After the game had rotted in the depths of my HD for almost a year I finally fired it up. So now I'm addicted and I'd like to learn how to play it better. I've finished a few games on easy, and quit one game on average after getting tired of the constant war that didn't go anywhere. I started reading through other peoples games already and I'm trying to learn from those too.

So how to start? What to research? What kind of ships to build? How often to update ship designs? How to wage war efficiently? I'm also pretty lost with diplomacy and it's effects? Is espionage any good? Any websites I should know about?

Are you asking about MOO or MOO2?

Hrm, quite a list of questions. I'll answer generally rather than specificly, as you seem to be looking for an overview.

Master of orion tends to play out in a fairly predictable 4 phases: Land Grab, Consolidation, Survival until fleet capable, War. There's chances to win the game outright through each phase, but that's generally how the game goes for a human player.

The first phase is a land grab. You do anything you can to get more planets. It's really important to get your fair share of planets at the beginning, as a small empire has an enormously more difficult time crawling back into the game compared to an average size empire.

Highlights of the land grab:

Propulsion, Planetology, Construction technologies are usually prioritized.

You build a lot of scouts to orbit planets - it's generally better to build a scout for every planet, than to use a single scout to scout more than one world (as a scout can chase off early AI Colony ships and scouts).

You may get some milage out of the Long Range Lemon - a medium hull equipped with 2 regular lasers and reserve fuel tanks - or a stack of popgun fighters (small with 1 laser, and a shield if you can get it) depending on your geography. The idea is to hold early stars against the early skirmish fleets of the AI so that you can settle them.

You have to be unafraid to fight for planets that you view to be strategically important, and you should embrace the philosophy of the weed. Be greedy. Spread like a virus. Let the AI tell you when to stop (it'll be obvious when stops you).

Phase two is consolidation. Assuming phase one went well, you'll now have from 4 to 18 worlds. Some of them, like your homeworld and second planet, are probably doing reasonably well. Others are far behind. You need to get them all up to speed, and you need to establish a solid defense. Generally this is where I swap over to an equalized technology budget (focusing on techs that improve my missile bases to start). The key concept here is to stand up your frontier (whatever it may be) and start cranking out missile bases. As you play you'll get an idea of how many missile bases is enough to deter current AI fleets. For now - assume you need more than you think you do on the perimiter, and slack on your back lines. Please note that no planet in your empire should have 0 bases at the end of this phase. You want to get your missiles on the cheap where possible by having bases in place before you get shield, missile, armor upgrades to make them more expensive.

During phase two, you've probably had a few "brush wars" or even a cold/hot war. The AI will test you, and you may or may not have been able to turn them back. Phase 3 consists of the long winter of superior AI Fleets and technology. You're going to have to hold on long enough to research, steal, trade, or luck your way into a successful starfleet technology. I don't consider going on a galaxyquest until I have a few key technologies (as a rule of thumb. In my latest game, armed with 2 fertile planets at the start as the bullrathi I waged a war of "buy a bear and send him to a friend" on nuc bombs, lasers, and luck against a coid - but that's for another discussion). Here's my shopping list for "fleet that won't get smashed arbitrarily while transports are en route"

I want a beam - ion cannons or better.
I want an engine - sub light or better (fusion is ideal).
I want a bomb - fusion or better.

I'm willing to use other technologies as they are available, but my usual "end of phase 3" indicator is that I have fusion bombs on a small, with fusion drives, and perhaps an inertial stabilizer. At that point you can glass most enemy planets.

Phase 4: War. The goal of phase 4 is really phase 1 in disguise. We want to achieve some extra land, and most importantly - use this period to aquire crucial missing technologies with the best researchers in MOO. The pointy sticked sort.

If left to my own devices, I often find myself picking a choice target as my "soon to be invaded" target, and rather than focusing on it immediately, I'll send my fleet to glass anything nearby it that I'm not interested in. Then I'll invade the world of choice. Which world is the right world will change based on your tech vs your opponents, but generally you want something around size 40-60. While larger worlds are larger prizes, a base 40-60 can support a surprising amount of factories, and the AI tends to underbuild missile bases, so they're a bit softer than avg.

Once you've aquired technological parity through a series of strategic invasions, you'll want to start seeing about holding what you take. Between bases/reserves and a repulsor or strong beamship, you should be able to take a single world and hold it. Generally when that starts happening, you're winning.

There's a lot that can go differently, of course, and you'll have to adapt to it as it comes - but the general pattern tends to hold in most of my games.

Thanks. That cleared some questions and raised many more. So in the beginning I should crank the research slider on the aforementioned techs. Should I build aleast some industry before starting serious research?

How does the planetary reserve work exactly?

Is it worth my time to build population on one developed planet and transport them to the edges of my empire to get the further planets productive faster?

In the begining you want to gain new planets everything else is secondary.

Generally, this means "can I build a colony ship and settle something?" if yes - do that. If no - figure out what you need to do, and do that.

You should absolutely plan on maxing your homeworld (to build colony ships) and probably keep world 2 at about half factory maximum (to allow you to send population off to new worlds) while it works on research. As your goal is "gain new planets" you won't need better force fields, better weapons, or better computers. You will need increased range, the ability to make planets habitable, or the miniaturization and cost savings from increased construction.

I generally expand as fast as I can - then when I reach a point where it's obvious I'll need tech to get the next world after the current colony ship lands, I worry about research. The earliest I've ever opened up research in a normal start, was when my homeworld was at 180 factories, and that was just to figure out what my range techs were so I could decide if I needed to build LR Medium Hulls to defend some planets or not.

The reserve is straightforward - once BC's are in it, you spend them out to the various planets and they can "at most" double production on that planet. You get the full alotment of BCs, but only at 1x production spent per turn. To get BC's into the reserve, you will always pay a penalty. 2 BCs spent = 1 BC saved in the reserve. Now, rich planets get double the BC's for their investments in industry (the typical way to get points into the reserve) and Ultra Riches get triple. These planet types let you sort of cheat the system by putting a bit of a dent in the penalty. You can also get BCs into the reserve when you scrap active ships (you get 1/4th the cost, but it goes directly to the reserve, instead of being halved again like the other methods). You'll also deposit some overflow from various sources as projects complete (again, halved as it goes in). The last way you can get BC's is via the merchant event (full value) or by taxing your empire (this is bad - causes waste management headaches and hurts developing worlds.).

Buying population is it's own ball game. If you're playing as a race with a production advantage (Klackon/Meklon) or as a race with a growth penalty/advantage (Silicoid/Sakkra) or as the bulrathi buying population can be a very effective investment. Remember that any population you "buy" will eventually pay for itself. The only question is would you gain more from factories. For the 4 races I mention, it's often very efficient to buy population (even at 20bc per) simply because they tend to make use of it. Sakkra/Bulrathi gain a fair bit of advantage from their population in invasions (you can land thousands of lizards in sequential turns in the late game if you feel up to micromanaging the transport system). The klackon and meklar gain their investment back in terms of production very quickly, as do the silicoids (as their natural growth rate is low and generally won't keep up with factories if you don't pay attention and invest in growing rocks.)

Sirian has probably answered just about any noobish question you might have in his masterful tutorial:

http://sirian.warpcore.org/moo1/tutorial.html

If you haven't read it already, do yourself a favor and do so now. :)

So these questions are addressed to Moo1?

So these questions are addressed to Moo1?

