Help please

[Falconoffury]

I just got done losing my second game of master of orion II, and I need some help in understanding what I'm doing wrong. I am new to this game, but I have been playing various strategy games for a long time, but I honestly think this is the most challenging game on the "normal" difficulty setting that I have ever seen.

My first two games were on the largest map size, 8 players, pre-warp, as human both times. j

In my first game, I soon discovered the Psilons and made fast friends with them. I was expanding my empire with few problems. I even made an alliance with them. Then the Klackons came in and took over a few of the Psilons worlds. I was asked to join the war against the klackons. I felt that I had a powerful fleet, but the klackon ships destroyed me with hardly a scratch. They had a weapon called a gyro destabilizer, and it annihilated me. I fought back, but I seemed to miss almost all the time. If I had been able to land my shots, I might have been able to take out some of their ships.

So I tried again. I found the alkari and the elerians early. I started a war with the elerians fairly early, but I destroyed their ships (the only battles I won so far playing this game). They offered 10% tribute for peace, so I accepted. Then, the alkari and elerians fought a war that lasted most of the game. The klackons destroyed the psilons again, and towards the end the klackons and trilarians had the biggest empires, with myself coming in 3rd. I was framed somehow and the trilarians declared war on me. Once again, I was annihilated without destroying a single one of their ships. I missed almost every shot. I tried to figure out what the heck was going on, and I noticed that their beam defense was 137% for all their ships. Mine was only around 50-60 percent. Is this why all of my attacks miss? They launched fighters at me, and I even missed those stupid things. The funny thing is that our weapon systems are pretty comparable. Only their weapons hit me almost every time doing significant damage.

I am posting here because I want to like this game, and I need your help to like this game. I just have to say that for normal difficulty, the computer player seems incredibly efficient at keep pacing and surpassing your levels of technology and fleet size. So, what am I doing wrong?

[StepNRazor]

There are may posts on this site that can help you,select read all post not just last 30 days.

Look at useing a custom race there are post on this board as well as other moo2 site about favorite race. For starters try Uni Aqua +1 prod Omni Large Rich -ship defence - ground combat repulsive. That race pic uses 20 points by takeing pelantlies to gain race points. repulsive -6 points is very handy.

Next look for threads talking about building up your population.

Look for threads on techs choices, a standard choice is research labs, auto factories, battle pods, augmented engines, fusion beam, battle scanner. form here some other thech to go for next are neular scanner super computers space port robo miner polution trit armor processor irridium cells.

Look for threads that help in when to do certain things like when to expand tech build ships. Normaly in the begining you want to produce your home systems colony bases.
also look on kali there are folks there that can help and links to some other sites

[Falconoffury]

Could you tell me what tech choices allow you to land shots in ship combat? I fought ships with comparable weapons, I just missed all the time.

[StepNRazor]

Battle scanners add 50 to OCV, Offensive Combat Value.

Space accademy, always have a space acadmey built on the colony's that are building your ships the crew is upgraded from green to regular then and increases in OCV and DCV.

Weapons with CO, continious fire modification such as Fusion beam add 20.
AF, Afuto Fire weapons fire 3 time 1st shot -0 OCV, 2nd shot -20 OCV 3rd shot -40 OCV. if you have AF CO weapons like lzrs add the bonus and minus 1st shot +20 2nd shot -0 3rd shot -20

Targeting computers, electronic computer is +25, opti is +50, posi is +75, Cyber is +100, Molecuratronic is +125. Of these comps tech either cybertronic or moleculartronic, research labs and super comps are important. some types of game play you can go for posi comp and try to capture super computer tech.

Race picks such as
+20 or +50 ship attack

Warlord, ships are one level higher in experience so with a space accademy new ships are vetrans.

Things that improve your DCV, Defencive combat value.
Agumeneted engines
Inetial nullifiers
Faster ship drives
Warlord
+ship def
Transdeminsional

C1, Class 1 or C3 shield help alot. Mass drivers are a decent weapon if you have good OCV so often mass driver C3 are paired.

