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Match the Master: 2431, Part I I don't know if it's still useful to keep spies in with the Bulrathi as we are invading their final couple of planets, but I keep it going for now. Hotspots Probably not the right term anymore, as everything is either a hotspot or will be soon - at least the systems we haven't assimilated yet. But I don't have a better one.  Quite a few factories survived despite former Fierias being 'destroyed'. So now we just need to wait for drones. Two years until the attack.  Time to send another Meklar cruiser away.  Four different Psilon task forces are incoming, ranging from two to seven years out. I'll need a small force here to maintain control.  A fairly small fleet of eggheads is six years away. I'll have to care eventually, but not yet. You can make an argument that I should have left bases up to handle such things while massing the fleets elsewhere. That's probably six of one vs. a half-dozen of the other, but it would be less hassle at least.  Looks like parking ships here was a good idea. 18M incoming transports will probably all get destroyed by our patrols, and if they aren't we have plenty of drones to clean up the mess. Acquisition Targets I've reached the point where I want to revisit all of the hostile systems each turn, to ensure I've got all the bases covered and nothing slips through the cracks. After all, there aren't that many left now, and I don't want any unavoidable delays in concluding hostilities.  We should have enough troops, at least twice the defenders, to re-take Escalon this year. Transports will reach Ursa in two years, and Phyco in five. My main concern right now from a time standpoint is the number of ships that I need to keep at the Bulrathi systems - and elsewhere, but they still have a dozen or so cruisers so that's the greatest amount - instead of having them start on the journey to join the Guardian Termination Fleet (GTF). This 'frontier security' task, and taking as many ships away from it as are practical, is a most pressing matter.  Six Guavinators will reach Gienah in three years; transports from Rigel will arrive five years later. We'll send troops to Bootis from Matrix 150 at a later date - that's a 5-year journey and I'm unlikely to have the system prepared for them that soon. Another couple years probably before I want those to come. Crius is in the middle of no-man's land sort of, but has bioweapon ships converging on it from multiple directions. No transports are headed there yet - but I think it's about time.  Two years until Rangers hit Helos, four for Meklon. As many Guavinators as I can scrape together will converge at about that time as well. I don't expect local sources of drones for the invasions to be a problem, but those orders have to wait until their stubborn missile defenses have been obliterated.  The final target and centerpiece of Psilon fleet activity. For now we're leaving it alone save the lone harasser/scout. Taking control of the orbit now would simply force their ships to go elsewhere. It is also the only system they have left with missile bases, but I'm not concerned about those. Matrix 133, three years out, will probably be the source of invasion drones here. Tasking Orders Combining the previous two sections, I've got to make sense of all this and try to find optimal re-deployment instructions.    I also think it's time to start looking at this on an annual basis. Right now, 17.6% of the scatter pack alpha strike can be absorbed so we're just nicely getting started in terms of actually having enough ships to threaten the Guardian being in position.  The last group of ships from former human space has finally arrived, so that they can turn around and go back the way they came via a slightly roundabout route. Super-great.  Taking advantage of a gap between arrivals of the bear cruisers, a detachment will ensure that Matrix 173 is not seriously threatened.   Gienah looks secure, but I want to make certain it stays that way.  I forgot about this group coming this way when I redirected more bioweapons from above last year. In any case, we need to find a good source to attack Crius in a few years, once their work is completed. There are over 100 destroyers at Matrix 149 - for now I want them to hang out until it is time to smash resistance at nearby Gorra. Looks to me like sending small groups from each of 149 & 163 is the best solution - they're local and won't take a lot of time to traverse the distance. So that invasion will launch in probably a couple of years, depending on how we do with sabotaging the habitat.  Defending Zoctan seems like a good job for our older-model destroyers.  These Guavinators will be a year behind the main attack, but that'll still be plenty of time for them to, at a minimum, assist at Meklon.  I'm confident I have now reached the point of 'enough', so these will head back and I'll be redirecting the other systems around to also now send their ships towards Orion. I have 170 of the Horseman here, and that should be more than sufficient to handle anything the Meklar may wish to do.  I finally figured out why ships keep showing up here. It doesn't look like there are any lines heading to Matrix 147 ... but there actually is a reciprocal one. An old order had ships going from 137 to 147, at the same time as I was RELOCating in the opposite direction - which is kind of hilarious. I 'fixed the glitch' so that these contrary instructions will no longer be an issue. I have a number of other smallish groups standing watch at various systems, but after pondering the matter I think they are needed where they are for now. The situation changes annually, so I'll need to revisit it constantly. Tour of the Matrices  Finished up the factory run, meaning a couple of extra fighters from here this year.    Also maxed on industry.   We're about done with these I think - perhaps one small one left, perhaps not.       Once again this part of the empire continues to need regular tweaks.   
