Master of Orion

[TSGames]

This is a thread for the Masters of Orion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion_II

Any of them, MOO I, MOO II, or even MOO III.

Which have you played and which was your favorite?

I liked MOO II, it slightly upgraded the graphics of MOO I, while adding some planetary micromanagement that contributed to the overall galactic conquest feel of the game. MOO III, had far too much micromanaging, or far too little. By this I mean you could personally direct the construction of DEA's, what was being researched, or what was being constructed, but after obtaining a small amount of planets(which was necessary to win since eXpansion is one of the four X's the game was based on), it quickly became too much to manage, it bogged down gameplay and eventually brought it to a standstill. If, however, you allowed the computer to manage this micromanagement it often made stupid decisions. The graphics were nice, and it made it fun to use fighters and lasers, just to see them in combat, but it just wasn't nearly as fun.

MOO II FTW.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I really liked MoO2. Created some sincerely obnoxious ships.

How about a battleship with Phasing Cloak + Time Warp Facilitator with torpedos... sure, torpedos take an extra turn to reload, but infinite ammo unlike missiles, and when you spend a turn doing nothing to reload your torpedos, your phasing cloak comes back up. So by the time it's really their turn, they can't target you.

Particle Beam + Achelies Targeting Unit. All damage goes straight to structure and components. Good night gracie. Granted, this is antaran tech, but capture any antaren ship and you've probably got particle beams, so you don't need to rely on the Orion Special to grant it to you.

[Tengu]

I never played I.

III was disappointing - too much bureaucracy and setting stuff that actually didn't do anything, too little input in things that actually mattered. You didn't feel like a leader of a space-faring civilization, you felt like an accountant. They also made each turn last 2,5 years - what the hell?

II is awesome. Everything in this game is perfect, apart from the small numbers of population on planets (though it might just mean that there's much too many of us on Earth) - the graphics are okay and still do their job, the music is smashing, the gameplay is very balanced and the whole game oozes fun.
I always like to play the scientific (with a bit of industrial tossed in) race that tries to keep good contacts with everyone, but shows what it's made of in war. I prefer big ships with beam weapons to hordes of tiny ones with missiles, but that's probably common for races with huge science bonus.
The completionist inside me cries when I'm not playing a Creative race.
I always prefer to capture enemy colonies, but did an exception once - in my last single-player game (never played multi for serious so far), I was practically in a winning position - Orion taken, all techs developed, building ships to massacre the antarans - when one of the two races that was my enemies and still remaining, the Gnolams, bombarded and destroyed my colony on Orion (most of my fleet was busy fighting the other one). I was so pissed - the vengeance was cruel. Gnolams were eradicated, all of their colonies bombarded and razed to the ground - I only invaded and assimilated one of their worlds, a tiny toxic planet, where the remains of their race lived as the underdogs in my otherwise democratic, multi-raced, society.

[MaxKaladin]

I played 1 and 2 but avoided 3 due to the bad reviews.

I tended to go heavy on tech. I rarely initiated a war, but inevitably someone would attack me and I'd unleash my fleet upon them to crush them with my superior technology. (Bwahahahah)

I recall one game where I managed to get ahold of a tech that would actually destroy worlds. Well, one of the models for ships looked like a Death Star so that's what I built. Several of them, in fact. As I recall, I hadn't been doing well in the galactic senate or whatever it was called and they voted some other race the winner. If you accepted the result, you lost the game. If you rejected it, everyone would go to war with you and refuse to make peace. Basially, the other races were going to annex you into some galactic republic whether you wanted to join or not. Well, I wasn't interested in subjecting myself to some galactic republic (and losing the game) and I knew they couldn't beat me in battle so I refused to acknowledge the newly elected galactic president of whatever it was supposed to be and war was declared. I unleashed the death stars to literally destroy the enemy empires. They flew from world to world blowing up planets leaving nothing behind but asteroids. Their escorts swatted aside enemy fleets and planetary defenses alike. I destroyed everything but their homeworlds. Those, I bombarded then invaded and conquered. The few pathetic survivors were sent to live in domed mining colonies on the fringes of my empire and I declared myself galactic president or whatever it was the other races wanted to have so badly.

Hey, it was their own fault. They should have just left me alone.

[Lord Herman]

MOO 1 was a good game. A bit simplistic, maybe, but good.

MOO 2 is one of the best games ever made. Period.

MOO 3? I'm still waiting for MOO 3 to come out.

[soozenw]

ugh, my fiance plays these games fanatically! Personally, strategy games are boring, but he seems to like them all.

[nathkry]

I've played the first one, which was really good (not to mention fun), but I havent played any of the others. The graphics for MOO1 were pretty bad, but they don't make that much difference.

[Prustan]

I'm a science person myself. I'd have a bunch of ships defending key systems, while researching and building in safety, and sending scouts out in all directions. Whenever an enemy managed to defeat/damage a (by now obsolete) fleet, their replacements would be dispatched to the nearest system and crush the invaders.
General battle strategy is to get a horde of ships, armed with beams or missiles, and crush the hopelessly outclassed defences. Then blockade the planet until the transports arrive - or bombard it into oblivion if the planet isn't wanted.

[lord_khaine]

i simply love MoO2, and have lost count of the hours i have spend playing it.

actualy the only challenge i have left is defeating impossibel with elerians, without starting with more than 1 coloni.

oh and btw, did you know the best weapon in the game is actualy phasors?
the thing is that fully upgradet phasors, with heavy mounts, shield piercing and autofire does more damage per point of space than anything else.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

In the 1.2 version, Plasma Cannons pwn all. Enveloping means quad damage once you get through all the shielding.

Even in 1.31, they're not a BAD weapon, although they're a bit more cumbersome to use before you miniaturize them.

As far as custom race building... I like to go Unification, Creative, Subterranian, Low-G, Spying Penalty, and Ground Combat Penalty. I never capture colonies, I always wipe the planet clean of all alien infestation then start my own colony. The exception is the Sillicoids, whom I use to colonize toxic planets.

Oh, here's another cute tip for working with Toxic planets: Dry Dock. For this trick to work, you need Android Workers.

Colonize Planet. Build a Hydroponic Farm so your one population won't starve. Build up your population full of Android Workers. Your population will eventually go up to two, because it won't let you fill in that last unit with an android for some stupid reason. If you don't have anything to build, just make Trade Goods for crazy cash output! It's not as good as if you were able to terraform it into a Terran (and eventually Gaia) planet, but it's better than trying standard population techniques (unless you're tolerant).

[Charity]

When customizing what I do, is go for all positive government/universal stuff (unification,creative, psionic etc.) and negative racial stuff, then mind control the siliciods and start farming them on all your worlds, I have actually replaced my entire start race with silicoids, it's a pain when you colonise but you just send them off to a nice full planet when the rockmen replacements get there.
I love MOO II it is great, we had to ban missiles for the multiplayer games though... 2,000 2 shot MIRV nukes FTW (in the early stages, obiously if you wait too long those handy missile barriers put paid to this tactic)

[Archonic Energy]

doomstars with stellar converters FTW.


or Sheild piercing heavy phasors with the achelies targeting unit, High energy focus, and the structural Analyser... in MP you can only use that trick once :smallamused: before you find all your enemies ships are equipped with hard shields:smallfrown:

[ChristopherDK]

moo3 wasn't that bad a game.. it just wasn't what it needed to be a fit heir of the masterpiece that is moo2.

i think only civ 1 can compete with the amount of time i've spent on moo2. i remember 10-12 years ago talking to girlfriends while playing moo2. well.. i only had to grunt yes once in a while anyway.

i've tried several builds and setups. i vastly perfer the later versions of the game. much better than the first released version.

that said i've only beaten the hardest setting with max players in the smallest galaxy with a subterran tolerant dictatorship. the rest of what i've tried is simply to slow starters to have a chance against the "cheating" ai.

normally i use a unified telepathic race, there is something about blasting the space defense out of the sky and then take control of a completely intact planet.

my most annoying ship in the end game. stasis fields, time warp, phase cloak & teleporter. you can fit this easy on a small ship with no shields or other weapons. and they cost nothing to build. meaning that your production colonies could turn out 40-50 of these in almost no time. coupled with a few titans you could take on 100s of hostile ships. you attacked and started by putting as many ships as possible in stasis. and then pull back the stasis ships.

then it's nice and easy to unstasis 1 ship, kill it. and continue.

i did this in a multiplayer game once.. the other player was foaming when he say his grand armada go down one by one to a player who according to the ingame stats, didn't have any navy to be compared to his :D

[Miklus]

I'm one of those Smucks that actually bought MoO3. :smallfrown:

OK, it's bad...but what doubles the annoyance is that the basic game is good. It is just poorly implemented. If it was all bad, then I could just not care. But there are a number of good things I really like.

1) That the "aliens" don't look humanoid (like in Star Trek) but like wierd animals.
2) How the terraform-zones work. Different speices, different zones. Some overlap.
3) The fleet mechanics with missiles, fighters, beams ect. I've read somewhere that this part was taken from some game called "harpoon". I've never played that, so I don't know.

It could have been a great game, if all this was implemented propperly. But the game I bought just did not work. It seems like the project ran out of time and they just said "lets fix it in the patch". Then there is all these little annoying rules.

1) The fleet composition rules. Why oh why am I not allowed to just "group" a bunch of ships?
2) You are not allowed to attack an enemy colony until it reaches 1000pop. You have to wait for them to starve to death, or build a colony on top which brings us to...
3) The whole "illigal alien" problem. You just don't have enough control over the population. Some may be parasitic and is eating the brains of your other citizens, but you can't do anything about it...Why can't you just round up those harvesters and shoot them?

And so on...I better stop now, the list of annoyances is as long as an arm. I really feel this could have been a fantasic game if it had been developed by someone else. Now we will never see MoO3 as it should have been. :smallmad:

[Lord Herman]

I tried to play MOO2 on my new laptop a couple of days ago... turns out that it doesn't work on Vista :smallfrown:

[Winterwind]

Master of Orion II is definately one of the best games out there.
I always found Creative to cost too much points to be truly worth it though; something like +2 Industry (to compliment Unification and Subterranean) always seemed a better choice to me. Then just lean back and watch ship after ship roll out of the production line... :)

Master of Orion III... huh. I borrowed it from a friend once, and, although I like to consider myself more or less descent in strategy games, couldn't figure it out at all.
Oh well - at least the story told in the manual was fairly interesting.

[Poison_Fish]

I'm an old fan of MooII.

While I did figure out MooIII, I had one or two small games, and then one epicly massive long game, and haven't looked back at it. I liked MooII more, truthfully.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

I found that with MoO3 you could set the preferences on your planets in such a way that the comp didn't screw things up too bad and you could concentrate on other stuff...I actually found that the tech (if you were even half good at research) would progress at such a rate that you could never produce a 'modern' fleet. By the time you assembled enough ships for an Armada, they were all out of date by several upgrades...this led to the constant rebuilding of ships...constant upgrades to old ships...and even then, it was more efficient to send them on suicide runs into enemy territory rather than waste time upgrading them.

MOO 2 was pretty much MOO1 with better graphics and a more balanced system. I also loved that the tech tree didn't advance so damn fast that ships were out of date before they were built.

One thing held true in every MOO game though...D!ckheads for teh Win! Heh, anyone who saw the Psilons in the first Moo game knows what I mean :smallbiggrin:

No really...tech was the winner. If you had the tech, you would win in the end. While others would have to choose between industry or armor, you had both, agriculture or ship components...computers or weapons...and all the little toys and upgrades. You never realize how much of a boost it is. If you don't play a creative race, or don't have a good research base, you NEED to focus on capturing ships and planets. I would find the Psilons and blockade them and demand technology for tribute, build marine ships to capture any and all enemy ships...focus on capturing planets...While it makes the game more challenging to not be creative...it is so much of an advantage to have all the tech, and quickly...

As a side note...Focusing on Spying and ground combat is also very fun...Being master spies and telepathic to boot is just nasty...

[Prustan]

Nothing like being able to swat their hordes of tiny ships like flies. And not lose anything while doing it. Only problem I had with Tech races was (only sometimes) not being able to produce my superadvanced ships of death fast enough to defend my key systems.

[Winterwind]

No really...tech was the winner. If you had the tech, you would win in the end. While others would have to choose between industry or armor, you had both, agriculture or ship components...computers or weapons...and all the little toys and upgrades. You never realize how much of a boost it is. If you don't play a creative race, or don't have a good research base, you NEED to focus on capturing ships and planets. I would find the Psilons and blockade them and demand technology for tribute, build marine ships to capture any and all enemy ships...focus on capturing planets...While it makes the game more challenging to not be creative...it is so much of an advantage to have all the tech, and quickly...I've played both... I found creative versus industrious (or lithovoric) to be fairly balanced, with the scales tipping rather in favour of industry - because you get such a head start thanks to the massive producing capacity that the creative/scientific/democratic race can never catch up. Against thrice as many planets, all equipped with Research Labs, Supercomputers and possibly Autolabs, producing Research Points with the full population still in the industry, furthering the empire's expansion, even these research bonuses won't hold up. And not being creative doesn't mean you don't get pretty much all tech - it just means you have to work harder for it.
Though it may also be a matter of playing style...

The most overpowered ability in MoO2 was, in my opinion, Charismatic anyway - not only is it a half guaranteed win via Galactic Senate, but most of all it boosts you incredibly due to the vastly superior leaders you get. And all for measly three points...

[Charity]

Yeah but who wants to win by democracy?
Complete subsumation of all races into the vast lumbering hive mind ... farming silicoids ... ah good times.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

I found that while swarming with high industry is a good competator to a creative race, it is not as good as one might think. Quantity over quality is the credo of the Silicoids...and they do that very well...They don't need to worry about environment and pollution and can crank out just about anything faster than greased boop. That is a real advantage, don't get me wrong.

The problem is in the quality. Their industrious advantage can be matched with good industrial technology, their resistance to pollution can be matched by waste management...fast reproduction gives way to cloning facilities, even research bonuses give way to science and research facilities...but creativity is not something that is easily achieved. If you are not creative, you must steal or get diplomatically that which you do not have. Stealing is sometimes quite easy when you have a boopload of ships, but at a certian point in the game, the tech discrepancy will vastly effect performance.

In the mid game, probably the most critical point, the tech race will start to outpace everyone technologically in a noticable way. Their ships will be able to destroy enemy ships at a ratio of 3-1 at least with many of the more carefully designed warships taking out even more with awesome firepower. At the endgame, the tech race is working on hyperadvanced technology and miniaturizing their components while the others are just barely reaching the top of the tech tree in places and making the hard choice between the last few advances.

The technologically savy race is more likely to reach Orion and defeat the guardian, they are more likely to defeat the Antarans...Though the computer pretty much will never vote you supreme leader unless you have been very nice, so best have a majority of votes to tie it up.

Really, the Silicoids, the Saurian race, and the Klaxon are the most ruthless opponents because of their rapid expansion and industry. They can crank out ships and match your research with raw numbers while pumping out ships like no tommorow...the saving grace is that they have class 3 shields and lvl 4 hull with minimum 'perks' while the tech race has class 6 shields, lvl 5 armor, more advanced weapons and likely battlepods on a larger class ship that moves faster with better targeting computers.

There is also some tactical decisions to be made...the computer is not the best tactician in the world...on the tactical space battle, a good space general can pick apart the enemy fleet with ease, make good use of rotation to present maximum shields to the enemy, concentrate firepower where necessary to ensure the enemy does not get to do the same...PLaying against the Psilons in single player is actually pretty easy...the AI gets bogged down building everything and expands WAY too slow for their own good. As a result, the Psilons are only a problem if left alone until very late into the game...if noone has messed with them until late game, they are a hell of a turtling force that will storm out with advanced stuff...otherwise, they are just asking to be done prison style and mined for their technology.

You don't know how often I would just blockade a star and send in raiding parties with shuttles and a warp interdictor to take over any ship that showed up so that i could get the most advanced shields, computers, armor, fuel cells, thrusters, new weapons...

[Freelance Henchman]

Can you buy MOO2 anywhere as a download game (like with Direct2Drive)?

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Can you buy MOO2 anywhere as a download game (like with Direct2Drive)?

probably...The file is pretty small...I know I own the game but damned if I can find my CD...That annoys me, I kinda wanna play it again now...:smallfrown:

[Winterwind]

probably...The file is pretty small...I know I own the game but damned if I can find my CD...That annoys me, I kinda wanna play it again now...:smallfrown:Huh? That's strange, I can play it without CD...

I found that while swarming with high industry is a good competator to a creative race, it is not as good as one might think. Quantity over quality is the credo of the Silicoids...and they do that very well...They don't need to worry about environment and pollution and can crank out just about anything faster than greased boop. That is a real advantage, don't get me wrong.The Silicoids are strong - but I wouldn't consider them the perfect build at all. I am not entirely sure what exactly would constitute the perfect build for me, but it probably would not include... ah, what was it called, that ability to treat any world as terrestrial? Anyway - it does provide a significant boost, alright, but if you already possess lithovoric its impact is lessened significantly, and the increased population limits are not going to play that much a role in the beginning (especially considering the Silicoids population growth malus.

The problem is in the quality. Their industrious advantage can be matched with good industrial technology, their resistance to pollution can be matched by waste management...fast reproduction gives way to cloning facilities, even research bonuses give way to science and research facilities...but creativity is not something that is easily achieved. If you are not creative, you must steal or get diplomatically that which you do not have. Stealing is sometimes quite easy when you have a boopload of ships, but at a certian point in the game, the tech discrepancy will vastly effect performance.I'd say, that point would be when your own technology would be strictly superior to that of the other races, making your stealing from them pointless. But if you get that far you have won anyway.
By your argumentation, that you can replace racial traits with technology, Aquatic would be the biggest waste of points ever. Terraforming is a technology you get pretty soon, and it gives you an advantage only on worlds which you can, indeed, terraform. Still, the Trilarians seem to fare pretty well in most games they appear in, and Aquatic is a pretty strong trait for a human player as well - so huge is the boost in expansion it allows in the early phase of the game.

In the mid game, probably the most critical point, the tech race will start to outpace everyone technologically in a noticable way. Their ships will be able to destroy enemy ships at a ratio of 3-1 at least with many of the more carefully designed warships taking out even more with awesome firepower. At the endgame, the tech race is working on hyperadvanced technology and miniaturizing their components while the others are just barely reaching the top of the tech tree in places and making the hard choice between the last few advances.

