MOO2 Silicoid Strategies

[Giftless]

Man, these guys are not an easy race to play. I tried running a colonization blitz with them in an Average / Large universe (thinking that extra planets would help counteract their growth penalty) and I just ended up lagging in tech. Another thing that didn't help me was being rushed by the Meklars with their fusion-drive "invincible" mini-destroyer fleets

Okay, I decided to try again; hopefully learning from the problems in my previous game. Silicoids have the advantage of no pollution and no population units needed to farm; however since they have poor growth it's actually important not to go overboard on mineral or colony production. Why might you ask? Well, they only have a limited number of population units to use as scientists.

This time I set up my homeworld half-and-half style (4 scientists and 4 workers), while focusing on using that 12 production to get established on "Rich" or "Abundant" worlds only. Quality over quantity seems to be the rule with these guys.

Fortunately in this game my starting position was somewhat better; main system is in an isolated NE quadrant of the galaxy on the other side of two wormholes. Some protection from A.I. overrun is granted by distance, but nicely enough there are 4-5 nearby systems so I have room for conservative growth. My main system has two high gravity "rich" worlds.

Something I've noticed with the Silicoids as well is that it seems important to lay off the infrastructure and hit the "housing" button until that all important 2nd or 3rd population unit is reached. Even though it seems terrible to "waste" that production to bump up growth from 20k per turn to 50k or 80k; it has to be done. Another consequence with the Silicoids is that with slow population growth, they won't have the cashflow to support infrastructure right away. It could be a vicious cycle, but what it really boils down to is that building bodies is more important than marine barracks (which only might get rid of a -1 production inefficiency).

It's funny too how meticulous you have to be with these guys; carefully growing your population until research labs and automated factories can be supported. And even though cloning centers seem like the obvious solution to the Silicoids' growth problem, you can't really build them all over the place due to the 2 bc each "upkeep trap." For the same cost, imagine that you could have a Star Base in place to guard the Silicoids' hard-won holdings. Non-aggression pacts aren't an option here, so it would seem that some sort of avoidance / turtle-shell strategy is needed against the quickly developing A.I. empires.

 

[Darza]

Silicoids is a most powerful race from the pre-constructed ones. You simply expand and colonize everything worthy. Good what you start to understand how to use a housing, but again, look at the educational video. All the moves there are needed and used in any development-based race. It will save alotta time. And yes, you have to build cloners everywhere, and no, you dont use a StarBases to defend, they are needed for building large ships, fleet is for defence. Also "quality over quantity" is extremely wrong here, as its how the tech-races (generally weak kind in classic moo2) plays, that is not a real case with basic silicoids.

 

[Harv]

Here is something to try to counteract your population growth disadvantage:

Have all of your planets in a system at population 1, except for one. These planets with a single population will be put on Housing. Every time you gain a population, move it to the planet you are building up. It works much faster if you have Automated Factories.

 

[Darza]

Here is something to try to counteract your population growth disadvantage:

Have all of your planets in a system at population 1, except for one. These planets with a single population will be put on Housing. Every time you gain a population, move it to the planet you are building up. It works much faster if you have Automated Factories.

Thats how it goes. And everybody knows.
Well, i just mean its the same routine no matter of the race, without a really few exceptions.

 

[neilkaz]

Coids are clearly the best non-custom race. So nice to have your choice of either 24 production or 24 research/turn in the early game. They should be played at the start like a production race.

My first post in this thread details a Coid game I played about 3 years ago.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=452262

Coids need to use pop-1 housing and cloners.

Note that there basically aren't any bad planets when you're tolerant and esp. when you are also lithovore and don't need farming.

If any one wonders where I've been, my main computer that had MOO's on it fried a while back. My back up comp has Civ5 on it so I've mostly been playing that since the patch (note that this is Civfanatics ).

I expect I'll get back to MOO2 and maybe even try MOO1 over Xmas vacation and will either DL it from GoG or just get my other comp fixed up.

@ Giftless, your start going 12 PP and 12 BP is a huge mistake for Coids. You have no pollution, you don't need to store up and production. Just go 24 PP when you want production and then 24 BP when you want tech.

 

[Giftless]

Going lopsided with the production is a bad idea I think; with these guys having a bunch of pop 1 worlds with no ship techs to protect them is a recipe for disaster! Here's some strategies for success I've noticed in my current game.

