MoO1 Challenge: Meklar survival is at stake!

Well I finally did play this one. I did not really finish it as I stopped with no victory, but all I was doing was going around bombing out planets.

I just did not want to keep sending the fleet to the next planet and I did not want to colonize any as that would take even longer. I just do not like huge maps. I will play a medium from time to time, but prefer small ones.

Normally I would insist on colonizing all planets, but that is really tedious with this many.

The game was fun, up to the point where I had enough votes to not need anyones. Then it was just grind them down. I did hit Orion, but did not settle it.

Some of the planets had 100 bases and it took a few rounds to knock them down. I was going to make a huge with black hole and teleporters, but the game had many of the ship bugs, so I saw lots of fleets with negative numbers or 32000.

I was not sure if I could could on the Blackhole to do the job anyway. I have had too many rounds of no bases destroyed to trust them.

So I had to use pulse phasers to blast them without letting them strike back. Anyway the game was not very hard due to the great tech tree and the bugs not going to war with me for a long time.

I got into war with the lizards quickly, but they did not attack for time and I was able to deal with them. They never did send any fleets that could do any harm.

The other key was the Meks computer skills letting me steal from the Lizards. I had less luck with the Bugs, untill I finally got a roll going.

Oh, yeah the tree had Soil, Astro and Adv Soil, so that make those UR planets monsters adding in the extra factories.

Anyway thanks again for posting the game, it is nice to get a change of pace from time to time.

RefSteel said:

We've got Psilons and Humans and Klackons and Sakkra (not only one of the most dangerous races outside the Big 3, but our racial enemies)!

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Big 3? All the races seem pretty balanced the way the computer plays them. I didn't realise there was any kind of ranking lol

Personally I dislike the silicoids early on and the darloks in the later stages but other than that it's all much the same thing

The ranking is generally more considered with respect to how they play in the hands of a human than in the hands of an AI. I would say there is a big 3 list for the AI as well, but it's slightly different than the list for live players.

For live player I would say the top 3 (in no particular order) are:
1) Psilon - insane tech bonus, 'nuf said.
2) Klackon - great ability to expand quickly and build up new worlds, crucial for the beginning part of the game, which is the most crucial phase of the game. Very nice long-term production bonus on top of that.
3) Human - make everyone your friend, find a scapegoat for everyone to declare war against, and vote yourself in. Easy diplomatic manipulation makes the game much less challenging than it might otherwise be, regardless of start position.

For the AI (again in no particular order):
1) Psilon - a runaway Psilon is about the scariest thing in the game; it's possible to get into a position where you simply cannot catch up (although even with runaway psilons you often can catch up as long as you don't get into final war.)
2) Meklar - more dangerous early than late, Meklar are often ruthless and like to build big ships, which can be very tough to fend off early on. They often have a relatively huge navy and if they get out to a good start, they can and occasionally will steamroller you before you have a chance to build up enough to fend them off.
3) Humans - again, dangerous if you allow them to form a voting block snag a vote win; even if you decline to lose and defy the council, this may trigger final war before you're ready to handle it.

Klackon don't make the cut as dangerous AI enemies because they love small ships which are relatively easily repulsed by early bases, and are less likely to be ruthless and steamroller you. They also seem to fail to expand well despite their expansion bonuses a relatively large amount of the time, possibly because the AI doesn't emphasize early propulsion techs enough with them.

I too think the Bugs problem is the lack of propulsion. It should not be as they could get alliances easy to gain range, but often are too xenophobic.

The small ships is what made them less dangerous. The Psilons sent a more dangerous fleet with mostly large and huge designs. Luckily they were willing to retreat and then not able to return.

They did a lot of damage before they bailed and none of the many very large numbers of Klacs killed many of my ships.

I pick the bugs as the top race for humans to play as the early part is so important and the brains do that poorly. When the brains finally briong their tech to bare in human hands, it is at the point you would be going on top with other races.

So what's a good strategy for dealing with a computer controlled Psilons then?

