait does in terms of gameplay, except bind groups together when it comes to voting and stuff like that.

Nifty feature though, I guess

If the Alignment is getting more dynamic, what about closer integration into the game mechanics? Some random ideas:

(a) Diplomacy: e.g. a good civ cannot declare on another good civ; backstabbing giving you an evil reputation
(b) research/tech trading: some stuff is just off limits if you are too evil/good
(c) Religions: e.g good civs cannot switch to ashen veil
(d) more units/buildings requiring a certain alignment range
(e) Using steeper alignment modifiers if you are acting grossly "out of alignment"

O.K., sounds a little bit unfun, most of it about things you are NOT allowed to do :lol:, but this might be leading to the formation of more lore appropriate power/culture blocks.

Alignment affects whether or not certain buildings/units can be built, which events can occur, and so on.

Honestly, it's main draw is for RP. Which is something I tend to do when playing a game... I play in character. Usually more creative characters, but still, in character. :lol:

There will likely be a few more units/buildings that require a certain alignment... Promotions and spells too, maybe.

Alignment affects whether or not certain buildings/units can be built, which events can occur, and so on.

Honestly, it's main draw is for RP. Which is something I tend to do when playing a game... I play in character. Usually more creative characters, but still, in character. :lol:

There will likely be a few more units/buildings that require a certain alignment... Promotions and spells too, maybe.

Well, I can relate to the roleplaying aspect - But it would be immensly helpful if like above poster stated, there were in-game system impacts on whether or not you went evil / good / neutral, besides being able to build new buildings or not.

I think that if you were good, and backstabbed another good civilization, your population would probably be pretty miffed and want to have you removed from your post.

Honestly, I'm of the belief that your alignment shouldn't affect (overly much) what actions you are able to take. It SHOULD however, reflect those actions.

I really like the Broader Alignment option, but it seems kind of useless, because of the rigid categorys good, neutral and evil.
I always wondered why it doesnt matter to the AI if your alignment is +100 or -100. Is it possible to implement a system, were the diplomacy modifier is dependent on the difference in alignment?

For example: Cardith is at 300. Your own alignment is 250, so you get +3 "you think like us". If you are at 200 (or 400) you get a lesser bonus. But even at 150 (technically neutral), he could still like you, because you are close to him. And the penalty for evil alignment would get worse, the lower your alignment is.

Honestly, I'm of the belief that your alignment shouldn't affect (overly much) what actions you are able to take. It SHOULD however, reflect those actions.

If you don't like inhibiting "inappropiate" actions, what about encouraging "appropriate" behaviour by giving out discounts on techs/units/buildings?

I really like the Broader Alignment option, but it seems kind of useless, because of the rigid categorys good, neutral and evil.
I always wondered why it doesnt matter to the AI if your alignment is +100 or -100. Is it possible to implement a system, were the diplomacy modifier is dependent on the difference in alignment?

For example: Cardith is at 300. Your own alignment is 250, so you get +3 "you think like us". If you are at 200 (or 400) you get a lesser bonus. But even at 150 (technically neutral), he could still like you, because you are close to him. And the penalty for evil alignment would get worse, the lower your alignment is.

Hmm... Would be complicated, but it would be more fitting than what we have now. I'll work on it. ;)

If you don't like inhibiting "inappropiate" actions, what about encouraging "appropriate" behaviour by giving out discounts on techs/units/buildings?

This would also be interesting... And would be a good way to allow you to play the way you want, while giving an incentive for sticking to a particular alignment.

I've added a 'ShiftTowardsNeutral' mechanic, allowed for shifts without a max or min (Just keeps going forever), and have now expanded it to Civics. ;)

Reguarding rewarding apropriate actions/alighnments, how about giving players some incentives to play new ways as well? Let's say the amurite gets discounts for researching magic techs depending on alignment. Evil Amurites might get a discount when researching Necromancy, good Amurites might have a discount for Divination, while Amurites who stay neutral might get a discount on Elementalism and Alteration. It would still be "better" to stay neutral, but you don't penalize yourself (or the AI) by choosing to go another way.

I wish you great luck with the system, but you're risking the old D&D debates re: alignment, event by event, building by building, choice by choice.

Example, that old Witch event, where you don't kill anyone on the whim of the people (no effect) or kill her (+1 :) for 10 turns), is that Good, or Evil? Or maybe more appropriately, would that be an in character action for the particular leader and/or Civ you've chosen? Amurites might be horrified at killing her, Bannor might want to hang 'er high.

Again, if you want to start assigning weights to all sorts of things, there's going to be "Broader Opinions" about the topic as well. Werewolf event made me evil? Made me good? Or both options gave me a Neutral shift? Letting Gaelan do his experiments in order to produce the Hero result to the event chain, is that Evil? What about if you're Amurites? Hiring a group of Balseraph mercenaries out for a good time, is that G, N, E, or none of the above? One of them is a Taskmaster who takes slaves so is that Evil?

Anyhow, sounds a bit like a pain to do, in support of Roleplay which may not always marry up well with the numbers the system would produce, with the main, hard mechanical results being eligibility to build Pallies, Eidolons or Druids, as well as the diplomatic bonus/malus depending where you sat alignment-wise in relation to other civs.

While the topic of reworking the alignments is up, I will bring back an old suggestion (can't remember where it was, so sorry to whoever wrote it...) A four axis aligmnet system. Good-Evil and Lawful-Chaotic. (yay for complexity :p)

There is a big indeep dilema for what is good or what not ... I.E. eating meat to survive is this evil? Probably not ... but eating meat from a intelligent creature is this eavil? And if so who declear a creature intelligent? So if a Jotnar is eating on smaller races its not evil at its base because for them Goblins and co are simply catle. To bring it to a point evil and good is most of the time just who your asking about it.

As a philosophy major specializing in ethical theory, I will quite happily dive into the at least dozens of debates that will probably spring up from an expansion of the alignment system. I'm not saying don't do it, quite the opposite in fact, just be aware of how very very deep the rabbit hole goes.

There is a big indeep dilema for what is good or what not ... I.E. eating meat to survive is this evil? Probably not ... but eating meat from a intelligent creature is this eavil? And if so who declear a creature intelligent? So if a Jotnar is eating on smaller races its not evil at its base because for them Goblins and co are simply catle. To bring it to a point evil and good is most of the time just who your asking about it.

You remind me of an interpretation of natural law --with a splash of determinism-- from a comical satire of Voltaire.

"...for natural law teaches us to kill our neighbor, and that's how people behave all over the world. If we don't exercise the right to eat him, it's because we have other things to make a good meal of. But you don't have the same resources as we do, and it's certainly better to eat your enemies than abandon the fruit of your victory to crows and ravens."(Candide by Voltaire, Ch 16)

--
Out of curiosity...what is the alignment in RifE meant to reflect? The civilization? The leader? The destiny of the civ?

--
If you don't like inhibiting "inappropiate" actions, what about encouraging "appropriate" behaviour by giving out discounts on techs/units/buildings?

That would seem to be a more playable method of having alignments affect gameplay.

Reguarding rewarding apropriate actions/alighnments, how about giving players some incentives to play new ways as well? Let's say the amurite gets discounts for researching magic techs depending on alignment. Evil Amurites might get a discount when researching Necromancy, good Amurites might have a discount for Divination, while Amurites who stay neutral might get a discount on Elementalism and Alteration. It would still be "better" to stay neutral, but you don't penalize yourself (or the AI) by choosing to go another way.

That would certainly be possible, but then I have to tie the discounts not just to alignment, but to civ/leader... Will think about it.

I wish you great luck with the system, but you're risking the old D&D debates re: alignment, event by event, building by building, choice by choice.

Example, that old Witch event, where you don't kill anyone on the whim of the people (no effect) or kill her (+1 :) for 10 turns), is that Good, or Evil? Or maybe more appropriately, would that be an in character action for the particular leader and/or Civ you've chosen? Amurites might be horrified at killing her, Bannor might want to hang 'er high.

Again, if you want to start assigning weights to all sorts of things, there's going to be "Broader Opinions" about the topic as well. Werewolf event made me evil? Made me good? Or both options gave me a Neutral shift? Letting Gaelan do his experiments in order to produce the Hero result to the event chain, is that Evil? What about if you're Amurites? Hiring a group of Balseraph mercenaries out for a good time, is that G, N, E, or none of the above? One of them is a Taskmaster who takes slaves so is that Evil?

Anyhow, sounds a bit like a pain to do, in support of Roleplay which may not always marry up well with the numbers the system would produce, with the main, hard mechanical results being eligibility to build Pallies, Eidolons or Druids, as well as the diplomatic bonus/malus depending where you sat alignment-wise in relation to other civs.

Yeah, I'm aware that alot of it will be argued over. Honestly, the whole intent of bringing it up now was to get a jumpstart on it. ;)

Alot of events will need to be changed. I'm still not sure whether or not I'll allow them to have effects that take place over time (the new setup) or not... If I do, they'll still, in the end, be one-time effects. They'll affect your alignment for a certain number of turns, and then fade.

While the topic of reworking the alignments is up, I will bring back an old suggestion (can't remember where it was, so sorry to whoever wrote it...) A four axis aligmnet system. Good-Evil and Lawful-Chaotic. (yay for complexity :p)

.....................:mischief:

Let's just put it this way... There's a reason I'm diving into reworking BA the way I want. Need it set up right before I can do something else.

As a philosophy major specializing in ethical theory, I will quite happily dive into the at least dozens of debates that will probably spring up from an expansion of the alignment system. I'm not saying don't do it, quite the opposite in fact, just be aware of how very very deep the rabbit hole goes.

Yeah, it's a rather deep one. ;)

You remind me of an interpretation of natural law --with a splash of determinism-- from a comical satire of Voltaire.

--
Out of curiosity...what is the alignment in RifE meant to reflect? The civilization? The leader? The destiny of the civ?

--

That would seem to be a more playable method of having alignments affect gameplay.

Alignment is the way the Leader treats his civilization, the way he interacts with other leaders, and so on. It's also the way the world SEES him to be... For example, religions will keep their instant effects (these go away when you switch religions), which represent the difference in the way other leaders now see you. They'll also have per-turn effects (already added these in, and these are permanent) that slowly build up, representing the way the charade has, in the end, changed you. ;)


And I agree, discounts are a way to allow alignments to affect gameplay without restricting you. Already planning how to put them in.

From this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=270588

(I've bold-ed statements which I feel are the most relevant here)
A lot of this depends on how you define Good. If good is really "good," then Einion and Ethne would be the top two and Basium would be much lower than Cassiel.

