MOO 2 Meklar - Impossible Large Galaxy

Harv · Sep 3, 2012

Now I can post a start and find out from the Forum how to play the Meklar.

The settings are the same: Large Galaxy, Average Age, 7 Impossible Opponents for a total of 8 Players.

Our fearless leader is B33R of the Meklar.

We are Cybernetic, for what that is worth. It is 4 points and instead of one food per Colonist, it is half food plus half production. Production occurs on every planet so basically we need only half the Freighters to supply our Colonies.

From the in-game description, we also get a natural bonus to ship repair that does not seem to be mentioned in the original strategy guide. This bonus is 10% to Ships Armor and 5% to Intenal Systems. That being the case we would eventually do well to produce large indestructable ships.

Since we have such a need for large industrial production base, we have a +2 bonus to Production. It is not as big a production bonus as being Unified but it will do. It does mean that Poor and Ultra Poor planets are fair game.

Here is a look at our Home System:

We have:
1. Asteroid Belt
2. Medium Toxic Abundant
3. Medium Tundra Poor
4. Meklon our home world

Here our map of the Galaxy:

We are orbiting K-Class star in the upper left corner. We look reasonably sheltered with some expansion room before we meet anybody.
Also we have 3 systems in range - one Orange, one Yellow, and one White. So we should have good odds of finding another colonizable planet nearby.

Here is what I am thinking:
1. Build a Colony Base on Meklon 2 and set it to Housing.
2. Develop Nuclear Fission Technology and build a Freighter Fleet. Try to time this close to 1 above.
3. Build a Colony Base on Meklon 3 and set it to Housing.
4. Build Meklon 4 to 11/12 Population and Meklon 3 to 3/4 Population.
5. Research Hydroponic Farm and build on Meklon 3 and 4.
6. Research Electronic Computer - Research Labs. Build Research Labs everywhere.
7. Research Reinforced Hull - Automated Factories. Build Automated Factories everywhere.
8. Research Chemistry. Build a Scout Ship. Store production in a Battleship if necessary.
9. Research Cold Fusion. Build a Colony Ship on Meklon 4.

Is this order correct or should we develop Automated Factories and Research Labs before developing the rest of the system?

Given that the Meklar are Cybernetic, is Soil Enrichment skippable? With Hydroponic Farms, the home system described above needs 10 :food:

and 10

to support and we can do that with 3 Hydroponic Farms and 2 Farmers on Meklon. We can at least delay Soil Enrichment or Cloning Centers in favor of getting Robo Miner Plants earlier.

neilkaz · Sep 3, 2012

My usual Mecklar start is to build research labs and then autofactories before colonizing my system as I don't think they have enough production after pollution to make it best to colonize first but now that you're playing them I'll DL your start and test both ways (not selling SB since I know you don't) and compare. I might sell SB with that starting position, but if more central I'd not dream of it.

I think you may be better off in the long term with biospheres since Mecks don't need that much food anyhow and your planets don't have much initial pop capacity.

If researching at the start, you have two farmers, 1 worker (needed to feed) and 5 researchers generating 15 RP/t with 1 PP/t left over to be saved up. This is clearly a better start than with a weaker race.

I'll do some Meck start tests tomorrow.

As for cloners or soil.... I'd usually go soils as Meck as planets aren't big and housing can create new workers quickly anyhow, but there's no rush to get soil enrichment like with many other races.

I'll play along with you and like with Klackons will likely post lots of early econ details so we can compare but not give away too many later details so as not to give you too much advance info as to what this galaxy holds and ruin your game.

EDIT: I think this is a huge galaxy isn't it?

neilkaz · Sep 4, 2012

I made one quick test before I head to bed and as Meck, building 1 CB, then frieghters and then the other CB seems very close to building labs and factories and then CB, freighter (since research is done), CB.

I bought what I could when half or more built in both scenarios and hired no leaders to cloud the issue.

CB first had two more people after 64 turns but was a couple turns behind in research.

Take your pick of methods I guess.