Given the following, it looks like Rheinmetall's questions are about MOO1.
. . . . So in the beginning I should crank the research slider on the aforementioned techs. . . . . How does the planetary reserve work exactly?

Sirian has probably answered just about any noobish question you might have in his masterful tutorial:

http://sirian.warpcore.org/moo1/tutorial.html

If you haven't read it already, do yourself a favor and do so now. :)

agree! and if you have time yet to read somemore, do not miss out some excellent writeups by Sullla himself here http://www.garath.net/Sullla/MOO/moo.html

I've used most of the little time I have to read the Sirians tutorial and I must say it's quite enlightening.

I did start a new game on average. I got lucky and managed to secure a barren ultra rich planet and a minimal one with artifacts. Got two aggressive AIs as neigbours. The ants attacked first and soon the cats followed suit. I got my ass handed to me by the insects, before getting missile bases up After building a decent fleet that was faster than the insect fleet I could counter their every move. Finally they got bored fighting me and turned on the Psilons and the Bullrathi.

Is it just me or are the Mrrshans like a joke race?

Several games I've played, I've spotted them with one planet, even though they are surrounded by the most advantageous start imaginable. They never seem to get anywhere, ever.

It's a bit like the trilarian tactic on MoO2 of colonising three systems then surrendering to the nearest power (granted I've only played the lower difficulties on MoO2 since I haven't had t that long)

The mrrshans are hobbled by their usual leader's disposition (Ruthless militarist).

They start wars they can just barely win, then keep that fleet around forever.

If they start in a corner of the map where they have no contact - they tend to do ok. I've seen some very scary mrrshan in huge galaxies for instance.

For small/medium play - they get contact early, and some idiot cat orders up a fleet of LASERS. Then they tend to get crushed by the missile bases of their opposition + class 2 deflectors.

If you ever see a runaway mrrshan though...let's just say that you're in for a rough time. While they don't as a rule generate the absurd starts that some of the other races do (I'm looking at you ape-boy) they tend to capitalize on a lucky runaway better, and absolutely will butcher you if they get firmly ahead.

The cats got eaten by me and the insects.

The mrrshans are hobbled by their usual leader's disposition (Ruthless militarist).

They start wars they can just barely win, then keep that fleet around forever.

If they start in a corner of the map where they have no contact - they tend to do ok. I've seen some very scary mrrshan in huge galaxies for instance.

For small/medium play - they get contact early, and some idiot cat orders up a fleet of LASERS. Then they tend to get crushed by the missile bases of their opposition + class 2 deflectors.

If you ever see a runaway mrrshan though...let's just say that you're in for a rough time. While they don't as a rule generate the absurd starts that some of the other races do (I'm looking at you ape-boy) they tend to capitalize on a lucky runaway better, and absolutely will butcher you if they get firmly ahead.

A runaway Mrrshan must be like the Yeti, it may exist but very few have ever seen it or something lol. They are almost always the first race to get splatted when I play. I always find them and the alkaris lag behind, probably because their racial bonus doesn't lend itself to expansion very much.

A runaway Mrrshan must be like the Yeti, it may exist but very few have ever seen it or something lol. They are almost always the first race to get splatted when I play. I always find them and the alkaris lag behind, probably because their racial bonus doesn't lend itself to expansion very much.

Ruthless Expansionist Kitties are scary, rare though they may be.

I finished reading the Sirians tutorial. The amount of slider micromanagement surprised me as I tend to forget to adjust them every turn. The tech slider trickery was a valuable lesson. Time to move on the other game writeups.

One more question for the road? What sorts of ships should I take against the orion guardian? And at what tech level I actually stand a chance and will it be worth it?

One more question for the road? What sorts of ships should I take against the orion guardian? And at what tech level I actually stand a chance and will it be worth it?

that changes depending on your difficulty levels. On the lower levels you can kill it with a few armed colony ships when you get later in the tech tree

The Guardian has 6000 points at Easy and scales up to 10k at Impossible. It will look like this at Impossible:

Lightning Shields
Adv Repair
Att level 10
HEF
1 Death Ray
Shield/Beam/Missile defense level 9
85 Scatter Pack X
45 Stellar
18 Plasma Torps

So you can figure out what you need to do any damage from that. What you can expect to suffer. It is possible to take it down with low level ships, but you need a lot of them.

The mrrshans are hobbled by their usual leader's disposition (Ruthless militarist).

They start wars they can just barely win, then keep that fleet around forever.

If they start in a corner of the map where they have no contact - they tend to do ok. I've seen some very scary mrrshan in huge galaxies for instance.

For small/medium play - they get contact early, and some idiot cat orders up a fleet of LASERS. Then they tend to get crushed by the missile bases of their opposition + class 2 deflectors.

If you ever see a runaway mrrshan though...let's just say that you're in for a rough time. While they don't as a rule generate the absurd starts that some of the other races do (I'm looking at you ape-boy) they tend to capitalize on a lucky runaway better, and absolutely will butcher you if they get firmly ahead.
How each AI races start is the biggest variable, in regards to how they will perform by the mid-game. Not to mention the kinds of neighbors each encounters as they expand.

For example, there were Honorable Industrialist Psilon that started off from a corner. It had a plenty of time to expand and develop before they ran into neighboring AI races. By the mid-game, they were #1 or #2 in overall power ranking. On the other hand, in another game, there were Erratic Technologist Psilons. Unfortunately, they started from the mid-left and soon encountered early-expansion races like the Klacks, the Silics and the Alkaris. The Psilons did not do as well this time around as their expansion was overshadowed by these neighbors -- they had to be content with grabbing the scraps.

As for the Mrrshans .... not common to see them become #1 or #2 in the overall power ranking, unless they can have a spectacular early-game -- which is rare. (Although they have much easier time getting into #1 or #2 in fleet strength ranking, since their personality tend to be Militarist.) Their mediocre tech and economy tend to make their fleet a massive collection of rubbish (unless they have bioweapons and you have no antidotes).

agree! and if you have time yet to read somemore, do not miss out some excellent writeups by Sullla himself here http://www.garath.net/Sullla/MOO/moo.html

As one more note: don't be afraid to do some experimentation to find out which playstyle works best for you. I've found that in Sirian's games he often emphasizes base-building to a much larger extent than I would in similar circumstances. Sometimes this pays off for him, while at other times it's a serious drain on his economy, which might have been better served with another approach. So be flexible and don't get stuck thinking one path to success is always best!

I agree with Zed-F. Always evaluate and reevaluate what you are doing. what ever you do not have to spend on one thing, is available for another. So if you can get by on fewer or no bases on some planets, that cost can be used to fun research or ships.

I think a good starting point with regards to planetary defense would be .... how much should be good enough to prevent enemy fleet from making cheap-shot attacks? Furthermore, to what extent my tech tree contribute to planetary defense? The last question is also important, because superior missiles and shields do not provide protection against bio-weapons -- AI races have absolutely no qualm about launching massive bio-attacks.

Also, planetary defenses are more worthwhile if you are in the upper-tier of tech/economy ranking (which usually means most enemy fleets lack adequate weapons to overcome your defenses), but less so if you are behind (which usually means one or more enemy fleets consider your planetary defense as not much more than a target practice).

Finally, planetary defense loses its strategic value if the game drags into high-tech arms race. Class XX shield cannot withstand Neutronium Bombs. Not to mention that Universal Antidote does not completely neutralize Bio Terminator. So, there is a diminishing return.

