Moo 2 Mini AAR

[Angelscotboi]

Boy is Moo2 a hard game.

Set stage of a "slightly" modified Human Empire (given them a Large Homeworld and a Production bonus instead of Charismatic) i quick moved out of the Sol system and took control of the Sal system ...

By foruitious accident one of the "Great Leaders" arrived in my Empire with Terraforming so I was able to make Sol IV and Sal II and IV Terran worlds pretty quickly; unfortunately colonizing Sal brought me into Contact with the Darlok Empire who had taken control of 4 - count em 4! - star systems and managed to muster a fleet of 4 Battle ships and 5 cruisers.

The Darloks promptly declare war on me and attacked my new colony in the Rigel system (next to Sal and Nazin) and then moved onto to attack Sal; I thought I was a goner at this point after all I had no fleet of my own to counter with what with it being so early in the game when the Darloks suddenly withdrew and then begged for peace (offering me a 10% tribute treaty). Confused I accepted.

I continued my expansion towards the south east part of the Map away from the core where my homeworld was (Orion in the centre and Sol next to it - eastwards).
After a few turns i discovered what caused the sudden Darlok withdrawal when Nazin fell to the Sakkra Empire; and the Sakkra's said hello to me. The arrival of the Sakkra made me groan cos every game ive played of MoO2 that i started near to the Sakkra or the Mrrshan i always ended up getting my ass kicked by them.

So anyway much to my surprise as the game progressed and i encountered the other races (Psilons, Mrrshan, and finally the Alkari) the Sakkra became my closest ally (at their own request - they pushed for Trade and research treaties and then Non agression and then Alliance)...
Pretty soon the Galaxy became divided into 3 power blocks.

Encompassing the entire western half of the map was the Alkari Empire and the eastern half was divided up between me and the sakkra.
The Alkari went to war with both me and the Sakkra; I held my own at first so the Alkari I think concentrated on the Sakkra cos they couldnt defeat me so I began building extra ships so I could gift them to the sakkra but the cowardly reptiles surrendered before I could.

Needless to say that left only me against a supremely powerful Alkari Empire; pretty soon I was down to my home system because while my ships were superior I didnt have enough of them to protect all my colonies AND attack the Alkari.
Sheer numbers defeated me.

I lost. Again.

:suicide:

Ive never won a game of MoO2 yet.

Any tips?

 

[barseer]

Here are several MOO2 guides:

http://www.spheriumnorth.com/orion-forum/nfphpbb/viewtopic.php?p=137#137

 

[vmxa]

Post a save or two so we can see what was going on. Ideally one around the time of the darlok encounter and then when the birds declared.

What was the level of the game, impossible? What was the complete racial picks you used?

Did you make any logs that shows you actions? Detail logs are very useful to see where things could have been done differently. Builds or research patterns.

I would have expected that you should have been able to make ships that could beat any AI at such a late stage of the game. As a rule they do not do a good job of designing ships.

True the birds do have some traits that help, but not enough to be an issue.

 

[Till]

It sounds like you didn't put enough focus on getting some sort of fleet up early on. As vmxa pointed out, AIs usually have poorly designed ships, which often makes it possible to fend off superior numbers.

Maybe it was the terraforming that broke your neck. Had the resources that went into it been spend on war and colony ships, you might have been able to swallow the Darlok, putting you in a much better position for the late game.

I would also suggest to read some guides on how to chose which technologies to research. There exist good 'recipes', which work for most game settings.

 

[Angelscotboi]

I think you are right - maybe I didnt expand fast enough to keep up; though my tech and economy was superior I didnt have the Command Points to build a large enough fleet to protect myself.

Need to fire out colony ships faster and earlier.


I have to say though i was surprised that the Alkari ended up my enemy and the Sakkra ended up my friends; ive never been friends with the Sakkra yet...

 

[Till]

Command points are something i haven't been quite able to deal with efficiently, myself. In the early game i constantly run a deficit of them, as new colonies are struggling to get their space stations up, while the productive core colonies are churning out ships.
I believe the answer is to move more population from core colonies to new ones, but i'm still searching for a good rule of thumb for it.

 

[vmxa]

Command Points can be increased with a few techs. Some are only for specific forms of government, others do not require anything.

You can of course increase them via having more planets with Bases. If you have Battle Station or Star Forts, you gain extra points.

Failing all of those tools, you just have to pay via your cash. If needed you could raise the tax rate.

One thing that helps is to keep your fleet upgraded. By improving the design and getting miniaturization you are able to have fewer ships, that can do more damage.