Moo1 Ai

[Colonâ„¢]

Does it ever attack a system of yours when you're at war? It's kind of irritating to scramble to build a half-way decent fleet after an alien race has declared war, only to discover they simply wont come and you basically can ignore them all together.
Have to admit I'm barely coping with normal level, maybe the AI has some more guts at the highest levels?

[vmxa1]

I can't recall anything special at lower levells. I only play at impossible and I can assure you they will show up. Even hard which I remember quite well.

I would think it is a function of range. do they have the range to get to you? Normally I would expect them to come and retreat if you have to many missile bases.

If you have lots of ships, they may not come. Post a save if you want and I will look at it.

Saves have to be renamed to SAV to be posted.

[Urban Ranger]

They will attack your star systems if they can reach you, and if they has a big enough fleet. Sometimes small idiotic bits will declare war on you for no reason whatsoever.

[Colonâ„¢]

I don't think that's really the case at the lower levels. I don't have any saves at hand right now, but I remember I often had AI ships flying all over the place, from a colony of theirs to one side of my empire to a colony to the other side of my empire. Yet they would never actually attack one of my colony. The only battles occured when I attacked or when the AI already had been sending ships to colony before I conquered it.

[vmxa1]

The different level affects the ratio of fleet power required to declare war on you. It is 7:1 at simple and 1:1 at impossible.

Once war is declared, I could find no mention of any factors that determine them attacking other than if they can reach you.

I have not played any games at simple and easy was back when the game first came out, so I cannot swear to it.

I can tell they will come for you at hard and impossible.

[Zed-F]

Certain techs in MoO1 are weighted to show up in most games played. Especially the important ones, such as Ion Weapons. With Ion weapons, you can conquer Orion. (That would yield Death Rays. Your ship arsenal is now complete. )

SMALL bombers? Zed, MoO1 is a production based game. Bombers are useful from the start... I would start using bombers right after the first serious colony push. That was before I could even build Large hull designs (well, reasonably)! Why? Because every bomber that dropped a bomb reduced my neighbors production, meaning I got ahead. And small bombers with nothing but bombs in them were cheaper to build then the BASIC missile base. By getting there fast enough, you could keep them from building missile bases, making them easier to invade.

DEFENSIVE ships? No... offensive. You'd just route/rally them to the attack point when the Klackons decided to attack one of your worlds. If you had been using your small worlds to build bombers, breed marines, and research, then your neighbors would be behind you in production. So you'd have a bigger fleet to swat the invaders, then off you go to take over more of his worlds. Rinse and repeat. For fast games, slash and burn everything in reach, except for your new advanced forward base (that you invade and take over). Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

The game's a foregone conclusion after you see the first couple of screens worth of stars around your start. With a few worlds in reasonable reach, you can research range to allow you to jump any large gap/rift seperating your empire from the rest of the galaxy and still be able to win the game.

From the beginning, you can wage war. Why wait until you've got ion beams or better? I've used medium range hulls with extended fuel tanks and bombs to slow down opponents until I could get my serious heavy industry worlds churning out fleet killers plenty of times... slow down the AI so that they are behind you in production. That means victory.

You won't know in a game of MoO1 if you will get mega-blasters or phasers or disrupters. But you know you'll get ion beams. And you always start with nuclear bombs. Nuke bombs are all you need, if you don't have any more worlds to colonize. Or you want to beat down that nearby homeworld and invade it in the first 20 to 40 turns.

MoO1 favors the attacker. Just the computer is so dumb about it, that you didn't have to do much to protect yourself from the AI. However, the AI could not defend itself from you adequately. If it did what humans did, you'd attack it first because you wouldn't be willing to try and defend against it. The best defense is a good offense.

