I did not say that pragmatic is not an ideology. What I wanted to say about pragmatism is that how it is now it seems like a middle point between two opposites; benevolence and malevolence and that is just a recook of the evil/neutral/good vision (not that is wrong). Pragmatism, in a really simplified way, is to do what it seems that could yield the best results without being worried it is right or wrong, they just focus in the results. In that regard, a "pragmatic" player is going to choose what it seems the best for its civilization without  worrying about if that is benevolent or malevolent. They are going to align with the civilization or faction that is going to be the winner no matter of that civilization ideology preferences. If you get ride of the pragmatism as it is right now and create a system with a middle ground that is determined on a balance between benevolence and malevolence you have a, gamewise, neutral ground where pragmatics are more likely to be (if the benefits of being malevolent and benevolent are, some how, balanced).

About complexity:

If you take the system that we have right now (that is, where you have a x% of being benevolent and y% of being malevolent), and expand into a 2 axis (not 4 as I said before) where your position is determined accordingly your ratio of benevolence, malevolence, activeness and passiveness you can have a much wider options of flavours without making it more complex. For example, instead of having to chose 3 options you choose 4 options, one for each side of the axis. Instead of reading 3 trees you read 4 trees. And if those trees are a simplified version of what we have right now you are not going to read a full new tree. And about AI or play styles, they are not going to be so stressed to be on only three sides or to see that is too restrictive: malevolence and benevolence are related but they are not related to passiveness and activeness, and vice versa.

You can be the malevolent dictator that thread all wars behind a curtain (malevolent - passive) or a pragmatic merchant that is going where he seems it is best (the same amount of benevolence, malevolence, activeness and passiveness).

I agree...for some of this Pragmatism=Neutrality which is part of Sovereignty. It's a very distinct ideology, and I live by it actually. (As best a human can.)

https://forums.galciv3.com/452800/page/1/#3457187

I wrote something similar here and I briefly expressed what I think ideologies and AIs should do in the game. And look at the Dictionary definition of Benevolence Pragmatism and Malevolence. The Ai should enact on the definition. IMHO.

(Its the next to last post I made. I won't post links to this any more. And check out the vault if you haven't already. )

DARCA.

Although I said activeness and passiveness as ideologies (there should be much better names for those, by the way) It does not mean that it should stick into those. The only thing is, chaos and order are quite complicated to fit in a civilization. To make an example with two races that I used: Arceans and Altarians. Both are benevolent races and both are aligned to the "order" side, but their philosophy are quite different regarding their approach to a problem (warriors vs pacifist, muscle vs brain). Also, as the philosophy is now (Benevolent and malevolent) you can say that an evil race can be "benevolent" (to the extend of its own philosophy). For example, the Drengin Empire is an evil civilization because of its philosophy (war-lovers, slaves, little concern to other lives) but at the same time can be benevolent within its own race: delivering medicines, entertainment, more slaves, food and more worlds to live in with better technologies (I even feel bad when the Drengin Empire surrender to me because I can protect its people). 

Activeness and passiveness are easier to implement because you can be passive or proactive to solve a problem and they don't interfere with the actual philosophies as they are now (although chaos and order does not interfere with benevolence and malevolence per se, they are more prone to be with one side than the other). The ideal and less complex solution that would satisfy most people could be a 3 axis (3D) with, for example, good - evil, chaos-order and active - passive ideologies. But that would make the game too complex in an unnecessary way mainly because this game is not a complex RPG in a sandbox environment, but a 4x game with a touch of other things. 

Yea, I know. 

Read the OP, in that regard you "create" your ideology as a result of a position in a 2 axis Cartesian plane. Instead of being 40% malevolent 50% benevolent you are 90% pragmatic because you give a damn about if it is good or it is bad a specific action, you only wish the best results (neutral if you wish to say that, although I don't like to call that neutrality per se).

Who comes? Every single person in the world has, in less or more degree, double moral. We know that our planet is suffering from climatic problems derived from pollution and not even the radicals stop using things that pollute the environment. I don't see why is wrong to pursue two or three trees as it is right now. Altarians are "pacifist" that have big cannons . 

The Altarians are crusaders, who quickly go to war with you, if there is even the slightest possibility, that you might be evil.

But most of use support the ideology that we should try and preserve the environment, even if in practice we put other things first. There is a difference between not living up to your own ideals and holding contradictory ideals.

Of course blending ideologies would not be an issue if they where a bit less polar and cartoonish, but frankly building some of the improvements from the extreme ideolgies on the same planet looks really odd if you look at there descriptions and what they both do given that planet has a unified government and social ideology anyway.

There is also the good of the game view, allowing a race to persue only one tree at once means that you won't get the issue that in one hudge game a player maxes out all three ideology trees and then there is no replayability in the ideology system because they've seen done and built it all.

I agree with you that ideologies does not need to be that polar opposite with a warm and cosy middle ground that gives me the creeps (yes, I hate how pragmatism is being considered as the middle ground at this moment). But, the idea of having polar opposite as strong as malevolence is that, game wise, is easier to draw the line and say this is not benevolence, this is not malevolence, this is a middle ground. With more blurry ends the things become complicated and harder to tell which one is good: I kicked a dog (that's bad) but it was biting my brother (good) but my brother was scaring the dog (yeah, bad) but he wanted to throw the dog out of his yard because it was destroying the flowers... at the end, the first action (kicking the dog) is bad or is good? The same thing happens with fuzzy end ideologies.

I agree but not that much. If a tree defines the re-playability of this game things are going to be sad for it.

Oh, I did not know. Good to know 

The Pragrmatism I seems a bit overpowered to me. Some strategies depend on attacking early on and this completely bypasses it.

As they are right now, the bonuses and planed bonuses are unbalanced and they haven't seen how they are going to work in the long run. If you wish to see a little analysis I did to that regard you can read it in this post.  https://forums.galciv3.com/453353/page/1/#3457737

Some of you are over thinking this. We could babble for days about ideologies, and still not realize this isn't real. Real ideologies are as complex as the relations between the worlds super powers. In the game it's supposed to be fun and not have paradox situations that don't really contribute to game flow.

Also it's not a problem to have finished all the ideology trees. If someone did, then good for them. Maybe have it as a victory condition, but it should be a players choice.

DARCA.

At the end of the day your right it won't be us who decides how the system is implemented and I figure I've extensivley made my point here as have you, so I think I'll move on from this topic and wait and see how it turns out.