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

[scratchthepitch]

One of the advantages of using telepathic, and not having to deal with transports, is you can attack systems further away. Unlike colony and outpost ships, transports do not have the extended fuel tank range. I'm always forgetting this when it's been a while since I played a non-telepathic race to my extreme annoyance. I'll be all prepared to attack some system and find it's beyond range of my transports, but not the rest of my fleet.

I'd love to be able to mod that extra range into transports, but I don't know how.

 

[El_Machinae]

I almost never use fuel tanks. They're just too expensive. Worst case, when I'm feeling adventurous, I'll use military outposts to allow a quick hop.

 

[scratchthepitch]

I almost never use fuel tanks. They're just too expensive. Worst case, when I'm feeling adventurous, I'll use military outposts to allow a quick hop.

Depends on the map and who I want to attack. Early game I use them if going after monster planets or having to fight another race as some of these are usually out of normal range. Sometimes I'll use outpost ships to get to an out of range system, but I cant always rely upon them for that since some systems are empty and some have just one planet, which is occupied already or they have a monster protecting it. So I find it easier to use the fuel tanks then to avoid those limitations and accept the individual ships being weaker. Also when already at war, I've seen the AI attack and destroy outposts before I could get ships there to protect them. By the time I get irridium fuel cells I can usually stop using them.

 

[Jolly Rogerer]

Cyborg, Tolerant, Unification, Repulsive, - to ground defense, - to ship defense. It's a winner on Impossible every time.

 

[neilkaz]

The old standard MP UniTol race is simply overpowering when played with an early REX.

Demolith is also very strong once it gets rolling, but is more vulnerable if attacked early.

I recently played a few games with this UniTelAqua race and just rolled up a Cluster map with 8 players from a prewarp start in 191 turns without working hard.

Unified, Aquatic, Telepathic, LargeRich HW with the usual repulsive - ground -ship defence.

Trivially easy to play as Telepathic and never make a transport and never worry about revoltings colonists and instantly assimilate big colonies. This sort of race is the quickest win for me, but if I had to play a game for my life it would be using UniTol or a similar uber production race.

Anyhow..I wish MOO2 had an even tougher mode than Impossible...but will make it harder by playing smaller maps.

.. neilkaz ..

 

[neilkaz]

A good strategy guide by a strong MP player is here http://masteroforion2.blogspot.com/2005/03/master-of-orion-ii-strategy-guide.html

I played a few Impossible games on Large and Cluster maps using UniAquaProd+2LRHW and it seems about as overpowered as UniTol.

In comparison to UniTol which needs 3 farmers at that start, the UniAqua production race needs only 2 farmers and therefore has 6 free pop.

In general the best custom races take advantage of stacking benificial multipliers. This race gets 3 farming per farmer x 1.5 from Uni = 4.5F

It also gets 5PP for rich+2 for worker all x 1.5 for Uni = 10.5 PP per worker. However, unlike UniTol pollution is a big issue.

UniAquaProd can put all 6 free colonists on production at the start and build colony bases in 6 turns. Production is 35 (63PP-28 pollution) whereas UniTol required 7 turns (30PP per turn. When researching the extra free colonist is also useful.

Still UniTol is so easy to play since you don't have to worry about pollution and can jump back and forth from production to research with no worries. Both races have some pop advantages on some planet-types.

.. neilkaz ..

 

[mzprox]

As a techwhore and not expansionist my fav race is:
-Demo,
-Subt
-Artifact HW
-large HW
-+1 research

Bit less research than demo/litho but better potential later.

 

[TheDS]

I've always favored UniTel for its vast savings and no downside. Before they bumped up the cost of Creative, I'd pair that with Rich HW. Creative on its own works well with this, but I've tried a few other combinations.

I have almost always taken -spy, -ship attack, -ground troop, and -food as my negatives, but I've played around with those a lot. The spy and ground troop maluses can be easily compensated, but the food and combat maluses hurt more, and I've been looking for a better alternative. I don't much like Repulsive; I need time to get my stuff set up, and don't like fighting multi-front wars. I like setting up treaties for the bonuses. Hi-G is so awesome, Low-G isn't too bad of a negative. Still trying to figure out a good combo.

I'll give UniTol a try one day; never really considered it because I couldn't fit it with Telepathy.

Loves me some telepathy!

 

[neilkaz]

http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=251331 is an interesting thread, especially for reading some of Alexfrog's race advise. If you don't want to play as repulsive or want a change of pace to interface with AI's then he suggests taking only 19 pts positive along with 9 pts negative as follows. -spying - ground - attack - defence.