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Mar 4, 2019 21:33
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Match the Master: 2431, Part II      First in the set of matrices that are changing their shipyard destinations this year to Matrix 114.          Terraforming finished.     Probably will still be a couple years until we finish up here.         Starting to become useful now.          Environmental recovery and optimization is now complete here.  2431 Boosting the 'Next Turn' phase from 15k to 25k cycles got it up to almost normal. The Borg will have to work harder at breaking the game. Dagger production is down a bit - it'll fluctuate some I think but we are starting to have significant maintenance costs so that is playing a part. Otherwhise, all the battles went well and we recaptured Escalon. Nine systems remain outstanding.
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Mar 5, 2019 23:02
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 Had a fun little glitch in which Matrix 170 still had the RELOC line and ships going away from it - but showed on the map as nobody controlling it. When I clicked on it, well ... this happened and the program froze. Only way out was to force-quite the game and reload. Yay. This is why I save several times each turn with a game this large and in-depth. After investigating further, it still produces ships if I advance to the next year, 2433. I just can't click on it, much less adjust anything, or the whole game freezes. It doesn't have any issue in the 2431 save. I tried re-running that year, and it didn't reappear. So now I get to try and re-run the 2431 'Next Turn' phase until I get something as close as possible to the original results, then re-do 2432, which was almost completed. You might say there was a 'glitch in the Matrix' which is going to give everyone a major case of deja-vu. The Borg have not yet quite broken the universe, but they are doing their darndest. I'm sorry I didn't put in a space there! I'm really, really sorry!!
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Mar 6, 2019 02:20
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I'll just leave this here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdWRTleizFU&t=103s
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Mar 6, 2019 11:13
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Match the Master: 2432, Part I First run-through I had 3 spies with the Bulrathi, but only one with the Meklar. The RNG giveth ... you know the rest. The military section should be basically the same, so I'll keep the original write-ups. Where different, I'll note that as well. Hotspots  This is new. A trio of Psilon destroyers are pathing directly through the nebula here, so we'll just keep the ships that are produced around to smash them.  Terraforming starts while egghead counterattacks begin to arrive. I have no reason to believe the three dozen destroyers in orbit won't be more than enough.  Still five years away here, long enough that I don't feel compelled to do anything about it yet.  Eerily similar to the last go-round at Escalon. 26M incoming transports. Let's make sure we don't have a repeat of that scenario. ** On my re-runs of 2431, I kept coming up with either losing Escalon (just once, requires crap luck) or having 3M troops survive. Originally 5M did, but apparently that was just a gift that MOO didn't feel like repeating.  The Bulrathi will arrive this year - we have more than enough awaiting them. And that's it - shorter list than I expected. Only Escalon is a concern. Acquisition Targets  Waste is piling up and production severely declined now on the Bulrathi worlds. We'll take Ursa this year, and then start scaring all their ships back to Phyco. Four years to complete the conquest there.  Two years until the Guavinators reach Gienah, 7 for the invasion convoy. I'll probably time out transports to reach Bootis at about the same time or a bit later, meaning they don't need to leave for another 2-3 years. As for Crius, we still have work to do there biologically with a max. of 83M yet*. Still 7 years out on the long-range transports headed here that I honestly forgot about. That's why I'm doing this breakdown. But that should be more than enough time, esp. with more incoming bioships. * Was 83M the first time, so in this case the game decided to be nicer to me. Or worse to the Psilons, take your pick.  