The technologically savy race is more likely to reach Orion and defeat the guardian, they are more likely to defeat the Antarans...Though the computer pretty much will never vote you supreme leader unless you have been very nice, so best have a majority of votes to tie it up.If the tech-race ever gets this far. The industrial race can crush them a long time before. Besides, I'm not so sure about that anyway - all builds for being superior researchers only give you bonuses if you put population into research. Which means you neglect your expansion, slowing you down even more in comparison with the industrial race. Save for the early game, most of the research points stems from the buildings (at least the way I usually play), and the number of those depends solely on the number of planets you possess. And that's where the industrial race beats the scientist race hands down.
Plus, Creative is not exactly what I would consider a good trait for a scientist race - get Creative and Democracy, and you are already running low on points for Research bonus (the costs for Creative vary a bit for different patches, and I'm neither sure how nor inclined to look it up right now, therefore I won't give exact numbers), and you haven't even gotten anything that will help you put this superior technology into use (like Industrial bonus).
The thing is, Creative is not really that necessary - there are a few choices where it's tough (like the second choice in Construction, or several times in Chemistry), but most of the time you can do without all the other stuff. And those few things which are important and which you usually miss (Heavy Armor, Hydroponic Farm/Biospheres, Holosimulator) you can get by other means.
Not so in the uppermost technologies, since nobody will have gotten that far except for you, but the game is usually over long before that anyway.

Really, the Silicoids, the Saurian race, and the Klaxon are the most ruthless opponents because of their rapid expansion and industry. They can crank out ships and match your research with raw numbers while pumping out ships like no tommorow...the saving grace is that they have class 3 shields and lvl 4 hull with minimum 'perks' while the tech race has class 6 shields, lvl 5 armor, more advanced weapons and likely battlepods on a larger class ship that moves faster with better targeting computers.

There is also some tactical decisions to be made...the computer is not the best tactician in the world...on the tactical space battle, a good space general can pick apart the enemy fleet with ease, make good use of rotation to present maximum shields to the enemy, concentrate firepower where necessary to ensure the enemy does not get to do the same...PLaying against the Psilons in single player is actually pretty easy...the AI gets bogged down building everything and expands WAY too slow for their own good. As a result, the Psilons are only a problem if left alone until very late into the game...if noone has messed with them until late game, they are a hell of a turtling force that will storm out with advanced stuff...otherwise, they are just asking to be done prison style and mined for their technology.

You don't know how often I would just blockade a star and send in raiding parties with shuttles and a warp interdictor to take over any ship that showed up so that i could get the most advanced shields, computers, armor, fuel cells, thrusters, new weapons...The computer would be a much more dangerous opponent if he actually upgraded his ships once in a while.
About the Psilons - well, they are so docile, you can actually get them to give you pretty much their entire empire as a gift. Just have any power whatsoever, get treaties with them, and then ask for some small system. Wait a while, repeat. But that's just abuse, of course...
Anyway, in many games I see they have actually trouble with keeping up technologically with more expansionist races (Trilarians, for instance, often beat them in the graphs).

P.S.: I hope I don't come across as arguing, and I am perfectly aware the points I present are debatable. I just enjoy a nice discussion between strategists, that's all. :smallwink:

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Oh, no offense taken...Lots of people have different ideas on what makes a good build for a race, good strategy, what is ideal for prduction vs. research.

I need my CD because I had Moo2 installed on my old computer and hadn't played it since I bought my new one...so, if I wanna play, I need to install the game again.

Sillicoids...no, they are far from the best build. Tolerant allows them to live just about anywhere and thrive, which means that they can slap people anywhere they want and dont have to be choosy about their colonies or fight with people for land. Lithovoric means that they don't need to devote the percentage of their race to farming...and since they are tolerant, they are ok with the extra pollution from heavy industry. A quick readjusting of their negatives can swap other traits for the repulsive and slow breeding that really keep them in check...and then they spread so damn fast it is nuts. Actually, an even better build is to mix the meklar and the silicoids and have them be tolerant and cybernetic...still able to do alot of the same, but now able to get other bonuses that will be good like a unification government.

Doesn't aquatic allow you to make more use out of planets like subterrainian does? as well as use water planets? In that case, yeah, packing more people into a planet is always a good thing.

I have always found that when I do a tech race, I start prewarp and work on research bonuses through the first 1 or 2 buildings while population increases, then focus on construction until I get some industry increases, farming for the first 2 levels, then start to spread out what I need for the rest. If I do it right, I am ahead of the curve slightly, and have the capability to build my structures quickly and have a good enough production bonus from researching factories to build at a competative rate. Scout ships are launched with superior range compared to other races and colony ships are ready about the same time but with better speed and range than others. It is always very important to spread out quickly, and a good research team can give you the technical knowhow to do so in an efficient manner.

It is not as important in the VERY early stages as a tech race to TRY and outdistance everyone...it is more important to spread out and populate nearby stars...once you get your colonies going at least 3 extra systems, you will naturally surpass everyone else with your technology without trying to. Until then, you must be even and focus efforts on production.

The only way you can screw it up with that setup is if fate sticks you right next to Orion with the Klaxon, Dralathi, or Saurians right next to you...If that happens you will be hard pressed and just better hope that you can compete or find a way out. I have been stuck in that situation where there were no stars for like 12 parsecs that were not hostile with a worm or Orion, or the homeworld of an enemy race that left me stuck on my homeworld...unable to build an outpost to extend range...and just stuck in a system with a my homeworld, a toxic dwarf, a gas giant, and some asteroids...I did my best to focus on research and ship technology to extend range...by the time I had enough, I was just about well and truely screwed...thankfully, I was able to start a treaty with the humans who just built an outpost nearby and that allowed me to send a colony ship beyond my little box and out of reach of the damn Klaxon (xenophobic expansionist...ARRRRGH!)...I eventually lost that game but I chalk it up to screwed from the start.

Now...for heavy production empires...they can be really awesome...Get enough production and making trade goods galore can allow you to literally buy a new colony in a few turns and crank out ships and buildings at a rate well beyond your capabilities in a manner that many won't be able to keep up with. Done well, heavy production can win the game, but you usually also need to be creative to make the best use out of your industry...else...what are you gonna build? If you focus on production and are not creative, you need to steal tech. No way around it.

Yeah, in the game, Psilons are a bunch of wimps...I love stealing their systems by intimidation and demanding their tech...if you do things really well, you can have multicultural planets and use different races at different jobs...it is awesome. Have psilon scientists shipped to different worlds to research while you ship your production guys into the worker roles...then capture some Saurians and make them farm...it is awesome...but usually only done to be cool...so damn time consuming to do that.

[Winterwind]

I need my CD because I had Moo2 installed on my old computer and hadn't played it since I bought my new one...so, if I wanna play, I need to install the game again.Ah, I see.

Sillicoids...no, they are far from the best build. Tolerant allows them to live just about anywhere and thrive, which means that they can slap people anywhere they want and dont have to be choosy about their colonies or fight with people for land. Lithovoric means that they don't need to devote the percentage of their race to farming...and since they are tolerant, they are ok with the extra pollution from heavy industry. A quick readjusting of their negatives can swap other traits for the repulsive and slow breeding that really keep them in check...and then they spread so damn fast it is nuts. Actually, an even better build is to mix the meklar and the silicoids and have them be tolerant and cybernetic...still able to do alot of the same, but now able to get other bonuses that will be good like a unification government.Yes... I always have mixed feelings about combining lithovoric with unification - combined with Industry+1 it is one of the most productive builds, but I feel bad about the food bonus going to waste. Pretty much the same goes for lithovoric and tolerant - what's the use of a terrestrial planet, if one doesn't even need the food it can produce? Only increased size - and that one can get out of Subterranean just as well. Not to mention it will get even stronger once you start terraforming. So tolerant would only be useful on toxic worlds, and that's just not worth it.
Now the build you propose - yeah, I imagine tolerant and cybernetic complement each other really well.

Doesn't aquatic allow you to make more use out of planets like subterrainian does? as well as use water planets? In that case, yeah, packing more people into a planet is always a good thing.What it does is making your people treat tundra and swamp planets as terrestrial, and ocean and terran planets as Gaian. Other planets are treated just as usually.
Now this may not sound all that great, since it affects only a minority of the worlds, but it has the great advantage of your homeworld being effectively a Gaian planet, with the according increase in food production and population limits. It is amazing how much this boosts the early game.
By the way, you don't need to be Aquatic to use water worlds. They are, actually, fairly good - they only need one terraforming to get terrestrial and produce as much food as a terrestrial planet to begin with. They only have a low population cap, one third of a terrestrial planet - as bad as a barren, desert or tundra world.

I have always found that when I do a tech race, I start prewarp and work on research bonuses through the first 1 or 2 buildings while population increases, then focus on construction until I get some industry increases, farming for the first 2 levels, then start to spread out what I need for the rest. If I do it right, I am ahead of the curve slightly, and have the capability to build my structures quickly and have a good enough production bonus from researching factories to build at a competative rate. Scout ships are launched with superior range compared to other races and colony ships are ready about the same time but with better speed and range than others. It is always very important to spread out quickly, and a good research team can give you the technical knowhow to do so in an efficient manner.

It is not as important in the VERY early stages as a tech race to TRY and outdistance everyone...it is more important to spread out and populate nearby stars...once you get your colonies going at least 3 extra systems, you will naturally surpass everyone else with your technology without trying to. Until then, you must be even and focus efforts on production.

The only way you can screw it up with that setup is if fate sticks you right next to Orion with the Klaxon, Dralathi, or Saurians right next to you...If that happens you will be hard pressed and just better hope that you can compete or find a way out. I have been stuck in that situation where there were no stars for like 12 parsecs that were not hostile with a worm or Orion, or the homeworld of an enemy race that left me stuck on my homeworld...unable to build an outpost to extend range...and just stuck in a system with a my homeworld, a toxic dwarf, a gas giant, and some asteroids...I did my best to focus on research and ship technology to extend range...by the time I had enough, I was just about well and truely screwed...thankfully, I was able to start a treaty with the humans who just built an outpost nearby and that allowed me to send a colony ship beyond my little box and out of reach of the damn Klaxon (xenophobic expansionist...ARRRRGH!)...I eventually lost that game but I chalk it up to screwed from the start.I'll have to check this specific start out. Can't estimate whether this would be more effective than what I usually do. If it proves to be, thank you very much. :smallsmile: (though this test will have to wait... matter of fact, I probably shouldn't even be writing here right now - shut up, conscience! :smallbiggrin: )
My starting strategy goes like this: research Computers twice to get Research Lab, build it, research Construction twice to get Automatic Factory, build it, if there are worthy planets in the home system colonise them while researching what is needed for colony ships (the colonies may go a few turns without food if I don't get freighters in time), and then start cranking out colony ships (Scouts too, of course). In the meantime the scientists develop a few technologies to help the empire (like Biospheres), possibly Battle Pods and basic weapons if there are hostile races nearby, and start dabbling into Neuroscanners. As soon as I can build colony ships on new colonies in a reasonable time I switch the homeworld to research again until I get Super Computer.
As soon as I get that pretty much every planet which is not a completely new colony gets a Super Computer, and the fun begins...

Now...for heavy production empires...they can be really awesome...Get enough production and making trade goods galore can allow you to literally buy a new colony in a few turns and crank out ships and buildings at a rate well beyond your capabilities in a manner that many won't be able to keep up with. Done well, heavy production can win the game, but you usually also need to be creative to make the best use out of your industry...else...what are you gonna build? If you focus on production and are not creative, you need to steal tech. No way around it.The thing is, you don't need every tech there is, only the crucial ones. Deciding between Super Computer and Holosimulator is easy - the moral improvement is nice, but not necessary. Heavy Armor is good, but if your fleets overwhelm the enemy they won't be able to overcome your armor anyway. You don't need every drive, the Antimatter-Drive will do just fine and you don't really lose much (Antimatter-bombs - I never use bombs anyway, if I can overcome the non-planetary defenses the planet will fall either way, and Antimatter-torpedoes are neat, but at this point in the game I greatly prefer the instant damage of beam weapons - it leaves less opportunity for retaliation). And so on.
There's only a few really hard choices; I'd probably consider the decision between Deuterium Fuel Cells and Tritanium Armour the hardest.
The point is, you can just concentrate on researching the important technologies, any good technology you get out of the other races is a nifty bonus, and you usually can get most, if not all, of the missing crucial technologies out of the other races (if your race is Repulsive this gets a lot harder - but then, cutting out all diplomatic options makes for a much more boring game anyway in my opinion, and there are other ways to get that 6 points).

Yeah, in the game, Psilons are a bunch of wimps...I love stealing their systems by intimidation and demanding their tech...if you do things really well, you can have multicultural planets and use different races at different jobs...it is awesome. Have psilon scientists shipped to different worlds to research while you ship your production guys into the worker roles...then capture some Saurians and make them farm...it is awesome...but usually only done to be cool...so damn time consuming to do that.Heh, indeed. Nothing like Sakkra slaves toiling away on three planets which support the other thirty planets of the empire. :smallbiggrin:
Too bad they take so very very long to integrate, and Telepathic is so horribly expensive...

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Try the 'All your base' build off the elerians...

Telepathic and all the spying you can stack...then rush to ion weapons and assault shuttles while concentrating on production and ground troops and things to support your troops in ship combat...then...ionize the enemy fleet and board them in combat...when you get better, you will be able to just assault shuttle and not ionize them and have effectively double the ships.

What is even better, when you get big enough ships, you can just mind control the whole planet and boom...insta yours...

Btw...if you are gonna demand a system from the computer...unless they are Psilons, park a superior fleet above the planet and blockade it...if they know they can't win, they'll just give it too ya rather than get squished.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Aha!

I finally got found my Moo2 Cd tucked into the broken White Zombie CD case...unfortunately I also found out that it is a Windows 95 game that doesn't exactly work with XP...:smallfurious:

Thankfully, I found some instructions and an unofficial 1.4 patch that allowed the 'dos' version of the game to be run in the XP command prompt so yeah!

[ChristopherDK]

creative is nice.. but well.. a feudal tolerant expansion build is soo much stronger imo.

sure a creative race gets all that nice tech, but if you've ever tried playing moo2 multiplayer you'll see how fast a good expansion strat can work. i allways start game at the lowest tech setting, meaning you have to build everything from start. and the tech builds are very much behind from start there. you might have a bit more tech at first, but soon the expansion race is going to have 2-3 times the colonies and starsystems the creative race has. and with supercomputers on all of them, they can start to put out some heavy research.

[Thexare Blademoon]

Bah, this is one of those "good thing I downloaded" times, I think. I want to like MOO2, I really do. I just can't get the damn thing working. The DOS installer won't work at all, I end up stuck with a black screen for about ten seconds or more, an error saying something about a video driver failure, and then I'm stuck restarting the computer so I'm not stuck with 640x480 and low-quality color. The Windows 95 version, as Fuzzy_Juan mentioned, doesn't work in XP.

So as to not bring this off-topic, I'd appreciate if someone could PM me to help out. I'm not very experienced with getting old PC games to work.

Also, I don't think it's related to the source of the game files; I've seen other reports of issues similar to mine, but couldn't find a way to fix them...

[Winterwind]

Try the 'All your base' build off the elerians...

Telepathic and all the spying you can stack...then rush to ion weapons and assault shuttles while concentrating on production and ground troops and things to support your troops in ship combat...then...ionize the enemy fleet and board them in combat...when you get better, you will be able to just assault shuttle and not ionize them and have effectively double the ships.I used to do that, though by somewhat other means (Neutron Blasters+Tractor Beams - both in the same area of research (Physics), both fairly early technologies, and you don't even need any ground combat upgrades, for the Neutron Blasters will kill everybody on board anyway), but ultimately found the alien ships to be quite often too weak to be worth the trouble.

What is even better, when you get big enough ships, you can just mind control the whole planet and boom...insta yours...Oh yes, Telepathic is useful, no doubt about it.
Not to mention what happens in a Telepathic+Charismatic synergy. I remember one game where I won without firing a single shot, because on the very first council meeting every single race except one or two wanted me to rule (well, I had managed to create a large universe-spanning alliance, after all...). Shortest game I ever played.

Btw...if you are gonna demand a system from the computer...unless they are Psilons, park a superior fleet above the planet and blockade it...if they know they can't win, they'll just give it too ya rather than get squished.With Charismatic even that is not really necessary. I still say that Charismatic is the single most overpowered racial trait there is (ever got the leader who comes with the Auto Lab technology before even getting the first colony? That's what I call a game-breaking ability!)

I finally got found my Moo2 Cd tucked into the broken White Zombie CD case...unfortunately I also found out that it is a Windows 95 game that doesn't exactly work with XP...:smallfurious:

Thankfully, I found some instructions and an unofficial 1.4 patch that allowed the 'dos' version of the game to be run in the XP command prompt so yeah!Strange, on my laptop with XP it works just fine - crashes occasionally, true, but not often enough to be really an annoyance (there is an autosave function, after all).

But good that you managed to get it to run after all. :smallsmile:

creative is nice.. but well.. a feudal tolerant expansion build is soo much stronger imo.

sure a creative race gets all that nice tech, but if you've ever tried playing moo2 multiplayer you'll see how fast a good expansion strat can work. i allways start game at the lowest tech setting, meaning you have to build everything from start. and the tech builds are very much behind from start there. you might have a bit more tech at first, but soon the expansion race is going to have 2-3 times the colonies and starsystems the creative race has. and with supercomputers on all of them, they can start to put out some heavy research.I wouldn't necessarily say a tech build was that inferior, but basically those are my experiences as well.

Bah, this is one of those "good thing I downloaded" times, I think. I want to like MOO2, I really do. I just can't get the damn thing working. The DOS installer won't work at all, I end up stuck with a black screen for about ten seconds or more, an error saying something about a video driver failure, and then I'm stuck restarting the computer so I'm not stuck with 640x480 and low-quality color. The Windows 95 version, as Fuzzy_Juan mentioned, doesn't work in XP.

So as to not bring this off-topic, I'd appreciate if someone could PM me to help out. I'm not very experienced with getting old PC games to work.

Also, I don't think it's related to the source of the game files; I've seen other reports of issues similar to mine, but couldn't find a way to fix them...Well, I don't really know much about that, either, so I guess you have to wait for Fuzzy_Juan to tell you about that patch mentioned before; other than that, if you have a good computer, you could also try to get it to work with DosBox (http://sourceforge.net/projects/dosbox), which is a DOS emulator, allowing you to start any DOS games on any system; however, it requires a pretty strong machine.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Bah, this is one of those "good thing I downloaded" times, I think. I want to like MOO2, I really do. I just can't get the damn thing working. The DOS installer won't work at all, I end up stuck with a black screen for about ten seconds or more, an error saying something about a video driver failure, and then I'm stuck restarting the computer so I'm not stuck with 640x480 and low-quality color. The Windows 95 version, as Fuzzy_Juan mentioned, doesn't work in XP.

So as to not bring this off-topic, I'd appreciate if someone could PM me to help out. I'm not very experienced with getting old PC games to work.

Also, I don't think it's related to the source of the game files; I've seen other reports of issues similar to mine, but couldn't find a way to fix them...

Well, the website I found (which claimed that MOO2 was abandonware as of now and was offering a full download of the CD and latest official patch in a zip file) said that you need to look in your CD and find the 'install.exe' which will start the dos installation (it also has tips for setting the dos stuff so that you get sound, I didn't care if I heard the music which I always found a bit annoying). Once the dos install finished, you just copy and pasted the 1.31patch version over, then the 1.4 patch on top of that and it would work fine.

