Custom Race- Best Stats?

[vmxa1]

I think most know that you get 4 techs from Orion and can capture ships and possibly get tech from them (anyones). Not sure what you mean by pop cheat. I would guess you mean capture a planey and them give it back or let it be taken? Yes that is too much trouble.

[vmxa1]

Any chance you want to give a run down on your game. Starting save and some highlights of the process for the first 100 turns?

[bakalov]

OK

I will give you the details about the first 100 turns with my fav race - may be it's not too easy to explain but ....

Some general hints:
1. since my race concentrates on research it has drawback on production ... I almost every time have 2 workers that produce "wasteless" production - usually the third one begins to add waste. This may be not true only for the first few turns or if I get a megawealth leader so i have much money and can afford to buy buildings. These workers have to construct colony base, but I NEVER allow them to finish it - just when I research a new tech and have a building to build, I change the colony base to the desired building. Later I change the colony base with battlestation or a ship.

2. I usually buy buildings when the price falls down to 2:1 (money : production) or it is close to that. There may be exceptions.

3. When a leader comes up and I want him but dont have the money I set my workers to build trade goods and raise the tax to 50% - this way I convert the production to money with 3/4 ratio instead of 1/2

4. When a leader comes and I want him, but want him for later stages of the game (there is no instant benefit from him) I hire him the las turn possible (saving money for 30 turns from his salary)

5. My second colony is ALWAYS a conquered one

And here is my sequence of research/buildings (for large maps, for small it can be changed according to the events):

1. Research Lab
2. Automated Factory
3. Hydroponic Farm
-- (Biospheres may be here if I have a megawealth leader, else I leave them after Robo Miners)
4. Cloning Center
5. Soil Enrichment
6. Supercomputer
7. Holo simulator
8. Spaceport
9. Robo miners (I completely build this by turn 80)

I research straight to the buildings; dont bother to research other techs - even dont have ships :-)

While I am building the robo miners I put some ppl for scientists (to gain about 100 RP/ turn) and research the
3 50RP techs for a turn (these required for ships); then raise my science to 160 and research the colony ships.

then I aim for the following techs:
Battle Scanner
Class III shield
Tritanium Armor
Space Academy

When I have these I build an academy and a battleship that has:

5 Hv AF Mass Drivers
10 Pd AF Mass Drivers

Battle Pods
Battle Scanner
Heavy Armor
Inertial Stabilizer

5 Free space for some more defence :-)

next: Outpost ship? may be ...
next : a few transports

If I have a pilot I add him to the ship ... and happy hunting ....

No one this time of the game can beat this ship, it can beat any count of enemies. It can't beat missile bases though unless they are with very low armor :-( If the enemy has missile bases I go for 4th level of force fields and throw in ECM Jammer + raise Hv Mass Drivers to 7 and lower PD Mass Drivers to 9 (1 free space And with 2 such ships I can beat missile bases too; may be 3 ships if there are some with very high armor.
I can finish this ship about turn 110 (may be a bit sooner or a bit later, depends on luck Zortrium armor helps too

[bakalov]

Yesterday I played 4 games on Impossible, Small galaxy, max number of opponents with this race and won them all :-) There was some intrigue though ....

In one of the games there was a time space anomaly on my starting system, and I survived it; Another game the computers decided to ruin me with spies - even they destroyed my starting starbase - I built missile base for def and continued - rebuilt my star base after I had Robo Miner Plant . Another game the first face I saw was Darlok's and it was very early (about turn 10) - very unpleasant, they declared war on me and again I beat them (that time I had to research force fields 1 very early, but it helps and build a cruiser with shields/ mass drivers to defend myself for some time.

On small maps it may be a good idea to research Xeno Psychology early on so you can make good relations with the non-repulsive races.

And I usually build little or no spies for defence. May be some if they are sabotaging Dont bother if they steal a tech - I have much more them. I'm just saying: "You will see, bastards!"

[vmxa1]

There are reasonable steps, but you would need to be creative to do them.
Soil and Clone are on the same track, so if non creative, you only get one or the other. Same for Holo as it is with super computer and no one is going to pass up the super comp.
Heavy Armor is with Automatic factories, so can not have both as a non creative.
Here is what I am looking for : see save and logs are all in the thread Mirv Missiles...

[bakalov]

Yes, vmxa1, you have to be creative for that strategy ...
as I said before my fav race is:

Creative
Aquatic
Artifacts HW
Large HW
+1 Research

Low Gravity HW
-10 Espionage
-20 Ship Attack

You have to try that race :-) and experienced player like you will see that there is no chance to lose to AIs with it, no matter the map or starting tech level. It is very powerful at the start and well-balanced .....