I guess the definition of "Anti-Evil" probably fits better. In that case I'd probably say:

Good as they get

Basium ~+400
Sabathiel ~+370
Capria ~ +330
Cardith ~ +320
Varn ~ +310
Einion ~+300
Ethne ~+290
Arendel ~+240
Garrim ~+175
Beeri ~+175

Arturus ~+150
Kandros ~+150
Dain ~+60
Rhoanna ~+50
Falamar ~+45
Amelanchier ~+20
Sandalphon ~+5
-----------
Cassiel ~0
-----------
Thessa ~-15
Tasunke ~-30
Valledia ~-60
Hannah ~-160


Mahala ~-175
Auric ~-180
Sheelba ~-200
Charadon ~-220
Jonas ~ -230
Faeryl ~-240
Keelyn ~-250
Perpentach ~-290
Flauros ~-310
Alexis ~-330
Os-Gabella ~-360
Tebryn ~ -360
Hyborem ~-400
Eviler than Skeletor



The leaders listed are only base FFH.

No, Evil are the gods who rebel against the One and seek to harm humanity. Good are the ones who fight Evil and try to protect humanity. Neutral are the ones who stay out of the conflict and stick to their original purpose. Still, the line between good and neutral is mostly man made, and can be unclear at times.


All the Evil gods willingly signed the compact. Although Mulcarn broke the compact (as did Basium and Hyborem later), most Evil gods are still supportive of it. They managed to get enough provisions in it that they can violate the spirit of the agreement but not the letter of the law, and so can use it to defend their actions.

Cassiel was opposed to such provisions. Although the compact was his idea, he did not think it went far enough and so chose to fall.

In FfH Good is mostly defined by being opposed to evil, not by the ethics of the leader. While Cassiel is one of the most ethical leaders, he is the least fanatical or partisan one. My good-evil spectrum was really an anti-evil-evil spectrum, in which case Cassiel should be neutral; in his view, either extreme is really evil and balance is good.

This argument of what is good/evil has been had many times over in the lore forums. The important distinction that must be made here is that these are FFH good and evil and are completely separate from morality. While I enjoy philosophical discussions, they are unnecessary here and would only go off topic.

The change in alignment of civics/buildings/religions should reflect the above. Anything that opposes evil should be + and anything that harms humanity's existence or threatens creation should be evil.

Example, that old Witch event, where you don't kill anyone on the whim of the people (no effect) or kill her (+1 for 10 turns), is that Good, or Evil? Or maybe more appropriately, would that be an in character action for the particular leader and/or Civ you've chosen? Amurites might be horrified at killing her, Bannor might want to hang 'er high.


Is the "witch" a disciple of AV? Order? FoL? If we assume she's evil, then killing her would be good (opposing evil) and letting her live is neutral (just leave her be). If she is wrongly accused (which is what I assume the event is meant to represent), then killing her would be evil (harming humanity), letting her live would be neutral. The happy bonus would stay on the kill her option because the event says that's what the people want, hence the +1 :), but what the people want is independent of the good/evil scale. (Unless you want to make the event incredibly complicated and determine what the people want based off your Civ/Alignment/Religion combination and create choices that cover all the bases, which is not worth it for 1 event. Also, this is a Civ game. Since when do you care about what your people want? :p).

I must say, from a utilitarian point of view, 1 life for a 23 size city gaining 1 happiness might in fact be considered a 'good' thing --as apposed to being harmful--.

I suppose you nearly escape the philosophical struggle by defining good as opposed to evil; but, "anything that harms humanity's existence or threatens creation" is certainly debatable --until mod-mandated anyway--. Therefore what evil is will be debated. Without evil defined, good looses cohesion as well, because it's definition is dependent of evil's.

What is harmful to humanity --and it's existence--? That is then the question.

I wonder if a hypothetical Bannor civ, who cut down every tree on a continent to make spears to fight evil --and in doing so, forever changed creation--, would be evil or good?

Evil in FfH is most clearly opposition to the One, or worship of those gods who oppose him.

Given that, I would think anything that embraces their spheres could also be called evil... Greed, unnecessary violence, so on. ;)

So, alignment is your perceived negative traits balanced against how much you are perceived to be against those negative traits?

It would be nice if you could just hide your movements--religion, civics, etc.-- within your own borders; then, your enemies would not be able to see the handy dandy alignment indicator.

Perhaps that should be how espionage is reincarnated, a search for information to judge your rivals.

Though, it is a bit odd that the opinions of your rivals dictate how quickly hell terrain spreads.

What about AI weighting based on leader alignment? I only fear in the end the AI leaders would all homogenize to some extent as they created the same buildings and units and picked the same civics, based on utility rather than morality. IE if you built every building possible in a city there would be a net shift in some direction, and if every AI eventually got to that point, they'd all end up very similar in alignment.

From my understanding there already is weighting in place for religion, but I don't know if it's possible for individual buildings, which is why I ask.

Very few buildings/units will have large affects. The majority of what you'll see in game is for religions/civics.... And I'm planning to start fresh with civics. ;)

.... And I'm planning to start fresh with civics. ;)

Does this mean what I think it means?? Are you going to redo the civics? If so, I can't wait. I love new shiny things to develop strategies around. :goodjob:

Yes it does, that will be done alongside this rework here.

To get an idea of what I'll be doing, check this old mod out: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=319109

If you check a few posts down, you'll find where I took the time to write up the data from ALL civics he put in. ;)

I won't be doing anything EXACTLY like that, but you get the basic idea... Each civic option has a defined job, and civics within it do that job and only that job. No blob civics, and no ridiculously strong ones... Going for interesting combinations, tough choices. ;)

We WILL have at least two starting civic options, btw. ;)

On alignment decay: All alignmentshifts are stored in a separate variable from the standard alignment, so I can decay JUST this value and have your alignment eventually return to the base value if no input is put in. Here's the question, though.... How should I set this up? Constant? Chance each turn for a small shift back? Only after a certain number of turns with no shift? At the moment, I'm thinking the last one, but it's a bit more work.. What do you think?

Edit: Think I'll go with the last one after all. Set it up to use globaldefines, easy to tweak... Currently if your alignment doesn't shift in 5 turns, it'll decay back to the leader's base amount by 5.

A constant decay would be the easiest to do and dial in to a reasonable value. I would start with a decay of the square root of the alignment shift. This means if you shift 100 away (example #, I would need to know the scale and shift numbers to give more accurate examples), then a per turn shift of 10 is needed to stay at a constant 100 away. This combined with the limits of a source should make it so that one can stray easily, but has to make an effort for big deviations.

An addition to this, which is up to you if you want it in, is to change the Base alignment per turn in addition to the alignment shift changing per turn. The Base change could be a small fraction (or some higher power root) of the total current alignment shift. Example: with Base +200 Current Shift +100 Next turn current shift changes by X and Base changes by 4.5 (approximately the cube root of 100). This represents the leader changing over time, but will mean any leader can reach any alignment if they try hard or long enough.

A constant decay would be the easiest to do and dial in to a reasonable value. I would start with a decay of the square root of the alignment shift. This means if you shift 100 away (example #, I would need to know the scale and shift numbers to give more accurate examples), then a per turn shift of 10 is needed to stay at a constant 100 away. This combined with the limits of a source should make it so that one can stray easily, but has to make an effort for big deviations.

An addition to this, which is up to you if you want it in, is to change the Base alignment per turn in addition to the alignment shift changing per turn. The Base change could be a small fraction (or some higher power root) of the total current alignment shift. Example: with Base +200 Current Shift +100 Next turn current shift changes by X and Base changes by 4.5 (approximately the cube root of 100). This represents the leader changing over time, but will mean any leader can reach any alignment if they try hard or long enough.

After a bit of thought, I agree. A constant decay, scaling to the AMOUNT of shift, is best. This means you must work harder to get to the extremes... Which is as it should be.

As for changing the base alignment... Not really possible. Best you can do is make yet another stored variable, and use that. The game calculates alignment fresh EVERY turn... At first I wasn't sure of why, but Grey Fox DID have a reason for it. Simplest way to make the effects of civics/religions only take effect when you actually FOLLOW this civics or religions. As a result though, there's no base value for the alignment that you can change easily.

Edit: Looks like I got the decay working... For now, the shift you accumulate each turn is decreased by the square root of the shift, or something approximating it... It's rounded, as it moves from an int (whole number) to float(decimal), takes the sqr root, then back to an int. Won't be EXACT except for perfect squares. ;)

Edit2: Also decided to make a new tracking variable after all. Every few turns (have it at 5) the sqr root of the current total shift will be added to this new variable. Think of it as the permanent shift, not subject to decay. ;)

I look forward to playing with the new system. I liked the idea of BA, but didn't like the previous implementation because most things ended up turning you evil and still felt very static. This one looks to be much more dynamic and hopefully it will end up being balanced on the good-neutral-evil scale.

After a bit of thought, I agree. A constant decay, scaling to the AMOUNT of shift, is best. This means you must work harder to get to the extremes... Which is as it should be.

I'm going to point out the obvious:

Your current plan of having decay proportional to the square root of current shift means that small alignment incomes will have a lesser effect than large alignment incomes.

That is if going from +0 "goodness" per turn to +10 "goodness" will ultimately shift your alignment by +100 (where decay per turn equals -10 "goodness"), then going from +10 to +20 will have a net effect of +300 alignment.

This is possibly intentional; as you get more "goodness" income, it is harder to find additional sources.

If decay is proportional to the square of current shift, then small incomes will have a greater effect. If going from +0 to +10 shifts alignment by net +100, then going from +10 to +20 would shift by +41 . This would be more appropriate if a high alignment means more "goodness" income, for instance by enabling buildings that give "goodness".

If decay is proportional to current shift, then small incomes will have the same effect as large incomes, Going from +0 to +10 and from +10 to +20 will both shift alignment by net +100 .

Having a "banking" effect, permanent alignment shifts, means that any income will eventually take you to the maximum. Also, with a banking proportional to square root of current shift, being slightly Good over a long period will have a greater effect than being very Good for a short time.

If it was me, I'd just write decay as:

(Python code, but there must be some function in C++ that raises a number to an arbitrary power.)decay = shift_scale * pow( abs(current_shift) , shift_power )

and load shift_scale and shift_power from xml.

To use the current plan of square root shift_power would be set to 0.5 , but more importantly it would be trivial to change to linear (shift_power=1) or square (shift_power=2) or anything.

