Good gives you a diplomatic advantage when dealing with other races (if they are aligned good as well - it is a powerful influencer and usually results in good alliances teaming up on bad empires). Evil gives you a planet-by-planet bonus but alienates some of your allies (usually). Neutral results in indifferent relationships and gives you either a minor bonus or minor setback. It is probably best to go either to evil or good, though; many neutral benefits can be researched anyways (neutral would be good for a technological victory, though, with the learning centers and advanced trade).

Although I think it's decently balanced as it is... now that you mention it, it would be interesting to see some occational random rewards for being good even if their effects were minimal. Like maybe another good AI could contact you and commend your actions with a situation or the UP could award you with a gold star to put on your refrigerator. Maybe taking the evil options could occationally have bad side-effects that back fire on you. Oh well, I'm just thinking out loud... er in text...

Kind of on the subject, I would like to re-write a few of the dilemma options. Like finding the high tech ship, why is it neutral to ask them to share some tech with you? I would think something like:
Good, Ask for any information about the vessel they are willing to give (very small bonus)
Neutral, scan the ship w/o permission or plant bugs / surveillance probes or something to spy on it.
Evil would be the same. Jack the ship, torture the crew, etc.

I dont know about you guys but I always choose good because its harders to do. Although I disagree with the save the whales bs in the game. If the economic damage of saving a species is sooo much of a set back do you think, say Washington would of thought twice about putting a bounty on wolves and bears? Dead people pay no taxes.
So of the events in the game are too simplistic and do not have far reaching penelties or bonuses. If you save the whales you better have a good reason besides "we share the planet" like for instance what is there function in the ecosystem. Will it have a major impact if that beast is gone (like the fly who fertilizes the coco plant), or is it like the snail darter that killed economic growth in the area where it shut down the land developement being built... Six months latter found out there lousy all over the plains.

Evil and good are cultural phenomenons not abosultes. I hold christian values but have visited enough foriegen lands and studied to know there are othere ways (I prerfer ours to say the islamofacists). For instance the Yamamamo tribe (not sure if the rat bstrds are gone yet) saw themselves as good and normal but were drug crazed wife and women beaters (all the scientest who studied them in there private journals referedt to them as those bastards). They saw themselves as good. The Dregian see themselves as good because its there manifest destiny to rule and or eat all the mud races of the galaxy because there Diety Khikla told them too or some such.

And those damn worms. Yeah evil gets a bonus. But you know what I bet that if it really happened over the space of 10 or 20 years they would find the planet quality degrading because of erosion ( those worm tubes stopped erosion in certain areas). Sure they should get a big bonus but short term. Long term I think a planetary development tile should be lost.

But what do I know.

John

The Good choice is not the one that the US government, or practically any human government would go for. That's why humans are neutral.

The point of Evil choices is that the evil person is out for what is best for them. If an event came up that had a good result that was better than the evil result, a true evildoer would take the good choice. They aren't evil for the hell of it, they're evil because it seems the most advantageous to them.

Of course, that's the definition of Good/Evil within the game. Obviously in real life the definitions may be different.

What is the Starship bonus for..does it increase the HP of the ship on the planet that has that bonus?

hmmmm i might have to check into that to see if it does boost military production on the planet. Just confusing when they say boost starship +%.

I have seen a couple of events where the good choice allows you to save population, at the expense of either a few credits or missing out on a several hundred credit windfall. I think those are the meteor shower and plague events. Anyway, leaving the events with an undiminished population could certainly be considered "bonuses to good choices".
Duh, I remember reading about that tribe in my Intro to Sociology class my freshman year of college. No society considers itself evil, but those dudes truly were. Most of the "scientists" who go down to study indiginous peoples are treehuggers infatuated with the "noble savages" concept and multiculturalism. So if they think these natives are the scum of the earth, then the natives have to be truly rotten.

I think people underestimate just how useful the better relations you get as "good" are. I was in a precarious position in my latest game. Got holed up in one corner of the map with all the juicy planets in the other. Relations were bad with almost everyone. After choosing good, relations improved with everybody, I've managed to ally with 3 others and now (once I've picked off the Iconians who went to war with me) I look in a position to actually overcome the terrible starting position. If I'd gone evil or neutral and had my neighbours go to war with me, it'd be over by now.

The only thing I'd like to know is why in the heck it's so hard to be good? The movement on the alignment slider is infinitesimal when you choose the good option, pretty good sized if neutral (and you're alignment is near or in good), and catastrophically huge when the evil choice is made. Even from the get-go, when aligment is "0." I don't go for the whole B.S. about it's so easy to be evil crap either. That's hypocrisy at its finest. Individuals find it easy to be evil but civilizations have a lot more at stake and thus don't find it quite so hard to be good when they need to be. Of course, this is all IMHO. Love to hear back input on it.