Trying out moo2 again

[Father Beast]

OK, so I haven't been the biggest fan of moo2. It was just so different from classic moo.

I actually have played a time or two. just long enough to encounter another race, and then give up in frustration..


See, I didn't understand that Moo2 is what you get if you take Moo and MoM and use a polymerization card (from Yu-Gi-Oh) on them. since then, I have played and enjoyed Master of Magic several times, and I think I'm willing to try moo2 one more time.

what would be the best starting situation? in the moo manual, it suggested med galaxy, klackons, and 3 opponents on easy for your first game. no such suggestion for moo2 in the manual.

Please don't have me making a custom race first off, as I don't have enough experience to understand what is good. suggest one of the premade races, and would small or medium be better.

and hope third time's the charm....

[vmxa1]

Well you can take the Psilons and play in a large universe with 3 or 4 races. That should do it and take one of the lower levels.

[MORON]

Normal, Large, with 3 races....

Since I started with an custom race, as custom races can be stronger than default picks....
Unified, Creative, Warlord/+production/+reseach/artifact homeworld/Large Homeworld, -Ground attack, -ship attack, repulsive.

Read up a bit on the early tech tree advice that has been scattered around, and the AI should be completely pwned....

[Father Beast]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Well you can tke the Psilons and play in a large universe with 3 or 4 races. That should do it and take one of the lower levels.

OK, I'll try that.

[Zoetrope]

Psilons in MOO2 get all the techs, so that will acquaint you with the research items. However, they're Dictatorship, so you will want to build Marine Barracks on each colony to improve its morale and output. The quickest way is to plant an Outpost ship before you place either a Colony Base (in-system) or Colony Ship (in a new system).

Also, Psilons are Low-G, so you should research toward Planetary Gravity Generators and build one on each medium-G colony, and especially on every high-G colony otherwise you won't get much out of those planets.

Huge maps at Tutor or Easy will give the Psilons ample time to research before meeting aggressors, PROVIDED that you TURN ON the END-OF-TURN WAIT. (It's on a long list of options on an in-game menu.)

I lost my very first game, playing as the Psilons at Tutor, because MOO2 didn't wait for me to do anything! First and last event that stopped the turns spinning was an attack fleet against which I had no (opportunity to build) defences on my only planet.

[Zoetrope]

The races are among the most enjoyable features about MOO2.

Another good race to play while you're learning:

Silicoids. They are Lithovore and Tolerant. Since they don't need food you can put (almost) everyone on production, or research, or housing, or trade goods (money-making). Almost, because you usuallu want some progress in both research and production.

Being Tolerant, they don't suffer from Pollution, and they have more room to live on each planet; and of course (not having to eat) they can live anywhere.

The Silicoids have -50% population growth, otherwise they would expand rampantly. Now, you can customise that away, but you say you want to know the stock races first, so the trick is to colonise the other planets in the same system and put them on Housing. Don't forget to Outpost (for Marine Barracks) before Colonising, because Silicoids are Dictatorship . Every time the Housing Colony's population increases to two (2), transfer 1 settler to the major world (initially your homeworld). This (popular) trick will ensure that your major worlds will grow much faster.

[Zoetrope]

Additional races of note:

* Klackons have production bonuses, of which Unification is the most powerful (+50% to food and industry, and oblivious to the concept of morale so marine barracks are _not_ essential for young colonies).

However Klackons are Uncreative (not the most innovative family of ants on the block), which means you have no choice in techs, so you will often find that vital items such as Research Laboratory and Automated Factory are absent from your list. Lacking those two in particular can be crippling.

So you will need to Trade and to Spy to get techs. Best time to Trade is when your diplomatic relations are good (up in the Green). Best time to Spy is while at War (otherwise you will soon get wars you don't want).

* Sakkra have high population growth, and they're Subterranean, so they have more room on each planet. However, they are Feudal, so they research slowly (-50% per scientist). You will have to rely heavily on research buildings and on settling many colonies to improve your science. You will also want to Trade and Spy. Feudal, like Dictatorship, needs Marine Barracks, so Outpost before Colonising.

* Trilarians are an interesting race to play. Being Aquatic, they treat Terran and Ocean worlds as if Gaian (extra food), and Swamp and Tundra worlds as if Terran. Their homeworld is of course Ocean. The extra food means they can afford to put more people on research and production.

The Trilarians can usefully specialise their worlds. Food worlds can export their surplus via Freighters to the Dry but Rich colonies, which therefore can grow their populations quickly. Most other races would have trouble finding the food to do that,

They are Dictatorship, so they need Marine Barracks (think Outposts again) to get the best from colonies.

Trilarians are Transdimensional. Their ships travel 2 parsecs/turn faster (no small difference as it amounts to two engine techs, which early in the game means double the speed) so Trilarians can reach planets quicker than their rivals, for colonisation, for defence, and for attack.

Also, the Hyperspace Flux event, which shuts down the interstellar drives of every other race for an indeterminate number of turns, has no effect on Transdimensional vessels. (Incidentally, according to the MOO3 backstory, the Hyperspace Flux is a recurrent unwanted aftermath of the pocket-universe technology that the Orions used to confine the Antarans and so end the Orion-Antaran war.)

In combat, Transdimensional ships are faster by 4 additional squares per turn; and in version 1.31 of MOO2 with Initiative On (a good choice), that means superior initiative, which often means getting to fire the first shot (or running from a stronger foe before their weapons can catch you).

* Meklars: Cybernetic with +2 Production. They only eat half a unit of food each, but they need half a unit of production to sustain themselves (otherwise they perish from absence of electricity and lack of maintenance).

