Good or EVIL!?

Each have their advantages and disadvantages. According to Frogboy, stats show that the average Good game outscored the average Evil game, at least of those that have been submitted to the metaverse.

Evil gets you the better bonuses from random events. Good gets you better relations with other races. So, it really depends on your playing style.

The big thing I like about playing good is the social improvement Trade Center. That item alone gives some insane bonuses for zero maintenance, plus the trade monument that boosts your trade by 20%.

The Trade Center is something like +15 manufacture +15 influence +15 morale +15 economy +15 research zero maintenance. So from that standpoint its huge.

On the upper level games, you can take advantage of the evil races because they'll likely hit darkside and artificial slaves, in which case, you can steal those techs from them and use them for yourself.

SeanB

I like the evil part better. Those +30% PQ improvements and +40% starship/production bonuses are so very satisfying during the colonization phase...
Besides....slaves...you can never have enough of them!!

Evil --

Immediate bonuses, of which perhaps the strongest is +PQ -- I've seen +40-50% PQ, which is huge. Of course, you also take a huge morality hit for choosing that path, compared to, say, a mere +1 morality for declining a starship bonus.

Long-term: Additional bonuses to soldiering, production, economy, cultural resistance, and seemingly diplomacy with evil factions.



Good --

No immediate bonuses. Long-term includes better relations with good nations, more trade routes (but still limited to 10), trade centers (yes; according to GCImps.IMP it's +15% manufacturing, morale, economic, influence, research!), more influence and diplomacy IIRC. There is no Good trade good, if memory serves (evil gets Artificial Slaves) but it does have a wonder -- the Trade Monument (+20% trade income) to stack against the Life Force Power (+25% economy). Also, good races are less likely to suffer much from Fundamentalist revolts.


So far, on Huge/Normal games I've seen evil races research evil techs, but I haven't seen the good races (except my Terrans when I'm playing good) reach the good techs.

Evil: Advantages come earlier than Good.

No negative planet implications
many positive planet implications.
Special evil techs and wonders usually come earlier than special good techs. (though this is an advantage to a good player in that they can be traded for)
Intimidation is much easier.

Disadvantages: Bad relations with Good races. Two of whom will attack you merely because you are evil. The other evil races don't care. They'll let you go down unless it serves their interest to help you.

THE DREADED FUNDAMENTALIST EVENT!!!

Good:
Advantages. Trade. Good civs tend not to attack. Good civs won't pick on you even if you are weak.
Disadvantages. Negative planet implications. Though you can still go neutral on the pq ones and go good on the others.

This seems balanced so far. The problem is the two toughest Alien races game in and game out tend to be the Torians and Altarians. Both Goody Goody.


Good is by far the easier allignment to play in the long run. Evil is far more difficult. Though many cheesy players will play good the entire game, then late colonize a bunch of lesser pq planets, take all the evil bonuses, and get a "False evil" allignment

I will usually take the worm killing pqchoice as well as the life force pq choice and kill the bugs at war. But other than that, I take the good or neutral choices. And I usually come out evil.

I like the evil part better. Those +30% PQ improvements and +40% starship/production bonuses are so very satisfying during the colonization phase...
Besides....slaves...you can never have enough of them!!


You seem just like the kind of hard times call for hard choices kind of guy G.R.O.S.S. is looking for there Galaxor. You can join via the metaverse. HEHE.

Evil: Neato Robot and cool-er icons!

Good: Better (less dreary and angsty) music, and um.. better music! LOL

I usually play evil if I am going to be a war machine, and good if I am going to win via other methods.

For fun, set all races to good, and be evil, or vice-versa. Much fun to be had by all!

fleabitfox

If you're going to come out evil anyway, doesn't it make sense to go all the way? Or is there a gradient of treatment that you get? I always assumed that it was boolean.

-Drake

~SDC~

Not sure anyone mentioned Ultra Drives, a 50% speed bonus for good .. at least I think they are for good only.Also thought I read something in the hyper drive tech which stated that the person who invented the drive would not have been allowed to live in an evil society because of the disabilities... (which allowed him to "think outside the box")

Ah, Hyper Warp. Alignment category is 70 => good, yes.

