Expanded Broader Alignments

Valkrionn

Valkrionn

The Hamster King
Joined
May 23, 2008
Messages
14,450
Location
Crestview FL
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.

Spoiler :
Vehem said:
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.

=======
Team Forum Post
=======

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)

====

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.

=====
Click to expand...

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.
 
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. ;)
 
Valkrionn said:
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. ;)
Click to expand...

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?
 
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)
 
readercolin said:
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?
Click to expand...

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. ;)

[to_xp]Gekko;8610443 said:
this is extremely cool, finally broader alignments will be meaningful :D
Click to expand...

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:

​
15 Turns Later:

​
Hit 199... Going over? (Sorry about the Hill Giant icon, didn't notice it when I took the screenie):

​
Apparently not. ;)

​
 
xienwolf said:
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)
Click to expand...

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
 
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.
 
odalrick said:
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.
Click to expand...

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 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.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Xaviarlol
  • Locked
[DLL] (7-NS) Bombing cities beyond their HP has a chance to destroy Buildings
2
Replies
20
Views
661
Xaviarlol
Xaviarlol
D
Removable Buildings and infrastructure
Replies
6
Views
545
GeneralZIft
GeneralZIft
O
Download Version - here - updated 01-28-2024 - Version 3
Replies
0
Views
848
onkelm
O
PPQ_Purple
A bunch of disconnected questions
Replies
12
Views
1K
PPQ_Purple
PPQ_Purple
PDX Firefly
  • Sticky
Millennia | Future Ages & Update 0
Replies
0
Views
559
PDX Firefly
PDX Firefly
Top Bottom