Early expansion in MOO2...

[Carolus Rex]

How do you guys expand early in the game? I often find that it takes a very long time to get anywhere at all...

I try to get "fuel cells" and "drive" techs early to get some reach, but it takes forever to build colony ships early on (50 - 90 turns, which in Civ would be a disaster).

Is this not like Civ, where you should crank out settlers early on? Should I first build some "city improvements" and then colony ships?

What are your priorities between colony ships and colony bases?

What's the use of outpost ships? I've used them a couple of times, but there doesn't seem to be a lot to gain from them. They claim star systems for you, is that it? Does the AI keep out of these systems?

Carolus

[vmxa1]

Re: Early expansion in MOO2...

Originally posted by Carolus Rex
"How do you guys expand early in the game? I often find that it takes a very long time to get anywhere at all...

I try to get "fuel cells" and "drive" techs early to get some reach, but it takes forever to build colony ships early on (50 - 90 turns, which in Civ would be a disaster)."

This depends on what your traits are and your goal. If you have a race that has little production boost, you will have a longer build time. Is your planet Rich or Large?

In some cases, I may not expand outside of my system for a long time. Playing a research race, I can just turtle and come out blasting later.

A unitol with +P on a large HW. I looked at an old log and I see that on turn 35 I was 7 on food, 11 on industry and started a CS.
It was done on turn 43. This was on impossible level. No Leader.

"Is this not like Civ, where you should crank out settlers early on? Should I first build some "city improvements" and then colony ships?"

In most races, you would like to get RL and AF up and then go expand. One way to speed this up, is to add pop from your colonies to your HW.

This is the same as I may do in a Sid level game of C3C. Where I take some workers and improve my tiles in the capitol. I then join those workers, as they finish their tile, to the capitol. Now my capitol is larger and can make that great lib before those other civs.

So if your HW has had its pop near max and is a large planet, with a AF, it can make ships in a reasonable pace.

"What are your priorities between colony ships and colony bases?"

I will normally get colony bases up quickly on the home system. I will rarely make them in other system, as I do not want the game to last that long most of the time.

I tend to not make a lot of colony ships, as I prefer to get my local systems and then start taking someone else's systems. I may drop a few colony ships as I spread out to fill gaps.

"What's the use of outpost ships? I've used them a couple of times, but there doesn't seem to be a lot to gain from them. They claim star systems for you, is that it? Does the AI keep out of these systems?"

The AI will bust your outpost, when it goes to war and will build planets in that system. I use them for two things. 1- range extenders, 2- for the marine barracks if not a uni.

So if I want a given planet, especially early, I send an OP. Then a CS. Now I am up with a barracks and the OP let me scout farther out before I could get a CS ready.

I may even do this as a uni. This still works as a range extender and I am going to need a barracks someplace to build transports, unless your are a Tele.

[Brutalisk]

vmxa: you are using far too many acronyms my friend. From what our buddy has said, it's apparent that he's very new to the game.

Carolus:

uni = unification (race pick; government type; at a difficulty of average or above you can customise your race)

tol = short for tolerant (race pick)

RL = research lab (technology advance)
AF = automated factories (technology advance)
CS = colony ship
HW = homeworld


I'll add my two cents to your questions a little later.

[vmxa1]

You are probably correct, but I did spell out uni and CS and HW a few times.

[Carolus Rex]

Originally posted by Brutalisk
vmxa: you are using far too many acronyms my friend. From what our buddy has said, it's apparent that he's very new to the game.

Right on both accounts!

Thanks for the list! HW and some others were not too hard, but unitol?!

Thanks to both for your answers (here and in the other thread). Perhaps there are some good, older threads you can recommend?

I'll probably be back with a lot more questions as I really enjoy this game!

So you can actually stay in your home system and not worrying too much about expanding (I realise this depends on the system's resources etc)?

I often feel really stressed in the beginning when I get to know how other races expand, so I try to grab as much "land" as possible early on. Otherwise I feel I'm not keeping up, but that seems to be something not to worry too much about then?

Carolus

[vmxa1]

Staying home or turtling is for specific races. Namely creative, as they will have all techs and have powerful defenses. They can afford to bust out later when they can make killer ships.

This will not work, if you are not familiar with how to design ship that work well. In that sort of a game, I would get to Deep Core and Megafluxers or what ever teh 3500 rpt one is that comes with High Energy focus.

At this point I refit 5 or 6 ships and take down Orion. Maybe refit, if I get X-armor from it. Use my newly refitted ships and Loknar to start busting planets.

Other races are better of to expand rapidly and use their production advantages to run over the map.

There are a few good threads, but they are full of BS and hae lots of topic changes. I am not sure if it is worth plowing through or not. If you like to read that stuff, then change the dates on the default and go back about a year.

You will see lots of stuff and can read what you like. Otherwise just post your questions as you have them. They will get answered. sometimes right away, others in 10 or so hours.

[Shadowlord]

Ooo, someone posted!

