Welcome to Always War, MOO-style!
As some may know, it's not really possible in MOO to do an Always War game as Civ SG veterans would understand it. That's because there's no way to actually declare war on the AI races in MOO! You have to piss them off to the point where they will declare on you. Well, without being too artificial about it, that's what we aim to do here.
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Always War Hard
Race: Mrrshan
Difficulty: Hard
Size: Medium
Opponents: 5
Colour: Red
Minimum Victory: Extermination!
Variant Rules
Spirit of the Rules: Always act as if we are at war with all races, even if they have not formally declared war.
* May never form any long-term treaty or trade agreement, including peace treaty
* May never offer tribute
* Must always have at least one tick of spying per race contacted; spies may not hide.
* Must always vote for ourselves in council, but may not accept a council win (or loss.) If we can't vote for ourselves, we abstain.
NOTE: We do not have to squander our strength needlessly or perform foolish suicide attacks to convince the AIs to declare war on us. If they choose to appease us despite being on The List, so much the worse for them when the hammer falls.
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Lineup:
Zed-F << 30 turns
Maniac < 20 turns
catwalk < 10 turns thereafter
dathon
vxma
I generated a few starts, trying to ensure we'd have at least a couple races we naturally dislike, and picked a couple for our consideration, an 'easier' start and a 'harder' start. Here's the easy start:
Note the broad gap between our corner of the galaxy and the rest of the galaxy to the south. We have a fair amount of space to expand into back here so this is a relatively good thing. We can expect to have an enemy with a similar amount of space to expand into starting at the yellow star directly south of us, and he's likely to be our most dangerous opponent if he expands at a reasonable pace. Our closest potential neighbor is the yellow star in the nebula west-northwest of us. (I know it looks orange in the shot, but trust me it's yellow.) Most of our opponents are probably in a tight cluster in the SW corner of the galaxy, competing for space. Our game plan is probably to settle as much of our own back yard as possible and start cleansing our way counter-clockwise around the galaxy.
Here's the harder start:
This time the gap isn't protecting our territory from an early attack so much as it's boxing us into the corner. If we can't make a pathway out along the bottom of the map, we could be stuck back here for a considerable amount of time... and blue stars are not exactly the odds-on favourite for generating a viable path out. Again we can expect a strong neighbor with a good amount of space to expand into, this time to our north, with the other races lined up along the west side of the galaxy. Not sure how strongly they will be competing for space, but 4 out of the 6 yellow stars over there will start out occupied, so it could be cramped -- or one of the AIs could get out to a good jump of a start and start raking in the territory. Any way you slice it, odds are good that we'll be having to claw our way out of a significant hole by the time we make contact with the other races. Still, as always, it all depends on the dice rolls. One other thing, take a look at the races opposing us, and then this chart:
Every single race opposed to us on this map is at most Uneasy with us to start, with one exception, and that's the Humans! If they get out to a good start, we could easily be looking at early final war here.
So, folks, what's it to be?
As some may know, it's not really possible in MOO to do an Always War game as Civ SG veterans would understand it. That's because there's no way to actually declare war on the AI races in MOO! You have to piss them off to the point where they will declare on you. Well, without being too artificial about it, that's what we aim to do here.
----------------------------------------
Always War Hard
Race: Mrrshan
Difficulty: Hard
Size: Medium
Opponents: 5
Colour: Red
Minimum Victory: Extermination!
Variant Rules
Spirit of the Rules: Always act as if we are at war with all races, even if they have not formally declared war.
* May never form any long-term treaty or trade agreement, including peace treaty
* May never offer tribute
* Must always have at least one tick of spying per race contacted; spies may not hide.
* Must always vote for ourselves in council, but may not accept a council win (or loss.) If we can't vote for ourselves, we abstain.
NOTE: We do not have to squander our strength needlessly or perform foolish suicide attacks to convince the AIs to declare war on us. If they choose to appease us despite being on The List, so much the worse for them when the hammer falls.
----------------------------------------
Lineup:
Zed-F << 30 turns
Maniac < 20 turns
catwalk < 10 turns thereafter
dathon
vxma
I generated a few starts, trying to ensure we'd have at least a couple races we naturally dislike, and picked a couple for our consideration, an 'easier' start and a 'harder' start. Here's the easy start:
Note the broad gap between our corner of the galaxy and the rest of the galaxy to the south. We have a fair amount of space to expand into back here so this is a relatively good thing. We can expect to have an enemy with a similar amount of space to expand into starting at the yellow star directly south of us, and he's likely to be our most dangerous opponent if he expands at a reasonable pace. Our closest potential neighbor is the yellow star in the nebula west-northwest of us. (I know it looks orange in the shot, but trust me it's yellow.) Most of our opponents are probably in a tight cluster in the SW corner of the galaxy, competing for space. Our game plan is probably to settle as much of our own back yard as possible and start cleansing our way counter-clockwise around the galaxy.
Here's the harder start:
This time the gap isn't protecting our territory from an early attack so much as it's boxing us into the corner. If we can't make a pathway out along the bottom of the map, we could be stuck back here for a considerable amount of time... and blue stars are not exactly the odds-on favourite for generating a viable path out. Again we can expect a strong neighbor with a good amount of space to expand into, this time to our north, with the other races lined up along the west side of the galaxy. Not sure how strongly they will be competing for space, but 4 out of the 6 yellow stars over there will start out occupied, so it could be cramped -- or one of the AIs could get out to a good jump of a start and start raking in the territory. Any way you slice it, odds are good that we'll be having to claw our way out of a significant hole by the time we make contact with the other races. Still, as always, it all depends on the dice rolls. One other thing, take a look at the races opposing us, and then this chart:
Every single race opposed to us on this map is at most Uneasy with us to start, with one exception, and that's the Humans! If they get out to a good start, we could easily be looking at early final war here.
So, folks, what's it to be?
Might be somewhere around 2400 though...
Silicoids down there would be trouble too, as they'll probably grab half the galaxy. I think I'd vote for the first one and see what happens. And f we trounce the map, we already have a backup start in place 