If you use missles as much as I do early/mid game, that -attack won't hurt. - spying may mean that you get more stuff stolen, but Uni has a defensive agent bonus and you can research spying techs and make a bunch of agents. Still I don't really care to have - spying since I do my upmost to be ahead in tech usually spamming autolabs all over, and I want to keep my techs for me. Anyhow, I haven't played anything but repulsive since I came back to the game.

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion_II/Race_design_options is also interesting and reasonably well written and may guide your choice of races.

EDIT: I forgot that Telepathic also gives a 10% spying bonus. This would cancel out the - spying for those who want to play UniTel but also to interface with AI's (not repulsive) and the 25% diplo bonus would help.

Telepathic renders the Uni penalty to assimulte conquered colonists irrelevent.

For a change of pace I'll try a non repulsinve UniTel game since I've forgotten what it is like to interface with AI's

 

[Martin Alvito]

At release, some CalTech students pretty conclusively showed that this is a game with three local optima:

- Teleblitz (Feudal, Telepathic, Omniscient, etc.)
- Demovore (Democratic, Lithovore, Artifacts - pure research aimed at finding and killing the Guardian ASAP)
- UniTol (well identified in this thread)

The game boils down to a RPS game where Teleblitz > Demovore > UniTol > Teleblitz. Very basic cycling problem - which admittedly does keep the game strategic.

 

[neilkaz]

At release, some CalTech students pretty conclusively showed that this is a game with three local optima:

- Teleblitz (Feudal, Telepathic, Omniscient, etc.)
- Demovore (Democratic, Lithovore, Artifacts - pure research aimed at finding and killing the Guardian ASAP)
- UniTol (well identified in this thread)

The game boils down to a RPS game where Teleblitz > Demovore > UniTol > Teleblitz. Very basic cycling problem - which admittedly does keep the game strategic.

I play only as Pre_Warp so Feudal races are at a clear disadvantage compared to "standard" since they are very slow with the initial basic needed research. I also usually play Cluster map (Huge but closer together) which should help the blitzers somewhat. However, I have almost no experiece playing blitz style.

vmxa refers to a teleblitz race "Telepathic, Warlord, Trans Dimensional, Omniscient, RHW, Feudal, Repulsive"
and gives an example game in this thread http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=282108

Was that race Cal Tech's conclusion as well?

Demolith (as it is called now) is great once it gets rolling but vulnerable to early attack due to poorer production and can't REX like UniTolProd+1

UniAquaProd+2 is also very strong but I somewhat prefer UniTol.

Any of these races will simply crush the AI's on Impossible with any decent start.

 

[El_Machinae]

I disproportionately like Aqua. It makes terraforming cheaper, and it allows an easy way to 'max out' populations efficiently after conquest (i.e., drop a few of my own citizens in after conquering a planet, taking up the extra 'gaia' room that their planets will have.)

 

[scratchthepitch]

Besides aqua you could add subterranean for even greater pop and all the bonuses of both traits. And there is still room to add in creative or telepathic. If choosing telepathic, there is also room for +50% pop. You would probably be far ahead in pop by turn 100. I've never tried doing an aqua-sub combo, I'll have to try it sometime.

 

[El_Machinae]

Aqua-sub doesn't work as well as you'd think. It's just too many points, and population maximums is a 'mid game' benefit. If you don't have Sakkra slaves by then, you've done something wrong! The aqua is also an early game benefit, of being similar to a food boost

 

[scratchthepitch]

Aqua-sub doesn't work as well as you'd think. It's just too many points, and population maximums is a 'mid game' benefit. If you don't have Sakkra slaves by then, you've done something wrong! The aqua is also an early game benefit, of being similar to a food boost

I agree about the point costs being too much and the benefit of high pop being a mid game thing. Pop was always a low priority and -50% pop was one of the usual negatives I chose. I don't think I ever used aqua or sub in stock games over the years because of that. Would rather use the points for dem/uni governments and sci/prod bonuses. And I early on caught on to the creat/tele combo and usually went with that since it worked well.

 

[neilkaz]

AFAIK, Aqua doesn't make terraforming cheaper (it didn't when I checked last night's Trilarian save) but certainly it is awesome when a barren planet becomes tundra and you get a huge pop gain, although sometimes barren planets become Arid and you may want to terraform them further. Of course, you want some sort of Radiation shield to turn rad planets into barren.

I have not tried any Sub-Aqua combos, but you'd certainly get large pops with Sub helping greatly on some planets where Aqua is useless. Strategy Wiki has a table for Sub-Tol, but not one for Sub-Aqua so I may have to make my own when I try them.

