MOO2: Open Challenge #2

Master of Orion 2: Open Challenge #2 (OC2)
- Custom Huge galaxy with 64 stars, ice map mod & less wormholes.
- Note that this a difficult map that imposes a serious range restriction.

- You start the game with 3 flagships: 1 in orbit and 2 in the build queue.
- The build queue may be sorted as you see fit but the 2 flagships may not be deleted from it.
- You may not build new flagships other than the 2 already in the queue.
- A flagship may be refitted at any time, but it may never be refitted to an unarmed ship.
- If you loose all 3 flagships, you have lost the game!

- Only scouts or offensive fleets can roam the galaxy freely and may enter systems that are not owned by yourself.
- Scouts are: unarmed frigates, colony ships and outpost ships.
- Offensive fleets are: a group of 1 or more ships that contains a flagship.

- Newly build armed ships can remain in orbit to strengthen defenses or travel other owned systems.
- Systems are owned if you have a colony or an outpost present. (Owned systems may be shared with an opponent.)
- If you want new ships to join an offensive fleet, they need to be picked up by that fleet at one of your systems!
- Thus there can be maximum 3 offensive fleets at any time.

- If a flagship retreats from battle, the rest of the fleet must also retreat in that same combat turn.
- If a flagship is lost in battle, that battle maybe finished.
- Remaining combat ships need to be picked up by another fleet if they are at a foreign system or immediately travel to the closest owned system.

- It is preferable that Ship Leaders reside on the flagships, but its not mandatory.
- If you have the Avenger (from Orion): That ship can do whatever it wants and can roam the galaxy freely.

- You can play for minimum #turns, or
- You can play for highest score in which case the maximum number of turns is 500.
- If the game takes more than 500 turns to finish, you have lost the game!

It's recommended to play OC2 in version 1.50.3 with SET150 and Ship Initiative enabled. (the save works in 1.31 or 1.40 too)
Rename the attachment SAV1.7z to SAV#.GAM, where # is the number (1-9) of the slot you want it to have.

Youtube video's are very welcome, but you can also post your hall of fame result in this thread.

Introduction video (youtube)

 

.. in the mean time .. until an open challenge 3 is started, here is a funky map with only three (3!) star systems.

so there is your opponent and there is.. , well guess..

Spoiler :

Orion

the attachment is not zipped, simply rename it to SAVE1.GAM, or SAVE2.GAM, etc. and place it in your MOO2 directory
And this is linking to the youtube introduction.

enjoy

 

Hi Rocco, you've gotten a long time lurker a final reason to register and say thank you for the fantastic modding effort on MOO2. All by luring me into trying out your intriguing Intermezzo save, which on load causes my 1.50.3.2 installation to crash:

Now I'm not aware of anything newer than 1.50.3.2 being available for download.

Btw, I've watched your complete OC2 on Youtube. Good explosions!

 

I have uploaded a fixed version of the same map, it should now work on all versions.

Correct, I created the map in the yet to be released 1.50.4 version that amongst other things features the option to generate such special galaxies.

 

Thank you, it's working now.

(Haven't kept the 1.50.4 save on my side, so missed the chance to hex-compare both versions.)

Uuh, sounds like a kind of scenario editor is coming up.

 

I think this is a first-timer for me...

 

yeah that's just lovely .. there is also the one 'you now control a majority of the galaxy' with that 1 star system.

 

I got that, too!

Finished the Intermezzo after way too many turns with a score of 781. The main obstacle were the Antarans, who always went for me. Not having the Creative trait, the Antarans were actually a threat on that small map.

 

... ok ... you could play again and try&finish it before 2nd Antaran invasion

 

I rarely go for blitzing. I'm definitely more of an OCD perfectionist builder type. And kind of paranoid, so I was expecting some nastiness on that map. So no way to have this "majority of the galaxy" that was controlled by me to end up underdeveloped.

Perhaps you or someone else might enjoy one of my recent maps? I somewhat surprisingly kept an early save... I haven't even halfway explored it myself so far, but it seems quite interesting/challenging. I got very lucky with an early leader, because Gizmo the Gadgeteer is still pretty much my only source of research.

I'll also attach the config I was using on map creation. It's based on your Vmod + picks. Key differences are nohousing + pop growth like in 1.40, mapgen settings, an unlimited use of negative picks for custom race creation, and some other stuff. Oh, and (perhaps completely unrelated to the save) I replaced Stealthy Ships with +0.5 Tax for Darloks and Mrrshan. Remember that part about me being kind of ? I Stealthy Ships!

 

Ahh, this is the proper way to share games for 1.50: provide a savegame and the extract.cfg!

I looked at your save and its an interesting race, techtree, and Vmod-based!
Good stuff!
So I consider this map to be open challenge #3 (OC3) and will start playing it soon...

