MOO2 playing as all 13 standard races, again

[neilkaz]

I started another Bear game this morning and Ursa is in the extreme lower right corner so I had hopes of being left alone for a good while to develop and noting my only other planet in the starting system was poor pop 1 garbage. I sold the SB on turn 1 for 200 BC and saving 2 BC/turn maintenance til it is rebuilt expecting to be free from early conflict in Ursa.

However, the Mecklars are close and colonized in my direction and just above me are Trilarians and the Cats are outside near them and the Mecks. Sakkra are to the left of Mecks. This would seem to be a badly cramped spot full on conflict, but every AI I've encounter seems to want me as their BFF. Nice to have all sorts of extra research and trade treaty income.

At some point I'll have to break out and attack someone, but it seems that I am being left alone to expand some and to easily put supercomps on all planets. It is turn 181 and I'll have Zort armor in a couple turns and then will refit my two DD's with 4 MIRV Mercs each and make a Merc 18 BB and go after the space dragon planet nearby. Then with another BB made it will be time to attack an AI assuming one hasn't allready come after me.

I'll have to try transporters sometime soon. They are in my normal research path since food replicators cost far too much to maintain and I don't want to use my production for food. I usually get Megafluxers right after which will give me space to add transporters and reduce their size a bit (I think).

.. neilkaz ..

 

[scratchthepitch]

It is turn 181 and I'll have Zort armor in a couple turns and then will refit my two DD's with 4 MIRV Mercs each and make a Merc 18 BB and go after the space dragon planet nearby.

I wouldn't try that in my mod. By messing around with the dragon's weapons I made dragons equal or more powerful than the guardian. Since dragon systems are often more valuable than Orion (minus the new techs and Avenger), it works out pretty good.

I'll have to try transporters sometime soon. They are in my normal research path since food replicators cost far too much to maintain and I don't want to use my production for food. I usually get Megafluxers right after which will give me space to add transporters and reduce their size a bit (I think).

I found when using transporters it is helpful to have augmented engines so you can get within the 12 space range of transporters to another ship. Also use your largest ships because they will be in the central part of front rank and closest to the AI ships when a battle starts.

 

[neilkaz]

Am at turn 300 now in this Bulrathi game and I have taken Orion and the Avenger as usual is proving very useful for taking planets. It seems that the AI's have been really sharing techs this game as they all are more advanced than normal but none are repulsive for once. My enemy the Birds are nearly finished. Then I will try some transporters.

I've captured many of their ships with assault shuttles even though they shoot at them and some have pulsars. I have a couple missile ships mixed in and this means enemy war ships are also shooting at missiles and aren't entirely concentrating on my shuttles.

The captured ships helped turn the tide of the war for me, as initially the Alkari had considerably more battleships than I and there's were more high end with Plamsa Cannons and Class VII shields (again rather early for them to have these).

I'll try transporters on a few ships soon.

 

[neilkaz]

OK transporters officially rock. I made some BB's (battleships) that are so good they should be illegal.

Two death heavy death rays seem to knock down any shield and also kill all the marines on enemy BB's. Then you just beam in and take the ship without resistance.
A single BB has enough marines to do 5 captures if I counted correctly if it is can stay undestroyed.

Rather than aug engines I used teleporters and can jump around all over the combat map. These ship also have lots of defenses and did my BB with 3 death rays and the when a 50 ship Sakkra fleet was headed to one of my systems I got 15 of my ships there (many of mine were captured from other AI's) and made a huge mess out of him and captured well over a dozen of his ships, some of which were destroyed in battle by close by drive explosions. There's another big Sak fleet at Sssla and I'll try to intercept it and will build more of these tranporters ships all over for defense as well.

I must have captured 100 enemy ships this game, wiping everyone out. Mutating into Warloard with Hyperspace coms solved any CP issues.

 

[neilkaz]

Contining with more Bear games. I roll a spot between the center and right edge and expecting early contact I don't sell the SB. Sure enough I meet the Coids who've built towards me and also are spying and kill a couple of my spies forcing me to waste more production to make 3 spies.

then I meet the Darloks, and they are also repulsive and camped out in the corner I hoped was empty for me. They don't want to play nice and while I am ready for their usual sneak attack I take losses. I keep having to build lousy FF and DD missile ships and sure enough the Coids sense weakness and attack as well.

