Early expansion in MOO2...

[Carolus Rex]

Thanks all; a lot to digest here!

Carolus

[Carolus Rex]

BTW, Zoetrope what do you mean by "like RHW"? You get what you get, it's not like you have a choice, right?

Or do you mean that certain races start out with better homeworlds every time?

Carolus

[vmxa1]

RHW is Rich Home World. It is a trait that can be selected when you create a custom ace. It cost 2 picks.

It means you are sure to start on a rich planet.

[Zoetrope]

Well, by "like" I meant "prefer". Some people prefer to choose RHW (and some even pick AHW) to give their warlike empire a boost at the start, which is when it matters most to them.

But I'm a researcher or builder at heart, so most of my strategies are hybrid. In the medium to long term you have to balance both industry and science in MOO2.

The warrior idea is to prevent anyone from reaching the medium term. I think Mike Montgomery achieved a conquest win in Huge/8/Impossible in just over 50 turns. The details are recorded in one of the Antares archives at my website. (After closely following his example, I managed it in under 60 turns repeatedly, but my light sabre's since lost its edge.)

[Whoha]

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).

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

First pick the right race, a techer or a blitzer will not be all that interested in settling new planets, you'll want production. You need to be able to get a colony ship out atleast every 15 turns.

Second, You will want atleast autofactories before you start producing colony ships. and with a teching race wait till pollution processors and Robotics mining planet probably.

third you have to check your own expansion against your ability to defend it all,you'll have to throw up some cruisers or your neighbors will invade.

outposts give you fuel range, the ability to later settle a planet and get a "free" Marine Barracks, and yes they do prevent others from settling them.

[Brutalisk]

Zoetrope: where's that strategy? There are quite a lot of files and quite a lot of correspondence , pages and pages of people "talking".

I d/led these files a year or two ago...

[vmxa1]

Well it sounds like Tele Trand with either Warlord or Feud. Doing 50 turns in a Huge sounds like a special map.

It will be so hard to reach all 8 races in 50 turns, even if they put up no fight at all. I am guessing they looked for a mpa with lots of wormholes near them or maybe it is possible to build such a map.

I have been playing since day 1 and play all the time and have yet to see any map that it would work on for less than high 60's.

It is not a question beating the races, but of reaching them that fast.

[Zoetrope]

Antares2/strategy.zip contains many threads on blitz strategies.

The main discussions were 7 years ago, and i misremembered badly. Mike Montgomery claimed (in April 1998) that as a Teleblitzer by turn 57 to 63 he could produce a battleship capable of taking down a starbase, and that in a Huge galaxy at Impossible difficulty he could conquer all races on the map by turn 134 to 140.

Quoting from Mike's article of 14 May 1998 in the thread "Feudal Blitz"), his preferred teleblitz race is:

Unif/Tel/AHW/LHW/Warlord,
with your favorite -10 negs. (I like Rep/-.5BC; or LowG/-Spy/-GC).

I had reported some success with my first tele-drill, which was at Tutor (hyper-caution) in a Huge galaxy with Feud/Tel/Lith/AHW/Rep/(some other neg picks), and Mike was querying my choice of race and difficulty.

On 9 May 1998, Imam, writing in the thread "defeat the blitz", stated that a Demo/Lith/AHW race [normally considered a research race] can "eliminate a neighboring homeworld by turn 35 in a pre-warp game (assuming good proximity) through judicious use of MIRVing Nuke destroyers."

I'm gradually working through strategy.zip. On 27 May 1998, Mike Montgomery wrote of conquering a Small, Pre-Warp, Average, Impossible galaxy in 61 turns using a missile cruiser teleblitz with Uni/Tel/Omni/AHW/RHW.

"Missiles, Blitzes and Early Defenses" (around 9 and 10 June 1998) comprises a series of articles on early blitz strategies and tactics.

[vmxa1]

Kharrus claimed 20 turns on a small map. I figured that was a cooked map or at least a very carefully selected one.

I think most of those games are not prewarp, but are average tech. They do ot want to have to learn to fly and build a ship from scratch.

[Brutalisk]

OK, Mike's feat now comes down to earth and as it turns out is not a true "accomplishment" but not bad either.

In my view, anyone who uses LowG is a fool btw... its 25% penalties are simply too heavy.

[Brutalisk]

I've just played a very quick game with the following parameters.

HUGE,
8 Players,
Impossible,
Average Tech Age,
Average Age Galaxy,
Tactical Combat ON
Antarans ON
Random events OFF
Galaxy Parameters: NONE (do not change anything) - ie wormholes ON, blackholes ON, Orion ON, Splinter Colonies ON, no preset start for homesystem - people familiar with the mod will know what I am talking about.
Game Version: 1.40b19 (simply because it gets rid of several bugs from 1.32)


Anyway, I played it pretty quickly and did it by turn 141. Not good at all, plenty of room for improvement, but I posted it here to get a race going. Keep a SAVE file of one turn just before the end of the game and be honest with yourselves. Don't use the "save/load" approach. Just play it and use save only in case the game crashes.

[Zoetrope]

Brutalisk: what race picks did you choose?

Back to the Future: ("Sid Meier's") Alpha Centauri was Brian Reynold's follow-up to Civ2 before Firaxis got the rights to Civ3. After SMAC, and before Alien Crossfire was released, Brian left Firaxis and formed Big Huge Games.

In many ways, for example diplomacy and society wise, SMAC is far, far superior to Civ3. Sometimes single-play SMAC is almost as Machiavelllian as the board-game Diplomacy. That really is something the MOO series needs, instead of the "Have I met you before? Then I hate you, and will get myself killed to spite you! (whoever you are)" approach of the MOOs' AI (Artificial Insanity).

[vmxa1]

Speak for yourself, I do not like diplomacy. Not in SMAC, not Civ.

[Croesus]

AC has more options for your government, since it is modular. You aren't just confined to democracy, communism, fundamentalism, dictatorship, feudeul, and so on. However, the combat is much more simpler in AC. I really enjoy tactical combat in MOOII. If you don't have tactical combat turned on in MOOII, you might as well play AC.

[Brutalisk]

Zoetrope: I won't say what I used, just yet. No point in this "competition" otherwise, as part of the fun is coming up with an effective race and strategy to win the game ASAP. BTW, in case I haven't mentioned it above, we are referring to winning by conquering all the races (not killing the antarans or diplomatic win)

In a second game, I gave the race above another go and did it by turn 135. With that race it can certainly be improved, since i had some hiccups during the course of the game.


I agree, the AI is not the best of AIs but it does relatively well (for an AI). It does relatively well in the battles as an AI as well. BTW, MOO2's battle system is probably one of the best if not the best that was ever made and I have seen a lot of battle systems...

One other thing about the AI, it's often the case that the AI is made to be beatable. I know first hand that people complain a lot if the AI is too difficult...