Difference between revisions of "User:Bigjoe5/Alignments"

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Assuming there are 2 ethical preferences for each ethos, having 4 paired alignment scales allows 24 possible ethoi.  What follows is a short list of combinations that make sense conceptually and strategically:
 
Assuming there are 2 ethical preferences for each ethos, having 4 paired alignment scales allows 24 possible ethoi.  What follows is a short list of combinations that make sense conceptually and strategically:
 +
  
 
Bloodthirsty + Expansionistic (Warlord)
 
Bloodthirsty + Expansionistic (Warlord)

Revision as of 18:07, 16 February 2010

Paired Alignments

Paired Alignments are scales measuring imperial action in which one direction on the scale is not defined as any better or worse than the other direction. A particular strategy will be likely to cause the player’s alignment to shift towards one end of the scale or the other, or be neutral. In this way, each empire has a particular character, that defines how it is likely to act. A species’ allegiance towards an empire is based largely on how well that species’ ethos matches the empire’s alignment. In this way, the player is rewarded for choosing a strategy that allows him to consistently make characteristic decisions, because such decisions will give the player allegiance bonuses. Because the player is rewarded for role-playing to a certain degree, empires will frequently be observed to have particular personalities, which will hopefully add to the character of FreeOrion itself.

Pacifism vs. Bloodthirstiness

Factors which Increase Current Bloodthirstiness

  • Declaring war
  • Switching from publicly denouncing a war to publicly endorsing it
  • Planetary bombardment
  • Destroying ships in a combat which you instigated, or which you continued after the other side attempted to disengage
  • Exterminating the citizens of a planet under your control

Factors which Increase Current Pacifism

  • Ending a war which you had publicly endorsed
  • Switching from publicly endorsing a war to publicly denouncing it

Factors which Increase Bloodthirstiness Growth

  • Being in a war which your empire publicly endorses

Factors which Increase Pacifism Growth

  • Natural decay


Strategic Tradeoff

Bloodthirstiness

+ Enhances a militaristic strategy and allows a player to gain higher allegiance by destroying planets and enemy ships

- The player must stay in a state of war or commit otherwise bloodthirsty actions, otherwise the Bloodthirstiness alignment will begin to drop, causing a decrease in allegiance

Pacifism

+ Increases allegiance as a result of inaction, so resources can be diverted to other areas while allegiance and happiness continue to increase.

- The player cannot declare war against an enemy empire without incurring a penalty, and even the enemy empire declares war on him first, thus absolving him of any bloodthirstiness caused by the war itself, the pacifistic empire will find it difficult to actively wage war against the enemy due to the effects on alignment of various warlike actions.


Egalitarianism vs. Elitism

Factors which Increase Current Elitism

  • Moving a species further away on the status scale from the highest ranking species in the empire. This includes raising the status of the highest ranking species

Factors which Increase Current Egalitarianism

  • Moving a species closer on the status scale to the highest ranking species. This includes lowering the status of the highest ranking species

Factors which Increase Elitism Growth

  • Having species in the empire which are more than one level lower on the status scale than the highest ranking species

Factors which Increase Egalitarianism Growth

  • Having multiple species sharing the highest which has been bestowed by the empire


Strategic Tradeoff

When enslaving an elitist species, the negative impact on allegiance due to decreased species-empire alignment would significantly outweigh the positive impact on allegiance due to increased elitism alignment.

Conversely, when promoting an egalitarian species, the negative impact on allegiance due to increased elitism would significantly outweigh the positive impact on allegiance due to increased species-empire alignment.

This is accomplished by having a large penalty to species-empire alignment for low ranking species, but only a small bonus to species-empire alignment for high ranking species. In other words, being elitist is only advantageous when the player has elitist species in his empire which he raises to a higher rank.

Elitism

+ Allows the player to have fairly productive multi-species empires, since slave races can be used for their bonuses without a significant amount of revolt occurring, and the planets containing the higher ranking species will be happier and more productive due to their higher rank; essentially, this allows the empire to have a very productive multi-species empire while only having to please one species.

- Unhappy slave worlds are prime candidates for espionage, which means that the elitist empire is an easy target for stealing resources, technology, ship designs, etc, and espionage could be used to cause rebellion in the otherwise very safe and stable slave worlds.

Egalitarianism

+ Allows an empire to have a fairly productive multi-species empire, without any worlds which are extremely vulnerable to espionage. There is less difficulty in maintaining high allegiance from newly acquired species due to the fact that they don’t need to be enslaved in order to keep the original species happy.

