[MoO] ICEMOD: mod design, race design, strategies

[Rocco.40]

T164- only 16 turns have passed but I have fought out multiple battles with the Klackon. Killing a big portion of their fleet, but still unable to take down planetary defense (Zeon Missile bases + planetary shield and Zortium armor CIII star base. Their Rangemaster Unit combined with Grav Beam is pretty potent. My fleet is growing in size, so a breakthrough should be near. Offcourse the Human or Trilarian can suddenly decide to get involved, which could turns things around in a unpretty way. At the moment I have an advantage coz the Elerian started invading Klackon planets, which relieves the pressure. The Trilarian are decimating the Gnolam. And Human have some skirmishes with Mrrshan, but never an all out war.

Picture shows the effect of a Feud gov: Lots of ships, bad tech.

edit
T169- finally breakthrough. Big Battle 2BB, Star Base & Missile Base down. A nice abundant swamp planet filled with Klackons is now mine. Lost 3 ships.

 

[Rocco.40]

T180- Mystic X shows up bringing me the Dimensional Portal. He is a good leader, but I wont be needing that portal any time soon
T184- Mrrshan are a bit bored and spice up the game by declaring war on me.
T188- Take a Klackon Toxic planet, fighting 1 BB that was equipped with Class I Cloak and Class V shields... I am seriously lagging in the tech department.
T193- Finally have a good hold on 2 Klackon systems with 14 BB's. Klackon are down to 3 systems. A cool aspect of being Telepath is if you capture a Star Base, you can use it against your opponent in battle.
The Klackon Star Base was equipped with Phasors, a good help against their planet's missile base!
T194- Trilarian and Mrrshan have formed an alliance. That is really bad news since I am at war with the Mrrshan. I demand the Trilars to break the treaty and they oblige.

 

[neilkaz]

Rocco, I cannot tell from your graphs what race picture you are using.

I played my UniAquaBal game to T250 and am very dominant. I have the entire left half of the galaxy and the Coids were happy to make peace so I could concentrate on taking Orion and then Gnols. This will be a win the next time the GC meets. I almost won last time, but I think a couple of revolted Klackon planets cost me. They've been recaptured and their empire is gone.

My spies have also been useful with +30 from techs researched and every several turns a stolen tech rolls in. I'll win this and try v10b tomorrow.

 

[Rocco.40]

I am the Alkari with most ships and sucky tech
+ I chose this game to be omni, foregoing on eco picks and in game i took the compu instead of Supercomps

 

[neilkaz]

I am the Alkari with most ships and sucky tech
+ I chose this game to be omni, foregoing on eco picks and in game i took the compu instead of Supercomps

Do you find that you need Omni? You start standard so did it also help you explore right away, perhaps finding Arti planets for tech discoveries, or better yet a splinter colony? It also means that you may be able to get a nice system with that starting CS.

The argument against Omni is that you can find this stuff anyhow and also find a victim or two.

You decided beams so you need that comp. Hopefully, you can steal Supercomps from invasion or trade for it.

I played to 260 in my game, just waiting to win, colonizing Orion, punishing Gnols and catching a 26 BB Coid fleet with 30 of my BB's. 10 Coid ships are limping home...I need to remember to put Warp Dissipators on a few ships to prevent retreats if I have the tech.

 

[Rocco.40]

When blitzing a H/I/8 map in vanilla MOO2 with a TeleFeud Warlord-Trans-Di-Omni race, if i wanted to finish game with minimum turns, i found Omni very valuable.
Coz, you can see the whole map, opponents and important the wormholes and you can count all the distances. So from T1 you can plan your route: Opponent A - Wormhole - Opp B, Opp C - Wormhole etc.
So you can calculate minimum # outpost ships and if your cruisers need extend tanks yes/no.
This was a huge resource saver.
So the first thing I did in Mod version 1, is increase Omni to 4 pts.
However, so much has changed since v1, and ICE 10 is really another level and I haven't succeeded yet winning <100 turns. This actually dramatically reduces the Omni value. Yes it is still nice for;
* finding some goodies early
* to see stealthy ships (ICE 10 has the early Class I Cloak)
* to see ships if you have sucky scanners
... but the strategic value is much much less now.