1. Using half-filled Ultra Rich worlds for population growth (I have two of these with cloning centers and they each yield somewhere between 700 - 1000k a turn).
2. Spies seem important for the Silicoids; I've picked up some mid-range armor, ship drives, missiles, and holographic theaters using these.
3. Keeping a "dead zone" of uncolonized planets between myself and the A.I., that way it's harder to be attacked before I have my star bases, missile bases (stolen tech), battleships, and military techs properly set up.

I'm of the thought that the Silicoids require a certain pacing to play: new colonies are only a good thing if they can be filled in (using my Ultra Rich worlds), Star Bases are needed to get the command points to raise the navy to protect said colonies. Furthermore, the Silicoid navy will be crappy without espionage-gained techs so a certain percentage of production has to go to spies.

 

[Giftless]

Coids are clearly the best non-custom race. So nice to have your choice of either 24 production or 24 research/turn in the early game. They should be played at the start like a production race.

My first post in this thread details a Coid game I played about 3 years ago.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=452262

Interesting thread, I don't usually play pre-warp or take Sakkra as slaves but I could see how it would impact your strategy. Psionics is definitely a powerful tech for the Silicoids though, I used to always go with Heightened Intelligence but now I'm thinking the 10% boost in production and science is more flexible--i.e. if the extra production isn't needed, then more scientists can be assigned while still having a certain baseline industrial capacity.

 

[Darza]

Interesting thread, I don't usually play pre-warp or take Sakkra as slaves but I could see how it would impact your strategy. Psionics is definitely a powerful tech for the Silicoids though, I used to always go with Heightened Intelligence but now I'm thinking the 10% boost in production and science is more flexible--i.e. if the extra production isn't needed, then more scientists can be assigned while still having a certain baseline industrial capacity.

Pre-warp, Sakkra, Psionics or Heightened Intelligence all are of no matter there at all. You just need to learn some basics about colony development, and if you are planning to use a pre-constructed race in process - Silicoids are most easy to do with, as they are most powerful one, and most easy to play race from the list.
Also Psionics (extremely overcosted by itself) is even less suitable for Lithovores, as it doesn't cause any food increase, and most of population is a scientists anyway.

 

[Darza]

Going lopsided with the production is a bad idea I think; with these guys having a bunch of pop 1 worlds with no ship techs to protect them is a recipe for disaster! Here's some strategies for success I've noticed in my current game.

1. Using half-filled Ultra Rich worlds for population growth (I have two of these with cloning centers and they each yield somewhere between 700 - 1000k a turn).
2. Spies seem important for the Silicoids; I've picked up some mid-range armor, ship drives, missiles, and holographic theaters using these.
3. Keeping a "dead zone" of uncolonized planets between myself and the A.I., that way it's harder to be attacked before I have my star bases, missile bases (stolen tech), battleships, and military techs properly set up.

I'm of the thought that the Silicoids require a certain pacing to play: new colonies are only a good thing if they can be filled in (using my Ultra Rich worlds), Star Bases are needed to get the command points to raise the navy to protect said colonies. Furthermore, the Silicoid navy will be crappy without espionage-gained techs so a certain percentage of production has to go to spies.

While all of that is simply generally wrong, id suppose some easy stuff to do - 1) remove all the extra pop from those UltraRich planets except 1, and use housing there to see the difference (while using the freed pop somewhere else for something good), and 2) - to use a correct Supercomputers instead of weak Holos. You will feel a great difference, and eventually will realize how a housing planets are working (as its not so great to use a good UR planet for it, if UR is tiny-small - than yes, its make a great housing planet, but from decent-sized UR, you expect a ship building instead, especially if race is a Tolerant). Also human player fleet would always be superior compared to AI one, unless you chose a Uncreative. There is absolutely nothing special about Silicoid fleet, until you mean AI Silicoids, and their racial AI preferrences (not a case, if human is playing them). Also its not a really great idea to rely on any interference with AI (spying, and especially any trading), as it simply distract you from a proper learning curve. You have to get what you need on your own, not as random gifts from AI. And its not hard at all. Otherwise you will tend to use missile bases (basically not present in a game for a human) etc, instead of learning how to defend with fleet proper way.

