(I thought I already had included a thread for this, with screenshots...)

If people feel the need to tell their game stories (or just post a screenshot) this is the place for it!

Here's a screenshot from a testgame with something appearing I've never noticed before: as the Humans I founded Knowledge; apparently I forgot to send an Advocate to a colony and then this happened

Interesting, is the spreading of values due to influence disabled?

No. I just almost never see a value spread automatically, not even to an owned star system.

I think it's also random. Sometimes in huge civ games a religion spreads to the other side of the planet on a different continent with whom you have no contact, or at least no trade route.

I can accept this, there might've been a lonely, very devouted pilgrim that went there by himself, or hitched a ride ;)

On a planet, yes. But I've never seen it before in MOO2Civ (I did, repeatedly in Star Trek mod, though.)

In the last game I played I only built two knowledge advocates, the rest was spread automatically, and very quickly, it was weird! In not long the entire galaxy had converted to knowledge. It could have been related to the fact I had open borders with everybody too.

I actually think disabling the spread of a value through influence would be better. Is there any benefit to giving it to another player? Sure they like you more but is there a money benefit like in vanilla civ4?

Don't think so, no. Also, I usually have Aggressive AI on. (How do you get Open Borders so early? Is this with your own tech tree or what version were you playing?)

Don't think so, no. Also, I usually have Aggressive AI on. (How do you get Open Borders so early? Is this with your own tech tree or what version were you playing?)

I think I got open borders so early because of the change to allow trading across space in the new tech tree. All the AI's wanted open borders right away and it made it so I didn't have to keep the taxes at 40% to be making money, I pretty much kept them at 70% the whole time.

Yes, I've noticed with Open Borders being available much earlier, the AI will sign open borders quite easily. Don't know if this is realistic though, especially with Xenophobic or Repulsive races, such as the Klackons and Silicoids.

Also, without modding you can set No Tech Brokering on as a playing option.

I agree that they were entirely too friendly with the open borders. I remember always having to give a tech or two to get them to open borders. I don't know how to change this though.

Hm. Apart from attitude modifying, the easiest way would be to move back the ability to have Open Borders in the tech tree (when a number of wars will most likely have occurred). But even then (as in the pre-new tech tree situation) Open Border agreements weren't hard to accomplish; I don't think I ever had more than 1 or 2 races that didn't agree to it.

Minor annoyance could tweak this as he's changing personalities. (Open borders seems like the equivalent of a trade treaty, right?)

Well, that's up to him. (And yes, if you sign Open Borders you get a little treaty icon on the main screen after that race's name, just like in the regular game. BTW, I also noticed contact with another race now immediately results in trade with that race - again indicated by a little trade icon after the race's name in the score list.)

Was it possible to trade with races that you aren't open borders with? I noticed that I was trading with them too, but I think that happens in BTS as well. I'm not sure why but it should be changed for sure. I have no idea how though.... :confused:

I don't know: trade doesn't equal Open Borders (the latter allowing your military to enter another race's territory). I'm thinking that, realistically, some trade will continue even if you're at war.

In the last game I played I only built two knowledge advocates, the rest was spread automatically, and very quickly, it was weird!

Confirmed. I used to send an advocate right after a Colony Ship, but now they sometimes arrive too late, as my value has already been adopted on the newly founded colony!

Also, values seem to spread more easily to other races' systems. ;)

Forgot I wanted to add a screenshot: this happened after I ignored the fact I discovered my now enemy had 4 Destroyers plus 2 Invasion Ships on his home planet; my new colony didn't have a defender yet, but had just grown to size 2...

Wow, the Sillicoid were being sneaky there! I wondered if the AI would do such a thing if I left planets undefended. Devious to declare war out of nowhere to take your star just before you got it defended. :)

Currently I build my first three colonies without defenses because they can build marines before the AI can get things there to attack but after that barbarians start wandering around they make me too nervous to leave a star without defenses. :)

I've started transporting ground troops to newly colonized stars now so they can be defended sooner and can start building automated factories first to speed up their production. I think it works great!

Actually I don't dare found a colony without dropping an on-board Marine there anymore. I've noticed there are some races that don't go for the Colony Ship tech, but start building Destroyers and Invasion Ships. On two occasions one of the races was being eliminated within the first 100 turns. (So my founding a colony quite near the Silicoid homeworld was a gamble that didn't pay off - for me at least...)

Hmm, should I weight the tech so the AI will research colony ships first? I usually go for knowledge first, then colony ships then automated factories. Then wherever after that.

Or should we just let the AI do whatever it feels (it does make the game more interesting).