If I have tech parity, the missile bases are worth the effort?

If I have tech parity, the missile bases are worth the effort?

yes, to a certain extent. And only if you have a decent planetary shield and (preferably) universal antidote.

If I have tech parity, the missile bases are worth the effort?
I'm a bit newbish myself, so take my opinions with a grain or ten of salt, but I'd say overall tech parity (per the Staus graphs) isn't the best measuring stick. Getting a current tech report on your potential attackers (with a Hiding spy) and/or sending a ship with Battle Scanner to see what's on their fleet should tell you what kinds of weapons you'll be facing. The number of missile bases you need (or should bother) to build will vary with each game, and each era within a game, depending on how your missiles and shields stack up against your enemies' designs.
Case in point: My Bugs in Space game in the most recent Impossible challenge. Against Psilons with Megabolt cannons, my bases were quite valuable once I could arm them with Merculite Missiles, even though that tech was way behind the Psilons'. Against the Humans later in the game, facing fast ships and Hard Beams, the bases were almost defenseless ... but still packed a great punch when I could protect them with Repulsor ships. Still later, when the Humans brought Doom Virus and 2-space weapons to the table, my Repulsors and planetary shields became obsolete, but with bases in large numbers, upgraded with Stinger missiles, I was able to shred enemy ships before they could touch the planet. In all of these cases, I was well behind the AI on the tech graphs, too.
In short, I agree wholeheartedly with Zed and vmxa: There's no one "right" way to use missile bases ... or any other single aspect of the game. You have to adapt to each game situation, and experiment to see what tactics fit best with your overall playstyle. To me, that's one of the best things about the game.

I've actually faced a similar situation where I had to use repulsors to keep the enemy bombers away from my planets to give the missile bases time to do their trick. The humans had advanced bombs that levelled 20 bases just like that, however at the same time thier ships were vulnerable to my advanced missiles.

Yes late in the game, you will need to defend with ships as they can bust anything potentially. They can move much quicker acrossed the grid.

Bio attacks are a pain, that is why you want to treat them like bombers.

So in truth the missile bases defense is on a case by case basis. In some scenarios, it will be a lock and others it will be iffy and still in others it will not do anything.

If I have tech parity, the missile bases are worth the effort?

That's really an excellent question, so let me chime in as well. As far as tech parity goes, once you really know the game inside and out, it becomes kind of a moot point. I once phrased it in this delicious tautology: "on Impossible, the game is essentially won if the player ever reaches tech parity (because you won't reach that point unless you know what you're doing, and if you know what you're doing, the AI won't beat you without a tech lead!)" :lol:

Missile bases are really designed to serve as a crutch to keep you in the game UNTIL you can reach tech parity. Honestly, 95% of the time on Impossible the AIs all have unbeatable fleets flying around in space, forcing me to huddle behind my bases for survival. The other 5% of the time, when I can actually fight them in space, simply consists of the endgame mopup. (Note: since space combat plays such a minor role in this game, it's a major reason why the Mrrshans are the worst race!)

I think of missile bases more as "OMG, the Alkari are attacking with ELEVEN THOUSAND SHIPS!" and I'd better pray that my bases can hold them off:

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/MOO/Holding%20On/HO-29.jpg

I hope that makes sense. :) I build more bases than a lot of other players, although still well shy of Sirian-esque levels.

I've yet to reach the point where I can tackle impossible. :)

I tend to push very agressively on expansion, then setup a front line of worlds who's sole job is to be the border. I'll launch ground invasions to get my 4th colony just so that 4th colony will be a "border" world and let my homeworld be safe.

It's strange, but once I started agressively expanding and just really forcing the AI to fight on my terms I had a much better success rate in impossible. While they still have fleets I can't handle sometimes, it's far more likely that we'll have a standstill at "border world x" while the rest of my empire doesn't have to worry about them, which in turn means I can continue to expand/spy/research. Of course, this style of play has a downside - if I get a start with a radiated in my "core" and silicoids on the map, it's a pain. I've started to just gropo the coids early whenever they're in a game with me, as their early population growth really can't take the loss of colonists (especially if I spend to grow more) to try and compensate - it keeps things interesting.

Mrshans use to fare poorly indeed, but they are a very weak race anyway (they negate alkari bonus, but that's about it...)
Missile bases are definitely worth it. They won't stop a determined large fleet (but these ones are easy to track), but gives a good support to defending ships, and prevent colonies from being bombed to dust by a tiny wandering strike forces.

Their being only invulnerable to most of the ennemy fleet (anything but the high end missile carriers and bombers, that is, until everyone starts fielding mauler devices/stellar converter, but it happens pretty late) can force huge fleets into retreat.

Even with the Alkari, I had to rely massively (I had about 150-600/border plante) on these (but it was late game in impossible, and the Psilons could reach most of my planets in 1 year travel time from their ones)

I seem to be having problems with my ship designs. Even if I have tech parity I can't seem to produce cost effective designs. I get kicked around by much larger AI fleets, even when I try to pick my fights carefully. I can't outproduce the AI so what would be the right way to approach this?

That depends on many things. What is the level? What point in the game are we talking about? How big is the map and how many planets do you have?

What kind of planets are they, big Ocean/Jungle/Terran or small hostile world not rich or ultra rich?

What races are you playing?

I've played just about any race. Level is average, sometimes hard. Medium map. I usually manage to secure my share of the planets. How much resources should I dedicate to my fleet and how should my fleet composition adapt to my available resources?

If you're playing on average, and you only have your fair share of the planets, then you are not expanding quickly enough. On average, it is generally trivially simple to get far more than your fair share of the planets, providing that you don't get totally screwed by the map generator.

My advice would be to expand as aggressively as possible. Let the AI tell you when you've expanded too far by taking over a couple of your outlying colonies. Colony ships are cheap to build and every world you can snatch away at the beginning of the game is one you don't have to conquer later.

Take a look at some of the succession games threads for tips on strategies/tactics to let you do that. Some things to think/read about are how to transfer pop around in your empire to encourage max pop growth early on, the best uses for poor and ultra-poor planets and for rich/ultra-rich planets, some of the important techs for early expansion and economic growth, and what techs you need in order to make long range colony ships.

Can you post a save as it is hard to use such broad terms and get any place. I do not remember avg level, but even at hard you should get your share. If you are not on the left of the election vote right away, you probably did not expand well enough in a decent map.

Another tip off is that you are at parity in tech. You should have more planets than them and more research and hence ahead. You can do that on that level without even trading.

If you have decent construction techs, you should be able to make better ships than they will. It then comes down to do your ship designs not match up with the job they are given.

IOW if the bugs are sending lots of small/tiny ships and you are using missile ships to kill them, it may not be the tech, it is just that missiles do not kill large numbers unless they are in large number.

If you face beamers with range 2 and repulsor, you need a counter and so forth.

Can you post a save as it is hard to use such broad terms and get any place. I do not remember avg level, but even at hard you should get your share. If you are not on the left of the election vote right away, you probably did not expand well enough in a decent map.

Another tip off is that you are at parity in tech. You should have more planets than them and more research and hence ahead. You can do that on that level without even trading.

If you have decent construction techs, you should be able to make better ships than they will. It then comes down to do your ship designs not match up with the job they are given.

IOW if the bugs are sending lots of small/tiny ships and you are using missile ships to kill them, it may not be the tech, it is just that missiles do not kill large numbers unless they are in large number.