I also advocate a similar system for the banking effect.

None of the values posted are any more than an example. ;)

I used -5 to test the system, because I wanted to make sure it cut out at it's max. Was using the Emperor, so it's only 20 turns of shift to get him to the max there. ;)
Posting examples are always dangerous business ;)

Some sugestions:

One could divide the alignment into 2 axis, one for the leader and one for the population. The leader axis would represent the basic good-evil, and the population one represents opression (or maybe lawfullness) versus decadence. Population would feel more sympathetic towards states with the same population alignment. This could be used for simulating war weariness (we don't like it that you attack people we can relate to, or "we tolerate this war with the goal to free oppressed people), simulating trade with trade routes to alike people being more profitable,...
I guess that decadent people feel more comfortable around other decadent people, and the oposite lawfull people feel more comfortable around lawfull people, and lawfull people feel sympathetic towards oppressed people and vice versa. Now that i think about it what i propose sure feels a lot like good-evil and lawfull-chaotic, with oppressed people being lawfully evil.

Second one could make alignments more interesting by adding short term diplomatic modifiers for acting out of character. Suppose I have a good alignment and I raze a city. Fellow good leaders have a huge limited term negative modifier "We are shocked by what you did". Evil leaders get the positive modifier: "We see that you are finally joining our side".

Anyway which way it goes, i see that these expanded broader alignments have a lot to add to the game experience.

Will broader alignments still be optional? If the civic systems --or anything else-- depend to heavily on the new alignment mechanics, then the optionality might need to be removed.

I look forward to playing with the new system. I liked the idea of BA, but didn't like the previous implementation because most things ended up turning you evil and still felt very static. This one looks to be much more dynamic and hopefully it will end up being balanced on the good-neutral-evil scale.

That's what I'm hoping, yes. ;)

I'm going to point out the obvious:

Your current plan of having decay proportional to the square root of current shift means that small alignment incomes will have a lesser effect than large alignment incomes.

That is if going from +0 "goodness" per turn to +10 "goodness" will ultimately shift your alignment by +100 (where decay per turn equals -10 "goodness"), then going from +10 to +20 will have a net effect of +300 alignment.

This is possibly intentional; as you get more "goodness" income, it is harder to find additional sources.

If decay is proportional to the square of current shift, then small incomes will have a greater effect. If going from +0 to +10 shifts alignment by net +100, then going from +10 to +20 would shift by +41 . This would be more appropriate if a high alignment means more "goodness" income, for instance by enabling buildings that give "goodness".

If decay is proportional to current shift, then small incomes will have the same effect as large incomes, Going from +0 to +10 and from +10 to +20 will both shift alignment by net +100 .

Having a "banking" effect, permanent alignment shifts, means that any income will eventually take you to the maximum. Also, with a banking proportional to square root of current shift, being slightly Good over a long period will have a greater effect than being very Good for a short time.

If it was me, I'd just write decay as:

(Python code, but there must be some function in C++ that raises a number to an arbitrary power.)decay = shift_scale * pow( abs(current_shift) , shift_power )and load shift_scale and shift_power from xml.

To use the current plan of square root shift_power would be set to 0.5 , but more importantly it would be trivial to change to linear (shift_power=1) or square (shift_power=2) or anything.

I also advocate a similar system for the banking effect.

To be honest, I already thought about that and changed the decay to the sqr of the TOTAL shift, not just for that turn. Means the loss is proportional to the distance you move from the original alignment, rather than how quickly you do so.

Let's see if I understand your code, here... What exactly are shift_scale and shift_power? Max each source can bring you, and how quickly? If so, won't work quite that way... Decay is currently done after all the loops, so there's no way to load shift_scale.

As for what you're doing... shift_scale * |current_shift shift_power|? Without actually knowing what shift_scale and shift_power are meant to represent, I'm not sure what this will do.

Posting examples are always dangerous business ;)

Apparently so. :lol:

Some sugestions:

One could divide the alignment into 2 axis, one for the leader and one for the population. The leader axis would represent the basic good-evil, and the population one represents opression (or maybe lawfullness) versus decadence. Population would feel more sympathetic towards states with the same population alignment. This could be used for simulating war weariness (we don't like it that you attack people we can relate to, or "we tolerate this war with the goal to free oppressed people), simulating trade with trade routes to alike people being more profitable,...
I guess that decadent people feel more comfortable around other decadent people, and the oposite lawfull people feel more comfortable around lawfull people, and lawfull people feel sympathetic towards oppressed people and vice versa. Now that i think about it what i propose sure feels a lot like good-evil and lawfull-chaotic, with oppressed people being lawfully evil.

Second one could make alignments more interesting by adding short term diplomatic modifiers for acting out of character. Suppose I have a good alignment and I raze a city. Fellow good leaders have a huge limited term negative modifier "We are shocked by what you did". Evil leaders get the positive modifier: "We see that you are finally joining our side".

Anyway which way it goes, i see that these expanded broader alignments have a lot to add to the game experience.

Lawful-Chaotic, huh? I plead the fifth.

Will broader alignments still be optional? If the civic systems --or anything else-- depend to heavily on the new alignment mechanics, then the optionality might need to be removed.

Yeah, it will remain optional. You may get some new units/buildings/civics that require a certain alignment... But if BA isn't in, they'll only require the main alignment, not a certain alignment number.

As for what you're doing... shift_scale * |current_shift shift_power|? Without actually knowing what shift_scale and shift_power are meant to represent, I'm not sure what this will do.

Moved to the top since this is the only really interesting part of the post:

It's exactly the way you have it set up right now, only you could change decay from square root to square to linear by changing a value in an xml file rather than recompiling the dll. Or you could change it to something like proportional to 4/3 root, just as easily.

It would give you more knobs to turn in order to balance it.

To be honest, I already thought about that and changed the decay to the sqr of the TOTAL shift, not just for that turn. Means the loss is proportional to the distance you move from the original alignment, rather than how quickly you do so.

Yes, I understand that. Since you lose alignment based on the total of how much you have shifted, when the current income equals that loss, you have reached the maximum alignment you can get without increasing income. I was talking about how that maximum alignment is affected by changes in income. Yikes, this is hard to explain. I'll try an example.

When you have an income of 0 "goodness" per turn, your maximum alignment is whatever you started with. If you change to <unnamed minor good religion> you get +10 "goodness" each turn. You you will,eventually, shift to the alignment where you lose -10 "goodness" each turn, let's say that alignment is +100 .

Now consider what happens when you change to <unnamed very good religion>. You get +20 "goodness" each turn. What is the new equilibrium when income balances decay?

If decay is proportional to the square root of current shift, then that point is +400 alignment. (This is your current plan according to your posts.)

If decay is proportional to the current shift, then that point is +200 alignment.

If decay is proportional to the square of current shift, then that point is +141 alignment.

Let's see if I understand your code, here... What exactly are shift_scale and shift_power? Max each source can bring you, and how quickly? If so, won't work quite that way... Decay is currently done after all the loops, so there's no way to load shift_scale.


They have nothing to do with income, they only affect decay.

shift_scale and shift_power would be global constants that are loaded when the civ first starts. Like the standard length of golden ages or the attitude adjustment Neutral civs get to Evil civs or for that matter the strength of a Warrior. They'd need to be floats, so maybe more like how much experience the Hero promotion gives per turn.

decay = shift_scale * |current_shift| shift_power

current_shift would be the current total deviation from your base alignment
It needs to be absolute, since otherwise raising it to anything other than even integer values would break things.

shift_power is the power you want decay to scale with. 1/2 for square root as is the current plan.

shift_scale is a fine tuning constant. If you don't have it then 100 alignment can only mean 10 decay. I think you already have it in your code, if nothing else to account for game speed. In the example above shift_scale is 1 . Change it to .5 and the break-even points double. Set it to 0 and there is no decay.

Moved to the top since this is the only really interesting part of the post:

It's exactly the way you have it set up right now, only you could change decay from square root to square to linear by changing a value in an xml file rather than recompiling the dll. Or you could change it to something like proportional to 4/3 root, just as easily.

It would give you more knobs to turn in order to balance it.

Gotcha. I thought you meant an xml tag... What you actually meant was a global define. Yeah, that would make it more configurable.


Yes, I understand that. Since you lose alignment based on the total of how much you have shifted, when the current income equals that loss, you have reached the maximum alignment you can get without increasing income. I was talking about how that maximum alignment is affected by changes in income. Yikes, this is hard to explain. I'll try an example.

When you have an income of 0 "goodness" per turn, your maximum alignment is whatever you started with. If you change to <unnamed minor good religion> you get +10 "goodness" each turn. You you will,eventually, shift to the alignment where you lose -10 "goodness" each turn, let's say that alignment is +100 .

Now consider what happens when you change to <unnamed very good religion>. You get +20 "goodness" each turn. What is the new equilibrium when income balances decay?

If decay is proportional to the square root of current shift, then that point is +400 alignment. (This is your current plan according to your posts.)

If decay is proportional to the current shift, then that point is +200 alignment.

If decay is proportional to the square of current shift, then that point is +141 alignment.

Not sure if you're forgetting this, or ignoring it for your posts... There are TWO tags involved here. The speed of the shift, and the value you can shift to. As an example, say Empy gives you a rate of +5, and a max of +300... What the decay is meant to do is force you to work for extra sources of alignment gain in order to get to extreme alignments. So, say, Hyborem is going to be EXTREMELY hard pressed to get up to Good.


They have nothing to do with income, they only affect decay.

shift_scale and shift_power would be global constants that are loaded when the civ first starts. Like the standard length of golden ages or the attitude adjustment Neutral civs get to Evil civs or for that matter the strength of a Warrior. They'd need to be floats, so maybe more like how much experience the Hero promotion gives per turn.

decay = shift_scale * |current_shift| shift_power

current_shift would be the current total deviation from your base alignment
It needs to be absolute, since otherwise raising it to non-integer values would break things.

shift_power is the power you want decay to scale with. 1/2 for square root as is the current plan.

shift_scale is a fine tuning constant. If you don't have it then 100 alignment can only mean 10 decay. I think you already have it in your code, if nothing else to account for game speed. In the example above shift_scale is 1 . Change it to .5 and the break-even points double.

shift_scale isn't actually in yet, but it IS planned. Just want to get the rest working before I weight it for gamespeed. I would need a second one for the decay I would think... No reason that caps should be different based on gamespeed.

