Master of Orion 2

[Name_Here]

I recently bought an old copy of MOO2 off a friend and I am having fun with it.

Only problem is... I'm really really bad. By the time I actually start developing my military all the other species have a military that allows them to take Orion with ease.

So I guess I need a few rules of thumb like when should I start building up my military? Right away or when I'm happy with my production planet? Is there any technologies I can let fall by the wayside in order to save RPs or should I do a full court press picking up all branches?

What Modifications are worth is and which aren't? Should I focus on missles boats or do a mix of direct fire and missle?

[ObadiahtheSlim]

For your military, use what works best for you and follows your tech tree plans.

Missiles work great because they are pretty accurate. ECM and point defense are the only thing that stops them and that is easily countered with more missiles (or ARM/ECCM mods). MIRV is a must have mod for them since it quads the damage they do. Plus you can just research down the same tree that fuel, armor, and pollution controls are down so that is one less tree to tech down as much.

EMG is a must have mod for it so make sure you research it. A Nuclear MIRV EMG missile can down cause core breaches against most unshielded ships. Of course they are wasted against ground defenses or starbases.

Torpedoes are basically the same, but are along the same tree as your drives. They don't get the same mods, but the only defense against them are ECM jammers. I typically don't bother with them, but I've had the computer use them to great effect against me.

Beams are great versatile weapons. They got great mods, but certain weapons get certain mods. All of them get heavy mount which is a must have. Fusion beams rock when you add the ENV mod on them. Phasors and Mass Drivers get the auto fire mod. That is a great mod which triples the firepower of it at the cost of accuracy.

Beams however need good computers to even remotely be effective, and each computer is on the same tech level as a research building. Good for creatives since they get both. Other guys will have to trade/spy for whichever they skip.

[Winterwind]

Personally, I prefer to not use missiles overly much, unless I want to take out monsters early on; while they pack a solid punch, they hit with delay, allowing your opponents to shoot at will in the first round (rather than you taking down some ships before they ever get a chance to fire). This becomes increasingly more important the longer the game progresses. Either way, I wouldn't mix. Pick one, and stick to it.

The answer to your question depends on what kind of race you are playing. An industry-focused race (which, in my humble opinion, is the by far superior choice 80% of the time) should start an aggressive conquest much more early, a research-focused race can wait longer. With an industry race, you pretty much cannot start too early, you can go for conquest with lasers/fusion beams or nuclear missiles, no shields and the most basic armour, and probably shouldn't wait much longer than neutron beams. A science race can get by a lot longer than that.

Battle Pods and Reinforced Hulls are pretty much a must; Heavy Armor is, too, but unless you are Creative (which I very strongly advise against; it eats up way more points than it is worth, slowing you down considerably) you are unlikely to get it, other than through trade, conquest or espionage. Augmented Engines are one of the best special systems in the game, giving you nigh invincibility to beam weapons early on. If you use beam weapons, Battle Scanners are nice to have, too.

As for weapon modifications, missiles should pretty much always use all mods available. Most of the time you'll want to carry only 2 rounds of ammo, to maximize the overall short-term firepower. As for beam weapons, I usually go with about the same amount of Heavy Mount and regular weapons, and a larger amount of Point Defense. The Point Defense weapons should also get Continuous, if possible; Auto-Fire is a good pick no matter what, and modifications that allow you to ignore some element of the enemy defence are usually great, too. Sadly, the best modifications are usually available only on outdated weapons, to carry which is a great risk, as they are weaker and easily stopped by good shields.



Lastly, note that the other races outnumbering you may well not be due to you starting to build a fleet late, but due to you playing a weak/poorly built race. If you are using the default races, for instance, the Elerians or the Bulrathi are bad. Like, very bad. Their strengths don't help them in any way to accelerate their research or expansion in any way. Though admittedly none of the default races is exactly optimized.

If you are using a custom race, the best picks usually include Unification, Subterranean, and anything that improves your industry or research. Feudalism can work well, too, if you design your race accordingly (with Lithovores, really lots of Industry bonus, etc.). If you prefer a research-focused race instead, Democracy is a great choice, particularly combined with Lithovores. If you can squeeze it in, Warlords improves your ships a fair bit for few points and saves you a lot of money on command points. Lastly, Charismatic is probably the single most brokenly powerful pick in the game - it lures in better leaders, accelerating you a lot, and it helps you make the other races do whatever you want them to do, netting you a lot of money and RP from treaties, research from trade and, if you are careful about it, you can even make the AI give you planets as gifts.
Good picks to get more points to spend are Ground Combat -10 and Low-G (because nobody cares about ground combat), Population Growth -50% isn't too bad if you have a strong industry (as you can easily negate it by using Housing), or Feudalism if you build your race accordingly.

