Balancing of the game deals with Human verses AI, or even one race verses another. I think the races are pretty well balanced. To say that good is harder and that makes the game unbalanced is wrong. You have he choice in the game, i mean thats like saying the game is unbalanced because missles are better than mass drivers. Its just a different choice.

I am playing good now for only the second time on a difficulty level i thought might be out of my range to play (masochistic). I won the first and will probably win the current game as well. I dont find that being good has hampered me, i am taking advantage of the defence +'s, free with certian techs (something evil dose not get, not even for offense). The biggest thing i can see that has led me to bing succsessful is that the other neutral and good races in the game like me. I was attacked and was given ships, the Alterians even fougt for me. I think that made the game easier. I were eveil i would be fighting everyone and probably losing.

The good pluses aren't as obvious as the evil but they are there. I can't wait to see if the building i built makes anyone surrender to me. With eveil, even those great weapons arent the end all, the are only good during the mid game. A good race can reserach to better weapons than the evil-only ones. AND still have the % bonuses to hot point and defenses. The defense techs are cheap enough thatyou can get ll of the bonuses. So its +15% to ship defenses and +5% to hit points without buildinga thing.

I think your alignment will effect the victory you get. Evil = military more often and good = alliance more often. (OF course it depends on the alignment of the other races) So, if you want a military vicory as good, yea it might be harder, try to get and alliance victory playing as evil. You'll then say that good is easier.

As for the ethical choices, you CAN pick and evil or neutral choice and still be good. Just dont pick those al the time. I didnt pas up the additional PQ one or the neutraul choioce for a bump to a planet's research and i was still able to be good for free.

Wow, missed the point entirely. I wasn't saying that it doent need to be balanced because its a single player game. I was saying that its not unbalanced in the first place. Good vs. evil, missles vs. lasers, it may arguably be said that one is better than the other, but that doesnt make the game unbalanced.

In your example you compared classes of characters. If this thread were about different races and unbalancing (i would disagee but) i would at least see where your example was applicable. Now if you would say that a sword is beter than a mace, THAT would be a better example, but does that make D&D unbalanced?? Is being lawful good just as easy/hard as being chaotic evil? Someone should playtest D&D...

If you really want to go that route, it is entirely possible to win a conquest victory without firing a shot, as well. Just turn off influence and tech victories, and win by assimilation. That counts as a conquest victory, I've done it. On a large map, it will take a while though.

The only problem I see with good is they get no bonuses. Neutral gets the instant 10% morale, evil gets the 100% economy and 50% military. DA is not going to change, but what they should have done was give good a bonus somewhere. With alignment techs varying per race in TA, a lot of this discussion may not apply. Let's hope we see some better stuff for good alignment there.

Well i explained that in my post. Here goes, Ahem... they are different, right? But each has its good points and bad. Each will help you with certain aspects of the game and win certain victories. See above for more detail.

To CraigHB: the good alignments DO get bonuses, to defence and to hit points (to a small degree). Just by researching the defence trees which are not all that expensive, you can get an additional 15% bonus to your defenses FREE, in addition to some more powerful defense techs. Then theres the 20% boost to defence you get with that building, not sure whats its called.

You get additional dimplomacy too. The effects, like i said, arnt tangible like thy are for evil. But you can stay out of wars longer since you'll be liked more. You can buiold the structure that will give you a much better chance that you'll be surrendeered to, without even fighting a war.

Let me add "with regards to the Xeno Ethics branch" for my last post. When comparing bonuses in weaponry and defense, I acknowledge "good" gets some stuff there (neutral doesn't get anything). However, evil gets the incredible Psyonic Beam. I've won games with that weapon alone.

I've played a lot of games with good alignment and I understand what you're saying. Like I said before, there are game scenarios where playing "good" can be rewarding, however, none of them are going to do well on Metaverse. Evil pretty much has the monopoly on that. I don't know if it's a favorable thing or not, but that's how it works out.