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Bloodly posted:Then that's quite a baggage train 'you've' got with you. You get a colony ship and two scouts when you are exiled.
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Jun 5, 2017 03:35
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Bloodly posted:I've never understood MOO2, and MOO 1 I'm kinda even worse at. It's interesting. How much have you tried playing them? There are a lot of "unwritten rules" in the AI that makes certain strategies a lot better or worse than you'd think. The example that always comes to my mind is Master of Magic; I always tried diplomacy and it never worked. Turns out that there's the 1-3 punch of a diplomacy malus for living on the same continent, a constant drain in relations later in the game, and borders (wizards get irate if you stay within 2 tiles of their city for 2 turns, and yes, that includes the turn you discover it). Once you know that stuff the game gets a lot easier (well, a lot less "arbitrary-feeling"). In MOO2, the secret is to always be leveraging your advantages as soon as you possibly can. That's why the rush to miniaturize and advance missiles is so strong: it's not because it's not a panacea (late-game, in fact, missiles can be awful), but because the AI never has a counter up by the time you can exploit it. It's also why Hard/Impossible revolves around either picking an overpowered race (because it's more efficient than most race packages) or conquering one; you can put the bonus picks the game gives the AI to compete with your brain to work for you. One example is if you can see an opponent has been skimping on ground tech, and you haven't been; you can switch to assault shuttles and tractor beams and stuff and board them. Once you have your edge and your target, hit 'em hard! One reason I like 2 more than 1 is how much more aggressive the AI is, always looking for an easy target and going after your backline when war starts; watching it play made me better at these games. MOO1 has a rhythm to it, kind of like chess; you can see how Thotimx's early moves each game are basically the same. You build up in the early game ASAP, and then use your ship slots to counter what your opponents are doing. Unlike in 2, you don't want to be any more aggressive than you have to be early on, because trade builds relations and conquering a race costs you time and population your rivals can use to develop themselves. In the mid to late-game, you can take advantage of the fact that techs are incredibly easy to get (espionage and ground combat are much more profitable than in 2) and let you leapfrog up the tree, which has tons of benefits in and of itself: construction and weapons determines costs and miniaturization levels for your ships, computers make you ever better at spying, etc. The Darloks are my favorite race, even though they're always terrible, and that's probably because of one game in which I came from about 4th place to win pretty much entirely by going all-in on computers and leeching everything the Psilons were researching, and getting them in wars with my neighbors by framing them. 
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Jun 5, 2017 05:42
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quote:How much have you tried playing them? A little(Moreso thanks to a recent hospital visit). I have never had a successful military encounter in Master 2. Not one. Because I do not understand the shipbuilding, and nothing seems effective. Ships die, spaceports die, planets are invaded wholesale. I don't even know what I'm missing. I can build up my colonies, but I can't, apparently, protect them.
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Jun 5, 2017 13:10
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Bloodly posted:A little(Moreso thanks to a recent hospital visit). I have never had a successful military encounter in Master 2. Not one. Because I do not understand the shipbuilding, and nothing seems effective. Ships die, spaceports die, planets are invaded wholesale. I don't even know what I'm missing. I can build up my colonies, but I can't, apparently, protect them. I'm in the camp that dislikes the omnipresence of ship designers in space 4X games for this reason. Just give me a preset list of ships and a clear explanation of what each ship does, thank you.
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Jun 5, 2017 13:24
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From what I remember of MOO2, dumping as many of your best lasers as would fit in your biggest hull generally worked. On the lower difficulties anyway.
Clarste fucked around with this message at 13:31 on Jun 5, 2017 |
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Jun 5, 2017 13:25
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Early to mid game, MoO2 most effective weapons and missiles, just make yourself a bunch of missile boats.
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Jun 5, 2017 13:37
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MoO2 does have design space for some goofy concepts, though. I once got away with a fleet based entirely around boarding and capturing enemy ships for a surprisingly long time. Generally, though, MoO2 ship design is hardest early on, where it's possible that some enemies might simply have ships too tough for you to hurt, or too agile for you to hit, reliably. At least that's my memory of it, it's been a while since I last played.
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Jun 5, 2017 13:39
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I do have memories of doing crazy things in the lategame like teleporting right up to ships and boarding them. Honestly, I think the ship-builder of MOO2 worked precisely because it was a turned-based game where each ship got an individual action like an RPG. Whereas literally every single game that came after it decided to clone every single part of the game except the turn based battles, because of the naive assumption that real-time is "better". Which is why all those games suck.
