beating antarans

[egervari]

I just started learning to play moo2 and have been playing all night (7:34 am, that's pretty sad... anyway). How do you beat the antarians? My research has to be pretty good since I have 3/4 of the planets in galaxy and many of them are terraformed and stuff. I send in a fleet of everything I have and they all die. I can't even beat 3 or 4 ships and they look really small compared to my titans and battleships. Is there anyway to turn this off actually (it's really annoying)? If not, I'd really like some suggestions since they are a major distraction. Thanks!

[Gilgamensch]

Yes, you can turn it off at the start of the game (where it is asking for size/# of players and so on). There you can turn off antaran attack, same for random events.

For beating the Antarans:

depends on your technologies available.

Don't try to capture their ships, they explode normally because of one of their special devices (sorry can't rememeber the name).

Missiles are not a good choice.

Because of their armor in use AP will not work (Xentronium Armor).

One nice way is:

Use statis fields to block all, destroy the planet with stellar-converters and all is done.

Mainly it depends on your tech-level. If you have a low one, you need a lot of ships, but if you have all tech's you could do it with one Doomstar.

One more thing to mention: with increasing time the number/size of the Antaran fleet increases.

[egervari]

After I got some better technology all around, I managed to beat them. Too bad you need really high levels to beat these guys. Oh well. I just beat that game. It's a little harder than moo1 since the planets with "no farming" are many and there are more things to think about. The only thing I don't like is all the micromanaging when you get a new building. I have to click 'colonies' and then reassign 'trade goods' to 'building x' and it takes quite a long time. Anyway around this? I found out that you can make it delete the trade goods automatically (saves some clicking), but I haven't found a way to select all the planets at once and issue the same command.

[Gilgamensch]

instead of going to each solar system and colony, you could use the overview-screen (C-key from the main-map) to change the queues. This way it is easier

To select all planet's at once isn't possible. You have to do one by one, sorry.......

For the techs:

I think the idea behind the high-tech-level needed is, that they are living in 'hyper-space' and you would need according tech to fight back. Just think of it like a galeon fighting a battleship, who you think gonna win? Correct the galeon

For the farming: depending on the tech's you discovered you can terraform those planets and have farming. But for radioactive planets you need to build a shield (any) first, before it becomes 'usefull'. Easy to miss this one...

[egervari]

I probably didn't aquire any planatary shields in my first game (I was not playing a creative race). I thought unification was extremely powerful in my first game. Tolerant seems to be another good one since a lot of planets have crappy initial max populations like a 1 and 3. Overall, I'm enjoying the game. I'm going to turn off the antarans for sure.

I've noticed that f5 cycles through the systems too, but it's a lot easier to click the 'colonies' button, sort them and click the same spot on the screen repeatedly (since bottom one will automatically get moved to the top somewhere). This is the easiest way to do it, but some turns take pretty long when your mind comprends what you want to do in a matter of seconds. That's really the only frustrating part of the game so far that I've noticed.

[Gilgamensch]

For the races:

check out this thread, but be aware a lot to read

Yeah, F5/F6 works, but after 10+ colonies, it takes too long, that's where the C-screen comes handy.

I usually try to play as creative, I just enjoy it more

[vmxa1]

Steal radiation shield from someone. If you are not repulsive you could try to trade.
Anties can have a Quantum Detonator that wil blo the ship up.
To reduce some of the hassle queue up structures until the queue is full. In the event log watch forthe ones that are going to trade.

[Kaptain Ken]

IIRC you can select to be notified when the last item in a que is completed. Does it not take you to thise planets which have finished construction at the beginning of the turn. I almost always have something that needs to be built, if you don't fairly often (before the end game) try researching faster if the situation permits or trade or steal more tech. The very late game does get rather boring and many of us quit playing for high score for that reason.

[Gilgamensch]

The notification only works for normal items, but not for housing (unless you reached pop max)/trade goods.

It only brings you there if you double-click on the message, but that's even more painful than going to the C-screen.

Yes vmxa1, Quantum Detonator was the one....