i cant say anything about doom rays i always win the game soon after i get psionic weapons

But researching Ethics allows you to make all the best planet decisions AND still be whatever alignment you want. I believe there is a cost implication, but why suffer a long term economy hit through a planet decision when you can later swallow it in a short-term cost?

Then obviously the cost needs to be higher if this is an exploit that lots of people are using.

I always pick good or neutural planet choices with the exception of planet quality choices. I don't really care about taking morale or pop hits but changing a 10 planet into a 14+ is a deal I cannot refuse...

Quitch: there are roleplaying elements - the text that accompanies the modifiers. Yes, most of us ignore the text after a while, but it does offer a framework for making your choices (i.e., is my race the sort that would "not meddle in things we should not understand" or is it one which would darn well open that black box?).

Other "elements" are opportunities for giving your civilization its own character--desigining ships according to a theme, naming planets, ships, and starbases according to a certain theme, trying to win the game in a certain way, taking a certain tack in diplomacy.

Again, these are only "elements." It certainly isn't a roleplaying game by any stretch - but those elements can make it an immersive experience rather than a simple numbers game.

By the way, concerning those who want to see some negative consequences for going evil, I have seen several choices come up with negative consequences for the evil choice. I can't remember the context, but the consequence for good was a small number of BCs (32, I think), whereas the consequence for neutral or evil was a small gain in soldiering but an accompanying loss of many millions of people on a certain planet. Yes, the consequence was not very significant - but it does happen that the evil choice sometimes costs you something.

Incidentally, we have the means at our disposal to do something about this if we want. Just add to or edit the "Events" xml file.

Yep, Evil only LOOKS easier at first glance. I've found Neutral to be consistantly the easiest (but NOT lame-easy).

I haven't tried the evil weapons, but don't knock good. Yes you can buy your way out of evil. IF you can caugh up 10,000 without an exploit. Most likely that would hurt more then all you gained through easy planet choices up to then.

My standard plan is to pick the good choices all the time unless they look particularly painful in which case I choose neutral. I never choose evil no matter what. Not only does that make good a freebie, but I like to roleplay that way anyway.

The good defense techs, coupled with a good offense of your choice (nanorippers are my first choice, good old phasers second) is awesome. I just finished winning a game set to challenging on a gigantic map. The final war was against the Thalians. The game rated them number one militarily and me number three at the start of the war. I chewed through their fleets like they were unarmed. According to the final stats I killed something like 400 ships in that game and lost *drum roll* 6. Not 60. Six. Most of those were the early ships before I could start mass producing heavy cruisers with the good shields, armor, and anti-missile defense all on a single ship. Luckily I had quite a few of those good ships produced when the war started, which basically lasted until my transports could get to the Thalian planets. I probably lost 1-2 of the good ones.

Now admittedly it wasn't just the good defense systems. I tried to do everything else right to the best of my ability. For example, I never ever attack fortified starbases unless there is a truly desperate need, which there rarely is. I bypass fortified starbases. Meanwhile the Thalians wasted several fleets trying to take out starbases they didn't really need to (I guess I need to go one level higher to get the AI working at it's best. I think I'll do that next game).

But still, taking out something like 400 ships while loosing six says something for the benefits of first rate ship defense.

This was an interesting game in another way. The Drengin had some sort of revolution and turned good. They LIKED my alignment. I allied with them.

Just to mention. I really like the idea of giving players moral quandries. It LOOKS like Evil is the best choice, but good has long term payoffs.

It annoys me that there's no penalties for choosing the evil option, stuff like forcing pain on your people or shortening their lifespan or enslaving the natives should definitely have negative morale and loyalty implications, it only makes sense.

Typical human responce.

I am evil, my race is evil and all my citizens are evil. If I chose (not that I ever would) some white washed panzyarsed goodie three shoed option, our next election would get bloody (mostly mine). But those are our ways.

Enslaving pre-industrial races? Never! Why waste a good resource on "work". We need their DNA for retro-viral replication. Our young'uns run the factories. thats what they are for, right?

Shortening the life span of our people is bad? Well, mister uppity bob, tell me how your people recycle their aged then. Our aged tend to get stronger over time anyway. It's those young-uns that are weak. We send them to those places to toughen them up, and if they don't make it...... DNA. We just take over a new host and go from there. I really don't see whats the big deal here.

umm'

hm

Of course we would never treat visitors badly, please feel free to come visit Viraxia sometime. We have great fooed and all the free beer you can chew. Our casinos are designed so you never lose and always win. Yeah, that might get you he..... convince you to visit. We'll even toke ya a room. Come on by.

You only have to have a small blood test to qualify, and we even sedate you so it will stay as one of your most memorable vacations.

yeah, thats the ticket.

Also I think any race that's Leaning evil should only be allowed to choose evil or neutral, and a race that's leaning good should only be able to choose good or neutral.

I really like this idea.

One of my gripes with good vs evil is the lack of balance between choices. A single evil event can move your slider quite a bit towards evil, and the good choice on that same option moves the slider towards good a single tick. (how far it moves is based on the event numbers). IE and evil choice that gives you +15 starship moves the slider less than if the event was +30 starship. In galciv 1, this was a big problem for attaining good. Not as bad now with xeno-ethics as you can reach good evey game if you want. But the original discrepancies are still there.

One idea would be to give a seperate bonus when selecting good. Like all races (except mine of course ) have a slight relations improvement (relations +5%) for all good choices. If your good, you want everyone loving you anyway. (oh gawd, go hug a tree or something).

I actually came to this post hoping to find out what "+37% Starship bonus" means. I can't seem to find anything on what it does exactly, is it worth making an evil choice to get?

BUT, to be on topic to this thread I go mostly nuetral, hence needing to figure out where to place my evil choices while trying to find good choices that don't hurt TOO much.

This works great for me, but I do worry that the other races might come by and burn a question mark on my lawn.

The most powerfull tool in the Neutral arsenal is the Neutrality Learning Center.
Plop down a couple dozen of those and you will research the Doom Ray (and defenses like Zero Point Armor) in no time. They are cheaper than the other research facilities, and they give a higher return - 22 vs. 18-20.