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Jun 5, 2017 13:42
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Moo2 ship design is about fitting as many plasma cannons and specials that make plasma cannons do more damage in a single hull. That's it, really. E: and four 2-shot MIRV nuclear missile destroyers in the early game to clear out space monsters. Martian fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Jun 5, 2017 |
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Jun 5, 2017 15:22
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Bloodly posted:A little(Moreso thanks to a recent hospital visit). I have never had a successful military encounter in Master 2. Not one. Because I do not understand the shipbuilding, and nothing seems effective. Ships die, spaceports die, planets are invaded wholesale. I don't even know what I'm missing. I can build up my colonies, but I can't, apparently, protect them. Ahh, OK, that makes sense. I wouldn't call it an "unwritten" rule, but because the game never tells you your to-hit probability when you attack (only what the ships' raw attack and defense ratings are), it's hard to tell why your ships are doing so badly. Basically, there are 2 factors: you lose accuracy the further away an opponent is (there's a formula for it, but basically if you want to skirmish at range at all, you want heavy beams or tons of accuracy boosters), and your attack bonus is also your damage bonus. Essentially the dice roll the game shows you in the ship-builder is modified by how well you "overhit" your target. So basically what that means is if you take the meta choice of Research Labs at the start, you want to get Battle Scanners (for that +50 to hit) ASAP, which has the side feature of giving you enough weapon tech to put Continuous (another +20) on your lasers and fusion beams. Continuous + Enveloping (hits all 4 sides, so x4 damage once shields are down) fusion beams are absolutely gonzo for how early in the game you can get them rolling, and they're viable all the way to the endgame for swatting down missiles. Just make sure your enemy doesn't have strong enough force fields before you attack. That goes back to what I was saying previously; tailor your offense to your opponents' weak points, since everybody can see each other's tech in 2. As far as ship design goes, think of it like a toolbox. It's a lot better to have 5 dedicated designs (1 missile boat, 1 each long-range gunship with heavy beams and one short-range with autofire/continuous beams to shred weaker targets or missiles, 1 of your biggest hull size designs with armor bonuses to draw fire and make sure you can hold a conquered planet, etc.) than 5 that can all do a little of everything. You also want to min-max. Small designs are probably going to die if they get hit anyway, so defense bonuses are usually a better deal than shields, and that saves you space for 1 more missile or gun or something. You don't need computers on ships launching missiles or that only does boarding, and that saves you cash so you can build them faster. Little things like that really add up, and the AI never does it. PurpleXVI posted:MoO2 does have design space for some goofy concepts, though. I once got away with a fleet based entirely around boarding and capturing enemy ships for a surprisingly long time. Definitely true on both points. Boarding is absurdly good if you're a lot better at it than the other guy. And in the early-game, before techs are in play to give you the bonuses they do, the racial traits matter a lot more. On Impossible, neighbor Mrrshan are definitely the ones I fear the most: they're hyper-aggressive and that +50 to hit means they can reliably shoot down missiles and frigates, unlike everybody else, so that little trick might not save you. I have fond memories of playing the Alkari one time and maxing out on ship defense, and while I did eventually lose, it was because the sakkra started building battleships with gyro destabilizers that auto-hit.  Martian posted:Moo2 ship design is about fitting as many plasma cannons and specials that make plasma cannons do more damage in a single hull. That's it, really. Or phasors with all their specials, too. After the 1.3 nerf to plasma cannons they're probably even a bit more efficient, except against Antarans. But yeah, late-game MOO2 is so heavily tilted toward offense it does become less fun.
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Jun 5, 2017 15:27
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Episode III: 2323-2349 There are a lot of systems just outside our scouting range right now, and once we get another parsec they won't be. In order to cover everything we'll need a few more Recons. These are always complicated and very important calculations. On larger galaxies you can only 'cut off' a smaller part of the galaxy from the free reign of the AI, so doing it as quickly as possible is imperative. At the same time, research on the fuel cells needs to get going, and population transfers continuing. Kulthos is wearing many hats right now.  Here it'll be a few years before we get the range tech, and normally I'd put some research in from the homeworld to speed it up. In this case I'm going to keep building and get the ships out there though. They can transit partway while we finish the research. The three stars below Kulthos and Vega that can be seen here are all 4 parsecs away: there's another in a different direction that is as well. I'll use the RELOC method to get the first one on it's way to Vega; it can make the rest of the trip later when we have the range. It may even have to wait there for a few years, but in the meantime other colony ships will be headed out. One or two having to wait a bit is a calculated sacrifice to get more of them in the pipeline.  Last one we can get to until the research finishes. I wanted to show a little more demonstration of the 'multi-level' way you have to think about scouting, particularly on the larger galaxies when it takes a long time to get anywhere with Retro(Warp 1) drives. This LP would get quite tedious if I did this all the time: just a snapshot here.  We just colonized Ajax, which put a few more systems in scouting range. Note the white star in the middle of the screen. There's a green star above it, and one to the right and a bit below. These two are now just within range, and there are Recons on the way there(two of them almost to the white star, and one already at it). While I'm pushing those to the green stars, I also need to figure out the next step. That white star is habitable, and the only habitable one in this direction. As soon as we get to range 4, the next colonizer will head in that direction. I've got to get Recons out there ahead of it, so that they are in position ready to move further when colonization happens. This kind of thing is going on constantly in all directions during this part of the game. There are two, sometimes even three levels to the process of figuring out what ships need to be sent where and at what time. Makes my brain hurt at times. The sphere of influence as of this moment is 12 planets scouted. That's just over a sixth of the galaxy, or our exact fair share. Definitely can't settle for our fair share on Impossible: we need to be greedier.  And then none of that mattered a couple years later, since the Psilons brought escorted colony ships to Escalon(the white star, where we'd chased them off earlier). Nothing we could have done to stop them this early on.  They are right in the middle of the galaxy. This was their 5th planet; we've got four and will have more soon so they aren't far ahead of us there. It was a key one though and our only way to move more towards the middle for the forseeable future. We can go to the left of them or below them, with below being a lot more likely given the way the planets are spaced.  Actually not looking too bad so far. Here's hoping they are hemmed in from other directions. Starting in the middle gives them lots of options if that isn't the case. They are Honorable Expansionists, and allied with the Mrrshans. A trade agreement of the maximum, 100 BC, is agreed to.  Two years later, and we have our fuel cells. The second of at least four colonizers have been finished; the first is waiting at Vega and can now move on, as can some of our Recons. I was hoping to get Range 6 here but now we'll have to choose to go back for 5 or take something else. We aren't going to be able to put a lot of funding into propulsion and since we have to overpay here anyway, I think we need to move on up the ladder. Nuclear Engines seem the best choice on the whole. What we do have goes into Construction(reduced waste) and Planetology(terraforming).  