I got a wierd error at first, but I fixed it somehow...also when the game started it kept kicking me back to the desktop constantly. I found that some of the memory resident programs that run in the background would autorefresh the toolbar and thus would kick me out of the CMD window. I had to get the program manager (alt+ctrl+del) and end program on itunes and a few other things and that solved the problem.

-----------------------------------

To try my point, I built my tech race...

-20% ship attack
-20% ship defense
-10% spying
-1/2 food
Creative
Democracy
+1 research
Large homeworld

Prewarp... I start researching electronics 2x, then construction 2x, biology to get hydrponics, then fuel cells and other ship components.

I was in a corner...supposidly a good place to be...each nearby system had worlds that were barren and lifeless and the home system kinda sucked...they would require tons of fleets or terraforming to be really habitable. Most were poor. I had to build some outposts. By the time I found a good system, I found it was too far...but the humans had already made it to 4 systems and claimed the one I was going for...no problem...I built a Battleship and sent it over...they had 3 parked overhead...they surrendered the system and offered me treaties. I forced a second system from them the same way...about that time, I researched terraforming and planetconstruction...I had been able to buy so many structures and had the best governers (+60% across the board, several megawealthy ones).

Instead of spreading out into dozons of systems like the computer was doing, onto planets where you could only have 4-6 people and had to build countless structures...I focused on my 4 systems (I had 4 good governers, why not?). My home system was able to be terraformed into 4 decent planets, the neighboring systems 2 planets each...all medium, large, or huge terraformed to terran norms with gravity genorators as necessary and radiation shields for those irradiated ones.

At this point, the silicoids had gotten so stong that they commanded just about 25 systems and had been responsible for the death of just about everyone...the humans had done in the other 2 races. I decided to test my older ships against the Silicoids as they had a large battleship fleet near one of the last human settlements...my ships were superior, I could easily win 4-1 in a basic shootout, but they had gyro destabilizers...a damn annoying trick that wreaks havoc with ships...I lost my 2 against their 10 battleships and only took down 3.

I then concentrated on building defenses at every colony to maximum, warp interdictors, and started plans to revamp my fleet...I was spared the neccesity by an Antaran attack that wiped out most all of my fleet. I replaced them with the latest titians I could build with the meanest loadout.

I sent my fleet (assembled in 10 turns) of 12 titians against their fleet of 20 battleships...only 4 titians got a chance to fire as the battle was over that quickly.

I am currently starting the chore of mopping up system after system since I know that they are no match and will just die off eventually. They could catch up technologically...but by the time they do, I will have even more advanced tech, and even more fully functional colonies than the 10 I do now...let the slaughter begin.

If I had been in the middle, I would have had to devote more energy to warships and defense...being locked in the corner with no real good systems was a bonus that helped keep me out of some bad spots.

[Thexare Blademoon]

Well, the website I found (which claimed that MOO2 was abandonware as of now and was offering a full download of the CD and latest official patch in a zip file) said that you need to look in your CD and find the 'install.exe' which will start the dos installation (it also has tips for setting the dos stuff so that you get sound, I didn't care if I heard the music which I always found a bit annoying). Once the dos install finished, you just copy and pasted the 1.31patch version over, then the 1.4 patch on top of that and it would work fine.

The dos installer is giving me the error I described before, though; screen going completely black for about ten seconds, and then an error about a video driver or somesuch. I'd get the details, but I have to restart the computer every time that happens and I don't have a pen handy. =/ I'll put the rest in a PM so we don't sidetrack things too much.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Sigh...being that much more powerful than the enemy is no fun...when they can't put up a fight, it is not really a challenge...It gets annoying when I need to attack the Antarans for a challenge, and even they go down like sissies with the right build.

The real fun is in the mid game, or being stuck in the middle hard pressed on all sides when the computer doesn't kill off everyone before you even get a chance to have some fun.

Once you get shield peircing phasors with a structural analyzer and the achillies unit...there really is no hope against you.

Perhaps I'll try a cybernetic army of doom next time and not be creative, but just steal and trade for tech.

lets see...unification, cybernetic, research +1, telepathic?...I'll tinker...

[Winterwind]

The dos installer is giving me the error I described before, though; screen going completely black for about ten seconds, and then an error about a video driver or somesuch. I'd get the details, but I have to restart the computer every time that happens and I don't have a pen handy. =/ I'll put the rest in a PM so we don't sidetrack things too much.Try it under DosBox, then. Whatever happens then, this error probably will not occur anymore.

Sigh...being that much more powerful than the enemy is no fun...when they can't put up a fight, it is not really a challenge...It gets annoying when I need to attack the Antarans for a challenge, and even they go down like sissies with the right build.You are playing with Impossible as difficulty, right? 'Cos if you aren't, well, Average and Hard are quite easy...
Though under Impossible the AI gets a bit psychotic. No matter who and no matter how powerful you are, you can never be entirely sure whether they won't declare war on you, just out of the blue. Plus so many races suddenly becoming Repulsive... no fun trying to be diplomatic then.

The real fun is in the mid game, or being stuck in the middle hard pressed on all sides when the computer doesn't kill off everyone before you even get a chance to have some fun.

Once you get shield peircing phasors with a structural analyzer and the achillies unit...there really is no hope against you.

Perhaps I'll try a cybernetic army of doom next time and not be creative, but just steal and trade for tech.

lets see...unification, cybernetic, research +1, telepathic?...I'll tinker...Cybernetic without Industry bonus? You'll have a hard time starting up new colonies, with those production points being all eaten up...
EDIT: Eh, stupid me... forgot about unification. No problem there.

Oh, yeah, and I agree - mid game, when the computer is still putting up a challenge, is most fun. Usually, when I see I can easily conquer the galaxy, I stop playing.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Heh, yeah, unification with a research bonus for a +1 per worker across the board and a defensive spy bonus.

Also, when you have less people needed for food production, it is a bonus.

I normally play on 'normal' or 'Hard' depending on if I am in practice or not. The few times I tried impossible I was annoyed at how overpowering the enemy was all the time. In impossible they get huge bonuses and pretty much always hate you no matter what. When your ships are evenly matched, you have a great commander, and their attack and defense bonus is 120% while yours is 50%...and they always have more ships than you...it is really damn annoying.

Those few times I did impossible, the only thing that helped me was being a democracy as I could afford to buy the early upgrades and was able to research fast. If not for the ground defenses and battlestations I would have lost every single system to overwhelming attack.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

ohh...fun trick to a great system in the 'end game'...

send several colony ships to a system with horrible planets but like...4-5 of them and maybe some gas giants.

Settle them all...contact an enemy and offer to give them control of the system (don't build anything if you can help it)...then attack the system with stellar converters and reduce every crap planet to rubble (save at least one usable planet or build the gas giant into a huge baren planet forst).

Then colonize again and reconstitute those tiny toxic low g worlds into large abundant barren rocks that can be terraformed into gaias eventually.

That sort of thing takes a long time and really only works against the computer...humans tend to play to fast for that sort of long-long term stuff.

[Winterwind]

Heh, yeah, unification with a research bonus for a +1 per worker across the board and a defensive spy bonus.

Also, when you have less people needed for food production, it is a bonus. Yeah, unification rocks. Even though not having morale takes out an additional aspect (would have been horribly overpowered if it didn't though).
I like Feudalism if I happen to be in an aggressive mood - the speed with which you can pump out colony ships and, later, an offensive force, is quite astonishing. Especially if you happen to get this leader who gives you the advanced government form (which is not that difficult if you are Charismatic).
The science malus sucks, of course - getting to the research buildings is quite a hassle. Once you do you catch up rapidly though, since you will likely have a huge empire by that point, being able to construct dozens of Supercomputers and such.

I normally play on 'normal' or 'Hard' depending on if I am in practice or not. The few times I tried impossible I was annoyed at how overpowering the enemy was all the time. In impossible they get huge bonuses and pretty much always hate you no matter what. When your ships are evenly matched, you have a great commander, and their attack and defense bonus is 120% while yours is 50%...and they always have more ships than you...it is really damn annoying.

Those few times I did impossible, the only thing that helped me was being a democracy as I could afford to buy the early upgrades and was able to research fast. If not for the ground defenses and battlestations I would have lost every single system to overwhelming attack.Impossible is decided by details. A few better planets around you can decide whether you will dominate or be dominated.
I play pretty much only on Impossible, though I can't say that I win it reliably. With a strong build and some luck it's not that hard though; you just have to be prepared to be behind technologically, and rely on superior ship design solely. Which is fairly easy to do, fortunately. It's quite funny when three battleships defeat a technologically equivalent fleet twice or thrice that size without losses (Augmented Engines are the key!).


ohh...fun trick to a great system in the 'end game'...

[...]Heh, yeah, that's quite cool. :smallsmile:
I usually miss the Artificial Planet tech though; I kind of like the Automatic Repair thingy, even though by that point it's usually fighting against vastly inferior ships who can't even damage the titan who gets equipped with it, thus rendering it somewhat moot. In the rare case of meeting a worthy opponent it helps quite a lot though.

One really mean trick for the early game involves getting lots of destroyers or even frigates, who all carry one or two missiles (preferably Merculite with speed/armour). They are ridiculously cheap, and a pack of six of those can take down even a space monster guarding a system. Quite effective against small numbers of enemies; against larger fleets, possibly with anti-missile-technology, not so much.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

ARRRRGH!

I was just reminded of why playing in impossible sucked ass...

Damn klaxon had 8 colonies before I could even settle my second system, and to top it off, they might have been uncreative, but they had their unification with +2 to both production and farming...with a large rich homeworld...oh yes...that is right...they had +3 to production and farming and spread like ants do...

And of course, because they are in impossible, their heavy neutron blasters of course did insane damage to my ships while my hvy graviton beams wiffed probably 60% of the time...and they didn't even have shields...

That is nothing compared to the vast torrent of spies that kept killing my agents and stealing things.

On another note...Their build is almost possible...Unification, +2 Production, +2 research (don't need that much food), could be good...a rich homeworld...not sure what to pick for the negatives but it could be done...that might be worth a try.

edit: There is something fairly liberating about being uncreative as a race. You know that you don't have to make those hard choices, in fact, they have already been made...you just need to get there.

[Winterwind]

ARRRRGH!

I was just reminded of why playing in impossible sucked ass...

Damn klaxon had 8 colonies before I could even settle my second system, and to top it off, they might have been uncreative, but they had their unification with +2 to both production and farming...with a large rich homeworld...oh yes...that is right...they had +3 to production and farming and spread like ants do...

And of course, because they are in impossible, their heavy neutron blasters of course did insane damage to my ships while my hvy graviton beams wiffed probably 60% of the time...and they didn't even have shields...Really?
Strange, this doesn't ever happen to me - I guess you got your negatives from Ship Defense and Ship Attack, as in the build you posted above?
I wouldn't do that. Defense is what keeps you alive when they arrive with their superior numbers, and attack is what makes you get the first turn.
Don't take negative Ship Defense, try to get Augmented Engines into your ships ASAP, and you should be fairly safe from their beam weapons. In fact, when you get Augmented Engines, they should miss all the time save for point-blank range...


That is nothing compared to the vast torrent of spies that kept killing my agents and stealing things.Indeed. Spying can get quite troublesome in the early game.

On another note...Their build is almost possible...Unification, +2 Production, +2 research (don't need that much food), could be good...a rich homeworld...not sure what to pick for the negatives but it could be done...that might be worth a try.Unification, +2 Production and Research, and a Rich Homeworld? That's one of my favorite builds! (Though I sometimes leave out the Rich Homeworld, go with 2 picks unused, and get myself Subterranean later on)
While I generally find I can win more reliably with a lithovoric race, and I read in a guide for multiplayer games that a competitive race shouldn't go without some early-boosting skill like Aquatic, this one is definitely one of the best there is.
I usually go with negative money, negative ground combat and (yes, this one hurts badly) negative population growth. Try to get Cloning Center as soon as possible then, and use the superior industry to increase population via Housing, and it works, though.
Alternatively, just go with negative money and Repulsive. Conquest is the quickest way of expansion anyway, right? :smallwink:

edit: There is something fairly liberating about being uncreative as a race. You know that you don't have to make those hard choices, in fact, they have already been made...you just need to get there.EDIT: Uncreative?! Whoa... that's hardcore! I never had the balls to go with Uncreative, there's just so many technologies I deem vital for a functional empire (Automatic Factory and Research Lab being the first ones). On Impossible, the computer has such a severe technological advantage, the only thing that weakens that is that his research choices are so often sub-par - now if you are forced to make sub-par choices as well...

Your bravery, good sir, just earned you my deepest respect. :smallsmile:

[Fuzzy_Juan]

There is a fine line between bravery and stupidity...

I think that testing an uncreative fuedal build might just be it...I was wondering if a rapidly expanding feudal warlord with bonus to production and ship combat bonuses with a large rich homeworld would be an effective build. I think I took a negative to ground combat as well and figured I'd either wipe them out from orbit or use numbers if it ever came to hand to hand. Technology would either be stolen, captured, or traded...

but damn is research slow...I am having to build small colonies all over just to slap down research facilities and leave them with whatever the hydroponics can support until I can terriform.

But before I could settle a second planet, damn elerians are there with 4 colonies and a fleet of destroyers...how the hell can the computer build so fast...and Elerians...why did it have to be them...they are murder in space combat...AARrrrrrgggh!

Perhaps if I am doing random tests, I should do them on normal or hard and not impossible *lol*

[Douglas]

Impossible is decided by details. A few better planets around you can decide whether you will dominate or be dominated.
Bah! Who cares about the planets in nearby systems? I need nothing but my homeworld. :smallbiggrin:

At least twice and maybe three times (not sure, it was a while ago) I played MoO2 on Impossible difficulty and never built a colony ship. At all. Ever. Not even a colony base. And I out-teched the entire rest of the galaxy every time. :smallcool: By the time someone got voted Supreme Leader of the Galaxy or whatever the title is (with only my homeworld population for votes there was no chance of it being me) I had a fleet of doom stars that could massacre the combined forces of every other player put together in a single battle, without using any broken combos like Time Warp Facilitator + Phasing Cloak. Each game ended when I finished turning every colony everyone else had ever made into asteroids. My conclusion: the AI sucks.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Bah! Who cares about the planets in nearby systems? I need nothing but my homeworld. :smallbiggrin:

At least twice and maybe three times (not sure, it was a while ago) I played MoO2 on Impossible difficulty and never built a colony ship. At all. Ever. Not even a colony base. And I out-teched the entire rest of the galaxy every time. :smallcool: By the time someone got voted Supreme Leader of the Galaxy or whatever the title is (with only my homeworld population for votes there was no chance of it being me) I had a fleet of doom stars that could massacre the combined forces of every other player put together in a single battle, without using any broken combos like Time Warp Facilitator + Phasing Cloak. Each game ended when I finished turning every colony everyone else had ever made into asteroids. My conclusion: the AI sucks.

ok...then share with the group...how the hell did you pull that off? I am assuming that you used a bounus research, large homeworld, possibly artifacts...democracy? Creative?

I can only imagine that you persued research first to the exclusion of everything else and then researched what you needed for the rest in rapid fashion relying on a superior space station and technology to defend your system before you started to wipe out other races...

Did you ever capture any decent worlds, or did you just annihilate everything with the stellar converter?

[Douglas]

Let's see, large homeworld, artifacts homeworld, creative, subterranean, and rich homeworld, I think. I'm not sure about the government type but I think it was democracy. I don't have the game installed currently and I'm too lazy to look up costs at the moment, but there may also have been a research bonus or something else in there too. I took the maximum -10 penalty so I had a full 20 points to spend on positives.

I'm not sure whether I went for research labs or auto factories first, but both were early priorities. Most of the game had almost my entire population on research with just the free industry from auto factory and its successors building new stuff, occasionally sped up with a rush build. It's amazing how much extra money you have when you only have to maintain a single planet's buildings.

I never bothered to capture anything but Antaran raiders, and I'm not sure any of them ever came for me. Just one system isn't much of a target for them.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Let's see, large homeworld, artifacts homeworld, creative, subterranean, and rich homeworld, I think. I'm not sure about the government type but I think it was democracy. I don't have the game installed currently and I'm too lazy to look up costs at the moment, but there may also have been a research bonus or something else in there too. I took the maximum -10 penalty so I had a full 20 points to spend on positives.

I'm not sure whether I went for research labs or auto factories first, but both were early priorities. Most of the game had almost my entire population on research with just the free industry from auto factory and its successors building new stuff, occasionally sped up with a rush build. It's amazing how much extra money you have when you only have to maintain a single planet's buildings.

I never bothered to capture anything but Antaran raiders, and I'm not sure any of them ever came for me. Just one system isn't much of a target for them.


I tried to do that build...maybe I should have picked different negatives than repulsive and -.5 BC...the money thing was annoying, but the real problem was keeping pace with the rest of the galaxy....even with all that going on, the other races (at least on impossible) spread out and had just as much if not more research than me and enough production to have a fleet of titans come and stomp me with nothing I could do about it. I had shield peircing phasors with a structural analyzer, but fat lot of good it does you when they have more ships that you can shoot and then slam you in a bunch of black holes, stasis fields, and plasma webs before you get a single shot off.

Perhaps it is a better build in another way? I just down't see how you can outpace the computer without at least settling a few colonies and having at least 3 systems with 4-5 decent planets contributing resources...You just cannot get things fast enough without that extra push I don't think...at least not on impossible...

[Winterwind]

Okay, I gave it a try, and it works indeed.

My build was Creative, Subterranean, +2 Research, Repulsive, -0.5 BC.
Difficulty was Impossible.
I didn't build any colony ships, but colonised the single Huge Poor Arid planet in the homesystem; had there been more worlds the game probably would have been a whole lot easier.

I quickly outpaced every race technologically. Had to reload two times from a save a few turns earlier, each time when one race declared war on me and I found I had built just not enough defenses; the second one was really tough, when the Klackons (who were about to win the vote thanks to their population alone and absolutely dominated the galaxy came in with 2 doomstars, more than 50 titans and several dozen battleships, when I only had three doomstars, one titan and five battleships as defense. After a hell of a battle, losing all defenses on my homeworld and one of the doomstars, I managed to eradicate the entire Klackon fleet. It would have been a lot easier had I switched 6 turns sooner from research to fleet production, since every of my doomstars slaughtered his fleet totally on my turn; had I had one or two more of those the battle would have been easier.
I found I had to conquer a few worlds though (fortunately the Silicoids were nearby, so I didn't have to mess around with food support), since even though I took Warlords with the 4 bonus picks the fleet support was eating up my money.
Anyway, now the fleet is growing quickly, and even though the Klackons are rebuilding theirs quickly as well (plus, since I am producing, not researching, slowly catching up), I don't think they stand a chance against my fleet anymore.