I barely hold on and can then upgrade to MIRV Nukes, but two Coid BB's kill most of my ships and then I can't keep the Darlok from taking my only other system and I knew I was soon toast so I resigned.

Next game I am on the left side and figure I can gamble for econ and sell SB. Oops I meet Alkari early but he wants to be my BFF as does almost everyone else except for the Repulsive Trilarians who are expanding at a rapid pace. However, the don't seem predisposed to hate Bears and while relations will grow bad they don't seem to DOW.

Oooo...here's Mentox so early Autolabs for me and I am soon sending a Zort Armor Merc 18 after the hydra guarded planet that is as good as Orion.

Mmmmm... here comes the first Antaran attack..one little frigate headed for Ursa with a nice 4 turn warning. There's no describing how much I want to capture that thing since if it doesn't self destruct (honestly 50-50 chance) and I can get the right techs from it, it is game breaking. If I don't get the best techs, there's usually something like quantum detonator that I can trade to AI's for good stuff.

I switch research to Personel Shield as I know it will be done in time and make/buy 5 Capture 3 DD's that can be in Ursa system in time. The first two were unable to capture it but killed some defending marines and my third capture ship snagged the prize for me.

I got X-armor (OMG) and the +125 computer and Neutronium Bomb (will help later with transporters if I run into mega planetary defences.)


I make a few extra freighters to send in workers and soon am rocking and rolling with a second MIRV Merc ship and some capture DD's. I quickly catch up in tech and start rolling thru Trilarian with ease after refitting every with my beloved X-armor.

On turn 280 I took Orion and will have a very easy win by simply expanding hard and winning in the GC when it comes up.

 

[scratchthepitch]

The captured ships helped turn the tide of the war for me, as initially the Alkari had considerably more battleships than I and there's were more high end with Plamsa Cannons and Class VII shields (again rather early for them to have these).

Those Alkari ships sound potent.

OK transporters officially rock. I made some BB's (battleships) that are so good they should be illegal.

Two death heavy death rays seem to knock down any shield and also kill all the marines on enemy BB's. Then you just beam in and take the ship without resistance.

Works on battlestations, too. I would s-s tele Avenger near to the bs, blast it with the hvy dr, then move alongside. Then have ships armed with fusion or plasma remove the rest of the bs shields, and send marines from the Avenger to capture the bs. Next, the bombs on the Avenger and the beams on the captured bs would be used to knock out the planet bases. This usually was enough to take care of these. The rest of my ships would take care of any AI fleet, if any.

A single BB has enough marines to do 5 captures if I counted correctly if it is can stay undestroyed.

I tend to not wait around that many turns if I can help it. I try to finish a battle in as few turns as possible. In one of my last games, I was facing titans and battleships packed full of black hole generators. If I couldn't capture all of them in the first battle round, they had to be gone by the end of the 2nd round, or I was in trouble.

Rather than aug engines I used teleporters and can jump around all over the combat map.

The sst are much better than aug eng. But they come rather late in the game. When I do get them, I refit all my aug engined ships with them and dump the aug eng. The extra beam defense aug eng provides is very useful, but by the time sst is available, the AI usually don't get a chance to shoot at my ships, so beam defense is surplus. I found when modding the game there as an additional special made for the game which was then removed called phase shifter. According to it's description, it is a s-s teleporter that allows a ship with it to sst any ship in the fleet, not just the one with the sst. I've yet to test this in a game, though I've put into the latest version of my mod.

I must have captured 100 enemy ships this game, wiping everyone out. Mutating into Warloard with Hyperspace coms solved any CP issues.

That's a lot of captures, the AI must have made many more ships than that, it sounds like an interesting contest.

I knew I was soon toast so I resigned.

I had a few where that happened.

except for the Repulsive Trilarians who are expanding at a rapid pace. However, the don't seem predisposed to hate Bears and while relations will grow bad they don't seem to DOW.

That's happened to me also against Tri-repulsives. They never declared, though early on they might have wiped me out.