 

[Giftless]

My second game took a little longer than expected to ramp up, but at turn 325 I've got the galaxy cut in half diagonally like a cheese sandwich with only two races remaining. Meklar has an impressive number of systems (15+) but they're all low pop and about to be steamrolled. Darloks have about four systems and a "relaxed" posture, haha; I guess that means they'll have the last system on the map when I head to Antares.

 

[Darza]

Turn 325 from Average just to start steamrolling its not so "little longer". Basic Slicoids are powerful enough to win from one starting pre-warp planet, not building any colony base or colony ship in process faster on a Huge. But it will come eventually with work too.

 

[Giftless]

While all of that is simply generally wrong, id suppose some easy stuff to do - 1) remove all the extra pop from those UltraRich planets except 1, and use housing there to see the difference (while using the freed pop somewhere else for something good), and 2) - to use a correct Supercomputers instead of weak Holos. You will feel a great difference, and eventually will realize how a housing planets are working (as its not so great to use a good UR planet for it, if UR is tiny-small - than yes, its make a great housing planet, but from decent-sized UR, you expect a ship building instead, especially if race is a Tolerant). Also human player fleet would always be superior compared to AI one, unless you chose a Uncreative. There is absolutely nothing special about Silicoid fleet, until you mean AI Silicoids, and their racial AI preferrences (not a case, if human is playing them). Also its not a really great idea to rely on any interference with AI (spying, and especially any trading), as it simply distract you from a proper learning curve. You have to get what you need on your own, not as random gifts from AI. And its not hard at all. Otherwise you will tend to use missile bases (basically not present in a game for a human) etc, instead of learning how to defend with fleet proper way.

1) Yeah, lower pop does tend to improve the housing growth now and then; it just depends on the situation. I'd often keep my larger ultra rich planets a little below half so I would have some pop on location for ship-building as the need arises.
2) I'm sure your heart is in the right place, but no correction is needed. I have those holo effects stacked on top of my supercomputers

Spies I think are more important in the mid-game, where one is forced to choose between a useful economic tech or a useful military tech. For instance I'll often pick the mid-level battlestations and advanced city planning, opting to pick up the robominers from the A.I.

I generally don't research missile bases, but again they have their uses if stolen from the A.I.; Maybe you play with the Warlord pick taken right off the bat, but usually I don't have the command points to ship-defend every system until the end game (When I'll take the Warlord pick as an evolutionary mutation). The stationary defenses aren't really a cure-all solution, though they are useful in discouraging A.I. attacks while the bulk of the fleet is deployed elsewhere.

 

[Giftless]

Turn 325 from Average just to start steamrolling its not so "little longer". Basic Slicoids are powerful enough to win from one starting pre-warp planet, not building any colony base or colony ship in process faster on a Huge. But it will come eventually with work too.

Using a basic rush assault, you're saying? I tend to use more of a ultra-builder / hybrid play-style, even so it seems like I should be able to shave off 75-100 turns from my games. It's tough for me to gauge the adequate amount of techs + ships needed to finish a galaxy though, so a lot of times I'll be hanging around waiting for those ships to be built and the research to roll in. There's wastefulness of course, like having the Antarans hitting my homeworld earlier in the game and knocking off a titan and two battleships when I have a fleet of three titans and three battleships with a battlestation backing them up. I know I had phasors, zeon missiles and class five shields; so what's the issue, weak armor? It seems like my ships are complete junk until I hit that 6x multiplier + hard shields.

 

[Darza]

1) Yeah, lower pop does tend to improve the housing growth now and then; it just depends on the situation. I'd often keep my larger ultra rich planets a little below half so I would have some pop on location for ship-building as the need arises.
2) I'm sure your heart is in the right place, but no correction is needed. I have those holo effects stacked on top of my supercomputers

Spies I think are more important in the mid-game, where one is forced to choose between a useful economic tech or a useful military tech. For instance I'll often pick the mid-level battlestations and advanced city planning, opting to pick up the robominers from the A.I.

I generally don't research missile bases, but again they have their uses if stolen from the A.I.; Maybe you play with the Warlord pick taken right off the bat, but usually I don't have the command points to ship-defend every system until the end game (When I'll take the Warlord pick as an evolutionary mutation). The stationary defenses aren't really a cure-all solution, though they are useful in discouraging A.I. attacks while the bulk of the fleet is deployed elsewhere.

You still not confirmed - did you watched the educational video? As its quite important, one story if there is need to explain something, despite you had seen it, and other story is to explain it by words instead, as you dont plan to watch it. Im not sure im interested in latter, its long and not a good path, better to see than read in this case.