 

[Rocco.40]

I need to remember to put Warp Dissipators on a few ships to prevent retreats if I have the tech.

Yes can be valuable, and is a bit earlier in tech tree now.
I always hope some a.i. gets it too Forces you to raid Star Base if it is a close call, which I think is always exciting.

 

[Rocco.40]

@neilkaz, thanks for sharing savegames, it helped finding the solution for that score (*1.1) and its fixed.

 

[neilkaz]

@neilkaz, thanks for sharing savegames, it helped finding the solution for that score (*1.1) and its fixed.

You're welcome. Mercifully, I won my game in the GC on T267pw hugely dominant with 112 out of 151 votes cast by myself.

I'll try the latest update tomorrow.

 

[neilkaz]

I started another UniAquaBalanced game vs v10c and spawned near the lower left corner again. Again things were more crowded than expected so I had delay supercomp plans for Z-armor and warships. The Space Crystal guarding Perseus and that awesome pop 28 UR gaia mind controlled two of my DD's but went down in a hail of missiles to my DD and FF fleet. Joined by a BB Nuke 27 they've helped rip up the Trilarians who spawned above me. (Imp3) who had been at war with the Birds and had mostly transports comprising their fleet.

T144pw now and I should have the Tri's finished off soon and a fine game to continue.

This is a very strong race. I can also use F+1 and LHW rather than Aquatic and then need only 7 negs. So I will try that one sometime.

EDIT: Played to T154 and on that turn I finished the Tri's (slowed a bit by a revolt) and the Bears sneak attacked me. These are not the daft useless Bears from Vanilla, but rather the Tolerant and Subt Imp 2 brand that is doing quite well indeed. These SuperBears also have 10 spies in my camp and can attack with 4 decent ships this early.

So in ICE10 I don't have the very easily won game after getting to Z-armor and taking several planets to eliminate a race and gain population and strength. I still have a game to play and a fight on my hands.

Bravo, Rocco....things are about right now with this game!!

 

[Rocco.40]

the very easily won game after getting to Z-armor

I also find that the 'Zortium stage' is less of a tipping point in the game now.

+ Friday! ..So continue my game a bit.
Remember I am playing "TeleFeud, Warlord, TransDi, Omni, GC-20".
This is, or should I say, was, a blitz race and without any boni, badly equipped for long games. I am turning close to T200 now and this is not even a rush anymore:
T197- Galactic Council, Humans get 40/70 votes, I get 0/70. It seems the other players don't really like me. I also still have this passive war with the Mrrshan, so it is time for Xeno Psychology to up my charms.
T198- Colonize a Gaia planet that was freed from a Crystal by the Elerian, while I was playing with the Klackon. Hope I don't upset them...
T199- Xeno Psychology, Immediately ask the Mrrshan for peace once more, which they now accept. All is well in the Galaxy tonight. Except offcourse for the Elerian that send a fleet to my new colony, with only 1 BB defending it. Rest of fleet at an Ant world... Elerian have a nice BB with the Class I Cloak, some Gauss Canon and Cl. V shields. I have Mass Drivers (LOL) and bought a Garrison on the planet (=fighters with MDrivers). My brave BB does no damage and retreats, leaving the planet to bite the dust.
T204- My real fleet attacks another Klackon world. Their SB now has the Lightning Field so missiles much less effective. Some of my BB's have Neutron Blasters, so after some good blasts, I am able to raid the base and destroy shield & stuff, whch allows me to finish off the SB. Planet has a Missile Base too, but here my missiles & bombs could destroy it rel. easy. Gained the tech Radiation Shield AND Atm Renewer. Good catch Marines! Most of my planet have the 'coids, so Atm. Renewer is not too useful, only on my home planet and some newly added Klackon worlds. I wonder if my Marines get more effective if I have better spying tech?

Ah- In the same turn the Gnolam are burried for good by the Mrrshan!

T208- Elerian declare, not entirely unexpected, war on me.
T209- I make peace with the Klackon, their empire is more than halved by now, battered by the Trilarian, Elerian and myself. They are more than happy to get a break

T214- Capture an Elerian BB. Scrapping it gave met the Gauss Canon! Most welcome weapon. Time to refit some ships of mine!
T216- Spies steal Graviton Beam. 2 turns later they steal HEF. Now I can build a real offensive fleet.

