A handful of MOO2 questions...

[Carolus Rex]

I'm a MOO2 enthusiast, who have barely scratched the surface of the game (I've played it on and off for years)... I'm not any good, but I really enjoy it...

I only play as humans... Felt like the most natural race the first time and I just keep sticking to it... Maybe because the other races' leader images look ridiculous compared to Yul Brunner?!

I have some difficulties playing... First of all, the beginning. It seems to be a lot less to do compared to Civ 2. I often find myself hitting enter with nothing to do and it feels as if I'm missing out on the important early game...

The first few times I played, I always went for space travel technologies to be able to expand to other systems...

Now, I favour automated factories and research labs and always build them on Sol before researching the travel techs... Otherwise, building colony ships takes forever and meanwhile I have no research...

How fast do you expand? Do you go via colony ships and grab systems, or do you use colony bases and claim whatever planets there are in the home system first? I suppose it depends on their type, size, gravity etc?

Plenty of more questions, but it's getting late here...

Carolus

[siron]

Regarding ship techs, I assume you play pre warp age?

UniAqua 2prod large rich hw can produce Cships without autofacts. Otherwise the opportunity costs are too high. Even for the other uberprodrace uni tol 1prod large hw. If I understand correctly, you play the humans - stockrace. Of course you need rlabs and autofacts before you expand. With fast techraces like demo lith arti I would even wait for robo miners (you have them roundabout turn40 in prewarp) before you build cships.

[Carolus Rex]

Uhm...

Yes, I always play pre-warp and as the humans. You use a lot of abbreviations that I don't understand...

What is UniAqua? I've only come across planets classified as "ocean"...

hw = Homeworld?

What is uni tol 1prod?

Stockrace?

demo lith arti?

A question about rich and poor planets... This influences worker penalties, right (or is that gravity)? How do the penalties work? If it says 50 %, does it mean that it takes 50 % more turns to build an item there? Because the cost to build it is higher or because the workers are less productive?

And - 50 % means that it's faster to build?

Carolus

[vmxa1]

"Carolus Rex"

Note that you can play with any custom traits and still use the Human portrait to represent you.

"What is UniAqua? I've only come across planets classified as "ocean"..."

Uni is short for Unification. It is one of the forms of governments you can select.
Aqua is short for Aquatic. This trait allows them to treat Tundra and Swaps as Terran and Swamps and Terran as Gaia worlds for the purposes of population.

"hw = Homeworld?"

Yes

"What is uni tol 1prod?"

Well we already covered Uni. Tol is short for tolerant. Allow them to be tolerant of hostile environments. This means that planets that most could only get 25% out of they can get 50%.

They do not need pollution controls.

"Stockrace?"

Those the races provided and the traits they have.

"demo lith arti?"

Demo is short for Democracy.
Lith is Lithovore.
Arti is short for Artifacts.

These traits can be seen in the race screen.

"A question about rich and poor planets... This influences worker penalties, right (or is that gravity)? How do the penalties work? If it says 50 %, does it mean that it takes 50 % more turns to build an item there? Because the cost to build it is higher or because the workers are less productive?"

Planets have a unit per labor value. Ultra Poor is 1 and Poor is 2, Abundant is 3, Rich is 4 and Ultra Rich is 5. This is one determinate of how much you can produce on the planet.

So yes the Poor will take longer to make a structure or unit than a Rich, if all other facotrs are equal.

"And - 50 % means that it's faster to build?"

Not sure in relation to what? You can have -50 on food or growth and some other things have a minus value. For food or growth it will mean you will have a slower growth rate and less food means slower growth as well. Actually I guess it only means you will need to offset the food production to get to the same level.

So to start the game it effectively means planets will have less food to feed the pop and hence it will be harder to grow.

[Carolus Rex]

Some races are never possible to establish treaties with. However, in some games I've entered trade and research treaties with the Trilarians.

But in a recent game that option was not available in the diplomatic dialogue menu... I could not even propose it, why?

Carolus

[vmxa1]

If either you or they have the Repulsive trait, you cannot make treaties. You cannot trade, only declare war and maybe peace, I forget if that is allowed.

[Carolus Rex]

Yeah ok, but do the traits change from game to game? I haven't customised or changed anything from one game to another... I thought the default traits remained the same unless you actively changed them?

Carolus

[Carolus Rex]

A question about assessing the combat strength of fleets.

Sometimes I enter a starsystem early on with, say, two battleships. There is only a starbase, yet my two ships are destroyed. On the other hand, whenever an enemy fleet (or a single battleship) enters one of my systems, everything I have is destroyed. Not once have a starbase of mine defeated enemy ships...

Worse, if I have ships in the system they just die too... Only once did I have a defense worth the name... Some race sent in wave after wave of ships and I won all the time, but have no clue why...

In other words, I find the combat system somewhat random and quite hard to predict (I don't play in tactical combat mode).

In Civ 2, the icon of the units reveals some information about attack and defense values. When I see a phalanx, for example, I know it has two as defense value. True, I don't know if it's a veteran or not, but I have a fair notion of its strength.

I've sent in large fleets and they just die. Then I'm wide open and lose the game a couple of turns later. How do you assess whether you have a fair chance of winning in battle in this game?

Carolus

[siron]

Strategical Combat is very rarely played.

