Good vs Evil, So many evil races?

It's simply a matter of advantages for me.  Evil has the best and that's why I pretty much always play evil.  Neutral has fairly effective advantages, but good is lacking.  I play neutral once in a while, but can't remember that last time I played good.  Evil really stands out though.  In a nutshell, it's the weapons, the Mind Control Center, and the Artificial Slave Center.  They're all really powerful.  I'm afraid the game just favors evil.  I can think of obvious things that could have been added to neutral and good to balance the alignments, but it is the way it is.

I see Neutrals advantages as better, with more trade, morale, upgraded tiles, cheaper instant buys.
Its a matter of if you like war, or peace, I think. Some people prefer evil because of the weapons and production.
But many laws go agaist evil, their trade is worth less, their diplomacy is naturaly lower,
and are less respected by other races, and don't get morale or loyalty bonuses because the people prefer good or Neutral.
Then Again I usually win through tech victory, or influence, so Neutral advantages serve that well.

There is some difference in neutral between DA and TA.  Neutral is better in DA and I like playing neutral more in that game.

Good and neutral are better for diplomatic purposes, but I'm pretty much a warmonger and almost exclusively play military victory.  I'm usually in a state of war with the races for a large part of the game.  Evil is really well suited for that kind of play style. 

Trade doesn't make all that much income so it's really only helpful for race relations.  I don't establish trade routes and I rarely negotiate alliances since I'm usually at war or getting ready to declare it.  I haven't actually played a diplomatic game since DA was released.  Now that you mention it, I should play one, it's been quite a while.  I would probably go with neutral as well.

In any case, there's no reason not to play any of the alignments or any of the victory conditions.  It's a game and it should be fun.  If you have fun playing whatever, then play it.  

Good alignement can be a fun challenge since you're playing without the benefits you get from neutral and evil.  I may have to try playing it again some time.

 

Would you care to elaborate on that? I thought the loss of +100% econ bonus in TA made the MCC much less of a no-brainer. The artificial slave centre and no mercy invasio centre a really nice, but the +1-% approval bonus for neutral is also huge IMO. I think that MCC change would make Neutral more useful in TA.

Of course, there are 2 no-brainers for Evil, IMO - Drengin and Korath. They get Psionic Beam so fast that they can simply wipe the floor with their enemies early-mid game

In TA, neutral has to research the terraforming techs to get instant terraforming.  In DA, you only have to select the alignment and all your planets instantly terraform, unless something has changed since I last played DA.  It's been a while.  Anyway, that can make a big difference early game when you don't have the research horsepower to make light work of getting through the terraforming techs.  Also, I think the morale bonus is a bit higher in DA, but I'm not sure about that.

Regarding the MCC, I've mentioned it before in another post, but I do think it's more powerful in TA than DA.  The econ bonus in DA is significant, but the influence bonus in TA is actually more effective for me.

One note, I'm playing with a mod I did for myself that changes TA quite a bit, makes it more "DA like".  I haven't played a stock game in a while.  You should take a quick look at it, shouldn't take long.  I'd like to hear your opinion.  I think you mentioned you downloaded it already, but here's a link to the original post;

https://forums.galciv2.com/371660

Merry Xmas, BTW :)

 

Good points on all sides : >
I wish I hade TA : ( then I could check out what your saying.
Also I prefer tech victory, and when Neutral, I sometimes get thousands from trade.
One time I was getting 800bc/week (plus or minus a few) from taxes,
and getting 1500bc/week (plus or minus a few) from trade.
But its all in game style as you said, you prefer war in your games.

The importance of trade as a source of income depends on one single factor income IMO - the number of habitable planets  in the galaxy. More planets mean more people, more taxes and more tourism income. On a rare habitable planets map, however, Korx might turn out to be the strongest race!

A belated merry Christmas to you too, Craig.

Unfortunately, I am a bit short on game time right now - GC2 is not even installed on my systeam, I think. Buit I have downloaded your mod and intend to try sometime soon, but I doubt if I will play it in the long run because it won't work with MV.

I understand that.  I have times where I play computer games a lot and times where I don't play at all.  Right now, I have a lot of free time, but that can always change, just depends on what's going on.

So true, although I misstated my situation - I have a lot of free time, just not for playing GC2. I got a new i5 gaming PC and am trying out some games which I couldn't try on my 7300GT, like Crysis, World in Conflict, HL series etc

Oh man a 7300GT, that's pretty rough.  I'm sure you're much happier with your new machine.  I have a 3GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a GeForce GTX 250 video card.  Not the fastest in the world, but it handles every game I've thrown at it.

Well, I have the same one too - GTS 250! And it is so much better, it is like another plane of gaming.At 1440x900, it is able to handle all the games that I have thrown at it by now. My god, how did I manage for two years with the 7300?

That's a huge jump going from a 7300 to the 250.  You non-upgraded right up through the 8000 and 9000 series.  That would be a world of difference.  My wife only plays a couple basic board games on the computer and I put a GeForce 9600 on hers.

I updgraded my monitor a year or so ago to 1680x1050.  I'm pretty happy with that.  I was thinking of going with a HD monitor (1920x1080), but I think I like the 8/5 aspect better.  If I were to upgrade right now, I'd go with a 1920x1200 I think.  For me, HD monitors seem overly wide and not tall enough to use on a computer.