T217~T260- Elerians and me have been going back and forth, a couple of big battles resulted in losses of tens of BB's on both sides. Invented of Titans and Confederation turns things in my favour.

T303- This monstrous game has passed T300 and the Elerian have just been wiped out, a collective effort from the Human, Mrrshan, Trilars and me.
I have an alliance with the Trilarian, who have captured Orion!
Surprisingly I am still on friendly terms with the Humans too.
Close to inventing Doom Stars, and I will not be the only one flying around with those things.
In ICE 10, Doom Stars that are built by an a.i., get 20% extra space for goodies, so I am really eager to fight a couple of Plus Size Doom Stars.
My Omniscience ability has some tactical value now, as almost all enemy ships are equipped with either Class I or Class II Cloaks and I have neither Star Fortress or Sensors researched.

T349- BIG Battle. Trilarians attacking me with 25 Doom Stars and countless other ships. I have 20 Doom Stars and numerous Titans. This is a classic MOO2 'who goes first wins' shootout. Luckily, I had the initiative.
But it is nog game over yet... this is a huge galaxy and nearly all planets have been colonized and even with this battle won, Trilarian fleet is still larger than mine

T360- Trilarian strike again at a system of mine. I have Star Fortress and 5 Doom Stars, Trilars have 9 Doom Stars. This time, Trilars get to shoot first. These are clearly Doom Stars of newer design. I take a beating. Lost planet and all ships.

T368- The Humans are upset about something, prob coz I didn't give them enough attention .. little babies .. now they ask me 32.000 BC to stay in favour .. 32k! You kidding me! I kindly refuse and they cancel our treaties...

T372- Humans are apparently bored and declare war on me... Trilars have now taken a few heavy beatings but they have Warp Interdictors everywhere so progress is slow. Telepathic comes in handy now- no worries about rebellion, no transports to manage, etc. A time saver in the end game really.

T381- OK, I am now running around the galaxy 'upgrading' planets with my Stellar Converters.

T399- Gal. Council.. but I am just a few votes short of 2/3 majority. Mrrshan voted for me to we have an alliance. Guess this game will be going for a few more turns

T401- 2 big battles at once, 1 with Trilars, but I am ship design superior by now and decimate their fleet.
2nd battle with the humans which I also win, but not without heavy losses. Humans have their Doom Stars equipped with Stellars and lots of goodies.

T421- Really hoping for a GC. I still need to visit little over 30 systems all with Warp Interdictor. That is 4*30 turns .. well I guess by now I can split my fleet in 3 and save 60 turns.

T423- Finally a GC. Mrrshan are still on my side! This game is wrap everybody!
Mr. blitzer has been playing a nice post-T400 game..!

Highlights: I did not capture Orion & only managed to burry 2; the Klackon and Sili's. Not bad with my Telefeud Warlord race. Omniscience has value in late game, it is a good pick to chose with Ev. Mutation if you have enemies with Cloaks flying around. Telepathic is handy in late game, but more a micro-management buster than actual game play value. Human fleets were in good shape! Every confrontation caused me losses. I am quite content with the a.i. Doom Star Plus ships. Guarantees a few good fights in late game. Alkari did not so well, their ship design was lacking compared to humans. Feudal ship building at 1/3 cost after researching Confederation is too much really. I need to reduce this discount. 50% is indeed more than sufficient. In ICE Warlord is 3 picks but you get only 1 cmd point per planet, which I think is much more balanced. 2 cmd points in a single player game was just too much, especially in Large/Huge galaxies. The Star Gate tech is hughly important in late game, to be everywhere in time, again especially in Huge galaxies. In ICE it is a choice between Star Gate, Mauler Device and Time Warp Facilitator, which is a tough choice but in a single player game I would pick the Star Gate 80% of the time, unless playing in small or perhaps medium galaxy.
Enjoyed this game - hope you enjoyed reading!

//played with ICE 10c//

 

[Rocco.40]

Thx, this is only a minor issue since it affects score only.

