Strange Immunities (MOO1)
- Thread starter Inca
- Start date
I try to not let them bust any planets, but some times I just want to end it and do your way. Just go on a dust all planets. I use that tactic often in Moo2 as I do not want to build up all those planets.
In Moo1 I almost never play huge maps and even mediums is not frequent.
In Moo1 I almost never play huge maps and even mediums is not frequent.
Hi guys,
back after quite a long pause. Having health problems unfortunately. But have been playing more MOO1.
First of all to RefSteele: I'm also still running Win98 on my rather old machines. I greatly prefer Win98 to later versions of Windows since it doesn't patronize you as much and what it has in terms of patronization can be disabled. Also I am used to cleaning up in DOS mode after having been on the web. My cleanup DOS batch finds and deletes so much more than any antivrus/temp files cleaner/firewall can ever do on WinXP or Vista. So I never get those browser hijacks and other nuisances on my Win98. Even running without any antivirus for years and years now and never have any probs after using my DOS cleanup method. Only disadvantage is that newer mainboards do not support Win98. VIA 600 was the last mainboard chipset that did (some boards with that chipsets still get sold used at online auctions - can support up to Athlon XP 3200+ CPUs at 400 MHZ FSB).
@Sulla: Yeah, that was the problem: Protecting newly acquired worlds. That is what made me look at the AI fleets.
But I am familiar with the "instant stand up method" that you mentioned (i.e. filling up planets with pop from other systems immediately and then pumping reserve to get them up as quickly as possible until they can built planetary shield and first few MBs).
However you are right that I might not have used the sneak-and-steal method consequently enough. I sometimes used that but maybe not often enough. But I now figured that stealing several systems at the same time tends to confuse the AI. They won't attack all of them at the same time - so if I steal 3 or 4 systems in just a few turns chances are good for one or two of them surviving even without massive protection. So if they attack one of them with a massive SOD I give up that one and steal other ones at the same time. In the end I will still have gained something. Also that keeps them from attacking my other systems. This is probably what vmxa was alluding to when he said I need a better plan - he just didn't phrase it this way. I'm starting to understand this now. Haven't been flexible enough in my thinking. I will use this more in future.
As for the planet bombardment screen not showing up there are some points to be still added:
I'm playing in native DOS mode with a german keyboard. I have figured out that a few bugs I am getting may actually be attached to me using a german keyboard in DOS mode. First of all pressing F8 with advanced space scanner does not work for me this way. Nothing happens when I do that. Ofcourse that function is not vital for playing - just a convenience function - so I can still play normally without it. But that got me thinking about the german keyboard.
Also the german keyboard codepage takes up more space in memory in DOS-mode. It's not a huge difference compared with the standard US codepage but with MOO1 in DOS mode every little bit counts. Actually I had to use memmaker to free up enough base memory. I had already disabled everything that is not needed (such as the DOS driver for my optical drive - not needed for MOO1). So I do get enough free base memory with memmaker but that means the upper memory available in DOS is rather crammed full that way. These things may result in me getting certain bugs that others don't get.
I still prefer playing DOS games in native DOS mode since it keeps my Windows free from too many programs being installed. Might have to switch to Windows if I want to take screenshots though (thanks again for your hints RefSteele). But for the time being I will run in plain DOS mode. I always have a native DOS partition on my second harddisk. So I can easily boot into DOS at any time. I don't use the native DOS mode of my Windows 98 partition for games. That setup is quite practical: Windows -> boot primary Master 1; DOS -> boot primary Master 2. Don't even need a bootmanager. Second partition on my second harddisk is dedicated for the Windows swapfile (2 GB just for the swapfile, nothing else - called "page file" in later versions of Windows).
Now for my "continuous small combats theory": I now figure that the game programmers actually wanted to program something that would prevent orbital bombardment if you know the trick - but they failed to put this into practice consistently. Have you ever wondered why the AI keeps sending small batches of seemingly useless fleets while you have a fleet in orbit over one of their planets? Well, here is why: This has been programmed on purpose to prevent you from bombing the planet from orbit. But it doesn't always work for them. Sometimes you do get the bombardment window and sometimes you don't. The program seems to be quite erratic about this. They tried to implement this as a feature but for some reason failed and ended up with this erratic behaviour. That is my best theory so far. My german DOS setup might explain some of the erraticness too. But it looks to me as if they actually wanted a feature that would prevent orbital bombardment. So I was just unlucky in that one case where I never got to bomb the planet. Might have been lucky if I had waited longer instead of losing my head. Kind of like a lottery that feature of the program.
back after quite a long pause. Having health problems unfortunately. But have been playing more MOO1.