Bad modifications are those that improve your ground combat (since that's pretty much useless), ship attack and defense are overprized and usually not worth it (if you want better ships, Warlords is a much much better pick in every regard), and Creative is a massive point sink with way too little benefit.

[psilontech]

One thing I liked to do way back in the day was to create a bunch of Missile Boats that would basically consist of no shields, basest of armors, no computer, and then fill them up with MIRV missiles, 2X shot with fast missile racks.
Then create a bunch of ships that are created to survive. Best of everything: Shields, Armor, Defensive Equipment, Point Defense Weapons, etc.

Now, First round, all the missile boats would offload their equipment and retreat back into hyperspace while the other ships would move back on the map and try to not die while all the pretty explosions happened. If all the enemy ships die to the barrage, awesome. If not, Then have Defensive ships retreat as well, planning a second assault.

Chances are, you just took out a good chunk of the enemy fleet.

Also, try custom races. Unification in addition to Warlord and +2 Industry makes for a hell of a lot of ships turned out in quick order.
I usually take repulsive. On the higher difficulties the AI always declares war after extorting you for every BC and Tech you have anyway, so why not have an extra six points to spend on your race?

[Winterwind]

And if you want a victory within less than 150 turns (in a Huge Galaxy, 8 races, Impossible) without having to fire a single shot, pick Charismatic and Telepathic (ideally also Subterranean). And try to get leaders with Diplomat and research Alien Psychology as soon as you can. It pretty much breaks the AI - they will agree to any treaty you ask for, give you systems regularly if you demand them (within limits), and elect you to the leader of the New Republic on the very first election. :smallcool:

[Name_Here]

Thanks a ton Winterwind. Went with a plus to production and science along with subterranean, charismatic and I think rich planet and annihilated all before me. Antaras didn't even stand one round vrs my attack fleet and there wasn't a time that I wasn't leading the pack.

Now I gotta up the difficulty and see if I can keep it up with a higher difficulty.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Your starting settings can really benefit from certain builds. Blitz races do better in advanced start. Research races do better for pre-warp starts. As for teh bonus to production or research, you may want to pick your bonus as a government bonus. That way it applies to the aliens you assimilate. The straight bonus to industry or science only works for you own race and not the aliens you capture.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

If I may put in my two cents?

Your biggest limiting factor is your production queue. Thus, you need to be able to out-produce, which means being able to out-populate.

If you wish to dominate the population game, there's a few tips and tricks, and a huge trap.

First off, don't pick up faster population growth, it's a trap. Once you hit population cap, it does exactly NOTHING.

Second, Subterranean is a wonderful one to use, which increases your pop caps, which is vital.

I would suggest Unification for you. Yes, it's 6 points, which is expensive, and it prevents you from using the morale-boosters, but it also doesn't allow any morale penalties either. Then look at the advantages it offers... 50% increased food and production (goes up to 100 with Galactic Unification), and +15% bonus to defend against spying (Darloks, I'm looking at YOU here). That's like the Despotism's 50% bonus to producing ships... applied to everything... without hosing your tech progression.

Creative can be a trap, but I prefer to think of it as a sort of Tutorial Mode. Basically, you spend 8 points, but you get all tech, so you don't need to worry about spying to get needed techs. This lets you comfortably grab the -10% to spying, which with Unification still nets you a total +5% bonus to defending against spies, and somewhat mitigates the cost.

Telepathic is... very strong. No, really, it's that good. Anything Cruiser or larger can simply take over a colony. Instantly. And instantly assimilate everything. This is... huge. Very huge. Like enormously huge.

Charismatic + Telepathic = win. It's that strong, which is why I generally don't bother playing with that combo.

Low-Gee is a good -5 disadvantage which you can mitigate and offset with Gravity tech. Granted, it sucks for early-game expansion, but mid to late game, it's just free points.

Now then, on to some tactics:

* Expand or Perish. Seriously, you need to expand and get colonies down as quickly as you can early game or there will be no late game. This sounds like your problem here, and a very common one for many players of MoO2. If you find yourself lagging behind everyone in the race for Orion, then likely, you have expansion issues.

-- Colonize everything in range that can support you. As long as it isn't Toxic, you can eventually make it a Gaia. Even with toxic, there's tricks, but more on that later. Early-game, don't get more than one or two barren/radiated, because food generation will be a problem, but if there's a Huge Barren Ultra-Rich... grab that puppy! Anything that can produce food, colonize. Period. Yes, even then.