I got X-armor (OMG) and the +125 computer and Neutronium Bomb (will help later with transporters if I run into mega planetary defences.)

Nice haul from just 1 frigate.

 

[neilkaz]

I was fighting a 50 ship armada with my 15 so it took a few turns to kill and capture them all and I lost several of my ships. I wanted to make sure to win the battle so I could keep the captured ships.

I got sst by scapping a captured small Meck ship earlier.

Yeah...big luck out with that captured Antie frigate. one time when I scapped the initial one that came to attack, all I got was ECM jammer .

My current feeling after playing quite a few games as Bulrathi and Darlok is that Bulrathi is the 2nd worst AI race and Darlok the worst.

 

[scratchthepitch]

15 against 50, not bad. I don't remember seeing AI ships with late game specials like SST often. Unless they captured Orion, then they will have some good stuff. Usually the AI didn't get far enough up the tech tree to get late items. By the time I got near the end of the tech tree, there was usually only one or two weak AI left and they were not very high up in tech. AI ships were usually pretty weak by then in comparison to the ships I built. Often they would be packed full of beams, but have little targeting specials or a poor computer and would hardly scratch my ships. It sounds like you ran into some unusually well equipped AI ships. When I modded the game I increased the space of the ships and orbitals so they could carry more. That seems to have helped the AI make stronger ships, but they are still vulnerable to capturing. In one game, one of the AI relied on assault shuttles quite a bit and actually captured a ship of mine when I wasn't paying enough attention. They had death rays and had damaged the ship and killed off its marines. Then some shuttles arrived which I had mistaken for fighters and captured it.

 

[neilkaz]

By playing the poorer AI races I am keeping myself challanged and interested and extending the life of this game for me.

Anyhow, after that quick loss fiasco with Darlok, I won 3 Darlok games and two Bulrathi games. It is so important to be able to survive early and not to appear to weak to hungry AI's but if you roll a bad start and are near an agressive AI all may be lost with these poor races as you're simply too slow.

I was delayed 100 turns in one Darlok game by a death struggle with the Sakkras but finally I got the upperhand and finished him off which ment that I was soon the dominant civ but since Psilon was strong I had to wait to fight him until almost turn 400. The other two Darlok games had friendly neighbors and one had the ideal situation with friendly neighbors and the repulsive uncreative Sakkra who seemed to have no spy techs down a worm hole far away and I was able to steal over 20 techs from them almost as soon as they researched. One game I stole powered armor and soon had ground troops almost as good as the Bears which were good for capturing ships and I managed an Antaran capture as well.

The two Bulrathi games both had friendly neighbors and were easy wins as I could expand and then attack a repulsive when I wanted to. In one game only 1 of 4 captured Antaran ships exploded so I had plenty of Antaran techs and traded the less valuable ones to anyone who'd give me something decent. Structural Analyser is extremely good since it doubles beam damage that gets thru shield and when using heavy death rays or dispupters or maulers most gets thru shields.

I switched to Mrrshan for a few games and, as expect the RHW makes for a quicker start up. Being Warlord basically eliminates any CP issues and even though I play using missile boats early on, the +50 attack is very useful when I switch over to beams. One game I went quickly thru Force Field research and at the Class V shield level you can fully reduce mass drivers and have some great ships. +50 attack meant that I usually didnt worry about taking space with battle scanner until I'd reduced it a few times.

Hmm..my first Cat game was a disasterous loss. I was doing fine, but the Elerians were teleblitzing and much more dominant early on than I recall ever seeing them. We were friendly til I was framed for spying and then he soon DOWed me and I killed a few small ships but on turn 182..a high tech battleship showed up and its Graviton beams were too much for me and even though my star base had Trit armor and heavy armor with reinforced hulls, it and 4 smaller ships were toast as was I. It seems that the Elerian was using some of his 10 systems for research. He also hit my other two systems where starbases weren't built with some smaller ships and had transports since he didn't have anything large enough to mind control.

That made me mad but the next 5 Cat games were better played and I some easy wins attacking powerfully when I wanted to and then either won in the GC or went to Antares. Mrrshan certainly aren't a top civ but they aren't in the celler either.