I'll take being #3 here.  First run-in with the felines, who appear to be in the upper left somewhere. It's just a scout, and turns out to be a small Radiated planet ... but Rich.  At the same time, 2335, we find this. Very, very nice -- but we can't bridge the gap to get up that way.  This is worse news. The Psilons added two more colonies this year. It looks for all the world like they are just going to keep expanding. They're starting to tech up as well. We've been really fortunate so far, but if we can't at least stay close to the eggheads it isn't going to matter. It just looks like one of those games where the Psilons are going to run away with it. Pushing as far as we can along the bottom third of the galaxy seems to be our only chance really. I'm thinking about needing to protect Ajax, which is probably within range of their ships; but I think we can safely proceed with doing that yet. This is only because the Psilons are Honorable. Hopefully they continue to act that way. The very next year they come to Whynil. Crap. Also ...  We at least add another one. This is as large as any planet within range and extends what we can reach to the right the most. Can't afford much, but Vega will send a few million there.  Yeah we sort of noticed.  We met the Psilons here: just a scout and no way to know if they were hanging out or not. This is a huge planet for us to get if we can, because it looks like the only way for us to extend further to the right. The blue star above it has nothing but asteroids and everything else is too far out of range. The first Colonizer that can get to Ryoun will go there, ahead of all other considerations. I also decide it's important enough to send along a year's worth of fighters once Kholdan has finished the latest Colonizer, the usual laser-only variety, just to try and hold things down. I view Ryoun as the first really crucial strategic system we've found, worth fighting a bit for.  Up to six now, and Mobas is in great position to be a research colony; in the corner, nowhere near the front lines wherever those end up being, and of course an artifact planet also. Vega and Ajax will slowly send what colonists they can: Kholdan and Kulthos are focusing totally on production and research now.  Good to meet you too. How pleasant. We are then informed that 'contact has been broken with the Psilon empire'. This happens when none of their planets are within range. There's only one way this could happen ...  The Mrrshans have taken over Escalon! Probably because of this, their alliance with the Psilons is over.  Check out the blue flags here. They have three planets, two of them 'above' Psilon space. The third, below, is Escalon. How did they reach it? The only possible way is refueling at Psilon planets. This situation presents us with an interesting possibility. We have seen no Mrrshan combat ships -- they probably just sent troops there, and they probably don't have many. We could invade Escalon ourselves. If successful, they will lose any of their ships in this area(as they'll be out of range suddenly) and we'll have kicked a competitor out. The Mrrshan have already done us the favor of doing this to any Psilon fleets in our neck of the woods. However, this would also possibly spark a war with the Psilons, who are probably sending troop transports of their own. If they get there first, they will look on it as 'their' planet and consider our invasion an act of war. If we get there first, normally they'd bomb and invade anyway -- but they are Honorable so quite possibly not. If we both get there at the same time, I have no idea what happens, and due to the distances involved that might well be the case here. Objectively it's probably not a good idea, but it's an interesting enough situation that I decided to say 'screw it' and go for the Escalon invasion. This could potentially backfire horribly, which would lead to the Klackons almost certainly being defeated. But it's one of those circumstancial accidents that I'm just fascinated by sometimes. It almost seems boring not to go for it and see what happens. And if we do secure Escalon, it will really help our expansion efforts. Ajax is the closest and can only send 7M. Vega adds another 22M, which will basically be a reinforcement wave. 7M is tiny but that can't be helped. We're really sacrificing our colonist dispersal to the colonies further down by doing this -- so if it doesn't work I've shot myself in the foot even if we don't end up at war with the Psilons. Speculative decisions with hilariously inadequate information FTW!! The year is 2339, and we'll arrive in four years. By the way, the Mrrshans are basically assholes(Xenophobic Militarists) and have a bigger fleet but not that impressive everything else right now. At the same time, a colony ship departs for Ryoun. It'll take a decade to get there. But with the Escalon Plan going, we're still building a year's worth of fighters ... but they aren't headed to Ryoun anymore. It's best to cover all contingencies. We can actually afford a Mk. I Battle Computer even, and will be able to build 11 of them. That won't hold off much, but it's something. Upon arriving, we discovered they had 24M on the planet already ... more than we hoped. Our first 7M took out only 4M of them, only with equivalent tech, and we got ourselves a warning. 26M more were incoming, but that probably wouldn't be enough. With no combat ships or Psilon troops yet seen though, it was time to double-down on this. 40M from Kholdan would ensure things flipped our way, and we'd do some eco spending to get the population back up. Of course that would require a brief pause in building colony ships, but there weren't a lot more possibilities on that front anyway. We also added one more colony, Imra, and found Silicoid and Psilon scouts buzzing around Ryoun. the rocks must be in the lower right somewhere ... and our colony ship is still several years away. Scouting continues, but only a couple of hostile planets have been found.  Our first actual researched tech comes in with terraforming in 2345. We'll move on to Improved Eco Restoration here. Then the second battle of Escalon.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9UDBsEQrmw&feature=youtu.be It was close, but we lost again as expected. I don't think they can send reinforcements due to the range thing: empire essentially split in half. If so, in a few years we'll have it, and they can sputter all they want due to being out of contact.  Yes, yes of course. I wonder if we are still at war if contact is broken? Guess we'll find out. Meanwhile Kholdan and Kulthos begin terraforming: none of the other planets are ready yet. In four years, our colony ship will arrive at Ryoun, and the transport fleet from Kholdan at Escalon. That'll be a huge year for the Klackon Empire.  Two years later. When it rains it pours: finally get our first eco spending reduction. Duralloy armor was the only choice. Everything gets shunted into Planetology now to get eco restoration ASAP, after which we'll probably diversify. Meanwhile, Kholdan has finished the last Colonizer that can reach planets in our range. No matter what the current scouting efforts turn up, that won't change. Since we aren't going to increase our range anytime soon(possibly I should have gone for that instead of the engines), I basically have a choice between more research or building a capital-size colony ship with extended range. If we get Escalon and the two colonies we have ships out for, we'll have a total of 10. That's not terrible, but also not quite good enough. I decided it was worth it to build the huge ship for Kailis at least, the 70-max Artifacts planets above us. Keeping it out of Psilon hands might be good enough reason. Of course, it also puts us closer to the pissed-off Mrrshan ...  Sucker is not cheap. It is almost always better to go for range rather than build one of these -- but this has been a strange game and I decided this was another exception. Kholdan can knock out one of these in 9 years, which seemed fast enough to me. A little over 3x the price of a standard cruiser-size ship without the tanks. 2349 arrived, and we colonized Ryoun without incident. On the third battle of Escalon, this happened ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUuxqWhtDp0&feature=youtu.be Well, isn't that excellent. Good riddance I say, though we'll have to deal with them of course in the future. It's a good note to end the first half-century on.
