Hey there,
do you know that feeling when you remember a game you played a long, long time ago all of a sudden and then start wanting to play it again? And do you also know the feeling of ecstasy and enthusiasm when you realise that this game is SO much better and much more complex than you remember it? Well, if you know these feelings, then you'll know how the last one or two weeks of my spare-time playing MoO2 were.
After a few attempts of getting used to the game again and trying different race picks, I figured that I really like Demovore; because of the tech-advantage and the rather easy early-game considering micro-management, it's a nice way to get going again. So, I tried playing Demovore on normal, which was way too easy, I did a game on hard, which was also a total stompfest (won the game rather late in the mid-300s, because I wanted to kill all seven AIs and the Antarans). Then I decided to try a game on impossible:
For my first attempt on impossible, I thought I could try to go with Demo, Litho, Artifacts and the usual negative picks. In my earlier games, I went with LRHW/RHW instead of Artifacts, but I thought Artifacts would be nice for turtling in and taking Orion quite early in the game.
I started a little left of the map's centre. Good position for reaching Orion quickly, but too many possible aggressive AIs around, but I gave it a try, because my homeworld's system was quite okay. The start went very well, I quickly built two more colonies, maxed out my HW's pop, got labs, got factories, got Mercs, EMG and so on. Made first contact with the Klackons, next Meklars, Elerians and Gnols. Found Orion quickly, also found a nice planet next to my HW. Then I made the first major mistake: when I tried to take Orion, my fleet wasn't strong enough. Okay, to be honest, I haven't read any guide on taking out the Guardian with a minimal fleet. I should have and I had to learn it the hard way by loosing almost my entire fleet. Which was really bad because of the time and production losses.
As I went on and, eventually, was successfull in taking out the Guardian, it just took me a few more turns to realise my second major mistake: spy defense. Right after taking down the Guardian, the AIs started the hell of a spy-war on me and stole X-armour and Deathrays. Yay! Okay, by now I know that half a dozen of defensive agents with the Demo-penalty and just a few spy-techs aren't enough to keep the Orion-tech for me... now...
After Orion things started to get complicated. Because of the spy-war, I thought it migth be an idea to wipe out some of my tech-stealing neighbours and went on war with the Klackons. (Mistake number three?) Whilst battling with them, the Gnols decided to jump in and that's the point when things got really messed up; the Avenger and my fleet were too far away from my precious planets the Gnols attacked (and the planets, furthermore, destroyed instead of just being invaded), so that I decided that the only way that I could avoid total destruction was a counter-attack on the Gnols. I knew I could easily wipe out planets with a single Titan or at least two and, needless to say, the Avenger alone could wipe out planets all by itself. My counter worked, but not as well as I had hoped - I lost several planets to the Gnols before they surrendered. They surrendered, you might ask, that's a good thing, isn't it? Yes, it's a good thing... if you're the Coid AI. Which brings me to the situation as it is by now: I've lost several very well developed planets to Gnol-battlefleets and nearly lost the game, but managed to survive somehow. My economy and research are nearly non-existent, although rebuilding shouldn't take too much time because there are some nice ultra-rich planets waiting to get colonized.
But it takes time at all and that's the problem; Coids are now 1/3 of the map and getting stronger, Mrrshan will probably fall to the Coids, making them even more stronger, and Meklars are peaceful for now, but spying b*tches, just waiting in line to see a moment of weakness to start a war on me:
So, what would you do? I guess, I try turtling in a bit, get my economy going again ASAP and then try winning the game by defeating the Antarans.
_n0cx
edit: sorry, if my English is bad, haven't written or spoken it in a while
do you know that feeling when you remember a game you played a long, long time ago all of a sudden and then start wanting to play it again? And do you also know the feeling of ecstasy and enthusiasm when you realise that this game is SO much better and much more complex than you remember it? Well, if you know these feelings, then you'll know how the last one or two weeks of my spare-time playing MoO2 were.
After a few attempts of getting used to the game again and trying different race picks, I figured that I really like Demovore; because of the tech-advantage and the rather easy early-game considering micro-management, it's a nice way to get going again. So, I tried playing Demovore on normal, which was way too easy, I did a game on hard, which was also a total stompfest (won the game rather late in the mid-300s, because I wanted to kill all seven AIs and the Antarans). Then I decided to try a game on impossible:
For my first attempt on impossible, I thought I could try to go with Demo, Litho, Artifacts and the usual negative picks. In my earlier games, I went with LRHW/RHW instead of Artifacts, but I thought Artifacts would be nice for turtling in and taking Orion quite early in the game.
I started a little left of the map's centre. Good position for reaching Orion quickly, but too many possible aggressive AIs around, but I gave it a try, because my homeworld's system was quite okay. The start went very well, I quickly built two more colonies, maxed out my HW's pop, got labs, got factories, got Mercs, EMG and so on. Made first contact with the Klackons, next Meklars, Elerians and Gnols. Found Orion quickly, also found a nice planet next to my HW. Then I made the first major mistake: when I tried to take Orion, my fleet wasn't strong enough. Okay, to be honest, I haven't read any guide on taking out the Guardian with a minimal fleet. I should have and I had to learn it the hard way by loosing almost my entire fleet. Which was really bad because of the time and production losses.
As I went on and, eventually, was successfull in taking out the Guardian, it just took me a few more turns to realise my second major mistake: spy defense. Right after taking down the Guardian, the AIs started the hell of a spy-war on me and stole X-armour and Deathrays. Yay! Okay, by now I know that half a dozen of defensive agents with the Demo-penalty and just a few spy-techs aren't enough to keep the Orion-tech for me... now...
After Orion things started to get complicated. Because of the spy-war, I thought it migth be an idea to wipe out some of my tech-stealing neighbours and went on war with the Klackons. (Mistake number three?) Whilst battling with them, the Gnols decided to jump in and that's the point when things got really messed up; the Avenger and my fleet were too far away from my precious planets the Gnols attacked (and the planets, furthermore, destroyed instead of just being invaded), so that I decided that the only way that I could avoid total destruction was a counter-attack on the Gnols. I knew I could easily wipe out planets with a single Titan or at least two and, needless to say, the Avenger alone could wipe out planets all by itself. My counter worked, but not as well as I had hoped - I lost several planets to the Gnols before they surrendered. They surrendered, you might ask, that's a good thing, isn't it? Yes, it's a good thing... if you're the Coid AI. Which brings me to the situation as it is by now: I've lost several very well developed planets to Gnol-battlefleets and nearly lost the game, but managed to survive somehow. My economy and research are nearly non-existent, although rebuilding shouldn't take too much time because there are some nice ultra-rich planets waiting to get colonized.
But it takes time at all and that's the problem; Coids are now 1/3 of the map and getting stronger, Mrrshan will probably fall to the Coids, making them even more stronger, and Meklars are peaceful for now, but spying b*tches, just waiting in line to see a moment of weakness to start a war on me:
So, what would you do? I guess, I try turtling in a bit, get my economy going again ASAP and then try winning the game by defeating the Antarans.
_n0cx
edit: sorry, if my English is bad, haven't written or spoken it in a while
Unfortunately, I didn't make a screenshot of the highscore at the end, but the game lasted about 320-330 turns, I eliminated three other players and had about 180 colonists.
