Help! Try this MoO game.

[grinningman]

While waiting for MoO3 to arrive, I've been playing a MoO game on impossible with Sakkra on a large map against 5 opponents. I've been having a lot of trouble. The closest planets are good, and I get a reasonably good start, including a free tech from an artifact planet. But the Meklar turn into an unstoppable, slavering juggernaut

In case anyone else would like to play this game, I'll attach saves of the the opening turn, and then two saves further into my game. You'll have to rename them to save1.gam (or save2.gam, etc) and put them in the directory where your MoO files are. Then you can load the games by choosing the appropriate slot in the load game screen.

If anyone does decide to play through the game, it would be great if you can post and say what you did (or what I did wrong).

Especially if you win

Grinning man

[grinningman]

Here is the save file of the game when I've started to establish a few good core planets.

[grinningman]

The final save. Things went downhill for me from here...

[Zed-F]

Do you have a preference for which save to start from? Do you want us to try to rescue your position from the last save, or try from earlier to see if different planning/luck changes the game?

[vmxa1]

I will start as soon as I salvage the mess I am in now.

[vmxa1]

Ok I should get to this soon now. A nasty mees where I was 6 planets to 12 saks and 3 meks at final war and over 30 techs down.
Finally pulled it out, no more 3 player impossible maps for me. Vote you right into a mess.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by grinningman
The final save. Things went downhill for me from here...

I looked at the saves. I would say it can be done, but it will not be fun for a long time.
Here is my perspective and tactics. Understand this is not the only path available, just one that I know works.
1) Do not make trades in Moo1. I know everone seems to love them. What happens is about to take place in this game, namely soon after it goes positive for you, they will decalre war and you have just been giving them money to get rolling. Maybe the Humans can do, but I doubt it. You are still losing 147BC per turn and the Humans diplomat has left the building, that means war is coming soon.
2) Sorry, but I would not be putting money into reseves directly, that is it will only come form left over builds.
3)I would abandon the attempt to get those new planets Qualye and Exis, they are going to be overrun.
I would scrap those scout, it is too late in the game to mess with them. I would scrap all but the largest one and it would go right after I either got missile bases up on Spica or lost Spica. I would send that ship and troops to Spica and try to steal it. I would hope that Silis wold not come defend it and no one else comes for it until I get it up and running.
4) I would stop making any capitol ships here, there are not strong enough. I am going to rely on missile bases and missile ships to hold what I have and start stealing and sabotage. Looking for a shot at grabbing a planet when I can.

I would say that the starting location is not very good. You do not have enough Ocean/Jungle/Terrans close by.
This will allow other sto get way out in front and make life hard as you can see.

[Zed-F]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Ok I should get to this soon now. A nasty mees where I was 6 planets to 12 saks and 3 meks at final war and over 30 techs down.
Finally pulled it out, no more 3 player impossible maps for me. Vote you right into a mess.

Hmm, well my experience suggests that votes on 3 opponents and votes on 5 opponents are about the same, it all depends on whether one AI gets a lucky start or not and on how good your start is. That's not affected by the number of AIs. However, playstyle may very well have an impact on this; I get the feeling I'm a more aggressive colonizer than you.


How about this, vxma, since you seem to be starting from the 3rd save, I'll start from the 1st save, and that way we'll have both ways to try to save the game covered.

[vmxa1]

Ok, here is what it looks like a few turns later. I was slow to think of it, but I finally traded tech with Alk (3) and Humans (3) got +30 pop and Sub light for techs I got from Alks. I trade warp from Alk and some other thing to Meks for Herculite missiles (oh yeah) and class X shields. The races have not yet broken the trades, but it can not be long now. I grab Spica and I am trying to get it going. with the new missiles, it will take a bit more to crack the planets now.
I stole class IV shileds from Meks and did not get caught.
I will try totrade again soon to get as much as I can so the steals will be the ones I want.
After the planets get teh pop created and the shields, I will make a new missile ship with the sub light drives.
Then it will be time to look for a chance to grab a planet.

[grinningman]

Thanks very much for your replies and suggestions.

Zed-F: I don't mind whether you decide to start from the beginning or try to continue from one of my other saves. Whichever you prefer.

Vxma1: In reply to your suggestions:

1) I always trade with opponents to improve relations to stop them from attacking me in the early game. Do you suggest that I shouldn't trade at all? Or cut off the trade once when I'm not so worried about being attacked?

I just remembered that you mentioned this topic in another thread - if you've already answered this question somewhere else, direct me there rather than writing it out again.