This eating of production is bad enough at low industrial levels: still a net 1.5 production from workers, but a net -0.5 from farmers, so it's fortunate they only need half as many farmers. So the +2 Production bonus isn't nearly as great as it seems.

But on Industrial planets, there is Pollution. All races except the Silicoid have to face that, but for Cybernetics it's much worse because the production they need to eat comes out of the little Industry that's left over AFTER Pollution has taken the lion's share of it! So the Meklars desperately NEED the Pollution-reducing technologies.

That also means less choice in what they research: Merculite and Pulson Missiles, Iridium Fuel Cells, Zortrium Armor, and Microlite Construction are all valuable techs but the Meklars have to weigh up whether to continue to cripple their industry while hoping to trade for anti-pollution techs, or to forego some or all of the above military, colonising, and production bonus techs when they are likely most needed.

Cybernetic also means Regenerative ships: all ship (and planet!) systems repair during combat, and ship shields recharge faster, because Meklars (including the ship leader Sparky) are excellent engineers. So Shield and Armor techs are natural choices for Meklars. (Zortium Armor or Atmosphere Renewer - what a dilemma!)

[MORON]

Originally posted by Zoetrope
Silicoids.
Being Tolerant, they don't suffer from Pollution, and they have more room to live on each planet; and of course (not having to eat) they can live anywhere.

The Silicoids have -50% population growth, otherwise they would expand rampantly. Now, you can customise that away, but you say you want to know the stock races first, so the trick is to colonise the other planets in the same system and put them on Housing. Don't forget to Outpost (for Marine Barracks) before Colonising, because Silicoids are Dictatorship . Every time the Housing Colony's population increases to two (2), transfer 1 settler to the major world (initially your homeworld). This (popular) trick will ensure that your major worlds will grow much faster.

Just get cloning by reseaching biology. At +100k growth silicoids can grow as fast as most races, and considering that one can tech robo miners without worrying about pollution, Silicoids don't expand slow once you get into mid game....

[Father Beast]

OK, so I'm a bit into this game, and it's not so bad. Psilons get the whole tech pie, I guessordinary folks have to pick between the available techs in an advance, and uncreative types only get one, and don't get to choose. is that right?

I noticed pretty early on that new colonies are pretty bad off until you get that marine base. Kind of reminds me of the corruption in Civ3. I discovered the outpost ship trick by accident. Now I use it all the time.

Speaking of which, outpost ships are pretty cheap, but Colony ships are outrageous!!!! even in a powerful planet with lots of production it still took 17 turns!

Antarans are a big pain. they come to a system and invariably attack the planet without the Star Base. this is especially galling when my ships couldn't handle them (did minimal damage with fusion beams) but a starbase could.

I think I recall someone suggesting assault shuttles to take over antarans. I just got assault shuttles, so I'm designing such a ship.

I haven't found a use for a cloning center yet. all my planets seem to grow pretty quickly.



NOW.

I have a question not answered by the manual or interface. I built a spy, but how do I set it to be an agent in my empire. You know, a counterspy?

I can't figure it out....

[Father Beast]

Oh, and one way it's like good old Moo1. other empires will up and declare war for lousy reasons, and then never bother to attack before coming and asking for peace 20-30 turns later.

Some things never change.

except now they come asking me to pay for peace. tribute, or a tech. I turned that one on its head by going to a race that declared war and then did nothing about it, and offered peace in exchange for tribute. they started paying me.
go figure.

[vmxa1]

When you build a spy it is added to your pile and defends against other spies. On the Race screen you can see how many spies you have and if they are agents or spies. It also shows you the current percentage they have (effectiveness).

If you want to use on one another race, move it to that races picture and select the function you want. This will be either espionage or not as in Moo1.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Father Beast
Oh, and one way it's like good old Moo1. other empires will up and declare war for lousy reasons, and then never bother to attack before coming and asking for peace 20-30 turns later.

Some things never change.

except now they come asking me to pay for peace. tribute, or a tech. I turned that one on its head by going to a race that declared war and then did nothing about it, and offered peace in exchange for tribute. they started paying me.
go figure.

Yes they tinkered around with this abit in the patches, but it is still not very good. I play as a Repulsive most of the time to avoid the chit chat and to prevent me from extorting the AI.

It is too easy to make them give you tribute and then systems.

[Father Beast]

Originally posted by vmxa1
When you build a spy it is added to your pile and defends against other spies. On the Race screen you can see how many spies you have and if they are agents or spies. It also shows you the current percentage they have (effectiveness).

If you want to use on one another race, move it to that races picture and select the function you want. This will be either espionage or not as in Moo1.

so when a spy is added to the pool, he is a counter spy unless I drag him to another race? I thought newly built spies were unassigned.

[Father Beast]

Originally posted by vmxa1


Yes they tinkered around with this abit in the patches, but it is still not very good. I play as a Repulsive most of the time to avoid the chit chat and to prevent me from extorting the AI.

It is too easy to make them give you tribute and then systems.

at least they got rid of the cheat of redirecting retreating ships. I was a little miffed when I couldn't redirect the scout to it's next destination, but I understand. it's kind of like removing the civ1 settler cheat from civ2.

[Father Beast]

Originally posted by Father Beast

Antarans are a big pain. they come to a system and invariably attack the planet without the Star Base. this is especially galling when my ships couldn't handle them (did minimal damage with fusion beams) but a starbase could.

I think I recall someone suggesting assault shuttles to take over antarans. I just got assault shuttles, so I'm designing such a ship.

I have to eat my words, now. The antarans attacked with two small and 4 medium ships, but they attacked my Homeworld, with a battlestation and missile base. I had a large ship with troop pods and assault shuttles, but it wasn't enough. they ended up pounding my world from 14 to 4 pop, and destroying most of the buildings. and the battlestation, too.