Sorry, but this is getting very heady.

Prohibition was not a tax on alcohol, and prohibition in a nation where alcohol is taxed would lead to a dramatic decrease in state income. In that case, unless you want to abstract prohibition to be a "high tax" in terms of heavy handed state control, then what you say in the first paragraph does not really make sense. It is merely a lot of assertions strung together.

Why should the game strive to define why Kingdoms are a superior moral choice? When you say you "like this to be more about embracing freedom as the best method to achieve lasting security for states, but the power fantasy and goth fetishism is sapping the coherence of the implementation", do you even know what you mean?

I'm not questioning your dedication to whatever it is you are trying to say, but I am questioning the coherence of your argumentation.

A significant contributor to my obscurity is a strong desire to not link current political extravagance to this argument because of the unthinking hostility it engenders. The semantic requirements of avoiding topical hostility are straining my prose, I admit. Sorry if I left you behind in some of the turns.

Morality: A substantial problem with the graphics fixation in E:FE is the appeal of dark, brooding, and supposedly dangerous "bad guys". There is some serious appeal to playing that side, but the problem is that the nebulous implementation of the moral differentiation makes the characterization shallow and weak. If it makes you feel better, the Civilization series often gets this wrong, and rewards "dead end" development in many cases as strongly as development that have results worth emulating.

For instance, Spain cut out a substantial portion of the globe out for it's private use and then converted the untold riches to making the most extravagantly corrupt and powerful Inquisition in the world. The long term benefit to this behavior was that when I was five in 1969, it was cheap to live in Spain because they were so backwards, so I got to live there. Also, they made some killer movies in the '60's through the '80's because it was cheap after the rest of the world left them behind. (You have not lived until you've seen "The Three Musketeers" and "The Four Musketeers" that was shot in Spain with Michael York as D'Artagnan. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072281/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073012/ )

Similarly, the lasting global benefit of Communism appears to be the steady supply of prostitutes to other countries that do not embrace that economic model, even if they gladly embrace the resultant lingerie models.

There is some benefit to including development that is simply stupid, venal, bad, and counter-productive in a simulation of governance. It adds reality because so many governments make such aggressively stupid decisions. Morality, or some other framework that imposes consequences should be in place in the game, but the lack of firm guidance along those lines in E:FE is problematic.  Until they have the framework, a lot of this holds up like jellyfish towers: not at all, in other words.

I think the goal of the game is to provide

1. Challenging AI

2. An atmosphere of adventure and magic

3. Nice art assets

Of these three, the things I am most interested in are the Combination and Synergy of 1. and 2.

Interesting. I recently wrote a paper on how the fall of the Soviet Union has actually led post-soviet states to become more capitalistic than America. We, on the other hand, have become increasingly socialist, as has much of the western world. My conclusion was that Marx's theory of capitalistic expansion will soon turn post-soviet states into the next exploitable resources. Given the extreme pressure on capitalism in the past decade and those to come, the first enterprises that recognize post-soviet states' refusal of even low level socialistic policies, will exponentially increase their control over the global economy. The major resistant force is of course the syndicate mentality of current economic structures in these states. It is possible that this force will either be overlooked as it is with Brazil and Eastern Asia, or supplanted with puppet leaders as it was is South America in the past century. I will be interesting to see how your thesis of indirect attributes to such choices will play out. 

My belief is that wealth tends to remove many punishments for stupidity, and blocking of that feedback leads to catastrophic failures. The United States, because of it's constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, has gotten wealthy enough to allow outrageous quantities and qualities of stupidity to flourish in hothouse shelters protected from rational control. The post-Soviet states were sufficiently punished by the stupidities allowed by the wealth caused by coal-fired steam, and later diesel power that they moved towards less stupid and more rewarding behavior. Similarly, Brazil has been the country of the future for my entire life and probably will be for some time more, has kinds of stupidity granted by natural resources that allows them some amazingly stupid behavior. 

While I do not ascribe to the theory that money is the root of all evil, I certainly believe that riches unbounded by feedback systems drives toward stupidity at a hyperbolic rate. There is actually greater feedback associated with wealth, but in a single generation the abstraction can become overwhelming.

In game, the power provided by the crystals invited certain extravagant stupidities that led to the civilization's catastrophic downfall.

Well said. Say, are still in the NAVY? I am joining up this spring. I also happen to live in Washington. 