The last area to heat up is finally doing so. We'll smash Helos this year, with the goal of doing so to Meklon two turns later. I'm confident in my Ranger calculations ... but this really needs to work. Tasking Orders  I've done so many of these. Time for another one if I don't want to lose the system again. And I definitely don't.  These fighters, along with some that are produced this year, are the only fleet assets that can reach Escalon in time. Phyco is also in range but I have nothing to spare there. Still, that *should* be enough to weaken the Psilon attack.  It's almost time to seize control here. Almost, but not quite.  To make sure we get started on lowering the population on Bootis soon enough - and I have nowhere better for them to go.  Coinciding with another group of five already on their way. Whatever's left from Helos will also join them. The Guavinators remain along with 80 destroyers and just over 100 fighters. Probably a couple years before it's useful to head to Gorra, maybe more.  No need to leave anything behind - the last of the currently incoming Meklar ships have been sent away, and they are all slow-moving having never advanced beyond Warp 1 Retro drives. DEATH TO THE MACHINES!! Uhm, they can't die. They aren't technically alive. Or are they? The Federation might care, but I don't. DESTRUCTION TO THE MACHINES!!!! Whatever.    Nearly a doubling to 33.4% of the scatter pack alpha strike this year. Even in collective consciousness of the unemotional Borg, suspense rises as they near their goal. Tour of the Matrices ** Here's where things will shake up a bit more, due to the vagaries and chance involved in population growth. Most will be as it originally was, but some will have changed. Once again I'll use the original writeups where appropriate, but I was forced to do all-new screenshots.        Too much eco investment last year resulted in over-growing the population. First year of Dagger production after having sent out some invasion convoys.         How sure am I that I have enough bombers? Quite sure ... but not sure enough. The consequences of being wrong are sufficiently severe to make me desirious of additional peace of mind.   
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Mar 6, 2019 22:21
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Match the Master: 2432, Part II The only system that finished up industry last year.   Overproduced factories last turn, so we'll reap the benefits for one or two cycles.     Another source of ships to guard Escalon against the attack.        Terraforming complete, so another rich system is ramping up too late for the benefits to help all that much.  Caught up on factories, and nearly-pointless terraforming will soon commence.  Atmospheric efforts continue, with plenty of extra funding left over for now. Still not enough to complete the work though.  This year's ships will have just enough time to reach Escalon. I don't know if we'll need them, but I'm playing it safe this time.  One of the few systems that is still dividing up production between multiple tasks significantly.   First breather between drone convoys in many years.     IT'S BAAAACK!!!! I admit I'm OCD enough that I kept double-checking this system on the replay.        Wrapping up drone recovery.    2432 The attack on Helos went perfectly - no casualties. Ursa fell as well, granting us Scatter Pack V Rockets at the Bulrathi populations are crumbling below even the minimal habitability level. And Industrial Tech 4 suprisingly arrives, cheapening our factories and granting more room on the ships. Irrelevantly, but still. Eight systems to go.
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Mar 7, 2019 21:37
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I like the idea of a planet so Borgified/glitched that it turns into some sort of black hole. Ships come out every year, but no messages are returned. Are they fleeing? We do not know. The Borg do not ask questions.
