I just hope that there are more merciless options for colonization events. in 0.61, the options for benevolent/pragmatic are usually a tossup as to which is better while the merciless is usually in the kick the dog end of the scale with no real benefit compared to the opportunity costs of not choosing the others... but there is really no EvilInc, horrifying AboveGoodAndEvil, BadGuysDoTheDirtyWork, or any other sort of evil trope/subtrope
Take for example the Disease event, your current options are:
- We're certainly not going to cull anyone. Keep treating the symptoms and studying the disease. Even if we never find a cure, we won't become monsters ourselves
- .+10 Benevolent, -10% Population Growth, +10% Research
- We'll have to quarantine the people who have the disease, and, sadly, prevent them from reproducing. The rest of the colony can continue on as is. We'll set up a room with a nice thick glass wall for families to briefly reunite.
- +10 Pragmatic, -5% Population Growth
- Hard decisions always look easier after you make them. Our descendants will thank us for having the courage to do this. If it helps, get everyone drunk first.
- +10 Merciless, -30% Food Production
- What if instead merciless was "We must not allow this plague to spread to other nonsynthetic populations, sterilize & quarantine the world"
- +10 merciless -100% non-synthetic population/growth -95% tourism +50% industry
Ruins event is
- The primitive species that occupy this planet was once far more technologically advanced, and accidentally ruined their civilization in some kind of nuclear war several hundred years ago. Ruined cities dot the planet, and will likely contain valuable resources we could easily recycle. But the natives regard these ruins as sacred, and insist we stay away from them. What are your orders?
- We're not going to stomp through someone's graveyard. We will of course respect the dead of these people. Declare the cities off limits for development, and set aside one or two for open air museums so we can learn from these people's mistakes.
- <String>+10 Benevolent, +20% Influence</String>
- We will work with the locals to determine the boundaries of the most sacred sites, but will excavate and recycle the rest.
- +10 Pragmatic, +10% Manufacturing
- That's a real shame, and we will promise to feel bad about it when we're throwing everything through the recyclers.
- +10 Merciless, +20% Manufacturing
What if ruins event's merciless was more like:
- Relocate the colony to a nearby Moon & work with the native-meat to restore their past achievements & knowledge in a symbiotic manner under our guidance
- +10 merciless -25% PQ -50% influence +20% planetary research +25% planetary industry
so on & so forth, there is just not really any options that don't ascribe to different morality/ethical systems often leading to comical events like those involving cruelty to animals or infectious diseases & the synthtic yor and other nonsensical combinations with the warlike drengin, religious ultra-religious krynn, or beyond Randian Iridium
I'm hoping they give us the ability to make race specific colonization events akin to the race specific tech trees, even if they are litterally just copies of the same event files left to modders to take advantage of later