Moo2 newbie observations.

Sleestak

Chieftain
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Apr 30, 2011
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As I stated in my previous post, I got a CD-ROM of Moo2 at the Half Price Books chain for five bucks. Half Price Books is a chain of stores mostly in Texas and the upper plains, though I see from their directory that they have expanded into a few markets elsewhere in the south, midwest, and even have some stores in the western states.

I mistakenly said I got Moo3 there in an earlier post. I can't seem to edit titles on this forum.

Here are my observations about how some of my experiences differ from Moo2 guides and some of the advice on these forums:

Missiles Suck! Following advice that missiles are a good weapon for the early game, I used to build missile destroyers and missile cruisers for early wars. I often don't have early wars as I play on a large map with a repulsive unification race with a research bonus, but they sometimes happen. I used to do fast nukes (sometimes didn't have the mirv yet) and slug it out. I relied on my ability as uni to build ships a little faster to recoup losses. Most sites say that beams and kenetics are useless with just electronic computer and battle scanner. I tried going for mass drivers anyway. I mixed a few in on the missile cruisers and found that most often the mass drivers could take down a starbase before the missiles got there.

There have been games on on crowded large maps were I had to go with just missiles, but I find that if the enemy's armor sucks, mass driver and battle scanner are the quickest way to dispatch a nearby enemy late in the earliest part of the game. Things might be different at the highest difficulty levels or in multiplayer. I wouldn't know; But so far, missiles seem underpowered.

Still need an answer if I should sell off Space Academies if I choose Warlord through Evolutionary Mutation. Are the effects cumulative? If you have an academy on a planet and choose Evo Mut are do ships built there get advanced two experience levels? Do they accumulate experience at triple the rate just for hanging out there? I don understand that Evo Mut confers other benefits like extra CP and quickened militia creation that academies do not.

Favorite weapon is the Gauss Cannon with Hv and AP mods. Disripters are good too for taking down x-armored Antie homeworld.

Overall I think Moo2 is a great game and I'm glad the Win98 box I had sitting in my closet for five years still works so I can play it without hassle.
 
There are too many factors to just say missiles are great or they suck. It depends as always. You can be running as a tele and do no research and go with nukes to bust star bases. For the early game nukes are good enough for most races.

You tend to bring a dither ship and leave it while your missile ships fire and retreat. Two vollies and out the door. Later you can upgrade the nukes, but once you get to where you can make batteships, I switch to beamers.

They are not really good, if you are using first gen computers though. Mass drivers then phasors for me and if it is a long conquest type I may switch to disrupters. Those are needed for late game planet defense that phasors cannot breach.

I cannot answer the Warlords as I tend to not pay attention to experience of the ships. It should be easy for you to test though. I only put mods on missiles, except for the HV for beams. I may or may not use it.
 
Missiles ROCK early on and into midgame!! A BB (battleship) equipped with two volley MIRV Merc missiles is effective vs AI civs on Impossible well into the mid game if not further. I usually don't switch over to beams until I have Disrupters, although sometimes I'll due it with Phasers if I have a good computer. Many of my beam weapons will be Heavy.

My typical early missile battleship is as follows. Battle Pods, Reinforced Hull, no computer (don't need for missiles so why pay for it) All 2 volley missiles 9 Nuke missiles, MIRV,Armored, Fast, 10 Nuke missiles, MIRV, ECCM,Armored, Fast. Off course I could use more bays and smaller numbers per bay, but I don't need to early on vs AIs. I do need to have judgement as to what will kill what ship or starbase so I don't overkill but not kill other ships. Missiles also do well against planets so I don't need bombs nor to research them. However, care needs to be taken to not hit the planet with too many missiles if you want to invade and not kill everyone and/or destroy useful buildings.

Once you get MIRVed Merc, you're ready to rock and roll. Lots of power and you have Zort armor as well (needed to MIRV Mercs). These will bust up enemy battleships and star bases for quite some time and Zort armor means that you can take some hits and sometimes when missiles run out, scoot up next to the star base and invade and capture. You can make the same missle BB with MIRV Mercs as you can with MIRV Nukes..ie a bank of 9 then 10 armored and fast, with the 10 also having ECCM. AI's cannot stand up to these, with their lousy ships and most star bases are destroyed quickly. There are times on Impossible (pre-warp start) that these ships are still effective past turn 200.

http://masteroforion2.blogspot.com/2005/03/master-of-orion-ii-strategy-guide.html

Remains a good link that will greatly improve your play, although the military stuff is MP geared. In SP I find that I rarely bother with Aug Engines nor worry about running a scout to the edge and shooting my missiles and retreating. I will retreat a ship that is about to take damage, and if I have a weak ship handy I may indeed use it as a distraction or run to the back edge away from enemy fire while my missiles hit.

