Favourite MOO 1 tips/tricks

[ravagon]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I would say the back is a bigger exploit.

That I would agree with. Completely. Not the tactic per se but that the AI doesn't evaluate the ships involved before pulling back.
With a single medium ship and nuclear missiles you can force back a stack of hundreds of large/huge ships that would never take losses otherwise.
I don't really remember if it works when they out-shield your missiles though...

[vmxa1]

It can work almost all the way through the game. I use nothing better than merc on the missile boats that I use to force a backup. The fleet may have missile def of 6 or better and not be hurt by that missile and still back up. At times they ignore you and come anyway. I have had them ignore the first volley and back up on the second volley? When in doubt I have two ships (different designs of course) fire at the same fleet to increase the odds that the fleet will back up. This method is often the only way to prevent them from doing serious damage to the planet (short of making even more bases).

[Zed-F]

Grinning man: exactly, those big missles are space hogs; by the time you get around to researching them, you have got a fast drive or at least a decent drive with a couple levels of miniaturization under your belt, the almighty HEF, and some decent beams and bombs with a couple levels of miniaturization. Due to the combination of faster movement and longer range guns, beam ships and bombers become much more useful at this point, and the sun sets on the era of the missle boat. Missles are still important for planetary defense, especially scatter packs, but not nearly so much on the offensive.

I think it's quite interesting that the MOO3 combat range scales up with increasing technology. That's a very good idea that goes a long way to retaining the value of indirect fire weapons like missles and fighters over the course of the whole game. In both previous MOOs the faster movement techs force a transition away from standoff weapons and towards the more efficient beams as time goes on.

vxma1, another good way to prevent bombing is to use repulsor-beam equipped ships to guard your planet, but it won't work properly against cloaked enemies or subspace teleporters. You probably already knew this but I thought I'd mention it for the sake of completeness. Also, using scatter packs to force a backup is usually better because the missles are still slow enough to outrun but can pack a much more respectable punch, so the AI will be more likely to outrun them.

For me, the backup exploit is rarely problematic. I almost never use it, as except for the times the AI decides to build lots of fusion bomb equipped fighters very early in the game, usually I'm fully on the offensive by the time big stacks of enemy ships with lots of bombs might become a problem. Of course I usually begin at least harrassing attacks during the missle boat era and don't wait for the beamer era that you prefer, so it's only natural that we would know more about different exploits than one another.

[vmxa1]

I have been known to use repulsors at times. Most of the time I do not need them and the AI will switch to range 2 weapons, if you do use it. Often they will have Heavy mounts from the start.

[granid]

Well, I'm just reporting what I observed Any time I get a revolt, the game doesn't say what the current percentage is. So, the last percentage I see is the one immediatelly before starting a revolt, and that is typically in the 40's. Of course, if their computer tech is low and you have lots of spies, you can start it much sooner: once I started a revolt from 10%. I'm just pointing out that the process is not just a single roll of a k-sided die, with the revolt being started if you get number k. Instead, it seems to accumulate angry citizens and revolts when they cross the 50% threshold.

(This is in 1.3).

[Urban Ranger]

I use repulsors not to keep computer ships from my ships, but from my planets. just park your ships in front of the planet, and they can't get to it. Also, heavy mounts are very ineffective space wise.

[Zed-F]

What UR said. In the case of a defensive battle the repulsors are to protect the planet by preventing bombers from moving next to it, more than to protect the ships. You can also build repulsor ships with range 1 beams and outgun the enemy, providing he isn't also using repulsors. It also works well in combination with HEF, of course.

More about Darloks & spies -- my problem with Darloks is that they build up too slowly and don't have any special benefits for colony defense, so it's hard to do well in the initial real estate grab. I play on impossible, so I find that I am usually in a significant hole early on for defensive tech. As a result, I'm a bit leery of too much spying, for fear of pissing off my neighbors and causing them to come bust up my colonies before I'm ready for them. When do you tend to start using them? Do you find they are most useful when you can already defend yourself pretty well as an aid to further expansion, or have you found ways to use them effectively prior to that point?