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Jun 7, 2017 06:23
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I can say from experience that you will still be at war with the Mrrshan once you re-establish contact.
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Jun 7, 2017 06:33
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Making an alliance with someone just to get extended fuel range is funny enough, using that range to backstab your ally and grab their frontier colony is something else entirely.  Being Honorable, the Psilons probably won't forgive them for that for awhile. I like the play to immediately send troops, too. I think that's one area where MOO2 over-corrected to good strategy in 1: in 2, that would've been incredibly risky since your perceived empire power is based on the average of your fleet strength with the number of systems you have, so a land grab before you have the forces to back it up will cause people to start viewing you as an easy target. While in 1, you can launch transports on their own without having control of airspace (though that's still a good idea), and score brownie points with the wronged party even as you take "their" old planet!
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Jun 7, 2017 07:00
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It's situations like these that order queues make a lot of sense. Being able to tell your scouts: Go to planet x. Wait until planet y is in range. Go to planet y. ... would be very helpful.
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Jun 7, 2017 07:19
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Just posting to note that the Platonic Ideal of 4x games (and it's sequel) are on sale at GOG right now for a buck-fifty.
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Jun 7, 2017 16:16
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Achernar posted:Just posting to note that the Platonic Ideal of 4x games (and it's sequel) are on sale at GOG right now for a buck-fifty. Eh. For all the good MOO did for the genre, it also introduced something I hate: ship designers, and it's nigh impossible to find a space 4X that doesn't have one.
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Jun 7, 2017 16:33
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Cythereal posted:Eh. For all the good MOO did for the genre, it also introduced something I hate: ship designers, and it's nigh impossible to find a space 4X that doesn't have one. I know. This is the second Master of Orion-related thread I've seen you complain about it in this week. You must have hated Mr. Potato head as a child.
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Jun 7, 2017 16:38
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Mzbundifund posted:I know. This is the second Master of Orion-related thread I've seen you complain about it in this week. You must have hated Mr. Potato head as a child. To the contrary, I think unit customization and even unit creators can be done well and intuitively - Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is one I'll always hold up as easy to understand and use. My issues might have more to do with the complexity of the underlying mechanics than with the unit designer, admittedly, but they're gameplay elements that feed into each other. The more combat mechanics are present, the more options any unit designer by necessity fields, and the complexity can quickly skyrocket. I get that that kind of thing appeals to some people, but it's persistently an enormous turn-off for me in games that I'd otherwise find appealing and interesting, and MOO/2 were genre defining games that made that mechanic a staple of the genre. Forgive me for being irritated that a genre I otherwise enjoy has such a hard time escaping from a mechanic I hate.
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Jun 7, 2017 16:51
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Cythereal posted:To the contrary, I think unit customization and even unit creators can be done well and intuitively - Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is one I'll always hold up as easy to understand and use. Oh good I was worried I was going to have to agree with you for a second there
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Jun 7, 2017 17:24
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Cythereal posted:Eh. For all the good MOO did for the genre, it also introduced something I hate: ship designers, and it's nigh impossible to find a space 4X that doesn't have one. I'm not actually that big a fan of 4Xs in general (just specific games like MOO2), so I can't speak on those; but in 2 the ship designer is entirely optional. You can disable tactical combat in the options, and any ship you build will have the default loadout (your best upgrades and a mix of guns, missiles, and bombs and specials with the space left over) and thus have the same value in points as the AI's, so you can just focus on the macro. It sounds like your problem is with "combat complexity," and if so, well, you can turn it off.  If you do want to do tactical combat and still not stress about the ship builder, you can just build your ships the exact same way. Modify the default design of the hull size you want instead of starting over, and just upgrade every line to your latest tech. To determine when to add specials, add 1 each time your miniaturization for force fields or weapons kick in (since those usually use the most space) before you upgrade. Shouldn't take you more than a minute or 2 each time.Honestly though, the ship design element adds a lot more good than it does bad to games like this. Certain strategies are dominant if you only focus on production (maximizing ships) or research (making each one nigh invincible) and building ships to counter what your opponents are doing is a lot of fun. If Thotimx ever makes it to late-game ( ) races like Klackons can field tons of ships, but hey, there are techs specifically designed to cut those to a more manageable size. There are shield-piercing weapons if your enemy focuses on those, missiles to engage at long range and anti-missile defenses, and so on. I keep playing MOO2 to this day because of all that variety!
