Ethical Choices

This already happens. You get a '- Our Ethical alignment' if your alignments do not match. Obviously, this goes away when you switch though, but until then your relations will tend to drop.

Personally, I'd like to see Xeno Ethics change so that:

1. Picking an alignment other than the one that you are leaning towards is more expensive

2. You cannot select Good if you are leaning Evil, or vice versa.

The way I understand it at the moment is that Alignment is a form of in-game difficulty setting.
Evil gets a bunch of bonuses that make it easier to win.
Good forfeits those bonuses (and pays large sums of income), which makes it harder to win.

my idea for the ethics would be too make 'buying' good insanely expensive, but power it up, a lot, so that way the only way to be able to go good, would be doing good deeds, long run-short stuff, whereas evil would have its planetory benefits (from the choices) but compared to good, weak.

I think the whole concept of paying to change your alignment is a bit odd. Surely you should have to stick with the consequences of your actions, instead of paying everyone off so they forget about them. But, you should keep on getting events that can alter your alignment (and probably not just when colonizing planets), so you can change your alignent after researching Xeno Ethics.
Although that would make it difficult to deal with the research options afterwards...

I definately agree with what all of you are saying. As for No118, I forgot to say I would suggest the change in addition to what already happens to the alignment. For example, a decision to kill millions of people is much worse than selling yummy blood, which results in an immediate change + the change in alignment.

In short, I suggest short term effects compounded with the long term effects of conflicting beliefs. I would only guess it places such ethical choices with deeper thought than the *I'll just pay my way outta this* state of mind.

Thanks for all of your opinions as well! I would like to hear more!

If you win a game with Pure Good alignment, then you earn the title of a good player (pun intended). Cause it's hard to do. Chaotic good is easier, because that's taking a little cheese when some real sweet deal comes along. And Evil, well...I play evil cause I just wanna win on tough

is it just me or are there only planetary ethical choices on your homeworld? I know when you colonize a new world you may get a choice, but all the post colonization choices take place on your homeworld. Why is that??

there should be more then 3 alignments... each alignment should have 3 within it....

Most of us players choose bad and pay our way to another alignment with Xeno Ethics.

I, for one choose for all my decisions. I guess I'm a rare breed. . .

there should be more then 3 alignments... each alignment should have 3 within it....

Sounds Dungeons & Dragons-ish. I like that idea but it would be hard to work into the game and might make alignment too complicated.

.....oh, NOW i find out being goods meant to be hard, right after the drengin start expanding locust like across my space...thenks for the warning! well i suppose now im gonna sow terror and discord across the universe....or sleep coz ive been playing like 10 hours straight...meh its all good....

If you align with Good you get addtional technologies in the defence category. Some of these can be quite handy and aren't beaten for value until later on in the tree.

The way I understand it at the moment is that Alignment is a form of in-game difficulty setting. Evil gets a bunch of bonuses that make it easier to win. Good forfeits those bonuses (and pays large sums of income), which makes it harder to win.

Huh? What about Neutrality? IMO, the bonuses received from selecting Neutral alignment outpace either Good or Evil. I'll take zero-turn terraforming (or is it Habitat Improvement) and 22 rp/turn Neutrality Learning Centers any day. But, I guess I'm just engaging in "my alignment can beat up your alignment" diatribe which drives a race-to-the-bottom flamewar. I'll just shut up here.

I think the different alignment bonuses come into play at different times of the game, and in differing levels of intensity. For the Good alignment, I definitely enjoy the Arnorian Battle Armor!!

there should be more then 3 alignments... each alignment should have 3 within it....

No. Please, no.

If that happened, GalCiv 2 would remind me too much of D&D. Computer/console RPGs have been stuck in that mold for decades now (if admittedly in a different way), with little sign that they will ever leave. It would be a damn shame if strategy games fell into that rut, too.

I'd rather have had _philosophies_ than alignments. Instead of Good vs. Evil, you'd have Nietzschean vs. Existentialist vs. Materialist vs. Nihilist vs. whatever. It'd be more complex, and probably tie up all those alignment loopholes. I still love how I can be the saintly Altarans, declare war out of the blue on another "good" civilization that's never done me wrong, and invade their planets, committing ethnic cleansings that are literally a thousand times worse than the Holocaust - all without shifting my alignment a single point.

As for the original post, it surprises me that people choose evil in the random events, then select a non-evil alignment. I usually keep the evil alignment - free starbase upgrades are hard to pass up, especially for those influence strategies.

Evil planetary bonuses are good, but the the best about being evil IMO is that building that doubles tax income + that other building that increases military production. When I play evil i try to get those and psyonic blast ASAP. Psyonic blast can be very powerfull if you play with very slow tech, since it'll be a long time before anyone can make ships nearly as powefull, the double tax income means you can afford it and the increased military porduction means you can produce the ships pretty fast.

But this strategy fails me at the higher difficulties with no tech trade, because I always get attacked by all the good civilizations too early, at masochistic or higher i think good or neutral are better even if you don't get the planet bonuses.

I always do some role play, if I'm gonna be evil i make all the evil choices, if i'm gonna be good i make the good ones, unless they are really too bad, in that case i choose neutral, i never pay to change alignment.

Actually, now that I think about it, I would think that paying your way to a new alignment is an official way of cheesing.

I usually play neutral, yes they rock, but occasionally I play good. When I play good, I have to manipulate my other good races with technology to catch up, free ships for defence, and sometimes paying the enemy out of warring with them. Sure I'm basically being the races babysitter, but having an extra pair of votes, allies, and buffer really settle my mind of the micromanaging.