On prewarp it starts with 30 RP from turn 1 and IS Creative. With full homeworld and supercomputer tech it generates more than 200 RP without leaders or treaties. You only have to overwhelm the opponents by tech :-) Never build colonies, just conquer all :-)

For huge maps again dont build colonies, build some outposts to get to the enemies quickly if necessary.

[bakalov]

BTW are we all eager for MOO3 ? :-)

[vmxa1]

Yes I have played it and of course won with it and variants of it, with many map sizes and configurations. It is one of the strong races, but my point is I have not found any that are invincible. So the people that tell me they are, make me ask, what the heck am I doing wrong? What part of the game do not understand. What do they do that I don't? I have not found the answer. Of course I can think of a few things that are not quite kosher, but they all claim that is not the case. So I keep saying, just give me a save at the start and maybe log of the first 100 turns and a save at that pointl and one where the game is on hand. Then I will see what the thing is that I have failed to grasp. So far none have and I understand that may a bit of an effort, but not much and could be interesting to do. I mean I do not want to come out and say I am a master player, but OTOH I have a great deal of experience with this game. I keep hoping to get that answer and improve some more. So if you can clue me in, that would be great.

[vmxa1]

Yes most here are ready for Moo3.

[bakalov]

Today I have the logs + saves of 2 games and will post them in the other thread where your logs are. I played these last night with the only purpose to make logs :-)

[xoham]

With Bakalov's race:

Creative
Aquatic
Artifacts HW
Large HW
+1 Research

Low Gravity HW
-10 Espionage
-20 Ship Attack

... I seemed to do very well. However, I took a ship defense hit instead of ship offense. I researched straight to planetary supercomputer and out-researched everyone (use the Psilon face). It was surprsingly easy. I started fighting with mass drivers, then moved to a graviton BB (I think BB as an abbreviation for Battleship make no sense... at all). I was a bit concerned when the Mrrshans surrendered to the Darloks, who were already doing well. But I stomped them anyway.

Man, creative is really easy; at least in my experience FOR SINGLE PLAYER GAMES.

[originalbork]

Looking at the rookies make claims that creative is the best is almost comical. In a single player huge prewarp organic 100-130 turns is all it takes to exterminate the competition. Not that single player games count for squat.

The simple combination is always

Unification
Aquatic
+2 Production
Large & Rich Home
Repulsive
-20 Ground & Defense

By the time you roll out your mirved emg BB's with Class 3 they never go out of style when playing single player. Everything past that is gravy for mop up time.

If you play Multiplayer, creative will handcuff you unless left untouched for over 100 turns.

1 on 1 a creative in Pre or Ave tech will never have enough population to match that race. They will need to have a complete mismatch of a start to have prayer 1 of being in the game when it counts.

Bork

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by originalbork
Looking at the rookies make claims that creative is the best is almost comical. In a single player huge prewarp organic 100-130 turns is all it takes to exterminate the competition. Not that single player games count for squat.

The simple combination is always

Unification
Aquatic
+2 Production
Large & Rich Home
Repulsive
-20 Ground & Defense

By the time you roll out your mirved emg BB's with Class 3 they never go out of style when playing single player. Everything past that is gravy for mop up time.

If you play Multiplayer, creative will handcuff you unless left untouched for over 100 turns.

1 on 1 a creative in Pre or Ave tech will never have enough population to match that race. They will need to have a complete mismatch of a start to have prayer 1 of being in the game when it counts.

Bork

Yes this is a std MP race and may be fine for SP. But are not going to exterminate anyone in 100 turns in a huge map. You may not even met anyone before t110. It is quite easy to goto 150 turns before first contact.

[originalbork]

What works in MP is like a hot knife through butter in SP.
That race will have 2-3 colony ships down by turn 50 plus their entire home system will be based immediately.

If you have 4 systems I guarantee you have made contact.

I haven't played in 3 years but I promise if I found my CD I could beat the computer in less than 200 first game.

Until you play on Kali for a month you have no frame of reference as to how good the players are.

I was always one of the top 3 players on Kali or Ten. I'm sure they have added some wrinkles since I was there.

[vmxa1]

What I am sure of is that they are lots of good players on Kali and not on Kali. I am also quite sure that there is nothing new and the game is not complex. Now you are up to 200 turns, what happen to the 110?