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PurpleXVI posted:Huh, I didn't even know the Antarans used the same mechanics as players, in that sense. I thought the game just randomly generated them a fleet when you attacked or had some hard-coded presets. I'm not really sure how the Antares defense fleet works. I know they will always have a Star Fortress and are guaranteed a Harbinger (the Titan-class). The Antaran Star Fortress is piloted by a unique Antaran ship leader, who is basically identical to Loknar (but instead of Galactic Lore, he has Security) and is always at max level. Normally, of course, you can't place ship leaders on Star Bases/Star Fortresses. It is impossible to recreate the Antaran ships - they use their own predefined blueprints that break the available space. It's possible to retreat from attacking Antares, although there appears to be no useful purpose to hit and run attacks as far as I remember - the Star Fortress will always be there no matter how many times you blow it up, for example, and it's by far the largest threat. MoO2 only has a few different possible win conditions. There's Conquest, which you get by eliminating all enemies. This one ought to be pretty rare if you're just trying to win. Then, there's the Council vote, which is by far the easiest win condition to achieve. You don't technically have to prosecute any wars to win this way, although in practice it's a lot easier if you just bomb away/invade to steal everyone else's votes. Winning by conquering Antares, on the other hand, sits in a weird place where it's kind of the "middle" win condition. You can usually win by attacking Antares a lot faster than a straight conquest victory, and by its nature if you are in a position to win via conquest you're also in a position to win the Council vote. On the other hand, if you've been sitting on your hands all game and the game progresses to late-stage technologies and you for whatever reason don't feel like beating up your neighbors to force a Council victory, there's pretty much nothing anyone can do to stop you from just attacking Antares and winning, something that you can generally do somewhere around the time you get Plasma Cannons and enough infrastructure to build a handful of Titans. In the end, MoO2 isn't a particularly challenging game past the early stages. If you can survive to the mid-game, you should be able to achieve victory through one of the available win conditions well before any of the top-tier techs come into play.
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Jul 29, 2019 10:10
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On the flip side, there are two loss conditions. One is "they hold a Galactic Council vote, someone else wins, you abide by the decision." If someone wins the vote and you do not abide by the decision, the universe unites and declares war on you, and diplomacy is not possible. It's permanent war until someone is dead. (If they vote for you and you say "nah" then they give the crown to the other guy, unite, and declare permawar.) The other, obviously enough, is "your society is wiped out." The AI can't beat you to the Antaran conquest win condition, and I honestly don't know if they can even build the gate, so it's a fantastic bit of technology to trade around for political favor. One of the things various 4X games did as the genre evolved that I really liked was adding more win conditions, and allowing you to turn the drat things off. (Lookin' at you, Spell of Mastery.)
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Jul 29, 2019 11:07
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MechaCrash posted:On the flip side, there are two loss conditions. One is "they hold a Galactic Council vote, someone else wins, you abide by the decision." If someone wins the vote and you do not abide by the decision, the universe unites and declares war on you, and diplomacy is not possible. It's permanent war until someone is dead. (If they vote for you and you say "nah" then they give the crown to the other guy, unite, and declare permawar.) The AI cannot build the Dimensional Portal and cannot win by attacking Antares even if they capture/are gifted a system containing one; it is a win condition solely reserved for human players.
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Jul 29, 2019 11:23
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Congratulations on the win and on breaking the game again! Looking forward to the next run.