Personally, I beeline for the techs which boost research and industry or give "city improvements" which do. I expand as fast as possible and use my home planet as the only food source (but don't forget to make freighter fleets!), allowing me to colonize less-farmable planets and especially rich ones.

Scouting is especially important - don't ever send your colony ship to a planet where you haven't explored, you might get unlucky and find a monster or the Guardian there.

I go for the planets with high production rates (rich, ultra rich, etc - never poor planets) and focus on building all the useful improvements (which is most of them) on every colony. Once a colony has everything major done which you've researched, including space stations (but preferably battlestations or star fortresses, if you can build them), it's a powerful force in its own right, and can help you pump out warships. By then you probably won't have much need for colony ships, as you'll probably be invading enemy planets (if you're playing warlike, anyways, and if not there won't be many planets left for you to colonize).

Personally I like the telepathic pick for the ability to mind-control entire planets (once you crush their defenses), and creative is very useful if you're not going to be trading techs or spying for them. If you take creative and research bonuses together you can put together a good tech lead, but beware of the AI spying to steal your techs. :P

P.S. This is great, this forum is more active than the Moo3 forums here.

[Brutalisk]

To point you to a thread, I'd have to go digging and it would take far more time and effort.

I noticed some other forums these days have one thread pinned on teh top with all the essential info new players need to know. Anyhow.


MOO2 is separated into six distinct categories of traits:

Three Main Ones:
- tech races
- industrial races
- war races
Three Support Ones:
- spy network
- diplomacy
- population


It's now a matter of how you will combine them. Different types require different
style of play. Single Player Games (=SP games) are a lot easier than
Multiplayer Games (=MP games).

With the official MOO2 (several unofficial mods exist), the general conscensus is
that the best race is,

Unification, Tolerant, +1 production, Large Home World
(unitol, +1p, LHW)
Several industrial+population races are favoured, a lot of them are unitol
variations. Most of them if not all are focused on unification. Unification is
a very strong trait. Their strength is fact colonizing and building up a
huge population (tolerant increases the CAPACITY your planets can hold, while
production helps increase the RATE dramatically through "housing"). Put a normal
abundant planet on housing with only ONE population and preferably automated
factories and watch its growth rate.

A very strong research race is Democracy, +Lithovore, +Artifacts. This type of
races is referred to as demlith races. One of the routes for winning with this
one is to gain some key war technologies early on and either attack an enemy
very early with technologically superior SMALL craft OR capture a favourable
monster world very early. Monster Worlds are the systems guarded by monsters,
such as crystals, amoebas, hydras and dragons. That is a skill you need to master.
Whatever race you are, the sooner you get hold of one if not mroe monster worlds
the better.


A strong War Race can go a number of routes. One of the core races includes,
feudal +telepathic +transdimensional. The first one cuts the cost of ships
dramatically allowing you to quickly construct some ships, telepathic gives
you the ability to assimilate a planet instantly and without the need for
transports. Transdimensional gives your ships the much needed speed and
battle maneuvrability needed to REACH your enemies fast and win those early
battles.


If you want to use creative, try Unification, Creative, Subterranean. It
allows you to hold considerable population and creative boosts up your
defense as you get some technologies which are usually sacrificed by non
creative human players. (eg two early ones heavy armor, missile bases)


Another race you can play is unilith. Even though you lose the food bonus,
trust me, unilith is a very VERSATILE race and can adjust to a lot of
different situations. In games against the AI, you'll even have the time to
get the terraforming and use it to increase your populations dramatically.
This race's success often rides on the ability to get a monster world early.

Other races you can try...

Since you are playing SP games, the AI is rather
easy to handle, so you can experiment with the diplomatic route. Being
charismatic goes a long way in working your way towards maintaining peace
with the feeble minded AI while you have time to grow in strength or abuse your
allies.

Winning through a purely spy race is one of the trickiest ones. Once you get
familiar and confident with the game and want to explore more of it, then try
a spy race...

There are far more races you can try. I'll leave it upto you to explore.

[Zoetrope]

The best strategies are from active (multi)players. Over the past five years this Apolyton foruim has presented some dandy advice. Some other advice on how to develop is collected at my website.

I've been playing MOO2 since the Christmas after it was published. However, I should warn you that it's been many years since I designed or used a warlike race myself, and I'm a single-player. I generally choose a research race and beeline for Android Workers, or an industrial race and show the "Impossible" AI how to colonise.

I recommend that you obtain and apply the 1.31 patch as it provides individual ship initiative which opens up many battle tactics that the older versions lack.

There's also a DOS version patch (version 1.40 b 19) by Lord Brazen that's designed for multiplayer, has additional (command-line) options, and has many bugs and exploits fixed so that MOO2 is more challenging (as was originally intended).

In case you have a Macintosh, there's an excellent MOO2 patch (version "1.6" by MacSoft that removes many exploits and bugs.

Back to warlike races: the Feudal/Telepathic/Transdimensional combination uses only (-4)+6+5 = 7 picks, leaving 13 picks for such handy warrior skills as Warlord (+4) and Omniscient (+3).