I just tested building both CB's first and then freighters, labs, factories and while a turn behind to get labs and factories on all planets and several turns behind in research, I have as many people as when building 1 CB first and am a couple turns away from birthing 2 new people, but I don't think this method is best.

Harv · Sep 4, 2012

It looks like you are correct. It is better to start Meklon down the Research route than with the early Colonization route. So we begin by switching Production to 2 Farmers, 1 Worker, and 5 Scientists and net 1 :hammers:

and 15

.

Research is as follows:
Turn 5 Electronic Computer
Turn 16 Research Laboratory
Turn 22 Reinforced Hull
Turn 28 Automated Factory
Turn 32 Hydroponic Farm
Turn 35 Nuculear Fission
Turn 38 Chemistry
Turn 40 Physics
Turn 43 Cold Fusion
Turn 60 Battle Pods
Turn 74 Space Port

Production is as follows:

Spoiler :

Exploration is as follows:

Spoiler :

Events are as follows:

Spoiler :

Here is a look at our Home System on Turn 75:

This is how much of the Galaxy we have explored.

So the general plan is to out produce and out colonize our opponents.

The Research Plan is:
1. Robo Miners
2. Deuterium Fuel Cells
3. Merculite Missiles
4. Neural Scanner
5. Planetary Supercomputer
6. Soil Enrichment
7. Microbiotics
8. Terraforming

If the Planetary Supercomputer is blasting our Research past 200 or so then we will insert some of the smaller projects.

The Natives on the Neptunus system should be able to supply a lot of the needs of the Meklar people. It is surprising to see Ultra Rich and Low G together, so we should not be surprised to encounter the Gnolam or the Psilon nearby.

We should get to this planet before they do! This means researching Deuterium Fuel Cells and Merculite Missiles and building MIRV Nuke Destroyers. We might be able to accomplish the job with four of them.

Would we do well to insert Merculite Missiles before Planetary Supercomputer or before Terraforming?
Were we supposed to do this before Space Port?

The next round should take us either when we take Neptunus, or First Contact. (EDIT: I am guessing the Yellow Star in the Nebula gives us either the Psilons or the Gnolam.)

scratchthepitch · Sep 5, 2012

You got the next game up.

The natives on Neptunus will probably supply your early empire by themselves.

That dragon should be safe from AI attack till around the 150th turn at least, so you have a lot of time.

Since you already colonized the home system planets, I think I would move towards supercomputer and terraforming (I cant remember which takes less research) before moving on to merc missiles. Those home system planets wont be very productive till they get terraformed or biosphered. You can take that dragon down with mirv'd nuclear missiles.

neilkaz · Sep 5, 2012

Harv, you have some interesting research choices now. If you want to take the very nice Neptunus system quickly you can go Deut Cells then Mercs. If you want to turtle a bit and likely meet no one, you can go Neural Scanner and Supercomps and concentrate more on tech. Of course, as planned, Robo Miners are a big help to Mecklars since they eat some production.

You could colonize the Vaht system and get two more productive planets and still likely not meet anyone else.

The techy possibility which will leave you then in great military shape, assuming you can get there safely is to go crazy on chem techs after robo miners and neural scanner and comps. Then you can put everyone but one worker/planet on research and hopefully blow thru Deut Cells (you'll meet others for sure) and then Mercs followed by Atmos Renewer and Zort armor. Then you MIRV Mercs and kick butt and your ships are hard to kill as well. Atmos Renewer will solve pollution issues and your 1 worker each with Robo Miners should be saving up production or even completing the Star Bases.

Should be a fun game to watch you progress.

.. neilkaz ..

neilkaz · Sep 5, 2012

Noting that Harv later sold the SB to raise cash to hire a nice megawealth leader, I decided to test the start selling the SB instantly as I think it is a reasonable gambit from this corner position in a huge galaxy.

I then built two colony bases as fast as possible, buying them on the turn when they were at least half built. I didn't worry about a freighter fleet til after that since Mecklars lacking food, but having adequate production on the 1 pop planets were only starving at -.025 rather than -.050 for a normal civ lacking food.