I thought about weighting my research in favour of computers and using espionage so I can keep up with their tech level, but it uses too many resources early on, especially when expansion and development are paramount

Keep them friendly till you are in a position to do damage. Some times you can get them into wars, but you have to be careful they don't execute it too well and get stronger.

Same as in civ3, where you get an ai to ai war and it back fires as one of them takes lots of land.

So basically play as the humans and manipulate the klackons into flattening them early on?

Sounds easy enough lol

I havent played civ 3 or 4 lol. Alpha centauri is good though

I used to play a lot of AC, don't have it any longer though. You do not have to be playing as the humans, any race could use the same tactics. Treaties and gift and vote for them, if it won't let them win, that sort of thing.

Some times the AI just does that with no help from you.

malicious bloke said:

So what's a good strategy for dealing with a computer controlled Psilons then?

I thought about weighting my research in favour of computers and using espionage so I can keep up with their tech level, but it uses too many resources early on, especially when expansion and development are paramount

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I think the AI Psilons are pretty tough on the average, especially in more difficult levels. The fact that they get an all-out research bonus alone makes them formidable, especially so the longer time they are allowed to expand and to develop. However, it is also heavily situation-dependent: An AI Psilon is less likely to be dangerous if it starts out from a bad location. (Tech bonus does not mean much unless you have the necessary resources to sustain research points.)

Probably the best way to beat the AI Psilons is to smoke their arse as earliest as possible, provided that they are within your reach. The longer they are allowed to develop (which means the more they will likely to increase their tech superiority relative to yours), they become a harder nut to crack.

EDIT:

On average, the AI Psilons tend to go for large and huge ship designs with respectable loads of weapons and specials. Building an enormous stacks of fighters is not going to be effective. (One or more of their ships may have Repulsar Beam, Warp Dissipator, also respectable shield level: Bad for fighters!) I think you have to take some time getting ready for the Psilons. If your computer tech is good and have some money, you may want to invest in espionage to steal some techs. Three key techs to buy yourself some time: Biotoxin/Universal Antidote (A massive Psilon fleet may have one or more stack equipped with bio-weapons and if you have no antidotes whatsoever, you are screwed!), best available missile techs, and best available planetary shield tech. To take on the Psilon larges and huges, you are going to need specials like Ion/Neutron Stream Projector to lessen their hull superiority. Overall, taking on the Psilons is going to be more or less like having an arms race.

Managed to complete this one with a cheap early diplo victory - with 22/50 votes personally after conquering almost all Sakkra worlds plus Kholdan and Sol, I had just glassed one rival Psilon world at Vega and more would quickly follow. Not nearly as interesting as the other documented efforts but the performance of the AI races was different. The Sakkra, Humans, Klackons & Darloks never managed more than 4 or 5 planets and the only danger was a runaway (fortunately peaceful) Psilon – 6 systems by 2327 (including Vega & Paranar) and 12 systems by 2370! Started a spectator war between the Sakkras and Psilon to avoid Psilon alliances giving them an early diplo win before I was ready to go on the offensive. Good game but others had much tougher challenges.

@RefSteel: Your opening gambit is a bit risky but could have worked better. If the 2 starting blue stars produced no habitable planets (odds on) then I would have scrapped the colony ship also but 3 turns maintenance behind you. I still prefer to explore first even against the odds because a second planet is a much bigger bonus than the penalty of 3 turns maintenance. In the actual game with a second planet coreward you are, unluckily, at the worst possible disadvantage. Well done with the quick diplo win though.

vmxa said:

I pick the bugs as the top race for humans to play as the early part is so important and the brains do that poorly. When the brains finally briong their tech to bare in human hands, it is at the point you would be going on top with other races.

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Brains are actually above average at the early part of the game. Don't underestimate their ability to get the important early economy-boosting techs cheaply, or their advantage in acquiring extra research options so as to not be boned by lack of, say, pollution removal techs, as much as the other races. They are also the most likely of anyone to get advanced colony bases early, and so expand to hostile worlds faster than anyone other than silicoids.

