Please do not post anything about MOO3, this thread is only to disguss the races of Moo2.

My favorite combonation in MOO2 for a custom race was:
Unification
Tolerant
Cybernetic

-.5 food
-.5 economy
-10 spying.

Unification's food bonus helps cancel out the food minus...and being cybernetic one only needed a single bread basket planet to feed the entire empire (picking hydropontic farms over biodomes)

The economy hurts until spaceports are researched, then it's painfull effects are negated as the race has enough production to build rather than buy.

The +15 unification bonus to defensive spying helps pad the -10 in the beinning.


The huge bonus to this race is the ablilty to colonize planets not based on their type but on their mineral richness. To this race, a Rich toxic is better than a poor gaia. Terriforming is something that can be put on the back burner... and when you get planet construction...those large and huge barrens are instantly useful. While the cybernetic eats away some production, the Unification bonus to production and the no need to worry about pollution makes an ultra rich planet capible of being an industrial powerhouse later on.

Cybernetic was originally chosen just as a way to properly deal with the food...but it's bonuses in combat are wonderful. The ability for ships to heal themselves each round makes them last longer.


I'm interested to hear other favorite races from other MOO2 fans out there

I would have to say Telepathic is the best ability of them all. Sure, tolerant really helps growth, but with telepathic you can concentrate on space combat and spying. No need to worry with offensive troops,s ince all you need at least is the lackluster Cruiser. I even played a game as an Uncreative, Feudal, Telepathic race and completely wooped ass. The Stealth Drive really came in handy for that quick hit-and-grab.

I'm not sure if the game is enjoyably (because of easiness) with the following traits, but at least they are very good:

* dictatorship
* -0.5 food
* cybernetic (penalties in food doesn't matter, combat bonuses are great)
* -10 spying (don't need to spy because I got the techs)
* creative (can't live without this one)
* -10 ground combat
* telepathic (no need for ground combat)

I'm not sure if the game is enjoyably (because of easiness) with the following traits, but at least they are very good:

* dictatorship
* -0.5 food
* cybernetic (penalties in food doesn't matter, combat bonuses are great)
* -10 spying (don't need to spy because I got the techs)
* creative (can't live without this one)
* -10 ground combat
* telepathic (no need for ground combat)

I was never a big creative fan. It took too many picks that I could use otherwise. Good espionage easily makes up for lack of creative. I think Uncreative is more fun anyway(wierd ship strategies and such).

I was never a big creative fan. It took too many picks that I could use otherwise. Good espionage easily makes up for lack of creative. I think Uncreative is more fun anyway(wierd ship strategies and such).
Success with uncreative race depends on a lot of luck, I think. What if you don't get automated factories or research labs? :p

Anyway, maybe I should play more without creative trait.

Uncreative is just more fun otherwise every game tends to be the same. With uncreative you have to develop new strategies.

I tried just about all combos, but I can say that creative & telepathic were not worth the cost. I'd rather use a spy bonus &/or production bonus to get what I want.

Unification is nice...the bonuses easily make up for (-x) picks to open up more points for other bonuses.

Unification is best possible form of goverment. No doubt about this. However tele or cyber arent much usefull against real enemy. AI is stupid, but human is not. Creative is good, but also cannot much a fast producing race as aqa or tol.
Population and production is a key to win in moo2. Not the ships or techs. However sometimes they can win the game. But mostly its a waste of picks.

PK

Lithovore
Creative
+1 Growth
Large Home World
Low-Grav
-10 ground combat
-10 spying
Mineral Rich huge map
Use silicoid picture

I don't have the customization screen open, so I can't recall Exactly which ones I chose, but I always liked to play Uberbugs..