- It’s not as easy to incorporate Elitist races into an Egalitarian empire as it is to incorporate Egalitarian empires into an Elitist empire, meaning that the ethos of species you can incorporate into an Egalitarian empire is limited if they are all to be equal. Also, if an empire attempted to be elitist without having any elitist species, he would still get an empire with a variety of bonuses and low possibility of revolt, but he would have no loyal races to use in his military, which would make it more difficult to wage war, and possibly to prevent rebellions on the slave worlds. Also, more effort must be expended keeping multiple species in the same empire happy.


Diplomacy vs. Isolationism

Factors which Increase Current Isolationism

  • Breaking treaties/alliances
  • Leaving a Multi-Governmental Body

Factors which Increase Current Diplomacy

  • Entering treaties/alliances
  • Giving, receiving or exchanging resources, information or other items
  • Creating or joining a Multi-Governmental Body

Factors which Increase Isolationism Growth

  • Natural decay

Factors which Increase Diplomacy Growth

  • Being involved in a treaty or alliance with another race
  • Being a member of a Multi-Governmental Body


Strategic Tradeoff

Isolationism

+ Isolationist species are the only species which can’t be charmed by the diplomatic empire. As such, having an empire comprised of only Isolationist species would put that empire in a unique position to wage a ruthless war against the diplomatic empire without incurring happiness penalties on his planets.

- There’s a lot to be said for the advantages of trading and entering treaties with other empires, and choosing to use a Isolationist race significantly reduces the desirability of diplomacy, which essentially means that the Isolationist empire is on its own.

Diplomacy

+ Encourages a diplomatic strategy and essentially adds a bonus to the player for all diplomatic negotiations, whether otherwise favourable to him or not. This encourages the player to use the diplomatic strategy and gain high allegiance from all (non-isolationist) species, so that empires containing such species will give him gifts to get the happiness bonus.

- Although the diplomatic strategy is dependent on pleasing as many races as possible, it makes it more difficult to actually incorporate those races into your empire while still pleasing elitist races, because doing so will mean that the acquired races will have to, on average, be 1 level below the highest rank in the empire to keep elitism and egalitarianism even. This means species-empire alignment for the newly acquired race will decrease as a result of having been reduced to a lower rank by that empire, and all other empires who have that race will be less inclined to give gifts to that empire. If the empire makes the new race the same rank as his original race, then empires which contain elitist races will be less likely to favour his empire. This forces the diplomatic empire to make a choice between pleasing elitist races, and maintaining a productive multi-species empire. Furthermore, in the early game, the player must try to reach out quickly to meet new empires before allegiance from his diplomatic races decreases significantly.

Expansionism vs. Appropriation

For each colony, the game stores knowledge of which empire created it, or if it is a homeworld, which empire’s homeworld it was.

Factors which Increase Appropriation Growth

  • Possessing other empires’ homeworlds, or colonies which were created by another empire. Colonies which were created by an enemy empire on one’s own homeworld do qualify for this.

Factors which Increase Expansionism Growth

  • Possessing colonies which were created by your empire, even if those planets previously belonged to another empire, but the colony was destroyed and replaced with a new one. The empire’s own homeworld never qualifies for this.


Strategic Tradeoff

Appropriated colonies might weigh more heavily than colonies colonized by the empire, so that it’s not too difficult to be an Appropriation race. Having more planets would make each planet weigh less in the overall calculation, such that the total number of planets a player possesses has no relation to the total potential growth, or that the total potential growth increases with some root of the total number of planets the player possesses. Both these aspects will clearly need to be subject to balancing.

Expansionism

+ Players get happiness and allegiance bonuses for expanding quickly in the early game, which will help them get a strong start with plenty of colonies.

- In the later game, the player will have few expansion options left, and may be forced to start capturing enemy worlds to stay competitive (due to environmental preferences though, there may still be a few planets left for him near the endgame that nobody’s bothered with). Alternatively, he can destroy and recolonize planets to stay expansionistic, but this is more costly and time consuming than actually capturing a planet. Also, the player will be somewhat discouraged from having multi-species empires, but not too much to avoid making it a viable strategy, since the player can capture just a few planets, and colonize other worlds with those species.