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Mar 8, 2019 16:57
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Decoy Badger posted:I like the idea of a planet so Borgified/glitched that it turns into some sort of black hole. How about an entire galaxy? Alas my friends, whatever infected Matrix 170 was not alone. In playing the next year, 2433, I ran into repeated issues. At first the game froze and refused to respond when I had the temerity to click on the fleet at the Matrix 107 rally point. I was able to get around this by using the Fleet screen to select it. Then a noticeable slowdown was noticed when committing the heresy of clicking on a system - any system. Then it started freezing when merely clicking around the galactic map, then finally good old CTDs instead. I tried rebooting my system etc. to no avail. And so this effort crumbles to its end. I can't reliably get the game to proceed, and I'm not about to replay several years of this - I have no saves going back further - just to see if there might be the off chance to fix it. Coupled with the slowdown I was seeing, I think that MOO simply can't handle the awesomeness of my version of the Borg. They have achieved a far greater feat than defeating the Guardian, though I was much looking forward to that battle. They have corrupted space-time itself. I do regret being unable to haul this final game across the finish line, but I did give it my best try. Someone said after the Sakkra game that it might have been the greatest game of MOO ever played. This last one, ending about a decade short of it's true final state, was probably the most exhaustively documented. With that, I will do what MOO apparently wants - I will leave the game in peace. Soon I will submit this LP, which I now declare officially terminated, for archiving. I still maintain MOO to be one of the better strategy games ever made, even 25+ years after it was released. A relatively simple, tight design, with some bugs but rarely of the game-breaking variety and AI that, despite its issues, is still frankly ahead of many modern titles in most respects. Still the best research/tech system I've literally ever seen, highlighting that some of the nuances are remarkably well-thought out within the overall simple framework. Master of Orion II This is next, as promised. I intend a thorough but significantly less complete approach, with 3-4 runs through the successor. My first task is to not suck at it, since I've never taken the time to … well, master the game. When we get there I'll need help from those of you who know it better than I do. I have one in mind, but any thread title suggestions will be welcomed and considered. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Mar 8, 2019 |
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Mar 8, 2019 21:17
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Milking the Franchise: Let's Play MOO2 The usual advice for MOO2 is "get research labs, followed by reinforced hull and automated factories ASAP" Also, obviously, it's hella easier if you customize your race for maximum science or production. One time, I played a game as custom unitols, and a friend picked vanilla Darloks, and it was just sad.
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Mar 8, 2019 22:32
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Man, I want to say, don't start with a customized race for MoO2. Go vanilla race, custom race to feel the difference(you can basically make Silicoid Psilons With Other Advantages), then back to vanilla now that you know what's intensely broken. This also feels like an "appropriate" ending, you beat the game so hard to broke it at its most basic programming level.
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Mar 8, 2019 22:51
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Master of Orion is easily my favourite strategy game of all time - I never really took to the micro-management required in a lot of other 4x games.
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Mar 8, 2019 22:54
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Thotimx posted:And so this effort crumbles to its end. I can't reliably get the game to proceed, and I'm not about to replay several years of this - I have no saves going back further - just to see if there might be the off chance to fix it. Coupled with the slowdown I was seeing, I think that MOO simply can't handle the awesomeness of my version of the Borg. They have achieved a far greater feat than defeating the Guardian, though I was much looking forward to that battle. They have corrupted space-time itself. I do regret being unable to haul this final game across the finish line, but I did give it my best try. Something of a shame that this epic LP thread comes to a halt with a whimper rather than a bang. If you'd be willing to share your last save, we could maybe see if we could get it working in 1oom, the MOO reimplementation that follows the original game's logic as closely as possible (to a fault, in some places)... but I can understand if you'd rather just let the game rest in peace instead. I suspect you're hitting hard memory limits that the original DOS code can't overcome. In any event, thanks for the efforts over these many months!
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Mar 8, 2019 22:55
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Seconding the request to upload your savegame. I'm guessing there was some sort of integer overflow, would be a shame to not have the final showdown after all this time!
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Mar 8, 2019 23:15
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Thotimx posted:with some bugs but rarely of the game-breaking variety But yeah, pushing the engine past anything it can handle seems like a really fitting end for this game and the thread. Looking forward to the next one! my dad posted:Milking the Franchise: Let's Play MOO2 Something sheep-based, surely? Ovine something?
