Best Race.

[Like2frolick]

What's the best kinda race?

Add Race generation+ship idea here...

[Master Marcus]

...and what's yours???

Truly, it's not only the "best race", it's also the best strats+unbeatable ships shared on many other forums in the past ( and you can find some in the MoO2 section on the recent MoO3 site )... déja vu , but why not sharing it here at Apolyton.

The government choice in MoO2 is crucial and affects more your gameplay style than the vast majority of other Empire-building games.
For a hybrid builder, Unification is the obvious choice for a faster expansion. Democracy is of course highly enjoyable; but Dictatorship ( slower expansion at the beginning ) is hard to tag along in my advanced games. Feudal may be the ideal choice for some warlords playing on tinier maps, it's just I can't stand the -50% research - a real @#*?@shh.
My favorite settings ( not all games ):

Hard/Impossible, huge map ( hey, it's gonna be a small one in MoO3), Unification, creative, +1 research OR rich HW, -10 spy, -10 Ground combat.

ship= before mid-game, interceptors are helpful. Later on I mostly invest on Hv beams.
favorite specials aside Battle pods: Heavy Armor, Reinforced hull, TIME WARP FACILITATOR.
a good Doom Star: 6 specials are sufficient i.e. Battle pods, heavy armor, reinforced hull, ECM jammer *, inertial stabilizer*, TIME WARP FACILITATOR. Weapons: 1 stellar converter, some Hv Death rays, some ECCM-FAST missles, only 1 bomb. OR you can make ONLY Hv plasma cannons ( enveloping ) for at least the same amount of damage done if not MORE, but imagine 40-45 ones in each Doom Star : the battle turns are too long.

*: their superior upgrades are great but with an already high defense, save the amount of space for weapons.

[Like2frolick]

Fighters are useless.

C'mon! Mirv Missiles are ~much~ better, and later in the game Beam attacks are so staggering that a dozen PD guns will kill a dozen missiles.

[ravagon]

Favourite custom race (pre-patch) picks are; creative (a must IMO), cybernetic, omniscient and telepathic.
Penalties; Growth 50% (this one hurts), ground combat (with telepathy you hardly ever need ground forces) and spying (penalties offset by telepathy anway).
For the "mutation" (?) science pick later in the game I generally take warlike (double cp).

Favourite tactic is to try and capture (via transporters) and reverse-engineer antaran ships. Nothing beats that shield damper on a large ship with enhanced structure/armour and auto-repair (+ cybernetic).
Who needs shields?

[Master Marcus]

Originally posted by Like2frolick
Fighters are useless.

C'mon! Mirv Missiles are ~much~ better, and later in the game Beam attacks are so staggering that a dozen PD guns will kill a dozen missiles.

For the fighters, they make a lot more damage against ANY opponent than any other weapon ( beams and missles are weak befor plasma cannon and pulson ) in the first half; as I said in my post I don't use them in the second half - then they are useless.

AS for your second statement, I completely disagree but hey - we each have a distinct gameplay style and MoO2 offer a lot of diversity for that. PD ability is strong, but I always found the AI very weak when using its missles. My other Hv enveloping beams are generally ( 90% of battles ) sufficient to eradicate an enemy fleet BEFORE its missles can reach me in the last combat turn.

[Like2frolick]

Try this:
Start out, get as much missile tech as you can, until you can put Mirv Nuke's on things.

Build several destroyers/frigates, with nothing BUT Mirving Nukes.

Destroy everyone in the immediate area.

Fighters: Have no shields, and take four times longer to do a similar amount of damage.

Generally speaking, early in the game, missiles are the king, middle: Beams, late: Beams

Mirv Nukes
Nuke Damage: 8(every missile does 8 damage)
MIRV: 2x cost, 4X damage
Damage per nuke: 32 damage/nuke

Generally, you can stuff 2 nukes on a frigate(with Battle-pods)
Or six-seven nukes on a destroyer

Frigate: 64 damage
Destroyer:192 damage per rack

Build a half dozen, and you can wipe out any new fleet.