And as for floats... The defines themselves could be, but the result will be converted to an int. To do otherwise would require rewriting the entire alignment system. ;)

Not sure if you're forgetting this, or ignoring it for your posts... There are TWO tags involved here. The speed of the shift, and the value you can shift to. As an example, say Empy gives you a rate of +5, and a max of +300... What the decay is meant to do is force you to work for extra sources of alignment gain in order to get to extreme alignments. So, say, Hyborem is going to be EXTREMELY hard pressed to get up to Good.

I'm ignoring it, as it doesn't really apply.

Having alignment decay puts a maximum alignment shift based on whatever income you can scrape together. Having Empyrean give a maximum of +300 alignment is just another limit and both work separately.

I'm ignoring it, as it doesn't really apply.

Having alignment decay puts a maximum alignment shift based on whatever income you can scrape together. Having Empyrean give a maximum of +300 alignment is just another limit and both work separately.

Not true. The 'permanent' shift was added in expressly to avoid that.

Decay SLOWS the approach as you get to extremes... It can even cause your alignment to stabilize early. However, eventually you'll be able to reach the cap due to the second variable.

Edit: Just to clarify, the way the permanent shift works is this:

Every five turns, an amount equal to the decay is added to the permanent shift variable, and removed from the main alignmentshift variable, which is the one subject to decay. Essentially, small amounts of alignment are slowly made immune to the decay.

Not true. The 'permanent' shift was added in expressly to avoid that.

Decay SLOWS the approach as you get to extremes... It can even cause your alignment to stabilize early. However, eventually you'll be able to reach the cap due to the second variable.

Yes, and if you have a target alignment you want; raising your alignment income is more effective than waiting.

Having a "banking" effect, permanent alignment shifts, means that any income will eventually take you to the maximum. Also, with a banking proportional to square root of current shift, being slightly Good over a long period will have a greater effect than being very Good for a short time.


Sounds pretty good. If you want to be Good you can quickly become Good by doing lots of Good stuff, provided you have a Good heart. If you are Evil hearted, though, you require time is the most important.

Yes, and if you have a target alignment you want; raising your alignment income is more effective than waiting.

That is the exact intent here. You can reach a cap provided by a religion EVENTUALLY, even if going from evil to good or good to evil... However, to get there QUICKLY you need new sources. I edited the last post with a description of how the 'banking' works.


Sounds pretty good. If you want to be Good you can quickly become Good by doing lots of Good stuff, provided you have a Good heart. If you are Evil hearted, though, you require time is the most important.

I take it you mean "If you're already good, you can become more good quickly. If you're evil, time becomes the important factor"? If so, exactly that, yes. You'll still get a boost in the proper direction by adopting a religion (probably even the same as it is now, but the actual size of the alignment meter is going from (-511 -> 511) to (-1500 -> 1500). Around three times the size of the current one... Means even if the effect is the same value as now, it's actual effectiveness is reduced), but this boost is temporary. It's not stored over time, it doesn't increase over time, it goes away as soon as you switch religion. The new system is used alongside that.

I tested some numbers in a model I created to see the turn by turn effects of a constant alignment income.

Some observations with square root decay and permanent shift every 5 turns:
- The permanent shift seems high at only square root of current shift. Maybe lower to cube root?
- Some obvious stuff: The end shift of a constant income = income^2. 50-70% of max shift reached in about 15-20 turns. Takes about 150 more turns to reach the final portion.

I'm not sure what kind of balance you want between income, max shift, and time to shift, but this might help you get an idea of the numbers and formulas involved and change w/e needs to be changed.

Edit: After reading the last couple posts (they went up as I was making the spreadsheet), I realize my model is a bit off. I didn't know that you are taking temporary shift and making it permanent, I thought it was a simple addition. Finally knowing the scale makes the numbers fit much better, since an income of 20 isn't an instant evil to good like it would have been on the old scale. I'm going to fix the model to satisfy my own curiosity, but I can repost it if you like.

I tested some numbers in a model I created to see the turn by turn effects of a constant alignment income.

Some observations with square root decay and permanent shift every 5 turns:
- The permanent shift seems high at only square root of current shift. Maybe lower to cube root?
- Some obvious stuff: The end shift of a constant income = income^2. 50-70% of max shift reached in about 15-20 turns. Takes about 150 more turns to reach the final portion.

I'm not sure what kind of balance you want between income, max shift, and time to shift, but this might help you get an idea of the numbers and formulas involved and change w/e needs to be changed.

Permanent shift will be reduced. Couldn't find a way to specify the POWER of the root (cube, so on), but using the formula Odalrick posted I can do that easily.

What program does that run on?

Its an Open Office sheet. I'll make it an excel one, it just slipped my mind. And like I said in my edit, it is a bit off because I made a wrong assumption on how you were going to do the permanent shift, but I'm fixing it.

Edit: Ok, I fixed it to match the way the permanent shift works. It actually slows down the permanent gain compared to simple addition to the base. I've added the new file (this time in excel format).

Get a google account and upload it to google docs instead.

Alright, here's the NEW decay rate formula:

iAlignmentShiftDecay = ((int)((GC.getDefineINT("BROADER_ALIGNMENT_DECAY_RATE_MODIFIER") / 100) * pow((float)(abs(getBroadShiftModifier())), (GC.getDefineINT("BROADER_ALIGNMENT_DECAY_RATE") / 100))));

Essentially, it's exactly as Odalrick posted. Just uses Global Defines (divided by 100, to get decimal values) as the modifiers... RATE_MODIFIER is 100 (so 1), DECAY_RATE is 50, so .5. Means sqr root.

The storage function is the same, but uses STORE_RATE rather than DECAY_RATE. Set to 33 (1/3) as of now, so cube root.

Edit: Also, I don't actually have office on this computer... One of the main reasons I use Google Docs to post things. :lol:

GC.getDefineINT("BROADER_ALIGNMENT_DECAY_RATE_MODIFIER") / 100
GC.getDefineINT("BROADER_ALIGNMENT_DECAY_RATE") / 100

If the modifier and rate are stored as integers, and you divide with an integer; won't integer division be used?

So you'd get 0 for values of 0-99 and 1 for values 100-199 .

You're right on the first one; The second should be a float, thanks to the part in bold. Will check to make sure it applies to EVERYTHING within the following (), though. It may just apply to the first value.

iAlignmentShiftDecay = ((int)((GC.getDefineINT("BROADER_ALIGNMENT_DECAY_RATE_MODIFIER") / 100) * pow((float)(abs(getBroadShiftModifier())), (GC.getDefineINT("BROADER_ALIGNMENT_DECAY_RATE") / 100))));

I'll add the (float) call to the first define.

You're right on the first one; The second should be a float, thanks to the part in bold. Will check to make sure it applies to EVERYTHING within the following (), though. It may just apply to the first value.

iAlignmentShiftDecay = ((int)((GC.getDefineINT("BROADER_ALIGNMENT_DECAY_RATE_MODIFIER") / 100) * pow((float)(abs(getBroadShiftModifier())), (GC.getDefineINT("BROADER_ALIGNMENT_DECAY_RATE") / 100))));

I'll add the (float) call to the first define.

The second one is actually the third one, so to speak. The type cast you are talking about ends just before the ",". The following expression will be integers.

iAlignmentShiftDecay =
((int)((GC.getDefineINT("BROADER_ALIGNMENT_DECAY_RATE_MODIFIER") / 100.)
* pow((float)(abs(getBroadShiftModifier())),
(GC.getDefineINT("BROADER_ALIGNMENT_DECAY_RATE") / 100.))));

Bolded part is what the (float) affects, italics is what needs to be made floats. Making the constants floats, as I've done here, work should work as well as typecasting.

The second one is actually the third one, so to speak. The type cast you are talking about ends just before the ",". The following expression will be integers.

iAlignmentShiftDecay =
((int)((GC.getDefineINT("BROADER_ALIGNMENT_DECAY_RATE_MODIFIER") / 100.)
* pow((float)(abs(getBroadShiftModifier())),
(GC.getDefineINT("BROADER_ALIGNMENT_DECAY_RATE") / 100.))));

Bolded part is what the (float) affects, italics is what needs to be made floats. Making the constants floats, as I've done here, work should work as well as typecasting.

Actually, right after I made that post I made exactly the changes you mentioned...

Right up until I checked the globaldefine schema. I wasn't aware of it, as all other global defines in the file are ints, but it IS possible to use a float value. <fDefineFloatVal>. All three of the defines (only two are shown in that formula, the other is 0.33, used for storing a constant amount) are now stored as floats naturally. No messy conversion. ;)

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ar5z8b262qevdHc3bnhCb0xlNWZHMmtQUWFnUWVEM 3c&hl=en

Here is the newest one on googledocs. Enjoy.

As far as I remember Kael's words on design, the closer is the Armageddon, the more are nations leaning to extreme good or extreme evil, and the lesser are staying neutral. So, the idea is, maybe shifts should be influenced by AC as well? Say, on AC 100, good shifts for good player are twice more powerful, then evil ones (i. e. leading to neutrality) and vice versa.
Something like
AC_influenced_shift = Basic_Shift + Basic_Shift*(AC/100)*(if or ((shift is "+" and nation is "good");(shift is "-" and nation is "evil")), then 1, else 0).

Or, if you make some permanent modifier, pulling player to neutrality, if he's not devote enough, you can just weaken it with the increase of AC.

Dropping in to post a screenshot of the newest addition... Let's see who notices it first? ;)

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc310/Valkrionn/Civilization/Civ4ScreenShot0014.jpg

You mean the fact that he is Lawful Good?

Nice addition, if that's it; the terms 'good' and 'evil' are way too vague to be used on their own (not to mention that their meaning varies from society to society (and person to person, really)).

Expect long and heated discussion about what is chaotic/lawful and what is good/evil, though.:rolleyes:

Exactly that. ;)

We've added an entirely new alignment axis (Not really all that difficult, just a MASSIVE amount of copy/paste/rename work. :lol: )

Though they are displayed together, they are in fact entirely separate... This is very important, as it allows BA to work. This is what I meant by the Alignment Shifts being simply the ground work for something else. :lol:

Main reason for this is flavor, and differentiation... Order will be Lawful, while Empy will be good, for example. Doesn't mean Order won't give a small boost to Good... Not decided yet there. What it DOES mean is it's main effect will be to make you Lawful. No more Good Calabim from following a corrupted Order. Good Calabim doesn't make sense.... Lawful Evil Calabim? Bingo. ;)

Another example is Basium and Sabathiel. Both are good, and yet in the lore still dislike each other.... Why? Because the first is Chaotic, while the other is Lawful. ;)

Now, the main reason I post this here is I WANT discussion. Which axis should each religion move you on, and how far? What alignment should the various leaders have?