But maybe this table here can help you:

ftp://ftp.sff.net/pub/people/zoetrop...s/original.rul

The last columns in Armor, Shields, Computers and AFAIK the last both columns in Ships and Specials are related to strategical combat.

[Aabraxan]

Diplomacy & Race Picks:
I don't know what difficulty you're playing at, but at Impossible (and maybe at lower levels?), the AIs get additional race picks. Repulsive is the only trait that I know of that would prevent you from making treaties. It may be that the Trilarians (or whoever you're dealing with at the time) have taken Rep and some other combination of traits. There's a game info screen that will tell you the characteristics of any race you've encountered. If you take Rep, you'll only be able to declare war and make peace, iirc.

Fleet strength:
My advice: play tactical combat. Otherwise, you're stuck with stock ship designs. They stink compared to what you can design yourself. That will also give you the ability to scan their ships, for example before beginning your attack, so that you can see how they've outfitted their ships. I find the tactical part of MOO2 to be one of its best features. Not only can you design your own ships, you can put them in drydock and refit them. It's great fun.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Carolus Rex
Yeah ok, but do the traits change from game to game? I haven't customised or changed anything from one game to another... I thought the default traits remained the same unless you actively changed them?

Carolus

The race you choose will stick with the default traits, unless you customize it and you should. Those traits will not be exactly the same at all level for the AI as it can have more pick than normal at impossible leve and I cannot remeber the lower levels any longer.

Go to the race screen to see the traits for the races that are in the game.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Carolus Rex
A question about assessing the combat strength of fleets.

Sometimes I enter a starsystem early on with, say, two battleships. There is only a starbase, yet my two ships are destroyed. On the other hand, whenever an enemy fleet (or a single battleship) enters one of my systems, everything I have is destroyed. Not once have a starbase of mine defeated enemy ships...

Worse, if I have ships in the system they just die too... Only once did I have a defense worth the name... Some race sent in wave after wave of ships and I won all the time, but have no clue why...

In other words, I find the combat system somewhat random and quite hard to predict (I don't play in tactical combat mode).

In Civ 2, the icon of the units reveals some information about attack and defense values. When I see a phalanx, for example, I know it has two as defense value. True, I don't know if it's a veteran or not, but I have a fair notion of its strength.

I've sent in large fleets and they just die. Then I'm wide open and lose the game a couple of turns later. How do you assess whether you have a fair chance of winning in battle in this game?

Carolus

As has been said, tactical is the only way to play, unless you just want to see what the other looks like or an added challenge.

You can scan ships and planets to see what they have. The main thing is that if they have inititive and better stuff, you get hurt. So if they have a starbase with better armor and or shields and well as a good missle and you have little, then you get whacked.

It does not mean much to me, if you have battleships or not. It is what they are packing and what you are facing. 2 BB's with lasers and crappy computer are not going to get very far.

You will have crappy computers, if you are not creative as you will have to pick other things most of the time.

Some of us have played this game since it came out and do not have to think about what can be beaten and what cannot. You just have to design good ships and you have little to fear.

Try to not pack them with lots of specials. Get reinforced hulls and use the best comp you have with your beams. Do not add mods to the beams as they just take up room that could give you more guns.

Early look to nuke missle boats to hit and run. Those do get improvements such as armor and mirv. Do not put them all in one bay. As you get better features, put the first slots with the lowest missles to go out and get the PDS fire and the better ones after to get past the defenses.

[Carolus Rex]

Thanks to all for your advice!

I guess I have to go tactical then... In fact, I've tried a couple of times now. I noticed there are some new techs available, interesting...

And yes, I still get my behind handed to me...

Carolus

[Aabraxan]

Glad to help. Keep us posted. It's nice to see a little activity in here.

[Carolus Rex]

I think I'm about to win my first game at Impossible (and no tactical combat)...

I haven't finished it yet... Some other race will probably soon send 47 battleships to mop up my systems...

Anyway, some more questions...

Do you micromanage a lot? I check the "colonies screen" (where all the colonies are listed) and if an item is one turn from completion I shuffle workers around to maximise science output (mostly) while still being able to build the item next turn... After a while this becomes quite boring... How do the pros micromanage? Or don't you? As the science output needed for a break-through isn't exact, perhaps noone cares?

Do you lose production "shields" for the next item if you have created a build list and you shuffle workers around to maximise science output? Suppose I don't shuffle them around... Are the extra "shields" (i.e. production units beyond the ones needed for the completion of the item) wasted or are they used to build the next item?

Is there an optimal way to cycle through systems or colonies? I don't know why, but I quickly lose track of my empire...

Is there a strategy to grow your planets quickly? For example, I build hydroponic farms and clonic centres to speed up population growth. However, it seems unintelligent to build these on every planet (well, the clonic centres at least), so I've tried to do it in a few places and then transport colonists to other systems... I'm not sure, though, whether I should do it on the planets that are Gaia/Terran and ship people to more sterile systems or the other way around (after all, you empty the good planets, at least initially)... The former way seems better... Is there a consensus on how to do this, or a better way?

I terraform quite a lot as I like to have perfect planets... It takes some time and often I neglect my military capacity... Which planets do you choose to terraform? The ones that need it once or twice and then are quite good, or the really bad ones? Or not at all?

Carolus