Neutral has the neutrality learning centres which are awesome, (best research centre IRC), and also some trade bonuses and extra trade routes.

Oh and forgot: In ToA neutrality also gives you 25% discount on instant purchases (combined with i.e. the Korx' discount of 25%, that's 50% off when making a direct purchase), this is also mentioned in DA in the overview, but it doesn't actually work.

Another benefit of being Evil is that you can always pick the most beneficial option in all of those random "Ethical dilemnas" that pop up from time to time. The most extreme example that I can think of are the sometimes crazy boosts you can get to planet quality.

Personally, I wish they wouldn't have made the decisions so obviously skewed in favor of evil. There should be drawbacks to evil...

Oh i agree with you there Mumble and i even asked that certain numbnuts that exact question..Why? Something to the effect it was too powerful and that it should do what it was built to do...or something to that affect...it was some time ago.

There is a easy way around it though, don't update TA....I'm not, not yet anyway.

Oh for sure it was, but i'm still in my mourning period, can't rush these things you know...

I do not understand one thing though, Mr Numbnuts found the solution to the MCC fault rather easily, how is it that no one from SD could find it in over two years since the games release.

Perhaps Mr Numbnuts, if you are interested, you could apply for the job of alpha tester at SD....

Hey...here's a thought, If we call him Numnuts enough, you guys reckon it will stick?


Edit - And the edit feature is back now...no more waiting 10 mins...

The only thing about the MCC being a huge exploit is that it was not properly documented. However after 3 years *everyone* was apparently cognizant of the fact except perhaps the developers.

Why is an in-game economic bonus an exploit in and of itself. Simply the fact that it was a 100% bonus, perhaps. But otherwise it required a reasonably high level of tech to be researched and a reasonably expensive wonder to be built. There are literally dozens of similar although smaller bonuses for morale, social and military production and research. Why not an economic bonus.

This issue is two fold. One is the magnitude of the bonus and the other is that the bonus wasn't intended. One could certainly argue that 100% may be too much, however one cannot argue that an economic bonus has no place in the game whatsoever. One can also argue that functions should work as described so that everyone knows what is truly available however this doesn't mean that a well-known bug that has existed for at least three years should be nuked.

As far as fixing the MCC to do what was intended, who in their right mind believes that will ever happen. The best is that the MCC will become totally devoid of function and merely add to the already long list of useless techs and wonders in this game.


This is the 64 thousand dollar question. It was the same question that was asked when the 5% morale bonus was removed from the Stock Market.

It kind of makes you wonder if any of the developers have ever even played this game. In their defense it's clear that they have played this game it's just that they tend to play short games on tiny galaxies that barely scratch the surface of game functionality.

Now if your talking about exploits why not take a close look at diplomacy in this game. Isn't it a huge exploit to be able to go 8 months into the game letting the AI's colonize the galaxy and then go to each AI in turn and say "Please give me all your planets" and have each and every AI say "Sure, no problem". The MCC pales in comparison.

It's been known, it just apparently was never a high priority, and didn't make its way up to Brad. Cari investigated it a couple of times in the past, and I've known about it since it was first discovered.

In any case though, it was pretty definitely an exploit--unintended and massively advantageous. Now maybe people won't always pick evil so much.

You can, but it'll cost you big.

I'm also glad that the MCC got fixed, although I've been using it quite extensively. Will the fix be in place for DL and DA? Seems like it should be workable if they did it for TA.

As far as picking an alignment other than evil, that'll take more than just fixing the MCC. The Psyonic Beam and the SCC make a pretty strong combination. The Artificial Slave Center helps you pump out those fighters to overwhelm the enemy.

Of course, if the Psyonic Beam is harder to get in TA, evil might be a thing of the past. It'll take a while to explore all of the possibilities.

I hardly played DL and so MCC has always been what it states on its tooltip for me. Thank Heaven, then, that they fixed it!

Psyonic beams are very much alive with the evil Drengin. Total galactic domination when you jump from +1 to +12 weapons.

Ahh...There ya go, shows how little of TA i have actually played. Thankyou.



Do you mean to tell me that without ever taking a turn, going from 4 planets to 512 due to diplomacy is not an exploit or a bug!!! I'm shocked!

But Shhhh Mumble, you don't want to be known as Mr.Numbnuts Two do ya?

Can someone please tell me what this means. I have enough trouble getting the AI to sell me one planet.