-- When you have colonized all worthwhile planets in your range, keep a colony ship in reserve in case you find another one. Or more than one, if you don't have anything else you are producing at the time. But unless you've got something you are dealing with and need to have every last colony devoted to producing something else, make sure to get at least one colony ship out and ready to run if you find an optimal planet.

-- Outpost Ships are fantastic for increasing range early-game. If you can't find any decent planets to colonize (i.e. land-screwed), send out some Outpost Ships and expand your search radius.

-- Toxic Planets are for Dry Docks. For this trick, you need Androids. Worker Androids, to be specific. In short, you drop your colony onto the planet. Then build a Hydroponic Farm to feed him (Buy it). Then an Automated Factory (Buy this too). Then buy a couple of Worker Androids until you can produce a Worker Android in one turn. Then auto-produce Worker Androids until you fill your planet up. This is a hella-effective production facility (Because Worker Androids get +3 production, so effective even if Poor Minerals), which can produce LOTS of money when it isn't busy producing the biggest and nastiest ships the galaxy has ever seen.

-- Interstellar Redecorating. Late-game, once you cap out the Physics tree, you will get a weapon that I lovingly refer to as the Planet Buster. It can be used to Destroy a planet, turning it into an asteroid belt. If, for example, it was a Tiny Toxic Poor HG, it is now an Asteroid Belt. Which can then be turned into a Large Barren Abundant. Which is strictly better than a Tiny Toxic Poor HG. Cheesy? Yes. Effective? Yes.

* Tech will come to you. Seriously, man, don't bother trying to focus on tech-friendly racial traits, if you have lots of population, you will have lots of tech. In this case, quantity has a quality all it's own. If you have five times the number of researchers than someone else who has a 50% bonus on research, guess who is cranking out WAY more tech? Hint: 500% is bigger than 50%.

* Diplomacy is not optional. Trade and Research treaties are going to be vital, particularly early-game, in 'keeping up with the Jonses'. Non-aggression pacts are handy as well. Alliances can be huge traps if they're currently in a war you don't want to get involved with.

* Know how to build ships. Building the right *kind* of ships is as important as the number and size of ships. Late-game, one or two of my ships can wipe out entire flotillas of their ships.

-- Early game: Missile boats. MIRV Nuclear Missiles > Mercuralite Missiles. Build a Cruiser or two, fill it with 2x shots missiles. These are used to clear out monsters so you can colonize nice places, or to kick someone out of your planet-space if they're 'camping' your colony.

-- Mid Game. Energy Weapons. Once you get Graviton or Phasor technology, Battleships loaded with energy weapons become viable. Also make sure you've got the most recent upgrades for your targeting Computers.

-- Late Game: Planet-busters. I build a Titan-class ship with a planet-buster, mixed in with a couple other titans with a more traditional weapon mix. It can pretty much one-hit-KO any other ship in space. Combine with Achilles Targeting Unit and Structural Analyzers for maximum effectiveness.

[psilontech]

The ultimate cheese as far as ship building goes consists of only three pieces of Late-Game technology:
1) Time-Warp Facilitator: You get two turns for every one the other side gets.
2) Phasing Cloak: If you spend a turn doing nothing, then you go back into cloak.
3) Stellar Converters: What the above guy called the planet buster.

Turn 1 of combat: Fire Stellar Converters. BOOM.
Turn 1.5: Do nothing and cloak.
Enemy Turn 1: What the **** just happened!? /sits around and does nothing/
Rinse and Repeat. Ultimate Cheese.

I don't know if that was fixed in later patches or if it is a 'legal' exploit, but... Antares just isn't any sort of challenge with two Doomstars like this.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

The ultimate cheese as far as ship building goes consists of only three pieces of Late-Game technology:
1) Time-Warp Facilitator: You get two turns for every one the other side gets.
2) Phasing Cloak: If you spend a turn doing nothing, then you go back into cloak.
3) Stellar Converters: What the above guy called the planet buster.

Turn 1 of combat: Fire Stellar Converters. BOOM.
Turn 1.5: Do nothing and cloak.
Enemy Turn 1: What the **** just happened!? /sits around and does nothing/
Rinse and Repeat. Ultimate Cheese.

I don't know if that was fixed in later patches or if it is a 'legal' exploit, but... Antares just isn't any sort of challenge with two Doomstars like this.

This was partially mitigated by reactive attacks, if you are in range of regular or point-defense weapons. Best use now is not to use Stellar Converters, but instead Overloaded No-Range-Dissipation Plasma Torpedos.

