Know this Bug? (Moo1)

[vmxa1]

Yes it could be a bug. I would wonder if you noticed the version number during load up? Did it actually say 1.3?
I am deep into a huge map now and have not seen it. Psilons are more than half of the map. They do have some 2K stacks.
I did not mean to imply you actually get a boost at simple, that is not correct as you say. I was thinking the effect in comparison to being on impossible.
Bottom line, I would tend to agree that it is a glitch. I just have not seen it.

[AIL]

"Program Version 1.3 © 1993 Simtex Software" is what it says.

What's your opinion on Larger Gals? Is it harder than on small ones?

[vmxa1]

Well I feel that the bigger th map the tougher it is in Moo1 at impossible level. The Ai will have so many planets and the break on research makes it very hard. You have to sort of turtle and hope to with stand the assaults until you have enough tech to start hurting them. In a small galaxy you at least restain the amount of planets they have and therefore the tech.

[DaveV]

In the strat guide, Emrich and Hughes opine that medium galaxies make for the most difficult games. They say that the AIs fight each other for real estate on small galaxies, and the human player has enough time to establish himself before having to battle for turf in large/huge.

[AIL]

I shortly had a game on hard in a medium galaxy that was just increadibly easy compared to that I had after it on a Large one.

What is this strat guide you talk about? A book?

I read a strat guide from Jon Sullivan Page that gave quite a lot of info but don't think that's what you are talking about.

[DaveV]

Originally posted by AIL
What is this strat guide you talk about? A book?

Yes, a really useful book. If you're serious about this game, it would be well worth your while to find this book. Authors are Alan Emrich and Tom Hughes; my memory fails me on the title, but it's something about Master of Orion.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by AIL
I shortly had a game on hard in a medium galaxy that was just increadibly easy compared to that I had after it on a Large one.

What is this strat guide you talk about? A book?

I read a strat guide from Jon Sullivan Page that gave quite a lot of info but don't think that's what you are talking about.

Alan Emrich and Tom Hughes offical strat guide to Moo1.
That is what I am saying, as the ma grows and the level grows, it is worse for the human in Moo1.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by DaveV
In the strat guide, Emrich and Hughes opine that medium galaxies make for the most difficult games. They say that the AIs fight each other for real estate on small galaxies, and the human player has enough time to establish himself before having to battle for turf in large/huge.

Yes, I read that, but disagree. Remember they wrote this before all the final touches and then the ppatches.
I can only say that if you fire up a Huge map on impossible with 5 players as I just did, you will be shocked at how far you will be behind in no time.
I was able to grab a lot of planets, but soon the Psilons has 40 planets and when I spied on them they more tech that I had yet to learn, than I had altogether. 8 techs in each fields, that I did not have. Fleets of 1200 med and scores of large were common. I had none.
Later they had +8- pop, while I have +10, you get the picture. They have a research boost and the AI boost for the level, so it is much harder to get tech for the human. Since the AI is stupid, I have managed to hold on with only 2 planets destroyed. I was able to beat many fleets at my planets and maybe getting their fleet in check now. I have stolen a ton of tech from them and traded to the other players whenever they were not mad at me to get anything, even giving them good stuff for bad stuff, just to make it easier to steal the good stuff. I boosted them some at time to help them hold off the Pslions. I captured a number of other AI palnets and now will be making a move (I hope). I got star gates up on the best planets and in a turn or two will have HEF. This will let me start going on offense to really thin out their fleets and grab planets form others (I hope).

[vmxa1]

Anyway:
The real danger is that the biggest race will get votes and win before you can get in the game. This is easier to control on a small map. If the large race was human, this game would have been over long ago.
With fewer planets it will be a much longer process for any race to get all the tech needed to elimate others.
The fighting will start as soon as available planets gets low (sooner for some races). This will occur regadless of the map size, it is just the length of time require that varies. Who fights with who is not a function of map size. It is racial preferences and location. If you are in a small map and in a corner, only so many can get at you for a long time. So I reject the idea that the AI will fight each other more because it is a small map. You relations and size and location are the determinates.

[vmxa1]

Ok, I may have ran into the bug. I noticed a fleet on one of their planets that have three designs that had negative numbers.
Soon after I saw they had stacks of 32K. They came with large stacks of plasma torps and tore up planets. I was attempting to attack their fleets, but it was wierd. 30-50 large ships with all tech available where not taking damage often due to the disrupter device that makes them shakes an dyou miss.
(displacement device is what I meant)
This is way over powered as it works far to often. I would hit them with stack of 80 or so large ships with auto guass and HEF and not do ny damage. Anyway the idea was to see if the bug would show and it seems it may have. The game was too lenthy with a huge map for my taste.

[AIL]

Sad thing to hear! I had hoped you would not run into it and it could really be because of the lacking memory. Now I think it's an outcome of battles between AI-players. Thats what was not in my two testing games since the one was with only one opponent and the other with a Final War from very soon on, where they do not attack each other.

The device you are talking about is the displacement device (disruptors are snot-collored beam-weapons that always have a range of 2) the description says it makes 1/3rd of all attacks miss, regardless of any defense and attack boni and if it's a weapon or special that would normally always hit. But I don't think it's the only reason for you of not doing any damage. Gauss Autocannons do not do so much max-damage in average. And if they had Class XV shields, what is likely at this time, you'd hardly do any damage with Gauss.

[vmxa1]

Yeah, I knew that is was not a disruptor, but if figured if I tossed in the shaken part, people would know what it was. I will edit the old post. I was too lazy to look it up.
So it would seem in a game were you struggle for a long time and other races are not eliminated, you may see this bug. Since I play mostly on small maps I do not see it. When I play on large maps, I will either do well enough to keep the ohter races down or get killed before the game will get deep into the time line.

[vmxa1]

AIL, I would have never seen the problem in that test game, if I was not looking for it. Two reason, 1- I would not be checking the ships of theirs so closely 2- I would have abandoned the game much sooner. I only struggled so hard to give the game a chance to see the bug.

[AIL]

I also have not been looking after this bug. I found it because I was so worried about a pop drop one race had between 2 elections. So I checked their planets and found they all had a very low maxpop. I then saw, that their fleet size was just increadible and after looking around a little bit I found these giant fleets. Well, I hope Moo 3 will come out soon and hopefully not contain bugs like this. I really don't like moo2 very much for the reason that the AI makes so increadibly weak ship-designs and colonizes so slow. Another reason is that the programmers overvalued some buildings that are VERY useless like the food replicator.

[vmxa1]

When Moo3 comes out and if I like it, it will not change much on my playing of Moo1/2. I will still get in some games of each. I love Moo2, with all of the flaws.