So, yes, it works.
However, if I played normally, with massive expansion, a computer would never get the opportunity to mass such a huge fleet against me. Matter of fact, that was the first time in many, many games I saw doomstars amongst the computer's ranks.
So, while it works, it is not as effective as expansion.
Quite fun though. :smallsmile:

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Hmm...what size universe? Perhaps that plays a very strong part...having a beefy homeworld in a small galaxy is tha bomb...but in a huge galaxy...not so much an advantage...

[Douglas]

Just reinstalled the game and tried this again. The Darloks sent a 70 ship fleet, including 18 doom stars, to attack my force of a planet, star fortress, Loknar's ship, and one doom star. Ouch. Time to try again, this time building a defensive fleet before I get attacked (the star fortress beat off a Gnolam attack a few turns earlier).

Race picks were: large, rich, artifacts homeworld, subterranean, creative, low gravity homeworld, penalty to ground combat, and a spying penalty. I played in a huge galaxy with a pre-warp start.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

I got blockaded by the trillarians in the first 50 turns by a cruiser with fusion beams...they couldn't beat my space station but they didn't have to...they just sat there and killed my production from the blockade...which made me have to try and pump out ships with missles instead of research or even feeding my people...all that wasted effort building small ships was for naught...the computer (every race) had by then outpaced my tech by leaps and bounds and several races sent fleets of battleships to come by and destroy my star base...I was defeated on the ground by the damn darlocks...no warning...I had beat back the Meklar, barely beat back the Sauron...but their battleship exploding took my fleet of frigates with it...then 3 darlock battleships showed up with 7 transports of marines...it was over then. Heavy continuous fusion beams with a good leader can and do in fact murder you...even with that range penalty...

I'll work on it some more...

Well...it was working great for awhile...but my small fleet just got into a huge fight with the Gnolam...I wiped them out, but some lucky missles hit the warp core and destroyed my titan...in addition to losing several cruisers...end result...I had 3 turns to pump out either a battleship that wasn't going to cut it, or had to get 9 turns to have a titain...even with a titan, I doubt I could win against the Klaxon armada...7 titans and 12 battleships all with comparable tech to me and a boopload of missles and interceptors.

It is situations like that that make me just cringe...I just couldn't research fast enough to really outshine them with technology that much...I had been trying to ignore sociology and power since I didn't need those to build ships, research and production...but man...maybe I should have focused on getting that star fortress sooner, the core mine and dump might have been big bonuses and might have turned the tide...

[Douglas]

Wheeeee, it's amazing what a really good doom star can do. Achille Targeting Unit, Damper Field (got it from Orion, along with Xentronium Armor), High Energy Focus, Structural Analyzer, Battle Pods, Heavy Armor, Inertial Nullifier, Time Warp Facilitator, and 82 autofire disruptors. It took Hyper Advanced Physics III to miniaturize the disruptors enough to fit that many of them in, but one of those just took out a fairly large fleet all by itself. I have nothing left to research but Hyper Advanced techs, so I'm just miniaturizing stuff while the rest of the galaxy figures out who's eventually going to win the election so I can refuse to go along with it.

I had some problems with the Klackons blockading me fairly early on, but one battleship was enough to beat them off initially (after about 10 turns of putting up with the blockade penalties to build it) and two of them could handle anything the computer threw at me that it didn't think could take the planet and battle station too. It's almost turn 600 now, and I'm wondering just how much miniaturization from Hyper Advanced techs I'm going to get before somebody wins the election.

One nice thing about this way of playing: the turns go by really fast. Most turns I just click end turn several times in rapid succession until something actually happens to my one-star empire.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Orion must have been slightly close...It is always a bonus to get to that planet first...but sucks ass if you can't hold onto it...that planet is of course, the perfect planet for the most part...

Sometimes I think it would be easier if you could decide to not research certian technologies...I like plasma and disruptors...but shield peircing phasors on my star fortress would be appreciated much more...If only I could not get and weapons after phasors so that I wouldn't replace those phasors and keep giving them the business...that is...untill they steal hard shields from me or research them themselves...

I frowned when gnolam archiologists discovered class X shields in an unknown wreck...that really got my goat... I wanna capture some of the antaran ships...too bad they won't attack me...

[Douglas]

No, Orion wasn't anywhere close. I was on the edge of the galaxy and Orion, as always, was in the middle. I just researched all the way up the chemistry tree to get unlimited range when I thought my ships were powerful enough (I sent a single titan armed with plasma cannons) and went out looking for it. Then I killed the guardian, got 4 Antaran techs, and went back home with my spiffy new ship leader and the Avenger, leaving the planet for someone else to colonize if they ever get around to it.

It is now turn 800, I have 10 doom stars for my defense fleet, each armed with 108 autofire disrupters with all the special systems I listed above, plus one with 80-something disrupters and a stellar converter. I'm tired of waiting for that election to actually get decided. It's time for the cleansing to begin. :smallbiggrin:

Edit: The Humans just sent a full 100 doom stars at me. I lost my star fortress, ground bases, and one doom star in exchange for all 100 attacking ships.

Edit2: It seems I have no choice but to build an outpost or two. For some bizarre reason, unlimited range is unable to go around a black hole without an outpost to show the way. What's really ridiculous is that there is a star I can put a fleet almost directly on top of, but only if it's just passing through. The black hole blocks a star that is almost exactly halfway on a straight line between two stars that are not blocked.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Well...I managed to make it to the endgame...but I have a minor problem...damn humans were able to round up enough tech that they have just about everything...must have been trading and taking tech from the other races.

They have through doom stars, star fortresses, barrier shields, class x hard shields, maulers, disruptors and plasma...heavy fighters...

and man can they pump out a fleet FAST...I have been pruning their fleet, but the advent of barrier shields and hard shields has made me have to redesign my doomstars with different weapons. Phasors alone won't cut it anymore...not against planets...

While I am kicking the crap outta stuff once I get through those shields...it is kinda fun fighting against the endless hoard...

I have learned...scan through the fleet...target any leaders first... and destroy the star fortress...those are priority...it reduces the effectiveness of everyone else by ALOT.

[Douglas]

Phew, finally finished. I left Orion (destroying it, not beating the guardian) for last. A dozen doom stars to guard my homeworld plus three to blow up every planet they come across. My priority targets were anything with stellar converters - not because they do a lot of damage but because they could actually hit me. Between the Inertial Nullifier and everything else that contributes to beam defense, direct fire weapons very rarely hit my doom stars, but stellar converters always hit automatically.

It was kinda funny just how many times my group of three took on a giant fleet and blew it to shreds. The Humans had a pretty big empire and could pump out lots of doom stars quickly, and I'm pretty sure they had Star Gates - the tech that makes transit time between your colonies 1 turn regardless of distance - and I know they had the one that slows approaching enemies to the minimum speed. So every second or third star I'd suddenly run in to their brand new entire fleet. They took out one or two of my trio several times, but I never actually lost all three at once.

Oh, and don't bother getting weapons specifically to beat Barrier Shields. You're going to be blowing the planet up anyway (unless you really want the headache of killing every colony half a dozen times over) so you'll have a stellar converter along and those overwhelm Barrier Shields quite handily.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Phew, finally finished. I left Orion (destroying it, not beating the guardian) for last. A dozen doom stars to guard my homeworld plus three to blow up every planet they come across. My priority targets were anything with stellar converters - not because they do a lot of damage but because they could actually hit me. Between the Inertial Nullifier and everything else that contributes to beam defense, direct fire weapons very rarely hit my doom stars, but stellar converters always hit automatically.

It was kinda funny just how many times my group of three took on a giant fleet and blew it to shreds. The Humans had a pretty big empire and could pump out lots of doom stars quickly, and I'm pretty sure they had Star Gates - the tech that makes transit time between your colonies 1 turn regardless of distance - and I know they had the one that slows approaching enemies to the minimum speed. So every second or third star I'd suddenly run in to their brand new entire fleet. They took out one or two of my trio several times, but I never actually lost all three at once.

Oh, and don't bother getting weapons specifically to beat Barrier Shields. You're going to be blowing the planet up anyway (unless you really want the headache of killing every colony half a dozen times over) so you'll have a stellar converter along and those overwhelm Barrier Shields quite handily.

Well, I didn't have stellar convrters on the ships when I wrote that last...I was just bombing the crap out of the planet and leaving craters wherever I went. Probably would have been better to have a ship with a SC onboard to make sure that no other race was able to settle those planets, but I didn't care as much...my main goal was to kill every human as fast as possible because they had soem VERY good tech and I know one or both of the other races had ben stealing their tech and blaming me for it...so the sooner the Humans were dead, the sooner noone would know their secrets...I think it might be too late though.

I kept offering to enter peace with them, but they kept accusing me of spying and said no...even though I kept eradicating their planets one by one...

when they were down to their last colony...I blockaded it and asked them for peace...they said no.

I bombed the planet until there were 4 buildings and 3 million people and then asked them for peace...they said no...

I bombed them down to one building and 1 million people and asked them for surrender...they said no...

I sent for a ship with a stellar converter...parked it in orbit and asked one last time...they said no, so their last planet became asteroids...

Stupid stubborn computers...

Oh...Maulers always hit...why aren't they using those? The computer opponents I am facing all have bonuses to ship combat and are using the best computer available along with the bonus to targeting...the inertial nullifier helps, but they tag me all the time...If not for heavy xentronium armor and an auto repair unit my ships would be getting cut to pieces...As is lucky missle shots can cause system damage and even blow your core without Emissions guidence.

I am starting to think that I need to copy the antaren build and use damping fields...my shields get knocked down in the first volley anyways even with hardened shields and this way every shot gets reduced by 3/4 and not just those that hit my shields...gone are the times where a ship might not penetrate shields. In Moo, I think that only once did i ever have a combat that was actually really 'Tactical' and those shield and weapon facings mattered a great deal.

[Winterwind]

Hmm...what size universe? Perhaps that plays a very strong part...having a beefy homeworld in a small galaxy is tha bomb...but in a huge galaxy...not so much an advantage...I was playing in a huge one; I gave it a try in a small one today and found it actually harder, due to encountering the computer races so early and getting blockaded instantly. Interrupted that attempt very quickly though.

I'm not a friend of using Damper Fields - even though smaller than shields, they take one of the slots for special equipment, and against lesser weapons they are actually worse. And I'm not even sure about the better weapons - the shields absorb quite a lot of damage too, after all, not to mention their quick regeneration.

EDIT:


I am starting to think that I need to copy the antaren build and use damping fields...my shields get knocked down in the first volley anyways even with hardened shields and this way every shot gets reduced by 3/4 and not just those that hit my shields...gone are the times where a ship might not penetrate shields. In Moo, I think that only once did i ever have a combat that was actually really 'Tactical' and those shield and weapon facings mattered a great deal.Wait. Wait wait wait wait wait. Do you mean once the shield is broken on one side it doesn't lessen the received damage anymore? Because, if that's what you mean, I'm quite shocked - I always thought as long as the shield generator is intact, all damage received is reduced by the shield class, no matter whether the damage is absorbed by the shield or armour/structure already. Geez, and I thought I knew this game... :smalleek:

[Douglas]

I'm not a friend of using Damper Fields - even though smaller than shields, they take one of the slots for special equipment, and against lesser weapons they are actually worse. And I'm not even sure about the better weapons - the shields absorb quite a lot of damage too, after all, not to mention their quick regeneration.
By the time you're facing fleets that are actually dangerous in the late game, shields go down almost instantly and the reduction they offer is a lot less than 3/4.


Wait. Wait wait wait wait wait. Do you mean once the shield is broken on one side it doesn't lessen the received damage anymore? Because, if that's what you mean, I'm quite shocked - I always thought as long as the shield generator is intact, all damage received is reduced by the shield class, no matter whether the damage is absorbed by the shield or armour/structure already. Geez, and I thought I knew this game... :smalleek:
I'm pretty sure the damage reduction stays until the shield generator itself is destroyed, but a Damper Field's reduction is vastly greater than even a class X shield against end-game weaponry.

[Winterwind]

By the time you're facing fleets that are actually dangerous in the late game, shields go down almost instantly and the reduction they offer is a lot less than 3/4.Depends on strategy and race. With an expansionist strategy and a strong race, I usually don't face dangerous fleets in the lategame at all.
Other than that, yes, you're right - end-game weaponry supported with good targeting systems tears right through any shield.

I'm pretty sure the damage reduction stays until the shield generator itself is destroyed, but a Damper Field's reduction is vastly greater than even a class X shield against end-game weaponry.Phew. Now I'm relieved. I already thought I had had a misconception on how shields work for all those years.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Do note that any damage has a chance of rendering systems inoperable, and if you don't have an automated repair unit tough boop...I have had a single shield peircing shot overload the shield generators and take out my shields or render me immobile while I still had 90% armor and 100% structure. The more stuff you have the more stuff can go wrong...

The shield generator may keep protecting you even if the shield goes down in terms of damage reduction, but when they are slinging around maulers that do 100 damage, my hard X shields is 13% of that and a damper is 75% reduction...It is also pretty much the only thing that saves you from annihilation by heavy death rays (another reason the humans had to die...they stole death rays from me...)

One thing that you gotta try one day in multiplayer is to have a fleet battle with a buddy but to set a tech level (so many steps in each tech bracket)...decide on a fleet size, then go at it with nothing more advanced than mid range tech (perhaps allowing for 2-3 extra tech bonuses that you can choose as a 'surprise'.) Both sides 'cheat' to menlo to the necessary tech level, then use the build cheat to get the fleet done fast and money to keep yourself with a positive balance...then go at it.

I recommend 1 'flagship' per side that is a titan, 1-2 battleships, 3-4 cruisers, and however many destroyers and frigates as you think are 'fun'....you could just set a 'command point' limit, that would work just as well.

In battles like that, tactics are supreme...a good strategy is necessary, knowing when to use your guns, moving ships to draw missles and waiting then following up with other ships to blow all the missles up...concentrating fire al on the same shield side, clever use of ion cannons on an open shield, use of transporters to do raids on an enemy ship and cripple it when the shields are down...in these battles, no one ship (other than the flag ship) has enough fire power to blow any other ship away willy nilly...it is a slugfest in which your movement is key and your shield facing can mean the difference between those missles breaking your ship. Try it...it's fun.

[Dausuul]

oh and btw, did you know the best weapon in the game is actualy phasors?
the thing is that fully upgradet phasors, with heavy mounts, shield piercing and autofire does more damage per point of space than anything else.

Not true. At full upgrades (which requires going 3 levels into hyper-tech), disruptors beat phasors:

Heavy autofiring disruptor (full upgrades): 15 space, inflicts 60x3 damage. Against class X shields, that's (60 - 10) x 3 / 15 = 10 damage per point of space.
Heavy autofiring shield piercing phasor (full upgrades): 10 space, inflicts 30x3 damage. That's 9 damage per point of space, and I'm not even considering the fact that phasors do less damage at long range.

As you can see, the disruptor has the edge even against class X non-hardened shields. If the enemy is using hard shields (which negate shield piercing), or damper fields (which aren't pierceable), the disruptor wins hands down.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

just remember that plasma is enveloping..once shields are down, that damage is x4...combined with damage uppers, the amount of damage plasma can do is disgusting...sure you need to be close, but x4 damage is sick. And as a side benefit, if you are in mid-late game, plasma is a great way of dropping all shields on a ship so that you can swarm it with fire from multiple arcs without fear of hitting fresh shields.

[Thexare Blademoon]

I hate Eels.

Once I got the hang of the game (but kept either losing or getting the game froze up), I started on a new game. Small galaxy, Normal level, 4 players, Pre-Warp, custom race (forgot what picks I have other than Creative and Dictatorship, game's not done yet though)

Shortly after I get my second colony set up, in the same system as my first, a space eel shows up to spawn.

My second colony is barren, I was relying on transports from my first for food. It lived long enough for me to get some +food stuff on it, and I managed to squeeze a Colony Ship out to a nearby Large Gaia (hell yes! :smallbiggrin: Poor, though. :smallfrown: ) But I've now got three planets, all blockaded, each stuck supporting itself because I can't crap out a good enough ship to kill these blasted eels. Something about them showing up about two years into a Pre-Warp game causes that issue, y'see. :smallannoyed: So all my planets have to feed themselves, and growing food on a Rich Arid planet is a tremendous waste of resources... bleh.

[Winterwind]

Not true. At full upgrades (which requires going 3 levels into hyper-tech), disruptors beat phasors:

Heavy autofiring disruptor (full upgrades): 15 space, inflicts 60x3 damage. Against class X shields, that's (60 - 10) x 3 / 15 = 10 damage per point of space.
Heavy autofiring shield piercing phasor (full upgrades): 10 space, inflicts 30x3 damage. That's 9 damage per point of space, and I'm not even considering the fact that phasors do less damage at long range.

As you can see, the disruptor has the edge even against class X non-hardened shields. If the enemy is using hard shields (which negate shield piercing), or damper fields (which aren't pierceable), the disruptor wins hands down.You didn't factor in though, that if the shields are not hardened, the disruptor may do more damage, but also has to overcome more points (it has to breach the shield itself).
Though I guess that wouldn't amount to much against most ships...
As a side-note, I favour disruptors over all other weapons. Hard-hitting, small in size, and no range penalty - I'm sold!


just remember that plasma is enveloping..once shields are down, that damage is x4...combined with damage uppers, the amount of damage plasma can do is disgusting...sure you need to be close, but x4 damage is sick. And as a side benefit, if you are in mid-late game, plasma is a great way of dropping all shields on a ship so that you can swarm it with fire from multiple arcs without fear of hitting fresh shields.I always wondered how good plasma cannons are exactly. On the one hand, enveloping is... sick. On the other hand, they are large, their damage per direction is much lower than the disruptors (I suppose that since it hits all four shields at once the damage reduction kicks in four times, too), not to mention it's fairly random, and the range penalty is not exactly a seller, either...
Then again, a friend of mine, who is waaaaaay more into gaming than I am (like, times ten) always banned them in multiplayer games due to them being to imba in his belief, so...

I hate Eels.

Once I got the hang of the game (but kept either losing or getting the game froze up), I started on a new game. Small galaxy, Normal level, 4 players, Pre-Warp, custom race (forgot what picks I have other than Creative and Dictatorship, game's not done yet though)

Shortly after I get my second colony set up, in the same system as my first, a space eel shows up to spawn.