1) Keeping a powerhouse building planet low on pop - is a waste of resources. You need to move pop there from other planets instead. You could still keep them 1-2 below the max to keep some natural growth going on though (as on other planets aswell), but actually its possible to even keep them full, as high-production planets is a most important ones (as production not simply gather together in your pool unlike research do; 100 1-pop research planets give the same amount on RP per turn as one 100-pop planet (some possible rounding and buildings aside), but it work the different way with production planets: one planet, that build a 100 prod-cost ship every turn, and 100 planets, each building 100 prod-cost ship every 100 turns build equal amount of ships after 100 turns, but difference here is quite obvious). Of course if you can store pop on same system as UR planet - you could house there for some time, and move colonists back when you will have to actually build a ships, but, you need to move all-exept-one colonist in this case, simply due to buggy housing formula, otherwise its uneffective use of population.

2) Yes, my bad here, dont realize it was not about actual holos, but about joy of spying.

" For instance I'll often pick the mid-level battlestations and advanced city planning, opting to pick up the robominers from the A.I." - that a good example of the problem of breaking the curve. Not only battlestations are weak and useless, taking them instead of robos, in hope to get robos some other way - is not any good. Instead of learn how to get and use robos in proper time - you take useless tech, and rely on some random event to aquire a correct tech. It have some fun, but it make understandment of the game harder.

And with exception for very few must-be warthechs (augments, battle scanner, battle pods) -economic tech is picked above war tech as default. Simply because if you will skip some war tech for a better development - you will gain additional power to reach a more powerful wartech later instead. Otherwise you skipping a non-interchargeable economic tech, hitting economy badly, just for a some obsoleting wartech instead. You prefer wartech in a case when its a powerful enough to win a game on its own, and you dont need to develop anymore, and just winning a game with it. Problem is that in moo2 such techs are either given as free on a start, or very cheap in research, that is leading to confusion of "but i dont want to just simply win, i want to build some planets first, and win later". Well, that is simply uneffective way, there is no point in strategy then. If you want to do something unneeded before a win - it could be more or less ineffective, but ineffective still. But there is could be some usage in adding a home rules to break it, say, "no attack prior turn X" or "attack only with weapon Y" etc.

Economical development on its own is a huge skill and fun, just it have nothing with AI war, its better to perform on empty corners. Just there is no point to use AI as benchmark, some economic values are used instead, say population on turn X; or the turn, when all the techfields are finished etc.

Warlord pick is weak and overcosted, its not needed for such price. You dont have to defend any system with ships, you need a mobile fleet capable of defending the system in charge. But as it need just a few basic tech to launch a steamroll attack on AI - usually human player is attacking, not defending anyway. You dont need anything above mirved nukes to win a game (and with powerful enough race there is no need even in mirved nukes), and all the late tech are of no real importance in a game at all. Surely you can win with Plasma torpedoes if you can win with mirv Nukes, but why you need that torpedoes then? And there is no crime with negative command points, its how the game is playing, you grow economy capable to support a fleet, thats it, not trying to have a zero balance, -50 CP is just -500 BC, for example, its not so much for mid-late-game.

 

[Darza]

Using a basic rush assault, you're saying? I tend to use more of a ultra-builder / hybrid play-style, even so it seems like I should be able to shave off 75-100 turns from my games. It's tough for me to gauge the adequate amount of techs + ships needed to finish a galaxy though, so a lot of times I'll be hanging around waiting for those ships to be built and the research to roll in. There's wastefulness of course, like having the Antarans hitting my homeworld earlier in the game and knocking off a titan and two battleships when I have a fleet of three titans and three battleships with a battlestation backing them up. I know I had phasors, zeon missiles and class five shields; so what's the issue, weak armor? It seems like my ships are complete junk until I hit that 6x multiplier + hard shields.

