another MOO2 newbie

[lord of the mark]

im playing as humans, on average difficulty. Game is very interesting, and seems to have lots of potential depth. Im getting to the point where ive encountered the other civs, and expanding without war will be difficult. Have traded techs to fill in, and i suppose i can do more.

Havent engaged in tactical combat yet, and so its hard to make sense of which techs are useful and in what combinations. Building type techs are more familiar from Civ2, and i may be biased towards them. I wonder if a strat of building up my planets will work?

I havent finished the manual yet, and think I should do that before asking more questions here.

The tech tree is a little overwhelming, though i suspect I will move quickly up the learning curve.

[vmxa1]

Are the Human race you are using, unaltered? IOW did you customize them?

The racial traits dictate what is best to go forward with. You can either expand fast, conquer or build. The choice you make will determine what tech to choose and hence what you can build.

Getting Reseach Labs and Automate Factories is a priority for all. Then learn to fly.

Once you have contacts, you have a built in edge in relations and can make trades to get techs. So see what they are getting and take the missing ones.

Make research deals and get the extra boost they will soon provide.

The manual is not very useful. The tech choices are in two flavors, no brainers and the rest. IOW some choices will always be painful, many you have no real choice.

Anyway we do not have so much traffic that it is hard to keep up with questions, so ask as many as you want. It is your thread.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Havent engaged in tactical combat yet, and so its hard to make sense of which techs are useful and in what combinations. Building type techs are more familiar from Civ2, and i may be biased towards them. I wonder if a strat of building up my planets will work?

In early stages, missiles are the best weapons- so small, fast ships with loads of missiles are powerful. Later up the tech tree beam weapons come to dominate. As for building up planets, maybe you should try more of a specialization approach - have research planets, farming planets, and industrial planets. That cuts costs. It would take a while to fully build up your planets- plus the techs to do this are spread out- building techs make your industry better, your ships bigger and stronger. But you need to research chemicals to clean up the polution, sociology to improve your gov. and economy, biology for agricultural advances, and computers for research and morale bosts.

As humans, I think focusing on computers, sociology and buildings concentrates on the strenghts of the democratic system and charisma.

But never neglect having up to the minute weapons and armor for the ships.

The tech tree is a little overwhelming, though i suspect I will move quickly up the learning curve.

Techs are pretty much a straight line, given that there is no need of any techs before you move to the next- the game itself does a good job of telling you what each component, weapon, or advance gives you.

[lord of the mark]

Are the Human race you are using, unaltered? IOW did you customize them?

Unaltered.

The racial traits dictate what is best to go forward with. You can either expand fast, conquer or build. The choice you make will determine what tech to choose and hence what you can build.

Is it like the conqueror factions vs builder factions in SMAC (as in Vel strat guide)?

Getting Reseach Labs and Automate Factories is a priority for all. Then learn to fly.

Ive gotten AF and interstellar flight. Im not inclined to RL, as Im still gettting the hang of the techs Ive got. My Civish sense is to go for research when there isnt anything to build. Perhaps this is a mistake.

Once you have contacts, you have a built in edge in relations and can make trades to get techs. So see what they are getting and take the missing ones.

Make research deals and get the extra boost they will soon provide.

Ok.

The manual is not very useful. The tech choices are in two flavors, no brainers and the rest. IOW some choices will always be painful, many you have no real choice.

Ive read the manual on techs. Id like to review the basics of combat and espionage.

Anyway we do not have so much traffic that it is hard to keep up with questions, so ask as many as you want. It is your thread.

Thanks

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


In early stages, missiles are the best weapons- so small, fast ships with loads of missiles are powerful. Later up the tech tree beam weapons come to dominate. As for building up planets, maybe you should try more of a specialization approach - have research planets, farming planets, and industrial planets. That cuts costs. It would take a while to fully build up your planets- plus the techs to do this are spread out- building techs make your industry better, your ships bigger and stronger. But you need to research chemicals to clean up the polution, sociology to improve your gov. and economy, biology for agricultural advances, and computers for research and morale bosts.

As humans, I think focusing on computers, sociology and buildings concentrates on the strenghts of the democratic system and charisma.

But never neglect having up to the minute weapons and armor for the ships.



Techs are pretty much a straight line, given that there is no need of any techs before you move to the next- the game itself does a good job of telling you what each component, weapon, or advance gives you.

thanks. Re specializing planets - clearly the terran planets make the best food planets, and the mineral abundant ones make the best production ones. Which make the best research ones? Ones with lots of room for population, but limited minerals and food?

[vmxa1]

The best research ones are those with artifacts. Otherwise those with the most free pop and or a scientist for a leader.

So if you get gizzmo (or any research type), drop him on a system with lots of planets and turn those into research centers.

[vmxa1]

"Originally posted by lord of the mark"

"Is it like the conqueror factions vs builder factions in SMAC (as in Vel strat guide)?"

I have the guide, but cannot remember the particulars. What I am saying is that if you have Unitol you may do one thing and if you are warlord/fuedal/tele you may do another.

If you are plus on research or food or production, those will be the areas that will guide your choices.

"Ive gotten AF and interstellar flight. Im not inclined to RL, as Im still gettting the hang of the techs Ive got. My Civish sense is to go for research when there isnt anything to build. Perhaps this is a mistake."

Well you can do research blitz or pop blitz. Either way you want to get labs asap. Mostly I will go RL/hulls/AF regardless of my race. After that, you could have some leeway, as to what to pick.