My second colony is barren, I was relying on transports from my first for food. It lived long enough for me to get some +food stuff on it, and I managed to squeeze a Colony Ship out to a nearby Large Gaia (hell yes! :smallbiggrin: Poor, though. :smallfrown: ) But I've now got three planets, all blockaded, each stuck supporting itself because I can't crap out a good enough ship to kill these blasted eels. Something about them showing up about two years into a Pre-Warp game causes that issue, y'see. :smallannoyed: So all my planets have to feed themselves, and growing food on a Rich Arid planet is a tremendous waste of resources... bleh.:smalleek:
Whoa... unbelievable... I mean, I do believe you, but I wouldn't have ever thought that was possible! I didn't think new monsters could enter the galaxy for, I don't know, many many turns at any rate (especially since new monsters are way stronger than the monsters which sit around guarding systems.
Generally, a good way to deal with monsters is to build a lot of frigates or destroyers, and pack them full of missiles. Of course, missiles are less effective against an Eel with its - forgot what its English name was - but still, a pack of those takes down any monster, and they are cheap (though supplying them is not, they are heavy on the command points).
And, yes, an Eel which can't be stopped is horrible. I remember in one of my very first games it dropped its spawns in half my empire. :smallbiggrin:

Huh. 7am and I'm awake. Talk about eerie. :smalleek:

[Douglas]

As a side-note, I favour disruptors over all other weapons. Hard-hitting, small in size, and no range penalty - I'm sold!
At least in the game I just finished, that lack of a range penalty was HUGE. I have no idea how many times I had to let weapons go unused because all of the ~20 ships (most of them doom stars) in range were already gone, even though only one of my ships had moved.


I always wondered how good plasma cannons are exactly. On the one hand, enveloping is... sick. On the other hand, they are large, their damage per direction is much lower than the disruptors (I suppose that since it hits all four shields at once the damage reduction kicks in four times, too), not to mention it's fairly random, and the range penalty is not exactly a seller, either...
Enveloping weapons do get 4x the reduction from shields, so that's a fairly hefty penalty right there. Also, I think the last official patch (1.31) nerfed plasma cannons a little.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

remember, enveloping deals the weapon damage to each side of the ship independantly...so if the cannon would do 40 damage, then each side takes 40 damage...hard X shields would reduce that by 13 damage per side...so the ship takes 27 damage to each shield face. If the shields are down (say all shields...the same applies. (assuming the shields still reduce damage as long as they are online even though they may be currently out of juice) then that same plasma shot deals 27 damage to each side of the ship...for a total of 108 damage.

Once those shields go down, the plasma really gets sick, and if you are using just plasma, they go down fast...even simple non heavy plasma weapons make good guns because of the x4 damage once shields go down. A Structural analyzer and a high energy focus means x4*2*1.5 = x12 damage. And hey, that is only heavy...so not much modding with those beams. Probably more efficient to use some of the others that bypass shields, but once they start using dampeners, plasma is really a good way to go.

Hmm...do ion cannons still work against Xentronium armor? I don't know...It would be neat in the end game against people to keep a couple of Ion destroyers packed to the gills to take them by surprise and ionize their big ships just because they didn't scan your entire navy and see that one damn ion ship sitting among the sea of cheap missle cover.

Also, highly amusing but hard to do well...it only works against players with certian styles...and really only works once...but damn is it funny...

Make a bunch of carriers. Battlepods, phasing cloak, time warp (optional if you think they might destroy you in a single pass), the most fighters you can pack on your ship...any extra space is just for things like missles or torpedos. Plenty of people only make large ships with heavy weapons and neglect point defense and regular weapons...as such, their main ships might be completely at the mercy of a massive fighter squadron.

I relived the battle of endor at one of my colonies the first time I played against my buddy in MOO...we played on the same computer for a long time chatting and trying to best each other...I had seen the plans for his death star and the titans that were going to accompany him to the 'slaughter'...No captial ship of mine was going to live through that barrage, but his point defense weapons were an afterthought...1-2 Pd phasors on a ship...max...all the rest were heavy disruptors and maulers...and of course...the Stellar Converter...

I didn't let on that I had seen the plans for his fleet...it was a dirty trick, but he had surpassed me in tech and was going for the kill...I was screwed and wanted to see if there was any edge I could get...I knew I had about 8 turns with his needing to pull together some ships, finish his build and then get caught in my warp interdictor...so i had a bit of time...but not much...from several planets I built my fleet of battleships...all armed with as many heavy fighters, bombers, and interceptors as I think I can manage, cloaking tech, and 2x missle racks...I had a few ships that had nothing but big guns, but I knew since they were visible, that they were just targets...I had my fleet there just when his fleet arrived.

by battlestation was no match, so it was the first victim of the stellar converter...he didn't expect so many of my ships to be there (cloaked..and he didn't peek) but he didn't check them...he figured they were no threat...his mistake...short one battlestation and rediced to just the fighters and missle base on the planet (a few smaller ships also were wiped out) the fighters went away...his jaw dropped as I sent out SOOO many little buggers. The missles were fast and each was assigned to a ship that was tergeted by the fighters...the lions share went to the one doomstar. He found out that heavy weapons ouldn't shoot down missles or fighters and tried to wipe out my fleet...I had lauched and then ran...at maximum range with the inertal nullifier, he couldn't hit jack (well damaged a few)...he didn't want to move then fire because of the swarm of stuff on screen...then we recloaked and let the fighters do their thing...

The doomstar went up in a blaze of glory, but the explosion destroyed most of the fighters nearby...then he got his idea...all his ships came together and he detonated his titan to wipe out fighters on most all the ships...it was pretty effective...a second salvo of missles from the cloaked ships showed him that having a bunch of ships low on health, shields down, and bunched up might be a bad thing...I retreated all surviving carriers and small ships save one cloaked scout (to let the missles go more)...he skillfully manuvered a few of his ships to make the missles shoot forward, but then told them all to wait...his last battleship raced forward and self destructed right next to the missles and blew them all up (enough so that they didn't matter really). End result...My fleet, largely intact, minus a few ships...planet defenses decimated and some toll from bombing, but not too bad...he lost 60% of his fleet he sent and his one death star...

future ships had more point defense and 'normal' weapons...so the trick wouldn't work again...but it sure was fun.

[Winterwind]

remember, enveloping deals the weapon damage to each side of the ship independantly...so if the cannon would do 40 damage, then each side takes 40 damage...hard X shields would reduce that by 13 damage per side...so the ship takes 27 damage to each shield face. If the shields are down (say all shields...the same applies. (assuming the shields still reduce damage as long as they are online even though they may be currently out of juice) then that same plasma shot deals 27 damage to each side of the ship...for a total of 108 damage.Except the damage of a Plasma Cannon, at least with the patch I use (*checks* which is 1.31) is 6-30. So no 40 damage possible, and those shields take it down to 17 max, and, if the damage probability distribution is linear, it would be 18 on average against a target without shields. Which hardened X shields would take down to 5. So the cannon would do, on average, 20 damage total, which just looks bad as compared to the 27 the Disruptor would do at a much larger range. Not to mention the Disruptor would have to punch through only one shield, not all four of them.
It would look a lot better with Heavy Mount, of course, when the Plasma Cannon would do ((18*1.5)-13)*4=56 damage on average, as compared to the Disruptors 47 - but I think the range advantage alone would outweigh this easily, not to mention the largest merit, which is the Disruptor being much smaller than the Plasma Cannon.

I did not include the High Energy Focus into this analysis, because I'm not certain whether the damage increase occurs after or before reduction through shields - in the first case, the Disruptor would remain clearly ahead, in the latter, it would shift it more towards the Plasma Cannon. But I don't feel like looking that deep into the matter right now...

Once those shields go down, the plasma really gets sick, and if you are using just plasma, they go down fast...even simple non heavy plasma weapons make good guns because of the x4 damage once shields go down. A Structural analyzer and a high energy focus means x4*2*1.5 = x12 damage. And hey, that is only heavy...so not much modding with those beams. Probably more efficient to use some of the others that bypass shields, but once they start using dampeners, plasma is really a good way to go.Against Dampener Fields, it would be better than before - the Plasma would do 18 damage points and the Disruptor only 10, if they were unmodified.
However, the Disruptor would retain range advantage and be smaller, so I'm still not sure which would be better. I think I would rather bet on the Disruptor.

Hmm...do ion cannons still work against Xentronium armor? I don't know...It would be neat in the end game against people to keep a couple of Ion destroyers packed to the gills to take them by surprise and ionize their big ships just because they didn't scan your entire navy and see that one damn ion ship sitting among the sea of cheap missle cover.Good question. Don't know whether they work or not.
However, they don't work against Class X shields - they only do 2-10 damage.
With Heavy Mount and High Energy Focus, they would punch through, but probably still wouldn't do all that much.


Also, highly amusing but hard to do well...it only works against players with certian styles...and really only works once...but damn is it funny...

Make a bunch of carriers. Battlepods, phasing cloak, time warp (optional if you think they might destroy you in a single pass), the most fighters you can pack on your ship...any extra space is just for things like missles or torpedos. Plenty of people only make large ships with heavy weapons and neglect point defense and regular weapons...as such, their main ships might be completely at the mercy of a massive fighter squadron.

I relived the battle of endor at one of my colonies the first time I played against my buddy in MOO...we played on the same computer for a long time chatting and trying to best each other...I had seen the plans for his death star and the titans that were going to accompany him to the 'slaughter'...No captial ship of mine was going to live through that barrage, but his point defense weapons were an afterthought...1-2 Pd phasors on a ship...max...all the rest were heavy disruptors and maulers...and of course...the Stellar Converter...

I didn't let on that I had seen the plans for his fleet...it was a dirty trick, but he had surpassed me in tech and was going for the kill...I was screwed and wanted to see if there was any edge I could get...I knew I had about 8 turns with his needing to pull together some ships, finish his build and then get caught in my warp interdictor...so i had a bit of time...but not much...from several planets I built my fleet of battleships...all armed with as many heavy fighters, bombers, and interceptors as I think I can manage, cloaking tech, and 2x missle racks...I had a few ships that had nothing but big guns, but I knew since they were visible, that they were just targets...I had my fleet there just when his fleet arrived.

by battlestation was no match, so it was the first victim of the stellar converter...he didn't expect so many of my ships to be there (cloaked..and he didn't peek) but he didn't check them...he figured they were no threat...his mistake...short one battlestation and rediced to just the fighters and missle base on the planet (a few smaller ships also were wiped out) the fighters went away...his jaw dropped as I sent out SOOO many little buggers. The missles were fast and each was assigned to a ship that was tergeted by the fighters...the lions share went to the one doomstar. He found out that heavy weapons ouldn't shoot down missles or fighters and tried to wipe out my fleet...I had lauched and then ran...at maximum range with the inertal nullifier, he couldn't hit jack (well damaged a few)...he didn't want to move then fire because of the swarm of stuff on screen...then we recloaked and let the fighters do their thing...

The doomstar went up in a blaze of glory, but the explosion destroyed most of the fighters nearby...then he got his idea...all his ships came together and he detonated his titan to wipe out fighters on most all the ships...it was pretty effective...a second salvo of missles from the cloaked ships showed him that having a bunch of ships low on health, shields down, and bunched up might be a bad thing...I retreated all surviving carriers and small ships save one cloaked scout (to let the missles go more)...he skillfully manuvered a few of his ships to make the missles shoot forward, but then told them all to wait...his last battleship raced forward and self destructed right next to the missles and blew them all up (enough so that they didn't matter really). End result...My fleet, largely intact, minus a few ships...planet defenses decimated and some toll from bombing, but not too bad...he lost 60% of his fleet he sent and his one death star...

future ships had more point defense and 'normal' weapons...so the trick wouldn't work again...but it sure was fun.Heh, yeah, that's cool. :smallsmile:
That's why I like to pack at least as many weapons with merely Continuous (possibly also Auto-Fire) as modifications, neither Heavy Mount nor Point-Defense, as heavy weapons themselves - they are more damage-effective than the heavies against poor shields (or Dampeners) and at close range, and they help against missiles and fighters.
However, I'm somewhat wondering why exactly he brought this Stellar Converter with him. Were his targeting systems so poor he couldn't hit you otherwise, or was it just for flavour? Because, conventional weapons are so very much better at killing an enemy fleet...

[Dausuul]

You didn't factor in though, that if the shields are not hardened, the disruptor may do more damage, but also has to overcome more points (it has to breach the shield itself).

No, actually, I did factor that in. That's why I subtract 10 from the base damage of 60 for the disruptor. Even in the most favorable possible situation for the phasors (point blank range and class X non-hard shields) the disruptor stil wins, albeit just barely and only at full upgrades.

Though I guess that wouldn't amount to much against most ships...
As a side-note, I favour disruptors over all other weapons. Hard-hitting, small in size, and no range penalty - I'm sold!


I always wondered how good plasma cannons are exactly. On the one hand, enveloping is... sick. On the other hand, they are large, their damage per direction is much lower than the disruptors (I suppose that since it hits all four shields at once the damage reduction kicks in four times, too), not to mention it's fairly random, and the range penalty is not exactly a seller, either...
Then again, a friend of mine, who is waaaaaay more into gaming than I am (like, times ten) always banned them in multiplayer games due to them being to imba in his belief, so...

It really depends on which version of MoO2 you have. The 1.3 update made a lot of balance changes, including making plasma cannons substantially larger and increasing the cost of Creative from 6 to 8 points.


Against Dampener Fields, it would be better than before - the Plasma would do 18 damage points and the Disruptor only 10, if they were unmodified.
However, the Disruptor would retain range advantage and be smaller, so I'm still not sure which would be better. I think I would rather bet on the Disruptor.

It's hardly ever a good idea to use a weapon without upgrades, unless you somehow get a weapon that's way up on the tech tree when you're still low. Disruptors should always be autofire. Plasma cannons just have their upgrade (enveloping) built in from the start.

IMO, however, the winning weapon in MoO2 is the death ray... not because it's better than other weapons at high tech levels, but because you can get it way early by destroying the Guardian. At the mid-levels, death rays utterly dominate.

[Winterwind]

No, actually, I did factor that in. That's why I subtract 10 from the base damage of 60 for the disruptor. Even in the most favorable possible situation for the phasors (point blank range and class X non-hard shields) the disruptor stil wins, albeit just barely and only at full upgrades.The 10 is for the shield's damage reduction. What I meant is, there remain also the several hundred points (depending on ship class), which have to be battered away before the Disruptor even begins to hit the armour of the enemy ship. The points which are represented by those thick green bars around the ship. The Phasor doesn't have to deal with those, since it ignores the shield completely. And these points you did not factor in.
They don't change the damage per size point, true, but since they add to the amount of points which have to be destroyed before the ship suffers significant damage, they effectively reduce the Disruptor's damage.


It really depends on which version of MoO2 you have. The 1.3 update made a lot of balance changes, including making plasma cannons substantially larger and increasing the cost of Creative from 6 to 8 points.I've always played with the 1.3 patch, then, for I've never known it the other way. I was aware Creative used to be cheaper, but never played with that.
I'm not entirely sure about it, but I think it's more balanced that way. Even though I generally believe a "perfect" race would probably not include Creative.


It's hardly ever a good idea to use a weapon without upgrades, unless you somehow get a weapon that's way up on the tech tree when you're still low. Disruptors should always be autofire. Plasma cannons just have their upgrade (enveloping) built in from the start.Yes, of course; I was sort of calculating for "just got the weapon, no miniaturisations yet". With, the Disruptor will dominate the Plasma Cannon even more.


IMO, however, the winning weapon in MoO2 is the death ray... not because it's better than other weapons at high tech levels, but because you can get it way early by destroying the Guardian. At the mid-levels, death rays utterly dominate.Yeah, we can definitely agree on that.
Though at some point they will get replaced by some other strong beam weapon, due to their lack of miniaturisations (couldn't they have made it that Death Rays were technically linked to some end-tech, like Physics I or something, and got a miniaturisation level for every research beyond that? I find it annoying that once one gets Death Ray technology the starbases and ground batteries start to use it, even though it's finally surpassed by other weapons.)

[Dausuul]

The 10 is for the shield's damage reduction. What I meant is, there remain also the several hundred points (depending on ship class), which have to be battered away before the Disruptor even begins to hit the armour of the enemy ship. The points which are represented by those thick green bars around the ship. The Phasor doesn't have to deal with those, since it ignores the shield completely. And these points you did not factor in.

Ahhh, good point. I had forgotten about those. That might put phasors over the top... but again, only in ideal circumstances. Unfortunately, not having the game in front of me right now, I can't calculate exactly what that does to the average.


I've always played with the 1.3 patch, then, for I've never known it the other way. I was aware Creative used to be cheaper, but never played with that.
I'm not entirely sure about it, but I think it's more balanced that way. Even though I generally believe a "perfect" race would probably not include Creative.

It's definitely more balanced. Creative at 8 is a good but not game-dominating pick. Creative at 6 is broken as hell.


Yeah, we can definitely agree on that.
Though at some point they will get replaced by some other strong beam weapon, due to their lack of miniaturisations (couldn't they have made it that Death Rays were technically linked to some end-tech, like Physics I or something, and got a miniaturisation level for every research beyond that? I find it annoying that once one gets Death Ray technology the starbases and ground batteries start to use it, even though it's finally surpassed by other weapons.)

Geesh! Tell me about it. My pet peeve is that Interceptors, the basic fighter, are so much better than the other two fighter types (Bombers and Heavy Fighters)... but as soon as I get Bombers or Heavy Fighters, all my fighter garrisons start using those. Suddenly I can't use my fighter garrisons to shoot down enemy fighters, and they only get two volleys before they're flying back to the planet to reload, where the Interceptors got five.

[Winterwind]

Ahhh, good point. I had forgotten about those. That might put phasors over the top... but again, only in ideal circumstances. Unfortunately, not having the game in front of me right now, I can't calculate exactly what that does to the average.Let's see...
Class X shields on a doomstar absorb 350 damage points. If the doomstar is equipped with Adamantium armour, Heavy Armour and Reinforced Hull, it has 7200 points armour and structure totally. This means the additional shield points lead to an effective damage reduction factor of 7200/(7200+350)=0.954. So the Heavy Auto-Firing Disruptor effectively does 9.54 damage points per size point as compared to the modified Phasor's 9 - it's still better.
This will change though if the doomstar doesn't have Reinforced Hull (unlikely) or Heavy Armour (more likely, though still improbable), or if it is equipped with inferior armour. More precisely, the Phasor will get better when the armour and structure points of the ship add up to less then ten times the shield points - 3500 for the doomstar. Which would require its armour to be worse than Zortrium, as long as it has Heavy Armour and Reinforced Hull. Unlikely to happen. With Reinforced Hull only, the Disruptor would remain better for Neutronium Armour, but be beaten at Zortrium Armour. Even this I would deem a rather unlikely scenario - somebody who builds doomstars should be able to do better than Zortrium. Though I have seen it happen occasionally.
I am too lazy to check what happens with smaller ships, but I suppose it will be similar, if not the same.
EDIT: Actually, it will be somewhat better for the Phasor. A battleship has only one third of a doomstar's armour+structure total, but its shields have 4/7th's of its strength. So a Phasor will fare better in this competition, though I'm not about to analyse again at which point precisely it will be beaten.

None of this factors in the possibility of hardened shields or the Disruptor's superior range.
Neither does it factor in that one gets the Phasor much earlier and need less tech to miniaturise it.

