Aside form the branching dialog, you also are given choices.

Are there any consequences to individual choices aside from shifting an alignment meter up or down?

And is it a simple good v evil meter or are there multiple axis?

The first choice was for making lives better. I could do nothing, something minor -1 energy/turn. make weather nice -2 energy/turn, and make everyone immune to disease -3 energy/turn. I chose to abolish disease from my world for -3/turn, are there any consequences to having no disease on my worlds?

I am now facing the second choice, this one is about worship.
"let them worship the lord of light" -2 energy income
"let them worship whoever they wish.
"let them worship me" +3 energy income

So, aside from the energy income changes what consequences can I expect for those 3 choices? (I left the game minimized until I get more info... I am not willing to make this choice yet due to inability to save properly)...

I also get the feeling that "freedom of religion" is not the "good" choice here (that being the forcing them to worship a probably imaginary non existent deity called lord of light)

Actually this reminds me, anyone knows where the save file is? Maybe I can make numbered backups of it after each shard is conquered.

PS. this game really needs a wiki

It's in the directory the game is installed in and is a dir called "save". And yes you can back it up manually.

For the rest of your questions I don't know :)

thanks kazper.
I am making a bunch of copies of that dir with different names to act as my saves :)

Bump.

I am facing the same choice (religion one) now so I would like to know how do they affect future game I am leaving it minimized for now and hope someone will reply soon.

A point of interest, in the remake you have various shard "types" that differ from normal shards, one of them is an inquisition controlled shard where having chosen to mandate worshipping the lord of light as official religion halves the population displeasure penalty on conquered territories (normally -2 for human territories conquered in such a shard, with lord of light choice it becomes -1).

So if they are planning it for remake, I presume it has no effect here?

AFAIK this feature has already been implemented in the remake (which is currently in beta, slated to be released this quarter).

I wouldn't take it to mean it has no effect in this version (the 2009 version) though since the example was given in a discussion of the new "shard variations" that have been added in the remake.

Looking at some of the event text, it seems that having them worship you can (or maybe will) result in you being called on to answer their prayers at some point while you're in the Astral.. Doing so costs astral energy (a one-time expense); not doing so would presumably make them upset by your indifference.

I don't know whether that event can occur more than once; if it only happens one time then you'd have a net gain in the long run (anywhere from ~20 to ~35 turns) but a smaller astral bank account in the short term.

EDIT: Okay, having looked at things a little more, I'm not sure what all of the variables mean or how this might affect subsequent campaign events, but the immediate impact of the choices appears to be:

Lord of Light: +6 karma, -2 energy income.
Me: -3 karma, +3 energy income.
Beleth: -3 karma, -2 energy income. (Only possible if you're allied with him.)
Whomever they wish: No effect.

So freedom of religion doesn't appear to be a bad option, at least in terms of karma/power impact.