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Jun 7, 2017 17:47
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Cythereal posted:To the contrary, I think unit customization and even unit creators can be done well and intuitively - Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is one I'll always hold up as easy to understand and use. See, I never saw any reason to use it in SMAC. The game auto-generated the optimal designs, and that was basically it, 99% of all the components were just a stat+, not any sort of sidegrade or expansion of options. My only issue with MoO2 is that I've never been able to make it run stably since Win 98. 
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Jun 7, 2017 19:41
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PurpleXVI posted:My only issue with MoO2 is that I've never been able to make it run stably since Win 98. DOSBOX my man.
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Jun 7, 2017 20:34
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Wayne posted:Making an alliance with someone just to get extended fuel range is funny enough, using that range to backstab your ally and grab their frontier colony is something else entirely. Indeed. The Mrrshan are known for doing really stupid stuff like this. Wayne posted:If Thotimx ever makes it to late-game ( ) I will. Can't show off every possibility in just two games ya know!! ulmont posted:DOSBOX my man. Yep. I'm using the GOG version and both of them are quite stable on modern PCs. As for the ship design debate, I think it's just another case where some people like things others don't. Somebody commented on the end of the last game with the Humans beating us in the Council how good it was that other games allow you to disable certain victory conditions. I don't view that as good, because it lets you take some factors out of the equation, making the game easier as has been alluded to. But different people like different things. Not everyone is going to like MOO as much as I do, because some people are opposed to the things I like about it.
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Jun 8, 2017 05:31
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PurpleXVI posted:See, I never saw any reason to use it in SMAC. The game auto-generated the optimal designs, and that was basically it, 99% of all the components were just a stat+, not any sort of sidegrade or expansion of options. 1) they make unit choice far more homogeneous throughout the game, because getting better units tends to be a function of taking your existing optimal designs and making the numbers better 2) they add a bunch of complexity to learn for very little payoff in gameplay terms (here's the handful of optimal designs, woo) alpha centauri's unit designer is clean enough that 2) isn't a problem but it has 1) in spades Thotimx posted:As for the ship design debate, I think it's just another case where some people like things others don't. Somebody commented on the end of the last game with the Humans beating us in the Council how good it was that other games allow you to disable certain victory conditions. I don't view that as good, because it lets you take some factors out of the equation, making the game easier as has been alluded to. But different people like different things. Not everyone is going to like MOO as much as I do, because some people are opposed to the things I like about it. it's good if a game has a poorly-balanced dominant victory condition, but in a well-balanced game having all the victory options open is better yeah
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Jun 8, 2017 05:43
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The purest version of a ship builder is probably spaceward ho. In that, tech was purely linear, but making a new ship type had a significant prototyping cost, so the choice wasn't between rock, paper,and scissors, but just when you need to spend the money to modernize and if you can maybe cut some corners somewhere.
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Jun 8, 2017 05:49
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Episode III: 2349-2366 Equaled the Psilons with 9 colonies each, but they are still kicking our butts in every other department. Particularly considering the ground we lost with the Escalon Campaign, we need to focus in now on building up our economy. Kholdan and Kulthos have terraformed, but none of the other planets are ready for that yet; four have 7 factories or less. Only three have a population larger than 26M. Building up as fast as possible is job one. Until the Colonizer X is finished(7 years out), only Kulthos can put any consistent investment into the reserve or research. And after that we have one more smallish desert planet to settle. So it's going to be slow, but we've got to the best we can. A 50-50 split to start on the Kulthos spending.  Vega and Iranha mostly, and Escalon some as well, will continue to send out population to mostly Imra and Ryoun here. Still don't have the colonists we need, so it's just a little at a time. Bottom line is, it's going to be a while before we can put in the investment we really need, but the faster we can get there the better.  Apparently the kitties haven't given up. 31M incoming to Escalon. I doubt they'll win, but it's not likely to be pleasant. Maybe our 11 fighters will take out of a few of the transports, but I'm thinking not many. Most likely they'll end up taking out most, but not all, of our defenders. We've also signed a middling 100BC trade deal with the Psilons(again). Didn't go for higher so as to strike a balance between relations-building and causing issues for our economy during the buildup.  Another nice system. It is also out of range for the moment. Then the Mrrshans arrive, and they might have succeeded without our fighters. They took out 7 transports, and Escalon remains ours, though we did lose 20M brave colonists in the fighting.  2354. Crap. Upon further investigation it is clear what happened here -- the Mrrshans were pissed at being defeated at Escalon ... and got the Psilons back in an alliance. That led to them honoring that alliance by declaring war on us. And so we are screwed. Most of our planets aren't developed enough to even try and build missile bases. We'll get a couple going on Kholdan here -- but the Psilons can pretty much take what they want. Our only hope is that their heart really isn't in the war.  We've snagged Eco Restoration and now have new choices. Controlled Dead will give us access to a few new planets and move the tree forward. It's also time to split into the usual research ratios: focus on construction, minimal propulsion.  We've seen the Silicoids expanding as well, but this is our 10th, giving us the lead I think. At this point most of our colonies are well into the development phase, some are terraforming; it only takes about 30 or so BC of annual transfers to keep the younger ones boosted. A couple of missile bases are up on Kholdan, and most of the effort is now going into research.  