Klackon base
High Gravity
Subterranean
Extra Ground Combat?
Unification
Repulsive?
Uncreative
Bad spies

These were based loosely on the Araknid race from Starship Troopers. Fill a bunch of transports and start invading everyone in sight. :D


-Elgalad

Not a bad race :-)

I like chaos in this race. But i wouldnt try it vs humans ;-)

PK

Creative
Dictator
-1 ship attack
-1 spying
-1 ground attack
+1 research
Large, Rich homeworld

Dict cre is soooo slow. Completly usless.

PK

I suppose being Creative can make every game similar, but if you're playing to win, I don't see how its not necessary. Of course, in the earlier versions of the game it was only 6 picks as I recall.

Creative is not a good pick if u play to win only. Its too weak vs prod races.

PK

yeah, you get much better money for your picks. Put it into espionage and you'll get the techs you really want. Uncreative is actually very useful because of the extra picks.

If u need full 20 picks go repulsive, -spy or -combat and defence.

PK

I developed a preference for Aquatic races early on; Aquatic Unifications seemed especially effective. Warlord and Telepathic were also very useful--Telepathic mostly for the high-speed conquest of planets. I like Omniscient for a while, but let's face it, that takes away a lot of the fun.

The most unexpectedly interesting race I ever played was (surprise!) Tolerant Subterranean. I gave them the Klackon picture and called them The Hive. They took a bit to really get going, but once they did, the huge populations quickly offset the lack of research and production bonuses; my best-ever planet population was 42 (i.e. 42 of those people-icon thingies).

Last Night I won with the Port'e, used Psilon picture, with these bonuses.

Rich Home World
Large Home World
+1 Research
-10 Ground combat
Telepathic

The only colony I ever built was in my home system. Basically for research I concentrated on Mass Driver and that field. This way I had Mass Driver and Level 3 Shields by turn 120. ALso, because of Espionage bonus, I was able to really rake in the enemy techs. Won in 270 turns.

Unification and +2 industry.You will outproduce anyone in the galaxy.And you can turn the propuction in research if you concentrate on getting the research producing buildings fast.For the rest of the picks (8, if you choose negative things for 10 picks) you can take what ever you want, creative is perhaps best.
For negative specials I would recommend repulsive on higher levels (you can't be extorted etc.) and -0,5 BC (not so hurting).

However, I agree the game if more fun if you are uncreative...you have to alter your strategy since you often will miss your personal favored tech.

I have never thought of 'creative' as being that great. You really only need one or two basic weapons techs and the rest can be better stolen(love espionage bonuses). 'uncreative' can usually give you the picks for espionage bonuses.

I created the Irken race (from Invader Zim)

Warlord
Creative
-10 Spy
Dictatorship
Darlok picture
might also have been a Ground Combat negative as well

My usual race:
- creative
- +1 production
- telepathic
- low g
- -10 Ground combat
- dictatorship

Telepathic makes war waging so much easier, i don't want to live without it.
Since you can simply take over planets with your awesome mind powers, you don't need any ground combat. And the +1 production evens out the low g a bit.

In my last game i took a new approach without creativity:

- charismatic
- dictatorship
- telepathic
- low g
- +1 production
- -10 ground combat

This made a very diplomatic race, and my plan was to trade techs.
As luck would have it , i ended up starting next to the repulsive Silicoids.

We are the Borg, you will be assimulated into the hive mind. Your technological and biological likeness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile. :scan:
Cybernetic
Telepathic
unification
and I forget the negatives I did to get those points. :blush:

We are the Borg, you will be assimulated into the hive mind. Your technological and biological likeness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile. :scan:
Cybernetic
Telepathic
unification
and I forget the negatives I did to get those points. :blush:
You just beat me to it. :D I actually chose Creative instead of Telepathic.

Negatives: repulsive, and if creative instead of telepathic also: ground combat -10.

A technology that should be used at all costs is of course: Multi-phased shields. :cool:

I 'm on Linux here (i have Windows only for MoO :lol: ) No, i don't think wine work really. Just a myth.
But i think i use :

Pic : Elerian (my grey lovely devil girls).
Creative (for have all the techs).
Telepathic (no need for ground attack, create transports, protect transports, etc.).
-10 spies (need build a lot of spies, that's all).
Rich and Big homeworld for lightning starts.