[siron]

About beam chance to hit:

1. Dont take the racepick -shipattack
2. Before you build a ship bigger than a ff, build a space academy first. (Crew is regular then and you receive +15 beam attack at start.)
3. Supercomps are more important than posi comp.
4. ALWAYS research battlescanners.
5. So you have 15+25+50=90 beam attack at start.

This means a ship you should hit a ship with 90 Beam defense with ~50% from point blank.

About your beam def:
ALWAYS research and build in dd-bb:
1. battlepods (you get more speed = better beam def value. 1combatspeed is 5 BD.)
2. aug engines (see above)
3. ion drive
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4. int stab can be nice but also gc-value-advantage can be really nice.
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When you are able to build your fleet early on you should park them at systems with many academies.

EACH academy generates an experience point.

You need 100 XPs to improve from regular to veteran (or veteran to elite for a warlord). Check out the FLEETS screen for details.

You get 1 XP per turn. With 5 academies in the system you have already 6 per turn. Well and then there are instructors.

[siron]

afk 15 and Cross hi step! nice to see u.

[Falconoffury]

Aside from the excessive use of acronyms, I appreciate the help.

How does the experience level of a ship affect its chance to hit?

[Aabraxan]

Go back and read the old posts on general strategy, race customization, techs, & ship design. There's a lot of good info there, even if it takes a while to wade through. There are also links to some sites with even more good info. I didn't see any mention of missiles in your post, though I may have overlooked it. Read the posts on missile ships & beam weapons & on modifying weapons, both beam & missile. You may find that missile ships are more effective than beam ships, at least up to the point where you have researched decent ship computers.

[Falconoffury]

I forgot to mention missles. I was balancing missles and beams on my ships pretty much. Unfortunately, the missles were mostly blown out of the sky before they even hit anything. How do you get missles to survive their trip to the enemy ship?

[siron]

Have you read this guide?

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

It is mentioned under Ship Design there.

The chapters Military Technology, Ship Construction, Combat contain further details without acronyms.

[Falconoffury]

Thank you for showing me that guide. While I'm not interested in getting good against humans, I found some good suggestions.

I think I just missed out on most of the tech that improves a ship's beam offense and defense.

[siron]

While I'm not interested in getting good against humans, I found some good suggestions.

The first months are fun against the AI. But sooner or later you will realize that there are boring exploits. Killing the AI on and on with the same design/tactics is boring then. Then you will stop with moo2 or starting moo2 mp. I bet

[Aabraxan]

Originally posted by Falconoffury
While I'm not interested in getting good against humans, I found some good suggestions.

Maybe not. I don't have time to get involved in multiplayer MOO2, but I've found guides like that and the various threads on these boards to be tremendously helpful.

[Falconoffury]

The game is fun, but the research system seems unbalanced. It's easy to mess up your game simply by picking the wrong research projects.

Since I plan on beating the game with every race, and then maybe some custom races, I will be playing this game for a long time.

[Zoetrope]

(1) My first MOO2 game: _Tutor_ difficulty, Psilon race, Prewarp. Perished in 50 turns, while still gazing at the stars from the homeworld. Moral: always set pause at end of turn.

(2) Choose Automated Factories and Research Labs and build them early.

(3) Before good targetting computers: Missiles rule. A simple (but suboptimal) strategy: stack ships with MIRV nukes, and launch en masse. In the early game, this causes AI ships to flee. Trade for or steal the Dauntless Guidance tech so that missiles retarget.

(4) Ships' experience increases with each battle fought. Seek a star with 5 planets, so you can place 5 Space Academies in the system for training purposes (while not in battle, and for re-equipping).

(5) Never make alliances; never be persuaded to attack an unmeasured foe.

(6) There's much more to say about choice and use of races, colonisation, espionage, diplomacy (which is fickle in MOO2: see also rule 5), etc. See, for example, the collected advice at my website:

ftp://ftp.sff.net/pub/people/zoetrope/MOO2/Advice/

(7) When you're more experienced, and if you still enjoy single-play (as I always have), then it's possible to adjust the technology tree (and some of the technologies) using the OCL editor in the Utilities section.

Best wishes! And may the Antarans cower before your approach!