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Jul 29, 2019 16:26
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What Do I Even Do Here …  And so it begins. Again. Both name suggestions seemed worthy, so I consulted the oracle of Random.org. In its infinite indifference it decreed that we would play as Klingons, naturally from the planet Kronos and under the rule of Kahless (the Unforgettable).  My immediate reaction after the last game was 'where's the rest of the galaxy?' This is it my friends. There's no zooming in or out.  Our starting fleet has a scout and two Tachi class cruisers. Apparently we rely heavily on Fusion Beams, and while we have the ability to MIRV our nukes, we don't ... because we are morons. Crap We Know  Basics here, plus the Pulse Rifle helps for ground combat, and Xeno Psychology probably won't be of much use to a race like us who'd rather shoot than waste time in idle chit-chat.  Hydroponic Farms. GrumbleGrumble. But it could be a lot worse. First two key factory techs, research lab, and cloning center. Armor Barracks is another fail, but there's more good than bad here.  Clearly our early choices are Fusion Beams or MIRV Nuclear Missiles.  Hard to find much fault here. We've got an advanced computer, fuel cells won't help much but whatevs, an advanced drive, and inertial stabilizer might come in handy. Let's see how that compares to our neighbors ...  I think we're going to have to decide who to treat with hostile intent and who not to pretty much immediately. Meklar - 911-C4S is an Erratic Ecologist, so we better plan on fighting the Meklar. They have Tachyon Comms, Soil Enrichment, and Fighter Garrisons. No Automated Factory as they went for the Reinforced Hull and Heavy Armor. Better fuel cells and Scout Labs, Mass Drivers for the ships, but their computers and ground combat weapons aren't as good. Still, their ships could be pretty strong with the mass drivers and defensive capabilities. Darlok - Mysvaleer, I hate you already. They could start spying on us almost immediately and there'd be nothing we could do about it. Whatever we have, they're gonna have. Aggressive Militarists. Neural Scanners and ADC already. Grrr. Neither of the factory techs though, but they have Battlestations, Missile Bases, and Spaceports already. Mass Drivers and Merculite Missiles for their armaments, and augmented engines. Alkari - Voreet Zry is a Pacifist Militarist. A lolwutnow? The Alkari invested in Powered Armor for their ground troops, Tachyon Comms, and Soil Enrichment which so far everyone has but us. And even planetary supercomputers, so their ahead in research infrastructure. Also biospheres, missile bases, and spaceports ... but nothing on the production side. Fusion Beams and gyro destablizers? Ok. First one to have Class I Shields and/or Security Stations to repel boarders. Their defensive bonus + shields will make them potentially a tough foe to take down early. Trilarian - Aqualius is an Erratic Expansionist. I don't like having multiple erratics around. Tach Comms again, no factory stuff again, but loaded up on the planetary defenses with battlestations, missile bases, and fighter garrisons. Fusion Beams and gyro, shields, security stations, and warp dissipator. Silicoid - Sedimin is a Xenophobic Industrialist. I don't like the sound of that. Went Neural Scanner like he's a Darlok, and the first to get Dauntless Guidance System. Also first other race to get both production buildings - but none in research. Apparently he plans to just steal it all. Fighter Garrison and Biospheres. Because Silicoids, he went Death Spores but also all the way to Pulson Missiles, leaning hard into the missile option. Has Fusion Beams as well. Shields and Tachyon Scanners, which will further improve that shield focus. If they can work their espionage magic and get some things stolen, look out. Missile ships in the hands of Sedimin could be scary. Human - Alexander the Erratic, an Industrialist. For pete's sake. There will be no peace in this galaxy. Neural scanner, tachyon comms, fighter garrison, biosphere, first two factory techs and research labs. They're on strong economic footing. Fusion beam and gyro, shields and leaning hard into engines, already at third-tier Ion drive. Sakkra - Ragazor, Ruthless Industrialist. Neural scanner, survival pods, more tachyon comms. Both factory concepts and research labs, fighter garrison and biosphere. Fusion beams, death spores, gyro. Shields and third-tier fuel cells with iridium. This is a very hostile galaxy. Only the Alkari hold out on any real hope of lasting peace.    Our homeworld. Those are some weird-looking Klingons. They need some meat on their bones. Our second planet is about the same except of course Rich with less stuff built.  Ok, time to make some decisions. I tried sending my cruisers to one of the nearby worlds just for the lolz, but they weren't a match for a battlestation. Did pretty well though. Clearly for both RP and strategic reasons I need to make something of the military advantage, but I think I need to do other things first and hope against hope my rivals don't strengthen themselves too much in the meantime. Here it seems to best to improve our combat survivability with the Class III Shields/Capacitor combo. Shields first.  Of the four planets in the galaxy we haven't explored ... yep, that's a thing ... this is one of the two we can reach. Odds of it being Orion are high, but whatever. It's just a scout. The 'nice' thing about this run is that we don't have to worry about any pretense of diplomacy. The only question is when to go to war. I'm most concerned about the Darloks and Silicoids, and having the shape-shifters about means I'm not even going to try for technological superiority. Just hammer our neighbors with the our superior combat abilities, or die trying. Our Hydroponic Farms allow us to use 'only' just over a third of the populace on farming. I want to keep that, even if I'd rather have had Biospheres in the long run. But the Armor Barracks is going away, I don't want to pay for that. I also send 2M from our second planet to the homeworld. That'll maximize growth on Kronos II while giving us more production capacity. It does take people off the rich planet but I don't think that's the biggest priority at the moment.  Job #1 is getting the infrastructure up and running. After that I'll worry about gradual research, refitting our fleet and building new ships, and spies. Right now though, we have one scientist on Kronos II, and that's just for the purpose of limiting pollution. ETA on the shields? 482 turns.  It's Meet the Victims ... err, Neighbors ... time.  Just in case we didn't hate them enough on principle, the Darloks have the affrontery to thus insult Kahless.  There's one in every galaxy ...  These fun folks have a chime-dominated greeting jingle.  But how do you really feel about it?   It will be an honor to mercilessly slaughter such a worthy race! And thus ends the first turn. All advice on the present situation will be considered. I thought about doing some blockading but it seemed too early for that - it seemed best to have the economy, such as it is, ready for a conflict before instigating one.