I'll try a couple Mecklar games now, but expect I may find them rather easy to win with.

 

[scratchthepitch]

I think AI Elerians are hardwired to be aggressive. In my games that they were in, I usually got attacked by them in spite of the treaties. Never have seen them as one of the AI repulsives. That would probably hurt,

Also, Harv started a game thread on playing a MOO2 game. You have a lot more experience playing the stock game than I do.

 

[neilkaz]

I lost my first Mecklar game, quickly encountering a strong aggressive Klackon and then having the Humans also attack me since I was framed for spying.

Next two Meck games were rather easy with fewer early problems and once I got Robo-Miners (note that you eat some of your production) I was rocking.

After that, I won a couple of games as the Birds but they don't seem to be as good as Mecklar which I consider to be slightly above average.

Then since Harv was playing Human and Psilon, I played three games each but these civs are too easy to win with.

LOL for a change of pace I started a Silicoid game and once again, I consider them to clearly be the best AI civ. Very easy to play and no farming or pollution issues and lots of good planets around. Being able to have either 24 pp/T or 24 rp/T at the start is very versatile and makes this civ start quickly. I sold the SB like a production race to be able to quickly buy my colony base. The way to minimize the slow growth issue is to build housing and unless I am specifically building something else, I usually am pop1 housing on at least one planet.

Gnols attacked on Star Date 3512.8 just as my Zort Armor Merc 18 was finished and LOL they were eliminated in a few turns. It is now 3517.1 and Humans and Mecks have also been conquered and I have Autolabs going in everywhere and also can kill the Guardian at my leisure. I'm considerably stronger earlier than with any other AI race inspite of having to waste quite a bit of production to fend off enemy spies. But a custom race like UniTol still is stronger than Coid.

EDIT ..LOL I forgot how effortless it is to play Silicoid. No real loss that my leaders aren't awesome as I basically hire any colony leader that comes by. One ship leader had a commando bonus that was quite useful for not needing so many transports. By Stardate 3521.0 two more AI's were gone and I took Orion just as the Psilon's foolishly attacked (EMG DD's on defense ruined them).

Game over at 3523.8 with me having taken every planet colonized by every race !! By far the strongest standard AI race for a human being to play.

 

[Incanur]

This inspired me to try with the Silicoids. It's been easier than I expected. I went for a mix of expansion, buildings, and research. Housing has more than compensated for the slower growth rate. It's fairly late in the game now - close to turn 250 (prewarp) - but I'm obviously cruising to victory. The Klackons supposedly have better tech, but their ships still die pathetically to EMG missiles and I've got more total pop.

I'm still scared of trying one of the weaker race, but this may convince me to do so.

 

[scratchthepitch]

The Silicoids are hard to beat with their lith and tol.

 

[humbe]

What's a cluster galaxy you say you play in? Are you using some mods or unstandard maps? (Hmm.. Seeing the date on this thread, I guess I don't expect an answer anytime soon

 

[Rocco.40]

cluster galaxy can be found in fan patch 1.40.
it is not present in version 1.31

 

[neilkaz]

cluster galaxy can be found in fan patch 1.40.
it is not present in version 1.31

Cluster galaxy is a large galaxy sized but packed with 72 stars rather than 54. This means quicker contacts and conflicts with AI's as systems are closer together.

EDIT: This patch is standard if you buy the game from GoG as I did, since I had no idea after more than a decade and one house move, where my original CD was.

 

[Rocco.40]

2 answers within the day... Not a bad score
What version are you actually running?

 

[humbe]

1.31.. Didn't know there were any unofficial patches/mods or anything before I looked online a week back or so.. The unofficial 1.40 patch sounded ok for bugfixes, but haven't noticed hitting much bugs. An occasional crash or something strange I've solved by just loading autosave.

 

[Rocco.40]

Info on the 1.40 patch can be found here:
http://lordbrazen.blogspot.nl/2005/01/moo2v140-patch-faq.html

The patch contains also some cool switches that allow some influence over the map generation, it has the cluster galaxy and a 'post warp' technology start setting, making this really worthwhile. It is for the DOS version of the game.