Appropriation

+ Players have an easy time keeping allegiance up in the late game when there are lots of planets to conquer. In addition, this will usually result in having a wealth of species in his empire which he can use to his advantage, or if it is too much trouble, he can just exterminate them and repopulate the planet with a different species, but either option is easily accessible to the player who captures most of his colonies.

- Early game disadvantage due to new colonies lowering allegiance. The player will have to focus on building up his military quickly and expanding his empire with outposts so that he can make contact with other empires before they’re too powerful for him to take, due to their early expansion.

The Diplomatic Strategy

I’m assuming for now that events which occur between Empire A and Empire B will have an impact on the happiness of planets in Empire A which contain species whose allegiance towards Empire B is higher than their allegiance towards Empire A, and vice versa. This effect is proportional to the difference in allegiance. There is no impact on happiness of planets in Empire A which contain a species with higher allegiance to Empire A than Empire B, and vice versa.

Actions which increase happiness include giving a gift (or being involved in any exchange which is beneficial to the other empire), actions which decrease happiness include accepting a gift (or being involved in any exchange which is beneficial to one’s own empire) or taking military action against the empire, such as the actions which would increase current bloodthirstiness.

The Diplomatic Strategy is essentially to keep allegiance from all species very high so that other empires will have an incentive to give you gifts in order to gain happiness bonuses on their planets, and will be deterred from attacking your planets and ships, which would cause a happiness penalty on their planets. Propaganda is employed to increase species-empire allegiance and to compensate for necessary deviations in other alignments.

Because of this advantage, the diplomatic player also has a degree of control over other empires, in that he can cease to accept their gifts at any time, so they’d better listen to him. He can use this advantage to play other empires against each other, cause unnecessary wars between other empires, and just be generally manipulative. He might make considerable use of multi-governmental bodies to achieve his goals as well.


Pacifism vs. Bloodthirstiness

The diplomatic player has two main options with this one: he can either try to balance it, or he can go towards pacifism. Being bloodthirsty isn’t viable, because other players aren’t really going to take to kindly to you if you always go around destroying their ships and bombarding their planets. In addition, such a player probably won’t have the resources to spend on numerous prolonged wars.

Being a bit bloodthirsty is fine, though, since that only requires war with a few other empires and a bit of destruction, as well as a bit of propaganda to tie up the loose ends. Furthermore, you’ll have lots of empires willing to defend your colonies as a favour, so that they can continue to get happiness bonuses by giving you gifts, and as a bit of a threat so that you’ll keep accepting their gifts (‘cause otherwise they’ll blow you to smithereens), but this is OK, as long as the player knows how to play his opponents against each other, to divert their military attention from himself.

Being totally pacifistic is the cheapest route in terms of resource expenditure, but it also has potential to be the most expensive in terms of long-term consequences. The player doesn’t have to waste lots of resources on ships, and can turn his resource production to other things such as research and espionage. In addition, pacifistic species will like him more. This isn’t obviously a good thing, because the more they like you, the less their empire has to give you to keep them happy. However, the fact is that this will end up being an advantage for the diplomatic player, since pacifists will see that giving him gifts is the least expensive way to boost happiness, so they’ll use it more than if the diplomatic player was balancing pacifism and bloodthirstiness. In addition, the pacifists allegiance for their empire will surpass their allegiance for the diplomatic empire later in the game than otherwise, so the diplomatic player will be receiving their support for longer.

The long term consequences of choosing pacifism however, is that bloodthirsty empires aren’t going to like you as much as otherwise, which means less incentive to give you presents and avoid destroying your colonies. The pacifistic diplomat will have to ensure that his colonies are not in a vulnerable position to any bloodthirsty empires.

Egalitarianism vs. Elitism

Once again, the player has two main options: he can be neutral, or he can be egalitarian.

Being elitist would mean that some species in his empire would be upset with him due to being at a lower status, which in turn would mean that those species in other empires would have lower allegiance towards you (particularly since increased species-empire alignment is the main reason an empire with neutral alignment can have higher allegiance from species than empires who actually support that alignment, and species-empire alignment is what would be lowered by the lower status), which in turn gives those empires much less inspiration to give you presents. This makes elitism a poor choice for the diplomatic player.

Balancing the alignment scale for this is easy: just stick with a single species in your empire and the alignment will stay completely neutral. This allows the player to fairly easily please both sides, but doesn’t give the player the advantage of having a diverse empire with lots of different bonuses.

