High Culture question

[Vim]

I absolutely love this culture, but I admit actually identifying what unit has been awakened can be quite the challenge when you have a big fight on your hands. But I digress.

This question is about the Alignment Agenda.
You have a benefit for being pure good, a benefit for being pure evil, and a benefit from being neutral.
But what does that neutral mean? Does it mean I have to be exactly neutral? Or does it count if I skew into good/evil? And does it go away if I hit "Pure" good or evil? Or does it always linger? The fact it says it's a Neutral benefit makes me unsure how to rate it.

[KellyR]

Pretty sure "neutral" means it doesn't say "good" or "evil" on your alignment. It takes 10-15 points in either direction to count as good or evil. Until then you're neutral.

[Vim]

I would think so too, but that sounds very weak to me. I tend to spend most of the game in the middle between the extremes, and staying entirely neutral is also pretty hard to balance. If that is how it works, it makes you hesitate to deviate "out" of neutral, since it could take a very long time, especially to reach pure good, since there's no quick fix to be good...

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Vim:

I would think so too, but that sounds very weak to me. I tend to spend most of the game in the middle between the extremes, and staying entirely neutral is also pretty hard to balance. If that is how it works, it makes you hesitate to deviate "out" of neutral, since it could take a very long time, especially to reach pure good, since there's no quick fix to be good...

It depends how you play. I would not say it is weak. It is just well balanced so it does not overpower the other cultures. Plus, always keep in mind that those are multipliers which get to roll with the right combination of origins and tome selections.

[Vim]

I dunno, it just sounds to me that you either endeavor to stay neutral, to get a small food/production boost, or you desperately chase pure good/evil, but once you reach it, the benefit is ... kinda weaker even than the neutral bonus...

[Chthonic Guardian]

Well, diplomatically the benefit is neither good nor evil leaders automatically hate you.

[Baron]

Originally posted by Vim:

I dunno, it just sounds to me that you either endeavor to stay neutral, to get a small food/production boost, or you desperately chase pure good/evil, but once you reach it, the benefit is ... kinda weaker even than the neutral bonus...

The evil bonus is straightforward to attain and definitely not weak. That said, I have never, in any of my playthroughs, managed to actually attain Pure Good. Very Good, yes. Not Pure.

I would instead say that you get a guaranteed (unless you take non-neutral Society Traits) early bonus to your economy, and can choose to either keep that bonus or ditch it for RP purposes. It's not weak early on, but it is limited enough that it doesn't feel like too much of a setback to lose it/pursue another path.