This is of little direct consequence, but only the Psilons could have done this. Our security services were unable to determine the culprit though.  A few years later, and the Psilons also have an alliance with the Bulrathi now. You can see they've got a nice healthy head start in tech as well. Only good news here is they haven't gotten anything yet that would improve their ground troops.  I expect it to be short-lived as it looks like the Psilons have ships on their way -- and it's too far to even send our fighters. Nonetheless we do get to Kailis first, in 2360.  The Psilons are willing to speak with us again, and we suggest they break their alliance with the Mrrshan. We'll wait a little more and butter them up possibly before trying again. If we made peace with them directly, they'd just declare war again. At least they haven't attacked yet.  Spoke too soon. A year later and they've got four destroyers, apparently on their way to Escalon. Work on a missile base there has already started; we'll need to transfer more in from the reserve to get it done in time though. I don't think our fighters can handle this on their own.  The Psilons reach Kailis ... but they have six destroyers here, not enough to do any significant damage. There are only 2-3M people though, so it wouldn't take much to knock out the colony. This was the only factory. 2363, and the Psilons have transports en route to Kailis. We can't stop them. We basically saved them the price of a colony ship, and they will add an artifacts world to their empire. Superb. Their ships also bypass Escalon, which got it's missile base up just in time.  Looks like they're going to Ajax, and there's a second group incoming of about the same size. We have a missile base there and will likely have a second up by the time they arrive. I'm not particularly worried about this unless they come in larger numbers. After Kailis falls, I'll probably try again for peace. The economy has matured to the point where there's nowhere else that we need to transfer funding to: all of the colonies are well on their way to finishing up the industrial base or already there. A lot more funding is going into research these days, though we still have little hope of matching the Psilons on that front.  We nab Class II shields, which will help a bit as the Psilons arrive. Once again we have no choice here. The Psilons take Kailis at the same time, in 2366. And then there's this.  drat. The Psilons and us each have 10 each. We're definitely behind the 8-ball compared to the rocks, who now have a quarter of the galaxy locked up. I knew they were expanding, but I didn't know they were moving that quickly. It looks like we are third at best here. Can the Klackons hope to survive against the eggheads and the rocks?
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Jun 8, 2017 22:16
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MOO on impossible seems a lot harder than MOO2 on impossible. I never had much trouble winning in the second game, though i don't think I ever played with any of the default races.
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Jun 9, 2017 07:16
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Tendales posted:The purest version of a ship builder is probably spaceward ho. In that, tech was purely linear, but making a new ship type had a significant prototyping cost, so the choice wasn't between rock, paper,and scissors, but just when you need to spend the money to modernize and if you can maybe cut some corners somewhere. Spaceward Ho is possibly the purest space 4X in a lot of ways. It's interesting to me how it's clearly descended from MOO rather than MOO2 though (bear in mind that I have no idea what the release dates for these game are). I've never seen MOO in action before, but it seems to me in retrospect that two distinct lineages have emerged from each game. With the most obvious difference being whether you build individual buildings with unique effects, like MOO2, or just abstract planetary development into some kind of budget slider, like MOO. The latter also tends to simplify star systems into single planets. In a lot of ways it's more interesting though, since it keeps your focus on the bigger picture instead of being bogged down with building Hydroponic Farms in literally every colony.
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Jun 9, 2017 07:44
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Clarste posted:I've never seen MOO in action before, but it seems to me in retrospect that two distinct lineages have emerged from each game. With the most obvious difference being whether you build individual buildings with unique effects, like MOO2, or just abstract planetary development into some kind of budget slider, like MOO. The latter also tends to simplify star systems into single planets. In a lot of ways it's more interesting though, since it keeps your focus on the bigger picture instead of being bogged down with building Hydroponic Farms in literally every colony. Now you've got me thinking on how to do a space 4x in a vein similar to Spore (except not being a massive disappointment). I mean that in a sense of the world growing as you advance in technology. In a few minutes of thought, I came up with this. The human empire collapses in the vein of the Roman empire. You start off as a planetary governor of what used to be a member world in that empire. Your ambition is to reunite the human race under your banner. The gameplay has more micromanaging elements like MoO2. You take care of what's built and where. Once humanity has been reunited, you stop worrying about the little things. You have people to take care of that for you. The gameplay becomes more like MoO as humanity looks beyond it's historical borders to the new frontier. From that point of view, your multi stellar empire looks like just a speck that covers 1-3 star clusters. Unfortunately, I already can see plenty of issues, the first of which is the the more complicated gameplay comes first, then the simpler gameplay.
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Jun 9, 2017 08:59
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Sounds a bit like Imperium Galactica to me, except it's more like "you start as the commander of a small fleet, and get promoted until you become the supreme commander of humanity"
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Jun 9, 2017 09:30
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my dad posted:Sounds a bit like Imperium Galactica to me, except it's more like "you start as the commander of a small fleet, and get promoted until you become the supreme commander of humanity" Looks like something I'd enjoy if I had any idea as to what I was doing.