If you face beamers with range 2 and repulsor, you need a counter and so forth.

So you're saying I should use missileboats against large ships? What I really need I guess is more play experience.

Regular missles such as Hyper-X have real difficulty against swarms of tiny ships. Each tiny ship absorbs one missile, even if it only has 3 hp and the missile hits for 30. On the other hand, Scatter Pack missiles are very efficient against swarms.

In turn, scatter packs are very inefficient against high level shields (planets, larger ships) while normal missiles are generally some of the most efficient (only surpassed by bombs).

There's a very nice not-quite hard counter philosophy to the various techs.

What I am saying is you have to evaluate the task and design a ship to deal with it. Experience is of course the thing that helps you make the proper choice.

You cannot make the proper choice, however, if you have not been able to get a good empire going. At average level that should not be a problem.

So to see if you are not getting the empire up to snuff or just not making useful design, we need to see a save. Post one where you were first running into problems with combat.

I'll see if I can find one for you.

[EDIT] I haven't got such save on my hands right now. I'll start another game saturday, and probably drift again into a situation I can't handle. I'll upload a save then.

[EDIT2] I played one game on average as the insects on sunday, but somehow managed to win it quite easily. I'll try hard next time and try my best to get into trouble so I can post a save. I don't think it takes much trying.

It isn't too hard to win on average once you figure out what you're doing, particularly as the Klackons or the Psilons.

This is kind of a non-sequitar, but I find that I can generally focus on a few kinds of ships and get great sucess.

-The Auto-Repair Special World Killer
This is basically a Huge design with ARS, the best shields and computers available, the small version of the best beams available, and some bombs. These can wreck enemy empires but aren't as valuable on the defensive. The best part about them is the attrition rate they create; one ARS ship can mow down tons of enemy ships without needing to be replaced.
-The Gunship
This is simply the ARS without the bombs. A particularly devastating version of this ship is a gunship with the large version of the best beams available and the repulsor beam. This design can fend off huge enemy fleets are ideal for guarding key planets. It's even more deadly with the High Energy Focus special. I find that if the player can field a gunship with the HEF special and megabolt cannons, the AI doesn't stand a chance.
-The bomber
This is a very intuitive design. Basically it's just a small/medium ship loaded up with the best engines available and as many bombs as possible. These stacks are even more devastating with the Inertial Stabalizer and Cloaking specials that render the stacks essentially untouchable.

I'm not a big fan of missile boats, though I can see how they'd be useful in large quantities. However, I'm not a fan of a weapon that can run out in the middle of a battle, and it doesn't seem like the missiles are ever strong enough to compensate for that deficiency. Exceptions are when the enemy is fielding huge numbers of small ships that can be eaten up by missile boats and when the player is lacking in any good beam tech, which will happen. I also prefer Huge designs over medium/small designs. While I can appreciate the flexibility of the small/medium designs, I prefer building a few Huge's that defend my border colonies and allow my main planets to focus on research without having to devote resources to endlessly rebuilding small/medium ships.

Missile boats are much better at attrition: the idea is not to defeat the ennemy fleet, but to reduce it drastically:
you load these with 2 shot missile racks, unload both racks during the first 2 turns, and retreat ASAP (you need to stay until the missile hit through, if I recall).
That allows you to inflict heavy damages without losing much of your fleet, and work ok against fleets with a slightly better tech (although there will come times when the psilon shields will allow them to stop all your missile fire...)

The good part is that they don't need any armor, shield, or even good tactical engine technology...

Huge designs are usually not worth it until late in the game cost wise (repair scales horribly), and then are only good as support, especially if you lag behind the AI in the technology department (which happens a lot in impossible) and should only be used for the special super heavy toys (and yes, they work much better with high energy focus).

Hi guys, I'm another newbie to MoO. Played MoO2 for ages, then decided to find out if the original was better (which in my opinion, it is). Been reading around these forums, and various game reports (including Sirian's) to learn how to be a force to be reckoned with.

I've managed to win a few games on Average difficulty. I usually do okay, except when I find myself in close proximity to the Alkari. How do y'all usually deal with land-grab competitions with these hard-to-hit birds?

Basically you can either go hard on expansion or you can build up what you have till you are strong enough to deal with them. Expanding is the best way as it mean less for the AI to have and means they cannot get techs as quickly or fleet as large a number of ships.

Alright. One more question: What do you do if the computer boxes you in, and you end up with fewer planets than your competition?

What size map are you on? Basically you have to hunker down until you get a decent design that can hold off the AI after you storm a planet. Usually you will have some trait that can give you an edge.

You may be able to swoop in on a planet that is being fought over by others and grab it and hold it.

The only time you should be boxed in though is on a small map. Even on impossible you can get plenty of planet on all the other map sizes. I often have to make do with 4 planets on small maps for a long time.

It happened a while ago on a large map, where I was unlucky enough to start with no stars in colonizable range and had a planetology tech tree that even the Meklars would laugh at (I was Sakkra, go figure). The Alkari managed to spread and block my expansion, and under pressure I tried to take some systems from them. I've since learned that it is not a good idea to attack the Alkari early if your computer tech tree hasn't given you Battle Computers.

Ah well, at least each loss is a learning experience (My only other one so far taught me to be scared of early human diplomatic victories).

You can get some bad maps. Probably the most dangerous is a Human race, with a good start as they can get an early vote. BTW if you run into a map that give you trouble, post the save and you can get some feedback that is specific.

Something i learned the hard way is that you need to expand your empire very quickly and as big as possible starting from the beginning of the game.

If you turtle early or wait too long before expanding, the AI will take the place and most of the good systems, they will then progressively be more advanced than you , will then resist to any of your attempt at stealing techs and will have bigger fleets.

And if they do not destroy you, they will defeat you in the amount of vote.

So it is important you get a good sized empire to avoid being left behind quickly or to be defeated by vote without being able to do anything about it.

Building planetary defenses when you can and is another "must do" to avoid losing systems on your frontier.
Later, do not forget to build such defense in your more internal systems, as the AI will have better propulsion and fuel and will be able to strike deep into your territory.

I remember losing my proud but undefended rich homeworld just after having finished to build lots of missiles bases on my border systems :D

Reading most of the AAR on this forum is another good idea, i learned a lot from the people playing those challenges.

I've got a save game I'd like some comments on. I did win this game, but I'm just wondering if anyone has any pointers on what I could've done better.

Psilons
Hard Mode
Medium Galaxy
5 opponents
Victory: Diplomatic (year 2425)

Ukko should've been mine, but I left it unblockaded for one turn and the Alkari took it during that brief period (the Klackons invaded it later). Otherwise, I'm pretty sure I did okay.

Slot 1 has my save at the beginning of the game, slot 2 has my save right before the election.

EDIT: Removed the attachment, don't need the save game up here any longer.

Winning is always good. Will look at it tomorrow, trying to finish my turn set in an SG.

If you are going for a quick diplo win, then you did everything fine. I did wonder why you are putting all the spending in that huge ship at Mentar? It has no engine and uses lasers, I would not build it.

I would up my spending on planetology to get that soil. I would up my spending on Propulsion to get the engine. You can reduce Force as you already have shield.

If you did not get the vote, you could expect the AI to get uppity once the trade goes positive for you, so a war would probably be coming.

