good vs neutral vs evil

Having half the galaxy as strong allies is pretty powerful. You obviously favor a strong military and research, it makes sense you like evil and neutral. I like diplomacy.

Well of course if you play to the strength of one of the particular alignments its going to seem like a no brainer. I've found that depending on what you are doing each of the alignments has its good points. I end up at what ever alignment most of my ethical events point me to. I had started out as evil evil evil... then went neutral for a bit... and now lately I seem to be going good. I still win games. And don't really miss the advantages from the other alignments simply because I changed my play style accordingly.

having played a few games as neutral lately, i just dont know how i should live without neutrality leaning centers when not being neutral ...

what are your strategies when going good? having good allies is fine but everyone loves me anyway when i have those extra techs from my neutrality learning centers and my extra money from taxes the morale boost allows me to have

anyone else being always evil in planetary events to get the best bonus and then paying the 10 BC per month if you dont want to chose evil alignment?

The trouble I have with being Good is that there don't seem to be any other Good races to be friends with me. The Altarians are always good, but that's it. I'd thought maybe the Drath and maybe the Torians would be Good, but both of them always seem to end up neutral. Does everyone else see the same?

There is a lot of overlap in terms of strategies for each of the alignments. In terms of specifics again it really depends greatly on the game situation. If the majority of the AIs lean towards one particular alignment and I'm going for a diplo win then I choose that alignment. If I just want to sit back and let them pound on each other till one surrenders then I go good so that I can increase the chances of them surrendering to me. My custom race set up doesn't need the bonuses for morale or economy that neutral give. However if I've managed to set myself up as the middle man in terms of galactic trade then I definitely go neutral just for the extra trade routes. Evil I mostly go for if I want some decent weapons for war earlier in the tech tree. It's nice to have weapons doing 10 points of damage while the rest of the universe is stuck with damage 3 weapons.

Funny you should mention the Neutrality Learning Center cause that wasn't always there. So we had been getting along just fine without it prior to what B2?

Also in the latest version of 1.1 they've really changed the bonuses from the ethical events. There are still a couple that just give too sweet an evil bonus to pass up (can anyone say +46% research? )but for the most part it's not as big of a deal to stay good.

The AI does tend towards certain alignments. Hopefully in the future part of the *randomize* intelligence will also randomize their ethics as well.

i dont agree on the point that races should have randomized alignments
maybe as an option, but not as default
its good to know that the torians will always fight the evil races and that the drengins will always be warmongerers
torians being evil just doesnt feel right

No arguement there MV... I'm all for options that allow the user to customize the game how they like to play. I mostly meant that it would be nice to have the races be a bit more of an unknown something the devs have already started to do with both the randomize features and the blind exploration option. Having played enough games I basically know on turn 1 what everyone's alignment is going to be. Would just like a little of that mystery back

I end up at what ever alignment most of my ethical events point me to.

Here's a strategy twist that I've started playing and, for me, it adds another rich layer of playability. Regardless of the overall ethical considerations of the game, when confronted with an moral choice, my choice largely will depend on maximizing the benefit for the race I'm playing.

For example, I'm now playing the Thalans. Good workers, not too bright...the hive-mind sort. Well, their forte' is production and lots of it. So, when confronted with a choice to enhance production bonus...ethics be damned! Despite how the game classifies them (in it's decidely terran-centric global view), as a race, enhancing production is a GOOD moral choice for THEM. (as an analogy, anyone remember Pinhead from the Hellraiser movie). Good and Evil are in the eyes of the beholder, so to speak.

Thalans will accept the consequences of their decision, whether good or evil, but they're still gonna choose production bonuses because that's what they do. Make sense?

Kinda parallels the current world situation in which one country will choose to pursue a particular technology because, for better or worse, they feel it's in their best interest to do so in spite, or because, of what the rest of the global community might think.

I have usually played Neutral for the reasons listed above (morale, tech) -- I think the bonuses are possibly the best of the three.

But from a design standpoint, I think neutral should be the "worst" of the three. It's the easiest to choose, and is in some respects the "default" choice. If you are evil sometimes and good sometimes, you end up as neutral.

As such I think "good" and "evil" should be technically stronger than "neutral". Being "good" is hard -- you have to take a lot of sucky planet discoveries, and be on good behavior with your allies. Being "bad" is also hard -- even though you get the benefits of the planets, you have worse relations.

As it stands, I agree with the earlier comment that it's too easy to be neutral. I think it would make more sense if the payoff came for hard choices. Maybe give the contentment bonus to Good. Neutral civs are just good at researching and trade. Good civs are actually happy, etc.

I'de like to create a wormhole to a parallel universe (ours) in order to draw a...parallel.

I work at a place where we do shifts; someone takes over after me, and I take over the next day after them.
We had a fight over a good/evil concept: Team work. He had forgotten the value of teamwork, and decided to make his life easier by unloading some of his chores on the 'other guy'. So I retalliated by not doing them, and then taking care of only myself. Needless to say business suffered, until it became quite clear that we would both profit more substantially by helping each other.

The point? Teamwork, usually labelled as a 'Good' concept (sometimes quite cynically) is more profitable for you, but it's just harder to see that in the short term.

And so the Black and White of Good becomes a hazy gray of "It's a Good thing" from a selfish, Machiavellian standpoint. The pseudo-religeous ethical value of Good moves toward a label for a forgotten Good reason to do something.

Yes, yes, yes, and yes to all. Moral conceptualization extends far beyond what we could ever hope to cover in a forum thread. Thousands of years have been spent trying to come to grips with this notoriously slippery subject. The best that GC2 could ever hope to attain is some distilled, synthetic representation of this concept. But I digress into esoteric philosphy. Back to the subject:

Quite some time ago, I reconciled the fact that I have neither the time nor inclination to attain GalCiv high-ranking bragging rights. I just to play a game that makes me really think about the choices I make and care about whether they'll move me in the right direction, that is, toward a win. So sometimes I get to test myself and my skill by trying other's strategies or even think of new ways on my own.

Whether X alignment should have more Y widgets, while Z race should always be W alignment appears more a matter of personal taste and I don't see where that is easily reconciled within a solid game design. These choices are all very nuanced and contain endless shades of gray, uh...kinda like life except with a "do-over" button. That's why I like these games. They're not about the "twitch" factor (my youthful reflexes are long gone) or fragging online avatars, but about asking questions like these and learning how they play out in a fantasy realm.

So, test yourself. Step out of your Neutrality Centers and Temples of Righteousness and see how it feels squish all who oppose your "correct" way of life... or vice versa.

I agree with the original post. Neutral is way overpowered. Good is pathetic and really doesn't buy any extra allies. Evil has some advantages but they are like 20% of neutrals. It makes me have doubts about the design team, when they make such clearly badly skewed decisions. I'm sure they debated them, but it is not even close.

If there were a multiplayer, the top players would pick Neutral every time and race for NLCs to stay on top of the research curve. Any player picking one of the other two alignments would not even get their weapons or defenses out the door before the neutral players overwhelmed them with superior tech, and numbers of ships from higher industrial output (better tech means better factories).