Now..on the other hand

Interceptors: Space:25, (doesn't go down)
4 PD Beams(at this stage, lasers, or Mass drivers)
(Laser damage) 1-2
MD Damage: 3

Assuming you're using MDs, and don't have lasers(unlikely...)
12 damage, for all four fighters, if they get through. That's not bad.

Over the four rounds(assuming they're not destroyed)
48 damage.

Pretty good...BUT: A single Frigate can do 64 damage in one round...and 128 in 2.

Add in the fact that you're less likely to be shot down.....



Now, if Fighters used shields, or armor....then maybe I could say it was useful. However, in comparison to such things as mirv-nukes, they're outmatched.

Go ahead...try it out.



And, there's no doubt that, in the endgame, when you have Beam abilities of 100+, and shield-piercing phasors, or heavy Plasma Cannons, that you can smash your opponent ~well~ before he can harm you.

[dexter4dxm]

i agree with you Like2frolick, I ended up using this strategy after countless hours of playing because it works.

[aaglo]

On MOO2 at first (when creating a race) I always wanted a creative race. But IMO the result was always a boring game, getting all the techs isn't that great. Usually I now play with something like this:
Subterranean, Unification, -10 spying, -10 ground combat, -20 ship defence and +50 ship offense (+/- something extra). Sometimes even uncreative, which gives some challenge, but in that case it's good to have charismatic also.

[Garth Vader]

I find the ship differences interesting.

I am a beam man myself.

My first warship is usually a cruiser with
2 HV AP, CO, AF, NR lasers
4 PD AF, CO lasers

battle pods, battle scanner, heavy armor(or reinforced hull, if I don't have HA)

I then find any AI who doesn't have planetary defense buildings and take em out. I usually like taking telepathic, so it's easy. If I have to I will build a destroyer with mirv nukes, but I only do that if I really want to take someone out and they have missile bases and fighter garrisons. I use lasers until phasers or plasma cannons (unless I happen to get graviton beam). I have been able to conquer a huge galaxy on hard while still using lasers.

My later designs are similar. For larger ships and later cruisers I add a third weapon which is normal mount and is used for shooting down fighters and missiles with more power so the fleet can support eachother better.

[Master Marcus]

yo, man, a "NON-MIRVIC missle addict" like me!

For newcomers passing by, you'll find also some other killing strats on "shining, spying, cheating" thread where many posters have decided to share their settings there, but it should have been here instead.

[jdlessl]

I only ever choose Creative if I'm playing on Impossible difficulty. It's just too easy to win otherwise.

Other than that, I usually get a 2 food production bonus. It helps immensely to only need half as many guys farming. Quite unrealistic, really. On an industrialized planet, you're not going to have more than a few percent of the population working on farms.

Subterranean/Large Homeworld also gives you a boost in the beginning.

--
Jared Lessl

[Sarxis]

Yeah, the Creative ability is a killer attritute, and any race that doesn't have will be FUBAR quickly.

[Like2frolick]

Creative is ~okay~.....

But...well. ::Shrug:: I personally prefer Subterraneon. I can choose the most important tech's for myself, and steal/capture/demand/exchange the rest.

Although it's not FULL proof...as long as you have the important research/production techs, weapon tech's become less important, against the AI.

Trade Weapons for Nice, fun techs!

And Build Capture ships, and steal anything your opponent uses against you.,

[The Mad Monk]

I'm not sure about my favorite 'custom mix', but most of mine include subterranean and aquatic. Aquatic treats terran and water worlds as gaia class (in term of both food production and pop limit), and swamp and tundra as terran (again, as above). Consider what that food bonus does for early colonization efforts, and the pop boost does for later development efforts...add in the pop bonus of sub, and...

BTW, I usually 'pay' for these by taking all the negative combat mods, and either the negative spy mod or the farming hit, depending on what else I loaded on the race.

[The Mad Monk]

Some of my thoughts on ship design can be found here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12563