I was only building that ship to build up my reserves so I could bang out a whole bunch of small bomber ships once fusion bombs came in (does this count as an exploit?). I was specifically spending on force fields in hopes that I could render the Klackon's merc missiles useless, but I suppose they get new weapons faster than I get shields.

Thanks for the tips, hopefully it won't be long before I feel ready to tackle Impossible.

One of the things that is a catch 22 on shields to me is that, the time needed to get a missile up is too long as you get better shields.

The other thing that struck me is the terraforming. With +10 only, it is hard to do anything. Research takes longer and bases take longer as does ships. So I like to get either +20 or +30 to get more pop and hence more factories and ultimately more income.

You also will be asking to lose the planets with so many going up with no defenders at once and so far apart. You only have nuc engine, so could not get to any planet, if you did have ships.

Your bases would not be very effective with hyper x missiles, so that is another issue.

I do want to mention that I do not allow myself to make trade or tech packs or use alliances. That colors my choices, since I will not have any friends. Also I rarely allow peace, once a war starts.

These variants are just preferences, not recommendations. You can do impossible now.

...so I could bang out a whole bunch of small bomber ships once fusion bombs came in

Though I haven't had time to look at the save, I suspect you wouldn't have been able to fit an F-Bomb on a small yet; you need a fair amount of miniaturization (superior weapon and construction tech - especially weapon tech for bombs) before you can manage that. Also, as vmxa points out:

You only have nuc engine, so could not get to any planet, if you did have ships.

On the combat screen, a stack of bombers with nuclear engines and maximum maneuver still takes something like four volleys from missile bases (and may be attacked by enemy ships) before it can even attack for the first time. That's potentially a lot of attrition, especially since (with such low maneuverability) the ships will be hit pretty often.

Basically, in the games where Fusion Bombers appeared to lead SG teams to victory, endgame wasn't achieved with the acquisition of F-Bombs; rather, the teams went back for F-Bombs (or used Omega-Vs or whatever when necessary) when their economies and research levels were endgame-ready.

RefSteel,
I was not talking about bombers or attacking anyone. I was talking about defending all the planets he has that have neither bases nor ships and will not have any for a long time.

They were size 10 and had just barely started and he had only+1o terraforming. Many of those planets were at the far end of the empire and had other races on all sides.

You would not even need an attack there, just someone sending in troops and the planet is gone.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the AI generally doesn't attack planets that they don't have the tech to colonize, right? Most of those undefended planets were dead to toxic, and the AIs were up to about barren/tundra. I figured I had a little time to get these planets going on their own.

I find that I tend to prioritize controlled hostile environments over terraforming so I can grab as many planets as possible. Do my planets need the extra industry that much?

Not if you are going for a vote and are not a race that is likely to not have friends, read Darlok, Klacks and such. I just do not like to go for a vote. I also think that is not a given that I will have access to colony tech as a race other than the brains. So I cannot rely on colonizing toxic and such while others cannot.

You can expect the AI to be able to match and exceed your research at impossible, so I do not want to rely on them not being able to land on my planet. What if you have Silicoids?

They have bombed me on planets they did not even try to colonize. I am not sure if they could or not.

To me, I want more pop and more factories as that leads to more of everything. Again, I am not going to have vote, I will abstain regardless of the vote. I will not even vote for someone to get browning points.

I disagree with much of what vmxa is saying here. You should alway strive to colonize as many worlds as possible. Colony ships are cheap in this game once you get past the initial turns; if there's even the slightest chance that you can take and hold a world, it's worth doing, IMO. Sometimes that means prioritizing the hostile environment techs, sometimes it doesn't. Much depends on the map, race, and situation you find your self playing. But it's almost always better to stretch your neck out too far and make the AI take it away from you, rather than sitting back and letting them colonize worlds unopposed.

I also don't want this to come off as a criticism, but vmxa has a very unorthodox style of play, as evidenced by this comment:

I do want to mention that I do not allow myself to make trade or tech packs or use alliances. That colors my choices, since I will not have any friends. Also I rarely allow peace, once a war starts.

Cutting out trades, tech exchanges, and alliances neuters the diplomatic side of Master of Orion. (It also often makes the game much harder, since the player can usually work diplomacy much better than the AI.) Again, I'm not trying to criticize vmxa, only point out that some of his suggestions are a little bit off for someone who is not playing his particular style of game. (We called this the "tactless" variant in Civ3 when following similar rules.)

That is why I pointed that out. I do it to make the games harder and to not have to bother talking to the AI. That is why I mostly play AW in Civ. I hope I did not say not to colonize as many as you can, only that in his game, if he did not get trades and did not get the vote, he had many planets that we hung out to dry as he also had no fleet.

Elerians and custom races are in Moo2.

I'll keep all this in mind. I'm currently in the middle of trying my first Impossible game. Will say more when I finish.

Cutting out trades, tech exchanges, and alliances neuters the diplomatic side of Master of Orion. (It also often makes the game much harder, since the player can usually work diplomacy much better than the AI.)

That line about how it works better for the human, is why I do not like it. You can often just abuse the AI with the diplomacy. Players strive to make a trade for the sole purpose of getting browny points and delaying attacks or getting votes to go their way.

Moo2 was much worse as you could just get a small leg up on ships and demand their pants.

So to me the diplomacy is just broken and should be neutered. I would have loved it, if I could strike a tech trade and it would stay in place for the whole game and we could "all just get along", but as it is you cannot.

You can get them to last much longer as a Human, but in the end they break down.

You also can get them to war or ally too easy, I just ignore the whole thing. This is much easier in Moo2, you just go repulsive and they cannot make talks and you cannot do anything diplomatically.

Anyway Sulla feel free to criticize, I do not take it personally and I am always in the market to learn or be convinced. Disagreements are not criticism per se, I can disagree and still like and respect someone.

I have been know to disagree with my own position from time to time, not to mention being wrong and or confused.

Finished my first Impossible game. Psilons (to ease transition), 5 opponents, Medium galaxy, color red. (My favorite settings)

Short version:

Runaway humans stole the election
http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Mega_Impossible1_17.gif

Long version:

First things first, I take a look at my galaxy:

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Mega_Impossible1_01.gif

I don't expect that yellow star to my northeast to have an AI on it, but I have to be prepared for the possiblity that the next two closest yellow stars each have AIs on them.

I could send the colony ship north blind and risk getting a less-than-ideal planet, or I could wait for scouts to explore both systems before I send out the colony, and potentially lose planets to the north that I could've gotten otherwise if I had made a bold grab.

Being my first impossible game, I decide to take the safe route. Explore the systems first, but build a few more scouts now so that I can blockade systems from early AI scouts.

Scouts explore the system to my north:

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Mega_Impossible1_02.gif

That's a really good system. Should I wait for the other scout to report back? I hate keeping my colony ship at Mentar not doing anything. This planet is good enough, I'll send it now.

Next turn, scouts reveal that I made the right choice:

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Mega_Impossible1_03.gif

One turn later I settle Tauri, transport 17 colonists from Mentar, and order enough scouts to cover all the systems in range. While my two colonies build up factories, I get the following picture of my surrounding area:

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Mega_Impossible1_04.gif

My scouts chased away Klackon scouts at the three colonys in the upper right of my scouting area, and I scouted a Bulrathi colony to the north. Circled are my guesses at homeworld locations.

This is bad. Klackons are right on top of me already, which means that I'm going to need to get going just to grab these few planets near me. Expansion beyond that is going to be difficult, since the bugs will likely cut me off.

