And to pour the cold water of harsh reality on the discussion, it really is a moot point. 
Currently, you simply *can't* create an event with a positive effect for the Good option.
The Good option must be a value equal to or less than zero.
The Evil option must be a value greater than or equal to zero.
The Neutral option can go either way.
        
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I guarantee they don't work.
This is the number one problem with mods that I download- the author thinks it's going to work that way, but it doesn't.
You can type in whatever effect you wish into the description, but what matters is what the event actually does. And a positive value in GoodValue gets turned into a negative number by the game engine.
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Thanks for all the comments but help me digest them. Is there consensus that to win the game with the highest points, that evil will always be a better strategy to win than good? I am curious about this in the game design. I would think that the short term benefit of evil choices might be counterbalanced by some sort of long term benefit of being good. This might mean better techs but the evil techs seem pretty good too (that 25% economy bonus for ? Life Force today on evil was pretty nice). It might mean more likliehood of having the AI choose you to start a trade route with if you are good, but I haven't figured that out either. If one can dodge that UP event of the one trade route limit and have the fundamentalists be weenies then evil might look like a better route to victory.
As for the metaphysical aspect of being "good" or "evil", . . . uh . . . ya know . . . this is just a game. I can't imagine never playing Combat Mission as the Germans and not getting to try out the Tiger and Panther tanks. It is fun to play both sides. C'mon there has to be some balancing strategic advantage of playing good versus the strategic advantage of playing evil or else the game is just unbalanced in this area. Having said that, there are no shortages of both good and evil players and Gal Civ is a great game. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.
Rick
       
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Frogboy once put out an analysis that showed it is *easier* to win when Good than Evil.
Evil has short term advantages, but Good's benefits are more long term. You get along better with the other AIs, even Evil ones. Good is not subject to one of the more annoying random events- the Fundamentalists. Other things I can't remember off the top of my head, too.
I agree that on a small map, Evil might be the way to go. But for a diplomatic game on a large map, playing Good makes things a lot easier.
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Thanks HawaiiFive-0. Maybe the "getting along better" gives one better deals when making trades? It is possible I struggle a little more with money issues when I have been evil than when I am neutral but I can't say that for sure and how much would those evil-choice planet bonuses compensate for that? Can others get more specific? TIA.
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Only problem I have now with The Better Way/Trade centres is that even when I play with all evil AI, they can always build Trade centres without the tech.
Seems like they get to build them once humans can build. I've captured demonic AI planets with or are in the midst of building Trade Centres even though I can see that they do not have The Better Way.
Did anyone else notice this?
  
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| The reward for being good is much more nebulous and long-term than the fast, obvious gains made by the expediency of evil. |
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Even in the long run there are more benefits for going the evil path than the good path when you compare the number of Evil only techs vs Good only techs and each have their own benefits over their counterparts. The ONLY benefit I've seen so far (all my games are over long before the 'long term benefits' can be gotten) for being good is that your don't have to worry about the Fundalmentalist taking over your home system.
I've never had a problem with diplomacy either since I'm constantly bribing the AI's to be nice to me.
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One approach would be letting good get more rewards but require real long term commitment also. E.g. if you are good and stay good, your PQ will gradually get better and better. If you eat the worms, you may get some initial bonus, but you are also locking in a vicious erosion and crime cycle on your planets.
GOOD = slow start but better long term
EVIL = great start but diminishing returns
   
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On the tiny maps I find there are not enough events to get me either evil or good. The fundies took Sol in my last game when my morality was at 30, though I was still showing as 'neutral'
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| I just finished the colonization stage of a huge abundant. I took every single good choice presented to me. My alignment is 65. |
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I hate that when that happens.
You'll find that events wherein you lose money for the Good choice are your most effective morality bumpers.
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They all interact.
Back in the day, BoogieBac said an event could move you a maximum of 10 alignment points. Personally, I've never seen that big of a good jump at one time, I've heard others claim that Evil choices can drop you farther than 10 in one pick.
For the sake of argument, let's go with what the coder said. So you can move a maximum of 10 alignment points with each event. This is modified by the Morality Weight of the event, 1 = Major Event, 5 = Insignificant Event. Then this is modified by how much of a penalty/bonus you are accruing with your choice. I believe there is a further modifier that makes Evil choices have more affect on your morality- I think we've all experienced that it is *much* harder to be Good than it is to be Evil.
I find that on small maps I'm forced to colonize down to 13s just to have a shot at Chaotic Good. Drives me crazy when I get an event that says -1% Economy, because I know it's only going to give me +1.
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I think I'm going to play evil one of these times to see if drops of more than 10 are possible.
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| Does evil have an affect on morale? |
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Not directly, but there are numerous ways it can indirectly influence it. For starters, being evil means worse relations with other AI, and thus more destabilization targeting you, which means lower morale on the average.
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