MOO1 Final War

[Father Beast]

So if my rival is offering me a non agression pact, do I refuse?

I have read that it's a good Idea to go to war with the rival if you're friendly with some of the others in order to sway votes in your direction.

so in my situation I could have declared war with the silicoids when they offered peace. I probably never would have done that on my own. Having the psilons of all people be erratic and bloodthirsty.... Damn.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Father Beast
"So if my rival is offering me a non agression pact, do I refuse?"

This depends on your game situation. I prefer to have them at war with me all the time or nearly so, but I usually accept Non Aggression pacts. They will soon go away and you will not be offered them any more.

"I have read that it's a good Idea to go to war with the rival if you're friendly with some of the others in order to sway votes in your direction."

If you need votes (abstain too), then I would only war with the other nominee. It may be possible to swing one to your side if they are at war with someone and you attack them. I have nevr needed that. I just bribe or make a treaty to get them to abstain. It usually only takes one vote or two before I am able to get by on my own.

[Father Beast]

I play a lot of games in small galaxy, 5 races, these days.

I just played as the meklars, and almost immediately found myself surrounded by Silicoids. I had to bust my hump to get the two worlds right next to me, and spent a lot of time looking at that toxic rich world held by the silicoids just 3 parsecs away that they colonized in year 35.

I decided to turtle up, since I can think of no race more suited to it than meks. I tried to stay on the Silicoicds good side, but after a time found myself being held as their rival in the council vote. I tried to make myself 3rd, but the sakkras somehow couldn't get ahead of me in pop. Being where I was, I couldn't even reach any race except the silicoids, and couldn't help them in any wars, since I would need range nine fuel in order to even get to anyone except the silicoids. When I finally contacted the sakkras, I tried to give them terraforming tech, but it was never an option. all they wanted was bombs. but they held 5 worlds to my 3, and they ought to have been ahead of me. I handed them lots of tech anyway, trying to get terraforming to come up. They loved me for it, naturally. That was just a couple of years before the vote, and according to the stats chart, they were slightly ahead of me in pop.

Imagine my astonishment when at the vote, I am still the silicoids opponent, and the sakkras vote him in. I almost threw in the towel then but decided to ride it out.

I actually had some leeway, since it took a bit for the silicoids to send a fleet, and I got some bases up. I also picked the weakest race on the board, cranked up my spying to max with him, and set to espionage. I would get a tech every 6 or 7 years, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but they all help with miniaturization.

I tried to build a fleet to go and take orion, but someone would come along whenever it started growing and wipe it out. after a few attacks like this, I realized that they were afraid of my 50+bases with class XV shields and hercular missiles. I built only token fleets for the next century, and started being able to build those huge monsters with 30+tri-plasmas. I beat the fleet protecting the rich world right next to me, and swarmed past the missile bases I couldn't beat with 200 surviving out of 350 swarming. took the rich world, and a handful of techs, but couldn't hold it, it was destroyed. I took it back again 25 years later and was able to hold it.

That's when I realized I could actually win this.

sent a handful of somewhat obsolete ships to orion to see what damage they would do to the Guardian, and flattened it, much to my surprise.

from there it was just mopping up. Oh well, another millenium serving under a tyrant

this is such a great game......

[vmxa1]

I agree it is great. I do not build up more than about 20 bases, because as you see they will not attack. I want them to send small fleets at me all the time, so I can smash them. This helps keep them in check.

[Father Beast]

I had a problem for a while with them coming loaded for bear with death spores, and felt like I had to have enough bases to wipe them out before they eliminated the population. the massive shielding was proof against the bombing, but not the spores.

I played it again, and again had the damned sakkra vote in the silicoids about a year after I made them my best friend. I almost lost a world due to not being ready, as my research before that had been low on force fields and weapons. Fortunately the backward Bulrathi were able to supply my with some stuff right quick, but my 20+ base worlds were getting a beating. I only survived because I was able to upgrade and get up to 50+ bases per world before they could get a really big fleet after me. Then they retreated, unless they had a chance to destroy my ships.

I guess they were trying to keep my fleet size down...

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Father Beast
I had a problem for a while with them coming loaded for bear with death spores

All AI players have such a fond affinity with biological weapons, while amazingly they don't suffer any diplomatic penalities for using them liberally

I discovered that early on, so that's why Planetology is always one of my main research fields. Get that antidote quickly.

One of the best ship designs for defending planets is: large ship, advanced damage control or automated repair, repulsor beam, and a torpedo weapon. [Plus best armour and shields].

