Who is the most evil? Most good? etc

Grey Fox · Apr 7, 2008

Help me rank the leaders from Goodest to Evilest (I know, I made those adjectives up, but at least the spellchecker doesn't complain about Evilest

)

I'm doing it for my Broader Alignment mod, but this can just be a fun exercise as well.

Good as they get

Basium
Sabathiel
Capria
Cardith
Varn
Einion
Ethne
Garrim
Beeri
Arendel
Arturus
Kandros
Dain
Rhoanna
Falamar
Amelanchier
Sandalphon
-----------
Cassiel
-----------
Thessa
Tasunke
Valledia
Hannah
Mahala
Auric
Keelyn
Sheelba
Charadon
Jonas
Perpentach
Faeryl
Flauros
Alexis
Os-Gabella
Tebryn
Hyborem

Eviler than Skeletor

My doubts here are mostly on the ranks of the Goods here, my intuition tells me that Cardith should be higher on my list than he is, and so should probably Ethne and Einion as well. Basium might even be lower on the list since he is feared by everyone because of his aggressiveness and his blunt methods.
I'm also unsure about pretty much all the neutrals. In this list above, I think I have too many above Cassiel.
As for the Evils, Auric should be correct I believe since Mulcarn is supposed to be the least evil of the evil gods. Sheelba and Mahala are both trying to civilize their barbarian civs. Keelyn and Perpentach don't strike me as evil by intent, but rather by disregard of good deeds and general immorality.
Charadon might be lower on the list, but his evil is mostly based on survival of the fittest. Cruel, yes, but possibly fair in his own wicked ways.
The last 5 before Hyborem I am unsure of where they should fit too.

Notes:

When you make your list, you can add a rank value to them as well if you like. Negative for evil.

Mailbox · Apr 7, 2008

Spoiler :

Is what I'd say. Falamar and Rhoanna seem much less evil than you had them (especially Falamar) and Amelanchier is a pretty ruthless guy from his pedia entry. Sandalphon would seem passive towards the world and I'd move him to the "gooder" side of the chart. I'd drop Hannah and Valledia since Hannah is born of the Overlords and very chaotic while Valledia is the epitome of "the ends justify the means". I'd also drop Flauros a notch since even Jonas treats his people well.

One who I'm not moving but who I'm uncertain about is Faeryl. She is evil but I don't think she deserves to be so low on the list.

Sofista · Apr 7, 2008

Umm... aren't leaders listed per evilness in the custom game selection screen?

Love · Apr 7, 2008

There arent any evil or good... Only evil or neutral.

MagisterCultuum · Apr 7, 2008

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:

Spoiler :

Hmm...I suppose you don't want to go even more extreme and create one scale for ethics and another scale for fanaticism, do you? Probably not.

Love · Apr 7, 2008

Kael made a pretty good post about this, can someone find it?

Grey Fox · Apr 7, 2008

Sofista said:
Umm... aren't leaders listed per evilness in the custom game selection screen?

Kinda, but also not since they are sorted per civ as well.

I'd love Kael's input on this. Is there any old posts available? (As Ghandi says)

Your list makes alot of sense Magister, if we go by Anti-Evil (which I think Good is in this mod). I think Kael has said that quite often. Also, the Good and Evil labels (of the patron gods) have been set by the mortals in the world, same can be said about leaders in some sense.

Sofista · Apr 7, 2008

@Grey Fox: thank you, you're right.

So I went into the leaders' XML, looking to find actual data on their stance. And to interpret them, I had to create a formula.
First, I thought, alignment. I decided to give good leaders a 5, neutrals a 0, evil folks -5.
Then, on religion, I decided that I was to judge them on the effect they had on leaders' alignment - which is, after all, how good/bad it makes them. Being that the AV is enough to make a leader bad, and the Order is the opposite, I gave them respectively a -5 and a 5. Empyrean and RoK, that change evil to neutral, I gave a 2,5, and conversely I assigned the CoE and OO a -2,5. The FoL I gave a 0.
But leaders also have varying attitudes towards them, which I decided to quantify as the specified value divided per ten, added to the basic value of that religion, both values positive for "good" religions, negative for "evil" religions. The FoL values I considered when positive a +, because it nonetheless could steer a leader away from the evil cults, when negative a -, for the opposite reason.

Example: Arturus is neutral (0), has a -20 for the CoE (2,5+2=4,5) and the AV (5+2=7). It sums to 16,5 on the side of good.

All clear? So, here's my ordered list:

28,5
Sabathiel
Capria

26
Varn

20
Basium

17,5
Ethne
Einion

16,5
Arturus
Kandros

11
Cardith

8,5
Garrim
Beeri

7,5
Arendel

2,5
Amelanchier
Thessa

1
Valledia
Dain

0
Cassiel
Tasunke
Rhoanna

-3,5
Sandalphon
Falamar

-5
Charadon
Mahala
Jonas
Sheelba
Auric

-8,5
Flauros

-11
Keelyn
Alexis

-16,5
Hannah

-21,5
Perpentach

-25
Faeryl

-28,5
Tebryn
Os-Gabella

-30
Hyborem

Of course this is much arbitrary, and liable to be improved upon by the more knowledgeable (things like BaseAttitude, AttitudeCompassionHigh/Low). Still, I offer you this as at least a starting formula.

(Note: agnostic leaders' opinion on the FoL I considered ininfluential).

xienwolf · Apr 7, 2008

Actually that is a good approach. If you toss in some modifiers for their flavors (military = evil, science = good? Dunno), and for the Diplomacy Levels which they require to declare war that might help break some of the ties.