As a result, my start is accelerated and after turn 56 I have 17 pop and have built labs and factories on all three planets. I'll have to rebuild the SB on my HW, but hopefully that can wait til I get Robo-Miners and hopefully pollution control from a leader or Atmos Renewer when it won't take long.

I'm allready near my pop caps so I'll go Biospheres for sure.

No colony leaders have shown up :eek:

and the only ship leader was worthless so I have 111 BC banked and nice income.

Harv · Sep 5, 2012

This is a short segment. It features a battle with a Space Dragon and our first contact.

Research:
Turn 86 Robo Miners
Turn 91 Deuterium Fuel Cells
Turn 100 Merculite Missiles
Turn 108 Neural Scanner

Production:

Spoiler :

Exploration:

Spoiler :

History:

Spoiler :

Turn 112 Industrializing Neptunus is especially a priority if we have neighbors like these guys.....

On top of their normal Sneaky Spying ways, they are also Tolerant with +1 Industrial Production. Their Stealthy Ships also have +25 Defense. They make up for their complete lack of Creativity with +20 Espionage.

They are Ruthless Industrialists. They are at war with the Klackon. That might be either a very good thing or a very bad thing for us.

Technology Comparision:

Spoiler :

Here is a list of our Colonies:

And our Map:

They have 5 Systems to our two. We have 2 Colony Bases and have lost 2 of our BOOM ships. This might be equivalent to a couple of systems.

It should not take very long to get Neptunus fully populated and running. This will be the launch point for our Colony Ships and our Battle Ships.

We need a few defensive spies to protect our Technology and our Assets.

What is the best way to deal with the Darloks? My books say the only good Darloks are dead ones. However we might be able to negotiate a treaty and pretend to play nice for a while.

We also have some room to expand if we are quick about it.

Cyb · Sep 6, 2012

Harv said:
What is the best way to deal with the Darloks? My books say the only good Darloks are dead ones. However we might be able to negotiate a treaty and pretend to play nice for a while.

I agree. Darloks suck. There's two options: a non-aggression pact or "kill them", anything else and you get burned by their spying/framing you.

neilkaz · Sep 6, 2012

I presume your initial relations with the Darlok are quite favorable as mine were and if so, that means that you can likely make treaties and befriend them. You may wish to buy those 3 spies when half built and quickly convince them that they are likely wasting their time spying. If their spies come back and your relations are good, they may agree to a demand to stop spying.

However, if you decide to attack them instead and can take over a few systems loaded with their tolerant workers, you'll likely have a nearly won game. If you do decide to attack, check that Inak isn't more than 6 spaces from Nazin or your attack will stall due to only having Deut cells unless that white star below Inak can take an outpost.

scratchthepitch · Sep 6, 2012

I tried doing this game as production-expansionist, building auto factory and a couple of colony ships to colonize the nearby systems. But this didn't work out as the nearby planets are as lousy as the home system ones, so all I gained by this strategy was hobbling my empire with a very slow start. Harv's strategy is much better for this map. :thumbsup:

Harv · Sep 6, 2012

We decided to work with the Darloks..... for now..... :backstab:

Besides Inak is 7 Parsecs from Nazin so the worst we could do to them is take two planets and stare at each other while they get Irridium Fuel Cells and strike with no warning.

We have been focusing on expanding and at least claiming a few systems before the other productive races claim them.

Research:
Turn 122 Planetary Supercomputer
Turn 124 Fusion Beam
Turn 129 Soil Enrichment
Turn 131 Space Academy
Turn 133 Battle Scanner
Turn 141 Telepathic Training
Turn 149 Terraforming

Production:

Spoiler :

Exploration:

Spoiler :

History:

Spoiler :

We have a small corner in the Galaxy and we are next to two very productive Races, the Klackon and the Darlok. We have heard vague rumors of the Humans, the Bulrathi, and the Trilarian and two other races that we have not yet encountered. We are hanging in the Technology race reasonably, but the Darlok appear to be grabbing extra technology and causing mischeif. We have only seen their force of spies once and amazingly they have not taken anything from us.