As a conqueror, your best plan of attack is:

(1) Choose picks that benefit your empire independently of race. These include all of the above suggestions, and Ship Defense, Ship Attack, Stealthy Ships, Espionage, Unification, Creative, Cybernetic (for ship repair only). Of no interest to you are Charismatic, Fantastic Traders and Lucky. You might well choose Repulsive (although it frightens off most prospective Leaders and makes those who approach you charge much more.)

Some people like Rich Home World (RHW) for an aggressive race, to get ships built faster. Someone recommended this combination of picks as strong in an Average sized galaxy in both single and multiplayer:

Feudal, Telepathic, Transdim, Omni, Low-G, Artefacts HW, RHW.

In Large galaxies, this was recommended:

Tele, Warlord, Transdim, Omni, RHW, Feudal, Repulsive.

I suppose if ship-building is your thing, you could experiment with +1 or even +2 production.

(2) First capture populations that have strong production capabilities. Examples of good "serf" races include Sakkras, Klackons, Silicoids and Trilarians. (The Alkari, Darloks, Elerians, Gnolams, Humans, Mrrshans are useless in themselves as their traits don't carry over to your empire. The main uses for their colonies is as stepping stones to your real targets, and as places to settle the more useful races. The Bulrathi may be of marginal utility on High-G worlds, if you have no good industrial serfs. At least they make decent defensive marines, but so do Sakkra.)

(3) Telepathic gives you the ability to use captured ships during battles, as well as the (very desirable) option to Mind-Control colonies once their defences are down.

(4) Enjoy the battles; observe the AI's tricks and weaponry. Steal techs often by spying and scrapping captured ships.

Study the manual (and player-made strategy guides) as you play; try out a great variety of ship systems and battle tactics. (Quicksilver's MOO3 has nothing approaching the possibilities of either MOO1 or MOO2: probably because it wasn't the Starfleet Battles team that worked on it. Pity! Worse still, almost none of the QS programmers and artists had played either game at all, so they didn't have a clue what was great about the gameplay. Shame!)

MOO2's Battle Theme 1 is playing as I type, and I hungrily yen to enter the fray.

(5) Two things matter most in battles: mobility and firepower.Transdimensional empires get +4 to combat speed, so there's a good chance you'll get to move first (unless against Antarans and fast monsters. Get the first shot off, or manoeuvre around your foe where their weapons (often) don't face.

(6) The best early game weapons are missiles. If you attack quickly, you can take down whole empires with Mirv nukes. (Others can provide the details.)

Early in the game Ship Attack values are low, so point defence doesn't do much; then interceptors may also be handy to defend against missiles and/or to trouble enemy ships. Interceptors use regular strength weapons but strangely only those that have the point-defence option (Laser, Fusion, Phasor, Particle Beam). There have been some articles at Apolyton on appropriate weapon technologies for interceptors: if i recall correctly, as fighter-mounts, lasers are as strong as fusion beams

(7) With half-decent Ship Attack, I've occasionally rushed the AI with Heavy, Autofire, Armor-Piercing, Continuous, Nonreduced-Range Lasers.

But if you're conquests are delayed (due to inexperience or misfortune), then you will have to adapt to developing situations, so upgrade your ships.

(8) Space Academies are very handy, especially if the game looks like lasting a while. I generally find a system with 4 or 5 planets and place an Academy on each. Parking fleets there for a while soon raises their Experience Points.

Not that a war-oriented race has much time to keep ships in one place for long (fleets are too busy advancing the frontier), but it's very useful if your empire is industrial or scientific.

As an aggressor, you will still want one Space Academy in each ship producing system, as new ships built there will automatically gain one experience _level_. This gets a Warlord's ships quickly up to Ultra-Elite, which means deadly (+75) ship attack, agile (+75) ship defence, and tough (+20) boarding marines.

[Brutalisk]

Zoetrope: there is a place for charismatic as well actually. It increases your chances of getting a good ship leader that you can use for your early attack fleet and it can make all the difference.

It also helps for diplomatic purposes (against the AI). No, I rarely if ever use charismatic, but the option is there.

[Zoetrope]

Yes, Charismatic's cheaper, better Leaders are handy, and although good diplomacy (Charm + Tel = +75 diplo) seems in conflict with constant aggression, I admit that if you're cunning the AI can be manipulated.

When playing MOO2 (or MOO3 or any of the Civs) i do miss the more rational (and more complex) behavior of AC's factions: so many more options for Machiavellis with both good and bad intentions!

[Brutalisk]

I would think that CivII and CivIII would have improved AC's AI behaviour (?), sicne they came after it. I haven't played Civ II and III - believe it or not, lol.

I'm one of those that just wanted Civ for multiplayer. There was "civnet" circling around at a time but it prooved way too unusable.

[siron]

I recommend this guide:

http://masteroforion2.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_masteroforion2_archive.html#110998255037872720

[Shadowlord]

AC was actually released after II but before III.

Civ II: 1996
AC: 1999
Civ III: 2001

[vmxa1]

The main players in AC were not working on CivIII.