Being egalitarian requires getting lots of species into your empire, which is easy for a diplomatic empire, since you can just trade for a planet or a colony ship. However, the egalitarian diplomat will run into the same problems as the pacifistic diplomat. Elitist empires will have no significant incentive to give him gifts, and will instead be more willing to capture and enslave his planets. Having good allies and a good strategy can help with this, but even more so, being balanced between bloodthirsty and pacifistic will help with being egalitarian and vice versa, since the player will be able to wage war agains the elitists fairly effectively, which will both protect him, and keep his bloodthirstiness in the desired range.

Diplomacy vs. Isolationism

There’s only one valid option here: Diplomacy. However, the fact that other empires may have Isolationist races makes this interesting. Such races will not be amused by their empires’ attempts to increase their happiness, and will have lowered allegiance towards him. In addition, such attempts would be mostly futile even in the short-term, since such races won’t have very high allegiance towards the diplomatic empire. In short, the diplomatic empire will have trouble if there are a lot of Isolationist races in the galaxy, and he should do his best to turn all the other empires against whatever Isolationist empires may be present.

Expansionism vs. Appropriation

Balanced is the best choice for the diplomatic empire here, and it’s quite easy to maintain, since planets obtained through diplomacy count as appropriated planets, and planets colonized using colony ships obtained through diplomacy count as planets colonized by the empire, so as long as he maintains approximately the right proportion of each, it will be easy to please both sides. He can also make up for a few extra of either type of planet by using propaganda.


Ethos

Assuming there are 2 ethical preferences for each ethos, having 4 paired alignment scales allows 24 possible ethoi. What follows is a short list of combinations that make sense conceptually and strategically:


Bloodthirsty + Expansionistic (Warlord)

Elitist + Appropriative (Conquerer)

Egalitarian + Diplomatic (Democratic)

Diplomatic + Pacifistic (Tolerant)

Pacifistic + Isolationistic (Reclusive)

Isolationistic + Bloodthirsty (Xenophobic)


Each preference is used at least once, and each of these ethoi is compatible with a unique, effective strategy.


Warlord

A Warlord species loves to destroy and expand as much as possible. It will usually have industry, mining, space combat, or population growth bonuses, which will complement its owner empire’s general strategy of massive war and expansion. It might have ground combat penalties, to discourage capturing planets, and possibly penalties to other resource production such as food and research, for which the player can make up using diplomacy. Diplomacy is not harmful to the warlord species, and using threats of annihilation to extort resources, ships and technology from other empires will be a common strategy.

Early in the game, the player will be forced to reach outwards as much as possible to claim the most territory and reach potential victims the most quickly, which puts significant limitations on the amount of research and internal development that can occur. In the later game, when there are fewer empty planets left to colonize, he will be compelled to take planets from other races. It is most advantageous for his Expansionistic alignment if he bombards and recolonizes enemy planets, so he should make sure that his research strategy focuses on technology which permits easy destruction of colonies, so that he won’t be strategically compelled to act against his alignment by capturing planets. A high population growth rate would be particularly helpful for countering the disadvantage of having to build all of his colonies from scratch.


Conquerer

A Conquerer race is intent on capturing and enslaving other races. The empire whose main race is a Conquerer race will have a diverse multi-species empire, but will only be intent on raising the allegiance of the Conquerer race. The military benefits of having a species with high allegiance is maintained if the military is comprised only of the Conquerer race, which means that the empire can get both an effective military, and a productive, racially diverse empire without fear of revolt, since slave planets are prevented from revolting as severely as regular planets of the same level of happiness.

Conquerer empires are not compelled to expand and find new enemies to the same extent as Warlord empires, since there is no natural decay to either of their relevant alignment meters, but they will have to devote a fairly significant amount of their early resources to exploration, outposts and military spending, since they will not want to have only colonized planets for too long, otherwise their Appropriation alignment will go down, along with their species’ allegiance towards them. In addition, once some new species are captured and enslaved, the enslaved planets will have very low happiness, making them easy targets for espionage.

The Conquerer empire’s methods for capturing planets do not have to be exclusively military. He may use threats and diplomacy to extort planets from other empires, or he may use espionage to incite rebellion, then snatch up the planet when the ground troops on the planet have been sufficiently weakened. A Conquerer empire is likely to have ground combat, space combat or espionage bonuses, to help him capture enemy planets.

There may also be various indigenous species scattered about the galaxy whose planets the player can conquer and enslave, which would allow him to expand a bit in the early game before he makes contact with other empires.