[MoO] Whats the most unbalanced custom race you've ever made (MOO2)?

[malicious bloke]

At the moment I'm playing a race with creative, telepathic and warlord. I also added feudal, spy +20 and BC -0.5 (but since warlord and feudal help you maintain fleets more cheaply I dont really notice it.

It's a disgustingly easy way to be more advanced and more militaristic than your rivals.

It's a nice trick of building a fairly large group of Titan ships (enough that they would have to cripple their economy to match you), using it to wipe out any fleet in an enemy system, then taking it over with mind control.

It works best after you have confederation and evolutionary mutation (thats when I added warlord).

As a race that lacks any noticeable weaknesses, it's pretty nice

 

[Aabraxan]

Well, there's always always Unification, Tolerant, +Production . . . .

About a year ago, I was tinkering with different race picks (I don't get to play as often as I'd like, any more), and played something similar, but with drastically different results. I don't recall the exact picks that I took, but I think I used transdimensional and telephathic, and I'm certain that I did not take creative. IIRC, telephaths can mind control with cruisers and larger, so I only built a few of anything larger than that. It became a fast blitz game and I think I was just beginning to make the switch to beam weapons when the game ended.

 

[IamJohn]

Telepathic is insane if you can build a stack big enough to crush a battlestation with out loss, you absorb entire empires in a couple turns, with them immeaditly adding to the empire.

 

[malicious bloke]

Telepathic is insane if you can build a stack big enough to crush a battlestation with out loss, you absorb entire empires in a couple turns, with them immeaditly adding to the empire.

Yeah, especially if you have creative or research +1/2, you can sit at long range with a few big ships equipped with stellar converters long before they get their hands on titans, doom stars or star fortresses

 

[TheArchduke]

Feudalism and creative?

Imo the cheaper ship costs can not offset the research penalty.

I would stick to warlord only every day.

 

[malicious bloke]

Feudalism and creative?

Imo the cheaper ship costs can not offset the research penalty.

I would stick to warlord only every day.

The cheaper ship costs also mean colony ships are cheaper...

...cheaper expansion is quicker expansion, more systems = more research

I mean you'll never be a Psilon research monster, but the creativeness is an extra facet that a lot of warlike races lack

 

[YNCS]

I always make a beeline for creative. Otherwise, there's some tech that I need and either nobody else has researched it or the race that has researched it refuses to trade for it.

 

[Galdred]

Creative is not worth the 8 points IMO. Of course, it is possible to win with it on impossible, but I don't think it is the easiest way to exploit the race creation screen.
It can be powerful but only for rushing (as it allows you to pick efficient armor+missiles early on, and gives you fighters and good targeting computers early), but that's a very specialized use.

Even with the quicker expand, I don't see how feudal could compete with uni.
The most unbalanced as Aabraxan pointed out, are Unification Tolerant (or aquatic, or subterranean, anything that lets you get more pop/planet).

I have tried many Uni Tol (and variants) build, but the funniest one I tried was a +50 Def, +50 Att + warlord : if beelining for good engines (the ones after super engine) + the super engine special (and later intertial stabilizer), your ships are impossible to hit with beam weapons (I could defeat fleets of 2 BS with only one puny Cruiser loeaded with fighters, as they were unable to hit the fighters or the carrier), and your PDS are accurate from the beginning.

 

[malicious bloke]

Hmmm, I was under the impression that Tolerant had a similar downside to the MOO1 silicoids, where you couldn't improve the max population of your planets...

...evidently I was wrong.

In any case, just for a laugh I went into the editor and made a race with High-G world, Artifacts world, Large Home world, Rich Home world, Charismatic, Creative, Tolerant, Telepathic, Lucky, Omniscient, Stealthy Ships, Transdimensional, Warlord, Growth +100%, Food +2, Production +2, Research +2, Money +1BC, Ship Attack/Defense +50, and Spy +20...