Sofista · Apr 7, 2008

I'd do it gladly tomorrow... but I'd need a reference on the diplomatic modifier, because I'm not solid about which ones come into play. I'm no modder, alas. (You, or anyone could give it a try!)

The military/scientific modifiers I'd say aren't really part of this specific equation: good leaders would research to finally build the Mercurian gate, evil leaders to bring Hyborem into Erebus. Same for military: the good to defend themselves/wipe out the evil, and vice versa.

EDIT: found good data in the Modders' guide. Now I only need an explanation to the explanation of iBadAttitude...

thewyrm · Apr 8, 2008

It is so hard to pin down who is good and who is evil in this world.

I don't think Cassiel makes a good "True Nuetral" litmus test. To me, he seems to be very much on the Good side of the line. Just because he or his people don't worship Gods does not make him just as prone to do evil things as he is to do good ones. Perhaps the Hippus would be better for the middle of the road?

While it is true that Keelyn and Perpentach do not pursue evil for evil's sake, we do know that they often inflict pain and humiliation upon people for no other reason than because it makes them happy.

Hyborem is more evil than Basium is good. They are not direct opposites.

The "Goodest" leader should be Ethne, and the "Evilest" leader should be Tebryn.

DharmaMcLaren · Apr 8, 2008

Cassiel is True Neutral in Erebus because good/evil is based on the Compact, with the gods opposing it being evil and the gods supporting it being good, as I understand. The odd thing is that Cassiel himself supports the Compact, but that the Grigori have no god...

Grey Fox · Apr 8, 2008

Basically the Good angels wants to fight the evil angels, the compact was to stop the fighting through direct means. Cassiel thought this was too little so he rebelled to teach men to stay away from the gods fighting. Basium thought this was too much and rebelled to keep fighting. Mulcarn broke the compact when Bhaal fell, seeing as he had no opposition anymore.

Sofista · Apr 8, 2008

Thewyrm, you're right. My calculation so far has taken into consideration only alignment and religion... and Cassiel is absolutely neutral there.

I'm gathering data like BaseAttitude, MaxWarRand and DogpileWarRand now, as well as AttitudeCompassionHigh/Low. Will see how to refine the thing (also favorite civics and their eventual relation to the compassion system will be factored).

MagisterCultuum · Apr 8, 2008

DharmaMcLaren said:
Cassiel is True Neutral in Erebus because good/evil is based on the Compact, with the gods opposing it being evil and the gods supporting it being good, as I understand. The odd thing is that Cassiel himself supports the Compact, but that the Grigori have no god...

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.

Grey Fox · Apr 8, 2008

Actually Agares is probably one of the strongest supporters of the Compact. He doesn't want an open conflict. He wants to turn all the other angels to his side so they can restore the connection between creation and the One.

I don't think he minds that Hyborem is breaking the compact however. I think he is eagerly watching to see how that all turns out.

Monkeyfinger · Apr 8, 2008

So I went into the leaders' XML, looking to find actual data on their stance. And to interpret them, I had to create a formula.
First, I thought, alignment. I decided to give good leaders a 5, neutrals a 0, evil folks -5.
Then, on religion, I decided that I was to judge them on the effect they had on leaders' alignment - which is, after all, how good/bad it makes them. Being that the AV is enough to make a leader bad, and the Order is the opposite, I gave them respectively a -5 and a 5. Empyrean and RoK, that change evil to neutral, I gave a 2,5, and conversely I assigned the CoE and OO a -2,5. The FoL I gave a 0.
But leaders also have varying attitudes towards them, which I decided to quantify as the specified value divided per ten, added to the basic value of that religion, both values positive for "good" religions, negative for "evil" religions. The FoL values I considered when positive a +, because it nonetheless could steer a leader away from the evil cults, when negative a -, for the opposite reason.

Example: Arturus is neutral (0), has a -20 for the CoE (2,5+2=4,5) and the AV (5+2=7). It sums to 16,5 on the side of good.

2 big problems with that:

1) I don't buy the connections between the alignment changes and how good the religions actually are being that strong. Off the top of my head I'd certainly call Empyrean more "good" than Order, for instance. And CoE, while kinda evil, is less so that Overlords.

2) The religion weights often don't make a lot of sense.

A list compiled this way gives an okay ballpark but some of the details are off. I mean, Varn and Basium that high? Above the Elohim leaders even?

Ekolite · Apr 8, 2008

In FFH I'm fairly sure that ''good'' basically means, ''is fighting evil'' and so I guess the amount of effort they put into, and how much they go out of their way, o crusade against the demons is just *how* good they are. It does say somewhere that although basium is ''good'', common people have trouble telling him apart from hyborem.

xienwolf · Apr 8, 2008

Well, "apathy is the greatest evil" could be said to apply in that case. The Elohim will offer shelter and whatnot, but don't much go out and proactively counter Evil. Thus they aren't nearly as good as Basium or Varn, who are both quite known to go on a rampage and demolish things which seem even slightly evil. So I would personally see them as more Good than the Elohim, in a FfH kinda way.

EDIT: @Sofista: iBadAttitude is multiplied by iAttitudeBadBonus to decide what the leader thinks of anyone who uses Death or Entropy Mana.

Grey Fox · Apr 8, 2008

Monkeyfinger said:
2 big problems with that:

1) I don't buy the connections between the alignment changes and how good the religions actually are being that strong. Off the top of my head I'd certainly call Empyrean more "good" than Order, for instance. And CoE, while kinda evil, is less so that Overlords.

We are talking FfH here. It's not Moral or Ethical goodness. It's who are fighting the Evil the most. Basically. And there we got Order on top.

Who is the most evil? Most good? etc

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