There is no point in "ultra-builder / hybrid play-style" versus AI (and it should be nice if you would clarify what you mean by that, its very blurry description), as it simply no match in development. You can break a glass with a rock, or with A-bomb, why you will need to develop that A-bomb if you can just take a rock from the ground? It simply depend on a situation and goal - if you want to do development run - set 1 AI and develop, if you set 7 AI - there is no real point in developing, as building battleships outright is more effective than colony ships, so it simply dont fit the developing strategy well. To kill Antarans you just need EMG missile boats, and speed is most important combat value, not armor or shields. You just build standart 2-shot missles, augmented engines battlepods ships without computer, and thats is all that is really needed in a game. 3 Titans(??) and 3 battleships with Battlestation mean some very late game, 3 battleships is enough to wipe all AI's from map. Zeon missiles - stolen i guess? As there is no point to take anything beside Zortium there. And also no point to use non-modded Zeons instead of fully modded Merculites in this case (and with EMG Merculites you could just early kill the Guardian with 10 destroyers, and win the game outright).

 

[neilkaz]

My second game took a little longer than expected to ramp up, but at turn 325 I've got the galaxy cut in half diagonally like a cheese sandwich with only two races remaining. Meklar has an impressive number of systems (15+) but they're all low pop and about to be steamrolled. Darloks have about four systems and a "relaxed" posture, haha; I guess that means they'll have the last system on the map when I head to Antares.

Since you've conquered that much you should be able to win the next election with at least 2/3 of the vote if you've also expanded well. If not, just take a few Meklar planets and hopefully then you have 2/3 of the vote. There needs to be 3 races in the game for the vote to come up.

Or you could just kill everyone left. I'd also think that you shouldn't be far away from going to Antares. At Antares destroy his ships with EMG missiles and pound his star fortress with good beam weapons.

 

[neilkaz]

Darza wrote "And with exception for very few must-be war techs (augments, battle scanner, battle pods) -economic tech is picked above war tech as default. Simply because if you will skip some war tech for a better development - you will gain additional power to reach a more powerful war tech later instead. Otherwise you skipping a non-interchangeable economic tech, hitting economy badly, just for a some obsoleting war tech instead. You prefer war tech in a case when it's powerful enough to win a game on its own, and you don't need to develop anymore, and just winning a game with it."

Yes, this...exactly this, whether you are using Darza's style which vs AI is to attack very quickly or my style vs AI which is to build up a bit and then attack (usually starting with MIRV 2 shot nuke missiles).

 

[Giftless]

Since you've conquered that much you should be able to win the next election with at least 2/3 of the vote if you've also expanded well. If not, just take a few Meklar planets and hopefully then you have 2/3 of the vote. There needs to be 3 races in the game for the vote to come up.

Or you could just kill everyone left. I'd also think that you shouldn't be far away from going to Antares. At Antares destroy his ships with EMG missiles and pound his star fortress with good beam weapons.

Yeah, surprisingly the Meklar went down fast and then it was onto Antares to end the game-- only took about ten turns to do. I guess it was overkill to send in 2 Doom Stars, 20 Titans, and 60 Battleships but I never can tell with those guys.

 

[Harv]

Yeah, surprisingly the Meklar went down fast and then it was onto Antares to end the game-- only took about ten turns to do. I guess it was overkill to send in 2 Doom Stars, 20 Titans, and 60 Battleships but I never can tell with those guys.

I did not even know 60 Battleships would even fit on the screen. I grabbed a screenie from one of my older games up here. I think I used 14 of these to capture Antares.

Spoiler :

T262 We went with a Death Ray Battleship to finish. Hindsight says that Death Rays do not seem to kill Antaran crew and therefore the Transporters are wasted. I am sure this would have done much better against the opponents.

Anyway, congratulations on your win!

 

[Giftless]

Darza wrote "And with exception for very few must-be war techs (augments, battle scanner, battle pods) -economic tech is picked above war tech as default. Simply because if you will skip some war tech for a better development - you will gain additional power to reach a more powerful war tech later instead. Otherwise you skipping a non-interchangeable economic tech, hitting economy badly, just for a some obsoleting war tech instead. You prefer war tech in a case when it's powerful enough to win a game on its own, and you don't need to develop anymore, and just winning a game with it."

Yes, this...exactly this, whether you are using Darza's style which vs AI is to attack very quickly or my style vs AI which is to build up a bit and then attack (usually starting with MIRV 2 shot nuke missiles).

I've heard about the tactical types using the small missile swarm ships; on strategic I'd definitely agree about the economic techs before the military techs, since fleets just aren't effective without at least mid-level ship techs on that setting. I've had A.I. sneak in troop transporters before, rush buy a missile base, and then knock out all four battleships of my reconquest fleet. It seems like I need Phasors and Class V shields just to get rolling against space monsters