Which is the best alignment?

I'm reserving my judgement on this until they fix the missing techs that you're supposed to get with the various alignment choices

Evil ethics free starbase upgrades sure are nice...

i like the bonus techs for the good and the abilities. Plus i think theres enough evil in the univerese and it needs some saints.

That's whats so damn good about this game: there simply is no 'best' anything and you can choose it all as you go along.

There are some guidelines though. If you find yourself surrounded by players with a certain ethical alignment, you can better pick their alingment too, because that gives you a diplomacy boost and they won't attack you so often.

I've seen on numerous occaisions that if I am evil I just cant seem to keep peace with the Drath or Altarians, likewise if I'm good with the drenin

I tend to stay neutral. tho you lose alot of bonuses not going evil during the course of the game. love the approval and trade bonus.

psionic missiles own tho (evil weapon)

I ended up Chaotic Evil in my last game.

I tried to stay neutral . . . but I was running low on funds . . so I made an evil choice.

And then another.

But then I mad a good choice to balance it out.

Then another evil . . . . because I was already doomed really.

One thing led to another . . . and then the GNN robot changed. I knew I had fallen to the dark side.

It was fun. It was liberating. Who cares about the moral bonuses . . I got to whack populations by the millions~!
Bwa-ha ha ha!

On a related note . . I thought it would be interesting if planets had a moral compass and some rebelled and became minor races because I went evil. That would be cool because then I could squash them like the quitters they are!!

*Laughs* Im Either Neutral Or Evil (my nation is like vorlons execpt they care more...) and there Cybernetic so pain does not harm makes it perfect for Bolsheire farms!

Be careful what you wish for. I made some evil choices and half my planets formed a new minor race of evil frogmen called the Fundamentalists. You will be sorry when the frogmen set you back 6 months of research and production!

Yeah, GC1 had that issue. I recall a game where my heavily dominating empire was torn in half, as a whacky group decided they no longer liked the ways of the Empire (knew I should have stuck with Imperialism). They took my manufacturing and tech capitals with them, as well as quickly pumping out enough ships to make the eminent civil war long and bloody.
Ultimately, I lost the game because I was so focused on bringing them back under the robe, I let the other races rebuild, ally, and charge at my backside.

Some of the evil choices related to PQ and productivity are hard to pass up. The money choices are usually not such a big deal.

Overall, when you research ethics, Neutral bonuses seem hard to beat. You get all the terraforming instantly and get more trade routes etc. The catch is, it will cost you for every evil choice you have made. In my current game I made evil choices early and when I researched ethics it cost me big bucks to choose neutral while I could choose evil for nothing.