Moo2 variant - beta?

[barocca]

I have just uploaded a variant on the Moo2 scenario (from FW)
(original author Ken Burd)

it needs some playtesting, any takers?

it's for UCC/MGE
a new very large map, new units (mostly for barbs/antarans)
Meklar civ are in there, new sounds, more events, new terrain, new structures, new techs,
kill the guardian (earlier the better) for some neat extra's
(NEED to know if the extra techs can be stolen)

fixed some structures that were not working (their dependencies had been cut)

i think the orbital mines and food stations might be too good,

NOTE - rename the citypref file, it is simply the autobuild file i was using to test autobuild - it's there as an example

Master of Orion - revamped

[techumseh]

screenshots?

[curtsibling]

Seems the same visually as the classic MOO CIV2 scenario, but with many enhanced features...

Well-worth a look!

[Boco]

I'm embarrassed to say I've never Mooed. So any screenshot would be welcome.

[barocca]

the Darlok homeworld of Nazin, the three new orbital structures you can build, plus three new barbarian units,
the new planet type and some of the previously hidden resourcs revealed
(the purple dome replaces grey fortress block)


Orbital Hydroponic Support


i fixed all the dependencies (i think, androids wonder and virtual reality work now, plus a couple of others)
i renamed everything i could find,
i gave each civ a list of cities,
i renamed ALL civs to races from moo1, moo2 and moo3

i am hoping/thinking IF i make alt scenario's then i may mix and match some of the civs,
(so you never know until the game starts who you are up against)

hoping because i am not entirely sure i can acomplish that
if i can then there are still a couple of spare wonders i can rename and hand out

each civ starts with a wonder or a benefit, i have tried to balance things but the Humans remain hard to play through the end game

the Elerians would probably be the easiest for a human to play now (they have a wonder and a a different government type to the original - they never survived long in the original)

B.

[barocca]

i'll be away for the next few days,
if anyone has had a play and wants to make suggestions please do,

i'd like to finish it up by adding a few alt starts
(which one you play gets chosen at random on startup)

these take a couple of hours each to make and sunday is the day i will have free to make them,

a couple of hints

do NOT only build cities around planets, there are not enough of them,
TRY and gtet at least one resource, no matter how pathetic, for each city, but it is not vital,

build cities close together, else the ai will build in amongst you and that IS a real pain in this game where every resource is VITAL

if you are not Human get kirsus shield generator as fast as you can - i do not know why but all the AI's will hate you

try NOT to hog planets, if a system has three plantes give the really good one to one city and the two poor ones to another city.
Once you get terraformers upgrade the planets!!

using colonists BUILD ORBITAL MINES AND ORBITAL NUTRIENT PLANTS EARLY (you'll thank me)

do NOT build colonists at pathetic cities unless you are NOT going to build biospheres there.
(or you are going to use them to found a new city right away)

SEND FREIGHTERS OUT EARLY and as far away as you can, pick cities based around a planet as their destination,
this is a Giga map, an "unwanted" trade type sent to the furthest home planet can get up to 300 gold and beakers (typically around 200)

their are a LOT of trade types, with the bonus from distance for the map you do not have to worry too much about finding "wanted" destinations

Antarrans and barbarians are TOUGH early on, good garrisons are vital, later on you will be able to stand toe to toe with them, but not until type2 cruisers (and then some barbs not even then)

radiation shields and ground batteries are important to hold off the antarrans and barbs, they have about an even mix of "ground" and "air"

WATCH YOUR TECHS, dont go to monitor two's until you have a decent cash flow, monitor two's supercede SDF's and monitor one's AND are expensive builds

(note i also fixed the obsolescence glitches in this tweak)

[Harry Tuttle]

I played it last night for a bit. I've always liked the Moo2 scenario, from a starting point, but I've always felt it needed some more customization. I like what you've done with it. The files needed a once over to fix some of the problems with them.

[Elok]

UCC/MGE? What's UCC? I only have FW, so I'm crossing my fingers here.

[barocca]

playtested in FW, long distance pathing may be a minor trauma in FW, (but then isn't it always)
but otherwise should work fine

B.