[vmxa1]

As for repulsors, I sometimes use them, but often I do not have the tech at the point in time where there are of value. I have used them with range 1 guns for the purpose of shooting them when they try to get close, while I do not move. My ship will likely be weak and they will often show up with numbers of large ships that even though they have low damage those range 2 shots are better than what I have. Anyway it is one arrow in the quiver and I use it when it makes sense and is available.
Spying is something I do as soon as anyone declares war on me. This way I do not have any repurcussions. Later I will do it regardless as I am not all that worried about them getting mad. Usually at this point they will be asking for peace and then turn around and declare, sometimes in the next turn. This is the stage where all planet are colonized, so war can not be avoided for long.

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I use repulsors not to keep computer ships from my ships, but from my planets. just park your ships in front of the planet, and they can't get to it. Also, heavy mounts are very ineffective space wise.

Heavy mounts aren't so good for overall firepower but are very useful if your opponent has any degree of shielding. I used to get into real furfights early game (with level 1 shields - when one really doesn't want to) with hordes of enemy ships with gatling lasers. As soon as I had level 2 shields I could send my stacks up against 5-10x as many ships with little to no losses whatsoever. By the time I get to level 3 I'm never taking damage even though lasers inflict 1-4 hits - one of the quirks in the damage curve I suppose.
Now if, OTOH those ships have heavy lasers (1-7 damage) they'll slaughter me.

[Urban Ranger]

Even if they have heavy lasers the averge damage is 4 points, so you'll take a point from each heavy laser, big whop. That's why I really prefer the neutron pallet guns: 2-5 damage but halves enemy shields. So against a level 3 shield I can still do 2 points per gun, and I can put a lot of them in a ship.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Zed-F
What UR said. In the case of a defensive battle the repulsors are to protect the planet by preventing bombers from moving next to it, more than to protect the ships.

Those Silicoids are evil. They use biological weapons all the time so I really want to keep them away from my planets.

Originally posted by Zed-F
You can also build repulsor ships with range 1 beams and outgun the enemy, providing he isn't also using repulsors. It also works well in combination with HEF, of course.

And torpedoes.

[Cxwf]

Zed, you mentioned a strategy of population drain against the computer in some situations. That's theoretically sound, but I almost never see the computer build up their colonies populations anyway. It's completely normal for me to get to an enemy homeworld midgame, and see that it has 69/100 population and 117 factories, or something like that. And this doesn't change much with dificulty level. On harder difficulites they manage to come up with huge fleets despite their complete lack of manufacturing power, but they still don't build up their worlds.

Edit: by the way, i happen to still have my manual, and it details a lot of stuff including how revolts work. It is an accumulation, and when it passes 50% they revolt. The more citizens there are, the longer it takes. If they ship in new, happy citizens during the process that drives the number back down. It's not actually keeping track of percentage, its keeping track of individual unhappy citizens.

[vmxa1]

The manual is not strickly correct according to the strat guide. It in fact says the manual is incorrect on the issue. You only have to be at 50%, not above it.
Incite never fails and always does 2 to 10% of the pop to rebels. This is per spy that penetrates and is accumlative.
You can see this on a new 2 pop colony. If you select that planet it will get a rebellion.
BTW, rebelling planets contribute a chance for other planets to rebel.

[vmxa1]

The planet pop and factories is situational. That is it depends on the race and if any planets are available to colonize or capture.
The AI will likely be sending troops to either build up its other holdings or to dump on someone. Unlike humans, it will probably drop 40 or more from a large planet, severly lowering its pop. Instead of sending a smaller number from several planets, like I would. Later when you have robotic 4 or more and 160 or more pop, then sending 30-40 is fine, especially with cloning or adv cloning.
But I agree it is not uncommon to see them being lax on their pop or builds.

[Zed-F]

Yeah, the AI doesn't seem to go in for spending extra cash on ecology to boost their pop after shipping out a bunch of troops. Hence if there's some planets changing hands you'll see stuff like this quite commonly. Also, if the AI gets in a fix where they are spending too much on maintenance (usually when you're taking away their good planets) they will sometimes pollute their own planets by not spending enough on ecology.