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Aug 8, 2019 21:08
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Woof, you got screwed in the setup phase. Everyone but you has two systems and probably a battleship. Your first priority is to refit your ships into a sane setup. Rip out all those drat bombs and missiles and put in an inertial stabilizer. Congratulations on having ships who only fear enemy engine detonations. The main advantage of missiles is that they almost always hit. Since your navy is great at hitting targets focus on beams. I would also expand the fleet with 4 frigates. Group up to hopefully fight enemy fleets at unarmed planets. Then blockade them with a frigate. You should easily win any frigate fights, and at least survive against anybody 2 sizes larger. This is where your lack of a second system really hurts, you really want to blockade every homeworld ASAP. Your economy will never compete, unless everyone else suffers a 50% blockade penalty.
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Aug 9, 2019 02:02
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The major advice I have is "kill the Darloks." Not for any practical reason. You're feudal, there isn't going to be much for them to steal from you. Just because, man, gently caress those guys.
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Aug 9, 2019 03:43
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Found the Romulans. And that sounds like the Federation, alright. Definitely the Cardassians. These guys seem more Klingon than you, so maybe Gorn? Mirror universe Terrans, or maybe Dominion? Horta feels too obvious, but maybe the Crystalline Entity which has every right to exist despite the whole "murders planets and ships" thing.
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Aug 9, 2019 04:03
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Erratic humans is good, might stop them from winning the first senate vote. And I approve of going after shield tech, shields cannot be recovered from salvaging captured ships. Seconding the kill Darlocs.
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Aug 9, 2019 19:17
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thetruegentleman posted:
They're xenophobes and are already modeled after them so I'd go with the Sheliak.
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Aug 9, 2019 20:49
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You Say Federation, I say Faileration Welp, not Orion but also not peaceful.  There's also a gas giant and a tiny radiated planet. Meanwhile war broke out between Meklar and Darlok. That took a whole two turns. And here's a practical reason to kill those thieves:  They have one of if not the best planets around. SD 3500.4 - Alkari and Silicoid are at war. We feel left out. Meanwhile we've observed enemy cruisers flitting about, but nothing larger than that yet.  There we go. The white star is Orion. Qapla! Meanwhile we get our first couple of buildings up including most critically the Robo-Miner plant on the homeworld, and an Alkari-Human NAP is signed. However we are now actually losing money. I don't think I want to keep going that way - I demolish the Hydroponic Farm on Kronos II. I'll accept slower growth there in order to not have that problem.  Our revamped cruiser, the Useful Tachi. They look the same as the other ones but are not. I thought about putting on PD, or Continous mods/Battle Scanner for more accuracy, but I think for now we don't need the bonus - except perhaps against the Alkari, but I don't plan on fighting them yet. Leaving the ECM jammer on should reasonably handle our projectile defense since I don't see anyone else putting out a bunch of fighters based on their tech. The Imperial Shipyards have requested more slaves be sent to the dilithium mines, and also report that the price of refitting will be 62 BC each, a fraction of a new ship. Kahless approves, but wants a Space Academy first. Our warriors cannot go into battle unprepared. This will put our annual income back slightly into the negative for the time being, but so be it. No sacrifice is too great to be made for the honor of the Empire. Meanwhile, the engineers ponder what to do with our next design, a frigate ... and more importantly what to call it. SD 3500.7 - Trilarians and Humans are at war. I'm going to lose track of who officially hates who soon.  