[Tigey]

Looks pretty cool. A couple of thoughts though, freighters seem to make better exploration units than scouts. Is this intentional? Freighters have 2 movement points, "all as road" and "see 2 squares", whilst Scouts have 3 movement points and "see 2 squares". You can also use freighters to set up "opportunity trade routes" should you bump into a nice enemy colony. I'd either increase the movement rate of scouts, or give them the all as road advantage. Exploration is very important in the early game... Also, the barbarians seem very tough. I don't mean the Antarans, I mean the standard ones that appear with the "peasant revolt near Sssla", etc. They seem to fly Cruiser IIs when you're struggling to build your first Monitor I... Also the tech progression seems a little fast, even without trade beakers.

This scenario is a lot of fun though, the most I've had when playing a "building up an empire from scratch" style game in Civ2 for ages. Got into a huge arms race with the Elerians, I was scrambling to stay one step ahead of them militarily. I fielded my first Titan, kciked there arses with it, then the next turn they fielded 6...

[Elok]

I don't have a link to it, but check with William Keenan's Barbarian Papers to fix the problem Tigey mentioned. My notes on the appearance of spontaneous barbarians go:

"Horsemen, Chariots
Elephants, Archers(if at least 1 civ has Gunpowder)
Musketeers, Cannon(1 civ has GP and 1 civ has Industrialization)
Riflemen, Artillery(GP, Ind, Mobile Warfare)
Partisans/fanatics, Cavalry(GP, Ind, Mob, Guerrilla Warfare)"

That is, the units in the slots mentioned will appear provided the requisite techs have been achieved by at least one civ. I don't believe they have to be the same civ though, but ALL prerequisites must be met. I.E., if one civ has the tech in the Guerrilla Warfare slot, plus Industrialization and Mobile Warfare, but nobody has Gunpowder, only Horseman and Chariot barbarians will pop up spontaneously. If, however, somebody discovers Gunpowder, the barbarians will immediately switch over to Partisans or Fanatics (depending on the distance of the spot from cities) and Cavalry.

Mobile Warfare will also end the rise of Barbarians at sea. I don't know about Goody Hut barbs too well though. GH's are such an unbalancing factor in scenarios, and so difficult to integrate, that I usually don't bother. Check WK's work, and all credit goes to him for all this stuff, of course.

Haven't downloaded the scn yet, because I have some important papers due soon and I'd rather not test my willpower.

EDIT: I hope that the Guardian isn't easily bribeable in this scenario like in the MPS version? I got quite a laugh out of buying the Guardian nice and cheap very early in the game, and then building the greatest city ever with a premade superdefender. I never even found out what you got for whacking it. Probably not as good as the early Orion bonus.

[barocca]

freighters vs scouts,
yes they are good, but if a barb or another civ knocks one out you have to wait up to sixteen turns before you can build another usefull one,

my idea was to race the freighters through before they could be knocked out,
in the higher levels you'll need the gold and beakers or the AI civs will outpace you quickly

maybe i should make scouts all as road, drop freighter "all as road" but up their base speed to 4?


tech progression,
i tried to seperate the paths, AND put some required crosslink techs in,
so you could not get to the end of any one path too easly,
this was made easier because of the missing dependencies for Virtual Reality etc, so i had techs that needed to be added and crosslinked them (if i remembered)

not too sure how to slow that down, unless we reduce the effective rate in the rules, if we do that what should we drop it to? 80%?


peasants with TEETH
there is a way to defend against the cruiser 2's,
it requires rapid bubble expansion,
meaning from each planet expand in a bubble, build your subsidiary cities so your planet cities are surrounded,
(dont build cities ON planets, it makes them awkward to "upgrade")
build an SDF quickly, then a radiation shield, then another SDF, then space academy and a third SDF.
if you have courage dont build your second SDF until after you build space academy (but three is a good number)

as you "bubble out" you can take one veteran SDF from "encapsulated" cities and move it to a fringe city

i know, why build a city where there is no resource?
1. beakers
2. reduce locations for peasant revolts
3. provide a buffer you can surrender around key systems (you can take it back and rebuild later)
4. beakers

i WILL look at the tech tree and units and maybe shuffle the units around on the unit gif.
perhaps i will put cruiser 2's in a different slot and give the barbs something a fraction less deadly?

