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[Rilder]

I tend to be neutral, I'l do what has to be done but I'm willing to grant mercy if you surrender.

[TheNewerMartianEmperor]

Good guy here. This makes me think of just how many of us are going to completely annihilate the elves when the army arc comes around.

[Phantom]

I usually protect everyone, except kobolds, orcs, gobbos, and dwarves.
And most of the people who don't own badass armor.


Example of badass armor.

[Kagus]

There is something very artistic in the examples of utter destruction portrayed in Sins and Defcon.  Defcon especially played it up by having that eerie background track that's always running.  And the spectacle of a fleet of siege ships launching their ordnance against a planet that has had its defenses crushed is a morbid ballet that is fascinating to watch.

In general, I will avoid such acts.  I will usually attempt to find some other way of taking control, rather than wiping out an entire population.  But now and again, when someone has REALLY proven to be a pain in the ass...  Then it's an all-out scorched earth policy.  Generally only inflicted on the capitol, but I can make exceptions for especially deserving individuals.

[Cthulhu]

Oh, I committed genocide against a species in Spore.  They were really irritating, so I destroyed all of their planets, razing the cities to the ground, and then used the cloud vacuum to turn their home planet into a desolate T0 wasteland, and then blew up their only remaining city with an antimatter missile.  That was about as much fun as I ever had in that game.

[Zironic]

I like to vacate tribal planets.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

I like to kill all which are not part of my empire....





or my allies, or my allies' allies, yeah, things like that.

But I don't feel remorse from genociding! We are men, not fa*s greenpeace activist Elves!

[Reasonableman]

Ordinarily, to wrap up a game, I'll build a secret stockpile of nukes in some distant corner of the map, then launch them all simultaneously... at my allies. Fer funsies.

[Ultimuh]

Oh, I committed genocide against a species in Spore.  They were really irritating, so I destroyed all of their planets, razing the cities to the ground, and then used the cloud vacuum to turn their home planet into a desolate T0 wasteland, and then blew up their only remaining city with an antimatter missile.  That was about as much fun as I ever had in that game.

I have done this plenty of times.. If their planets had only red/yellow spice I'd even sent a Planet Buster at it.   
Is it wrong however that I think the end result is rather pretty? (Even the beautiful explosion brings a tear to my eye.)


Anyway, I only often commit Genocide in a game like spore if the inhabitants are piss me off enough, or if they are hideously ugly. (Many creations, especially MAXIS creations fit this category.)
Then again, I'll usually repopulate the planet with species I like better. 

[WorkerDrone]

I've Planet Busted countless worlds. Simply because, get this, I knew I would never have the time to come back and settle that stretch of space.

So my Spore games tended to start out like this.

First. I secured the area of space around my Home world, making it pretty much a stronghold of deceit and allies bickering with each other, keeping them off my back while I systematically, casually destroy everyone around me one at a time. Then when I'm relatively safe, I take the first Black Hole next to me, and end up in at the other side of the universe. I use this opprotunity, and usually end up where there's only a  few small, defenseless empires, that aren't much harm at all, and BRUTALLY sweep up as much land as possible there, as much as I can micro-manage without being annoyed.

I'll even waste Anti-Matter bombs by the dozens, killing Tribal world villages one by one, just for the pretty lights. And countless civilized worlds the same way, in fact, MOSTLY the civilized staged worlds, because its at the highest Terra-level. Actually, around the time I stopped playing Spore, I would plant one of those Monoliths on Tribal staged worlds around the mentioned 'CONQUER EVERYTHING ZONE', wait for them to bump to Civilized or a few out of hand small empires, and brutally crush them in a barrage of Anti-Matter warfare.

And usually, I would wrap this up by targeting all of the surrounding Empire's home planets, and lighting off a Planet Buster for celebration fireworks.

Actually. I don't ever remember thinking ONCE there was a Diplomatic option. It was either Anti-Matter nuke-a-thon, Blue Spice worlds grab and then throw a little money at them to get rid of war status, or full blown Planet Busting (I usually had as many PB as I possibly could by the end game) as many enemy worlds as I could.

I would then finish playing that race, by embarking on a MAD, INSANE, DERANGED War on the Grox, and EVERY hostile race that game in my path. I would go In a straight line spanning around, 10-20 stars, destroying everything. This took hours, but I would eventually get to the center of the universe after blowing up probably hundreds of planets. Its just not freaking possible for me to embark on a galaxy-wide war. I would just switch to a new race upon getting to the center, as wasting my time wiping out the Grox with another few thousand more Planet Busters was a waste of my time. The initial war with them, the genocidal intent I always had at everyone in my way...