Here's our frigate, the Qa'Cheng class. No room for a stabilizer on a ship that small, but I kept the jammer. A couple of fusion beams will serve as the armament for these tin cans. I concur with the advice given to blockade as many systems as possible with these. Construction of five of them is ordered. SD 3501.4 - Alkari/Triliarian NAP. Also, Cryslon and Nazin are now blockaded by our first pair of frigates. Progress.  Nobody has chosen to fight our glorious Qa'Cheng frigates. The cowardly humans had a couple of cruisers in Sol, but still so far have neglected to engage. Every system within range has been blockaded except for Lir - I'll let the Alkari keep their illusion of peace. Meanwhile the Meklar had Umm blockaded, but have backed off. Kahless would very much like to strike there first. Unfortunately they are too well-defended. We will head to Scaliger. The Humans are the weakest target. Battle of Scaliger II (1:41) I care not for your 'mighty war engine'. You will make useful slaves to feed our warriors - literally. A transport departed Kronos immediately to see to the acquisition, while Kahless ordered two more constructed. It would delay the invasion, and the treasury most certainly complained about the cost, but sending our honorable warriors into combat against their defenders, clad in Powered Armor as they are, would be foolhardly with overwhelming numbers. Meanwhile the homeworld has reached its maximum population for the time being. At Cryslon, the Silicoids deployed a Fury V[/b] battleship and chased our frigate off - a pair of human cruisers attacked at Sol, and again we retreated there. In both cases, quick action by the Qa'Cheng captains allowed us to hyperspace before the ships were destroyed. Scaliger II Again (1:09) The Humans were foolish enough to send their Phantom cruisers to Scaliger - our [i]Useful Tachis easily dispensed with them. I had thoughts of boarding one of them, but it was destroyed in the explosion of the other, because that's totally a thing in the vacuum of space. Their Gyro Destabilizer was a bit annoying, but more importantly their fleet has basically just committed suicide.  Even a full dozen Klingon warriors failed to overcome the human defenses, killing just one of their defenders. A furious Kahless orders more transports constructed, as well as an orbital bombardment to eliminate the intransigent ground troops at whatever cost is necessary. Scaliger II Bombardment (0:10) Well that was kind of wimpy. SD 3502.5 - After two more rounds of bombardment just blew up more valuable infrastructure but didn't dislodge the final battalion, a fresh group of Klingons invaded. We still lost a couple more units, but Scaliger II finally fell to our might.  Note how it doesn't say 'remove', 'purify', 'sanitize', 'eliminate'. It makes sure that the statement is sufficiently evil. But we will keep them around - they are better farmers than we are. The cruisers move on to Sol, while Klingon workers are transferred in from Kronos II. SD 3502.6 - In like manner to the battle at Scaliger, we dispense with the Starbase at Sol. Bombardment of the surface commences, with the unfortunate result of much collateral damage once more. But this cannot be helped. And then ...  It's time to waste time. We have yet another reason to hate Mysvaleer. We vote Ragazor because why not try and keep them happy with us. It's 7-3 lizards at the final tally, with almost everyone abstaining because this galaxy is nearly as hateful as we are.  Going nowhere, and getting there fast on Scaliger II. But give it time ... Note also the humans, both the free and enslaved versions.  Confirming the inclinations of all rational creatures throughout the galaxy that we are a bunch of murderous jerks, we commit genocide on humanity after some more bombardments and an invasion of Sol. 6M slaves survived, along with both factory structures. Not bad at all.  This screenshot is a few turns 'ahead' as I screwed up the initial one. SD 3503.1 - There will be a period of consolidation here. We have enough cashola to get research labs up in various places and get all other essential infrastructure in place. We have a whopping 15 RP now, which as you can see will still not get us anywhere but it's more than we've had to date. Every occupied system in range is blockaded by our frigates, and still there is room for perhaps a third cruiser. Population is at 27M, nearly a third of them are homo sapiens. 