One thing I would like, is a 'Pure' leader for each alignment. As in, one Neutral Good, Neutral Evil, Lawful Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, and True Neutral. True Neutral is obviously Cassiel. I'm thinking the Emperor for Lawful... Perp as Chaotic? Not sure how evil he really is. Not sure who to use for good, either.

Both alignment meters will have in game effects... Decided to go with the discount mechanic, and there will be a few new buildings/units for each alignment. Keep in mind, bonus production can go the OTHER way as well... Chaotic shouldn't be able to construct Courthouses as easily, for example.

We could also use a better name for it, I think... For lack of a better name, the new axis is the Ethical Alignment axis. In DnD, alignments are Moral (good/evil) and Ethical (lawful/chaotic). Couldn't think of a better term, so I went with that. ;)

One final note: When looking at this, don't think DnD 4e. We have ALL (but one) alignments.... Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, and Chaotic Evil (Hyborem?). The only one missing is Neutral Neutral... Decided we can skip that. True Neutral is an active thing... Doing what you can to preserve balance. Big time Cassiel. :lol: Neutral Neutral is more uncaring... Less important, less interesting, and not worth the distinction. ;)

As far as religions go:

Order - Lawful with some good
Empyrean - Good with some lawful
RoK - Lawful good? (some of both?)
FoL - Neutral
Esus - ?? (I'm thinking Lawful Evil or Evil, but not very. I see Esus as basically a thieves/assassins guild with religious overtones)
OO - Chaotic with a bit of evil
AV - Evil


For the pure leaders: (just picking who I think is the "best" candidate even though there could be many in each category)

Lawful Good - Sabathiel
Neutral Good - Ethne
Chaotic Good - Basium

Lawful Neutral - (I couldn't think of a clear winner here. Who cares for law and order, but doesn't care about good/evil?)
True Neutral - Cassiel
Chaotic Neutral - Perpentach (He could be seen as evil, or simply creating chaos which happens to have the nasty side effect or usually harming people) or Falamar (free spirited)

Lawful Evil - Flauros
Neutral Evil - Os-Gabella or Alexis
Chaotic Evil - Hyborem

Here are my own thoughts on religions:
Order:
Lawful, maybe a small boost to Good (Junil is the leader of the good angels, after all)
Empyrean:
Good. No lawful/chaotic here... Lugus doesn't seem to care much about law.
Runes of Kilmorph:
Not sure here... I think a mix. Given that it currently moves Evil to Neutral and Neutral to Good, I think it could fit.
Fellowship:
This one I'm very unsure about. It's traditionally the neutral religion, but I think a small Chaotic shift (Lawful->Neutral, Neutral->Chaotic) could work here. Could use discussion.
Esus:
Again, not sure, but I think Esus shouldn't move your alignment at all. It is meant to be a hidden religion, why should it have visible effects?
OO:
Chaotic. OO is not necessarily Evil, and I don't think it needs to push you in that direction.
AV:
Evil, but I could see Chaotic Evil. AV is all about destroying creation... I think Chaotic would fit it, albeit not as well as it does OO.
Ordo Machinarum:
If anything, a small value for Lawful Evil. Not enough to change your alignment unless you're on the edge already.
White Hand:
Lawful Evil again here. This one I'm not sure on, but I think it fits perfectly... It's planned to be an Evil religion that doesn't increase the AC, and Auric strikes me as a Lawful leader.





I like your leader assignments, though. I'm still kind of leaning towards making the Emperor Lawful Neutral (His cult is practiced in what may as well be a courthouse, after all), but I could be talked out of it. :lol:

White Hand seems very Lawful Evil to me, as Mulcarn's goal is stasis, and what could be more lawful? At the same time, he don't care who he hurts or kills to achieve this, clearly evil.

Regarding the Emperor, lawful is definatly his thing, the courthouse shrines and the fanatical cult of personality fits lawfulness very well.

I'm a bit curious about Ordo, however. Why do you see them as lawful evil?

Here's the in game display... Is it easy to understand? The first value displayed is Ethics (Lawful, in this case), the second is Morals (Good).

I WOULD move it, but if I did that you wouldn't be able to see the alignment of other players. Maybe the scoreboard should just display the actual alignment, with the values located elsewhere?

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc310/Valkrionn/Civilization/Civ4ScreenShot0015.jpg

Also, what colors should we use to display alignment? I think setting a color for each 'Pure' alignment, and mixing them for hybrids, would work fine. Currently, they are as follows:


Good - Yellow
Neutral - Grey
Evil - Red
Lawful - ?
Neutral - ?
Chaotic - ?


Green, Blue, and Purple are already used for Leader Status, although with those as Icons it's not a big deal.

White Hand seems very Lawful Evil to me, as Mulcarn's goal is stasis, and what could be more lawful? At the same time, he don't care who he hurts or kills to achieve this, clearly evil.

Regarding the Emperor, lawful is definatly his thing, the courthouse shrines and the fanatical cult of personality fits lawfulness very well.

I'm a bit curious about Ordo, however. Why do you see them as lawful evil?

My thoughts on the Hand and the Emperor exactly. :goodjob:

As for Machinarum... Really, my opinion is flavoured by a leader who isn't in yet (Check the Ideas thread), but it's more of a 'lean' than an actual alignment here. The religion would be neutral on both axes... What it WOULD do though is give you a small push towards those values. Currently (in 1.12) it gives -100, towards Evil.

Basically, the religion is neutral. But it's more Evil than it is Good, and it's more Lawful than it is Chaotic. It is all about the ability of Mankind to progress, to usurp the power of the Gods. Like AV, it is a religion based around Power... Unlike AV, you do not sell your soul to achieve. Instead, you forsake all gods and rely on your own abilities.... Too often, this power is used for evil purposes, hence the lean in that direction. Lawful is a bit easier to explain... It's a religion based on Science. Science is about as un-Chaotic as you can get, really... It's still a weak lean, however, as it's more of a rigid thought process, not a rigid social structure.

Hopefully that makes a bit of sense? :lol:

One thing I forgot to post earlier... Here's a potential list of Alignments, posted in the team group by Opera. And here is a description of the nine alignments, as well.
When reading those descriptions, keep in mind that the True Neutral we are using is this:
Some Neutral characters, rather than feeling undecided, are committed to a balance between the alignments. They may see good, evil, law and chaos as simply prejudices and dangerous extremes.


Sabathiel: Lawful Good
Capria: Neutral Good
Varn: Neutral Good
Ethne: Neutral Good
Einion: Neutral Good
Basium: Chaotic Good
Garrim: ? Good
Beeri: Lawful Good
Cardith: Lawful Good
Amelanchier: Lawful Neutral
Arendel: Neutral Good
Thessa: Chaotic Neutral
Arturus: Lawful Neutral?
Kandros: Neutral?
Sandalphon: Chaotic Neutral?
Falamar: Chaotic Good
Hannah: Chaotic Neutral
Cassiel: Neutral
Tasunke: Chaotic Neutral
Rhoanna: Lawful Neutral, True Neutral?
Valledia: Chaotic Neutral
Dain: Neutral Good
Charadon: Chaotic Evil
Mahala: Neutral
Perp: Chaotic Evil
Keelyn: Chaotic Neutral
Jonas: Chaotic Neutral
Sheelba: Neutral Evil
Faeryl: Lawful Evil (in the meaning of a schemer)
Alexis: Neutral Evil
Flauros: Lawful Evil
Tebryn: Chaotic Evil
Os-Gabella: Neutral Evil
Hyborem: Chaotic Evil?
Auric: Lawful Evil

Could you make it so that The Order turns Neutral civs Good, but leaves Evil civs Evil? Those who are neutral are already basically good but don't have the fanaticism that The Order would give. Those who are evil would likely use this fanaticism to enforce their twisted laws. It would also be interesting if good-evil alignment changes were more pronounced for the extremists of The Order. They essentially cannot see neutrality, and so are more likely yo fall into real evil when they fall short of The Good.

The Empyrean should move one towards good without effecting how lawful one is. I think of Lugus as at least slightly more lawful than chaotic, but that isn't as big of a deal. His followers are expected to have strong personal codes of ethics but they are to rationally convince others to follow them rather than use the force of law. Sinners are harshly punished, but the purpose is always to rehabilitate the sinner or re compensate those he harmed, never to get revenge or intimidate others. Punishment is always decided based on the merits of the case, not according to any legal code.

Kilmorph is definitely Lawful, although not to the extent of Junil. I see RoK as moving towards Lawful, plus moving towards both good and neutral (so it makes evil neutral, and would generally move one towards good but would moderate the most extreme, fanatical good.) It is a very tradition oriented religion, which could perhaps dampen alignment changes.

I see FoL as moving everyone towards Neutral, perhaps with a slight push towards chaos too.

OO is almost pure chaos. I could see building certain OO units and its wonder as moving towards evil rather than the religion itself. The Overlords have plenty of good followers, but the the cult leaders are pretty much all quite evil.

AV should probably be pure evil. Agares actually does not want to destroy creation, he wants to corrupt it enough so that The One will destroy creation. The Emrys (Ceridwen's followers) and the ones that want to destroy creation themselves.

(In the scenarios, OO was the main enemy of The Order, while the Empyrean mostly fought AV, indicating that these pairs of religions should be opposites alignmentwise.)

The White Hand is certainly Lawful Evil, and is likely much more Lawful than Evil. Auric does seem more evil that Mulcarn was though now, even though he was a very nice boy in his youth and seems to be decent again after his death when the precept of Ice is no longer directing him.


I'm not really sure about Esus. It would be interesting if it let you set your own apparent alignment, while corrupting your true alignment.

For me OO is neither chaotic or evil, just NN or LN.
--The reasoning behind this thought is that, as far as GvE alignment, states of OO have no real agenda of good or evil, and I don't see why they would help out evil civs or good civs. They might not qualify for good, because of their like of the insane, but that is hardly as detrimental to society as marching off all your population to war.--
--For the LvC alignment, it would seem that with a building like a Tower of Complacency, that OO values law more than chaos. Just because a significant portion of their population is insane, does not mean that the ruling party is.--


AV seems to be a very good choice for CE, however.
--It both actively seeks to destroy humanity, and hurts its friends and enemies inconsistently.--

Esus might make for a good CN religion.
--GvE, it hate all religions equally.--
--CvL, if pushed an Esus diplomat might need to resort to inconsistent decision making in order hide their true motives. This erratic behavior seems appropriate for a chaotic.--


Also, I don't really think any of the religions should have much impact on the alignment of a character. Actions should make the alignment, and in a Civ4 based games, the actions available often throw lore out the window --FoL going on a crusade* and inquisition, while possibly out of character, is an executable action within RifE; a Lincoln instituting communism and slavery is also a lore no-no, but is something that could happen in a Civ4 based game (if BtS had slavery, I can't recall)--. *Not specifically the Bannor one, but the idea is similar.