I am probably one of the few people to care about score still
It was the reason i have changed the score for a council win to 250 points.
Always thought it to be a bit unfair that score of 100 disincentived to win via GC.
And it was also the reason that *1.1 bug, bugged me big time

 

[neilkaz]

@Rocco,

Your game sounds like huge fun and it doesn't sound like it is won yet, since you just lost a major battle with the Tri's. Good to read that they went after Orion sometime around T300! This will mean the we human players can't let Orion sit for too long if we want it.

My UniAquaBalanced game was basically a vanilla style romp and stomp to a T240pw win in the GC as I had just the required 82 out of 123 votes myself. I concentrated on major expansion thru conquest and infrastructure. I'd still be trying to take Bear systems had I not passed on Robo-Miners and gone for Powered Armor. LOL that with many stolen techs from troops and spies, no one had Robo-Miners. Starting with -20 GC neg creates major hassles taking Bulrathi planets if you don't want to bombard them nearly to dust first.

Next game started and looks good so far. I swapped Aquatic +5 picks for Food+1 and LHW and now need one less negative so I swapped -20 GC for -10 attack.

 

[neilkaz]

I found v10f with updated races at ur site so I installed it and started my usual H/8/I/pw game.

Every AI race seems to be a super race now, so I had to use my own which is now possible. UniFood+1Prod+2ArtiLRHW. Negs are my usual for ICE of Rep & LG. My starting HW has 63 pp/t which pollutes to 36 pp/t. Or it can have 30 rp/t.

I met the Bears down a long worm hole on T74 instantly they stole a tech from me as I instantly used saved prod to make a spy in 1 turn!

T96 now, and I have 6 systems and the Bears (OP IMP1 type) also have 6 but have a slight pop lead on me! I do have somewhat of a tech lead.

 

[Rocco.40]

ah, you have found the new beast!

First of all, I have kept our beloved ICE 10c available on the website as it is such a fun version playing on impossible.

ICE 10f

What i really like
The stock races are 'restored' to their original characters, but with improvements compared to original MOO2; Alkari & Psilon are Democratic, Bulrathi have a cool P+2 production bonus. The Silicoids are in fact the only race to reappear in their vanilla form, which is possible as I now have a -10/+12 points system in place and the coids use exactly all negatives and positives. Humans are finally 'fantastic traders'. I am really looking forward to play all the new stock races, maybe not on impossible setting (yet) but most definitely on the Hard setting.

Hard difficulty setting
The extra abilities that stock races got in MOO2 1.31 seemed too random from a balance point of view. The strong Klackon received extra production bonuses or Aquatic, while the weak Bulrathi only got GC+20. In 10f Hard setting, extra abilities were picked, balancing from the strong production races: Klackon and Sakkra. These guys now only get a minimum extra ability like SD+30 or SA+25. The other races get extra bonuses to be able to approach/match these two races' strength. This makes the Hard level a much more interesting level to play.

Moving forward with Impossible
After playing a few times on Impossible with a Feudal-Warlord race, with the intention of blitzing but without succes being dragged into a long term game that still resulted in a win, I thought 'the envelope should be pushed a bit more'. Starting point for a.i. race design was the UniTol,P+1,LHW race. This race can now be built in the custom design screen, using your 12 positive and full 10 negative picks. So I took the production power of only the positive abilities as a reference and built our a.i. opponents around this strength. This generated, as Neilkaz stated, super races only.

About the rest of the game mechanics
10f and 10c are very similar, a noteworthy change is that the Spying and Ground Combat penalties have been changed to -10 Spy for -2pts and -10 GC for -1pt.

Have I now gone too far?
ICE 10 is all about finding an optimum new race design and it might take a few iterations to get there.
The Impossible races will need to be tweaked and perhaps, depending on playing experience toned down a notch.
"The best thing that can happen is that I lose a few games."
"The worst thing that can happen is that I run out of letters."
(10f-z)

We now have 1. cool stock races, 2. a balanced Hard level, 3. an impossible 'Impossible'.

enjoy!

 

[neilkaz]

Have you gone too far with AI race attributes in Ice 10f? I am not sure, but I'd certainly not make any of them any stronger than this.

What bonuses to production, money, tech, and growth do the AI's get on Impossible when compared to standard?

I need to play a few games to better get an idea if and what AI's are really too strong now.

thx .. neilkaz ..