7M are still in need of assimilating, and because of that half the population is needed for farming duty. So there's some things to sort out and get straightened. Nice thing is that Scaliger is basically safe for the time being and I don't have to worry about defending it. I'll eventually want a population incubator or two in the Scalinger and Sol systems ... both have a single Radiated planet free so I won't want to do much there but since we get a command point increase from just occupying them as Warlords I'll still throw out Colony Bases when it seems an appropriate time. But then where do we go next? The Space Amoeba in Bier is still out of range for our combat ships. Firma is a size-15 Ultra Rich but the Trilarians have a Battlestation/Fighter Garrison/Missile Base combo there. The Silicoids in Cryslon - both planets rich - have Star Base/Fighter Garrison combos, just a Starbase only in Lir but that's a size-6 Poor planet so not that exciting. You could make an argument to grab it quickly so that we can expand the fleet though, but it would add yet another system we have to try to defend as well. It might be time to head for the Darloks. If I get another ship in the task force and do raiding first to clear out the missile base, maybe I can take down their Battlestation. Or perhaps that tactic would be better used against the rocks first? Of course they both have had a battleship around as well so there could be some attrition involved and it'd be touchy.  On the other hand, the current wars appear to have knocked down most of the enemy fleets. The Sakkra are the only ones who have a better one than we do, apparently. All save the rocks have progressed past us technologically but that was to be expected. We're not here to learn things. We're here to blow stuff up. After pondering these matters, I decided to basically go for the jugular right now with the Silicoids at Cryslon. Aside from the Meklar on the opposite side of the map - by the time I get to them it'd be irrelevant - the rocks are the best race at building things. And they are also Tolerant, which will go a long way towards making me not have to care as much about pollution-reducing advances. If I could secure the riches of their system, I should be able to fashion a decisive advantadge in numbers. And so the orders went out - another cruiser and a transport would be built, and we would strike immediately, hoping that the unpredictable Trilarians wouldn't feel the need to attack us at Sol. SD 3503.2 - Trilarian/Sakkra war. Perfect timing! We arrive at Cryslon, but they had a battleship built the same turn and it hangs around. I'll wait for that third cruiser then at least. Meanwhile Sol now has a Marine Barracks, first step towards it becoming useful. 3503.4 - Sakkra/Trilarian peace treaty. Grrr. 3503.5 - The Meklar empire was eliminated, and the battleship left Cryslon so we attacked ... and discovered we do in fact need that third cruiser here. Fusion beams don't do enough damage to take out their fighter base in time with just two ships. So we'll have to wait. Only the Darloks were at war with the cybernetics, so their profile is definitely up. It also leaves the rocks as the lone plus-industry labor force in the galaxy. SD 3503.7 - Darloks want to pick on the Trilarians next. Fine by me. Battle of Cryslon III (1:29) I'd have preferred not to lose the cruiser, but we got the job done and eliminated their fighter garrison. The starbase will now fall easily. Meanwhile, a Triliarian cruiser deigned to kick our frigate out of Firma ... for the moment. SD 3503.9 - Darlok-Trilarian peace. This stuff is hard to keep up with. SD 3504.0 - Darlok-Sakkra war, and the Silicoids rebuilt the fighter garrison before we could attack again. Sigh.  I've gotta say no. We don't have any fighters and don't plan to anytime soon. SD 3504.6 - Second battleship arrives at Cryslon. Welp, we're definitely stalemated there. I retreat our cruisers and decide to rethink the situation. The next year they make peace with the Alkari. That's not good for us either. The Alkari, Darloks, and Trilarians are now out of the question, both possessing Class III Shields. We need better weaponry to fight them from an attacking point of view. I think it's time to talk to the ship engineers again. We need to shift into a design that has PD capabilities, allowing for more conventional planetary assaults with the ability to shoot down incoming ordnance/strike craft. With what we have, I'm not feeling great about being able to keep up the blockades and still expand more.
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Aug 11, 2019 21:19
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I'm, pleasantly, surprised you managed to fight your way out of that initial boxing-in. Nice job.