2) Putting money into reserves may be the wrong thing to do. I was hoping that I could transfer money from the reserves to new planets to get missile bases up quickly, but you are probably right, it is better not to bother, and wait until I can get a good enough fleet to defend a new planet.

3) I had a couple of colony ships lying around, so I sent them to colonise Quayle and Exis. You are right, though, they were overrun. This wasn't a totally bad thing: the Meklar had a much lower ground combat bonus than me, so they wasted a lot of troops taking them back. Of course, they have so many more planets than me this may not be significant.

You are also right about scrapping my existing ships. After the last save I saw a few of the Meklar ships and realised that anything I could currently build was next to useless, so I stopped building ships and scrapped the ones I had.

I didn't go for Spica because it is ultra-poor. I didn't think it was feasible to get it up and running before it was attacked.

4)See above

You are probably right about the start not being that great. I usually play on small and medium maps, so I am comparing the number of good planets I have in this game to other games on smaller maps. This is why I thought this start was pretty good.


Grinning man

[Zed-F]

Well, I started from the beginning and colonized everything in sight, things didn't seem to go badly at all. The start didn't seem to be too bad to me, there were a fair number of non-hostile planets around once I got some range tech (range 6 needed.) The Meks got a fair number of planets but were not overwhelming. The Silis also got a lot of planets (as usual). Actually, all the AIs seemed pretty balanced as far as power went except the Alkaris who got shafted. Still, I had the most pop without much difficulty at all, and managed to keep tech pace going and stay in the running. I got up to the 30s in tech and though I was still defending mostly (didn't want to spend a lot of $$ on a fleet yet) I was doing alright, about to discover scatter pack VII which would have made defending a lot easier, but I still had only had one planet nuked and was able to keep control over it for the most part by sending troops in whenever they recolonized it (to keep them attacking there and not someplace already built up.) It looked like I was ultimately not going to have any problems winning so I canned it for tonight.

Re (1) If you're only trading to improve relations, trade the minimum amount. If you really want a long term relationship then go for max. I traded with humans in my game as they were honorable and I made sure not to spy on them and asked them to break alliances with people who went to war with me. I kept that going the whole game no problem even when they started with the "stop expanding" BS. Sure they may decide to go for you eventually but you will have got more than your moneys worth by then. Pay attention to the leader personalities and to who's allied with whom so you know who to trade with and who to avoid, and so you make sure your trading partners dont decide to screw you because of someone they are allied with asking them to.

Re (2) I put money in my reserves for use elsewhere to bolster defenses or build ships close to the action, but I only do that from my ultrarich dead planet on the bottom right side of the map. I don't set the planetary reserves on the planet screen and I don't do that from non-rich worlds. It was quite helpful for rushing extra defenses in case of enemy attack.

Re (3) I went for spica and it never got attacked. Of course I never built any factories there either; I just let it sit and build up pop points and RPs for me. I eventually built some bases but I wasn't going to build factories until I was sure my base defense was pretty much ironclad (which it never got to be before I stopped.) Spica was important as a jumping off point into the bottom right hand side of the map, from there I was able to grab a couple decent arid worlds and the aforementioned juicy dead ultrarich world.

Looking at your save it looks like you didn't expand fast enough. I managed to grab all the planets you got and the whole bottom right hand side of the map as well. I had at least half again as many worlds and closer to double.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by grinningman
"1) I always trade with opponents to improve relations to stop them from attacking me in the early game. Do you suggest that I shouldn't trade at all? Or cut off the trade once when I'm not so worried about being attacked?"

Now this is just me and may not be correct for all styles, but I find that soon after trades go positive for me, the AI will start a war to save the money, I guess. I suppose some races will have more sucess, anyway I never even make any trades at any time with anyone. That solves it. What happens is ou make a trade sort of early in the game and run a negative cash flow for awhile, at a time when you need that money. I would not break a treaty as that will lead to war, unless that is what I want. I did not break the ones you have, they did.

"2) Putting money into reserves may be the wrong thing to do. I was hoping that I could transfer money from the reserves to new planets to get missile bases up quickly, but you are probably right, it is better not to bother, and wait until I can get a good enough fleet to defend a new planet."

Well you are taxed at 50% for that money, so it had better be a real need as far as I am concerned. Some feel that if they put it back into play via a rich/UR they n=make out, but you did not have any of those planets.
I do it when I must get up defenses now somewhere, very rare for me.