Being a great fan of Unification, I'd use 6 picks for that, and now my farming should be 4.5/farmer on the homeworld which will me that 6 of my starting 8 workers can research or produce and that I'd prefer cloning centers rather than soil enrichment later. However, I am going to need to feed all these people.

Based on what El Machinae just wrote why I was typing up this post, Sub-Aqua may not be so good, but I'll experiment with it somewhat. I'd use the other 3 picks for something other than +50 pop growth since I can usually use 1 pop housing to grow anyhow and will be getting cloning centers.

After that there are many interesting combos for the remaining picks.

.. neilkaz ..

 

[scratchthepitch]

AFAIK, Aqua doesn't make terraforming cheaper (it didn't when I checked last night's Trilarian save) but certainly it is awesome when a barren planet becomes tundra and you get a huge pop gain, although sometimes barren planets become Arid and you may want to terraform them further. Of course, you want some sort of Radiation shield to turn rad planets into barren.

I don't think El_Machinae meant that the cost of using the terraforming was less. It's the same. What he meant that since there was fewer stages of terraforming with aqua on the water based planet types, terraforming those cost less over all. usually to get from barren to gaia, you need to terraform a planet 3 times and then apply gaia. With agua on water based planets you only need to terraform 2 times and the 2nd time gives you the same stuff as a gaia terraforming. That saves a lot of terraforming time or costs if you rush it with cash.

In my current game the lack of a radiation shield was getting to be a serious problem. All of my planets were either radiated or toxic so my home planet had to supply food for everyone. My 4 neighbors didn't have it either, so I couldn't trade for it or steal it. Finally met the 5th empire around turn 150 and they had radiation shield and were willing to trade it for zor. ar. They also had soil enrich. and traded it for tractor beam. I had managed to trade for terraforming earlier, but without radiation shield couldn't do much with it. I'm playing a custom uncreative race that was missing most of the planet improvements. After hydro. farm the only other tech available to research was sub. farms. Researching sub. farms around turn 125 is probably the only thing that saved my guys from major problems, since all but maybe 2 planets I could colonize were radiated or toxic. And those 2 planets were far away.

I have not tried any Sub-Aqua combos, but you'd certainly get large pops with Sub helping greatly on some planets where Aqua is useless. Strategy Wiki has a table for Sub-Tol, but not one for Sub-Aqua so I may have to make my own when I try them.

I made up a chart yesterday out of curiosity to find out how both aqua and sub increased pop. Listed the default planet maximums and then did the same for aqua, sub and then the 2 of them together. When I get some time, I'll post it up.

Edit:

Got it wrong. With aqua there are 2 stages of planet improvement, but you still need to terraform 3 times. Barren-tundra, tundra to swamp and swamp to ocean. With tundra you get the swamp environment, but you still need to terraform to swamp before going for ocean. With ocean you have the gaia benefits and don't need to terraform any further.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Pop limits on planets.

The numbers go in this order: tiny, small, medium, large & huge. Barren also includes radiated and toxic planets.

Default:

Barren/desert/tundra/ocean 1, 3, 4, 5, 6
Swamp 2, 4, 6, 8, 10
Arid 3, 6, 9, 12, 15
Terran 4, 8, 12, 16, 20
Gaia 5, 10, 15, 20, 25

Aqua

Barren/desert 1, 3, 4, 5, 6
Arid 3, 6, 9, 12, 15
Tundra/swamp 4, 8, 12, 16, 20
Ocean/terran/gaia 5, 10, 15, 20, 25

Sub

Barren/desert/tundra/ocean 3, 7, 10, 13, 16
Swamp 4, 8, 12, 16, 20
Arid 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
Terran 6, 12, 18, 24, 30
Gaia 7, 14, 21, 28, 35

Aqua/sub

Barren/desert 3, 7, 10, 13, 16
Arid 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
Tundra/swamp 6, 12, 18, 24, 30
Ocean/terran/gaia 7, 14, 21, 28, 35

 

[neilkaz]

Thx for the list of planet sizes. Here's some more info http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion_II/Growing_your_population

What you posted about Sub-Aqua planet sizes matches what I determined in my game last night, after I took Orion and could see all the planets.

I played as UniSubAquaLRHW and it is severely overpowered. So nice to have a rich HW with 28 pop max !

I sold starbase and barracks and with 26 PP (45-19 polution) I could buy each colony base after 4 turns each. Then I housed on both new colonies and transferred newborns to my growing HW. All three planets soon had labs and factories and I was off and rolling, just like a typical UniTol or UniAquaProd+2LRHW.