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Aug 11, 2019 21:38
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As you can see in the video, Thotimx didn't actually destroy the fighter garrison - it was essentially 1 HP away from being destroyed, but still present, thus there was no need for the Sakkra to rebuild it. I also see Thotimx, having forgotten previous lessons, is back to getting destroyed by fighters and missiles while building ships that are completely incapable of shooting down fighters and missiles.
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Aug 11, 2019 22:23
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Nice catch on the fighter garrison. I definitely missed that. The Sakkra though would have had a hard time rebuilding it, inasmuch as it was on a Silicoid planet :P. I haven't forgotten the PD concept, I just thought it was best at the beginning to go for maximum damage and take what I could since I was doing hit-and-run attacks anyway. I think the ship I built was better in that sense for facing off at least against the Humans.
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Aug 12, 2019 06:54
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Compared to the last game, this is like a knife fight in a phone booth.
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Aug 12, 2019 19:05
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Awful lot of not-dead Darloks on that map.  Oh, uh, something actually useful then? Then I'd say that while a bunch of heavy beams are pretty cool, your high Beam Attack means that bringing along a few ships with regular guns just to shoot down missiles and fighters would be useful. Especially the fighters, because once you shoot down a planet's fighters, the fighter garrison is useless because you'll probably be able to blow it up before they launch more. And if not, that's at least time where you aren't being harassed by fighters that you can spend shooting at other things. I don't know that I'd give each ship some point defense guns, but I figure at least a few wouldn't go amiss. Nazin delenda est.
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Aug 12, 2019 21:35
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Actual "Point Defense" weapons are pretty much garbage - you can go back to the post I made about beam damage falloff for a more thorough explanation as to why - but mixing in some regular beams alongside your heavy mounts (or bringing dedicated non-heavy mount beam ships) is pretty key. Look, that +50 Ship Defense is a strength to be leveraged. Doubling down with Inertial Stabilizers is absolutely the right move, because it means you've got very little to fear from enemy beams. But you still need a solution for missiles and fighters. For missiles, ECM helps, but it's better to eliminate incoming damage. For fighters, Beam Defense helps, but you're again better off just eliminating the incoming damage, and with that fat +50 Beam Attack, you can actually hit pretty reliably.
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Aug 12, 2019 23:48
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I appreciate the suggestions. I do think it's fair to say that I was already planning on going more in that direction though: Thotimx in the last official update posted:We need to shift into a design that has PD capabilities, allowing for more conventional planetary assaults with the ability to shoot down incoming ordnance/strike craft. I was sort of on the fence about whether to include PD mounts at all - I'll take the offered advice and skip them, since I prefer dual-purpose standard ones anyway. MechaCrash posted:Awful lot of not-dead Darloks on that map. Sure are. Right now they're actually my favorite for toughest opponent in this galaxy, after what they did to the Meklar. They're the only AI race to have expanded right now past their initial holdings. PurpleXVI posted:surprised you managed to fight your way out of that initial boxing-in. Nice job. Thanks! Decoy Badger posted:this is like a knife fight in a phone booth. Pretty much. thetruegentleman posted:Found the Romulans. Found your assessment of the 'cast of characters' entertaining … and pretty much accurate as well.