Amazing idea, Valk

Is it possible to rename alignments so that they become

Lawful Good
Lawful (drop the neutral, if its not stated it can be assumed)
Lawful Evil
Good (again the lack of statement implies the neutral state of ethics)
Neutral
Evil
Chaotic Good
Chaotic
Chaotic Evil

I just think using the extra neutrals is redundant and possibly visually confusing.

Also is it possible to make "True Neutral" not an alignment. It seems to be more of a leader trait. It is essentially a trait which blocks alignment change and holds it to regular Neutral. The difference being its a leader trait which suggests that the leader is committed to being Neutral as apposed to just being undecided. This trait could could be done by including a new variable into your alignment shift calculations that is a boolean (For example bNotTrueNeutral). you could multiply the value of bNotTrueNeutral by the alignment shift calculations. If bNotTrueNeutral is 1 the alignment shifts will not change. But if its 0 (implying you are true neutral) you will never see alignment changes.

In fact the leader trait could be more along the lines of "Closed-Minded". And could be used with the variable "bOpenMinded." This would allow you to set a leaders alignment and then force them to keep it. I believe this should not be used a lot. But I could see a couple of leaders I would use it on. For example Cassiel and perhaps Basium and Hyborem.

Edit: On second thought. Given your disdain for full out blocking things. You could use the same logic to write code which simply makes the decay rate much higher for closed minded leaders. In effect making it much much harder for the player to shift alignments. But still possible. I'd still prefer the blocking thing. It just makes sense and is more lore appropriate. Cassiel was never meant to shift alignment and I'm fairly sure neither was Hyborem.

Could you make it so that The Order turns Neutral civs Good, but leaves Evil civs Evil? Those who are neutral are already basically good but don't have the fanaticism that The Order would give. Those who are evil would likely use this fanaticism to enforce their twisted laws. It would also be interesting if good-evil alignment changes were more pronounced for the extremists of The Order. They essentially cannot see neutrality, and so are more likely yo fall into real evil when they fall short of The Good.

The Empyrean should move one towards good without effecting how lawful one is. I think of Lugus as at least slightly more lawful than chaotic, but that isn't as big of a deal. His followers are expected to have strong personal codes of ethics but they are to rationally convince others to follow them rather than use the force of law. Sinners are harshly punished, but the purpose is always to rehabilitate the sinner or re compensate those he harmed, never to get revenge or intimidate others. Punishment is always decided based on the merits of the case, not according to any legal code.

Kilmorph is definitely Lawful, although not to the extent of Junil. I see RoK as moving towards Lawful, plus moving towards both good and neutral (so it makes evil neutral, and would generally move one towards good but would moderate the most extreme, fanatical good.) It is a very tradition oriented religion, which could perhaps dampen alignment changes.

I see FoL as moving everyone towards Neutral, perhaps with a slight push towards chaos too.

OO is almost pure chaos. I could see building certain OO units and its wonder as moving towards evil rather than the religion itself. The Overlords have plenty of good followers, but the the cult leaders are pretty much all quite evil.

AV should probably be pure evil. Agares actually does not want to destroy creation, he wants to corrupt it enough so that The One will destroy creation. The Emrys (Ceridwen's followers) and the ones that want to destroy creation themselves.

(In the scenarios, OO was the main enemy of The Order, while the Empyrean mostly fought AV, indicating that these pairs of religions should be opposites alignmentwise.)

The White Hand is certainly Lawful Evil, and is likely much more Lawful than Evil. Auric does seem more evil that Mulcarn was though now, even though he was a very nice boy in his youth and seems to be decent again after his death when the precept of Ice is no longer directing him.


I'm not really sure about Esus. It would be interesting if it let you set your own apparent alignment, while corrupting your true alignment.

That would be interesting for the Order... Was already partially considering it. thomas.berubeg is working on a mod for LENA, which I've already told him I plan to merge. :lol: It introduces Religious Schisms, events through which a religion breaks into several smaller ones... Like FoL has the Wild Hunt, which would be Chaotic, Order can become Evil, OO can be Good or Evil, and so on. Main reason I want the 'major' religions kept to a distinct alignment.

About RoK - Thanks! Pretty much what I thought, so that's how I'll put it in. :goodjob:

For me OO is neither chaotic or evil, just NN or LN.
--The reasoning behind this thought is that, as far as GvE alignment, states of OO have no real agenda of good or evil, and I don't see why they would help out evil civs or good civs. They might not qualify for good, because of their like of the insane, but that is hardly as detrimental to society as marching off all your population to war.--
--For the LvC alignment, it would seem that with a building like a Tower of Complacency, that OO values law more than chaos. Just because a significant portion of their population is insane, does not mean that the ruling party is.--


AV seems to be a very good choice for CE, however.
--It both actively seeks to destroy humanity, and hurts its friends and enemies inconsistently.--

Esus might make for a good CN religion.
--GvE, it hate all religions equally.--
--CvL, if pushed an Esus diplomat might need to resort to inconsistent decision making in order hide their true motives. This erratic behavior seems appropriate for a chaotic.--


Also, I don't really think any of the religions should have much impact on the alignment of a character. Actions should make the alignment, and in a Civ4 based games, the actions available often throw lore out the window --FoL going on a crusade* and inquisition, while possibly out of character, is an executable action within RifE; a Lincoln instituting communism and slavery is also a lore no-no, but is something that could happen in a Civ4 based game (if BtS had slavery, I can't recall)--. *Not specifically the Bannor one, but the idea is similar.

I disagree on OO. One building does not make up for the Asylum or the lore. :p I agree about it not being evil though.

Religions are having an impact because adopting them IS an action. They will give a temporary (goes away when you switch religion) push in a certain direction, but much smaller than they do now. They WILL shift you closer to it over time, however. Main reason it was put in. ;)

Amazing idea, Valk

:goodjob:

Is it possible to rename alignments so that they become

Lawful Good
Lawful (drop the neutral, if its not stated it can be assumed)
Lawful Evil
Good (again the lack of statement implies the neutral state of ethics)
Neutral
Evil
Chaotic Good
Chaotic
Chaotic Evil

I just think using the extra neutrals is redundant and possibly visually confusing.

Also is it possible to make "True Neutral" not an alignment. It seems to be more of a leader trait. It is essentially a trait which blocks alignment change and holds it to regular Neutral. The difference being its a leader trait which suggests that the leader is committed to being Neutral as apposed to just being undecided. This trait could could be done by including a new variable into your alignment shift calculations that is a boolean (For example bNotTrueNeutral). you could multiply the value of bNotTrueNeutral by the alignment shift calculations. If bNotTrueNeutral is 1 the alignment shifts will not change. But if its 0 (implying you are true neutral) you will never see alignment changes.

In fact the leader trait could be more along the lines of "Closed-Minded". And could be used with the variable "bOpenMinded." This would allow you to set a leaders alignment and then force them to keep it. I believe this should not be used a lot. But I could see a couple of leaders I would use it on. For example Cassiel and perhaps Basium and Hyborem.

Edit: On second thought. Given your disdain for full out blocking things. You could use the same logic to write code which simply makes the decay rate much higher for closed minded leaders. In effect making it much much harder for the player to shift alignments. But still possible. I'd still prefer the blocking thing. It just makes sense and is more lore appropriate. Cassiel was never meant to shift alignment and I'm fairly sure neither was Hyborem.

Well, I could do that EASILY. Just editing textkeys at this point. I'm not sure about it though....

Edit: Decided to do that. The colors will still be grayish, but the actual words will be dropped.

And actually, I'm already leaning towards doing something like that trait. Specifically for Cassiel, Hyborem, Basium, and Taranis. :lol:

For me OO is neither chaotic or evil, just NN or LN.
--The reasoning behind this thought is that, as far as GvE alignment, states of OO have no real agenda of good or evil, and I don't see why they would help out evil civs or good civs. They might not qualify for good, because of their like of the insane, but that is hardly as detrimental to society as marching off all your population to war.--
--For the LvC alignment, it would seem that with a building like a Tower of Complacency, that OO values law more than chaos. Just because a significant portion of their population is insane, does not mean that the ruling party is.
If OO is based on Lovecraft in this point like the majority of its other lore it is most certainly chaotic. Read my signature and nothing else will make sense.
For the alignment of the single leaders I think the D&D definition of the alignments give quite a good impression:
Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

Evil implies harming, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient or if it can be set up. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some malevolent deity or master.

That's why I think both Clan of Embers leaders definitely should be evil. Life has absolutely no value in Orc society.
For Keelyn I think she should be CE. Though she kills people unconsciously life still has no value for her.
For Faeryl she is a schemer that's true, but you can't say that she is lawful as that meant she is bond by these laws. When everyone mistrusts everyone (including Faeryl) and only obeys because he can't think of a way to kill the other that's everything but lawful. D&D Drow which act in the same way are Chaotic Evil and I think for a good reason. Perhaps NE is the best alignment for her.
Characters of this alignment are typically selfish and have no qualms about turning on their allies-of-the-moment. They have no compunctions about harming others to get what they want, but neither will they go out of their way to cause carnage or mayhem when they see no direct benefit to it. They abide by laws for only as long as it is convenient for them.

So my opinion about alignments is:
Sheelba Chaotic Evil
Jonas Endain Chaotic Evil
Keelyn Chaotic Evil
Faeryl Neutral Evil

What's the game functionality of this? Another "dial" to cause conflict (in single player, it would give you a -2 to -4 on relations... so lawful good to chaotic evil would have a -8)? Any other game effect?

If you wanted, alignment could be prerequisite for some more buildings / units.

There will be more buildings/units that require certain alignments... There will also be production discounts/penalties for certain units/buildings. I'm also rewriting all of the civics... Some of the new civics will require a certain alignment.

All awesome permutations of this new system.