So, basically, above restrictions aside, the conclusion is that the Disruptor is under almost all circumstances strictly better than the Phasor.

It's definitely more balanced. Creative at 8 is a good but not game-dominating pick. Creative at 6 is broken as hell.Haven't played with it, but I can easily imagine it would be.


Geesh! Tell me about it. My pet peeve is that Interceptors, the basic fighter, are so much better than the other two fighter types (Bombers and Heavy Fighters)... but as soon as I get Bombers or Heavy Fighters, all my fighter garrisons start using those. Suddenly I can't use my fighter garrisons to shoot down enemy fighters, and they only get two volleys before they're flying back to the planet to reload, where the Interceptors got five.Oh yeah. How true. :smallyuk:
Though planetary defenses get pathetic either way by this point - they can't do nothing against a huge invading fleet.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

well, the bombers pack bombs, which have better damage than point defense weapons (typically those ships carry phasors)...and the heavy fighters carry bombs and the best point defense weapon...moreover, the fighters are much more robust and can actually take a decent pounding before being destroyed. Interceptors will die when a battleship explodes, but a squadron of heavies will likely only lose a single ship or two when a titan blows, and even have a ship left or two when a doomstar goes nova...quantum detonators not withstanding.

I still like fielding interceptors on carriers though, if only for the ability to target enemy fighters and to carry more...

Challenge a buddy to a carrier match...those are fun...titans or battleships for the carriers, and only cruisers and below for escort (no lightning fields or spacial compressors).

[Winterwind]

Just played with a super-expansionist race for a change (Feudalism, Lithovoric, Industry +1, Subterranean, Large Homeworld, Money -0.5, Ground Combat -10). Huge Galaxy, Impossible.
By turn 150 my technology was inferior to that of all the other races, but I had far more systems than they did. 50 turns later my technology was superior to all the other races, as were population, buildings and fleet. It was total domination. By the time my ships were equipped with Disruptors the most sophisticated weapon system of my opponents were Graviton Beams, and even those were not widely available - mostly they had Ion Pulse Cannons or Neutron Blasters.
Admittedly, this was helped largely by the fact I got the leader who comes with Auto-Lab technology, but I believe it wouldn't have turned out that much different if I had not (I would have researched it conventionally fairly soon).

EDIT: Oh yeah, I should mention who I played against. The main opponents were the Sakkra, who build a fairly large empire, but on the opposite side of the galaxy. They were Repulsive, but we never went into war; by now, they wouldn't stand a chance. Then there were the Klackons, who did fare well until their very stupid decision to declare war on me (actually, that was my fault; I got a bit greedy and demanded tech from them - one of the combat relevant tech's the computer is unlikely to surrender). Soon they joined the mighty Elerian empire. :smallsmile:
Other races were Bulrathi (insignificant, got the boop kicked out of them by the Trilarian), the Trilarian (who were Repulsive and were the third-strongest computer force, though way behind the Sakkra and the Klackons, and were slaughtered when I came in to save the Bulrathi, just for the fun of it), the Darloks (destroyed by the Sakkra), the Gnolams (suckers didn't want to surrender their systems, so I ate them), and the Mrrshan (who sit in the centre of the galaxy and do absolutely nothing).

So, it seems to me either industrial races are indeed superior, or at least they suit my playing style much better. Because with the scientific races I didn't dominate them so completely as with this one.

[Douglas]

Just played with a super-expansionist race for a change (Feudalism, Lithovoric, Industry +1, Subterranean, Large Homeworld, Money -0.5, Ground Combat -10). Huge Galaxy, Impossible.
I think it's time to introduce one of the other challenges I've seen discussed, though I've never tried it myself because it's so radically different from my usual play style: No Tech.

You may not acquire new technology by any means whatsoever after the game begins. No research, no demanding tech from your neighbors, no stealing tech. You must end the game with the same technologies you started it with. If you randomly gain a tech from capturing a planet, you must reload and do it again until you do not capture any technology. Advanced Tech start is not an option for this challenge, and Prewarp is truly impossible, so you have to play with a normal tech start. Impossible difficulty level, of course.

Yes, this is possible. Several of the people on the forum where this idea was introduced reported success.

Have fun perfecting your Xtreme Blitz build.

[Winterwind]

I think it's time to introduce one of the other challenges I've seen discussed, though I've never tried it myself because it's so radically different from my usual play style: No Tech. [...]Sounds interesting. I'll try, though probably not in the next few days.
However, I need a rules clarification here - which galaxy size?

[Douglas]

Depends on just how much of a challenge you want it to be. The bigger the galaxy, the more time your farthest away opponents have to get an overwhelming tech advantage. It's been a few years since I initially read about this one and I don't remember how large a galaxy the people who beat it played in. Some of them were small, of course, but I don't remember if anyone managed to pull it off in the larger galaxy sizes.

[Winterwind]

That's why I asked. I can hardly imagine that this could work in a Huge Galaxy (though, I have seen what some people can do in other games, so I shouldn't make such a statement so hastily).
Okay, I'll give it a try on Small and, if I manage to beat it, work my way up.

[Dausuul]

That's why I asked. I can hardly imagine that this could work in a Huge Galaxy (though, I have seen what some people can do in other games, so I shouldn't make such a statement so hastily).
Okay, I'll give it a try on Small and, if I manage to beat it, work my way up.

Thank God for Google caching (http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:QDYsWWIP1LIJ:apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php%3Fpostid%3D1735970+%22master+of+ori on%22+%22no+tech%22+challenge&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a).

Apparently you're only required to do it in a Small galaxy.

Another challenge I've tried is the "No Researchers" or "No Laborers" approach, in Impossible/Huge. With "No Researchers," you never assign anyone to research; all your tech must come from research buildings, spies, conquest, and trades. "No Laborers" is much the same but you never put anyone on industry. I have won with both of these, though it's not easy, especially the latter.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

God...what freaks...I can hardly ever understand the reasoning for these 'extreame game challenges'...I love beating games as much as anyone, but some of these challenges are just crazy...

I mean....zero tech...that is just insane! Sort of reminds me of the 'no sphere grid-starting weapons' challenge for FFX...that is right, no leveling up at all, and you can only ever use the weapons you start with. Yes...by some miracle of a screwy system, people have in fact beat the game like that....it is insane!

How do you beat the computer in this challenge if someone builds up enough tech? I mean...if the meklar get halfway decent shields and then hire commander sparky who gives them advanced damage control...their fleets will be unstoppable pretty much from all the regeneration. At least with lasers alone...and god forbid they build up class III or bettr shields...if that hapens good luck ever hurting them...nuclear missle swarms do have their limits. What is the strategy? Missle firgates galore backed by colony ships/outposts and marine transports to conquer enemy colonies to avoid building time consuming colony ships?

[Winterwind]

Well, what do you know. In spite of me saying I wouldn't try this "No-Tech" for a few days, I did just now, and succeeded. In fact, it was fairly easy.

My race was
- Feudalism: this one's a no-brainer. With no tech allowed the research penalty is negated, and the cheaper ships are exactly what's needed. Only Unification might rival that, but it's 10 points more expensive.
- Industry+2: Need my ships out ASAP.
- Transdimensional: Allows me to transfer my fleets in no time, in spite of no drive technologies. Also gives a huge edge in combat due to improved ship defense.
- Cybernetic: With bonus Industry this seemed like a good way to go, besides it gives another edge in combat.
- Rich Homeworld: boosts the start.
- Large Homeworld: Why not?
- Ship Attack +25: because I had to do with the remaining points
- Repulsive: I'm out for conquest, no need for diplomacy, and 6 points are awesome.

I had the luck of a nearby system having Natives on, which surely gave my empire a nice boost.

Transdimensional proved extremely useful: my scouts were so very superior to the computer's scouts, that I was able to conquer the first Gnolam colony with my scouts alone (plus the quickly built Transport Ship, of course). I quickly added a Cruiser (though, on second thought, my ship design was horrible - in spite of the attack bonus the lasers connected far to rarely, probably due to being unmodified. I should have known better and gone with Heavy Mount - it's not like it was possible to shoot down missiles effectively at this point in the game anyway). Unfortunately, the only world which would have put me close enough to the Gnolam homeworld to attack with my cruiser had Artifacts on it, so I had to wait until the Gnolams colonised it (which they didn't for almost the entire game).

Instead I focussed on the Silicoids. One of my two scouts had the honour of discovering Orion and died horribly, so I replaced him with a frigate sporting Heavy Mount laser cannons. My cruiser, the surviving scout and the frigate were enough to destroy star bases at this point (though barely - the strategy relied on the computer firing his missiles at the frigates first, which retreated, and the cruiser raiding the star base's offensive capabilities into tiny bits, so that the tiny cruiser could overcome the huge star base.

I quickly discovered how difficult it was not to gain technologies from conquering planets. Ultimately I added one more frigate, packed with atom bombs, and eliminated every world's population up to a point where I could take the world safely without conquering technologies.

The cruiser and the three frigates remained my entire fleet for quite a long time - my worlds were occupied building either Marine Barracks, Star Bases or Transport Ships. I subdued the Silicoids, the Darlocks and the Alkari this way, usually hitting their worlds, destroying their fleets, retreating and coming back to destroy the star bases. Due to Transdimensional my ships could fly from one edge of the galaxy to the other in 3-4 turns, attacks on nearby worlds needed only one turn usually. Against the Alkari I had to rebuild one of the frigates from Heavy Laser Mount to Nuclear Missiles, for their ships proved pretty much unhittable otherwise.

Then my battleships (which sported both Nuclear Missiles and Heavy Mount Lasers, plus Extended Fuel Cells) got finished. Just in time to take out the Gnolams, discovering the Bulrathi well out of range of my Transport Ships. I just sent two of my battleships, which bombed the Bulrathi homeworld into oblivion (took a lot of time, though), and finally turned towards the Sakkra and Humans.

This fight might have proven difficult, for the last time I checked the Sakkra fleet consisted of one battleship, one cruiser and several destroyers, and my own battleships were bound elsewhere; fortunately, the Humans came to my help and annihilated said fleet somehow. I rewarded them by conquest.

With the Bulrathi gone my entire fleet (I had scrapped the frigates - I was at -19 command points anyway), consisting of one cruiser and four battleships, destroyed the Sakkra, thus making me sole ruler of the universe. Yay!

The game took 102 turns overall; up to the Alkari my fleets were pretty much unstoppable, the Alkari had the advantage of Fusion Beams, the Humans and Sakkra finally proved most challenging (well, obviously - I conquered them last), for they had also Class I shields, which took out a lot of my damage; fortunately, my fleets were vastly superior in numbers by this point.

I don't think I'd like to try this in a larger galaxy though. Maybe some other time when I'm looking for a challenge...


Another challenge I've tried is the "No Researchers" or "No Laborers" approach, in Impossible/Huge. With "No Researchers," you never assign anyone to research; all your tech must come from research buildings, spies, conquest, and trades. "No Laborers" is much the same but you never put anyone on industry. I have won with both of these, though it's not easy, especially the latter.I can understand No Researchers; the beginning of the game will be tough, until you get research buildings (well, it will be tough as hell overall anyway), but I can see how you could do this.
No Labourers though? Would you mind to elaborate how you did this?

EDIT: Eh, stupid me. Of course buying everything. Ok, I get it now.

EDIT:

God...what freaks...I can hardly ever understand the reasoning for these 'extreame game challenges'...I love beating games as much as anyone, but some of these challenges are just crazy...Yeah, but beating a challenge is rewarding. :smallsmile:

How do you beat the computer in this challenge if someone builds up enough tech? I mean...if the meklar get halfway decent shields and then hire commander sparky who gives them advanced damage control...their fleets will be unstoppable pretty much from all the regeneration. At least with lasers alone...and god forbid they build up class III or bettr shields...if that hapens good luck ever hurting them...nuclear missle swarms do have their limits. What is the strategy? Missle firgates galore backed by colony ships/outposts and marine transports to conquer enemy colonies to avoid building time consuming colony ships?See above. Basically, you don't allow the computer to get this far, you eliminate him long before that.

[Douglas]

God...what freaks...I can hardly ever understand the reasoning for these 'extreame game challenges'...I love beating games as much as anyone, but some of these challenges are just crazy...
These challenges are for those who like the game but are so good at it that beating the AI normally is just boring even on the highest difficulty level because it's so easy.


How do you beat the computer in this challenge if someone builds up enough tech? I mean...if the meklar get halfway decent shields and then hire commander sparky who gives them advanced damage control...their fleets will be unstoppable pretty much from all the regeneration. At least with lasers alone...and god forbid they build up class III or bettr shields...if that hapens good luck ever hurting them...nuclear missle swarms do have their limits. What is the strategy? Missle firgates galore backed by colony ships/outposts and marine transports to conquer enemy colonies to avoid building time consuming colony ships?
Simple, conquer everybody so fast they don't have time to get that tech in the first place.


My race was
- Feudalism: this one's a no-brainer. With no tech allowed the research penalty is negated, and the cheaper ships are exactly what's needed. Only Unification might rival that, but it's 10 points more expensive.
- Industry+2: Need my ships out ASAP.
- Transdimensional: Allows me to transfer my fleets in no time, in spite of no drive technologies. Also gives a huge edge in combat due to improved ship defense.
- Cybernetic: With bonus Industry this seemed like a good way to go, besides it gives another edge in combat.
- Rich Homeworld: boosts the start.
- Large Homeworld: Why not?
- Ship Attack +25: because I had to do with the remaining points
- Repulsive: I'm out for conquest, no need for diplomacy, and 6 points are awesome.
I'd suggest going Telepathic for mind control, but I don't know if that gives you the same problem with capturing tech as normal conquests with troops do.


EDIT: Eh, stupid me. Of course buying everything. Ok, I get it now.
You only really have to buy auto factories. Once you've got those you have 5 industry with no laborers, and there are several other buildings that increase that further.

[Winterwind]

I'd suggest going Telepathic for mind control, but I don't know if that gives you the same problem with capturing tech as normal conquests with troops do.I realised that pretty soon (for some reason I didn't take Telepathic into account while creating the race; actually, I just had the idea of how well Transdimensional should suit this task and was so eager to check it out that after I took that I didn't reflect as much as I might have on the other picks.
I'm not sure, though - I am pretty sure mind control can capture tech, so I would have to bomb down the population anyway. The advantages would be I wouldn't have to build transporters (which would allow for increasing the fleet earlier and save tons of money due to command points saved), combat would be slightly easier due to conquered ships being usable instantly (though in my game, for example, this would have been benefitial only rarely, if at all), and conquered planets being immediately at full efficiency.
Which is very tempting, of course, but I'm not sure whether it's worth it. Telepathic is expensive, after all.

You only really have to buy auto factories. Once you've got those you have 5 industry with no laborers, and there are several other buildings that increase that further.This would be horribly slow, though. Of course one would get Auto Factories, Robo Miners, Recyclotron, Robotic Factories and Deep Core Mining first onto a planet, but even with those the world's industry would only be about 50, possible up to 82 (or 84?), I think, for an Ultra-Rich, Huge Gaian World if you are Subterranean, but even 82 is sucky in late game. I guess you would still buy as much as possible.

The build I would use for that would probably go something like
- Democracy - if all population is in either food or science the research bonus will kick in, plus more money - it's hands down perfect for the job
- Money +1 - will allow to buy a lot of stuff
- Industry -1 - free points, effectively
- Ground Combat -10 - gives enough picks for the build
- Poor Homeworld - another free point
This uses 15 picks, and has one pick unused, which could go for Large Homeworld; I am pretty sure one could make a better build which uses all 20 picks, but I have no idea where to get the points for that. Perhaps negative Ship Attack and Defense, though I really, really hate playing with those. If one chose those, Aquatic would be a possibility, or going down to Money +0.5 and taking Subterranean. Bonus Research would compliment this build rather well. Charismatic is pretty much always a good idea. I'm not sure yet...

[Dausuul]

Well, what do you know. In spite of me saying I wouldn't try this "No-Tech" for a few days, I did just now, and succeeded. In fact, it was fairly easy.

My race was
- Feudalism: this one's a no-brainer. With no tech allowed the research penalty is negated, and the cheaper ships are exactly what's needed. Only Unification might rival that, but it's 10 points more expensive.
- Industry+2: Need my ships out ASAP.
- Transdimensional: Allows me to transfer my fleets in no time, in spite of no drive technologies. Also gives a huge edge in combat due to improved ship defense.
- Cybernetic: With bonus Industry this seemed like a good way to go, besides it gives another edge in combat.
- Rich Homeworld: boosts the start.
- Large Homeworld: Why not?
- Ship Attack +25: because I had to do with the remaining points
- Repulsive: I'm out for conquest, no need for diplomacy, and 6 points are awesome.


All sounds good except Repulsive. Take -1 Research and -1 Spying instead. Then you can make non-aggression pacts with the people you're not currently fighting, so you don't have to watch your back... plus you get better leaders.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

All sounds good except Repulsive. Take -1 Research and -1 Spying instead. Then you can make non-aggression pacts with the people you're not currently fighting, so you don't have to watch your back... plus you get better leaders.

good call...why bother with spying...I mean...what are you protecting anyways? Not like they often do sabotage that badly...

[Fuzzy_Juan]

I seem to remember that in MOO 1 it was possible to bring an empire to it's knees with just spies...I wonder if that is possible in Moo2...to win with pretty much nothing but spies, diplomacy, and defensive actions...is it possible to be so good at the political and spy game that you can win without offensive war?

hmmm...perhaps I'll try...what would one need...charasmatic, telepathic, spying +20% dictatorship...low g, research -1 (gonna steal it all anyways)?...hmm...what else...

[Winterwind]

All sounds good except Repulsive. Take -1 Research and -1 Spying instead. Then you can make non-aggression pacts with the people you're not currently fighting, so you don't have to watch your back... plus you get better leaders.:smalleek:
Okay, that's just ashaming. I should have thought of that. Both Research and Spying malus don't have any effect on that game style; and better leaders would have been really nice (matter of fact, I only got one planet leader the whole game - and that was Emo, who boosts solely Research, so he was off limits, of course).
Ah, well. Since I won anyway...

I seem to remember that in MOO 1 it was possible to bring an empire to it's knees with just spies...I wonder if that is possible in Moo2...to win with pretty much nothing but spies, diplomacy, and defensive actions...is it possible to be so good at the political and spy game that you can win without offensive war?

hmmm...perhaps I'll try...what would one need...charasmatic, telepathic, spying +20% dictatorship...low g, research -1 (gonna steal it all anyways)?...hmm...what else...What ending are you going for? Election to Supreme Leader of the New Republic?
If so then, yes, it is possible to win without firing a single shot, I have done so before. Was my fastest win in a Huge galaxy. I'm not sure on what difficulty, but it might have been Hard instead of Impossible. I didn't go for spying, though, if I remember correctly it was a research build. Contained both Charismatic and Telepathic at any rate. Perhaps something like Democracy, Research+1, Charismatic and Telepathic, or something similar to that. Basically an improved Human race.