It's still not as versatile an early game bonus as the Klackons, but it improves more as time goes on whereas the Klackons' bonus tends to level out. Even if I concede that the Klackons have the edge in early expansion... who else are you going to peg second after that? From an early game economy point of view, the Psilon tech bonus is at least as powerful as the Sakkra pop growth bonus. If you find yourself sitting in a hole and teching through the roof with Psilons where you would already be attacking with other races, that's a playstyle issue, not a lack of ability to go on the offensive with Psilons. Anything any other race can do, Psilons can as well... and usually better.

Zed-F said:

For the AI ...
2) Meklar - more dangerous early than late, Meklar are often ruthless and like to build big ships, which can be very tough to fend off early on. They often have a relatively huge navy and if they get out to a good start, they can and occasionally will steamroller you before you have a chance to build up enough to fend them off.
...
Klackon don't make the cut as dangerous AI enemies because they love small ships which are relatively easily repulsed by early bases, and are less likely to be ruthless and steamroller you. They also seem to fail to expand well despite their expansion bonuses a relatively large amount of the time, possibly because the AI doesn't emphasize early propulsion techs enough with them.

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No doubt you are correct with the rankings and reasons but one observation I can add to. From samples I have looked at the AI emphasizes propulsion tech research as needed with any race including the Klackon and the cost is no different so should not be a factor in slower than expected growth. The problem I believe is the early AI growth strategy. Unless special circumstances exist the AI will build factories until twice current pop then push funding into DEFence (and TECH), generally until reaching requisite number of bases. With the enormous production advantage of the AI on Impossible MAXing factories is quick and wasting time building numerous bases early stunts growth potential, even at heavily discounted cost. For the productive Klackon (and Silicoids) MAX factories is sooner and causes a comparatively greater loss to early growth potential. The AI race who loses early growth potential least (by far) with this strategy is the Meklar who at least produce a decent industrial base before lumbering themselves with the maintenance overhead of excessive bases.

I think what Zed is referring to is the Propulsion tech is the Klacs worse field and that often means they do not get any engine improvement till quite late. It has a double whammy as they have research penalty in that filed and the tree seems to lack Nuc or Sub Light frequently. If they do have one or the other, it takes them longer to learn it.

vmxa said:

I think what Zed is referring to is the Propulsion tech is the Klacs worse field and that often means they do not get any engine improvement till quite late. It has a double whammy as they have research penalty in that filed and the tree seems to lack Nuc or Sub Light frequently. If they do have one or the other, it takes them longer to learn it.

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Being Poor in a tech field has been mooted by some to reduce the number of research options but the game guide says each research item has a basic 50% chance of appearing for any race (except Psilons). The guide certainly has errors but I have no reason to disagree with this statement - remember the Meklar challenge and the Planetology field! As regards tech cost what I was saying is that, in the samples I looked at, being Poor (or Good or Excellent) in a tech field did not count for the AI players like it does for the human player - all AI players paid the same cost for each tech item irrespective of race or tech field.

You're saying the AI cheats with respect to tech research prices? Possible I suppose; I've never looked into it. Wouldn't really surprise me; the AI gets lots of cheats in the early going in MOO, decreasing as the game goes on. (Not counting bugs like the negative ship bug...)

One thing I have noticed is that the Klackons do seem to generate at least as many micro-empires (1PE, 2PE, 3PE) as the other races, despite their early economy bonus. Partly this is due to AI colony ships being able to colonize more than once, so Klackon ability to build extra colony ships early is nearly irrelevant -- it's all about range tech. And on that subject... it seems pretty likely to me that each race picks a different % of its research budget to assign to each tech field once at the start, and then leaves it at that for the rest of the game. It may just be a matter of how often the Klacks choose to de-emphasize Propulsion relative to the other races.

What I am saying is that more than most other races, the bugs have a decided lack of early engines. I have not tested the veracity if the book on the effects of Poor or other levels on research.

