Valkrionn
The Hamster King
So, I've decided to discuss some of the coming Alignment changes in a bit more detail. 
This has always been a biggie. There are some things that people just expect to be Evil actions... Yet they are actually Good, in FfH. Take Basium, for example. This issue becomes exascerbated when you decide to include a Broader Alignments system (more on this later in the post), as now you are coming up with actions to affect your Moral (good/evil) alignment... Many of which will fall into the realm of traditional Good/Evil definitions.
We decided to solve this in a fairly simple way... A new alignment axis, tentatively titled Allegiance, which represents which faction of gods you are aligned with. This alignment will have few in game effects, and is primarily to free up Moral alignment to be what we want.
Right now, Broader Alignments (henceforth BA) is not implemented well. There are relatively few effects, first off, and second, it is a slider with maximum values... Meaning it is fairly easy to repeatedly change alignments.
With the next major release, this will no longer be the case. Rather than store one value per alignment axis, we store two; One for each extreme. In other words, we will store one value for Good, and one for Evil. Your alignment will be determined by the ratio between these two values.
The new system removes any real cap on maximum alignment; However, in order to maintain consistent ratio values, we will constrain the higher value to no more than twice the lower one. Alignment will always be 'Good / Evil' (or Lawful/Chaotic), meaning no matter what actual alignments a player has, the ratio will always fall between 0.5 and 2. Neutral will be arbitrarily determined to be anything where the two values are within 10% (0.9 to ~1.1); Anything higher will be Good (or Lawful), anything lower is Evil (or Chaotic).
Why is this important? A few reasons. First, and most importantly IMO, it allows us to control a leader's alignment and how entrenched the leader is in said alignment, independently of one another. As an example, we could have a Bannor leader, highly Lawful Good... But have the Good alignment as, say, 10/5, while the Lawful alignment is 1000/500. While both yield an alignment of 2 (maximum), the first is extremely easy to change... Resulting in a leader who, while virtually always lawful, can be corrupted quite easily. This is something entirely impossible in any Fall from Heaven mod, atm.
Secondly, as the above hints at, using the ratio between two cumulative values makes it progressively more difficult to flip your alignment back and forth. In other words, no more flipflopping alignment at the drop of a hat.
Finally, by limiting neutral to such a narrow range (20%, total, while the other alignments each have 40), we have a situation that favors formation of rival alignment blocs, as opposed to now where virtually everyone becomes neutral.
BA itself will become mandatory, and will be more fleshed out. Far more actions will affect your alignment.
Let's go into more detail on this new axis, and what affects it.
Allegiance will, as with all the others, have three main alignments; Loyalist, Unaligned, and Renegade. Each represents a faction of gods, much as Good/Evil does now.
The current (tentative) plan is for any action that modifies the AC to modify this alignment; No other action will affect this alignment.
It's only in game effect will be two-fold, centered on the Armageddon Counter; It will control the rate at which Hell spreads into your territory, and control how useful Hell is to you.
The basic Hell spread formula will be something along the lines of this: Start with a default AC req (40). Multiply by your Allegiance value (ranging from 0.5 to 2). Assume a value of 0.75 for unowned lands. Yes, hell can and will spread even into the most staunchly Loyalist lands.
You can go Loyalist, and be safe from hell unless the AC climbs very high... But be crippled by it when it finally does ravage your lands.
You can go Renegade, and have hell spread through your lands quickly, at low AC values... But you will see benefits from Hell, primarily related to Mana generation.
It's a fairly minimal mechanic, but IMO it's all that is truly needed here; A simple tradeoff, but one that provides a lot of strategic depth.
So. After the next major release, we will have more rational Good/Evil alignments, a 3d alignment system, and mandatory, fully fleshed out and realized Broader Alignments. Fun.
Good, Evil, and what they actually mean
This has always been a biggie. There are some things that people just expect to be Evil actions... Yet they are actually Good, in FfH. Take Basium, for example. This issue becomes exascerbated when you decide to include a Broader Alignments system (more on this later in the post), as now you are coming up with actions to affect your Moral (good/evil) alignment... Many of which will fall into the realm of traditional Good/Evil definitions.
We decided to solve this in a fairly simple way... A new alignment axis, tentatively titled Allegiance, which represents which faction of gods you are aligned with. This alignment will have few in game effects, and is primarily to free up Moral alignment to be what we want.
Broader Alignment Upgrade
Right now, Broader Alignments (henceforth BA) is not implemented well. There are relatively few effects, first off, and second, it is a slider with maximum values... Meaning it is fairly easy to repeatedly change alignments.
With the next major release, this will no longer be the case. Rather than store one value per alignment axis, we store two; One for each extreme. In other words, we will store one value for Good, and one for Evil. Your alignment will be determined by the ratio between these two values.
The new system removes any real cap on maximum alignment; However, in order to maintain consistent ratio values, we will constrain the higher value to no more than twice the lower one. Alignment will always be 'Good / Evil' (or Lawful/Chaotic), meaning no matter what actual alignments a player has, the ratio will always fall between 0.5 and 2. Neutral will be arbitrarily determined to be anything where the two values are within 10% (0.9 to ~1.1); Anything higher will be Good (or Lawful), anything lower is Evil (or Chaotic).
Why is this important? A few reasons. First, and most importantly IMO, it allows us to control a leader's alignment and how entrenched the leader is in said alignment, independently of one another. As an example, we could have a Bannor leader, highly Lawful Good... But have the Good alignment as, say, 10/5, while the Lawful alignment is 1000/500. While both yield an alignment of 2 (maximum), the first is extremely easy to change... Resulting in a leader who, while virtually always lawful, can be corrupted quite easily. This is something entirely impossible in any Fall from Heaven mod, atm.
Secondly, as the above hints at, using the ratio between two cumulative values makes it progressively more difficult to flip your alignment back and forth. In other words, no more flipflopping alignment at the drop of a hat.
Finally, by limiting neutral to such a narrow range (20%, total, while the other alignments each have 40), we have a situation that favors formation of rival alignment blocs, as opposed to now where virtually everyone becomes neutral.
BA itself will become mandatory, and will be more fleshed out. Far more actions will affect your alignment.
Allegiance?
Let's go into more detail on this new axis, and what affects it.
Allegiance will, as with all the others, have three main alignments; Loyalist, Unaligned, and Renegade. Each represents a faction of gods, much as Good/Evil does now.
The current (tentative) plan is for any action that modifies the AC to modify this alignment; No other action will affect this alignment.
It's only in game effect will be two-fold, centered on the Armageddon Counter; It will control the rate at which Hell spreads into your territory, and control how useful Hell is to you.
The basic Hell spread formula will be something along the lines of this: Start with a default AC req (40). Multiply by your Allegiance value (ranging from 0.5 to 2). Assume a value of 0.75 for unowned lands. Yes, hell can and will spread even into the most staunchly Loyalist lands.
You can go Loyalist, and be safe from hell unless the AC climbs very high... But be crippled by it when it finally does ravage your lands.
You can go Renegade, and have hell spread through your lands quickly, at low AC values... But you will see benefits from Hell, primarily related to Mana generation.
It's a fairly minimal mechanic, but IMO it's all that is truly needed here; A simple tradeoff, but one that provides a lot of strategic depth.
So. After the next major release, we will have more rational Good/Evil alignments, a 3d alignment system, and mandatory, fully fleshed out and realized Broader Alignments. Fun.
).