It's easier to play and win MoO1 using just a mobile, quick response fleet to defend your worlds then to defend your worlds with just missile bases. Why? Because your ships can be ship killers easier then the missile bases. In MoO2, that balance changes so that missile bases can truly defend worlds in the early and middle stages of the game. But not in MoO1. Whatever production you've put into missile bases would serve you better as ships... whether in fleet killers or bombers. Because you'd be able to move them where you need them. Missile bases are only useful to keep the AI's small bombing raiders away while your fleet is busy engaging a big threat (like a different enemy fleet).

The above was originally posted by someone over on another site. Has anyone here tried this kind of all-out offensive blitz, or anything remotely close to it, in MOO1 on Impossible, and had any sort of luck at all?

This sort of approach has never been my playstyle. I play small maps, so it may not make sense for me -- when you can only support a small fleet, bases become more important -- the strength of the bases at any given planet are larger relative to the strength of the entire enemy fleet, and you need defense everywhere since pretty much all your worlds are within striking distance. My approach is to build a solid defense of bases before I try to build missle-armed raiders (TL12-15 ships) and start picking away at enemy weak points. I don't seek war until I am ready, and on my terms.

I am skeptical that this approach would work well on impossible since IMO defensive bases have a considerable advantage over attackers, especially when said attackers are limited to speed one or two. However, this fellow says he has played (and presumably won) on impossible and that he switched back to hard because he found the AI too predictable on impossible.

I just wanted to know if anyone else had had success with a similar early rush strategy starting at TL1.

I'm not sure that this guy doesn't have MOO1 and MOO2 confused, though other things he has said seem to suggest not. An early rush strikes me as more typical of MOO2 strategy than MOO1 strategy.

[vmxa1]

I would not agree with that point either. I just happen to have a game of Moo1 up now and I do not have Ion Cannon, if that is what he means by ion beam. I have stolen or captured all the tech the others have, so no one had it.

The AI will have bases up very early and you will be hard pressed to hurt them with an attack at the start.

I have used med ships with bombs to slow down or even prevent them from holding a near by planet. It requires running when they show up. They tend to leave new worlds undefended or you could not do it.

[vmxa1]

Missile bases are my main method of defense at impossible for a long time. Building attack fleets is a losing idea IMO. You cannot match the AI bonus and they will have more systems than you.

I also like small maps and the AI will have massive fleets, you cannot expect to out build them for a long time. I build very few ships, until I get HEF or close to it. The engines are too slow before that.

[vmxa1]

I would also wonder if he has the games reversed. MB in Moo2 are not going to hold off attackers for long. Fact is most of us won't even have them.

[Zed-F]

Any chance of trying this out in a few quick games? No need to play through them completely if you don't want to -- just enough to say whether you are prospering or not. I would be curious to see a test of this on a couple different map sizes. I'd think the Klacks and Altarians would be the optimal race choices for this strategy; if they can't do it, odds are no-one can.

My guess is that this fellow gets all the AIs to go to war with one another and then picks on the AI with the most planets. I suspect he uses technology gifts to accomplish this, although he admits the relations boost such gifts provide is a bit too strong for good game balance.

I'll see if I can run some tests as well, though I'm not sure how much time for this I'll be able to free up.

[vmxa1]

As you can see from my Avatar, I play the Klacs a lot. I would not use that tactic. Now if you play at some low levels, then you can do many things.

[Garth Vader]

I have fought early wars with small and medium ships before.

Usually it's because the AI declares war and I have no choice.

I don't remember specifics about tech levels and such because it's been a long time.

[Zed-F]

Originally posted by vmxa1
As you can see from my Avatar, I play the Klacs a lot. I would not use that tactic. Now if you play at some low levels, then you can do many things.

I wouldn't normally use that strategy either. I'm not sure whether this guy is deluded, misremembering, or what. I'm skeptical, to say the least... but proof is always more convincing than theory.

[vmxa1]

Well it is clearly wrong for Moo2. MB are not effective for very long and only against very weak ships, by theirself.

[Zed-F]

? I was talking about MOO1 here....