Personally I don't think it's a problem that certain AI prey upon other players. Perhaps if other players think it should be changed? (BTW, I think I was playing at Hard level and I tend to have Aggressive AI on.)

In my last game the Elarians got rocked because they didn't expand, they only got three stars. Then they asked to be a vassal so I said yes and gave them battloids so the humans would waste their time on them instead of attacking me.

I'm not sure why they didn't expand, I wonder if they tried to be aggressive instead of researching colony ships and just got stopped from attacking?

Ah, vassals. I usually turn that off, since it functions differently in MoO. And there always seems to be one civ that hardly expands at all...

So here's an interesting experience: The computer is hiding his stealth ship in my star and I can't attack him when he is hiding there. His ship has the bonus against light ships and has killed a couple of my invasion ships that were transporting ground troops before I realized what was going on. :)

:eek: Wow... never seen that one before. Stealth ships usually stick around their respective home systems and kill off straying Scouts and Probes. Strictly speaking it is ofcourse a bug*, but why didn't you kill him before he entered your system? :confused:

* Don't know if it's a MOO2Civ-specific bug, could be FF-related. Perhaps it should be reported on the FF updates ad issues thread?

EDIT: Actually it may not even strictly be a bug, but related to the fact that Stealth ships can't defend systems => you can't attack them there, only in Space. (A programming oversight on Jon Shafer's part...?) Actually I did see it before, when I had a Stealth ship and one other in a star system that got conquered; the Stealth ship was unharmed, but I lost the system, so now my Stealth ship was 'hiding' in another civ's system. That's one of the reasons I always build a Spy in every system: if it gets conquered, I can keep track of its defenses.)

EDIT 2: There is a way around this bug: I see he has 4 moves. So I'd lure him out with a target 3 squares away, so he can't hide back in my system. Question is ofcourse: will he fall for it? (Also, you should be able to attack him with a Stealth ship of your own, I reckon.)

I wasn't paying enough attention and didn't see it before it flew onto my star. I only had a probe to detect invisible ships and it couldn't see far enough to catch it before it moved in.

After a bunch of turns the AI finally got bored with it and sent it to attack my starbase. It is weird that you can't attack an enemy stealth ship that is on your own star. It's icon was grayed out and looked like an ally unit on my star. The game didn't even give the warning of enemy units nearby while it was sitting in my star.

I don't mind that it can sneak under my stack of ships but I ought to be able to retaliate and kill it. :) It was from the Klackons and they have been harassing everybody with stealth ships the whole game.

Just thought I'd post my own gameplay feedback screenie, as it's my first serious try on Impossible level with v. 5.0. ;)

A couple of wars have been going on, no race has been eliminated yet, so it seems to play out pretty well balanced up til now.

So far, so good (I actually am first with Battleships this time):

Okay, I think that you just have to disable steath ships' movement on systems which are not yours. It's pretty easy to do.

Yes, I gathered as much, thanks. (Although that would kind of cripple the Darlok race bonus, I fear.) But right now I'm just playing v. 5.0 a bit, as it's finished. ;)

How would it cripple? Just tell AI to disable cloak when they engage during war time, and players will do it by themselves. Pretty self-explanatory.

Hm. What I meant was if I play the Darloks I sure won't decloak unless I choose to. But if it's coded like you suggest it might cripple Darlok as AI. Hm, actually I'm not at all sure, just a bit worried. (At any rate it should be tested before being implemented IMO). But seeing as this is the Gameplay feedback thread it probably deserves its own thread - to keep things supervisable.* (Didn't you mention this on one of the other threads as well?)

* Sorry, I get confused real easy... :crazyeye:

Again, how would it cripple them if you tell them to decloak only when they want to attack a system?

OK, I've ported the relevant posts to over here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=8991630#post8991630

So here's an interesting experience: The computer is hiding his stealth ship in my star and I can't attack him when he is hiding there. His ship has the bonus against light ships and has killed a couple of my invasion ships that were transporting ground troops before I realized what was going on. :)

I think I can top this: in my current game I've become top dog, so at some point the Silicoids DOWed. Since they're basically across the galaxy I just thought I'd sit it out (so far nothing happened), but a while later the Darloks followed suit. Again, nothing seemed to happen, but I'd forgotten about their Stealth and out of nowhere an invisible fleet started bombarding my third largest system. I quickly built a Scout, uncovered their fleet, and bombarded and attacked them before they could do further harm. (The result is the screenshot below.) After that they quickly withdrew their remaining mauled vessels. :D

I've since discovered that the Gnolams (who are my neighbours on the top left), despite their medium score don't amount to much, as the Darloks also DOWed them and the Gnolams immediately lost 2 systems (one of which fell to barbs).