Technology Comparison:

Spoiler :

We have a small corner of the Galaxy:

We also have Terraforming. We have 40 Population. [EDIT - My Klackon game had 36 Population at Turn 86. :eek:

] So we are hanging in there. Here is a list of our Colonies.

We have 4 Systems, 7 Colonies in a tight empire in a corner of the Galaxy. Both of our neighbors are currently at war although we do not know how long it will last.

Of our Colonies, we have Two Terran, Two Tundra, One Barren, One Radiated, and one Toxic. Of the Planets that can be Terraformed, two are Large. The Radiated World is also Large. In the Systems we have already colonized, there is also a Medium Radiated and a Large Radiated.

We have a chance at getting San (Large Barren) and Malus. (Huge Barren Rich High G)
Derke is neutral between us and the Darlok. If we claim this we have 7 Systems and 12 Colonies. This is as far as we can expand without going to war.

Here is the Research Path I have in mind:
1. Mass Driver - It takes two turns hopefully and starts us down the Force Fields Path.
2. Augmented Engines - This will help us later.
3. Atmosphere Renewer - We *just* *need* it.
4. Anti Grav Harness or Inertial Stabilizer?
5. Planetary Radiation Shield - I am really thinking about skipping Class 3 Shields because of all the Radiated Planets we have already. This is taking a big chance that we do not have an early war. This takes us further down the Terraforming path.
6. Neutron Blaster
7. Planetary Gravity Generator - We have a Low G and maybe a High G World.
8. Assault Shuttles?
9. Titan Construction - Bigger Ships are Better Ships
10. Planet Construction - I just like building them but is this better than Recylotron?

We might have to do something different if we are on the War Path.

scratchthepitch · Sep 8, 2012

4. Anti Grav Harness or Inertial Stabilizer?

AGH will mean fewer transports needed, while IS very useful if you are not far ahead in ship tech. I prefer IS, since I spam transports anyways.

5. Planetary Radiation Shield

Yes, flux shields are a long ways off and those planets need terraforming asap.

8. Assault Shuttles?

Useful for capturing Antaran ships. I build destroyers filled with AS for that purpose.

10. Planet Construction - I just like building them but is this better than Recylotron?

I like building them too, but I usually found those colonies never got going very much before the game was over, so building them was mostly a waste. So I would recommend R instead. You can never have too much production capacity.

In the game I played from your save, the Darloks colonized the systems to their right instead and I colonized both Derke and Jobe before I met them. I guess it was a dice roll that chose which direction they would go in and they rolled differently in our respective games. The Klackon may become a serious problem if you get on their bad side too early. :eek:

Harv · Sep 9, 2012

This is a short segment, 26 Turns. We claimed three more systems and met two more races.

Research:
Turn 151 Mass Driver
Turn 153 Augmented Engines
Turn 158 Inertial Stabilizer
Turn 169 Atmosphere Renewer (We got all the way from 4% to 97%)
Turn 175 Planetary Radiation Shield

Production:

Spoiler :

Exploration:

Spoiler :

History:

Spoiler :

We still have our little corner in the Galaxy, as we can see on the map:

We are up to 7 Systems. The Klackon have 8 Systems and the Trilarians have at least 8 Systems. We have not yet encountered the Mrrshan or the Bulrathi yet so we have no idea how many systems they have. It appears to be pretty balanced.

At 60, we seem to have an advantage in Population.

Terraforming will help get this number up.

With Black Razor on our side we should be sending some spies out. We have 12 of them. The Humans are probably the easiest target but we have good relations right now. The Gnolams do not have any agreements and they are in no position to strike back. If we can rob somebody blind we can catch up in the technology race.

The Darloks will likely choose our first enemy and we have to prepare. We have no Shields but Zortrium Armor will put us right back into the running.

Our next project should either be Zortrium Armor or a couple of the Spy techs, depending on how much time we think we have until our first war.

scratchthepitch · Sep 13, 2012

I think I would go for the armor first so a defensive fleet could be built up while the spying tech was researched.