 

[Rocco.40]

Certainly not make these opponents stronger, rather I am looking to see which race or race version needs some abilities reduced.

Currently started a new game as well, and it is not a Feudal race this time, rather a Uni,P+1,Sub,Pop+50,LAHW type with the same penalties as you have chosen, Low-G and Repulsive. Am at turn 109 with Mrrshan and Gnolam next to me. The latter I have chosen as my first target, but I am late to war and still building my economy. I find myself also playing much more precise and applying old little tactics like sending a scout through a long wormhole and than sending him back home the long route (like ETA 12 turns), when you have Neutron Scanner you can learn a great deal about races' fleets that you havent met yet.
I am not to concerned with the human player production races in this game, but i have booted a couple of research race (demo's) games as well this weekend and was really struggling to keep up with the a.i.'s as they outproduced me AND stole my techs, so I was left with little advantages.

Looking fwd to read about your game!

 

[neilkaz]

I'm not sure if any of the Demo research races can fare well now. One nuisance is spies and many races now have spying +10 for some of their 3 IMP possibilities. For me, one of the most fun things to do is to see my cute black haired spies in their blue and purple stealth suits bringing stolen knowledge to enhance my empire. But the chances for this unless I play a spy oriented race are less now.

You could take away the spy bonus for some race picks and put something else in that is +2, but in some cases I think other +2 choices may be more useful to the AI than +10 spy.

T100 in my game and I met humans (IMP3). They have somewhat more tech than I(expected) and also a bit more buildings (wow!) and 7 systems to my 6.

T104 and dinner time and there's no close enemy found yet. I may grab a couple more close by systems but will get Atmos Ren first so I can switch production to MIRV Nukes if hostilities come.

If we both get crushed in a few games using super custom races, and/or if certain AI's races always seem really dominant then we know where to look to weaken a couple of them.

Yeah I am playing very slowly and trying to be precise as well. I don't expect to be crushed, but certainly won't win as easily as in v10c or v9. It also won't shock me to lose if I end up rolling a really bad start.

T107 ... oh my I just met the Darloks IMP1 above me and even though they have 3 systems to my 6 they are almost my economic equal. I now have to get some spy techs and make several more agents I think.

 

[neilkaz]

Re: Telepathic ..am OK with +10 spying restored with cost +7.

Re: Psyonics. This tech is expensive and I'd consider going back to +15 spying in spite of the moral boosts for the basic governments.

Re: Uni when valued at 4 for Litho (Coid). I think it is worth more than 4 since I think the PP bonus may be more valuable than the Farm bonus. Also, one will need to farm to feed conquered colonists. Also, Uni has +5 for agents compared to Dict so that should count as about 0.5 I'd say. But you did drop +50% growth from the UniCoids so I think they are OK now.

Re: Feudal. I still think the Adv Gov't -2/3 ships is too much. I'd go with -1/2 and consider making Feudal -4 again to allow it to be combined with the -6 negatives.

Perhaps Feudal at -4 should be -35%tech -30% ships and then go to -10% tech -60% ships?

As it is now, I don't think Feudal deserves a -5 penalty.

 

[Rocco.40]

good comments (as usual)

Re: Psyonics. This tech is expensive and I'd consider going back to +15 spying.

Yeah, I see your point, so I could change that back, alternatively the tech itself could stay at +10 and we would make it available earlier in the tech tree, it would help out the research races. Need to think around this...
edit mmm this is not really so as democratic does not benefit from the morale part..

Uni when valued at 4 for Litho (Coid). I think it is worth more than 4 since I think the PP bonus may be more valuable than the Farm bonus.

Agree. And the 50% growth added was too much indeed.

Re: Feudal.

Yes Feudal need to be fixed. There is a formula involved in the code that I have yet to master.. once a crack it, will change it. Yes I see the first part of your option but -10% and -60% is approx what it is now (-10%, -66%). Was also thinking back to -50% research and then ship cost -40% right from the start and -50% at confederation. But it is only an idea... and i like your point of figuring out some value so Feudal can cost -4 and you can combine with Low-G or -/-Growth. Another idea is like the VDC mod that has Feudal at only -25% ship cost and then -40% at Confederation.