advantage of being neutral

Evil civs don't care about your alignment, only your military is of importance. They do not stand together like the good ones. A strong evil civ will crush a weak evil civ. A strong good civ won't do so with a weak good civ.

But as soon as you are lower than 50 morality points good civs will get angry with you.

So picking good options wont cause anything negative.

However, more evil civs means harder game because it's harder to maintain a strong military than simply being good yourself.

The only advantage I've ever seen of being neutral or near-neutral is that you can play much faster games. Just ask Alex.
[Message Edited]

This is not completly true. If you play a game as pure good, you will see your relations with Evil AI's drop as your morality rises.

I agree though that being Evil, doesn't mean that the Evil AI's will naturaly like you (as it is the case for good aligment and good aligned AI's)

Even *Good* civs will war on you if you are pure good... if you don't have any military strength.

And I've often had Evil civs like, aid, and defend me when I am Evil. It just depends on the circumstances. If you trade with the Evil civs, they will like you. If you have a decent military, they won't try to take over your worlds (so long as there are other civs weaker then you). And if you are fighting someone they hate (the Goodies, for instance), and they like you, they will gift you ships to aid in keeping you around.

The main difference between being Good or Evil is merely which set of Aliens won't war on you because you have the wrong kind of Morality. Both require that you have decent military AND trade. The more trade you have with that civ, the less military strength you need. But you still some military. To keep all those AIs you aren't trading with from trying to take your worlds.

I think that relations degrade faster if your alignment is further from the AIs



I don't know of anyone beating my record of 27 mins for a 60k game yet - but it's now very rare for a 60k game to take me more than an hour... and more often than not it's around 45 mins.

Alex
[Message Edited]

I never build military other than colony ships and freighters....

Alex


~SDC~

The Torians who are supposidly chaotic good tend to act like any evil race. I have no idea if this is a bug or working as intended. The only 'good' aspect of them is that they tend ot get along better with the Altarians. As for me, I can be saintly, and if I have no millitary and the torians are not at war with anyone else, they WILL demand tributs and/or attack me outright.

The Altarians, however, will never attack another good civ unless you give them a really good reason, such as bulding culture centers near thier planets.

However, it seems in about 1/3rd of the games I play in the Altarians do a cultural flip and become evil at some point. I think this is kind of stupid and very very unrealstic. I mean I can see a faction breaking from them thinking they should dominate and crush the lower races and making thier own empire. It just isnt beleivable that all citizens suddenly change thier minds about this moral code all simultaniously or even completly. At the very least a cival war should happen for a few years.

I have found the Torians will sometimes take you out if you being done over by an evil empire. This seems to depend on your military strength.

I have also had the term "we're better deal with you now" from both good races when I have been of good alignment.
[Message Edited]
[Message Edited]

Pure good civs in galactic civs are just that, pure good. In one of my games (the one with the tech victory) the Altarians quickly aligned themselves with those randomly spawned minors of good alignment while crushing those of neutral or evil alignments. Pure good civs are so fanatical in their goodness that they attack weak neutral civs without hesitation. Normal Good civs tend to get on with nuetral civs better but can't tolerate evil. The altarians turned pure evil at the end and were soundly smashed (despite the fact they owned three-quarters of the galaxy) when I developed excaliburs shortly before I became godlike, at which point the altarians suddenly remembered their moral code and got ready for a new era of peace and harmony. (or else)