The Guardian
- is most definately bribable, but you dont want to do that, kill him, around a dozen veteran cruiser 2's can do it, but take 20 just in case...
(there was no bonus for killing him in the original scenario, there is now)


cruiser 2's are a favourite unit of mine, a nice mix of offence and defence, good as a city defender,
i generally race to them as quick as i can


thanks for the feedback,
keep it coming :-)
B.

[Tigey]

To get rid of the Guardians bribality, simply add another unit to the Orion square. A zero defense/movement placeholder should suffice... (Diplos/Spys can't bribe stacked units)

[Elok]

Or make the Barbs into a democracy with a utility program. Either way.

Okay, I d/led the scenario and gave it a cursory inspection (the paper's due tonight). Something I often thought of while playing the original MooJr. was that the Sakkra got kind of shafted. The Pyramids aren't too useful when you need to build Aqueducts so early; you wind up getting tons of "X needs a Biosphere to expand further" messages while the Darloks are getting free techs and the Klackons rake in the dough.

I would change the Sakkra to a Monarchy and tweak the settings in rules.txt. I've only ever played the original MoO, but the Sakkra were among my faves just for their ability to swamp the enemy with massive invasions every other turn. There are no Marines here, but you CAN set the food consumed by settlers in gov'ts below Communism to zero. No worries about feeding settlers adds up to a LOT of cities and rapid development. Alternately, give Monarchy a pretty high support limit; the Sakkra spawn enough troops to man and maintain some huge armies, after all.

The Hoover Dam would be a more appropriate Meklar ability, but since Leo is more useful in Civ2...how about giving the Klackons a relatively mild science penalty (weren't they "uncreative" in MoO2?), and giving them the Hoover Dam to compensate, seeing as the little buggers are so selflessly hard-working?

You could just put the "space monsters" of the series into the barb slots, or at least some of them.

I actually always thought an "islands" model would be more appropriate to a MoO/Space sim myself (as in Kobayashi's ST:BAQ), because of the expanded options such as transports, carriers, more effective air units/missiles, and the Lighthouse/Magellan/NF bonuses (the Lighthouse was originally planned as a "Mrrshan ability," IIRC). Et cetera. But that would require you to redo the whole game, and besides, the AI is a complete moron on island maps.

[Elok]

Oh, and WRT the alt-scenarios idea, it doesn't sound super-plausible, but more importantly it's not especially desirable. While it might be nice to have randomized opponents, I don't think I'd want to play as a randomized race myself, and I don't care for the idea of loading up the scenario repeatedly until the race I want to play as is an option. You could have a Meklar scenario, a Darlok scenario, etc., all with their own .alts, to circumvent that problem, but even if that's technically possible it sounds incredibly tedious to do. Given the relatively standard setup of MoOJr's maps, it'd be a better investment of energy to just make it a standard modpack, and have the player use the "start on premade world" option. Except then you couldn't have each player start with wonders, a form of government, etc.

Personally, I'd just stick with a single scenario. Have the alternates locate the different races in different relative positions, or on a different map entirely, assuming you haven't done that already. There are a fair number of races to simulate, but it's hard to balance more than seven of them effectively. I understand most people just thought of the Silicoids, Mrrshan, Alkari, Bulrathi etc. as "prey" anyway.

You can simulate them with barbarian cities that have wonders (done by CivCity, or some other utility like that), if you like. Those can be completely random between alternate scenarios, I believe, so you'll never know if you'll be able to grab the "Bulrathi ability," for example, until you start.

If push came to shove, I'd ditch the stupid Humans too, and put in some Psilons instead. Their abilities just aren't that good. The UN's peace-forcing ability is more an annoyance than anything else--especially if you have the Great Wall and can force peace yourself regardless of reputation--and the Eiffel Tower is useless in multiplayer. The heavier war penalties of a Democracy aren't really worth the absence of Republic's corruption and bribery in this scenario, especially so because the Republic player gets Adam Smith to compensate.