Please post any gameplay experience in this thread! You can make it an entire story of how your game proceeds or simply about something you noticed during playing (other than bugs/errors). Screenshots are welcome too. In order to fully appreciate your feedback it might be helpful to include the level you're playing, what maps and what - if any - custom options you're using.

Playing the Darloks I sent a colonizing force to an as yet empty system. When I arrived it was Human, so I DOWed, but there's nothing to attack (well, that can happen) and my attack has not the desired effect... because of the Starbase next door I somehow hadn't quite noticed:

Playing the Meklars I got DOWed and an invasion fleet appears next to my capital system, reducing its defenses. So I take a shot - with all of my defending units - and wipe their fleet out, gaining a Great General in the process. (That last Scout got destroyed the next turn.) Not long after the fearsome Bulrathi agreed humbly to restore peace again.

Some more shots (from the testversion, not the final release for patch4k): as I'm playing the Darloks, the Bulrathi DOW the top dog and, if it weren't enough, underdog of the game; I wonder how that'll play out...

Also, while Alien ships are increasing in number, I pass an empty system that pretty soon gets taken and my (stealth) probe is missed by a Stealth Ship (I expected to lose it), proving the effectiveness of Darlok innate stealth (2nd shot).

It may just be me, but I get the impression that with patches 4k and 4l gameplay has become a bit more dynamic. So much so that I've (temporarily?) reverted back to playing Standard level instead of Hard.

had some shots of a raging barbs game where two invasion III ships showed up to my two cities on turn 44 & 46, then my probes were all taken out by a battleship II and destroyer III ten turns later. But I can't upload things because I'm not the 'administrator' of my own computer apparently. Oh well, no images for me.

That's... weird. You can't attach a screenshot to your post? :confused:

So I guess having Raging Barbs on does have an effect. :mischief: What level/mapsize were you playing?

Having gotten used to fulano's minimod now I've reverted back to playing at Hard level (no raging barbs for me at that level - or beyond). ;)

Here's a first: an AI-built tactical Starbase (from a scenario playtest)

That's... weird. You can't attach a screenshot to your post? :confused:
Its because I have vista and its sucky.

So I guess having Raging Barbs on does have an effect. :mischief: What level/mapsize were you playing?
It was a large spiral map, epic speed and I was able to confirm with WB that the barbs (2 invasion III and a battleoid!) had spawned by turn 37.

That's odd, on both counts: I have Vista and post screenies regularly and barbs aren't even supposed to spawn before turn 40, I think (certainly not with such advanced units). But you didn't say what level you were playing at. There have been reports of this anyway, but on higher levels (higher than Hard).

I play on Master of Orion II and I can confirm that I saw Invasion II and III barb ships pretty early, and I play on Epic too. Maybe they don't scale with speed as supposed to? Because on Normal speed I didn't encounter similar issues.

I missed that... I never play at Epic speed, the mod hasn't been tested for it and I can only say that if playing at other than Normal speeds you do so at your own risk/responsibility. (I don't reckon issues related to other-than-Normal-speed are likely to get fixed - at least not by me, anyway.)

A screenshot of a tactical Klackon Starbase from the working version of v. 5.0 (not sure why they built it there - to annoy me? It seems likely to be assimilated at some point...). You may also notice the new colour scheme:

Yay for new colors!
I've never seen the AI build a starbase unless it is covering rare resources like it does in your picture. Sometimes it ends up building them next to stars so it can double as defense or get in the way. I noticed that most units in the game have no flavors, which I think should be changed, especially for defensive units and for the starbase so defensive players (culture, science, gold) will build them more. I'm not sure if that will work with starbases but it's worth a try and should help though. (I plan to change it by the way)


Also I've seen the AI happen to build a starbase so it covers an unoccupied star, preventing anyone from taking the star except for that AI. I've used that since to cover stars I want to colonize but my economy won't let me.