MOO2 General tips and pointers, specific play advice

[AvA_Majestic]

No-one has orion yet afaik.
I'll post a save when I can, wont be playing much now as exams are almost here
They keep sending fleets to my planets and losing them, hooray for missile base.

I've capped all the planets rather than bombing them out.


Oh also, for what its worth, i'm playing a slightly modified version, missile bases with 800 units instead of 300 ala the defensive anti blitz mod, and interceptors made to send multiple flights instead of 1....

[vmxa1]

Ok, I don't know anything about mods. Never used them.

[Whoha]

hmm, well even with the enhanced defensive stuff, you have to use ships, planetary defenses are worthless due to initiative/attacker attacks first in non-initiative situations.

[AvA_Majestic]

Not much has changed vmx. Just made interceptors on ships more powerful (couldn't get the fighter garrison changed unfortunately) and missile bases. Thats it.

[vmxa1]

Even so, I would only be guessing and have no real experience to fall back upon.

[AvA_Majestic]

Well, i set the missile bases back to default because they were irritating me.
Just won my first game on impossible where I didn't resort to running off to antares when my opponents got too strong, took out the whole galaxy.

Using: Unitol, what else

[vmxa1]

Cool.

[Brutalisk]

Have you guys managed to finish the game yet with the race picks I had set forth?

And as for Majestic, well the players who play multiplayer tend to be a lot better, thus even on impossible the AI is too easy..

[AvA_Majestic]

i'm aware that there are people a lot better brutalisk, the whole idea of this thread was to get some advice from aforementioned people.

[Dry]

AvA, the problem is there is a lot to say (and I'm not an english native).
There are many factors having an infuence on each other and it's difficult to give a general advice.
Something that puzzle me with your post is you say you reached impossible level, while on the other hand, I have the feeling you have not found a real strategy yet.
The fact you are creative, makes me think you haven't found what are your valuable/key techs.
You say you are #2 in techs, but the AI ships seems able to kill yours. I may be wrong, but I have the feeling, you haven't found the best ship design for your playstyle. Being creative (all techs available) and #2 in techs should allow you to design killers...

Anyhow, let us start with your race.

1) The first thing I noticed about your race is, you have no pop. enhancement pick (sub, tol or aqua).
For me, this is almost a must. Pop will make the difference in prod, research and cash.
2) No food enhancer. 2 food per farmer at start is not enough. 4 farmers implies only 4 producer/researcher. The food enhancer picks are: +food, unification, aquatic, cyber and lithovore.
+food: nah, too expensive.
unification: the best for productive races, and the easiest for an 'impossible beginner'
Aquatic: second best. Combined with uni, it rocks.
Cyber: Another bad choice. Well, I like this one, but it would need a lot of time to explain when (other race picks) it is not a choice as bad as that.
lithovore: the best for non-uni tech races.
3) Creative. An expensive pick for pre-warp. And a dangerous double-edged pick. You will be tempted to build everything and this is a mistake. My advice is that you should keep this choice for when you are more experienced (or experimented? Sorry for my bad english). I remember that it was once one of my personal challenges: to win impossible with a creative race.
4) Democracy. This is certainly not the easiest pick for impossible. Unification is certainly the easiest, followed by dictatorship. Keep demo and fede for later.

Ok, this is a first shot and some points (esp. the food one) need more explanations.

Now after that, there will be the research tree and the ship design topics, but I will leave it for later. The research tree depends on the race pick, and the ship design depends on the research tree but also on you play style. So, I let first people react on this post.

[AvA_Majestic]

Thanks Dry, I appreciate it.

With the tech race I was just trying to find a way to maximise research early on, which I would think you would need the +50% research democracy offers, otherwise you cannot be sure you will win the tech race.





I've just won another Impossible 8 players, this time with Sub, Uni, +2 prod, RHW.

I was at war with six other races and still managed to beat them all, but both the sakkra and the silicoids were missing, which kind of makes you wonder how it would have gone if they were there.

[Whoha]

try demo/lith/artifacts homeworld if you haven't already.

[AvA_Majestic]

How does dem/lith/arti compare to aq/dem/arti/+1research LHW?

Wouldn't the aq overtake pretty quickly with addition of hydro etc?

[Dry]

Originally posted by AvA_Majestic
How does dem/lith/arti compare to aq/dem/arti/+1research LHW?

Wouldn't the aq overtake pretty quickly with addition of hydro etc?

Well, with litho, you do not need to reasearch Bio for your expansion phase. You do not lose time in researching Hydro, you do not lose time/production on building Hydro. You do not lose time either on producing freighters. They are needed only to move pop, which means AFTER you have colonised your home system and AFTER you have build/send your first colony ship.
And I'm not sure the +1 research of the Aqua compensates the extra researchers/workers you may put with a Litho.

BTW: I'm not an Aqua specialist, but I have the feeling that hydro is a waste of time/money/prod. Hydro produces only 2 food, it's less than an Aqua farmer. Certainly an Aqua farmer with SoilE. Is it really worth it?

[Whoha]

Originally posted by AvA_Majestic
How does dem/lith/arti compare to aq/dem/arti/+1research LHW?

Wouldn't the aq overtake pretty quickly with addition of hydro etc?

Not necessarily, the demo/lith race will have a much easier time expanding, the way your race will win out is by having more planets because of the +1 research.

you can switch out the AHW for +1 res on demo/lith on a huge map, but the main point about demo/lith is the fact that not only do you get good tech, but you also get decent production capabilities and you don't have to worry about where you expand.

as for what the starting research is you get around 57 on demo/lith/AHW, 45 on your race, and 48 on demo/lith/res.