After maxing my industry on Mentar, I take a look at my research options and sigh in relief.

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Mega_Impossible1_05.gif

I need range 5 to grab that Terran planet near the Klackon border. I prioritize propulsion spending, but also leave some in construction and planetology (since my economy will need all the help it can get).

Mentar starts churning out colony ships. My other colony reaches half factories, and since it'll be shipping out lots of population, I stop there and have it start building some laser ships so I can defend myself from brush wars.

Unfortunately, it probably won't be long before these brush wars turn hot.

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Mega_Impossible1_06.gif

I establish 75 BC/year trade treaties to give them one less reason to attack me. Improved Terraforming pops at 26%, opening Controlled Dead and Death Spores. I take the obvious choice of Controlled Dead.

Colonizing the fertile planet brings me contact with the Klackons who are, well,

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Mega_Impossible1_07.gif

Trapped in a corner by two races who will look for any reason to declare war on me? This does not look good for me. Scouts find a planet that looks like a hot potato:

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Mega_Impossible1_08.gif

The Mrrshan owned it when I first explored it. Now they don't. The Bulrathi are apparantly at war with the Meklars, the Humans and the Mrrshan. I'm taking another look at the galaxy map:

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Mega_Impossible1_09.gif

The three races I haven't met yet have all got to be in the circled areas somewhere. Somebody is going to have some HUGE backlines, unless I somehow manage to get to those systems and stake my own claim. I'm not so worried about the Bulrathi now because with 3 wars going on already, they'll be loathe to declare it on me.

Klackon colony of Exis turns rich. Why?! They don't need the help! Then GNN reports that Humans have 6 systems. I hope this doesn't turn into an early diplomatic defeat. After grabbing all the systems within reach, I sit back and build up what I have.

25 years of minimal investment into spying have brought me this piece of news:

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Mega_Impossible1_10.gif

They have fusion bombs already?!?! Am I not going to get a single break this game? I up my trade agreements and establish non-aggression pacts with the bears and the bugs. Nothing much happens, while I build up my colonies and then their defenses.

The early diplomatic defeat begins looking more likely:

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Mega_Impossible1_11.gif

Same year, the elections are held. If the Bulrathi hadn't been at war with everyone, I would've lost this one for sure:

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Mega_Impossible1_12.gif

I try and break up the Klackon-Human alliance, but the Klackons won't hear of it. My construction tree has so far failed to offer me any cheaper factories, so I trade the Klackons range 5 fuel for improved industry 9.

A few short years later, the next election is even closer:

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Mega_Impossible1_13.gif

I don't even have contact with the damned apes yet. The best I can hope for right now is that Galactic World War I begins soon, and people stop voting for the humans just because they look pretty. Hyper-X rockets have popped and my three worlds near the Bulrathi border have a few missile bases up, so I begin spying on the computer-challenged bears.

Then I realize that I don't want to turn my one friend in the galaxy against me, so I shift spying over to the Klackons.

The Mrrshan temporarily re-establish control over the ultra poor planet and we meet for the first time. I take another look at the map.

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Mega_Impossible1_14.gif

The Bulrathi and Mrrshan have been totally stunted, and even the Klackons have only 5 systems. The Humans have probably been colonizing the entire eastern half of the galaxy uncontested.

I foolishly set up trade treaties with the Mrrshan, forgetting that they will not hold that ultra poor planet for long.

I no longer have any hope that I'll be able to defend my systems if I get into a hot war.

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Mega_Impossible1_15.gif

I'm missing planetary shields. But maybe I won't need the shields. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to be left alone. I still have hope, don't I?

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Mega_Impossible1_16.gif

Apparantly not. And this is three years before the next election!

Desparate, I give deep space scanner to the Mrrshan and then ask them to break their alliance with the humans. They refuse. Game over. There was nothing I could do except to sit back and watch helplessly as the Humans effortlessly took the throne.

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Mega_Impossible1_17.gif

Not much I could do about this. I'd taken every planet I could. Attacking the Bulrathi would only have turned them against me sooner, and the Klackons would be impossible to attack thanks to their planetary shields and repulsor beams. I take one final look at the graphs:

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Mega_Impossible1_18.gif

I'm competitive with the other stunted empires. I can only imagine what I would've been able to do if I hadn't been stunted myself. The only reason I lost this game was bad luck. I'll get you next time, Gadget!

Will read the long version tomorrow, but for sure the Humans can get votes. I hate to see them n a good start location. Better if they get shunted off in a corner and are not up for election.

Nice writeup Megafrost, and it looks like you played well in the face of adversity. :goodjob: Since you posted that info about your game, I have a few questions:

Was Deep Space Scanner the only tech you could give to the Mrrshan? Those tech offerings move relations up one full level on average (for example, Neutral to Relaxed), though it's proportional depending on whether your tech gift is equal to, higher than, or lower in level than their current tech level in that area. Also tech gifts add +5 each permanently to races' "Core Reaction" (a number that figures into most AI diplomatic considerations) towards you as explained in the strategy guide. Related to that, what "flavor" of Mrrshan were in this game (e.g. Ruthless Militarist or whatever)? You mentioned the characteristics of the Klackon and Bulrathi but not the Mrrs. Xenophobic races add -50 to their "Core Reaction" and halve positive diplo effects such as the one-level-per-tech gift I described earlier, so they are very difficult to negotiate with. If the Mrrs were Xenophobes then the game setup you had was just that much harder.

And last, how did you make that image with the overlapping pictures of the various technology choice boxes? That was a nice touch.

Mrrshan were xenophobic militarists. Deep space scanner wasn't the only tech I could've given them, but I wasn't keen on giving them technology they could use against me (I believe my other options were hyper-X rockets, sub-light drives, duralloy armor and personal deflection shield). Not that giving them anything else would've helped. I loaded my final save, gave them everything I had, and they still refused to break alliance and voted for the apes.

I use Paintshop Pro 6 for my image-editing. It has this nice option for cutting out a section of one image and pasting it in another.

The Xenophobia would explain why even giving them all of your tech didn't change the outcome of your audience with them (and by extension, the outcome of the game).

By the way, in the graph it looks like you did especially well relative to the Klackons with their worker productivity bonus (plus the 50% production bonus all AI players get on impossible). In a game I recently played on Hard (where the AI bonus is "only" 25%), the Klackons had a "Production" bar nearly the length of my Sakkras' bar for a very long time even though I had high Planetology tech (increasing my worker productivity) and was basically a runaway race due to a favorable map setup. I crunched some numbers relating to our respective populations, worker productivities, and numbers of factories and couldn't figure out how their bar was even close to mine. And in case anyone mentions it, yes, I know the Production graph is logarithmic, I just think that my lead should have been even more apparent on the graph than it was. But enough about that; nice showing in the graphs.

Thanks for sharing about Paintshop Pro, that is a nice feature.

Thanks for sharing, Megafrost. Sorry to hear it didn't work out though. :( Anyway, here are the long and short comments on your game.

Short: That was a horribly unbalanced map, and you had very little chance to win. When the diplomacy broke in favor of the Humans, it practically sealed the deal. MOO doesn't try to balance the starting positions, so it's going to happen sometimes.

Long: There were some things you could have done differently that might have helped a bit, though unlikely to change the overall outcome.

