Evil > Good? Help Me Understand.

[vahauser51]

I've been watching YouTube trying to improve my game. It seems that the majority of replays are of evil leaders, usually necromancers. Are evil leaders really that much more effective than good leaders? Would playing a good leader therefore be a more difficult challenge? Help me understand, please.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

I have no idea what people on youtube may or may not do. But do note that a necromancer does not have to be evil in this game. You can play a good one if you want.

Alignment in this game is pretty simple: do nice stuff (make peace, let fleeing enemies live, cooperate with neutral cities) and you get a good alignment. Do less nice stuff (Kill fleeing enemies, declare war, massacre cities or commit ethnic cleansing) and you become evil.

Both have their ups and downs.

Good:
+ AI players like you more. (less war declarations)
+ Neutral cities like you more. (more likely to join you for cheap or even for free.) This can let you expand quite quickly via alliances.
+ NPC races like you more, letting you use their cities without chance of rebellion and letting you gain racial governance points for several races. You will also be able to mix and match units from different races for best effect.
+ You can use good aligned units and spells without ill effects
- Letting enemies live means getting less XP
- Making peace with neutral cities is expensive, if you lack money you cannot expand so fast.

Evil:
+ Killing everyone gives you lots of XP
+ You can declare war when you want without messing up your alignment. You can attack and capture neutral cities when you meet them.
+ You get to migrate every city to your race of choice (or races, it's usually a good idea to have a couple.) This also means you get racial governance points for those races VERY quickly.
+ You can pillage or raze cities to your heart's content.
+ You get to use evil units and spells without ill effects
- Everybody hates you, expect to get piled up on
- Fighting everybody means you take more damage and may lose more units.
- You need armies to conquer neutral cities. Good players can expand by sending a scout with a bag of gold. You need to get everything the hard way.

Both styles work. I personally mix them up for variety's sake.

I expect that in multiplayer people may resort to the evil playstyle more because it suits the pace of the game (fast games on small maps) and because against a human opponent it becomes more important to get that XP and to practice scorched earth tactics.

But in single player and on larger maps playing the diplomacy game and getting a big network of vassal cities can be a very effective strategy too.

(And if those youtubers usually play necromancers, that may be because in the unmodded game the class is rather overpowered...)

[Midas]

If they're mostly necromancers, that's probably why they're evil. Necromancer generally wants to farm bodies, so they never let anything run, and they want to attack cities both because they can destroy them for loot and raise them again with magic, and because they want to put hostile spells on cities for various bonuses. Basically if you want to take advantage of the full necromancer kit, you're probably going to end up being evil whether you want to or not.

[CrUsHeR]

As mentioned above, the Necromancer class is absolutely overpowered. As soon as you have two Reanimators at gold rank, two Cadavers and one Banshee, it seems to be impossible to lose any units in auto-battles. No other class is remotely as effective that early in the game, just think about how auto-battles go with e.g. Warlord T2 who are dying left and right even against T1 defenders.

Once your leader is level 7, you can simply raise any defeated Undead creature including the T4 Archon Titans and Bone Dragons, which are also dedicated to evil. If your leader is not evil at this point, these guys would simply desert.

Later with Inflict Ghoul Curse + Death Bringers you can turn almost everything into ghouls, including overpowered units which are normally unobtainable due to strict MC immunity (Succubi, Shamans, T4 animals etc etc). Makes you wonder how it feels to get your heroes entangled and seduced by your own former units.


Also you need to check the evil-exclusive specializations. Having one extra level of lifestealing on every unit can be insanely overpowered on its own. Or getting the Fallen Angel with the petrifying shout, who also happens to be Infantry so he gets all the buffs from Necro, Theocrat and Warlord unit upgrades.

The Blight Empire spell is pretty nasty to give a base morale debuff to all attackers, and so is the option for Hasty Plunder or Disintegrate.


Good specializations don't really have comparable perks, like being able to heal or rez one unit per turn doesn't help if half your army is frozen / petrified / feared / dead.

They mostly shine of huge maps with few players where you might not make any contact before turn 60-80; being able to have dozens of vassals well outside of your controlled borders, and annex any of them at any time, is extremely powerful.

Originally posted by Midas:

If they're mostly necromancers, that's probably why they're evil. Necromancer generally wants to farm bodies, so they never let anything run, and they want to attack cities both because they can destroy them for loot and raise them again with magic, and because they want to put hostile spells on cities for various bonuses. Basically if you want to take advantage of the full necromancer kit, you're probably going to end up being evil whether you want to or not.

As Necro, you also have to be evil for the research and pop growth.

You can get +400 pop growth from a single Plague spell on a neutral city, which approximately triples the growth of the nearest city (200 is base). And every battle adds population as well.

And because you get no bonuses from happiness or -events, you absolutely rely on research from Whispers of the Dead.

Ironically this also makes the necro research better, because you can start a new research topic with something like 300 / 350 and you'll get the missing 50 points from battles before the next turn is over. While regular empires would waste the difference of 250 points unless they run into a research stash or get lucky with a happiness event.