Turn 1: Fire Plasma Torpedos!
Turn 1.5, do nothing and cloak + reload torpedos
Enemy turn 1: WTF? Where did those plasma torps come from?

Rinse and Repeat.

However, this is incredibly slow. Better to go with Achelies Targeting Unit + Structural Analyzers + + Time-Warp Facilitator + High Energy Focus + lots of beam weapons (AF Heavy Disruptors + Plasma Cannons work well) to wipe out entire fleets in one turn, negating the NEED for the cloak.

[Kish]

I make no claims to being the world's best MoO2 player, but I did win on Impossible, once. Then I stopped trying and went back to Hard where I could win without depending on luck. :smalltongue:

My custom race is:
Unification
-50% Population Growth
Telepathic
Warlord
+1 Research or Production (which is a matter of playstyle)
Maximum spying penalties
Maximum ground combat penalties
...did I leave anything out? If it comes out even, I didn't.
I research Automated Factories, Research Laboratory, and Hydroponic Farms as fast as I can so I can build them on all my planets, then I stay in the lower lefthand corner tree until I have Neutron Blasters and outfit all my ships with them for most of the game. Depending on the planets I have then, I may stay in that tree to research Gravity Generator. Everyone I meet, I either make Trade and Research treaties with as soon as possible (if they won't accept either when I first meet them, I ask for a nonaggression treaty so that their attitude toward me will improve instead of deteriorating, and I keep pushing them every few turns until they agree to Trade and Research treaties) or conquer. If I'm at war with an opponent who might actually threaten me, I take advantage of my Telepathic mobility, conquering their colonies and, instead of keeping my fleet there to defend them, going to hit another colony and then another while they're either bringing in transport ships just to get back to where they were before I attacked them, or bombing their own people.

[Roxlimn]

I've beaten this game with every species on Impossible. It's not that hard.

[Douglas]

I've beaten the game by sole survivor without ever expanding beyond my homeworld, not even to other planets in the same system, on Impossible difficulty. Several times. Without exploiting invulnerability combos like Time Warp Facilitator + Phasing Cloak. A few of those times I even had to face the completely united galaxy that results from an AI player winning the election and me rejecting the result.

[Roxlimn]

douglas:

That's interesting. How did you do it?

[Douglas]

Large Homeworld, Rich Homeworld, Artifacts Homeworld, Subterranean, Creative, Low-G Homeworld, ground combat and spying penalties. Research automated factories and research labs first, then cloning center. Research literally everything, building every building, and try to get trade and research treaties with everyone. The AI players will mostly ignore you because you're so weak with only one planet, and your starbase plus missile base, ground batteries, etc. can handle most attacks anyone's likely to send for a while. It will take a few hundred turns, but you will eventually have every technology except hyper-advanced stuff. Somewhere around getting Plasma Cannons, I usually go kill the guardian, even though I'm not going to colonize Orion. The free Antaran techs and ship are pretty nice.

In the late game, you will need several ships for defense in addition to your star fortress, etc. I load up some doom stars with eight of the best special systems, usually including a Damper Field if I can manage to get it from Orion, then fill the rest of the space with heavy autofire disruptors. Research several levels of hyper-advanced physics to miniaturize the disruptors. You should eventually end up with doom stars able to take out 20 or so ships each in a single volley. Get five or more of these to guard your homeworld. Then build one with a stellar converter and go out to blow up planets. If a system has no colonizable planets left, it is completely impossible to rebuild it, so every system you reduce to asteroids and gas giants is a permanent irreversible loss. Around this time you will get attacked at your homeworld by some rather large fleets, but your doom stars should be enough to destroy them provided you get to shoot first. Even if not, you may have a chance if your opponents don't use stellar converters.

The attacks on your homeworld will get progressively more feeble as the destruction goes on and all the AI empires gradually shrink, until you eventually destroy every last colonizable planet outside of your home system, at which point you will win the game.

[Roxlimn]

Thanks. That's an interesting approach. I'll have to try that out sometime. Any reason why you don't get Repulsive?

[Douglas]

a) Trade and research treaties are very nice things to have most of the game.
b) There is an extended period where the AI players will be capable of destroying you if they really want to, and Repulsive makes it a lot harder to convince them not to.
c) Low-G, -spy, and -ground get the full 10 points of penalties already without giving you anything really meaningfully bad.

[Cubey]

Repulsive is a multiplayer choice, where you face only other players who are unwilling to cooperate anyway so it's free points. Everyone also plays a high industry race on small maps and tries to rush the enemy before they do. Like if it was an RTS and not a 4X game.

Yes, I didn't like my MoO 2 multiplayer experience.