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Jun 10, 2017 00:20
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Aw man, good ol' Simtex diplomacy. An Honorable race siding with the people who just attacked them to declare war on someone who hasn't is just... yeah. My brother and I have a routine of "Never trust a Human" after the "Honorable Technologists" broke treaties and backstabbed us twice in one MOO2 game. One time that I'm still not sure was intentionally devious or just the RNG doing its thing, is they broke a NAP and immediately declared war on us out of nowhere when we were getting a fleet ready for Orion. When we sent it to hit them instead, they flew past it to get Orion first and swipe the techs before we could. My jaw just dropped when I saw where their fleet was going.Martian posted:MOO on impossible seems a lot harder than MOO2 on impossible. I never had much trouble winning in the second game, though i don't think I ever played with any of the default races. I've been thinking about doing an LP series on MOO2's stock races, and played a few games with some of the worse ones (Darloks, Bulrathi, Alkari a little) for practice. Those were definitely harder than any MOO1 Impossible games I played. If you don't go for nearly perfectly efficient tech order, you'll be toast once an aggressive AI shows up, and if you draw somebody hostile and strong early-game like Mrrshan, or with crazy bonus picks (like Sakkra rolling Tolerant) you might be screwed no matter what. But if you min-max your race, then you can breeze through 2 even on Impossible. It's a nice way to adjust difficulty beyond the 5 choices. I read (and I should try using the cheat code for omniscience to verify sometime if MOO1 has it) that the big trick Hard and Impossible give the AI in 1 is essentially free colony ships, like they build their first X ones instantly and use that to get a head start on you. They also get the typical Simtex multiplier on production and need fewer RP to research (while you need more, with Impossible basically costing double RP compared to Simple).
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Jun 10, 2017 01:09
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If you got the chance to rebalance the MOO races, what changes would you make? It seems to me that the Klackons, Humans, Silicoids, Sakkra, and Meklar are all basically close enough in power and distinctive enough to make a good baseline. The Psilons can just get their numbers pushed down to "1.25 RP per BC" or something and be fine, if a bit boring. So really it comes down to, how do you buff the Darlocks, Mrrshan, Alkari, and Bulrathi? +1 or +2 strategic range feels like a thematically appropriate bonus for the Alkari, giving them a boost in the early-game landgrab and the ability to more easily harry people from a safe position. The Bulrathi could get a bonus on ship production, maybe 25%. I wonder if giving the Mrrshan or Darlocks an Artifacts homeworld would be too strong.
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Jun 10, 2017 02:28
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The Mrrshan and Alkari have conceptual problems: as long as their only advantage is in the combat minigame, the other races' macro advantages makes them a nonfactor. The Mrrshan get, what, +4 levels worth of targeting computers as their bonus? When other races that are either directly better at research (like Psilons) or indirectly (building up faster (Klackons) or better (Meklar) and then having more BC to put into RP) can just match that on the way to exploiting their other bonuses? You'd basically need to re-envision parts of the game to make it work. For example, if small ships weren't so much worse than large/huge ones, they'd be a natural fit for both races (Mrrshan get more guns for the cost, Alkari are even harder to hit), but as it is, bigger is better. In MOO2 you can make smaller ships work as long as you can handle the Command issue, since they're significantly more cost-effective and are faster (meaning that all things being equal with ship initiative, they go first), but in 1 the minimum space on upgrades, limit on the ship types you can have active at a time, and low HP would all need to be tweaked. You could also give them some unique advantages, though they might be too good. If the Mrrshan got +50% beam range, round up (and you made guns you want limited to range 1 "adjacent" like the repulsor beam to avoid that bonus), that's a significant edge that nobody else can have, but they might still be behind on actual damage. Likewise, if you implemented turning costs like MOO2 does to avoid exploiting missile range and stuff, and then made Alkari better at that than everyone else, that's a niche. Darloks and Bulrathi aren't as bad. They both exploit the different ways besides tech-trading to instantly grab techs without research, and those are good. They also have the same problem: to get the most use out of their powers, they need to be targeting someone doing better than they are, which is a situation you could avoid in the first place with a better race. Bulrathi can probably be balanced if their transports were harder to shoot down, and they had some "too tough to kill" trait that let them get back 50% of their casualties as long as they win, or something, to deal with the disadvantages of relying on ground combat. If someone is better than you, but you can take their stuff anyway, that's a threat that constantly needs attention, which you don't have to worry about. Ground combat already is the best way to win a war if you can do it, since you gain colonies and your opponent loses them, it's faster than using colony ships, and you can get some of their techs by not needing to worry about bombing.For Darloks, I think in both games espionage should be a little more versatile, like having the option to steal research (you get RP and your opponent loses it, and add their tech to your list) instead of a specific learned tech, steal money, stuff like that. In 1 and 2, all spying does is let you catch up. If you can hurt the other guy while doing that, it's a lot more practical to focus on. There's also the idea that if you make a game team-based (directly or implicitly, like allies sharing the win by pooling resources), you make a niche for "kingmakers" like Darloks without having to balance them. But that's a little outside the scope here, heh.
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Jun 10, 2017 05:25
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PSA: I'm hoping to get the next update up tomorrow along with some more comments on some things that have been said. I had a weird computer issue that has been resolved I think, and I'm also having fun with insomnia lately which is sapping productivity. Things might get a little sporadic here.