Obviously all this doesn't work so well when most defenders try to flee from your armies.

[jaersavo]

Crusher, try out the balance mod. It nerfs necromancers quite a bit in their capability to ghoul everything. But it's still a lot of fun playing them (if not more) and especially with chivalrious intentions.
Personally I find it much easier playing an evil alignment myself. Getting the city buff giving all produced and summoned units life steal is very strong.
Also it's hard to balance it, my favourite is Grey Guard plus wild magic adept.

[zeshoot]

Originally posted by jaersavo:

Keeper of the peace...it gives you safeguard. That city with only one unit inside. Good news, with safeguard you won't lose it.

Hmm, either U play on low diff or U haven't been attacked by AI player. Safeguard is easily dispelled - by hero or unit that have the ability (human priest for example). And that's even if AI leader isn't in battle personally. So that's that. I can agree that U can maby (with decent casting points pool) can defend against spawn units (brigands, etc). But it's tricky early on and hard to achieve (double casting points without leader's presence).


As for the GOOD vs EVIL - when I saw Your post - vahauser51 - I did two games - evil Necro and Keeper Theo. Both on Emperor, both hard defenders. I did win both easily. It's just completely different style.
Neither one had any income issue. Necro I was conquering Independent cities by sucking pop and then denouncing AI to vasalize them (Evil trait). And when I went for AI - I was simply Hasty plundering their cities for a massive incom boost - same time buff my grow/eco and hinder theirs army/economy capability.
As Keeper I had almost infinite amount of resources. Vasals gives You tremendous amounts of moneyz/mana/research. And that was better when game goes on to mid/late game. I had like turn 55 - around 900 gold income, 350 mana and half ish research. That was from my 5,6 cities and horde of vasal cities. They were nurtured so I didn't had to spend penny to defend/develop them. Just cleared all special sites around their influence zones and viola - passive income that protect my borders and gives me early warning vision. And if I decided I wanna build units with special traits form them (Slaughter pits, Enchanted Armory, etc) I simply buy out a city for a low price that were already developed. And that income was on top of 6 full stacks, with heroes each and defending armies in cities.
Both games could've been finished around turn 55-60. Rest of the time I was just toying with AI (couldn't resist to do my Black Crusade as Necro and Holy Crusade as Theo with stacks of end game units ^^ )
That's all imo. All depends on what You wanna do on this specific playthrough. You feel today like world burner - go necro, pick Destruction master and shadowborn adept.
You feeling like Giles de Breton ? Go theocrat with Keeper adept, Partisan, Creation magic and be People's hero.
Good luck on Your journey Mate!

[jaersavo]

I play against 6 emperors, which are all in team 2 and get buffs from some mods like making ai gain experience faster and such. So difficulty isn't easy I guess. Also I'm open for ways to increase it.
And with safeguard. I was wrong. Good alignment is my least favourite play style. My ghoul civic guard actually got hurt because coming from a -40% he didn't reach 100% spiritual immunity and those 2 spirutual damage he recieved in turn 5 was enough to make the battle go on.

[𝗚ᴏᴏᴅ 𝗚ᴜʏꜱ]

immunity and those 2 spirutual damage he recieved in turn 5 was enough to make the battle go on.

[vahauser51]

Thank you to everybody who replied. You've answered my question. If I want a more challenging game, then I will play a Good leader. I think I'll try the leader that Zeshoot suggested: Keeper, Creation, Partisan. Sounds like a fun challenge!

[𝗚ᴏᴏᴅ 𝗚ᴜʏꜱ]

sive income that protect my borders and gives me early warning vision. And if I decided I wanna build units with special traits form them (Slaughter pits, Enchanted Armory, etc) I simply buy out a city for a low price that were already developed. And that income was on top of 6 full stack

[Melth]

Alignment affects only the following things in this game:

1) When your alignment changes, you get a temporary happiness change. This is equivalent for both goodness and evilness.
2) A few units (and a few leader specializations like Shadowborn) are unhappy unless you have a certain alignment. This, again, is pretty much equivalent for goodness and evilness, since there are useful units of each alignment and all the alignment specializations are powerful if played right.
3) The gooder you are, the friendlier independent cities and dwellings will be. Even evil dwellings like archons are always friendlier to you if you are Good.


Point 3 (having independent cities and dwellings automatically like you) is a HUGE advantage,
Every alignment step towards good is +100 to your relationship value with every single independent city or dwelling on the map. Every single step towards evil is -100. So comparing a pure good to a pure evil player, that would be a 600 point difference, which is 3 entire relationship levels.

If you are pure good, most cities you meet will immediately offer you free peace, some will offer peace for a very small fee, and a few will even immediately become your vassals! Turning them into vassals or having them join your empire will also be extremely cheap, and your income from them as vassals will be MUCH higher than if the city doesn't like you. In fact, vassal proposals tend to pay for themselves within just a few turns if your relationship is at the maximum.

