Terraforming with Evil

from Stardock Forums
I think I found a weird way to abuse (?) the ethics questions that you get when you first found a colony. Try this: find an out of the way system where you won’t have to deal with alien interlopers (isolated 14 or lower planets generally fit this category). Now get a bunch of nearly empty colony ships ready. Colonize a planet and then destroy it the next turn (use the button in the DETAILS screen). Repeat. Be sure to answer the random ethics questions “villainously” i.e. get the free +5% + 40% planet quality boost. The bonuses seem to stack and after a while you should have a ridiculously good planet. I managed to turn a quality 13 planet into a quality 22 planet this way! A few things:

1. Can anyone else get this to happen? I’m using the unpatched retail version.

2. When you destroy the colony the planet reverts to its original quality value on the galactic view. But when you re-colonize the value reverts to the higher one.

3. I was unable to determine whether or not the bonuses provided by soil enhancers and habitats carried over. I don’t think so, but because I didn’t record the random event bonuses I’m not sure. I’m also not sure about other bonuses (population, morale, etc.) that are derived from random events.

I apologize if this subject has already been raised.
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
I've done this the opposite way, colonizing an unwanted planet multiple times so i could choose the good option and boost my alignment. By the end the planet apparently had a half dozen native alien races living on it, coexisting with several random native lifeforms, and there was a precursor artifact or two there as well :)

When i checked the Deatils section of the planet it has stacked up negative attributes, and I expect if you checked the details of your planet you would see the reverse. That means that soil and habitat improvement should have an effect, although they may be less noticeable. Like all the other percentage bonuses, it applies to the original planet score, so the soil habitat will be bumping up the original 13 by 10%, not whatever the value is after all the other additions.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Hmmm... This seeems like a good way for my civs to gain access to both evil and good techs relatively easily. Thanks LOL
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