Another challenge comes to my mind... Huge galaxy, no research allowed, but one may steal and capture technologies from others.
Would be obsolete, of course, if it were possible to conquer even a Huge galaxy with no new tech at all, but I somehow doubt this is doable for anyone but some kind of Master of Orion god.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

One thing always irked me about the computer...how the hell did they maintain a fleet that was obviously beyond their command points, have more buildings, obviously buy alot of their stuff, and maintain 40+ spies? I say 40+ because they had 40 on me typically and had to have that much defending or on others as well.

I could never understand how they could have the funds for that much stuff when I always have a hard enough time with having the funds to do what I do...

I bet it is because I don't build dedicated colonies...I always try to make every colony capable of doing everything which just winds up wasting resources...

I guess I really should spread out, have farming colonies, industrial colonies, and research colonies and work hard to defend those supply lines...the only thing each planet 'really' needs would be planetary defenses including a starbase of some sort. I'm guessing buying an autolab wouldn't be all bad...

perhaps I should shift styles...

[Cyrano]

Did anyone else find Omniscient incredibly, insanely good? FInding fleet movements was a dream in early-mid game, but most importantly, expansion! YOu can find all the Large Rich Gaian planets with insane specials, covered by space dragons. All the good systems are available. You can expand according to where you see races. I just loved it. I believe I had ground combat penalty (the highest), Charismatic, Omniscient, Creative and Telepatic... some other penalties too, maybe a bad government or spying? Might not be exactly that, I forget, but it rocked.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

I once was able to hire a space commander that had galactic lore as a special early on...except for fleets, I could see every system as if I had omniscience...it was pretty good for plotting colonies...though, since you can only expand so far anyways, I figured, why not just keep the scouts swarming around...by the time that colony ship is ready, you'll have found a planet that is workable anyways.

[Dausuul]

I seem to remember that in MOO 1 it was possible to bring an empire to it's knees with just spies...I wonder if that is possible in Moo2...to win with pretty much nothing but spies, diplomacy, and defensive actions...is it possible to be so good at the political and spy game that you can win without offensive war?

hmmm...perhaps I'll try...what would one need...charasmatic, telepathic, spying +20% dictatorship...low g, research -1 (gonna steal it all anyways)?...hmm...what else...

Yeah, it can be done. I did it once; build a solid, high-tech empire early in the game, build some junker warships as a deterrent so the computer won't invade on a whim, and then demand systems from other empires, always picking crap systems and not demanding too many too fast, so the computer doesn't get mad. Be lavish with gifts to keep your reputation up, and do everything you can to expand your population. Eventually you'll get two-thirds of the galaxy's population and then you can vote yourself in via the Galactic Council.


Did anyone else find Omniscient incredibly, insanely good? FInding fleet movements was a dream in early-mid game, but most importantly, expansion! YOu can find all the Large Rich Gaian planets with insane specials, covered by space dragons. All the good systems are available. You can expand according to where you see races. I just loved it. I believe I had ground combat penalty (the highest), Charismatic, Omniscient, Creative and Telepatic... some other penalties too, maybe a bad government or spying? Might not be exactly that, I forget, but it rocked.

Omniscient is good, but I didn't think it was that great. Charismatic, now... against the computer, Charismatic is the uber-pick. Point for point, I don't think anything beats Charismatic.


One thing always irked me about the computer...how the hell did they maintain a fleet that was obviously beyond their command points, have more buildings, obviously buy alot of their stuff, and maintain 40+ spies? I say 40+ because they had 40 on me typically and had to have that much defending or on others as well.

The computer cheats. At high difficulties, it cheats hard. It gets massive bonuses to output on all of its colonies.

It's unfortunate, but it's also the only way anybody's ever found to make a computer competitive with a smart human player in any game less deterministic than chess.

[Talya]

Damnit. I loved MoO2. Now I need to install it on my laptop.

[Archonic Energy]

Damnit. I loved MoO2. Now I need to install it on my laptop.

you mean it's not automatically installed after you install a new OS... for shame. :smalltongue:

[Winterwind]

Finally...

Yesterday, after a not actually that hard, but veeery long struggle, I managed to beat the "No Labourers" challenge.
And what a game it was... certainly one of the longest ones I have ever played.
Didn't feel all that strange, even - had much of the feeling of a standard research race game.

Well, to begin with:
My race was
- Democracy
- BC +0.5
- Subterranean
- Poor Homeworld
- Ship Defense -20
- Ground Combat -10
- Industry -1
I could have gotten two picks more, but I didn't really see any sensible way to put them to use (and no not-hurting way to get them either), so I went with an 18-positive-picks race instead.

Unfortunately, since I began the game quite a few days ago, plus I had pretty much no sleep tonight, I can't remember all details of the game.
For starters, I was pretty shocked when I discovered the Sakkra (as customary for Impossible, they got Repulsive) were situated pretty much right next to me, up to the point to consider a restart (a fairly aggressive, super-expansionist race with which one can not talk as next-door neighbours?), but decided to give it a try. And it worked out - for some reason the Sakkra never bothered with attacking me; the only explanation I see would be my technological advantage.
I went pretty much straight for Supercomputer, which was rather easy, considering a democratic race with almost all population in research. Robominers were up next, of course, and then I decided to go rather quickly for the higher Sociology techs, Stock Exchange and Federation primarily - I wanted to buy pretty much everything, so more money was more than welcome.
The systems around me would, in a normal game, have been considered pretty good, what with Large Rich worlds and so on; even so, their size was quite welcome, and most systems had three or four planets. Lucky me. :smallsmile:
I soon discovered more races: the Psilons, Meklars and Mrrshan were nice guys, who decided to accept my treaties; seeing I was at some disadvantage with no workers at all I went much more trade-happy than usually and got myself a lot of useful technologies I had missed, including Heavy Armour and basic planetary defenses. I would have felt safer, if not for the Klackons (who accepted Trade and Research Treaties, but wouldn't go for a Non-Aggression Pact for no reasonable price) and mostly the Silicoids, who had build a huge empire and were clearly the dominant race in the galaxy.
As soon as my first few battleships rolled out (or more correctly, were purchased by superior monetary power), I began demanding systems from my allies. Went well for a while, finally either the Meklars or the Mrrshan snapped. Don't remember who. Doesn't matter, either, for I managed to piss off all of my allies, one after the other - guess I got a bit too greedy. T'was fine, though, for I was looking for opponents to speed up my expansion anyways all the time.
After all those, I conquered the Alkari, too, and was left with the Sakkra and the Silicoids, the latter currently building a huge fleet with several doomstars.
For some reason, the entire game I had not been attacked by neither Sakkra nor Silicoids, even though both hated me.
This was, however, where the lack of labourers finally truly kicked in. So far, the production buildings alone were doing fairly fine (~50 Industry points is, as a matter, quite enough to build most buildings - that's 8 turns for a starbase, which is the most expensive building there is, safe for the fancy stuff), but they were completely out of their league when the time for building my own doomstars arrived, needing 130 turns, or something akin to that. I had to go for max taxes and still wait quite a while to be able to buy just one of them.
Fortunately, my tech was so superior one was more than enough. 30 Auto-Firing Heavy Disruptors (plus secondary Phasor armament), with High Energy Focus just cut through anything. With time, I added more of them, conquered the Sakkra, and finally took on the Silicoids. Their empire was huge and pretty much all over the place, for the Mrrshan had surrender to them before they were wiped out; however, just for that reason I had gotten myself the Stargate technology, so I felt rather safe, only hoping I would get initiative if they would attack - my few doomstars wouldn't last long under non-stop stellar converter fire.
That's where things started to get weird. Apparently, the computer deemed my technological edge to be so amazing, it just began to withdraw. Whereever my ships struck, they always encountered just few ships, who had gotten unlucky enough to be in the system when I hit - other than that, his fleet was just withdrawing. Even when he had chances to hit defenseless worlds of mine, he didn't - he just flew.
Actually, rightfully so. At one point I intercepted one doomstar and two battleships with one destroyer of mine. The doomstar, it turned out, contained no stellar converter (even though he had the technology), only Plasma Cannons.
Now guess what happens if a vastly faster ship with Heavy Disruptors decides to flee from a ship with Plasma Cannons only and fire at maximum distance :smallcool:
After destroying a doomstar and two battleships with one dumb destroyer, I was fairly certain the game would end well. Conquered all but one planet, vanquishing the remainder of his fleet, and went for Antares.
First doomstar took out the entire Antarian fleet, safe for the star fortress, which didn't last long either.

The game took 409 turns and ended with 4332 points - first game to go for the Hall of Fame in a looooong time (I usually finish much, much sooner, if I even bother with eradicating everything).

Altogether:
"No Labourers" is not that hard. All one needs is to be somewhat diplomatic and go for strong research. Having tons of money is surely helpful, too, though primarily only for ship construction - buildings can mostly be built with production buildings only, save for the production buildings themselves, of course.

In retrospect, I probably wouldn't have needed that much money. Maybe a Research bonus might have been better than a BC bonus. Also, I strongly suspect there might be a better build which uses all available picks, but don't see it. Maybe Research +2, Large Homeworld and Spying -10, instead of BC+0.5 and Poor Homeworld; though the combination of Democracy and Spying malus is really pushing it.

I used very few spies most of the game, by the way (didn't really have the production capacities for them), and still had pretty much no leaks. Don't know why - maybe the tech advantage...


Now about that "No Scientists"-challenge (which, depending on conditions, sounds possibly even harder than "No Labourers")... which starting tech level?
Because... with Pre-Warp, I think one would be veeeery booped...
(extremely luck-dependant challenge, it seems to me - get the right leaders soon, and you're all set).

PS: @Archonic Energy: Love your Avatar. And the Toss army, too. :smallsmile:
But where are the BW units? *still can't forgive Blizzard for scrapping my favourite unit in SC2. Corsair, I don't care what the Phoenix can do, it will never measure up to you :smallfrown: *

[Fuzzy_Juan]

No Scientists hmm?

I would have to say uncreative, and feudal...go for production and spying bonuses...maybe be charasmatic...just spy everything and trade for tech while preparing for war...they will always eventually try and attack you for spying...noone is good enough to never get caught...though the computer always frames you anyways in impossible, so why bother hiding it?

[Thexare Blademoon]

You could trade/use a research treaty (not sure how those work) for things like Research Lab, Supercomputer, and Autolab... it'd be slower, but you'd be able to grab a few techs that way without having to hope for good luck stealing/trading, maybe grab a Researcher leader or two...

Then again, it's probably be easier to just be a thieving bastard.

[Saithis Bladewing]

Well, I acquired MoOII, installed it, patched it, did everything right. Game loads fine, gets to the menu fine. The mouse doesn't work right, though. The cursor skips around when I try to scroll (if it even works at all) and I can't effectively move over anything, though clicking still works. Anyone have this problem before and have any idea how to fix it?

[Winterwind]

No Scientists hmm?

I would have to say uncreative, and feudal...go for production and spying bonuses...maybe be charasmatic...just spy everything and trade for tech while preparing for war...they will always eventually try and attack you for spying...noone is good enough to never get caught...though the computer always frames you anyways in impossible, so why bother hiding it?Let's see...
Uncreative and Research-1 are good picks definately. Feudalism... possibly, though Unification might have benefits too.
*designs*
Ok, I have come up with two variants:
VARIANT 1: The Super-Industrial
- Industry+2
- Unification
- Charismatic (and, boy, will this race need it. Gives a good chance for leaders with technologies, too; if one got the one who comes with Auto-Lab it would pretty much turn the game)
- Cybernetic (gives a slight combat edge, which may come in handy, also allows to transfer farmers to industry (which overcompensates the disappearing industry points easily)
- Uncreative
- Research-1
- Ground Combat-10
Expand and conquer quickly. Possibly subdue the first few races you encounter immediately and hope for technologies; be diplomatic to everyone else.

VARIANT 2: The Master-Spies
- Telepathic
- Charismatic
- Spying+20
- Industry+1 (gotta do something with the remaining points, and boosting expansion is always a good idea)
- Rich Homeworld (ditto)
- Feudalism
- Uncreative
- Ground Combat -10
Try to get at least the crucial technologies via diplomacy and spying ASAP. Perhaps you can get an ally and lure him into war against the people you piss off by spying?

I don't like how both races don't have any population limit boosting picks (no Subterranean, no Aquatic, no Tolerant). However, I think these races might have a chance.


You could trade/use a research treaty (not sure how those work) for things like Research Lab, Supercomputer, and Autolab... it'd be slower, but you'd be able to grab a few techs that way without having to hope for good luck stealing/trading, maybe grab a Researcher leader or two...

Then again, it's probably be easier to just be a thieving bastard.Trade wouldn't work that early on, because you wouldn't have any technologies to give to the computer.
Research treaty on the other hand... huh, yes, maybe you could get enough research points from there... don't know how the number of research points you get is calculated.
With a hyper-diplomatic race this might actually work out quite well.

Then again, it might be actually possible to win the game with pretty much no new technologies at all. One could try a race like:

VARIANT 3: The Expanding Diplomates
- Unification
- Industry +1
- Charismatic
- Telepathic
- Large Homeworld
- Uncreative
- Research-1
- Ground Combat -10

and try to expand quickly, being at good terms with all Non-Repulsive races, get a fleet of incredibly crappy battleships in order not to present a ripe target for the computer, and win via election.


Still, the question remains - which starting tech level? I guess not Hyper-Advanced, 'cause that sort of defeats the purpose of the challenge. However, which to chose: Pre-Warp or Average?
Average would allow to expand instantly. On Pre-Warp, one would have to wait for another race to come by or hope for a leader with Research Points (actually, not that improbably for a Charismatic race), before one could even build Colony ships (and one would need one hell of a lot technologies before one could even start with that). That would be ridiculously difficult.
I guess it's Average, then?

Well, I acquired MoOII, installed it, patched it, did everything right. Game loads fine, gets to the menu fine. The mouse doesn't work right, though. The cursor skips around when I try to scroll (if it even works at all) and I can't effectively move over anything, though clicking still works. Anyone have this problem before and have any idea how to fix it?I have the problem occasionally, but it usually goes away as suddenly as it sets on (clicking both mouse buttons wildly seems to help, too). If it doesn't, I end the game and start again. However, if you get it every time... huh. Guess it's just the same symptoms, different problem, after all.
Sorry, no idea how to help you. :smallfrown:

[Saithis Bladewing]

I have the problem occasionally, but it usually goes away as suddenly as it sets on (clicking both mouse buttons wildly seems to help, too). If it doesn't, I end the game and start again. However, if you get it every time... huh. Guess it's just the same symptoms, different problem, after all.
Sorry, no idea how to help you. :smallfrown:

Yeah, it's constant. No idea what's causing it or how I might fix it.

[sealemon]

Never played MOO III.

Loved MOO I, and I still like it because of the ease of play compared to MOO II. If II has any weakness it's that the micromanaging can get tedious once you have 15 + planets to develop.

that said, MOO II is still one of my favorite game of all time.

My cheese combo would be Democracy + Creative, with as much early development in computers and contruction that I can get away with before someone declares war on me. If the computer opponents give me the time to develop my production curve, I'm unstoppable.

[Winterwind]

Yeah, it's constant. No idea what's causing it or how I might fix it.Once again, the only advise I can give is to try running it under DosBox (http://sourceforge.net/projects/dosbox). To the program it would appear like a completely different situation environment- and hardware-wise, so it might solve the problem. It's always one of my first attempts if a game doesn't want to work, and it works more often than not.

[Thexare Blademoon]

Trade wouldn't work that early on, because you wouldn't have any technologies to give to the computer.

This is where you may wanna consider Charismatic - quite a few leaders bring tech with them, even Sparky (who I never have trouble getting.) That could help you kickstart the tech trading.

Do keep in mind that I'm quite new to the game, though, so I'm probably overlooking things. >_>

[Winterwind]

This is where you may wanna consider Charismatic - quite a few leaders bring tech with them, even Sparky (who I never have trouble getting.) That could help you kickstart the tech trading.

Do keep in mind that I'm quite new to the game, though, so I'm probably overlooking things. >_>That's part of the reason (and, actually, the major one) why every single race I proposed above contained Charismatic, which is, as Dausuul correctly pointed out above, is the single most overpowered pick point-by-point anyway.
But you're right, of course - trading away these technologies would be another way to get going, which I didn't consider. Thanks for pointing it out to me. :smallsmile:

I just realised that Uncreative is not a wise pick for this challenge. I started playing with the Expanding Diplomates race above, and got Gizmo, with +5 Research Points fairly early. Now I could have gotten myself Research Lab and somehow started off...
...except I couldn't, because Research Lab was not available to me.
Also, since one is likely to be a fair bit behind the other races technologically for a large part of the game, if one obtains their technologies via trade and spying, not being Uncreative would allow to get all the other good choices the other races didn't make when selecting their research goal.
So I think I'm gonna redesign this race...
Hmmm... maybe a BC-0.5 instead of Uncreative?

EDIT: Whoa! I just started the game with the race above (and on Pre-Warp - let's takle this on maximum difficulty), and though my starting position sucks (close to the centre), right in the first few turns Kirsus showed up, with +15 RP! Am I lucky, or what? :smallbiggrin:

EDIT2: Okay, got the challenge done yesterday. Was, actually, pretty similar to a normal game - went for Research Lab first and then for Supercomputer as soon as I had the technology to build colony ships, expanded quickly, got more leaders with Research Points, met other races (and fortunately, only one Repulsive one, the Sakkra, who were also the strongest computer race, and they were far away from me)... actually, save for my start being marginally weaker than usually, due to no scientists, this was exactly like a normal game of mine. Once I get Supercomputer I usually don't use scientists anymore anyway.
I went out of my way to keep all the other races happy, trading for new technologies, even if their demands were rather insolent, so that I would catch up quicker, and demanding systems once in a while. Occasionally, they didn't like that, broke all treaties and demanded tribute; for the most part, I simply agreed, gave them the tribute, got all the treaties again, and broke the tribute treatie as soon as the diplomatic relations had relaxed.

I hoped to get elected for Supreme Leader quickly, but the population growth of the Sakkra just proved too much; so instead I started to wage war finally, when my allies got pissed off by me demanding to much, and quickly subdued pretty much everything that got into my way.

Which was really easy, too, because due to my fast expanding my technology had surpassed theirs by that point. Plus, I used my race's diplomatic edge and demanded a few technologies, which really put me ahead.

The Sakkra payed dearly for being repulsive - they were the only ones with Zortrium armour, when the rest of the galaxy already had Adamantium (and I Xentronium). Their fleets were no match. Right during the invasion another election came up; with the voices of my three surviving allies and myself I won in a landslide after 309 turns (rather long game for winning via election; oh, well, against the Sakkra and without Subterranean, I guess it's understandable).