Tried a multiplayer game yesterday, encountering 1 CTD (while clicking on a unit during the AI's turn), after all went well until turn 110, at which point an OOS occurred every single turn... :(

I'd appreciate more feedback on MP experiences. :please:

The good news is that v. 5.0 now is playable for my MP test partner, Zippadeedoodah. ;)

No multi feedback, but still:
(all the following experience is based on Standart difficulty Mrrshan. Yep, I don't like to overheat my brain=))
1) The other civs are HORRIBLY simple to rush. Just go for Engeneering->Physics->Whatever-you-like best, and at the same time spam Probes(until Eng finishes) then Marine Barracks and Invasion Ships. The AI never uses more than a single Marine for defence and usually hasn't established a second colony yet.... so it's a matter of one turn (and three-to-six ISs, as there usually are some probes/destroyers/scouts, all useless) and the race is down. That may be not the issue on harder difficulties.
2) Deriving from (1): the AI doesn't stand a chance with "Raging Barbarians" on. I have actually WON a Conquest victory WITHOUT attacking anyone (not counting the barbs, of course). The AI simply doesn't see the need to spam Marines(or Bombers. Or both) as I do, and then a Battleship-II-III comes out of the blue and no more AI... pathetic)
3) I don't know whether this can be cured, but still: could someone teach the AI proper use of Carrier Ships? I've seen the Meklar build a frightening fleet of titans, and not a single bomber or fighter based on them... and at the same time, they DEFINITELY nad fighters at their colonies.
4) Again, it may be the difficulty... but the game usually ends long before I get to the end of the tech tree, actually about the middle. Well, that's my fault - should have turned the Influence victory off...) IMHO, there are too many buildings giving influence...

Thanks for your feedback - we get far too little of that (apart from bugs/error reports). ;)

The tech tree is currently being worked on by several valued members, but if I may make a suggestion: try playing a level up.

Carriers are a problem even in a regular Civ game, I'm afraid; I agree it needs work.

Since it usually takes longer to build a Barracks+Marine than building or sending an already built space ship over I agree the AI is currently having a problem both with building and transporting Marines (they don't seem to transport them at all). This may be due to the reduced strength (overall -1) I proposed, but with available promotions and upgrades building Marines/Armor/Battleoids is still effective in the long run. (I usually have Armor/Battleoids before Battleships, while the AI seems to prefer the latter.)

As for culture: you may be right (buildings are also currently "under construction"), but I do recommend to not turn Cultural Victory on - it's not at all MoO canon. (Possibly it should be removed entirely, but I don't want to force how civvers play the mod too much.)

Interesting BTW that you mention the problem barbs pose to the AI, as there have been reports about "wacky powerful barbs" on the higher difficulty levels. (Again, Raging Barbs is an option you can either turn on/off as you please.) I've personally found that especially in mid-game they become a nuisance and you need to adequately defend your systems. (Once you can build stronger ships it becomes easy to finish them off, but it takes a while to get ahead of them.)

The AI that survives past mid-game usually survives finally (until I come over, at least}->). Before that they tend to defend with Destroyers, and they are REALLY lousy in this aspect.

Either that or they use Battleships (if they have them). But even if they can build Battleships they still loose systems to barb attacks. That said, they usually do take them back later. (I've noticed this on Hard/Impossible level.)

BTW, as far as AI aggressiveness goes I seem to notice more sneak attacks. (Like just now I got DOWed by the Elerians, with whom I share a value. They attacked an outlying system with a Battleship and 2 Invasion Ships; instead of keeping the system, they razed it... Meaning there's an invasion fleet out there on the prowl. While I just built my first Armor and can build Invasion Ship IIs, Battleships are still out of my reach, so that doesn't look good.)

EDIT: Forgot to mention we tried a Multiplayer game Sunday afternoon w/v. 5.1 on a Standard Wormhole map. This time we made it til turn 60 without an OOS, but then they recurred about every turn until this happened after I reentered the game for the umptieth time: the OOS text just went stationary (didn't blink anymore), and we could just play on normally.

Short try of Impossible:
Well, the AI definitely got some brains somewhere=) But still, i was able to destroy two civs in their cradles. I think I'd have done more, but I was extremely unlucky - didn't find anyone until a bit late - that is, I already had one invasion fleet (3xInvasion Ships) and was building another. An attempt to attack Bulratu later in the game proved to be a disaster - well, it didn't happen, but I've spent resourses on that fleet!... It's no good trying to capture a system with at least 6 ships with 4 ISs... And yes, they had AT LEAST one other colony - that is, the one I've found.