"3) I had a couple of colony ships lying around, so I sent them to colonise Quayle and Exis. You are right, though, they were overrun. This wasn't a totally bad thing: the Meklar had a much lower ground combat bonus than me, so they wasted a lot of troops taking them back. Of course, they have so many more planets than me this may not be significant."
At high levels such as hard and impossible, you can not afford to waste resources early in the game. This means do not build ships until you have a need for one. Be they CS or any oher type. I make only CSfor planets I plan on getting and try to hold. If it was still an open universe, that would be different, you could grab the planet and count on being left alone. Since nearly all planets were colonized, it was a sure thing, some one will come for them, if you are there or not.

"You are also right about scrapping my existing ships. After the last save I saw a few of the Meklar ships and realised that anything I could currently build was next to useless, so I stopped building ships and scrapped the ones I had."
Yup

"I didn't go for Spica because it is ultra-poor. I didn't think it was feasible to get it up and running before it was attacked."
You could because Silis were already at war and would probably not go all out to get it back. They sent a few med shis and I ran them off with the stuff you already had.
The thing is you already knew soil, so that planet would be able to get very strong with a bit of time and you need to get as many planets as you can. It was one you figured to be able to hold. If it was closer to others, then you would be correct.

"You are probably right about the start not being that great. I usually play on small and medium maps, so I am comparing the number of good planets I have in this game to other games on smaller maps. This is why I thought this start was pretty good."

I played out a bit and (2503 or so) trade4d techs a bunch, stole a few hot tech from Meks and then dropped troops on Retrilceli or whatever as it only had 20 pop and lots of factories. I was not concered about holding, but so far I have. I wanted to get some tech by capturing it and I did. Stole Adv soil and had lots of MB, but I am thinking it will be very time comsuming to win this, IF I can. They had complete terraform at the point I started and on and on. They will send fleet after fleet and it will be a while before I could make anything to challenge them. Not sure. I just spend all yesterday and most of today saving one like this on a small map, so I am not sure I am up for it. I will take a quick run from the start tosee if anything could be done, but I can see that the position will be only marginally better.
Maybe Zed will do better as I am not one of those aggressive style players.
I have played so many games, that I can look at most starts and see what will occur, most of the time.
The bigger the map, the more I want to see some Jungle/Ocean/Terrans near my start point. The two near you were also close to others and one at least was poor. They were farther than range 3, so it would take some time to get to them and they will probably be contested soon and make it rough and cost you time. Your near ones were Arid or something like that, so they will be only average for a long time.
Anyway it was cool and if I can get any thing done on the start from scratch, I will let you know. Tommorrow wil be a hard day to get in any playing though, not because of the Super Bowl though.

[vmxa1]

Well, I guess I do not play enough of these huge maps to have a feel for them as I do the small maps.
In any event, it looks like a cakewalk from here.
In the year 2412, made peace (they asked) with Humans and two years earlier with Meks. So no wars now.
I have 17 planets and Meks have 14, Sili 10, Human 8, Klac 4.
I did something, I do not recall doing before, but probably have. I made 6-8 small ships with 1 nuc bomb and 1 death spore and sent a few to three human planets. I killed them down to a few pop and dropped troops on them and boom 3 more planets.
Most of my planets are in the south east part and are just starting.
I was able to beat back a few attacks at SSSLA and Moro with 1 med missile ship and 4 or 5 missile bases, even though one ship was Huge. I have one more Terran on the left Promodioud that I am going to try to get.
I will probably hunker down here and build up. Next war, I will start stealing and look for another planet to snatch, but I would think it should be easy from here on out.
The status shows Meks ahead on everything, but planets, so I am probably behind in tech, my planets will bloom with pop and let me at least keep pace, while I steal tech to get the back fill (I hope).

[vmxa1]

Ok, here is my save at 2442, which I think is close to the point of one of yours.
I made another round of trades at 2432 and got Nuc Eng, controls III, Class V palnetary shields, Merc missiles. Most now have shields up or soon will, except the UP one.

[grinningman]

Thanks for the replies vmxa and Zed-F. Very interesting.

I'll replay the game again (when I have time) and try to expand quicker.

Zed-F: Does the amount that you trade with a race affect the rate at which your relations improve with that race? i.e. does maintaining trade with someone always improve relations, regardless of the amount traded? I've always assumed that the amount matters, but I don't have any evidence to show this is true.

I do check leadership personalities and alliances for diplomacy. Unfortunately this is a pain - MoO really needs a diplomacy screen similar to the one in civ3 (and the one MoO3 will have ), showing all the current alliances, trade agreements, etc .

BTW, has anyone ever noticed opponents changing personalities during a game? It says this can happen in the manual, but I've never noticed it.

Thanks again for the advice.