Spore makes it pretty easy to throw around Death Star level weapons. To bad it wasn't as good as it was suppose to be. Excuse me while I give Defcon a try.

[Sensei]

I never mind Genocide as an option in strategy games though sometimes (more often than not to make the game harder) I'll try to stay within an honor code, chief principles usually being: Don't strike the first blow, don't wage war with deceit, allies must be defended.

My spore space experience: I started right next to a large and powerful warrior emperor, who frequently demanded tribute (I didn't pay unless I just felt lazy, I could make up for weak weapons with shooter skillz) and were assholes (specifically, they said that one in my position should give tribute, not ask it). As I went through the game, I made a point of completely surround their empire with either my planets or my steadfast allies (I didn't want to be in a war with them, and buying planets is slow and boring). Then I demanded tribute. When their answer was 'no', I systematically conquered their planets. When I had left only the capitol planet I demanded tribute. Same response, that I should give tribute, not ask it. I blasted them down to T0 and blew up every building in the capitol planet's capitol city, and the base of THAT was brought down to almost no health.

After I immolated their last survivors, it occurred to me that the only logical explanation for their actions was that I was actually hearing an answering machine message.

Yeah, the AI for the interplanetary layer isn't exactly ingenious.

[ein]

I'm totally fneking bipolar.
I'll go from rescuing children from burning buildings to nuking an entire god damned city in about 10 seconds. Usually because I get bored. I rate myself as CN+ in video games. That translates to chaotic neutral leaning towards good. As in I revel in chaos and disorder, but am more likely to put out the fire than start it.
This leads to interesting scenarios where I can kill almost everybody in a town, but they won't care because I saved them from dragons a few times.

[Chutney]

I'm totally fneking bipolar.
I'll go from rescuing children from burning buildings to nuking an entire god damned city in about 10 seconds. Usually because I get bored. I rate myself as CN+ in video games. That translates to chaotic neutral leaning towards good. As in I revel in chaos and disorder, but am more likely to put out the fire than start it.
This leads to interesting scenarios where I can kill almost everybody in a town, but they won't care because I saved them from dragons a few times.

That's definitely Chaotic Evil, if you go around mercilessly slaughtering people just because.

Of course, it's a perfect example of Video Game Chaotic Neutral, where neutrality is not represented by neutrality, but rather balancing out good and evil acts. When will video games ever get it right

[Jualin]

Y'know, if AI nations in every strategy game everywhere eventually just gave up instead of relentlessly attacking my numerically and technologically superior force and proving themselves to be general nuisance, I would let them live. But no, they attack, attack, and attack.

They attack because I didn't give them enough money, they attack because I stole their planet from them by liberally nuking it, they attack because I've destroyed their entire fleet and have imposed a blockade on their last remaining world. It's tiring and its boring to deal with AI because they don't easily see peace as a viable alternative to war, or they can't easily comprehend how far behind they are in the arms race.

If I'm bored like this, the least I'd want to do is to cut out the middleman and just bore myself instead. It would spice it up even if they're just backstab happy instead. They'd still be predictable, but at least they'd have some subtlety.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is why I crush all the nations of the world under my iron-tipped boots. That is why I crush my enemies before me and hear the lamentations of their woman and children before I crush them too. That is why stockpiles of nukes of immense size are built, only to insure the complete and utter destruction of anything that takes any orders from anyone else. That is why I enjoy it.

[mattyb3]

Julian, your post made me realize how much better (in my opinion) some of the older games are, not just on game play terms, but in AI terms too.

Take, for example, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, which despite being nearly 11 years old, has some of the best AI I've ever seen. If you haven't ever played Alpha Centauri (and why not?) then you really should.

It's basically like civilization,except it's on an alien world, and it has different graphics, slightly different game play etc etc, but the basic premise is the same. Anyway, on this planet there are 7 or 8 factions, one of which you choose to play, while the rest are played by the ai.

All the different factions have different personalities.  and in my opinion, act pretty much like real people. If your powerful, they will try to brown nose you or ask for youe research, etc. If they are being beaten in a war, they may ask for your help, or give you money or research if you help them.

The most relistic aspect, however is that factions you are warring will constantly contact you, sometimes just to taunt you, but often to offer a peace treaty, even if the war is going in their favor. If it is not, they will contact you more and more, getting more desperate.

Eventually, if they are about to be eliminated, they may offer to pledge complete servitude to you, giving you all their technology, money etc, which you can of course reject and destroy them anyway. But the point is, i've never played a game where the ai not only acts so realistically, but actually frequently opens a diplomatic channel, or openly admits defeat before thier impending annihilation.