1. I dislike this, I would rather not see fixed alligments so much. They are anying already.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree here. My favorite FFH games are the epic Good-v-Evil wars that bring in Hyborem and Basium. I feel like something went wrong when this doesn't happen.
2. Again, this is lore vise silly. Take for example Banor, other civs would "tolerate" them as long as they crusade against demons, but I can't imagine anyone liking berserker "holy good" fanatics.
Diplomacy doesn't mean they love one another's culture. It's primarily relevant for wars in FFH. Good civs would be less inclined to invade the Bannor than the Calabim, no? And more inclined to trade, exchange knowledge, etc.?
3. Neutral civs should be completely shiftey. Evil today, good tomorow.
Maybe for the AI, but you can't (and shouldn't) force the player to shift randomly. Neutral civs should be free to work both sides and switch back and forth more easily, but have trouble forming strong alliances with either side. Do you agree?
4. No! No! No!
This I completely disagree with. We do not need a more agresive world.
My #4 had nothing to do with making the game more aggressive... It said that the modifiers shouldn't be set too high to prevent players from choosing to do unusual things (like try to buddy up with the Bannor as Calabim) if circumstances demand it, just to make those choices more difficult overall than taking the 'normal' route. In the same sense, a Ljos player starting in a flood plains desert may decide to skip FoL. In general this is a tougher route for Ljos since they can't make as good use of being able to build in forests, but in some situations it may be worth the sacrifice.
All in all, I would rather have the bonuses made individualy for each civ. (Mercurians and Banor hate anyone with AV. Svats hate the Other elves, scions like calibim (imortal friends xD), Perpentarch hates the Amurites but Keelyn does not care, ect.)
I disagree strongly with this. Gameplay over lore! Do you have any idea how overwhelming that would be to anyone who's not a total FFH geek? That's a TON of hard-coded numbers to memorise for little gameplay gain. Maybe in a few cases leader-specific diplomacy bonuses/penalties are appropriate but having different modifiers for each leader with each other leader would be a nightmare for players to keep track of. I think a better approach would be to have various standard modifiers (alignment-based, religion-based, etc.) but have them be more or less significant for various leaders (e.g.,
the same circumstances that would result in a -2 for one leader may give a -3 for another leader who 'cares' about those issues more).
I hate the entire good vs evil divide as it puts a lot of civs on the wrong side.
Not all evils are that bad, I meen, the svats or calibim don't do much more evil than the Banor. And nether of the three likes demons that much.
The Calabim raise their people for the primary purpose of feeding on them. That's pretty evil. I don't know a lot about Svart lore but as the "dark elves" they have to be evil, right?
At any rate, I could honestly care less about lore when it conflicts with gameplay. I think the alignment system and the wars it can trigger is part of what makes FFH so fun in the first place and if that means stepping on lore here and there to assign each civ its probable role in the apocalypse, so be it.