Being my first impossible game, I decide to take the safe route. Explore the systems first, but build a few more scouts now so that I can blockade systems from early AI scouts.

I always send the colony ship to the most promising-looking planet immediately, although this is more of a personal preference than anything else. Still, by waiting two turns for scouts to report, then two turns to send colony ship, you only come out marginally ahead of moving colony ship on the first turn (2 turns), then moving it again to the "better" planet (4 turns) assuming you made the wrong choice. AND you can use one of those scouts to investigate another unexplored planet. I think the math generally supports moving the colony ship right away, if only by a tiny margin.

One turn later I settle Tauri, transport 17 colonists from Mentar, and order enough scouts to cover all the systems in range.

Now this was, I believe, a mistake. Not in terms of sending 17 colonists, but sending them all at once. Remember that the homeworld only begins with 40m population on Hard/Impossible. Assuming that it grew to roughly 50m in the intervening turns, that still dropped the population down close to 30m, stunting the development of industry significantly. I would have sent the same 17m colonists, but done so in small batches of 3m each turn over a period of several turns. This hurts the homeworld less, at the cost of slowing the development of the second colony - which is clearly worth it in the early game.

After maxing my industry on Mentar, I take a look at my research options and sigh in relief.

Another minor issue. If you look at the games of a lot of the veterans players, you'll see that they usually only open a couple of tech fields at the start of the game - Planetology and Propulsion being the biggies. I think you get more of a bang early in the game by concentrating research in these fields, then going back and opening up the rest at a later date. You don't really NEED Weapons or Force Field tech until later on, so why invest scanty RPs in them until you do?

Mentar starts churning out colony ships. My other colony reaches half factories, and since it'll be shipping out lots of population, I stop there and have it start building some laser ships so I can defend myself from brush wars.

This generally looked like a good plan. I probably wouldn't even have opened the tech fields until I had produced colony ships for both of the nearby worlds, but that's more of a personal preference. I do think the Terran world to the east was safer than you made it out to be in the report; if it was Range 5 to you, it was probably Range 6 or more to the Klackons, and we all know how good they aren't at researching Propulsion tech. ;)

Diplomatically, there wasn't a whole lot you could do, since you couldn't even talk to the Humans or Meklar, and the Erratic Bulrathi chose the worst possible moment to declare war. Unfortunately, the Humans will luck into those early-game cheese victories sometimes, with little you can do about it. Overall though, this was pretty well-played, and you're likely to do well with a less brutal map draw. Based on your info, it sounds like the Meklar started at one of the two yellows in the extreme north, and the Humans had free run on the entire eastern galaxy. :eek:

I hope you enjoyed this Kobaiyashi Maru scenario...

I had the same thoughts as Sulla. Go ahead and send out the colony ship. To me you can either sent out as many pop as you can replace with no additional econ spending or even wait a bit to build the home world.

Look at the screen when you double click the planet and you will see how many pop it will add, usually 3 at this stage. So you can send them out as you do not have enough factories to keep everyone busy anyway.

I am fine either way, but dropping down to 23 pop will cost you. On the tech, you have no need for Force or Weapons at the start, because if you do, you are dead anyway.

Thanks again for the tips. Just one thing I want to make a comment about:

Another minor issue. If you look at the games of a lot of the veterans players, you'll see that they usually only open a couple of tech fields at the start of the game - Planetology and Propulsion being the biggies. I think you get more of a bang early in the game by concentrating research in these fields, then going back and opening up the rest at a later date. You don't really NEED Weapons or Force Field tech until later on, so why invest scanty RPs in them until you do?

Most of the time when I start building colony ships, I can spare a few ticks towards research without affecting the building time. If I'm only just opening the fields then, any extra RP beyond the 3 needed to open go to waste, right? If I already have the RP, I figure I should make the most of it and open every field.

Most of the time when I start building colony ships, I can spare a few ticks towards research without affecting the building time. If I'm only just opening the fields then, any extra RP beyond the 3 needed to open go to waste, right? If I already have the RP, I figure I should make the most of it and open every field.

That's correct, and you may want to see what your options are (perfectly valid strategy). I'm operating here on the principle of trying to avoid wasting any RP at all. :)

Magafrost: You only need 2 RP to open a tech field and you lose 10% that first turn (and subsequent turns if you cease further investment). So extra investment is not wasted in fields you expect to continue. I'd rather have extra investment in Planetology & Propulsion than check fields I know I will not pursue yet.


jmas: AI production bonus on hard is 50% & 100% on impossible, not as advertised.

sargon0, where is that reported? The guide says 25 and 50.

I think the computer may get production bonuses on Average as well, or at the very least, begin with funds already in the planetary reserve. I had an Average game where the apes colonized a third planet in 2308, and a Human player can't possibly build a colony ship that quickly unless you cheat to double production on your home world.

vmxa, the production bonuses I quote are my own analysis from savefiles. When you start an impossible game you can see the player homeworld total productivity of 51 compared to AI homeworld total productivity of 102 (normal races).


Megafrost, AI productivity bonus on average is 25% but note AI races get free colony ships on impossible and probably other levels as well.

I know what the players gets, but I don't know of anyway to check on the AI production. If you are agreeing that it is 25% on Hard, then that is what I understood. It is the 50 and 100% you mentioned, that I was unclear about.

Everyone gets a free colony ship and 2 scouts, are you saying they get more than that to start? I have not seen that and it is easy to check by using the GALAXY cheat.

AI races get free colony ships on impossible and probably other levels as well.

I've seen references to this elsewhere on this forum (sometimes as "AI colships do not disappear when forming a colony") - and it seems like it must be right, based on AI behavior - but do you know the exact mechanics of this? Do you mean that the AI starts the game with >1 initial (free) colships, or that colships appear at AI worlds at semi-random times throughout the game without apparent cost to the AI in question, or (as my above paraphrase implies) are they "free" in the sense that it costs the AI nothing (no lost ship) to build a colony?

*sigh*

Tried a second Impossible game, playing as Klackons. Drew another corner start, and while I did grab a much bigger chunk than last time, it wasn't enough to prevent the AIs from unanimously voting the Psilons into office. Even though they were only allied with the Humans and I was not at war with anyone.

Don't feel like saying anything else at the moment except to show the graphs 10 years before the election:

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Megafrost_impossible2_26.gif

I ran a quick test as best as I could on impossible. Watching Nazin.

2300 40 pop 30 fact. Guessing about 105 production at 50%.
2301 42-37
2302 45-46
2303 47-56
2304 50-67
2305 54-80 colony ship pops out. The best I can tell is they are t 211 production. The ship should have had about 380 BC into it. No other AI made a ship so far.

Ship cost 591BC for me.

2306 56-95
2307 60-112
2308 63-132 2nd new colony ship, no other have one.
2309 66-132 3rd new colony, still no others. Note they did not make any factories this time.

I put a bit more into the test and maybe someone can explain things better, as I am not sure of any of it.


2300 40 pop 30 fact. Guessing about 105 production at 50%.
2301 42-37 [120]
2302 45-46 [137]
2303 47-56 [155]
2304 50-67 [183]
2305 54-80 colony ship pops out. The best I can tell is they are at 211
production. The ship should have had about 380 BC into it. No other AI made a ship so far. [211]

Sssla 66 pop, 81 factories.
Altair 53 pop, 85 factories. Note they are not making as many scout/fighters as Sssla.

Colony Ship cost 591BC for me.