Furthermore, there is a positive feedback loop at work as you befriend independents. Being good makes them easier to befriend. Befriending them makes you more good, which makes them easier to befriend, which makes you more good. It's pretty easy to snowball into Pure Good and beyond very quickly.

Now an inexperienced player at this point might be shaking their head and saying 'but if I'm evil, I can just conquer those independent cities instead of vassaling and absorbing them.'

That's true but it's missing the point. Your army is limited in size, and until late in the game you can't have strong armies in a lot of places at once. So you can't conquer everyone at once. Meanwhile, a pure good person can effectively take over an entire city with a single scout, which means they can just throw scouts across the map and acquire dozens of cities.

Also, if you play with Strong or Very Strong defenders on, the garrisons of cities become massively more powerful and thus they're harder to conquer. However, they're just as easy to befriend as ever.

Furthermore (and this might blow some minds) there is absolutely nothing stopping a Good player from migrating a city or attacking an independent they met. Sure you get some evil points, but that's exactly the same penalty which an Evil player gets. In fact, you can think of any Good points you acquire beyond the 600 required to become Pure Good as your evilness budget. You can freely commit any atrocity you want without the slightest penalty as long as you stay above 600, which is very easy if you just keep scouting and meeting new independents.


So the good alignment itself is preferable to the evil alignment.

However, evil actions are obviously a smart idea some of the time. Migrating cities or conquering an independent who you need to control ASAP is often a very good move. Or sometimes you just can't afford to vassal someone, so you conquer them instead.

I'm not denying any of that. Evil moves are often smart moves.

But just remember that moving towards evil is a downside of those smart moves. Those evil points are the price you have to pay for useful things like migrating in whatever race you want.


I think the most powerful strategy I ever concocted in this game was to play a Tigran Rogue, Keeper of the Peace Master/Explorer

I played on a Very Large map with an underground, and medium amounts of independent cities and dwellings.

The combo of being pure good + Courtesan Ambassadors + Bringer of Light meant that independent cities were throwing themselves at me for almost no cost, and once they became vassals (very fast due to Keeper of the Peace Master) they were pouring gold into my lap. I got 4 or 5 who just joined as free vassals.

As a Rogue with Explorer I had the best possible scouts, and I just exploded across the map in all directions recruiting everybody. By turn 40 I controlled almost the entirety of everything, above and below ground. My economy was comically huge.

Having a huge base economy makes Guild of Shadow Thieves even more attractive than usual because the bonus gold it gives you is a % of YOUR economy's total size.

There were other things that made it a very good combo too. With the Safeguard spell, it is very easy to save a scout from being killed by Lost Souls or the like. Just run for at least 3 turns, and then do safeguard to be invincible for 2 turns if they trap you. Since 5 turns have now passed without anyone taking damage, the battle ends automatically with your scout still alive.

Tigran Rogue Explorer can also do a cheesy thing where you produce scoundrels (which are almost free) as automatic elites, which thus instantly turn into Lesser Shadow Stalkers, which are wildly overpowered for such a tiny price. And then if you level up the lessers of course they turn into full-fledged Shadow Stalkers.

Another synergy is that you can combo both Incite Revolt and Rally the Populace onto the same enemy city, which will make absolutely any city revolt to your side. I used that to take over enemy cities with just a single Grimbeak Crow.

There are several other useful synergies to this race/class/specialization combo too. Try it sometime. The only catch is that you can't heal in the beginning.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Whilst it's true that on certain maps you can expand very quickly as a good-aligned player, this does depend heavily on map settings.

For example, Empire Builder mode by default has no independent cities. So being nice to fleeing independents gets you... little.

Also, on small duel-type maps, you won't be able to meet enough neutral cities to really get that feedback loop going, whilst the immediate benefits of being evil (more XP!) are even more important when you are likely to get in early wars.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Nice to know it's helpful.

Some cities like the city of the sexy goblin woman automatically are razed when I take them over. I think it is to make the story progress without excessive do-gooders like me messing with the bad vibe.

I don't recall the particulars of that map, but there is actually a spell that does this. Scorched Earth. It's an evil spell, as you might have guessed. (Destruction school.) It automatically destroys a city when it gets captured. "If I can't have it, nobody can!"

[Luzilyo]

i personally tend to rp necro as true neutral (grey guardian i think is what the alignment is called in this game?) but that's really just my own personal decision. seems to be working pretty alright tho, never had to look up any advanced youtube tutorials or anything, so i'd say necro is probably a pretty decent class overall.

[Luzilyo]

Originally posted by RodentDung:

iguana on stick, I have a large negative curse on one of my towns. How do I dispell it? I researched a spell something like 'greater disjunction' or something but I can't find it global spell list. Is that spell for stopping curses on the map?

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1699531852883010937/37F40972B0B7D92723DD48C04E41104B0E167F98/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

might be a good idea to make a new thread if your post has absolutely nothing to do with the current topic tbh.

[LexCondran]

just be necromancer, and raze the world to the ground.
then, RAISE up the dead