This challenge is weird, I must say - I had a fairly normal game, but that's due to me getting Kirsus (and Gizmo, a bit later, too, and another guy whose name I forgot, and who had Research Points, as well), which allowed me to get the buildings which create RP on their own. If I had not gotten them - which is conceivable even with Charismatic - the game would have been infinitely tougher.

So, it seems to me this, particularly, is more luck than anything else.

[Winterwind]

(I'm making another post instead of editing my last one so that the change is visible; I hope that's ok)

So, having seen that it is possible to win with either no scientists, or no labourers, or even no tech at all, I wondered what else might be doable.
Particularly, it occurred to me that the other challenges worked so well because it is possible to create a race specifically designed for that task. Now, I wondered... would it be possible to win (in a Huge galaxy, Pre-Warp start, Impossible) with a race with 20 unused picks?

I just tried (BC-0.5, Population Growth -50%, Ground Combat -10), and, well, got eaten by the Klackons. Which was probably as much my own fault as that of my incompetent race, since I went pretty straightly for Supercomputer, which was definately way too arrogant on my part. Still, it's horrible how slow the start is.

So far I've decided it would be probably better to go with Feudalism, after all, even though there is neither massive Industry nor Research bonus to offset the halved research. At least the colony ships won't take this long, even though the start gets even slower than before. I'm still uncertain, though, whether this can even work out at all, at least without tremendous amounts of luck (with leaders, planets, nearby races, and so on). What do you think?

[TSGames]

I must say that until recently, I had only run tech races. Lately, however, I have started running industrial races(MOO II, of course. What else would I play?) and I have to say I find them harder to manage at first due to larger number of worlds, I also find them to be superior on nearly every front(and the smaller the galaxy is, the better).

O well! I never thought this thread would make it past 6 posts. No I've talked to has heard of MOO.

[Archonic Energy]

Let's see...
*SNIP*


if you're going the route of mass conqueror then don't forget Warlord.

i love the extra CP

[Winterwind]

if you're going the route of mass conqueror then don't forget Warlord.

i love the extra CPThat's true, not to mention the additional Attack and Defense bonus due to higher experience level for all ships. This gives you a huge advantage in space combat.

However, I'm never quite sure whether it's worth it - any pick I use to get Warlords I don't use to speed up colonisation and constructing buildings. If I get to the tech which gives 4 additional picks Warlords is my pick of choice usually, though.

Anway, I've managed to win with no scientists with the Variant 3 race I posted above. Primarily with mass colonisation and occasional demanding of systems, not so much war (in the beginning; later I went for conquest after all)

Currently I'm trying to win with a race which has 20 unused picks, but have been beaten up at four consecutive attempts. The fifth one is looking not so bad, for I have peace with everyone in the galaxy and control most systems, in a few turns my population should overtake everyone else save for the Sakkra, but my technology is so incredibly inferior, that I guess if anyone should decide to wage war against me after all (which is usually just a matter of time on Impossible) I'd probably die instantly.

[Archonic Energy]

Currently I'm trying to win with a race which has 20 unused picks,.

Jesus! that's hardcore!

[Winterwind]

Jesus! that's hardcore!I'm not even certain whether it is possible, at least without tremendous amounts of luck.
Two of my attempts so far were ended by unlucky placement of star systems: I got two or three systems and could not expand further, because on one side there was some other empire (which, of course, had twice as many systems as I did, even though it was by no means any strong race), and on the other side two systems guarded by monsters (just how probable is that, twice in a row?). Another attempt went better, until a race decided to declare war and destroyed me instantly.

So far, this teached me that if this challenge is doable at all, there must be no Repulsive races in proximity, and possibly none at all. One must go out of one's way to get diplomatic ties with the other races; by now, what I do is to offer the other races 10% tribute if they are not willing to accept some kind of treaty on the very first turn I meet them. Later, one can build a few battleships (even though they will be useless in combat due to vastly inferior technology) and try to demand systems from the other races; having a leader with +Diplomacy helps a lot.

My last attempt is going fairly well so far, but I kind of lost the motivation (especially since I had to reload a few times, when one of the other races declared war against me for demanding too much from them - I consider demanding and reloading pretty much as cheating, so the game is not honest anymore). Besides, I just met the Silicoids, who - while untypically weak in this game - still could probably destroy me on a whim, and likely will sooner or later.
Hmmm... maybe I should try to get some Alliances and send the other races after them...

[Archonic Energy]

my favorite games consist of the Borg tactic

create 1 battleship with assault shuttles.

from then on you can only re-fit captured ships with assult shuttles/troop pods. no building new ships

the following ships are exempt

colony
transport
scout (unarmed)

[Fuzzy_Juan]

my favorite games consist of the Borg tactic

create 1 battleship with assault shuttles.

from then on you can only re-fit captured ships with assult shuttles/troop pods. no building new ships

the following ships are exempt

colony
transport
scout (unarmed)

would you also make them cybernetic with a unification govronment? In some ways, I would make them telepathic as well to simulate the assimilation process.

[Winterwind]

my favorite games consist of the Borg tactic

create 1 battleship with assault shuttles.

from then on you can only re-fit captured ships with assult shuttles/troop pods. no building new ships

the following ships are exempt

colony
transport
scout (unarmed)Now that sounds fun! :smallsmile:
But won't it take awfully long before you are able to build your battleship?

Also, wouldn't Tractor Beams (potentially also Teleporters, but that's an even later technology and would require at least some kind of direct offensive equipment - which the Borg possess as well, though) make more sense for simulating the Borg?

EDIT: Wait. Wait wait wait. Re-fit captured ships? Since when is that possible? :smalleek:

would you also make them cybernetic with a unification govronment? In some ways, I would make them telepathic as well to simulate the assimilation process.Good thinking. Would make a lot of sense. Good build, too, in so far as Cybernetic and Unification are concerned; one could probably chose better than Telepathic, but it fits, and is not that bad either.

[Archonic Energy]

EDIT: Wait. Wait wait wait. Re-fit captured ships? Since when is that possible? :smalleek:
i've always thought you could refit ships
EXCEPT the avenger/Antaran ships

i've played games where i've only used assault shuttles... lots of ships tho. (scouts + assault shuttles FTW)
a logical extention would only be only 1 "Master" ship & refitting the "Slave" ships

i must admit i didn't really keep the captured ships long (stupid CP)

without my Disc i can't install it on my work PC and find out.

grrr bloody work.

cybernetic /unification don't really appeal to me.
high Grav & +20 ground assault seem more... useable

Edit: Telepathic allows you to use captured ships in the same battle... :evilsmilie:

[Charity]

cybernetic /unification don't really appeal to me.
high Grav & +20 ground assault seem more... useable

Edit: Telepathic allows you to use captured ships in the same battle... :evilsmilie:

Ground forces are far too destructive, cybernetic /unification you'll never need a marine base again, instant assimilation FTW.

You lot!

now I'm gonna have to dig out that disc
*starts chucking dusty cd's around*

[Douglas]

EDIT: Wait. Wait wait wait. Re-fit captured ships? Since when is that possible? :smalleek:
In the colony build queue screen, down in the bottom right, there is a button labeled "Refit". Clicking it brings up a screen showing all the ships at that location that can be refit. Click on one, then select the design to refit it to from the list. The build queue will now contain a "refit X ship" order.

Note: A ship undergoing refit does not exist outside of the build queue. It will vanish from the rest of the game the instant you put the refit order in the queue and will not return until you either cancel the refit or it is completed.

[Winterwind]

i've always thought you could refit ships
EXCEPT the avenger/Antaran ships

i've played games where i've only used assault shuttles... lots of ships tho. (scouts + assault shuttles FTW)
a logical extention would only be only 1 "Master" ship & refitting the "Slave" ships

i must admit i didn't really keep the captured ships long (stupid CP)

without my Disc i can't install it on my work PC and find out.

grrr bloody work.

cybernetic /unification don't really appeal to me.
high Grav & +20 ground assault seem more... useable

Edit: Telepathic allows you to use captured ships in the same battle... :evilsmilie:Just checked it. No, you can't refit captured ships either.
Which would make this strategy a lot more difficult. Perhaps adding Attack/Defense Bonus, Transdimensional or Warlords would help, to give your captured ships an edge over their counterparts, but I am not sure whether these bonuses apply to captured ships. I strongly suspect they might not.

High Grav and Ground Combat+20 seems a little over the top to me. Sure, it would be useful, but it would leave you with few points for improving on your race's research/expansion abilities otherwise, and it would pretty much never be needed - your troops would be sufficiently superior against pretty much any foe with only one of both. I'd take one of them and use the points of the other for Unification, or Industry bonus, or something like that.

In the colony build queue screen, down in the bottom right, there is a button labeled "Refit". Clicking it brings up a screen showing all the ships at that location that can be refit. Click on one, then select the design to refit it to from the list. The build queue will now contain a "refit X ship" order.

Note: A ship undergoing refit does not exist outside of the build queue. It will vanish from the rest of the game the instant you put the refit order in the queue and will not return until you either cancel the refit or it is completed.Umm.....
Thanks for the information, I guess, but I knew that. (for completeness, one might add to your explanation, that one can also refit the ship individually, and not according to one of the existing designs)

The part that irritated me was the claim that captured ships could be refitted. Which is not possible and will just give you a "captured ships can not be refitted" message.

[Douglas]

The part that irritated me was the claim that captured ships could be refitted. Which is not possible and will just give you a "captured ships can not be refitted" message.
Huh, I've never actually tried to refit captured ships, so I just assumed it would work the same way. In fact, I don't recall ever trying to capture anything but Antaran ships, and I always scrap those for tech.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

you will quickly find that enemy ships will target their own vessels to keep you from capturing them if they can.

The real trick is to make sure you have a single battery on ships that can reliably take down those shields for transporters or other boarding actions. Ionizing ships is great if you are taking them peice at a time, but not if you are going to try and use them immediately...

Just a fun note...if you capture their space station, I do think that you get the bonuses of that station instead of them for that battle if you are telepathic...Fun!

I have always found that the best use of enemy ships that have been captured is to scrap them for tech that I don't posess, or as picket ships to protect my capture vessels with the understanding that the captured ships are VERY expendable...especially if I am low on CP.

If I remember correctly, if you capture the space station and then mind control the planet, you have the planet complete with space station...just no ground defenses...and you keep whatever shield they have.

[Douglas]

If I remember correctly, if you capture the space station and then mind control the planet, you have the planet complete with space station...just no ground defenses...and you keep whatever shield they have.
I tried this recently and it didn't work. Logically you should keep a captured starbase if you immediately capture the colony too, but the designers apparently never thought of that.

A similar annoyance is that if you capture a ship as a telepathic race and then retreat, with the captured ship also retreating with you, you don't get to keep the captured ship. Even though it escaped with the rest of your forces, you "lost" the battle and losers don't keep captured ships. I discovered this after making a raid on Antares specifically to make off with an Antaran ship that I could scrap for tech. I could have easily won the battle, but that would have ended the game and I wanted to go for a harder ending.

[Winterwind]

Capturing starbases is how you can best planetary defenses which would prove too much for your fleet otherwise. Like if you go against a starbase and a planetary missile base with two or three battleships on your side, your armor much too weak/their missiles much too strong for you to win the battle (or, at least, to win it without losses): you turn the ship against which the missiles are being fired around (and, ultimately, retreat just before impact), and move the other ships forward, firing at the planet and conquering the starbase. Works even better if you have Neutron Blasters and fire one or two salvos on the starbase first.

This way, you can go to war much, much sooner, even against an opponent who is in some aspects technologically superior.

Other than that, conquering other ships is mostly only good for getting technologies one does not yet possess (which, if one is not using a research race, is an entirely probable scenario at some points in the game) - they are usually too inferior as compared to the ships one uses. I usually try to conquer the ships whenever possible (bonus money is always welcome), but don't bother with designing ships specifically for capturing.

[SolkaTruesilver]

The Auroran Challenge:

It looks like the "No colony ship challenge", but with supplemental restictions.

Every planet you conquer, you have to annihilate the population. The only way you are allowed to keep a captured planet is by building androids on the population. No colony bases outside your home system.

So you will end up with a galaxy populated by androids, with the exception of your homeworld, which will probably be totally oriented on research.

A true Spatian/Auroran strategy

[Winterwind]

A true Spatian/Auroran strategyOooh, this earned you so many points in my book! :smallsmile:

The Auroran Challenge:

It looks like the "No colony ship challenge", but with supplemental restictions.

Every planet you conquer, you have to annihilate the population. The only way you are allowed to keep a captured planet is by building androids on the population. No colony bases outside your home system.

So you will end up with a galaxy populated by androids, with the exception of your homeworld, which will probably be totally oriented on research. Sounds tough. Android technologies are awfully far in the research tree.

Nice challenge. :smallbiggrin:

I guess I would take some research-centred build and then go for Android Labourers. Research Bonus, Democracy, maybe even Artifact World. Preferably be Charismatic, too, to keep the neighbours out of the one-system-empire.
Of course, you would be ridiculously boosted if you happened to get this one leader who comes with all Android technologies...

[SolkaTruesilver]

I have to admit, the first time I tried this challenge, I got lucky, and got the leader.

I usually take Creative, Low-G, Rich world, huge world, Artifact, Charismatic. I don't remember which other disadvantages I took. Creative is a MUST.

Indeed, Charismatic is totally mandatary, you'll be able to avoid trouble, except for repulsive species. Silicoid almost beat me up at a third of the game. But luckily, about 75% of the specie I asked to attack the Silicoids agreed with me.

[Winterwind]

I usually take Creative, Low-G, Rich world, huge world, Artifact, Charismatic. I don't remember which other disadvantages I took. Creative is a MUST.It is? How come? I see how Creative would have many advantages, but then... you won't be needing Farmers (only the homesystem will require food at all), and I think you should be able to get enough research with the homesystem and buildings on the conquered planets later, so all you'd really need would be Labourers. Without Creative, you will be able to research faster (enough points for Democracy, Research Bonus+2, Charismatic, Large Homeworld, Artifact World, for example), thus get the Androids faster as well. I imagine it might be tougher to hold off the other races without Creative, and missing out on the moral buildings in the Electronics branch would hurt as well, but I don't see why it would be a necessity.
Haven't tried to play that challenge yet, either, of course, so maybe I'm just missing something obvious...

Low-G is brilliant. Kudos for that; I don't know whether I would have thought of that. Five points for pretty much no disadvantage is great.

Indeed, Charismatic is totally mandatary, you'll be able to avoid trouble, except for repulsive species. Silicoid almost beat me up at a third of the game. But luckily, about 75% of the specie I asked to attack the Silicoids agreed with me.Having a sufficiently large fleet might hold them off as well; but I imagine this could prove difficult due to lack of command points...

[SolkaTruesilver]

Having a sufficiently large fleet might hold them off as well; but I imagine this could prove difficult due to lack of command points...


You said it. At BEST, you will have 3-4 worlds at the beggining, which means not a lot of Command Point, and you need to focus all your population on research if you are to go ahead in the tech race.

Creative is a must, because it will allow you to have everything buildable on your homeworld. Also, you won't have to pick between Android worker or Android Scientist. Why choose between Battlestation and robotic factory? You need them both!

Watch our for Antereans, however. Loosing a planet in the mid-game means loosing a quarter of your planets. You will have to turtle up at a max.

[Winterwind]

Creative is a must, because it will allow you to have everything buildable on your homeworld. Also, you won't have to pick between Android worker or Android Scientist. Why choose between Battlestation and robotic factory? You need them both!Ah, but having a Starbase with Disruptors and Adamantium Armor instead of a Battlestation with Phasors and Zortrium Armor sounds like an even better deal to me. Creative is nice, but also kind of a trap - it eats up a lot of points which could be used to boost the race otherwise. Note also, that the better your research, the faster you get to research buildings, which makes your research even faster, thus further increasing the gap between a Creative and a non-Creative race. And while there are choices which hurt, and a few choices which hurt badly (Automated Factory/Missile Base/Heavy Armor comes to mind), mostly you don't even give up all that much - especially since you can get the tech otherwise, too.
Though I admit that the Electronics branch is, together with Construction, the one where the lack of Creative hurts the most.

Watch our for Antereans, however. Loosing a planet in the mid-game means loosing a quarter of your planets. You will have to turtle up at a max.By the point the Antarans show up though, even a starbase will have enough tech to defeat even several of their Intruder-frigates, and by the point they come with larger ships you likely will have conquered half the galaxy already. Also, how probable is it that the Antarans hit, of all the stars in the galaxy, your single system?

All of the above are only my thoughts and opinions, though, which may be not all that valuable, since I haven't experienced this challenge yet.

EDIT: Ah, crap... only now I realised that Democracy is not a choice for this challenge, since it does not allow to annihilate populations. And then there are little choices more benefitial then Creative left.
Sorry for my slow thinking.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

One of the cute tricks I came up with...

Achelies Targeting Unit... bypasses armor, even Xenotronium

Particle Beam... bypasses shielding (except hard shielding??)

Combine the two... you're ignoring everything and going right to structure.

Best of all, you can grab Particle Beams from any old scout the Antarens send at you. Just have a few Battleships loaded up with Assault Shuttles (and maybe Transporters and Troop Pods if you have the tech) and you'll swarm them with sheer numbers. Mind you, odds are it'll blow up, but that's why you do this repeatedly until you capture the ship. You can also get the unholy combo of Damper Field and Xenotronium Armor from them as well.

Alternately...

with 1 level of advanced physics...

Titan ship with Stellar Convertor, Structural Analyzers, Achelies Targeting Unit, and Time Warp Facilitator. Once you blow through shielding, he's taking insane damage, and it ignores armor. Not even Antaran Doom Stars can stand up to this weapon. And if they do, you've got two shots for the price of one! It doesn't do well against swarms of weenies, but against the final battle of Antares, it's a wonderful thing. About three shots and the star fortress goes down, then just 1 for 1 for the rest of the fleet. Can take down antares in one turn with about ten or so of these ships.

[Winterwind]

One of the cute tricks I came up with...

Achelies Targeting Unit... bypasses armor, even Xenotronium

Particle Beam... bypasses shielding (except hard shielding??)Or just go with Phasors (with one additional Physics level, though two get you Auto-Firing additionally) instead of the Particle Beam. Gets a lot smaller with a few Physics levels, too.

The Antaran Star Fortress is only so powerful thanks to its Dampener Field and the Reflector. So, what you can do is just raid the fortress with doom stars (Sub-Space Teleporters can help to get them into range) until these systems break down, which usually happens fairly fast. This turns the nigh-indestructible behemoth into an absolutely normal obstacle which goes down in no time.

[Wolfgang]

I loved MoO II and practically everything in it. One of my favorite little features was during battles. If you had a ship with an officer on it and that ship exploded due to critical engine damage, a little "NNNNNNOOOOOOO~!" would play as the ship spun around and blew up. That always made me so happy when it happened to my enemies, and so sad when it happened to me.

MoO III was so bad. Dear god.