Honestly, it is the difference between asking your parents for money for gaming (scandal!) and spending your own money. I have still been relatively constrained - I should probably have gone for something like GTX 275 or HD4890. Oh well, the 1440x900 resolution doesn't really need that, but high AA (8x or 16x) still leads to 30 fps in games like Crysis. Some will be happy with that, but it is not good enough for FPS games.

On heavily graphic games like the FPSers you mentioned, I found I rarely need to go over 4x AA.  I've played around with AA a lot because it is by far the most demanding setting.  Some games I've found can run without any noticable difference between 4x and 2x and I'll run 2x on those.   It also depends on how much you even notice ragged edges.  It's not something I notice much and only games with a lot of sharp angles and straight sides need much of it for me.  For example, Far Cry had very non linear graphics so I found I only needed 2x AA with that.  Need for Speed II Underground was very angular and straight sided, I ran 8x AA on that one.

As far as resolution, for single monitor operations like we're doing, there's no need to go for more than typical memory offerings.  It isn't until you get into the dual monitors at high resolutions where you need the cards with real big memory.  I think some poeple confuse memory amount with performance, it's a capacity thing, not a performance thing.  For us single monitor users, memory speed is much more important than memory amount.

In any case, the cards we've got will happily plow through the vast majority of games out there at decent graphics settings.  I honestly think going any higher up the product line would be a waste of money, especially at the resolutions we're running.  It sounds like that's an important consideration for you as well, so it sounds like you made exactly the right pick.  I'm very happy with my card.

How much video memory do you have? I have 512MB. It is an important point that you mention - the distinction between memory and performance. I got suckered into buying the 7300GT 512MB because I didn't know that it won't be able to use the 512MB. It was my first ever graphics card purchase. I am also very happy with my card. Plus, it is quite silent and cool, although we will see what happens when the temperatures reach 40-45C. The i5 also runs relatively cool, so I am getting away with a local cabinet (okay PSU though). Hopefully, the paragraphs work.

I have 512MB, seems to be enough for all the games I've played.  I think some games can use most of that for the resolutions we're running if they have heavy texture usage in the graphics.  I think what happens when a video card runs out of local memory is it taps into system memory.  That results in slower rendering performance because local video memory is much faster.  I'm not positive about that, but I believe it's the case.

Some games load the card more than others.  Heavily graphic games like Crysis will get it real hot.  You can turn on vertical sync which will make the card run cooler since it waits for the vertical refresh to render the frames.  Personally, I always run Vsync enabled becuase it keeps the images from tearing.  That happens when the card refreshes the frame when the scan is part way down the screen.  There's really no reason I know of to run with Vsync off.  The human eye can't tell the difference once the framerate goes above 40 or so per second anyway.  It makes the card run cooler too.

I play in character. If I am one of the evil races I will go no less the galactic domination and mass genocide. And so on and so forth with the rest.

Usually I play as the Ordalan Federation. I created them all by my self from scratch. They will choose more of the neutral or good. Because that is where they stand.

@Craig - Good point about Vsync. I enable Vsync only when I have to. Some games seem to be more susceptible to it. Crysis isn't affected but playing Oblivion or HL2 without it leads to a lot of tearing. But I will keep this in mind during the summer, when the room temperature is usually around 40-45C! BTW, I can notice the difference between 40 and 60 FPS and even 100 FPS, but anything above 50 is very pleasing to eyes. 40 might be a bit on the lower side for me though - I can "see flickering" even on TV when others can't.

You have really good vision then.  My vision isn't that great so I can't tell the difference once the framerate gets to 30 or so.  

Vsync throttles the frame rate down to the monitor's refresh rate.  Graphically demanding games almost never see frame rates close to the refresh rate so they aren't really affected by that setting.  You're less likely to see tearing since the image is refreshing much faster than the frames are being rendered.  For those games, the card is going to max out regardless.

Sometimes monitor flickering can be seen if the ambient light is flourescent and the refresh rate is set to 60Hz.  That type of lighting is cyclic at the frequency of utility power (60 Hz).  The lighting can sync up with the monitor's refresh.  That's why it's better to run refresh rates at something other than 60 Hz.  Makers design most monitors with a 60 Hz default refresh rate which is a major design flaw, just like the way many of them insist on using glossy screens.  You'd think they'd know better.

Well, I used to be a good badminton, tennis and table tennis player and used to sometimes play cricket at night, so maybe it is a side effect. On the other hand, I could have a vision problem - I have been meaning to get my eyes tested for some time now.

A problem could be that my LCD monitor is a bit on the older side and so has a lot of ghosting problem. What I don't like about the whole LCD thing is that the display system related software is still designed for the CRT - when are we going to move beyond that?

We have had a nice discussion, Craig.

Yea, CRT displays are pretty obsolete technology.  I don't think any products use them anymore.  I think we're stuck with some of the legacy for no reason.

Thanks back at you and happy new year!

I to break this up but, I intended this topic be about which and why people play a side, not about your computers sports and monitors.

Sorry about that, but I thought this thread was over. Anyway, as you wish.

@Craig - Nice talk. Have some karma

@scorpion - May God punish you for disturbing two kind gentlemen having a quiet chat