A small suggestion here. Have anything that lowers the AC also makes you more good and anything that raises it to make you more evil. Seems like something obvious, but also a way for a player to define their alignment (intentionally or otherwise).

I hope there are enough modifiers like these that make playing a certain alignment actually "feel" like being that alignment and doing things out of your alignment will slowly switch you to another.

A small suggestion here. Have anything that lowers the AC also makes you more good and anything that raises it to make you more evil. Seems like something obvious, but also a way for a player to define their alignment (intentionally or otherwise).

I hope there are enough modifiers like these that make playing a certain alignment actually "feel" like being that alignment and doing things out of your alignment will slowly switch you to another.

Hmm... I think I can do that. Would have to find where AC contributions are calculated, of course. I'm not sure whether increasing it is Evil, or Chaotic though... Destruction of everything is BOTH, so I'm rather torn. :lol:

Well I'm going under the premise that Evil wants armageddon (among other things), while Good is trying to prevent it. Why would you make increasing be Chaotic if the goal of Evil is to bring armageddon? Armageddon isn't about random destruction. The goal is about corruption, so that The One will end creation. If you make armageddon both chaotic and evil, then that starts to break down the distinction between the 2. I think each alignment should have a clear purpose (or maybe lack of one, in the case of Chaotic) and Good and Evil already have these nice goals already laid out.

OTOH it might be too much of a disincentive for good to raze evil cities?

theres is something a little wrong with your last statement Riot_Starter, Evil doesn't want armageddon. Sheaim and possibly Infernals want Armageddon, Veil Leaders too. There is no way most of the other evil leaders want to annihilate creation. they have easier goals or no goals at all for some of them ( Perpy is the best example of that) .

Yet , i agree that increasing AC should be linked to alignment, not because Evil wants Armageddon , but because Wanting Armageddon is Evil.

Well I'm going under the premise that Evil wants armageddon (among other things), while Good is trying to prevent it. Why would you make increasing be Chaotic if the goal of Evil is to bring armageddon? Armageddon isn't about random destruction. The goal is about corruption, so that The One will end creation. If you make armageddon both chaotic and evil, then that starts to break down the distinction between the 2. I think each alignment should have a clear purpose (or maybe lack of one, in the case of Chaotic) and Good and Evil already have these nice goals already laid out.

True, Armageddon in FfH is rather different than it is normally.

OTOH it might be too much of a disincentive for good to raze evil cities?

It could be... But it would be easy to weight it so that if a city has an evil religion the change is decreased/nullified. With AV it could even make you good.

theres is something a little wrong with your last statement Riot_Starter, Evil doesn't want armageddon. Sheaim and possibly Infernals want Armageddon, Veil Leaders too. There is no way most of the other evil leaders want to annihilate creation. they have easier goals or no goals at all for some of them ( Perpy is the best example of that) .

Yet , i agree that increasing AC should be linked to alignment, not because Evil wants Armageddon , but because Wanting Armageddon is Evil.

I don't know why Kael made certain people evil, but I think the idea was that the Evil people contribute to Armageddon unknowingly because of the corruption and suffering they create. So them being Evil (in game terms) isn't a conscious decision, but a side effect of w/e they were doing.

Evil does not in general want Armageddon. The Infernals and Sheaim are the only civilizations who want the world to end. Only Ceridwen (and maybe Cammulos) wants to personally destroy Creation, while Agares is the only one who wants The One to destroy it. Mammon, Aeron, and formerly Mulcarn want to dominate the world, not destroy it. (Mammon's archangel Hastur however has done more than most to try to destroy the world, but that was just to distract Condatis from keeping him from gaining control of Danalin.) They hate the idea of The One ever returning or getting involved in Creation every again, as it would mean the end of their power.

Alexis is a bit shortsighted, but Flauros is strongly opposed to demonic pacts and wants to save his lands from the blight and pestilences of Armageddon at all costs.

Esus himself sent Faeryl Viconia to save the world.

What's the game functionality of this? Another "dial" to cause conflict (in single player, it would give you a -2 to -4 on relations... so lawful good to chaotic evil would have a -8)? Any other game effect?

If you wanted, alignment could be prerequisite for some more buildings / units.

The problem with this is that leaders that should not like each other will be indifferent if you use the same diplo-penalties to chaotic/lawful as for evil/good. For example Flauros Lawful Evil and Sabathiel Lawful Good would get along quite well -4 for evil +4 for lawful / -4 for good and +4 for lawful.

Evil does not in general want Armageddon. The Infernals and Sheaim are the only civilizations who want the world to end. Only Ceridwen (and maybe Cammulos) wants to personally destroy Creation, while Agares is the only one who wants The One to destroy it. Mammon, Aeron, and formerly Mulcarn want to dominate the world, not destroy it. (Mammon's archangel Hastur however has done more than most to try to destroy the world, but that was just to distract Condatis from keeping him from gaining control of Danalin.) They hate the idea of The One ever returning or getting involved in Creation every again, as it would mean the end of their power.

Alexis is a bit shortsighted, but Flauros is strongly opposed to demonic pacts and wants to save his lands from the blight and pestilences of Armageddon at all costs.

Esus himself sent Faeryl Viconia to save the world.

Hmm... For now I think I'll avoid a direct tie between alignment and contributions to AC. Some of those actions could definitely move your alignment, but I'll do it on an item-by-item basis.

The problem with this is that leaders that should not like each other will be indifferent if you use the same diplo-penalties to chaotic/lawful as for evil/good. For example Flauros Lawful Evil and Sabathiel Lawful Good would get along quite well -4 for evil +4 for lawful / -4 for good and +4 for lawful.

Good point. I think dropping the Lawful/Chaotic modifiers by half would work out... I could see Sabathiel disliking Flauros less than Alexis, for example, but he'd still dislike him.

Evil does not in general want Armageddon. The Infernals and Sheaim are the only civilizations who want the world to end. Only Ceridwen (and maybe Cammulos) wants to personally destroy Creation, while Agares is the only one who wants The One to destroy it. Mammon, Aeron, and formerly Mulcarn want to dominate the world, not destroy it. (Mammon's archangel Hastur however has done more than most to try to destroy the world, but that was just to distract Condatis from keeping him from gaining control of Danalin.) They hate the idea of The One ever returning or getting involved in Creation every again, as it would mean the end of their power.

Alexis is a bit shortsighted, but Flauros is strongly opposed to demonic pacts and wants to save his lands from the blight and pestilences of Armageddon at all costs.

Esus himself sent Faeryl Viconia to save the world.

Interesting. I see what you mean and agree. But this brings something else up. Dying with Esus or OO takes you to their respective vault (Esus or Mammon in the case of in-game Esus religion and wherever OO worshipers go: Cammulos?), so why would dead Esus units go to Infernals if Esus and Mammon don't want armageddon?

Interesting. I see what you mean and agree. But this brings something else up. Dying with Esus or OO takes you to their respective vault (Esus or Mammon in the case of in-game Esus religion and wherever OO worshipers go: Cammulos?), so why would dead Esus units go to Infernals if Esus and Mammon don't want armageddon?

All evil religious units go to Infernals, as all Evil vaults connect to one another. Part of the process of corrupting souls and forging Demons.

technically OO followers don't have a vault to go to since it's a religion without god to worship ( at least not one of the twenty-one that are twenty-two) . I'd say they go in Danalin's Vault, which is pretty much controlled by Hastur ( or at least in part) or directly in Mammon's one.

for more precisions, concerning what happens to people sent into one of the hells, you should see this post from kael :

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=306677 (The Layers Of Hell)

OO worshipers indirectly worship Danalin but their overlords are corrupted by Mammon's archangel Hastur, and the highest ranking priests are very self serving and so probably go to Mammon's vault.


Cammulos does not have much of an organized religion. He does have a small cult mentioned in one event, but I forget the name and am not at my PC to check.


Mammon and Esus are the only two evil gods who are proud of their vaults and view them as more than just a part of the great machine of hell. Kael once said that most souls who go to hell start in Mammon's hell, but later changed his mind to say that most languish in Mulcarn's vault first. I prefer to think that most of those in Mulcarn's vault did not deserve hell, and most who really were wicked enough for hell skip straight to Mammon's vault. Regardless, most souls pass through Mammon's vault early in the process of becoming demons.

Not many souls make it to Esus's vault. It is a trap for those few noble or repentant souls who manage to overcome their vices and work their way out of Hell. It appears identical to Erebus, and is supposed to make those who refuse processing think they have escaped home only to find the things they loved in life now empty. Esus does not have many demons serving him. While most evil gods depend heavily on Balors and demon lords, his vault in dominated by living creatures such as changelings and the laws of his vault are almost identical to those of Erebus. Most of those who follow Esus probably have plenty of other vices and are are not devout enough to go straight to his vault (likely going to Mammon and then following the normal path of demon processing), but I suspect those who most fully trust in Deception may be rewarded by serving as his agents in his hell without every going through the torments of being processed into demons. Some may even be taken to his world without ever experiencing death.

technically OO followers don't have a vault to go to since it's a religion without god to worship ( at least not one of the twenty-one that are twenty-two) . I'd say they go in Danalin's Vault, which is pretty much controlled by Hastur ( or at least in part) or directly in Mammon's one.

for more precisions, concerning what happens to people sent into one of the hells, you should see this post from kael :

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=306677 (The Layers Of Hell)

I understand what the hells are for and the different vaults of the gods. My point is why would Esus, Mammon, and the other gods who don't want Armageddon or to force The One back to creation support the cause by using their vaults to help make Infernal? Why not keep the souls of their worshipers to themselves for their own agendas?

I don't know why Kael made certain people evil, but I think the idea was that the Evil people contribute to Armageddon unknowingly because of the corruption and suffering they create. So them being Evil (in game terms) isn't a conscious decision, but a side effect of w/e they were doing.
Just thinking out loud here....

Evil isn't by definition chaotic or malicious, which is another way to say "corruption and suffering". IMO the core of "evil" is being self centered.

If "self" is defined as the individual, this IMO is chaotic evil. If "self" is extended to be the larger group / nation, then that would be lawful evil. Bottom line they care about furthering their selves than others. Good, meanwhile, would be the opposite: they care about other's welfare just as much if not more than their own welfare.

Anyway, what that means is that, while some evil cultures actively contribute to armageddon, some do not and may even work against armageddon. Conversely, some good cultures work against armageddon but some do not and may even contribute to it (this gets back to the question of whether a good razing an evil city would add to or reduce the AC).