For other players-
- Rename SAVE2.GAM.sve to SAVE2.GAM, (or SAVEx.GAM, where x is your desired save slot)
- Rename EXTRACT.CFG.txt to OC3.CFG and save it in your moo2\150 folder.
- ORION2.LOG.txt is not needed (it's for info only).
- In your ORION2.CFG add this mod with a new line: "include 150\OC3.CFG;"
- Comment out (#) other configs in the Custom configs section.
- Play!

Edit
Note that the updated OC3 config for version 1.50.4 can be found below...

 

Oh, wow.

Then I guess I'll also have to try it. Again. Shortly after my last post in this thread, I got attacked from the west, and decided to gave up, around turn 120. I couldn't beat a fleet of 2 frigates and 2 destroyers... And there was also a battleship inbound.

My idea was to "outsource" research, and later let acquired tech and my race's traits do the magic. Well, it didn't work out so well.

Spoiler :

Also, I was going for a "my people will never do any research themselves" rule (because they really suck at it). Which I had to break shortly to support the Gadgeteer in developing Fusion Rifles, which I needed for a ground invasion. While playing a telepathic race - see below.

From memory:

1) Couldn't get a hold of the artifacts world to the north. Built 6 or 7 basic nuke destroyers initially, which got . I guess a fleet of double or tripple the amount of frigates would have been better? Did a reload, so that I could at least keep the cardboard ships I had built.

2) One of my scouts took the right direction, and could shoot down the initial colony ship of the other telepaths. After harassing and blockading them for a longer while, I got lucky and acquired Powered Armor from the west, so that I could take over the telepaths' home system by ground invasion (EDIT: and was pleasantly surprised that, even I had to take the colony by invasion instead of mind control, the pop still assimiliated instantly). Got Auto Factories that way, but no luck with Research Labs.

3) Only had short contact with the guys south of the telepaths, because I lost my outpost there to the telepaths while they still had something resembling a fleet. Didn't want to take over the telepaths' last planet (only size 3), so that I had a chance to perhaps finally get Research Labs by remote intelligence. But then this mighty fleet I've mentioned before approached...

4) I was only able to steal (there, I said it!) very few techs, the most usefull I remember were Soil Enrichment and Powered Armor. Thanks to the Gadgeteer, I could research Fighter Bays, Hydro Farms and Fusion Rifles on my own.

5) I had only created perhaps 10 own colonies, which where mostly there to generate reach, food and taxes. After getting Soil Enrichment, some of them were able to even build a few Star Bases altogether.

6) The only Antaran incursion (1 frigate) couldn't do enough damage to destroy my colony.

7) I didn't use the force, and still don't know the rest of the map!

8) The main challenges so far appeared to be:
- neither Research Lab nor Automated Factory in the tech tree
- telepaths to the south
- aquatic creatives to the west, on an OR2 map with very wet home systems (although a great opportunity for aquiring much needed tech)
- (EDIT: personal handicap - I often forget that spies can sabotage)

When I gave up, I was still in the mood to try another uncreative race, and genetically reengineered the race to be quite the opposite:

+ Democracy
+ Tax +1 BC
- all the blitz stuff

Still no Auto Factories, but this time Research Labs in the tree. And enough money to buy most things. Started out in the south-westernmost corner, surrounded by Meklar, Silicoids and a Crystal, and only had access to 3 systems, including my home system, for a long time. But it did work out much, much better this time. Could have attacked the Antarans perhaps around turn 250, but instead opted to shoot down many huge Sakkra fleets.

The combination of OR2 and my chosen mapgen settings + organic rich galaxy, while also highly beneficial to the human player, almost ensures that the AI can develop very fast.

Can't wait to see how you'll manage on OC3, Rocco. Good luck!

VERY LATE EDIT: Added spoiler tags.

 

So dear Rocco, any chance that there will be some nice YouTube vids from you playing OC3 any time soon?

 

too much nice summer days here in August
i haven't gotten around to playing much moo2 last few weeks...
but rest assured, it will be first map that i play and record.

 

Too many much too hot summer days days here in August...

 

OK, will be starting soon now the hottest days are over and done with here
Kraft57 is joining in too i heard, so we can enjoy more MOO2 vids, which is great!

 

Time to get some then!

 

Here is the updated cfg file for OC3, adjusted for the new MOO2 version 1.50.4:

 

.. and here is 'episode 0' of Open Challenge 3!
This episode shows correct set-up of config and analyzes the starting conditions of this game.
No turns are played, so it can be watched by all players who are planning to play this same map.
Youtube: OC3, Setup & Introduction

 

I'm feeling famous now, since this is the first time that someone took something I've created and made a YouTube vid about it.

I liked the brief moment where you (Rocco) seemed a little bit confused by my way of handling stockpiling of production...

Too bad the player race isn't also cybernetic; I just reused the naming scheme from a previous game.

Good luck and have fun, can't wait for the next episode of my favorite Gaming Dutchman.