I had half a huge galaxy sewn up before any of the others had a single ship built. It's ridiculous, and eventually it broke the money counter (it got to about +20'000 a turn and then it wrapped around and went negative :S)

 

[aaglo]

I used to play a lot with something like this:
- subterranean (large pop base)
- unification (the farming bonus really helps with the large population)
- creative
- negative bonuses on spying, ground combat, ship attack & ship defence, poor resources on 1st planet

Now I try to keep away from creative, because playing with creative races will eventually get boring.

 

[Galdred]

The races that are considered the most unbalanced in mp are unification tolerant + lots of negative picks or unification +aquatic +2prod

Ship attack malus are usually considered bad, as it renders beam weapons useless (and completely unable to hit missiles).
Repulsive is usually a better choice. It's not like you need to make any diplo against the comp, and it doesn't change much against a human player.

 

[BasketCase]

I'm surprised that Omniscient has only been mentioned once.....the intel provided by that is genuinely broken.

The most messed-up race I came up with was probably Acquatic+Unification+Warlord+Omni.

The most surprising race I ever played was--get a load of this--Tolerant and SUBTERRANEAN. Both of these race mods give you a bonus to your population cap. And just for giggles I gave them the Insectoid race picture. By midgame all my worlds were swarming with gigantic numbers of roaches. I could get a planet up to 40 people with no trouble. My economy was just ridiculous.

 

[vmxa]

Omni is something that you can get from Loknar. If you do not get him, I sometimes will pick it up from the Mutation to see stealth ships.

 

[Galdred]

you don't get omni with Loknar, only galactic lore, which is not quite as powerful as it doesn't display ennemy fleets, let alone stealth fleets.
Omni is potent, but it is hardly an imbalance against the AI, as you can save/reload anyway, and the AI automatically knows everything you are doing without paying for omni, so it would be more like fighting on equal terms.

 

[vmxa]

Yes it will not show stealth ships, but you can see all the planets and that is plenty.

 

[Perfection]

I prefered strategy:
Large Homeworld
Food +2
Repulsive
Fantastic Traders
Lucky
Cybernetic
-1 Production
Poor Homeworld

I play on Huge, impossible, Organic Rich, with random events disabled.

 

[Tuberski]

Isn't Repulsive and Fantastic Trader pointless?

I don't remember if you can trade when repulsive or not.

 

[RefSteel]

Isn't Repulsive and Fantastic Trader pointless?

I don't remember if you can trade when repulsive or not.

You are correct: A Repulsive species can not form trade agreements (though I think Fantastic Trader also gives a small cash bonus or something). Perfection called these statistics "preferred," not "most powerful," so I suspect this is a case of intentionally playing a race that's "unbalanced" in favor of the enemy, the better to make the game challenging! Cybernetic, -1 Production, Poor Homeworld, Not Tolerant is a great suicidal combination, especially with a Dictatorship government.

 

[Tuberski]

You are correct: A Repulsive species can not form trade agreements (though I think Fantastic Trader also gives a small cash bonus or something). Perfection called these statistics "preferred," not "most powerful," so I suspect this is a case of intentionally playing a race that's "unbalanced" in favor of the enemy, the better to make the game challenging! Cybernetic, -1 Production, Poor Homeworld, Not Tolerant is a great suicidal combination, especially with a Dictatorship government.

Good point, that must be the case, Lucky and no random events is useless also.

 

[Zitron2000,8]

My race if I want to play on "easy mode"
-ship defence, ground combat
-repulsive
+2 science
+unification
+telepathic
+rich homeworld

So basicly you build everything fast=fast expansion=big empire
big empire + 2 science bonus = disrupter cannons with auto fire really fast
disrupters added with structural analyzer (and mayby achilles unit) = 1 titan which can destroy about 10 enemy Doomstars in first turn
That in early game with telepathy and galaxy is urs before u even got the kicks out from the game thats why I called it the "easy mode"