I can try uncreative for the free picks (i have no problem for trades and treaties, then i can trade techs, i think). Perharps a negative in ground combat (well, no need in attack with the Mind Control, and i always lose my ground defense - a war need to be win in space, squids !).

I tried wih uncreative :

- Aquatic
- Subteranean
- Telepathic
- Dictatorship

Ouch. Poor aliens :-p

I would have to say I liked this:
subterranean, unification, large HW, +1 population, +10 spying, repulsive, and uncreative

Therefore you get fast expansion and construction and a good enough spying bonus for uncreative just to be a minor inconvince

A race I am going to be experimenting with is:
Unification, telepathic, stealthy ships, +1 production, -1/2 food, and repulsive.
I cancel out a few of the bonuses, namely the fairly expensive ones, but I maintain extra production and war-abilities, which is very good if you plan on rushing the opponent (especially when starting pre-warp). You get bombers and transport ships to beat the crap out of the opponent. Unfortunately, I will have to be very lucky to be placed nearby an opponent. Hopefully its a race like the klackons or another warlike race, so I have less compitition to worry about.

At first I always thought uni-tol was the only way to get good production... but then I discovered aquatic and lithovore offer you solid alternatives:

unification, tolerant, large rich hw = colony base after 6 turns from start
unification, aquatic, +2 production, large rich hw = colony base after 6 turns as well!
lithovore, +2 production, large rich homeworld = colony base after 7 turns... and way better research.

Now, consider the benefits of aquatic: a gaia hw, which gives you the same starting pop limit as tolerant, which holds for any of the watery planets you colonize(great in an organic rich galaxy), an extra food producing bonus from the gaia world, which means that after your colony base is finished, you will have one more researcher than unitol. This alone gives you the edge, all else being equal. However, you also have the opportunity to further increase production with pollution processor... this really lets you clobber a unitol in production.
And the benefits of lithovore: research is obviously superior, so even losing that one turn initially on the colony base, you get it back by having all 8 of your starting pop on research. Another bonus is not needing to research farming tech, like hydro farms. Biospheres gives you back some of the pop you lost by not choosing tol or aqua, and there's no tough decision between soil enrichment and cloning center. The hidden bonus of lithovore is the ability to instantly get infrastructure in place on colony bases by dropping in pop from your home world for a few turns. With unitol, you have to buy infra, especially if it's a poor or u-poor world, but lithovore lets you build the old fashioned way. Of course, you need to put up a marine barracks... but you really ought to do that anyway at some point, IMO.

Though perhaps my favorite way to play these days is an impossible 8 player galaxy, where I confine myself to one system... a "One System Challenge" if you will. I do reload until I get at least something in all five orbits of my home star... asteroids, gas giants, toxic worlds... as long as I can change it into another productive planet at some point. For this type of game I usually pick subterranean, and either lithovore/large artifacts hw, or aquatic/democracy/large hw.

Generally good points and yes I agree uni aqua 2prod lrhw is strong. I consider it even stronger than uni tol in a 4way with wormholes since the techlead assures flexibility when there is an early war. But when there are no wormholes uni tol has on most maps an edge...you overlook some small details:

unification, tolerant, large rich hw = colony base after 6 turns from start
unification, aquatic, +2 production, large rich hw = colony base after 6 turns as well!

Unitol wont produce it first BB on the hw therefore this race scraps the starbase very often. (Additionally 100PPs at start.)

However, you also have the opportunity to further increase production with pollution processor... this really lets you clobber a unitol in production.