If you're going to come out evil anyway, doesn't it make sense to go all the way? Or is there a gradient of treatment that you get? I always assumed that it was boolean.


Actually no it doesn't make sense to go all the way early. Here's why. There are some games where the council punishes evil players. They will in fact pass the 1 trade route for evil civs players. So you wan't to be in a position where you can get back up to neutral quickly if need be. Also, you don't know where your goody goody mongers (which happen to be the best alien civs) are at first and untill you do and can get those trade routes to em, it makes sense not to let your morality fall too low too quickly or yo will be at war with em. And on the higher levels, I usually don't catch em in tech untill after they have dreadnoughts. Once I get some influence, I tend to then go with the boosters all the way.

Only the PQ, morale, and pop boosters are all that useful. The ship booster doesn't amount to much and neither does the science.

Evil: Neato Robot and cool-er icons!


What? Take a look at the robots. The Good one has a puffed out voluptuous shaped chest. The Evil one looks like an old hag.

On small maps I just take all the evil picks.

On larger maps I tend to go for good early on but will
switch to evil by the end of the game. Nothing like
having both the trade center and lifeforce power

For the most part, I swing my alignment in the direction of the other dominant powers. If it's the Drengin or (the once in a blue moon) Yor, then I quickly assume an evil stance. If it's the Altarians or Torians, I dust off the halo.

The ability to trade, buy, or just steal through conquering opposing alignment techs makes choosing an alignment just for them sort of pointless.

Of course, it can also be fun to assume a particular stance and "role play" it in a game regardless of what would be the most strategic morality.

The Yor?

Hahahaha, I have never seen the Yor dominate
If there is any tech bug that is letting some civs
get techs they shouldnt, the Yor dont have it

[Message Edited]

"Not sure anyone mentioned Ultra Drives, a 50% speed bonus for good .. at least I think they are for good only."

There's a few good techs for speed, but I think that Ultra Drives +50% is just a random event that affects the whole galaxy, and last time it appeared I was neutral.

He meant hyperdrive, which is a good only tech

That's funny, I play neutral on nearly all my games. If an event gives me a real juicy bonus for the evil option I will take it, but I balance those choices with good and neutral ones if they don't affect me much.

Frogboy's testing had good winning significantly more than eveil, BUT I think that was more a factor of the AI programming (ie. it was the Alterians being the strongest AI), since he had 1 good, 1 evil and the rest neutral. I would expect Good to do even better if one AI is Chaotic Good, while evil would not be helped by a Chaotic Evil. So: The test probably doesn't show anything of generic use to us, except that the Alts are real strong.

IMHO (FWIW) the larger the map (and hence the longer the game), the greater benefit to be had from playing Good... I rank Good as MUCH easier at huge/gigantic, and evil as easier on tiny/small (where individual planet benefits are relatively more important)

Other views?

Alrighty! That will do nicely,thank you everyone very much,I think I'll go with good over evil.But I will still be evil when I'm mad at the other people in the game!!!! HAHAHAHAHA! LOL

Who cares about good over evil. Death to the weak....their empires must fall to the strong.

so what does it mean to be Chaotic Good?

~SDC~

good but sometimes pick an evil or neutral choice.

Hmmm... but i understand that part of the scoring system takes into account the length of time in which a player is the opposite alignment of the bulk of the computer players. If the bulk of the computer players are Evil and at the end of the game i wind up being Chaotic Good, what does that amount to? What if the bulk of the computer players are nuetral or of a chaotic alignment... where then would the human player be in opposition to the computer alignments?

Or am i just thinking too much into this?

~SDC~

The Altarians seem to be a pain in the butt no matter what my alignment. On a small map where PQ is critical, I would always take the evil choice.

On a bigger map, I tend toward good if I have a good aligned neighbor that is threatening. Good also seems to make cultural victories easier. Otherwise, I just try to avoid being sooo bad that the goodies declare war on me before I'm ready.

~SDC~