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Jun 13, 2017 05:07
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Wayne posted:They also get the typical Simtex multiplier on production and need fewer RP to research (while you need more, with Impossible basically costing double RP compared to Simple). I'm positive that they start with an extra colony ship(maybe more) on the higher difficulties, but on this you don't get any penalty or bonus to research cost for the player. Difficulty affects the AI's research speed and production, but not the player's. It's also not insignificant that you start with 40M population instead of 50M on hard/impossible, so that's an extra hill to climb right out of the gate. Glidergun posted:If you got the chance to rebalance the MOO races, what changes would you make? I would mostly leave them alone: I don't mind some being weaker than others. I like the Alkari-Mrrshan conflict, but I might give the cats a somewhat different stock personality. Otherwhise I'd probably leave them be. I'd probably make a couple changes: leave the Psilons as-is on research but make them weak in combat(maybe - 1 attack, - 1 defense, -10 ground combat or somesuch). The Bulrathi just need a small economic boost to make them a lot more competitive, and I would like one race with a combat bonus to be a little better. They could have a smaller version of the Klackon bonus(15-20% pop. production), or get an automatic modest discount on factories, or something like that to reflect their strength being applied. They're already a hair above-average on research so they wouldn't need a lot. Wayne posted:if small ships weren't so much worse than large/huge ones, they'd be a natural fit for both races (Mrrshan get more guns for the cost, Alkari are even harder to hit), but as it is, bigger is better. This is very true in the late-game, but earlier smaller ships are quite viable particularly since there's no chance of any tech yet at that point to counteract these racial bonuses. If they can leverage that into winning border disputes, they can still do quite well. Nuanced playstyles like that though tend not to do so well in AI hands.
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Jun 15, 2017 04:47
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Yeah, missile destroyers can be brutally effective in the early game; large ships don't really become cost effective until you have the tech to mitigate their being large bulky targets you can only build in small numbers. I tend to lose big ships on the regular until level V in shield/computer/jammer (and zortrium armor). Then they get enough resiliency to stand up to smaller craft.
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Jun 15, 2017 05:15
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Thotimx posted:I'm positive that they start with an extra colony ship(maybe more) on the higher difficulties, but on this you don't get any penalty or bonus to research cost for the player. Difficulty affects the AI's research speed and production, but not the player's. Do you mean getting a better rate of return on your BCs or something? Because I just booted up the game to check, and the RP costs are exactly double going from Simple to Impossible. There's a formula that's basically tech level squared * racial mod * difficulty multiplier and that's x20 for Simple and x40 for Impossible, it looks like. And yeah, small ships are definitely viable early on (not like you have a choice, though, really ). There's also the metagame factor that beams can't kill ships better than a gun to 1 ratio (barring gravitons and autoblasters and stuff). I remember one time when the AI "upgraded" its missiles away from scatter packs to something else (stingers?) and I massed a ton of tiny bombers and took them out their bases then.
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Jun 15, 2017 16:31
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Episode III: 2366-2375 It appears the Silicoids are still having population issues; with all their territory, it's us against the Psilons in the initial vote. Here's hoping the eggheads don't just roll us, as they have a couple of allies ...  It appears the Sakkra have carved out a respectable, if modest empire. This will be enough to ensure nobody wins.  Looks like the Bears aren't doing too well; they were allies with the Psilons but that didn't last long.  So were the Silicoids, but that's apparently no longer the case. Their share of the vote will likely expand greatly in the future of course with that many worlds.  Only the Mrrshan(3 votes) were willing to side with the Psilons. There was even enough room for us to vote for Tachaon, which should definitely help us in our hopes to forge a peace. With 6 votes, we were just ahead of the Sakkra and just behind the Psilon. Looks like we're slot in third behind the Silicoids in the long-term view here.  So we live to vote another day. It's 2366, so that day will be just eight years from now. The Psilon tech edge is growing -- but they no longer have any allies for the moment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAaRXfcw1tg Victory!! Mostly due to our bare-bones missile-base defenses, we have fought off the Psilons and preserved the main part of our empire intact. We try for peace, and they 'respectfully decline' our offer. Sometimes after you've bloodied their nose peace can work, but not in this case. We'll have to wait a bit longer. Duralloy Armor comes the next year, and we surprisingly have only one option: more reduced waste.  We've got Nuclear Engines now, and a new propulsion choice. Still no better range techs. At this point I see little choice other than going back for Deuterium Fuel Cells. We need the increased range, as soon we'll have hostile planet landings available and some new planets to settle. Just as the Psilons chase us off Xengara, we get a key breakthrough:  Psilons got this about 15 years ago, and it's helped keep them just ahead of us in overall production. Perhaps we can push in front here. Research will be minimized for the time being so that we can expand industry.  Definitely going for the scanner here. A couple of years later, three more Psilon destroyers are eliminated by our Ajax bases. Then this ...  They still refuse to break their Mrrshan alliance though, so I don't expect this to last long. There's no point in setting up trade under these circumstances.  With Hyper-X Rockets now on board, we'll move on to the Mass Driver. Not because it'll do us any good, but because it's the only choice to keep tech moving forward to the next tier. Our missile bases will be more effective at least. If we are forced to build combat ships, the Hyper-X is really the only choice we'll have at the moment.  Wow. I didn't think we, much less the Sakkras, had surpassed the Psilons in population. This is interesting because the Psilons' on-again, off-again Silicoid alliance had me worried they'd win this vote ... and they weren't even nominated!  Tyranid had 7 votes, so the Sakkra are +2 in less than a decade there. The Bears once again couldn't care less, and they appear to be the weakest race.  Here come the Silicoids. +50% in voting power, 4 to 6, and a long ways yet to go. We'll survive this vote at least.  A predictable vote for the 'not Klackons' candidate.  I thought there was a chance to get their support here since they are in a good mood lately ... but nope. We cast our 7 votes for Tyranid and move on. 7 each for us, the Psilons, and Sakkra; Silicoids have 6 and are charging. This could prove to be a very complex game with some opportunities. Only the Mrrshan and Bulrathi are really off the pace, with a four-way struggle at the top. We're definitely third at best due to the Psilons' tech and the Silicoids size.
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Jun 17, 2017 15:34
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What's the overview of the remaining Klackon Empire after the losses to the Psilons?
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Jun 17, 2017 16:24
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