Park them in front of your planet. Now enemy ships can't get to it to dump biological weapons because of the repulsor beams, and you can keep firing at the buggers. They can't get to your bases or ships either, unless they change ship designs and put in heavy-mounted weapons. That will take awhile, and that's where automated repair comes in.

Your fleet keeps the enemy fleets at bay while your planet tears them apart with massed missile attacks.

[vmxa1]

Yes it can be a real problem with bio weapons. My last game, I did not get an antidote until Universal, very late.
It caused me to lose some pop, as they could not bust my shields. I just terraformed it back the next turn. I have run into some bad spots where they did serious bio damage. In that case, I will be forced to build ships or pack in more bases. I will scrap the extra bases very soon, once I get an antidote.

[Father Beast]

OK, vxma1, that's the second time I've heard references to scrapping bases on this forum. I don't think I ran into any referances to that in the manual, and I don't know how to do it.

If I knew how to do that, It would save a lot of headaches when I accidentally leave DEF on some world too high and discover it has Waaayyy too many missile bases when I see it in the planets screen about 30 turns later.

Also save on the headaches of having too many bases built when I turn it back on to upgrade.

I've just had to eat the extra cost before.

Do you get any BCs back from scrapping?

[DaveV]

Father Beast,

Press the "B" key to scrap missile bases. This is documented in the technical supplement and reference, which is included in my manual. If you have an old enough version of the software, this may only be in the README.TXT file.

[Iasius]

Press 'b' to scrap bases. I think it comes with the patch for 1.3.
Heh, I had a planet with 960 bases yesterday because I forgot about it.
Just for reference:

-NEW KEY CONTROLS

F1 - Help
F2- Cycle to next colony
F3- Cycle to previous colony
F4- Cycle to next newly created fleet
F5- Cycle to previous newly created fleet
F6- Cycle to next fleet
F7- Cycle to previous fleet
F8- Cycle to next colony that has enemy ships enroute
F9- Cycle to previous colony that has enemy ships enroute
F10- Instantly saves game to Continue Game File
The F8 and F9 keys require Advanced Scanner tech.
1. Pressing ALT-P will change all emperor personalities at random.
2. Tech Screen: '=' sets all research allocations to the same
amount.
3. You can toggle random events off and on by holding the ALT key
down and typing 'EVENTS'.
4. ALT-M will display a 5 parsec by 5 parsec grid on the control
screen.
5. The "C" key will tell you how many spies were caught that turn.
6. The "B" key will allow you to scrap missile bases.
7. ALT-C centers the screen on the current planet.
8. ALT-R changes all RELOCation destinations to the selected
planet.

[vmxa1]

Yes there are several bugs that can get you and they are the main reason to use smaller maps.
Getting Class XX shields, often does not pop up the msg that they were completed and you get bases built until you discover it.
Getting a new Robotic Control or Terraform tech, sometimes does not give the msg when it is done. In this case you discover your are still pumping money into factories. This money is going into the reserve.
These bugs force me to keep a sharp eye on my planets, which is harder to do as the map gets bigger. It is not hard to end up with a ton of bases. This is why I check the planet list once in a while to see if anyone has more than the desired number of bases.

[Urban Ranger]

Father Beast, there's a thread for you in the Off Topic forum.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Father Beast
OK, vxma1, that's the second time I've heard references to scrapping bases on this forum. I don't think I ran into any referances to that in the manual, and I don't know how to do it.

It's not in the manual, it's in one of the text files.

[Father Beast]

one interesting way to go about final war is to vote myself in, then refuse the decision and have everyone combine against me.

I had one game as the alks where I had a lousy starting position and only got beyond my first couple of planets about 30 years before they voted the darloks in as high master. They kept beating me back and soon I was down to my first two planets. in desperation I switched almost all my production to little bombers and went on a killing spree. went around with a stack of 200+ tiny ships with omega-v bombs and destroyed colonies everywhere they didn't have a big fleet. My only advantage was in warp, and could beat any of their fleets to a world.
Astonishingly, I ended up winning after devestating the enemy production.

One thing I've noticed about the final war alliance is they aren't neccesarily nice to each other, despite being putative allies. I can hit a weak race (which supplies me with lots of tech) and bomb their only planet back to just a handful of factories, all without anyone else lifting a finger to help. Once I even saw a group of transports come and land at the world I had just bombed back to starting point. They took it over and wiped out their "allies". Go figure

[vmxa1]

I used to force the final war with the idea that it would stop them from taking each other out, but as you noted, they will at times.

What I do now is to just stay at war with everyone, so they will tend to be too busy to attack each other.

BTW I have used the small bomber ploy to the same advantage in some impossile games, where I was seeing massive fleet build ups. It keeps them from being able to support all the ships, till I could get to a point where I could hold a new planet.