Almost every planet encountered was of decent size and Unification meant that my farmers on worlds considered Gaia by aquatic were producing 4.5 food. I went quickly to Zort armor to MIRV Mercs and the game was a wipeout. I was spread all over the map by turn 207 and had just colonized Orion (thx EMG) when the GC came up I had 24 of 36 votes just from my own planets so I decided to end the massacre there.

Very OP ...next game is using Prod+1 rather than LRHW but I think LRHW is stronger since what happens early with these strong production races is most important since if you survive and can defend you'll win.

The is also very OP and I had a nice system with a pop 12 barren and a pop 6 tiny tundra (beats the pop 1 that rock would be with most civs) but a slower start as CB's are a bit slower to build than with a rich HW. ROFL...again next to the Coids and this time after colonizing right next to me, they sent in a cruiser a bit prior to turn 40 . This is game over if I can't kill it since I'd sold my SB on turn 1 as usual with most races. Fortunately I had some production banked and was able to make a nuke DD and FF in the next two turns, selling a lab to get the cash to by the DD (destroyer) and just managed to kill the CC which that early had little tech but still would wreck me by blockade and slow killing of my planets.

My counter attack on the Coids was quite successful and of course a super early war means military research only but I needed Deut Cells to reach them so no Trit armor. The nearby colony had no defence so it was mine and once I got Merc Missiles I could MIRV Nukes and refit and took Coid HW ruining them. Mmmmm... they are Sub as a bonus attribute and that means big planets and that I want to spread their tolerant goodness all over. OMG just as I'd finished them off, my BFF the Hyperspace Beast decided to come out and party just as I'd sent my fleet back towards home, expecting a Sakkra attack. I had 4 remaining transports so I sent them out to explore and to distract my hungry bud from my main fleet. This worked and I lost all transports eventually but that helped lower my $$$ pain due to massive CP overrun.

LOL...That pompous Psilon decides he wants war. Nice tech, no production and can't beat MIRV nukes that early. I then made a BB and ruined him and had the whole left side of the map to myself and a few marvelous monster planets.

Orion nearby and I rushed quickly to Zort Armor and EMG and killing the Guardian on turn 165 (EMG is so good it is almost cheating) means game time. Hmm..no X-armor and only thing close to reasonable other than Death Ray is particle beam. However, Locknar's ship is awesome that early and bye-bye Sak and Humans while a couple Ray 6 BB's helped in other places with EMG DD support.

Game over at turn 193 when I had 33 of my own votes in the GC vs mid 40's total and allready had half the galaxy controlled. This time I went with cloning centers rather than soil enrichement so I could better spread the uber race of my conquered Silicoid Tolerant, Lith, Sub, enhanced by my Uni govt all over along with my own great race.

Wonderful game this is after well over a decade, but these uber-custom races are way beyond OP vs AI's.

Oh well.. back to my 3rd attempt to win with Darlok on my default Imp/Cluster/PreWarp

 

[scratchthepitch]

Thx for the list of planet sizes. Here's some more info http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion_II/Growing_your_population

Thanks for that link. Useful info there. I didn't know tolerant increased some pop totals on some planet types. That makes tolerant more useful.

I'm not sure their advice on housing is completely correct. What I have found is that pop increases are greatest when the planet is approximately half full of its current pop maximum. So you don't get your largest increases when a planet only has 1 pop. Housing works on this principle too. It works best when the planet is half full. But also the planet's production capacity plays a huge part. The higher your production on the planet, the more pop it grows. This is production points, not the number of pop working in production. So a planet producing more PP with half its pop will get a larger increase from housing than one using all its pop in production, but still producing fewer PP. To summarize, the more PP you can produce, the greater your pop increase per turn. Likewise the closer to the mid pop point the planet is of its pop capacity, the greater the pop increase will be, with it increasing as you approach this point, and then reducing again once you pass the mid point.

The article mentions increasing pop every 4-5 turns. That's good on a planet starting out with 1 pop. But when a planet has production improvements and is half the maximum pop level, you can get 1 new pop every turn, or maybe even more. As an example, in a current game "Monkar II", an ultra rich huge gaia has 12 of 25 pop. Producing housing with +20% morale, auto. fac. and robo-miners it nets .85 pop per turn with everybody in production. Almost 1 pop per turn. In other more further advanced games where I had all the production boosters plus some racial bonuses, I believe I have seen this pop increase pass the 1 per turn mark.