2306 56-95
2307 60-112
2308 63-132 2nd new colony ship, no other have one.
2309 66-132 3rd new colony, still no others. Note they did not make any
factories this time.

Now if the book is correct they really should get .5RP for each pop and 1 each factory and a 50% bonus. That is 75 and is if it 100%, it would make 100.

So how can we get the numbers to work for a ship at turn 5 and 50 more factories? Cost are about 591BC for the ship and 500 for the factories.
Using .5 for pop and 100% for bonus:

2300 100
2301 116
2302 132
2303 160
2304 184
2305 224

total 916 not too far off.

I took no consideration of any tech as none should be available at this point.
The numbers are nearly the same for the first 4 turns with either calculation, but start to change as the number of factories goes up.

I also did not have a means to consider waste or any cost.

The one thing it does look like is they do not get free colony ships, else the other two races I looked at would have gotten at least one. The darloks had 3 cranked out.

It does appear as if they are getting 100% bonus, that is the only way I could see it. I also did not factor in any increase for the pop, which is affected by Planet techs. I think the true value is not .5 per pop, but .53. Klacs of course are double.

I am not sure if the .03 makes any difference of any significance in this sample.

vmxa, we seem to be talking at slightly crossed purposes. When I said on impossible you could 'see' the AI production I was referring to using a hex editor to interrogate the savefile where all the information you see for your own planets is also stored for AI planets - if you know the format you can see the AI production of 102 (ie. floor(30*1 + 40*.53) + 100%). Production bonus is 50% for Hard and 25% for Average.

Also in save is AI slider settings starting on impossible at 17% ECO 83% IND building factories until MAX for current pop, as you reached in 2308 in your example, then switching to even split, after ECO, between DEF and TECH until sufficient bases. Despite all this ECO/IND/DEF/TECH spend the AI will still show up with extra Colony ships without a single investment in SHIP. The AI do not get extra free Colony ships at start but appear 'at random', I suspect it goes something like: AI has opportunity to expand, a random roll determines if it will expand this turn and if successful it is given a free Colony ship to allow it, simplifying a key phase of the game for the AI. You cannot see this all from GALAXY cheat but you can verify AI is staying clean, building factories and bases (at discounted cost) while Colony ships appear cheaply (and in fact free).

I will look to do a more detailed turn by turn example, if you wish.

I figured out the .53 and 100% with a simple test run, as I do not have the offset to examine either saves or memory. It looks to me like they could run the ECO at the standard levels to stay clean and build the number of factories that they build each turn and still pump cash into a ship.

83% should have make more than 7 factories on turn one? Anyway it looks like something strange is going on.

With no knowledge of the internal settings, I could see they appear to make enough to build all the factories that they built and do ECO and still put something into a ship, but not enough to pop the first one.

The second one is a bit off, the third one is crazy. No legit way for them to do that. I have no clue why neither of the other races got a colony ship. A glance around does show they may not have had habitable planets beyond the start colony ship.

Anyway my purpose was to see if A) they got 50 or 100% and B) see if thy get free colony ships. It looks like they get 100 and free ships. I wonder why they did not get that correct in the guide.

On production values 102 total prod is 89 after maint (same as human) and 83% produces 7 factories at 10 BC each. I assume the production bonuses changed after the guide was compiled. Either playtesting or early release (final game is version 1.3) showed the game was fun but too easy so they increased the production bonuses. It would always be nice to see a smarter AI but I'm happy with the change since it produced a fun and challenging game.

Third time's a charm. :)

http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/Megafrost_impossible3_win.gif

Medium galaxy, 5 opponents, Impossible, victory date of 2575. I find it interesting that my first victory on this difficulty was with one of the weaker races, although it helps both that I didn't draw a Psilon opponent, and that the #2 in power ended up being the computer-challenged bears.

Well done Megafrost on your first impossible win :band:

Vote losses to the diplomatic Humans and peaceful Psilons can always happen and this is a good win with a lesser race :goodjob:

@Megafrost: Congratulations on the win. I am also playing an Impossible game with the Darloks right now.. not sure how it will turn out, though having the Darloks could be the thing that will get me some better range tech... if I can just make contact with another race! :-)

@sargon0: Thank you for posting the corrected production bonuses. Out of curiosity, what about the Simple and Easy levels? I'm guessing that on Easy the computer has neither bonuses nor penalties, and on Simple a small penalty?

Regarding using a hex editor for saved games: is there an editor you recommend? and I'm guessing you have at least a partial "roadmap" that you can refer to to find out where to look in a save file for various pieces of information... is such a roadmap available somewhere? I'm not recalling seeing posts in this forum about that although I could be forgetting something.

@sargon0: Thank you for posting the corrected production bonuses. Out of curiosity, what about the Simple and Easy levels? I'm guessing that on Easy the computer has neither bonuses nor penalties, and on Simple a small penalty?

You would think so, wouldn't you? Well how about no bonus/penalty for Simple and a 20% penalty for Easy.:crazyeye: I did re-check but it seems a bug gives the AI worse production on Easy. Higher player tech cost, cheaper AI MB's amongst other factors could still make Easy tougher but not the challenge it is supposed to be.:(

Regarding using a hex editor for saved games: is there an editor you recommend? and I'm guessing you have at least a partial "roadmap" that you can refer to to find out where to look in a save file for various pieces of information... is such a roadmap available somewhere? I'm not recalling seeing posts in this forum about that although I could be forgetting something.

I use Freeware hex editor XVI32 - check on the web. I got some basic savefile locations for pop & factories from an old RB post then slowly worked out others. I'll PM you a list when I get a neat one together. I'm not sure what experienced players would make of this being public knowledge, although others will certainly have more knowledge than me. The game is easy to cheat, for those so inclined, but competive games are being planned although this is always friendly so should not promote spoiling tactics.

You would think so, wouldn't you? Well how about no bonus/penalty for Simple and a 20% penalty for Easy.:crazyeye: I did re-check but it seems a bug gives the AI worse production on Easy. Higher player tech cost, cheaper AI MB's amongst other factors could still make Easy tougher but not the challenge it is supposed to be.:(

That does sound like a bug. :) I suppose it's possible that a new player might find a game on Easy--well, easier--than a game on Simple, depending on other factors in the game as you allude to, though I place a heavy emphasis on Production and I always work hard to raise the production of my empire unless there is an imminent threat.

I use Freeware hex editor XVI32 - check on the web. I got some basic savefile locations for pop & factories from an old RB post then slowly worked out others. I'll PM you a list when I get a neat one together. I'm not sure what experienced players would make of this being public knowledge, although others will certainly have more knowledge than me. The game is easy to cheat, for those so inclined, but competive games are being planned although this is always friendly so should not promote spoiling tactics.

Thank you. I was thinking of using the editor to find out more about game mechanics as you have done with production. I hadn't even thought of cheating; I don't think I have ever even used ALT+GALAXY or ALT+MOOLA although I could see using GALAXY on a throwaway game if it would help me to learn more about the intricacies of the game, like vmxa apparently did here. I do think I would be tempted to use the editor to fix the negative fleet bug for games played by myself, or if there were an agreement about doing that for a Succession Game or (less likely) an Imperia game.

jmas, it has taken me longer than expected to get together a neat mapping of the save file, mainly because I found some additional fields to include! I have decided to post the list for everyone but this thread is perhaps not appropriate so I will start a new thread for easier reference - it will be up soon.