Sum up: no problems with AI expansion. Didn't try Barbs, but figure it won't be the rampage it used to be. The AI still doesn't know how to defend against a rush strategy (who knows, anyway=))

P.S. And still... I've seen a system defended by an IS(!). If there's anything worse then a destroyer defender, it's an IS... i don't take Probes into consideration)

Funny you should mention that: I've actually seen a system defended by a Scout while scouting. (Never seen an Invasion Ship being used as defense though.) Also haven't seen an early AI rush, although they do tend to build an invasion fleet for surprise attacks - to which I've fallen victim several times. But as you point out: save some defenders it's virtually impossible to protect against an early invasion (same as with the barbs: you can't see them coming unless you actively scout around your systems).

Also haven't seen an early AI rush
Neither have I.That's me who does the rushing all the time=)

Mrrshan, Impossibe difficulty, Raging Barbarians, Conquest victory

1) Ok, introducing the Survival Tactics (TM). Tha means, go for Marines, then for Knowledge (for the sake of it) then for Bombers, while spamming Marines and Research Labs ASAP. Before you get Bombers defeating a stray Battleship is a nightmare on its own... Yes, and don't even think about building Construction Ships - that's a waste of a turn ot two.

2) Now, we got the Bombers. By now (turn 40-60) a couple of opponents are already down, another couple is at their last breath (but we know nothing of it). Spamming Bombers and going for Bomber-2s, with a "stop" to get Hydroponic Farm. Else the growth rate is hellishly small. The barbs are still a problem.

3) Discovered Fusion Rifle. From now on, all those Marines and Armour (yes, we DID research Armour) will have a chance at capturing a unit.... well, a Destroyer would probably be the first) And NO Invasion Ships, you just DON'T want these guys around on THIS difficulty -they are a priority target for bombing runs, similar to Battleships.

4) Now all we do is sit down and build-build-BUILD. Founded another colony and secured a good bunch of bonus resources by two Starbases (again, NO noncombat vessel goes out of a Star System without escort. And I mean SERIOUS escort. A Battleship or two at least.) Yes, and the VERY FIRST thing to build in a colony is a Marine Barracks. Just so.

5) All the while you have units accumulating due to capture. A huge number of Destroyers, several Invasion Ships, some Battleships. My way is: bomb them down to 1-2-6(BS) power, then attack. For this matter, the research prioryty should go to Troop pods and such.

6) Okay, now starts the fun part. By now there is only one rival left (Elerians, my case) and he is sitting somewhere out there sulking. He definitely declared war on you for at least one time and got his Big Bad Invasion Fleet (tm) bombed into oblivion and further. DO NOT EVEN THINK about "little piecemaking". You'll have to fight against both pirates and enemy... and that sucks. For now.

7) "Finish them". You have Stellar Converter, Mauler Device, Battleship III and Doomstars and are researching DoomStar II. Your two colonies have a horribly high population (I finished with 95(!!!) in the first and 63 in the second). Build BS-III. Give the Stellar converter< Mauler Device and whatever-else-you-want. Kick arse. Leave a BS-III in a colony to defent it. There is little in the universe that can outshoot a well-upgraded BS-III. If there is a colony that manages to say something against it, build some DSs and kick arse some more.Yes, and ANYTHING you build in the colonies takes one turn to complete... well, except the Dimensional gate. Finish.

BTW, when I went out to conquer, I was surprised to see that the Elerians had nearly all the star systems under their control... Although viewing the aftergame turn summsry I saw that several times they had only one colony left... I suppose that it was the discovery os BS-II that did the trick.

So, the feedback:
a) Population BUGZ. It is good for your development, but it is totally IMBA if handled properly. It is just lame that a civ with two colonies can be more powerful than one with ten. I don't know why, but the planet limit doesn't work at all.

b) Why do Ground Forces and Squadrons receive only 4XP even if the system that builds them provides 30-odd? BTW, was it intentional that the XP from MArine Barracks, Armour Barracks and Space Academy all stacks from ALL planets in the system? At the same time, why doesn't the defence bonus from, say Missile Bases on different planets stack?

c) Don't know whether it is possible... but could a "autobomb anything hostile in sight" feature be introduced for Squadrons and Starbases?

d) Again, don't know if it's possible... but the ability to "guard noncombat ships" would be invaluable. It horribly annoys me, when I lose Construction Ships to hostiles coming out of the Fog-o-war. If I could assign a couple of Destroyers to each one... and not move them manually!

e) And again, the AI doesn't understand the problems it gets when attempting to colonize a system. During replay i've seen several times that a newfounded colony is captures on the next turns by Aliens. I suppose it's because the AI still believes Destroyers to be the best defenders against anything.

Ok, that sums up everything I have been able to recall. If the "guide" provides anyone with clues as to improvements, feel free to use it.