A philosophy depends on the choices you make throughout your life. Each philosophy has it's own special ability(s), some powers are good, such as Zealot's Fanatical Frenzy, some powers are bad, such as Warrior's Raider Rally. You have to follow a certain order of philosophies for certain philosophies such as the Knight philosophy.

It's very simple to get Zealot philosophy, just have an equal amount of green and red E.G: [RRGG GRGR RGRG RGGR GRRG] The best trait cocktail for this one seems to be RRGG due to their respective space consequences.. The description for Zealot says, "Zealots are certain that their beliefs are the only truth that matters. Those who do not feel the same way are not worthy to exist in this galaxy." Zealot's superpower, Fanatical Frenzy, converts all the colonized planets in the star system your in, to your empire. It's cooldown is 30 minutes. It also breaks the galactic code, which worsens your relation ship with any other empire within a 10 parsec radius, Fanatical Frenzy is also good for trying to ally the Grox, or for fighting with them.

Sorry for the low quality image, but the Knight philosophy is arguably the 2nd best philosophy right behind Zealot. In order to get the knight philosophy, for cell stage be a carnivore, being a carnivore is probably easier than being an herbivore in cell stage. For creature stage be a predator, this should be fairly easy since you'd have to kill to eat. For tribal stage, be friendly, this might seem hard, but just ally all 5 tribes quickly and your done. For civilization stage, be economic, just capture the first economic city through religion then buy all, or most cities. Then boom, you have the knight philosophy, their description reads "Knights are noble warriors that fight for right, not for personal gain. Peace will only come to the galaxy when all evil has been vanquished." The superpower for the knight is Mini-U, which summons a mini version of your spacecraft, the health of the Mini-U, and yourself, depend on the difficulty, the Mini-U also has a fairly short cooldown, however, allying with the Grox is near impossible when Mini-U is active.

I don't have an image for this one, so i'm gonna put this fat wiener dog here to make up for it

Oh never mind, I do.

Once again, sorry for the low quality image. In order to get trader philosophy, for cell stage, be an omnivore, for creature stage, be adaptable, for tribal stage, be friendly, and for civilization stage, be economic, or just be all blue (Just found this out). Their description reads "Traders are in it for the profit. Their only allegiance is to the almighty Spore-buck.". Their superpower, Cash Infusion, makes it so when you have a trade route established, you will be able to buy their system automatically.

Now you know which philosophies are the best, and how to get them.

Now, why would you want the worst philosophies in Spore? Achievement purposes, or your looking for a challenge.

In order to get wanderer philosophy, simply skip all the other stages and go straight to space stage and select your creature and ship. That simple. The wanderer philosophy has no special powers.

For bard philosophy, the best trait cocktails are these; RBGB, BRGB. Follow that order, and you got bard philosophy. Bard's superpower is soothing song, which calms all enemy spaceships and prevents them from attacking for 2 minutes (I think?), this also helps for trying to ally with an alien empire if you allied the Grox or some ♥♥♥♥ idk, whatever you did to make them angry.

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Be all red, then you got warrior. Warriors superpower is to summon pirates, Yarr! Unfortunately, the pirates are weak ahh and get easily destroyed by powerful ships. For some reason, whenever I use this ability, the attacking empire leaves (Maybe cause they think it's a Grox arrival), it works kinda like a mix of summon flock and raging roar. But, if an alien empire is attacking a well guarded colony with an uber turret, and you have powerful weapons, raider rally isn't worth using.