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Mar 8, 2019 23:28
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Ask and you shall receive. Last Save 2433, I'd gone through all the fleet movements and was just starting to go through the planets themselves.
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Mar 9, 2019 02:01
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It's fitting that you finished the game by breaking it. Kudos. I'm looking forward to MoO II.
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Mar 9, 2019 02:27
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 Sorry about the game though  However, looking forward to MoO 2! Seconding the idea of playing stock races, it's more interesting that way.
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Mar 9, 2019 04:23
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Since a couple people have brought it up, I'll say that the first MOO 2 game will be set up as essentially 'traitless' to show the baseline experience. Partway through it I'll have a poll at the point on what people want in terms of trait combos/just do stock for the other runs, since I'll only be getting to a few of the possibilities.
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Mar 9, 2019 04:36
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Congratulations. You have made MoO beg for mercy in all possible metaphorical meanings of the term.
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Mar 9, 2019 05:16
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Huh, must be some kind of overflow value problem. That's an appropriate end, if not the one we expected.
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Mar 10, 2019 15:16
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I poked around, and I got it working again (in 1oom, mind you) - turns out that Thotimx overflowed the "fleet enroute" table (max 260 fleets en route), which then wrote garbage data to the rest of the save. Since Matrix168 and 170 are the first entries in the savefile, they got wiped out and crashed the game when it tried to load them. Switching to Daggers which most planets can produce every year certainly didn't help - turns out that producing countless numbers of something is definitely possible if you're the Borg. I've repaired the savegame (I think), and it seems that a workaround is to not have your planets send a fleet every year but instead wait for the previous sent fleet to get half-way before sending another. If you're interested in continuing the fixed file is here, otherwise I can attempt to finish the game myself and report back, or do nothing at all - I'll respect your decision.
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Mar 10, 2019 20:39
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Thanks! I'll definitely take a look at the savegame, but I also have a couple of questions if you'll indulge me: ** That 'fleets enroute' table - can you confirm that limit is for just fleets going somewhere, and not those in orbit around a planet? ** Did you have to change a bunch of stuff in the save like where fleets were/are headed, or was it just putting back in the right information elsewhere?
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Mar 11, 2019 05:24
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The Borg being brought down by a buffer overflow DOS seems thematically appropriate. "We are the Borg, resistance is fu-A FATAL EXCEPTION 0E HAS OCCURED AT 00280ceo7a13a VXD AFVXD(01), THE BORG HAVE BEEN SHUT DOWN TO PROTECT DAMAGE TO THE COLLECTIVE. PRESS CTL-ALT-DEL TO RESTART YOUR UNIVERSE, IF YOU DO THIS YOU WILL LOSE ANY UNSAVED EMPIRES"
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Mar 11, 2019 07:42
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Fleets enroute does not include fleets in orbit - that is in a separate table. I only fixed the planet table, the fleets table is still untouched as I was unsure what to remove - so I would heavily recommend converting and running the save in 1oom which has more robust error handling than stock MOO. Playing on, there are definitely weird, but not gamebreaking, things still happening from the previous corruption like a 500-population Psilon transport fleet fleeing the galaxy - though a mass exodus to avoid the Borg is still pretty fitting!
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Mar 11, 2019 14:26
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Neophyte posted:"We are the Borg, resistance is fu-A FATAL EXCEPTION 0E HAS OCCURED AT 00280ceo7a13a VXD AFVXD(01), THE BORG HAVE BEEN SHUT DOWN TO PROTECT DAMAGE TO THE COLLECTIVE Works for me! @ DecoyBadger - I think as far as I'm concerned I'm going to let the sleeping dog lie. I do appreciate the effort you spent to try and fix it though. Feel free to play on if you want and report as much or as little as you wish here, any wackiness that happens, how long it takes to wrap things up and how many times the galaxy tries to implode in the interim. In other words, do with it as you see fit.