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Aug 13, 2019 07:14
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Between the Rocks and a Hard Place I considered waiting to grab new shields which I'd very much like to have before going forward with the next design, but even putting everyone I reasonably could into the effort it would still take 30+ turns to get there. That's too long. So we'll have to stick with what we have. The tech disadvantage is only to grow with time and it will cause problems for our defenses eventually. The only way around that is to keep expanding.  Getting rid of two of the previous seven heavy mount Fusion Beams allows me to put on five standard ones. I thought about getting rid of the ECM Jammer and may do so in the future, but I want to see how well this works in terminating incoming missiles first.  A new destroyer, the DeSjoH, was commissioned for attacking planetary defenses better. We'll build a single one at first, more later if necessary. We need bombs to effectively penetrate shielding and atmosphere. This comes with a price though; it means that for now we can only afford to field two cruisers. SD 3503.9 - Darloks and Trilarians sign a peace treaty. The next turn, the shapeshifters go to war with the Sakkra.  Cute. I find this amusing inasmuch as they can't even reach our territory in order to take it yet. Meanwhile a Silicoid battleship is en route to Kronos. Time to kill us some rocks. Kronos Defense! (2:18) Well, more than one of those would be scary but we handled it just fine even with one cruiser refitting. I don't think it'll be long until we rue the lack of a battlestation and/or shielding and/or any kind of planetary defense installation though. Undeterred, the Silicoids sent another battleship our way the next turn. It got the same treatment. And with their fleet thus reduced and Cryslon lacking any ships at the moment, I decided it was a good time to test their defenses once more.  I find this deal acceptable. We have very limited cash and are actually losing money as it is, but given how research-challenged we are this is a significant boost. We're set to run out of money now though in 58 turns, and that may well get worse before it gets better. Battle of Cryslon III. Again. (6:30) Back to Cryslon. They had a frigate there the previous turn but I didn't think that should deter us, and then it was gone the next time. An amusing battle with the bomber playing ring around the rosy with their interceptors while the Qa'Cheng frigate throws a few BBs at the planet. I hold off on the attack due to waiting for the second transport. Getting that Marine Barracks up is also worth noting. It's actually a net positive financially due to the morale reduction, and with population growth elsewhere we're back in the black ... barely.  The Silicoids rebuilt their Starbase, but with our fleet able to focus-fire on just that it went down easily. Then, while the invasion force lost 75% of their numbers in honorable combat, we defeated the defenders and captured another planet. This one, fully intact. Many songs will be sung of this day. Break out the blood wine!  First time I've seen this. What the actual ... is that get-up? Seriously, who is your tailor?? I can't even ... Oh, and the missile is a nice thing too. Our Starbases will be more hazardous to the enemy in any prolonged engagement.  It'll take a long time to assimilate all of these workers, but eventually the most productive laborers in the galaxy will bow to the will of Kahless the Unforgettable. Both factory buildings survive the attack, as well as a Biosphere and Space Academy. Kahless immediately ordered replacement Transports sent out from Kronos, which had stockpiled sufficient resources to build them immediately. Cryslon I had identical defenses, and suffered an identical fate as a result. We did lose a frigate this time, but that was of little consequence - all the larger ships survived. SD 3504.7 - The last official act of the Silicoid Empire was to sign a peace agreement with the Alkari. Or at least it should have been. The next turn ...  We are not amused. This time the battle on the ground did not go so well, after having crushed a frigate in orbit. More Warriors!  SD 3505.0 - A nice round number for our final conquest of Cryslon I, in which another couple of battalions fell but an easy victory was achieved overall. And this will prove most useful.  This as well!  Here's the official confirmation notice.  There are five races left. We're no longer actually at war with anybody now that the rocks are all enslaved. Additional frigates have been sent to Altair and, just now, Sssla. The extreme left of the galaxy is out of our range still ... for the moment. I see no reason not to bring glorious battle to the Space Amoeba in Bier, and claim the riches of that system for the Klingon Empire. It will wait a bit however. Alien Control Centers are going up in multiple systems, and wherever a Biosphere is needed, those as well. We also should expand the fleet first, now that we have enough territory to do so.  Hey look ... we're nominated! That pretty much puts us on a collision course with Ragazor's Sakkra. Everybody else abstains, allowing us to vote for them and not put them over the top. We have six votes, nearly enough for a veto bloc. They have four, the others in the two to three range. We're the clear leader in the galaxy now. Kronos II begins spamming out freighter fleets. We're going to be needing a lot more of them to switch our new 'employees' out to optimal locations as assimilation happens. Soon, with Humans farming and Silicoids building, Klingons will be reduced most to the role of ... scientists. For those who aren't among the few selected to be warriors, anyway. That's weird, to put it mildly. To aid with the financial situation, the Hydroponic Farm is demolished. We have plenty of labor now to handle the agricultural responsibilities.  Grrr. Rich is nice, but it would have been the clear primary ship-building planet at Ultra Rich.  'Also in the news today' ... you're a bit late there fellas. Tangling With The Amoeba (1:42) We lost half our cruisers, and it's a good thing I maxed out the fleet; even three would not have been enough. The Amoeba has been defeated though, and we grab our second colony in Sol.  For the third run in a row, she will play a prominent role. And once we settle Bier, there will be little in the galaxy that remains beyond our reach. The Klingon Empire, though technologically still backwards, continues to grow in power and size. Can anyone stop them?
