Hall of Fame in MOO2

[MooFun]

I think the amount of star systems game puts at start might vary a bit. I've done few "get every planet possible" games, they have been around 170-185 planets. I think this map had bit more at beginning (possibly more star systems), but I added more planets with Corion. I think I had even more than 249 planets, not all were huge. And I think there was some colony cap so that I couldn't actually see few colonies at all, just popped autobuild on em while they were acceccible when new colony was set. My scores went messy around 31400-31500. 63spies everywhere and colony bug caused "Turn" button go yellow/orange and nothing happened (game crashed), one time it caused system go unstabile too and had to boot it.

 

[vmxa]

Well for sure Corion can cause the game to crash, so it is too irritating to use it. I tried to set up some test with it in the past and then could not get past some action later. Some times it was a combat, some times it was just trying to build something on a planet.

I always thought the cap for spies was 63, so I never make more than 60-61. It does not seem to matter anyway as nothing is a lock to stop a thieft. I have had many games where I had 60-61spies on defense and waiting to get the last tech, before going to Anties.

They had 1 planet with 1 pop and I sit on them and still they get in steals. Even if I am creative and have all the spy techs.

In any event reporting your high score, while using an editor is a bit cheeky. Oh and just remembered a map I made for a friend to play years ago with Corion. I put pop on a couple of planets for the game and that game eventually crashed as well. This was just a few pop, maybe 4 or 5. I tried to give him two extra systems.

 

[MooFun]

Hi, 63 works fine for me, usually doesn't even crash when repeatbuilding more, they get lost tho..

Did yesterday impossible game with UniTol race (huge, 8pl, prewarp, average, all on.. my 1st win on that setup.. took around 350 turns) had around 50 spies at end of game with 50% agent bonus, and still 1 enemy stealed particle beam from me, spying is bit tricky yea..

High score was just a test, thats why I don't want to fill my score table by trying get absolute maximum, some 100pts more..

Now I am trying a race with just "clear" button used on options, impossible seems bit too difficult at beginning so trying 1st hard to train a bit. Maybe going later to try feudal government race too.

Some time ago completed civ1 on king mode (earth, max enemies and stuff) around AD 1950, I feel it was much "harder".. Actully the combats were crazy, I don't know what hacks that game do use, but veteran battleships did get used to lose when attacking settlers made me "bit" confused.
At end I did bit testing .. It seemed to need around 10 veteran (made with barracks on) armor 10-5-3 to kill 1 enemy rifleman/mech inf 2-5-1, 6-6-3 in their town, 1 town did often have 2-5 units. For that kind siegecrafting would of needed 50tank grps to keep 1 battle last less thatn 100 years. ;P So compared to that MoO2 actual combat is awfully easy.

Or almost.. My 1st impossible win was on creative researcher race (Almost 100% psilon race), I had just 1 solar system with 5 planets, Xantus (75%) and Matrix (pool, but giving spy bonuses..) leaders.
At turn 410 I had 4 tech in physics, rest 1 and 9 doomstars. Still got that saved game.
It took quite a time to 1st finish that scenario. At some point all enemies was against me and bit after 1 enemy did gain galactic leader.. Then enermous doomstar&etc fleets (I counted best time around 100 ship fleets I think, they were in like 6 lines. At that point I think I had 30 doomstar with all 5techs; 1 stellar converter 1 bomb, 10 AF disrupters and rest AF, HV Disrupters (50 or so) + Structural Analyzer, Reinforced Hull, Heavy Armor, Battle Pods, Hyper-X Capacitors, Inertial Nullifier, Shield Capacitor and High Energy Focus. Stellar was must for preventing enemy recolonizing conquered areas, I found disrupters with those mods most efficient whipeing out their fleets.

All defending doomers had to be ultraelite or enemy did get 1st turn ( No idea what causes that, but was only way to do defending without losing 50% of defender doomers to get that 1st turn..) And their enormous fleets was coming like every turn, so there wasn't really such option to lose my ships.

My defending or attacking fleets did usually kill their whole doomstarfleets(with X-armor and X-shield and 2-3 stellars each, but tbh, their boarder ships were even more annoying..) in 1 turn All that fighting took around to turn 600, fights were "long" like 1 or 2 turns always, but lots of clicking.. But before that win I thought impossible really was impossible , now ive succeed that scenario in like turn 450, Demoliths and Unitols around turns 350.

 

[vmxa]

One of the options is to let initive determine who goes first. IIRC that was in the last patch. Anyway using that, the fleet with the best ship init, will be first.

I cannot even recall Civ2 at this point, so Civ1 is long forgotten. I have almost forgotten Civ4 as I did not play that much of it. C3C I can speak to or even Civ5.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Spying

In MOO2, the spying is an AI cheat routine. The percentages help some, but if one of the cheat codes, which is the MOO2 AI, determines you need to get hit by a spy tech theft, they get the tech. A clue early on that spying is mainly a cheat is when you build your first or second spies, these get killed almost immediately, then next turn, an AI steals a tech.