I will make a test, but I may not get to it before I take the summer off. It is very hard to expand quickly without getting an engine improvement of either 2 or 3 speed.

Zed-F said:

You're saying the AI cheats with respect to tech research prices? Possible I suppose; I've never looked into it. Wouldn't really surprise me; the AI gets lots of cheats in the early going in MOO, decreasing as the game goes on. (Not counting bugs like the negative ship bug...)

One thing I have noticed is that the Klackons do seem to generate at least as many micro-empires (1PE, 2PE, 3PE) as the other races, despite their early economy bonus. Partly this is due to AI colony ships being able to colonize more than once, so Klackon ability to build extra colony ships early is nearly irrelevant -- it's all about range tech. And on that subject... it seems pretty likely to me that each race picks a different % of its research budget to assign to each tech field once at the start, and then leaves it at that for the rest of the game. It may just be a matter of how often the Klacks choose to de-emphasize Propulsion relative to the other races.

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Let’s look at the numbers, comparing those stated in the game guide and those actually used in-game. The guide has Hard difficulty giving AI production bonus of +25% and Tech cost multiplier of 30 (player 35) and Impossible difficulty giving AI production bonus of +50% and Tech cost multiplier of 30 (player 40). In game Hard AI prod is +50% and AI Tech is x50, Impossible AI prod is +100% and AI Tech is x50. Also racial technology traits do not apply to AI research as they do to player. So on Impossible to research a level 5 tech costs player 1000 RP (5*5*40) normally but 600 if excellent, 800 if good and 1250 if poor and costs AI 1250 RP irrespective of race or field. It seems a game revision has increased difficulty by giving a big increase in AI production bonus but (to avoid insane AI research rates) has balanced this by increasing AI research costs to a poor impossible human! The fact AI races Tech costs do not adjust with racial bonus looks like a bug and may even have been caused by the change. The conclusion that research costs are the same for an AI Psilon as an AI Silicoid seems wrong but the numbers don’t lie. The AI Psilons of course benefit from greater RP’s (1.5 RP per BC invested) and greater Tech choices which together with frequent peaceful technological traits still gives them a likely big Tech edge on other AI races.
On AI research priorities they usually split spending 75% in one field and 5% in each of the others. The priority field will vary by circumstance as well as by trait or race, probably. Why do certain races appear to get poor Tech choices in certain fields? I think this is (partially) due to the inherent random distribution of techs produced by each being a 50% chance (also meaning a large sample would be needed to attempt to prove a trend). In addition it is possible that the AI plays races according to perceived strength ie. de-emphasizing propulsion with Klackons (even though propulsion Tech does not actually cost them more than other AI races).
Since Colony ships are given free, as Zed mentioned, any AI race should be capable of decent expansion (with a reasonable position on the map) but performance seems to hinge on certain early random decisions. In the Meklar challenge games the AI’s performed quite differently in people’s games from the same position.

@vmxa: It is certainly possible other factors are at play. Good luck with the test if you attempt it; any practical numbers are welcome.

Sorry for dragging up an old thread but I thought I should mention a flaw in my analysis of AI tech cost. It appears that my contention that AI tech cost used a multiplier of 50 and no racial tech adjustment was not the whole truth or, if you prefer, it was almost entirely wrong!

When I looked at AI tech cost I aimed to look at every race and every field to verify the numbers so I generated lots of new games. What I did not realise is that AI tech cost varies after the start. So my new theory, looking at early and late games on Average, Hard & Impossible, is that:

AI Tech Cost
the first tech in each field : multiplier of 50 and no racial tech adjustment
after first tech in each field : multiplier of 20 plus racial tech adjustment (applies even if subsequent tech in first rung of tech field)

So this is more in line with reported behaviour. Why is the first tech cost different? I guess it could be a bug or an attempt to slow the initial AI tech advance. It does mean that the AI can, for instance, research Range4 then Range5 quicker than Range5 first (450 + 500 vs. 1250).

That makes sense to me, thanks for the update.

I'll have a go at this one while waiting for my turn in the SG