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[vmxa1]

Lazerus what are the settign you are using for this game?
Post the most recent save and the oldest ones you have for the game.

[Whoha]

By the way, who first did the emissions guidance Strategy to kill the Gaurdian?

[vmxa1]

Not me, I never attack it with missiles. I am in no huge rush to get to it, just want to do it when I am ready to take out other races.

[Urban Ranger]

Hi Frankychan. This place used to be a haunt of mine as well.

[Lazerus]

Impossible level, 8 players, its large galaxy, average tech and average development. Tactical,random events and antaran attacks are all off (haven't really learnt about how to use the ships yet)
Its a custom race aswell, cant remember the exact specs

The zip file contains the earliest save just before my first war, a second after this war which i managed to win in a convincing fashion and then a third abit later where i was framed against 3 of the AI and thats when the gangbang started

http://apolyton.net/upload/files/Lazerus/Impossiblelevel.zip

Thanks for any help

[Whoha]

Turn on tactical combat, you've got to experiment around to find out worthwhile stuff(also the ai still auto designs stuff for you incase you want to just use the ai's designs). Thats probably the single largest thing increasing the difficulty on you. Antarans really aren't a terror(unless you are playing 2 player small galaxy with the junk race -1/2 food/-1 prod/-1 res/poor hw/cybernetic), and random isn't too bad, but what is that space eel doing around that colony if the events are off. Who got orion, the gnolams?

Ok, from the 3518.1 screw fighting the birds unless they get too annoying, grab the sarkas and get 1 to every colony you have(also this will remove them from fighting you)

Also in the one where everyone is hitting you, only 6 planets are fighting you. you are fine. Just a tip, stop bombing people out and recolonizing, they have nice bonuses. Bring some troop transports with you.

[Whoha]

Ok, no one got orion, wierdness.

Also Forget what I said about ground combat, you got too little of it and took a penalty there. trade,steal, or research some ground tech stuff.

Oh, in a few turns you will have enough to take orion by the way, I suggest you do that.

[vmxa1]

I will wil look at them today, I am in the midst of a huge game of CivIII.
I will agree that you should not give up the advantage of tactical combat until you are very comfortable with impossible games. It is a big advantage and the most fun.

[vmxa1]

Lazerus well I interrupted my Civ game to peek at this game.
I did not figure out why I could not design a ship, but anyway I really dislike putting bombs on ships. In Moo2 it is just not worth doing.
Why are you research Lighting Fields? I never use them.
Trying to get to class V shields? If you grab Zort armor you could refit and remove bombs, interceptors and missiles from your battleships and take down the Guardian. If you get X-armor you are a lock.
I would be checking on my planets that are making too much food and set them to research. I do not like to build wealth unless I have to do it.
I would scrap some of the extra freighters as well.
In fact I would get rid of all my cruisers or less to reduce my cost, you are over your cap.
BTW EMO is on a system with only two planets, one small and one tiny. You have some better systems for a leader.
I would also trade or start stealing tech to fill in some of the holes.

[vmxa1]

Oh how slow I am. The reason I could not redesign ships is that you have turned off tactical combat.
That is the main reason to not do that. The AI will build ships for you and they will suck.
The big advantage you have over the AI is you can make better ships and in a better time frame.
So now you have only two ways to beat him in a fight.
Bigger ships with better tech or more ships in the battle.
You no longer have the ability to use a better ship design to offset the AI's numbers.
Since you are not creative, you will not have better tech unless you research faster and steal the missing stuff.
To that end, make more spies and go get the tech. Try to trade first to get anything you can.
Move as many workers as you can spare to research to get in the lead. capturing planets can get you some tech as well.
Key ones are better computers, pop boost and terraforming. Production boost are next.

[Lazerus]

Well i managed to win it

I stuck with my plan of killing the silicoids as every time i left them they started bombing my outer colonies and replacing them with their own, luckily the gnolams finished off their last colony i couldnt reach. The psilons then did most of the hard work against the gnolams who i finished off. After this i went and captured orion, death rays and stuff are cool
I was framed against the meklar who declared war (even though they were my allies) but soon slaughtered them as i had half a dozen titans nearby and new weapons to try out.
Since the psilons were fairly peaceful at this time i went and killed the saakra before they started pestering me as they'd already knocked off 3 small colonies.

Then came the big one, the psilons who after stealing 3 of my techs (mainly the stuff from orion and class V shields ) i demanded 3 back, got 2 of them but then they declared war, and boy was it bloody, lost a damn lot of colonies as they had a fleet with 12 battleships and 5 cruisers just destroying any planet they were near, i tried intercepting this fleet with 11 titans but i got slaughtered ! so instead since i had alot more colonies to cope with loses we just smacked each others bases around until i'd eventually razed all of his and there we have it i've completed impossible

vmxa i already had class V shields on my ships, i was just researching anything that would improve my fleet, first time going through the game for me so still dont know whats useless and whats a big help.
Is there anyway to choose what you want your spies to steal ? i took a -10 bonus that game and even with as many spies as i could send to a target player i was getting 1 tech every 20 turns or so (i had done some research to improve their rating aswell).

[Whoha]

no way to direct spies. This recent game i'm playing I took out spy networks for everyone but myself, and the ai is still spying...

[Lazerus]

How can i take out their spy networks ? guessing that would cut down on the amount of times im framed

[Iasius]

I guess with corion, a moo2 save game editor. Searching for it on google should provide you with plenty of links.
Can be quite fun, I once started a huge game and then deleted every star system and every planet except the home planets.

[vmxa1]

Most people will select all the improvments for spies when they are playing as a non creative.
Tele training being about the first big one. In each choice that comes up, I am probably taking the one that helps spies or agents. You have to give up some good stuff, but if you do not get all the enhancements in this area, you will get everything stolen or sabetoged.
I like to make lots of spies to prevent stealing once I get the tech lead.
A few spies (4) is often enough to get steals, it may take time.
I do not worry about being framed as I am likely to be repulsive anyway, so no one will like me and I can not trade.
In fact I normally will not be taking -spying. I have used it extensively in the past and it is not a bad choice, but rep -GC -SA is an easy -10 picks.
Of course if you are playing with no Tactical combat, you can not afford to take -SA.