Well let's hope people prefer the first two vs. the third option!
Yes, as Mumblefratz pointed out, evil is the way to go. I myself have never played as anything but custom race/evil alignment. So many weapons, so many bonuses... would it make sense to be anything else but evil? I think not.

I tend to play Evil 70% of the time, Neutral 20%, Good 5%. Neutral definitely has its place on smaller maps. Good was starting to hold its own when DA had the defense bug (some experiments suggest DA still has it).

Actually, in a lot of my DA games, over half my game I'm not any alignment at all. I tend to postpone researching Xeno Ethics a lot, because once you research it you don't get the ethical events when colonizing new planets. That means you miss out on a lot of Evil bonuses. It can still be worth it if you still choose Neutral (where the bonuses are immediate), but with Evil, a good portion of the game where you really are Evil, the game's already more-or-less over.

In regards to Evil's free invasion tactics, that's only true on large maps. You have to build the No Mercy Invasion Center, which is very expensive (I think it's like 2500bc?) and it's at the end of the Evil tech tree. It takes like 4 Information Warfares to get any return on your investment, not to mention you're tying up a planet tile and that planet's production for ~14 turns. I usually play Medium maps and I never build it.

The other key bonus to Evil is building the Artificial Slave Center, which gives you a big military production bonus. It goes together with the Mind Control Center nicely. Also, Evil is better at spamming starbases, because they don't pay for upgrade costs (in addition to building constructors twice as fast as everybody else).

Good probably does better on fast techs (e.g. Battle of the gods, Accelerated start, fast tech research), because the defense bonus kicks in. By contract, Evil effectively doesn't have a weapons bonus when all the techs are researched.

True, but evil does get some decent weaponry early to mid game, thus allowing you to get the edge on your enemies with less research effort.

When playing DL i was goinf neutral. i liked the extra trade routes and the instant usable tiles was awesome. Didn't even have to research the techs. Half price on quick built ships was good too.

Im playing DA for the first time now, as the Yor so i decided to keep them as intended and went evil. I got the first bonus weapon and it made my medimum hulled ship a true fighting maching. i only pout on one since it cost 150bc but with it i put a bunch of smaller ones so i have 12 beam attack (the bonus weapon), 12 mass driver attack and 9 defence. I ike being evil. i still haven't gotten to the other alignment bonuses so i dont even know what they are. Not to mention all the nice evil choices i got to make.


I agree with the others about going good. Ill try that when i get better at the game and can handle the lack of pluses.

So far every game I've played I've been on the good allignment and generally a custom race which is probably why I generally have too much trouble currently going beyond normal rating, though that might also be because I don't really think ahead too much.

Haven't gotten far enough in my DA games to see how it fares but in DL the defenses were very useful, especially against the Yor who started packing a 21 attack on their small ships. Having a 12-18 defense without using too much space definitely kept the number of ships I lost down to a minimum and was one of the main reasons I could beat them.

You should try Evil Torians sometime. Man, do they rake in the dough!

It usually depends on teh bonuses I get on the random pop-ups. I usually try to end up neutral to good (I'm just not an evil person) but I won't not play evil if it means too much given up.

Indeed, while you play evil at the very beginning you should avoid beeing weak on military because otherwise you are attacked like hell, but the some bonuses from the beginning should let you come more easy forward I guess...ok, because I used to play good and man I had much worries, I decided like Iceciro said to go neutral, at least no one is hating you that much, but no big love neither  . During the game you can even wait before choosing your ethics, it may then not cost you toooo much if you wana change to the other side good/evil, this way you will strongly influence and challenge the game.

1) Why both!

2) I would change my mind. Bonuses out rate evil laughter....Just barely!

3) Good needs a nice big game booster and at least one small one. Preferably some boost that can't be created any other way. Neutral has one in the instant terraforming and another half in the base morale boost. Evil has two and a half IMHO, MCC and Artificial Slaves. No Mercy Invasion counts as a half. Good has nothing. (I don't view either the extra defense or extra weapons as long term bonuses, tech advancement can neutralize them and I am playing on fast tech) In order for me to actually switch to good, I would probably really need to see to game altering types of booster added to it. Something like making good pay no maintainance on the initial colony for ALL planets + another big booster.

I play as good, so my armies of "crusaders" can annihilate all those inferior evil races. Or I play as neutral to get the bonuses.

Im usually evil however sometimes if i have very few events happening i am neutral but so far i have never been good.

The alignment-specific weapons and defences are a bit pants. If there were new branches leading to better stuff later on in the tech tree it might help.