First of all to RefSteele: I'm also still running Win98 on my rather old machines. I greatly prefer Win98 to later versions of Windows since it doesn't patronize you as much and what it has in terms of patronization can be disabled. Also I am used to cleaning up in DOS mode after having been on the web. My cleanup DOS batch finds and deletes so much more than any antivrus/temp files cleaner/firewall can ever do on WinXP or Vista. So I never get those browser hijacks and other nuisances on my Win98. Even running without any antivirus for years and years now and never have any probs after using my DOS cleanup method. Only disadvantage is that newer mainboards do not support Win98. VIA 600 was the last mainboard chipset that did (some boards with that chipsets still get sold used at online auctions - can support up to Athlon XP 3200+ CPUs at 400 MHZ FSB).
@Sulla: Yeah, that was the problem: Protecting newly acquired worlds. That is what made me look at the AI fleets.
But I am familiar with the "instant stand up method" that you mentioned (i.e. filling up planets with pop from other systems immediately and then pumping reserve to get them up as quickly as possible until they can built planetary shield and first few MBs).
However you are right that I might not have used the sneak-and-steal method consequently enough. I sometimes used that but maybe not often enough. But I now figured that stealing several systems at the same time tends to confuse the AI. They won't attack all of them at the same time - so if I steal 3 or 4 systems in just a few turns chances are good for one or two of them surviving even without massive protection. So if they attack one of them with a massive SOD I give up that one and steal other ones at the same time. In the end I will still have gained something. Also that keeps them from attacking my other systems. This is probably what vmxa was alluding to when he said I need a better plan - he just didn't phrase it this way. I'm starting to understand this now. Haven't been flexible enough in my thinking. I will use this more in future.
As for the planet bombardment screen not showing up there are some points to be still added:
I'm playing in native DOS mode with a german keyboard. I have figured out that a few bugs I am getting may actually be attached to me using a german keyboard in DOS mode. First of all pressing F8 with advanced space scanner does not work for me this way. Nothing happens when I do that. Ofcourse that function is not vital for playing - just a convenience function - so I can still play normally without it. But that got me thinking about the german keyboard.
Also the german keyboard codepage takes up more space in memory in DOS-mode. It's not a huge difference compared with the standard US codepage but with MOO1 in DOS mode every little bit counts. Actually I had to use memmaker to free up enough base memory. I had already disabled everything that is not needed (such as the DOS driver for my optical drive - not needed for MOO1). So I do get enough free base memory with memmaker but that means the upper memory available in DOS is rather crammed full that way. These things may result in me getting certain bugs that others don't get.
I still prefer playing DOS games in native DOS mode since it keeps my Windows free from too many programs being installed. Might have to switch to Windows if I want to take screenshots though (thanks again for your hints RefSteele). But for the time being I will run in plain DOS mode. I always have a native DOS partition on my second harddisk. So I can easily boot into DOS at any time. I don't use the native DOS mode of my Windows 98 partition for games. That setup is quite practical: Windows -> boot primary Master 1; DOS -> boot primary Master 2. Don't even need a bootmanager. Second partition on my second harddisk is dedicated for the Windows swapfile (2 GB just for the swapfile, nothing else - called "page file" in later versions of Windows).
Now for my "continuous small combats theory": I now figure that the game programmers actually wanted to program something that would prevent orbital bombardment if you know the trick - but they failed to put this into practice consistently. Have you ever wondered why the AI keeps sending small batches of seemingly useless fleets while you have a fleet in orbit over one of their planets? Well, here is why: This has been programmed on purpose to prevent you from bombing the planet from orbit. But it doesn't always work for them. Sometimes you do get the bombardment window and sometimes you don't. The program seems to be quite erratic about this. They tried to implement this as a feature but for some reason failed and ended up with this erratic behaviour. That is my best theory so far. My german DOS setup might explain some of the erraticness too. But it looks to me as if they actually wanted a feature that would prevent orbital bombardment. So I was just unlucky in that one case where I never got to bomb the planet. Might have been lucky if I had waited longer instead of losing my head. Kind of like a lottery that feature of the program.
I removed win98 from all machine some time ago. I had a 10,000 RPM hard drive and Win98 could not support it. Win98 crashed too often and need to be cleaned up too often.
Things I never have to do on XP. I have many DOS games that I play just fine on both my XP boxes. I prefer to be able to make changes to my Network, without concerns about the OS.
I like being able to have many apps running, if I need them. I nearly always have either an internet radio or Winamp going, while playing. May then elect to go to CFC and need/want to fire up C3C to look at a save as Moo1 is still going and so forth.
I have no issues with any browser steals or cookies, so no need to clean up. I go back to the first version of DOS and OS/2, actually I go back much farther than that, so I remember all the issue with Win98.
Things I never have to do on XP. I have many DOS games that I play just fine on both my XP boxes. I prefer to be able to make changes to my Network, without concerns about the OS.
I like being able to have many apps running, if I need them. I nearly always have either an internet radio or Winamp going, while playing. May then elect to go to CFC and need/want to fire up C3C to look at a save as Moo1 is still going and so forth.
I have no issues with any browser steals or cookies, so no need to clean up. I go back to the first version of DOS and OS/2, actually I go back much farther than that, so I remember all the issue with Win98.
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