Usually the Darlok prove a pain in any game, but in my last game, the Darlok were well behaved and I didn't get spied on by them or any irate AI accompanied by the "framed" message.

Harv · Sep 13, 2012

It looks like you are correct about the defensive fleet. Hindsight says I should have researched Zortrium Armor instead of Planetary Radiation Shield. The Radiated planets can wait.

So what I can do is switch reseach to Zortrium Armor, build Star Bases where I do not have them after building Automated Factories, Robo Miner Plants, and Marine Barracks, and start building an Autofire Armor Piercing Battleship on Neptunus.

Is it my imagination or is spying very difficult? It almost seems to be an end game thing when we have 64 of them and nowhere to put them.

Tonight is a little late for me so maybe I can get something up Friday night.

scratchthepitch · Sep 14, 2012

Something I often do when building a new battleship design is start the ship while the last tech desired is still being researched, since these expensive ships might take 10 or more turns to build. When the tech is finished, I redo the ship design and switch it into the production slot. That way I can have the ship ready a few turns sooner than I would have if I had waited for the tech to finish researching. Alternately, I go ahead and build the ships while the tech are researching so I'll have the hulls already built and gaining experience. Then once all the techs I want are done, I rebuild the ships to the new design. Since ship upgrades usually only take a short while to build, many can be done very quickly. As long as the upgrade isn't too radical.

I found spying to be very unreliable. I did some experimenting with modded races with all the spy traits maxed a while back. The result was disappointing. The best results were usually in the first half of the game, but the number of techs stolen diminished as time went on. Sometimes I stole a lot initially, sometimes I hardly got a thing. As the game advanced, unless I managed to get the spy boosting techs, the spying dribbled away to no results at all. If you are behind the others in the spy techs, the chance of getting any techs is very small, no matter how many spies are used. I found I got a lot better results from conquests and tech trades than spying.

neilkaz · Sep 14, 2012

Harv,

By all means it is time to get Zort armor which allows you to MIRV Mercs and also makes any ships and SB's much tougher than your current basic cardboard (Titanium).

I think you'll want a battleship or two so you don't look too weak to AI's and to prepare for the inevitable upcoming war(s).

As for spying, you need at least somewhat of a spying advantage to have much luck.

Note that most AI races are dictatorships and get +10 to agents so in addition to Black Razor, you'll want at least one more spy tech than them to have a good chance to steal a tech every few turns. With Darloks in the game, there's a decent chances that AI's have lost some techs allready and have both researched some spy techs and also have plenty of agents at home to defend vs spies.

Harv · Sep 15, 2012

This is another short segment, 28 Turns. With careful use of the Time Machine we got over the hump and got to the first election.

Research:
Turn 180 Holo Simulator from the Humans for Planetary Radiation Shield
Turn 186 Zortrium Armor
Turn 192 Cyber Security Link
Turn 194 Anti Matter Torpedos from the Gnolam. They are not impressed.
Turn 198 Stealth Suit
Turn 201 Neutron Blaster

Production:

Spoiler :

Exploration:

Spoiler :

History:

Spoiler :

At 90 Population and 9 Votes, we have a population advantage but the Trilarians are not very far behind at 8 votes. Here are some of our colonies.

This is our map.

We are still in a corner. We have 2 Battleships and 2 Destroyers. Is that enough to deter any fights or even start them? We have 26 Spies and lots more coming. This is certainly enough to start a fight with the Gnolam.

I am thinking we can get away with continuing to build up our colonies. We have the jump on terraforming.

For Technology we need the Cybertronic Computer and we can upgrade our Battleships and actually hit something this time - smaller than the broad side of a barn. Other technology stealing might soon be a prospect. We have a jump on espionage technology.

How far away do you think they are from taking Orion?

scratchthepitch · Sep 16, 2012

I noticed in the battle with the Space Eel that my combat speed was 10, but I had Augmented Engines. Is that a bug?

No, AE adds 4 speed and battleships have a base speed of 6 with nuclear engines and all their space used up.