If you look at the numbers, those 5 RP + 1 per sci worker is hard to skip so early. It can allow you to get some research with no sci workers in a crunch.

In the end, research is everything for most races. The only exception that comes to mind is the tele blitz type.

"Ive read the manual on techs. Id like to review the basics of combat and espionage."

Is there a question in there?

Now understand that just because something works, does not mean it is the best way to go. You may be able to skimp on research and cut a corner here and there at this level, but as you move up it will be harder.

Also you can take the traits that come with human and customize them a bit and have a better race. I don't have them in front of me, but I am sure that a stock race has some left over picks.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by vmxa1
"Originally posted by lord of the mark"

""Ive gotten AF and interstellar flight. Im not inclined to RL, as Im still gettting the hang of the techs Ive got. My Civish sense is to go for research when there isnt anything to build. Perhaps this is a mistake."

Well you can do research blitz or pop blitz. Either way you want to get labs asap. Mostly I will go RL/hulls/AF regardless of my race. After that, you could have some leeway, as to what to pick.

If you look at the numbers, those 5 RP + 1 per sci worker is hard to skip so early. It can allow you to get some research with no sci workers in a crunch.

In the end, research is everything for most races. The only exception that comes to mind is the tele blitz type.

"Ive read the manual on techs. Id like to review the basics of combat and espionage."

Is there a question in there?

No, there isnt. After Ive read the manual, and/or engaged in combat in the game, there may be

Now understand that just because something works, does not mean it is the best way to go. You may be able to skimp on research and cut a corner here and there at this level, but as you move up it will be harder.

I dont mind making mistakes in my first game on a low level. I'll refine later.

[GePap]

Tactical combat is fun- I never would recommend strategic unless you have so insane superiority and know battles will go youor way.

In fact, the best moments I have had in the game have been epic battles: the thing is, the human player reaches a point were, due to better ship design, has ships vastly superior to the computer's, so battles can be horribly lopsided.

The computer usually neglects putitng in top notch equipment to make their ships more offensively powerful- for example, a ship with Structural analysers, high energy focus, and achilles tergeting unit can tear through enemy ships- yet the computer never puts these together in one package.

I remember playing a game early on, before I knew much about ship design- I was the psilons vs the humans, both at the end of the tech tree, the human had gotten Orion, and of course I was creative so I had everything.

I actually thought it was wise to set up different ship clases, like carries (armed mainly with fighters and heavy fighters) and so forth- the battle was also huge- my fleet was close to 80 ships and their was well over 100 ships (their whole fleet would not fit in the one battle) [we were playing a huge galaxy]. Well, so the battle begun- and it was back and forth - I was loosing one ship for each two they lost or so- battlelines mixed, ships boarded, very exciting and nervous too. Then my computer crashed

During the battle thought, I had noticed that one class of ships, a big gun beam ship was by far my most effective and powerful. So, when I restarted from the autosave, which was a few turns before this battle, and reequiped all my ships to make them like those big gun ships. Well, I fought the battle again- this time, it was a completely one sided slaughter- I did not even lose a ship in it. It lasted all of three turns in two battles for my fleet to wipe his fleet.

Ship design made that much of a difference.

[GePap]

To continue this line of thinking- the computer never makes good use of the bes pieces of equipment- they never use the phasing cloak, which would make it a real ***** to fight battles later on- they also never use the time warp device to give themselves two combat turns- a human player can easily design ships near the end of the tech tree so that in their battles the enemy will never even have a chance of hitting back. The computer spends too much space on missiles and torpedos later on, which is a waste, and doe not always mod them up to make them more powerful.

The 1.31 patch made things better in that it gave the side attacking the first go, as opposed to the human player always going first- this makes a big difference.

The point is to concentrate your space on weapons- the best defense is having a battle where the other side enver even gets to shoot at you- the few good defensive systems I always add if I have them are the inertial nulifiers/dampers, whcih make turning easier, and save space in the end by not having to make your beams have 360 rotation- the damper field, which is Antarian tech, or the energy absorber. Multiphased and hard shields are OK as well.

[lord of the mark]

i havent designed my own ships yet, though i realize thats one of the key features of the game.

[vmxa1]

Do you mean that you are not playing with tactical combat on and all ships are designed by the AI?

That is quite the handicap and will make it much harder to win battles.

[lord of the mark]

Im playing with tactical combat on, but accepting AI designs for now. I hardly been in any combats yet, so im still feeling out the combat system.

[lord of the mark]

ive started over again, having more or less overcome the patch problems (im playing 1.31 now, with the game a tad unstable, but definitely playable)

Im playing as humans, large galaxy, average, pre-warp. early tech focus is AF, FTL flight and colony ships, then RL. I happen to have lucked out with a 4 planet home system, and am developing that first.

Question - since humans are strong on diplo, does this make it an ideal race for a peaceful strat? Or good for war, since you can avoid multifront wars? If the former, does it make it imperative to expand fast early, when its still possible to do so peacefully? Peaceful expansionist, versus rational perfectionist?

[vmxa1]

I have not played with charisma is some time, but in the main it should make trades last longer. Normally the AI will trade until it goes positive for you. Then it won't be long before they declare war. This is why I do not like to make trades. I want to determine when to start the war.

I still say the RL must be before the other stuff. It wll make all the research faster.