As for spy numbers, you can have 63 at home and on each of the existing alien empires. If you don't want your spies creating "incidents", set them to "hide". I usually fill up the defensive spy quota, but I don't always use spies offensively. When I do I usually fill up 2-3 63 spy quotas on the alien empires. But that's usually late game. I tend to forget to transfer those spies when an empire is about to go under, with the result I lose them.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Initiative

I think ship computer level and ship speed are the main factors that determine this. What I noticed when using this was that a battle turn could switch back and forth between player and AI ships quite a few times before the turn is finished. It can be rather confusing and if you specialize your ships for specific roles, to come into play at specific times in the battle, it can be rather daunting to design those ships so they will be able to fight when you planned them to fight. Because of that, I've not done much playing with initiative turned on. I probably should, though.

 

[Leuthesius]

I made 6010 points on impossible huge. Unification Creative Telepathic.

 

[vmxa]

A fun race for sure.

 

[Tristan_C]

Yeah, that suggestion is if you're not capable of getting the full 340% and if you're actually using some of the picks for race development. Cybernetic sucks, but it's incompatible with lithovore, and so you 'get back' the lithovore points at the endgame (when you don't really need it either).

My recent kick with Creative race builds has just placed me in a game where I am thinking of trying to play for a personal high score. There is a silicoid master race in this map, with Lith Tol Subterranean, that I can spread everywhere. There are also Elerians with whom I could do repeated invasions to farm up the score.

I have a little question about the trick described above, since my own race is Dict Lith Cre.

I am concerned that there will be sudden problems with food supplies when I switch to cybernetic, since my home race is Lithovore. Most of the problem will take care of itself because these awesome Coids will be unaffected. But I was wondering if it is possible at all to steal or capture any food technology when you are lithovore, or even after you have switched away from lithovore. Food replicators would be ideal.

I tried the evolutionary mutation in a small test with ALT menlo (instant tech progress), and when I switched to cybernetic, food technologies did NOT appear in the research tree (makes sense, because this was not an intentionally-designed possibility).

I guess the problem will have to be solved with inefficient farmers and good old fashioned freighter fleets, but like I say, is it possible to steal food techs when you are lith?

 

[El_Machinae]

I have no idea. It sure would be nice to be able to! You should still have massively-awesome food potential, since you'll have slave races by then.

What's this about 'repeated invasions'? How do you get that to work ideally?

 

[Tristan_C]

I have no idea. It sure would be nice to be able to! You should still have massively-awesome food potential, since you'll have slave races by then.

What's this about 'repeated invasions'? How do you get that to work ideally?

Fortunately it looks like any race can research weather controller. I guess they didn't want to let lithovores skip that tech level for free, the forbidden alternative at that level being another food application, subterranean farms.

Regarding capture, according to this thread, which celebrated its sixth birthday recently —

You can also use some tricks, which I do not use. The main one that I recall is to grab a planet and them gift or let it be capture. The another thing I just remembered is to use planet tech to form planets from asteriods and gas one.

In conjuction with that you dump toxic planet to get better ones, but I forgot how that was done.

In this game I am repulsive though so it may get to be tedious to keep the elerians strong enough to mind control my worlds. This score maxing thing was something I just thought of on a whim when I saw how strong the coids were in my galaxy. This is impossible diff though and I believe the highest possible scores would only be achievable on Easy, where you have a good shot at winning with an utterly disadvantaged, +340% score race.

I do not know for sure, but I think you might be able to create large planets out of any existing smaller world, including toxic ones, by gifting it to an enemy and using a stellar converter on it. Doesn't that turn the planet into an asteroid field? lol.

 

[El_Machinae]

Does gifting then conquering really improve your score? How is that not insane?

 

[vmxa]

Captured score:
X Captured Colonists = size_modifier*captured (rounded down)
size_modifier: Galaxy size modifier; small, medium, large, huge = 2,1,(2/3), 0.5 respectively.
captured: Number of captured colonists. Captured colonists are population of another race that you have captured or mind controlled.
NOTE: It doesn't matter if you annihilate the captured pop, or give them with the system as a gift, in fact, if you conquer a planet then offer it as a gift and recapture it the next turn you get the captured score again. You can do this an infinite number of times for a theoretical infinite score (I consider this cheating and never use it).

 

[El_Machinae]

So, slave pop would count? Gah, that's nuts!

 

[Darza]

63 turns for huge prewarp 7 AI impossible. 64 in case you also want every star visited. 9 turns average for killing one AI, starting without ships. And yes, it definitely can be improved for some turns, so you can beat it in fact.