Long way to poll proc and OTOH merculite is cool when you get the mirv mod on zort level (difficult to kill creas without merculites in a MP game). Your observation is true (in the long run) when you consider monster planets. But you overlook that uni tol works so well because of the rich and urich non-monster planets. These are mainly barren, toxic, etc. Useless for aquatic when you want to build battleships (too small) but a tolerant race has twice the pop capacity on these kind of planets. The tol-aqua competition is all about:
Does tol find enuff unguarded rich or urich planets?
Or are there nice amoebas, crystals or hydras near hw? Uni tol should consider to kill these monsters with interceptors then...it can build some early Laser-BBs there....(easily without poll proc)....and is ready for war then.
OTOH, aqua races can find nice wets and will gain a sufficient tech lead then. Also hv armor is sometimes an option with 2prod.

Another bonus is not needing to research farming tech, like hydro farms.

None of your above mentioned races should consider hydros anyway. They have enuff food. Hydros eat far too much maintenance (2BC).

Biospheres gives you back some of the pop you lost by not choosing tol or aqua, and there's no tough decision between soil enrichment and cloning center.

Mainstream is: Take soil when you have less than 4food per farmer!
Uni tol should generally take soil. The only exception is an early gaia near hw or lots of natives.
Uni aqua should generally take cloners. The exception is a poor neighborhood with less pop capacity. But in this case you wont take soil either. Go to supercomps or wartechs directly in this case.

The hidden bonus of lithovore is the ability to instantly get infrastructure in place on colony bases by dropping in pop from your home world for a few turns. With unitol, you have to buy infra, especially if it's a poor or u-poor world, but lithovore lets you build the old fashioned way.

All races should drop pop from your hw to the bases a few turns and buy the building when you have produced 50percent of the building to minimize the turns you dont use the colony bases for 1pop housing. Non-Lith races need round about 2 freighters early on (before rlabs). Just a small Lith bonus.

I do reload until I get at least something in all five orbits of my home star... asteroids, gas giants, toxic worlds...

Have you tried LordBrazen’s 1.4 patch with the planets switch? You can determine the minimum number planets in your hw. Take /planets=5 and you dont need any reloads when starts without asteroids or gas giants are acceptable for you. Or take /planets=4 when you want asteroids...you prolly need less reloads then:

http://masteroforion2.blogspot.com/2005/11/master-of-orion-ii-mods-overview.html

It is hard to go against the Unitol, but those races are all very strong. If I want to play an easy game at impossible, I will play the OCC much like you mentioned.

I will just do it as a creative race and then I do not have to think at all. I get all the techs and all I have to do is get up lots of spies and wait to break out. Of course this only works in SP.

This is something I do after I just had a hard CivIII game at Sid and I just want to relax a bit. I don't need to get great system, three planets is great.

Hmm, hadn't really looked into the 1.4 patch. Sounds useful... though I don't really want a home system so stacked as to have five habitable planets straight away. If there was a way to set orbits to 5, so that all 5 orbits are filled with something randomly, that would be nice.
vmxa- I agree, if you are creative it's easy enough to sit on three planets and relax, even on impossible. I've played with four planets with non creatives, but I just like seeing that fifth world there, completing my "perfect system". It's an aesthetic thing, really. Especially if it was a tiny toxic world you gave away, then attacked and stellar converted, then reconstructed, etc. Gives me something to do once I've researched everything, other than killing everyone, killing the antarans, etc. Oh, and I don't really like being creative. I like to take different paths through the tech tree, I feel it adds something to the experience.

Uni, Aqua, Prod+2, Lg R HW, -Rep, -GC, -SD.
Uni, Tol, Prod+1, Lg HW, -Rep, -GC, -SD.

Great races. :)

For fun: Uni, Aqua, Prod+1, Telep, -Rep, -GC, -SD.

I like:

klackon picture, uni, telephatic, +2 Spy, repulsive, uncreative and large homeworld.

It's really fun when the first race is contacted. Tons of spies to gather techs. when a game has a psilon, it's particullarly fun. all techs can be stealed. ahahahahah.