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Mar 11, 2019 19:08
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What happened to the Borg left behind? We were left with a universe so crowded and corrupted that several stars had turned into giant floating Blue Screens of Death. The fleets enroute table had overflowed, causing planet data to be overwritten - and causing the star graphics to attempt to look up out-of-bounds memory instead of standard stars. This was causing the planet selection-induced crashes. Wiping out planet names, types and production information was causing turn-processing-induced crashes. Nevertheless, the Borg persevered, and with some hasty galactic duct-taping the stars were corralled back into their proper positions. After all the interstellar dust had settled, this is what the Borg were confronted with: 2433  500 population of Borg high above the ecliptic, burning hard for escape velocity to another galaxy. All shall be assimilated. All ship transfers are halted, as ships keep phasing out of reality and attempting to assimilate stars while underway. This doesn't stop the Psilons from harassing Zoctan. 8 planets remain to be assimilated. Three have invasions en route. 2434 The last time that we will see this sight for a while.  2435 The Borg reach Phyco. The Borg take almost 2:1 casualties, but showed up at a 4:1 rate. Goodbye Bulrathi.  Relations with the remaining two empires have somehow improved to Wary. 7 planets remain. 2436 With no ship relocation allowed, Matrix 118 gets bombarded by a Psilon fleet. The damage is inconsequential. 2438 The number of fleets enroute has fallen enough that ships can be relocated again. Accumulated planetary fleets are rerouted to occupy the remaining unassimilated planets. 2439 A hard defensive battle occurs at Matrix 137. The Rangers are completely useless at ship battle, and instead we lose 90% of the ~100 Daggers present there while annihilating the enemy. The Rangers do much better in orbit at Meklon where they accidentally scour the planet entirely of life. We will assimilate what remains. A much easier battle occurs at Crius as the Borg assimilate the planets. Unfortunately the Psilons hold out at Gienah, with only 2 remaining to confront the reinforcement wave of Borg. 6 planets remain.  2440 With all unassimilated planets now reduced to rump populations, they find themselves easy prey to arriving Borg. Gorra falls. The Psilons and Meklar sue for peace. The Borg do not respond. 5 planets remain. 2441 Psilon civilian fleets attempt to flee the spores raining down on their devastated cities. They find only Borg awaiting them. Bootis and Gienah fall, and with it, the Psilon empire. 3 planets remain.  2442 The Guavinators are scrapped, there not being enough enemy biomass to make them worthwhile. In a final desperate act, the Meklar fleet rushes Borg pickets. The Meklar fleet is reduced to one last starfighter. 2444 Meklon is assimilated as Matrix 174. 2 planets remain. Orion is next. 2452 The Borg move to assimilate Orion. The Guardian responds.  I actually considered building up enough ships (~32,000) to trigger an integer overflow and face off with a game-crashing antiship fleet, but this playthrough is already silly enough.  As predicted, the Guardian alpha-strikes the Daggers, packed so densely they seem to act as armour for each other against the Guardian's missiles.  But the Borg close in and begin inflicting their own damage. The useless Rangers are just along for the ride.  Once the Daggers come into firing range, the Guardian practically evaporates. 1,452 ships died in the assault - by far more than the rest of the Borg campaign of assimilation, but not by much. Orion is assimilated and the secrets of the death ray gained. All remaining fleets are recycled as they instantly become obsolete. One planet remains. ???? Unable to comprehend the fundamentals of radiated landings, the Borg evaporate the remaining Meklar and ionically sort their component elements into neat pyramids. The galaxy is Borg. Thank you Thotimx for making this LP! This little playthrough was actually the first time I've ever played MOO1, and the excellent guidance provided by the LP really helped with getting everything underway!
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Mar 22, 2019 01:38
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The Galaxy is Borg. Everyone had been assimilated.
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Mar 22, 2019 04:08
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Bumping to let the thread know that foone the "death generator" person has added MOO : https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1120940350355337216 And somebody's already made the best possible one : 
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Apr 24, 2019 15:36
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