I am no longer in the Navy, although I am in Oregon, your neighbor to the south that has the better beer. OK, that's not accurate: Your neighbor to the south that has the BEST beer in the world, and is working on the other fermented beverage supremacy. So what if you have a much larger software industry, Boeing, and all that oil refining! We've got the suds and shooters to enjoy life with.

In the Navy there is a saying: choose your rate, choose your fate. It was my privilege to be a Surface Sonar Technician back when they let us play with the big boom things. Today I'd want to take a good hard look at what opportunities were before I jumped. If the recruiter is telling you that you'll go to the fleet without a designation so that you can pick what's right for you, make sure he kisses you after you sign the contract. That way you'll know that you've been sincerely screwed.

I am a linguist. I speak Russian fluently and grew up with Spanish and English. I feel every American has a duty to serve the country in some way. Mine is language fortunately because I am a terrible shot. : ) I also need to get on the G.I. Bill to finish my bachelor in Russian. We may have all that industry but we don't mind cutting a near graduate loose by cutting financial aid. I plan to go into Cryptography. I am hoping that my skills and education will put me ahead. And don't worry, my family has done recruitment for almost every member, we got it down by now. 

I have some history with good Oregonian Beer. Too bad I don't drink alcohol anymore, ruins my physical routine. 

One of my best memories from the Navy was smuggling a half gallon of Jack Daniels to the petty officers mess onboard the Zerstrorer Mölders D186 while she was in Guantanamo Bay undergoing refresher training in 1990. The infringement was minor and very welcome, because the fine German sailors were tired of the same old beer. So we spent the night in great gemutlichkeit listening to somewhat forbidden music, smoking pipes, cigars, cigarettes and chewing tobacco (usually not all at once) while "accidentally" ringing the bell from time to time. Although we had a great deal to consume, none of us were binge drinking, and that made the evening quite worthwhile. I'm sorry if your relationship with alcohol precludes your consuming it socially, but I certainly understand, particularly if you are going into the spooky world.

If you have the choice, I would suggest you pick an obscure threat language to learn, for a variety of reasons. Common threat language skills will see you worked like a rented mule and discarded. Obscure threat language skills will see you worked like a rented mule and appreciated. Unless and until the US Navy starts putting emphasis on language training nearly on par with emphasis on physical fitness, they're going to be using up translators. If they are going to recognize your existing fluency, make sure they are going to compensate you for not sending you to Monterrey, the best language school in the world. Otherwise, I suggest you learn Kurdish. The Kurds are some fine people, and they would be very happy to have more Americans fluent in their language. Since they are sitting on the sixth largest oil reserves in the world, that could be very valuable to you someday.

A word on the Cryptography community: backstabbing. For their own reasons, crypto folks are some of the most backstabbing SOB's I've ever served with, although to be honest, they were mostly interested in backstabbing each other. Part of my appreciation of this may be due to my coming from the tin-can community, where the decks are dark at night and loyalty is an enforced virtue. Nevertheless, it seems some crypto folks make up for lackluster performance during a cruise by ratting out their fellows for the slightest security violation in the end of cruise wrapup report.  If it sounds like I think that stinks on ice, it's because it does.

If you are serious about physical readiness, some fine fool is going to push you towards special operations. One of the smarter things the SEALs do to preserve the quality of their ranks is to wash out as many people as they possibly can. The result of this is that a bunch of folks who might have some serious contributions to make become bitterly disappointed with the Navy as a result of their failure to demonstrate sufficient walrus content in their genetic makeup. (In the first fifteen minutes of BUD/S school, they wash out 25% of candidates through cold water immersion stress. If you have insufficient tolerance for that kind of stress, it doesn't matter if you're an Olympic champion, the SEALs can't use you.) While I greatly respect the SEALs, I wouldn't want to plan my life on becoming one, even if I had long ivory tusks and could endure polar immersion with the best of them. Mostly I'm saying this because I'm tired of dealing with BUD/S dropouts who were insufferable towards some fine sailors of my acquaintance. That we are having this conversation indicates that you are not very serious about becoming a SEAL, because otherwise you'd be be out doing situps and breaking your teeth trying to chew railroad spikes instead of pontificating on the intricacies of civilization building.  Keep in mind that some people with no accountability to you will try to get you to do stupid and unpleasant things so that a quota is met.  Your quota is to serve with honor, don't let others dissuade you from that path.