The problem with this is that leaders that should not like each other will be indifferent if you use the same diplo-penalties to chaotic/lawful as for evil/good. For example Flauros Lawful Evil and Sabathiel Lawful Good would get along quite well -4 for evil +4 for lawful / -4 for good and +4 for lawful.
Good point. I think dropping the Lawful/Chaotic modifiers by half would work out... I could see Sabathiel disliking Flauros less than Alexis, for example, but he'd still dislike him.
I was going to say I didn't agree but after thought I do. Good / evil hate each other more than law/chaos.

However, I do think that certain religions are antithetical. e.g., It's not so much law vs chaos as Order vs OO. etc.

Just thinking out loud here....

Evil isn't by definition chaotic or malicious, which is another way to say "corruption and suffering". IMO the core of "evil" is being self centered.

If "self" is defined as the individual, this IMO is chaotic evil. If "self" is extended to be the larger group / nation, then that would be lawful evil. Bottom line they care about furthering their selves than others. Good, meanwhile, would be the opposite: they care about other's welfare just as much if not more than their own welfare.

Anyway, what that means is that, while some evil cultures actively contribute to armageddon, some do not and may even work against armageddon. Conversely, some good cultures work against armageddon but some do not and may even contribute to it (this gets back to the question of whether a good razing an evil city would add to or reduce the AC).



I was going to say I didn't agree but after thought I do. Good / evil hate each other more than law/chaos.

However, I do think that certain religions are antithetical. e.g., It's not so much law vs chaos as Order vs OO. etc.

OO and Order are very much antithetical - The core principles (Lawful vs Chaos) are opposite each other. The same thing with Empy and Av... Good vs Evil.

I understand what the hells are for and the different vaults of the gods. My point is why would Esus, Mammon, and the other gods who don't want Armageddon or to force The One back to creation support the cause by using their vaults to help make Infernal? Why not keep the souls of their worshipers to themselves for their own agendas?

Good Question here. I don't think it has really been figured out . ( i still have difficulties to understand why Camulos fell in the first place). One answer could be that they actually agree with part of the things Agares wants ( to take again the power of Creation, mostly, though each of them had different motivations for falling , see the Fall of Mammon for that ). One important thing is the fact that ther falling changed their personnality as well as their sphere of influence. camulos , as the god of war, wants war and ther best way for him to obtain it is to follow agares (and ceridwen's ) schemes.

They may be manipulated by Agares, or Ceridwen , she 's the one who linked their vaults in the first place.

Yt they still do things on their own: i don't think Mulcarn entering into Creation was part of Agares' Plan

here are some thoughts about it

Unrelated question: Thinking about adding a new ability to Insane... Randomly changes his Good/Evil alignment, while resetting his chaotic alignment. Would this be interesting, or no?

Agares himself is not a big fan of having the Infernal acting directly in Erebus, as it means they too often engage in actual combat whereas he would rather take a more subtle approach and corrupt everyone to his side. Bhall and Ceridwen are the main driving force of the invasion of Erebus.

Hyborem has been stealing souls early in their processing in the hells, mostly in Mulcarn's vault as there is no god presiding over it who could stop him from doing so. Manes aren't technically processed enough to really count as demons yet.



In my opinion Cammulos always stood for anarchy, although his old form of anarchy was very much the pacifist sort. He once represented the ability for people to get along without any need for rules or rulers. He was always Junil's antagonist. (You could perhaps say that Cammulos was initially Chaotic Good while Junil was Lawful Neutral.) He opposed Junil's attempts to unilaterally impose his morality, at first because Junil really was going too far but soon because of his strong dislike for everything Junil stood for. Eventually he became adamant there there could be no objective right or wrong, that every subjective opinion is as good as any other, and that each individual should be free to do anything he wants without needing to justify why. He demands that everyone have complete liberty, including freedom to deprive others of all their rights if one has the strength and will to do so. He thus changed from Angel of Harmony to God of Strife. When Gabella first fled the gods Junil was the sword striking out against her while Cammulos was the shield of protection, but after the fall their symbols were switched.

OO and Order are very much antithetical - The core principles (Lawful vs Chaos) are opposite each other. The same thing with Empy and Av... Good vs Evil.
Sounds like you're contradicting the earlier stated intention to make Law vs Order be 0/-1/-2 while Good vs Evil is 0/-2/-4.

(hopefully you understood that that is what my post was in response to.)

No, the actual diplo penalties will still be weaker. I'm just saying those are the religions aligned against each other.

I assume that's what you meant?

So Cammulos started out True Anarchy, then turn into Modern Anarchy? Makes sense.

I understand what the hells are for and the different vaults of the gods. My point is why would Esus, Mammon, and the other gods who don't want Armageddon or to force The One back to creation support the cause by using their vaults to help make Infernal? Why not keep the souls of their worshipers to themselves for their own agendas?

From what (little) I understand of the Gods of Erebus, they are entirely focused on their precepts, and have a hard time thinking outside of them. So, they take great delight in watching souls go through the process; each hell is created to focus a soul single-mindedly on the precept at hand. Long-term planning is probably out of reach of most Gods.

The real question is how the hells got connected in the first place. Considering her precept and disposition, I'd bet Ceriwiden (sp?) is behind it.

Ceridwen connected them, yes.

I had a thought. Neutral means either indifferent, or trying to maintain balance. You have already said that True Neutral will be the trying to maintain balance type, as opposed to someone who is completely indifferent type.

There are four other Neutrals though. NG, LN, CN, NE. These Neutrals are likely not trying to maintain balance, these are the uncaring type. They care so much about the other half of their alignment, that they don't care about what they are Neutral in.

Let's say I'm CG. I'm dealing with two other leaders, who are LG and NG respectively. They both like me +4 (making up numbers) for being good. The LG one dislikes me though -2 for me being chaotic. The NG one doesn't care if I am chaotic. Therefore I don't have any + or - for being chaotic to him. He doesn't care about that aspect of the alignment chart. If he cared about it, he wouldn't be NG, he would be LG or CG.

The argument hinges on the point that if you are Neutral in one aspect, you don't care about it. Perhaps there are people who try to maintain balance in that one aspect, but they care about the other half. I very much doubt that most people are like this though. Just my two cents.

But then he would be twice as senstive ti the other side of alignment.
said, a NG and a LN, and you are LE:
NG : does not care about the L, but very much about the E ==> big -8
LN : does not care about the E, but very much about the L ==> big +8

or in your example:
said a LG and NG and you're CG:
LG care normally about C and G ==> -4 +4 = 0
NG does not care about the C, but very much about the G ==> big +8

Another way to do it, and probably more realistic, is to balance both axis equally, and give only half positive bonus for same vs full negative for difference. i.e., +2/0/-4 and +2/0/-4.

The reasoning here is that "like" is not as much of a motivating factor as "hate". Do I like someone of the same alignment or do I hate someone of the opposite alignment more?

So, for the CG perspective:
CG to LG would be -2 (-4 for chaos to law and +2 for good to good).
Meanwhile, CG to NG would be 0. CG to CG would be +2.
NG would be +2, N would be 0, CN would be +2.
LE would be -8, to NE would be -4, and to CE would be -2.

(Alternately to +2/0/-4, the numbers could be +2/0/-3 or +1/0/-4 or whatever is desired.)

Currently, the modifiers are: +4/-4 on the Good/Evil axis, +2/-2 on the Lawful Chaotic axis. I think going with what you suggested could be better, though. ;)

Another way to do it, and probably more realistic, is to balance both axis equally, and give only half positive bonus for same vs full negative for difference. i.e., +2/0/-4 and +2/0/-4.

The reasoning here is that "like" is not as much of a motivating factor as "hate". Do I like someone of the same alignment or do I hate someone of the opposite alignment more?

So, for the CG perspective:
CG to LG would be -2 (-4 for chaos to law and +2 for good to good).
Meanwhile, CG to NG would be 0. CG to CG would be +2.
NG would be +2, N would be 0, CN would be +2.
LE would be -8, to NE would be -4, and to CE would be -2.

(Alternately to +2/0/-4, the numbers could be +2/0/-3 or +1/0/-4 or whatever is desired.)


Ah, but the REASON that you "liking" someone means less than you "hating" someone is simply because there are more people in your life that you "like" than there are that you "hate" so the feeling is more concentrated when activated.

So if you wanted to go with this approach, you would have someone who is Good gain a +(number of Evil people known) toward all other people who are Good, and a -(number of Good people known) toward all other people who are Evil. Thus if there is only 1 Good guy and 20 Evil guys, you REALLY like that one other guy who is like you, and you realize you are outnumbered, so keep the muttered curses toward the Evil folks as sub-vocal as you can.

Ah, but the REASON that you "liking" someone means less than you "hating" someone is simply because there are more people in your life that you "like" than there are that you "hate" so the feeling is more concentrated when activated.
Are you extrapolating into RL (real life) or something? Because otherwise that makes no sense.

In the game, frankly, diplomacy is driven by negatives. Rarely, if ever, is there a genuine trust. Even then, you never quite turn your back.

So if you wanted to go with this approach, you would have someone who is Good gain a +(number of Evil people known) toward all other people who are Good, and a -(number of Good people known) toward all other people who are Evil. Thus if there is only 1 Good guy and 20 Evil guys, you REALLY like that one other guy who is like you, and you realize you are outnumbered, so keep the muttered curses toward the Evil folks as sub-vocal as you can.
That's a level of doublethink that is beyond the sophistocation of the game, methinks.

Though, the notion of having a "feedback" mechanism is interesting, based on # and type of alignments. They could even be weighted... after all, that evil guy who has only 2 cities is hardly a factor.

Ah, but the REASON that you "liking" someone means less than you "hating" someone is simply because there are more people in your life that you "like" than there are that you "hate" so the feeling is more concentrated when activated.

So if you wanted to go with this approach, you would have someone who is Good gain a +(number of Evil people known) toward all other people who are Good, and a -(number of Good people known) toward all other people who are Evil. Thus if there is only 1 Good guy and 20 Evil guys, you REALLY like that one other guy who is like you, and you realize you are outnumbered, so keep the muttered curses toward the Evil folks as sub-vocal as you can.

Wow. I really like this idea. If this is how the system worked, it would mean we still get the good vs evil battles. However, it would mean that the game wouldn't be so peaceful if everyone was good or neutral or evil.

I think that makes sense. If there are 4 good guys and 4 evil guys, everyone wants to team up along ideological lines. If the good guys win, they then begin to see the subtle differences between each one's belief. Everyone begins to think that they are the true good people, and that the other factions have it wrong.