Of course, beams can be fired time after time, whereas 2 volley missiles run out quickly, so you need to develop experience using them to see how powerful they can be. I've tested early/early to mid game BB's and smaller ships with equivilent tech beams rather than missiles and missiles are lots more effective.

Just my opinion .. neilkaz ..
 
You cannot use just one weapon the whole game.

Early on, beams are pretty useless and you are way outgunned (speaking from Impossible difficulty, here), so you have to use something else.

A tolerable number of fighters won't fit in anything smaller than a Cruiser, and you need to get ships out the door even if you don't have a Starbase, so that leaves the Destroyer, packed with missiles. I often dispense with Battle Pods on these missile boats until they're needed. Put on the fast missiles, and stick with nukes. Two shots as you turn and run.

It's a good stop-gap until you can build up a decent defense in other ways.

And enemy missiles almost always chase after these ships; scoot them to the left edge, stick around as long as possible, then jump away. You may lose some now and then to the game messing you up, but they're cheap! Often the enemy puts the retargeting tech on their missiles after you've done this a few times, so those missiles WILL come back and stab your real warships if you haven't won the battle yet (which is often), so I often will sacrifice a boat if the rest of the battle isn't going fast enough for me.

Missiles are pretty useless against Antareans, though, and they do become outdated quickly, so you've got to do your best to get real warships out there. I don't bother building bigger missile boats, but I do continually improve on the little ones, including equipping them with the engine-seeking warheads. Those can kill a ship easy, if they survive to impact. If.

Once you have shield-piercing Phasors and a good computer, you don't need anything else to subjugate the galaxy. Best to have Death Rays or better if attacking Antareans; Phasors don't cut it, even with Xentronium armor to back you up. The sun beam, whatever it's called, is awesome; the reflection field is useless against it, but it doesn't do enough damage by itself, and not enough stuff multiplies its power.

Good luck!
 
The DS said in his insightful post "You cannot use just one weapon the whole game."

Well my last two games, both Impossible Cluster default 8 civs prewarp start tend to show otherwise. Two games using the very OP UniTol race and in game 1 when I controlled most of the galaxy at turn 212 I accepted the Galactic Council victory with about 80% of the vote so I could start another game. At that point my 2 volley MIRV Merc Missile battleships were still very effective smashing AI ships and bases with ease. I tend to capture and the assimulate almost every planet and soon put autolabs and other tech stuff on them.

Game 2, more of the same, but I got rolling a bit later on the nearby galaxy had quite a few stars with no planets to colonize (slowing my REX) and I was attacked early at a couple colonies before I could rush star bases and simple basic destroyers with unmod unminiturized nukes weren't all that effective. Once I woke up and got to Mercs, Trit armor first, I could MIRV nukes and with better armor and my star bases now shooting Merc missile I had no further issues and started my steam roller of conquest. Soon I had Zort armor and could MIRV Merc missiles and once again those proved to be all that I needed. I ended the game at turn 252 to go to bed winning in the GC with 60+ of my votes vs 70+ total and at that point the MIRV Merc ships were still kicking AI butts. However, there was no runaway AI that game and no Psilon (both of whom can have enough tech to force me to go for high end beams).

Highish end beams are certainly very effective, I like Heavy Disrupters. Maulers are fine, and even Phasers with some mods. But these games aren't lasting long enough for me to really need them.

Many newer players don't realize the power of missiles early on and even into the 200's. MIRV is HUGE..this means that 1 missile becomes 4 missiles but only takes up twice the space. Using 2 volley missiles is HUGE since you pack lots more on a ship than when you use the default of 5 missile rounds. Often you'll retreat the ship(s) taking fire after then fire the second volley. Load up the ships with nothing but missiles except for battle pods (more space) and reinforced hull (so you can survive some combat fire). However, I do need to try augmented engines to see if they help here.

I don't find missiles to be that effective vs the Guardian although there's some "trick" method using EMG that I've read about. I rarely use EMG since my MIRV Mercs blow ships up with ease anyhow. However, I never found Orion in either game, inspite of controlling 3/4 of the galaxy at the end. If attacking Antares I'd also certainly want something stronger.

Here's more detailed info about missile and beam weapon mods. http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion_II/Warship_technologies

.. neilkaz ..
 
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