[Roxlimn]

It's a 4X MP game. The only game that really does that well is Sins of a Solar Empire, though MP Civ is somewhat more decent than MP Orion.

[Cubey]

4X are meant to be played single player. A single game just takes too long for multiplayer in my opinion, and a single turn's length can vary from "meh, nothing happened yet *presses end turn*" to issuing new commands for over half an hour. I can't imagine, for example, Galactic Civilisations II being played in multi. Or rather I do, but not as a pleasant experience.

[Roxlimn]

Depends on your taste. Sins does work, but it's a little RTS-ish, and MP games typically last 8 hours on the average.

Yes, right now, it's pretty much only for the hardcore fans.

[endoperez]

4X are meant to be played single player. A single game just takes too long for multiplayer in my opinion, and a single turn's length can vary from "meh, nothing happened yet *presses end turn*" to issuing new commands for over half an hour. I can't imagine, for example, Galactic Civilisations II being played in multi. Or rather I do, but not as a pleasant experience.

Dominions 3 does it well, and the same system is the only feasible one for TBS strategy games of epic scale.

First, the turns need lots of downtime for most of the game, so you have to accept you're only getting one turn in every 48 hours (or more, or less). Three turns a week, plus diplomacy.

Second, simultaneous turn resolution. You lose manual control over combat, but in return, everyone can play every turn. 12 players issuing their orders all at once will only affect hosting time, and that's negligible... but it makes everyone get their turn 12 times faster!

Simultaneous turn resolution also allows for faster games, but they easily take hours even on small-to-medium maps. Large maps and epic games usually take too long to coordinate, especially with more than two players.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Meh, I prefer my AF SP HV Phasors with the best computer, a weapons leader. Then throw in a structural analyzer, achilles targeting computer, high energy focus, and augmented engines. i can destroy an antarean titan with a single one although the SP is kinda wasted on them. I suppose I could throw on CO, but I find I hit stuff just fine without it unless they got a big bonus to defense.

I find for the most part, older weapons are far superior to the cutting edge stuff because of miniaturization and mods. Stuff like AF and ENV can quad or triple the damage you do. You only really run into trouble against planetary shields. However you can just have a few dedicated bombers (i.e. missile boats) for that since missiles can easily overcome the damage reduction of planetary shielding. Just gotta be careful you kill everyone off if you are looking to invade.

[Winterwind]

I've beaten this game with every species on Impossible. It's not that hard.If you're looking for a challenge, try any of these:

No New Tech: Impossible, 8 races, Small galaxy, Average tech level. Win the game without acquiring any new technologies, in any way. If you gain some technology by conquering a world or any such thing, reload.

No Scientists: Impossible, 8 races, Huge galaxy, Pre-Warp. Win the game without ever having even one population unit assigned as a scientist. No Android Scientists, either.

No Workers: Impossible, 8 races, Huge galaxy, Pre-Warp. Win the game without ever having even one population unit assigned as a worker. No Android Workers, either.


Yes, all of these are doable. :smallamused:

[Roxlimn]

Winterwind:

Cool modes, but old. ;)

I've already won the No Workers and No Scientist challenges on Impossible. Really, playing Elerian well pretty much already tells you how to do No Scientist (because Elerian Scientists suck).

Tried No Tech, but got bored with it. Might load it up and finish it one of these days. Thanks for posting up the challenges. Maybe some guys can hook up with those.

You think we should elaborate on how to win Impossible with some of these newbies?

[Winterwind]

I've tried combining the No Workers and No Scientists challenges (allowed to have a single worker doing Trade Goods for one or two turns, when colonising a world where you have to buy Terraforming (and potentially Radiation Shield) before you can make him a farmer, but otherwise farmers only). I haven't managed to win it yet, but I'm pretty sure it's doable; the income of a properly built race is so high it almost mimics the No Scientists challenge.

[hajo]

No Workers: Impossible, 8 races, Huge galaxy, Pre-Warp. Win .. without .. Workers

With no workers, you could 'just' buy everything, so the key would be to get lots of money.


No Scientists: Impossible, 8 races, Huge galaxy, Pre-Warp. Win .. without .. scientists.

With no scientists, you need to get tech by trade/demands, spying, and conquering planets, also plain luck (leaders, artifact worlds).
Research can still be done by buildings and ships with scout-labs.


No New Tech: Impossible, 8 races, Small galaxy, Average tech level. Win the game without acquiring any new technologies


A small galaxy with 8 races has only about one other star-system per race, and about 1/3 of the whole map is in range.
So, an omniscient race like the Elerians could pick the best planet(s) to settle, as well as the right times and locations for blitzing - telepaths just need an early cruiser...