I am curious why you used a mix of 4 different types of mass drivers in that design. Here are some ideas designing ships that will be used against monsters. If the ship was designed especially to kill eels, the mass driver AP mod is not needed as eels, like all monsters, don't have armor. Leaving it off will save 7 space per heavy and 3 space per regular mass driver. This will allow more weapons to be carried. Further space reduction per weapon can be had by using the 270 attack arc rather than the 360 (I'm guessing about 4 for heavies and 2 for regulars). With the 205 space you have on the ship left over from the ship specials, you could have had 9 heavy mass drivers with AF, with a little space left over. That would do a lot more damage than 4 heavies and 6 regular I would think.

Then there is also the specials choices. Both IS and AE give a very good boost to beam defensiveness, but eels don't use beams. Their weapon is like a plasma flux or a gyro destablizer, which ignores beam defenses from what I've seen. Monsters can be expected to hit these early ships irregardless of their beam defense in general. So with ships designed to fight monsters, I figure the ship is going to get hit. The 50 damage potential on hull and armor titanium gives battleships is quickly eaten up. Since the ship is going to be hit irregardless, IS and AE don't help it much and use up valuable space. Reinforced hull and heavy armor would serve the ship better against monsters, since they would triple the amount of damage it could receive. I know you have researched reinforced hull, but maybe you have heavy armor also from a tech trade? One of the nice things about mass drivers is the damage they do at any range is the same, so closing with the enemy is not important. A monster will usually approach your ships anyway, so they will be close to get hits even with early computers. This means AE isn't needed to close range, either, and you could get by without it on that account. Dropping AE and IS will save about 110 in space, while adding RH and HA will use up 100 space. This gives an extra 10 space (60 if you don't have HA) to devote to mass drivers. That buys you a regular mass driver with AF using the bit of space left over from the 9 heavies (without HA, this leaves enough room for 2 more heavies, plus a regular). Such a battleship would be roughly twice as potent as the one you designed to destroy eels.

Against another AI race, such a ship would not be so ideal, but upgrading the ship to a design more suited to attacking AI ships would probably only take a turn or two. Against AI ships, I would probably go with IS (but not AE) and with both RH and HA. The mass drivers would also get the AP mod, besides the AF and the heavies would be mostly 90 arc instead of 270 (AI ships wont be as fast as eels and less likely to get behind the ships at this tech level). This would mean something like 4-5, maybe 6, heavy mass drivers and at least a couple regulars to handle any AI missiles and fighters.

We have 2 Battleships and 2 Destroyers. Is that enough to deter any fights or even start them?

Probably, as long as they are not a whole lot stronger. Check out the relative fleet strengths in the info section. If your neighbors are a whole lot more powerful than you, you could need to build up some more ships. I think the game compares relative strengths when determining whether an AI will initiate trouble. Having a battleship stationed in the systems they would need to attack first is a great deterrent also, provided they are not fielding a force strong enough to overwhelm.

For Technology we need the Cybertronic Computer

Eventually, but right now I doubt the AI has that great of beam defense yet. Usually in the first half of the game, if you can get a total hitting percentage of 100-125% (battle scanner + the 2nd or 3rd ship computer), that should be enough to hit their ships. Oops, looking at your research lists, it looks like you skipped those ship computers, so if you cant steal one from the Gnolams, or perhaps do a tech trade with any of the others, then you will need cybertronic to get that hitting ability up.

How far away do you think they are from taking Orion?

My experience is the AI will go for Orion usually between turn 250 and 300, but sometimes they go there as early as 220. It depends on their fleet size. Orion is usually around the center of the map and it looks like you will need to do some outposts to get your scouts in range. You could outpost the gas giant in the Tur system (that shouldn't upset the Humans) to get to the blue star nearby. That may be Orion. If not, it could be outposted or colonized, if it has useful planets. This could bring several more within range, and perhaps relations with a new race. Got to be on good terms with the Humans to do this safely.

MOO 2 Meklar - Impossible Large Galaxy

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