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Aug 14, 2019 17:33
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That's just a jinx of a note to end on. But let's hope it's not!
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Aug 14, 2019 19:59
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Hm. Given the Benny Hill poo poo you were pulling with your bomber when you attacked Cryslon, maybe a ship dedicated to shooting down fighters and missiles? Just load it with as much accuracy as you can, and fill it to the brim with autofiring lasers. Or enveloping fusion beams if you can do those.
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Aug 15, 2019 04:01
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You can get enveloping on fusion beams, which is very very nice.
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Aug 15, 2019 06:14
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PurpleXVI posted:That's just a jinx of a note to end on. Fortunately I'm not superstitious … but I do worry about taking too long and having the tech situation get away from me. Re: Enveloping Fusion Beams, we don't have that capability yet. I can do Heavy Mount, Continuous, and Point Defense on those.
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Aug 15, 2019 06:58
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Thotimx posted:Fortunately I'm not superstitious … but I do worry about taking too long and having the tech situation get away from me. It'll take another level of miniaturization to unlock enveloping. Normal (non-PD) ENV Fusion Beams are excellent anti-missile and anti-ship weaponry, although I personally tend to prefer (Auto Fire) Mass Drivers due to the lack of ranged damage dropoff (meaning PD versions are actually usable, among other things.) Which you should use (Enveloping Fusion Beams vs Auto-Fire Mass Drivers) boils down to where your technological push is happening. If you're going heavy into Force Fields, Mass Drivers will be the superior "PD" weapon. If you're going heavy into Physics, Fusion Beams will be more efficient (and you'll be that much closer to Phasors). One thing's for sure, though - as a Feudal society, you have to make your choices more carefully as research doesn't come nearly as quickly.
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Aug 15, 2019 08:29
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The Dumbest War The former haunt of the Amoeba, it now belongs to us.  Not particularly impressive, but any planet is worth it for us.  We're getting large enough that this is probably worth looking at now. Starting to put more effort into research as one aspect. Lots of assimilation work to be done, esp. in Cryslon. I'm assuming it's an undocumented (or at least overlooked-by-me) mechanic, but even after assimilation I'm getting a 20% morale hit for 'mixed races' whenever I have more than one race on a planet. We don't have a good way to counteract that right now, so I've split them up. The Silicoids will occupy the rich systems, while the Humans and Klingons split up the others. Takes a good amount of cash to ship the food around but we have enough industrial worlds that putting one on Trade Goods is counterbalancing that. I'd like another agricultural planet, but how to get one and where to put the Klingons I'd have to displace is another matter. It's working for now, but I'm not super-comfortable yet with the long-term economic picture. After this I did move to build Cloning Centers on all Silicoid-occupied planets. We have plenty of the other two species at the moment.  Pretty clear divison here; everybody's kicking our butts even with the stuff we captured.  This is a bit healthier, and we're only about at two-thirds capacity right now with a couple additional cruisers to be added soon.  Took a mere 68 turns to complete our first home-grown research. Sticking with the plan, I head for the capacitors next; estimates indicate we'll get those in less than a quarter of the time. Also, a priority now is to upgrade our design specs to outfit all ships with shielding. That'll take a while but it should have a major impact. It does mean reduced firepower; most notably our Tachi 2 cruisers will have to sacrifice a heavy mount so they'll have four heavy and five standard fusion beams now. There's a lot going on now. ** We can now blockade every enemy world except Meklon, which is still out of range. ** All major refits have been done, and Kahless gets bored quickly. Any more time waiting is time wasted - our enemies get stronger when we aren't attacking them. And by enemies, we mean all warp-capable species of course. ** It is time to show the Alkari the foolishness of pacifism. The main battle group of 4 cruisers, 1 bomber-destroyer, along with one transport and a second on the way, heads to Lir. For some time now, the birdbrains have had a single Battleship at Altair. The hope is to smash their defenses at the other system, and goad them into a foolish attack into the bulk of our fleet. ** This does leave us vulnerable in other places, but the best defense is a good offense and the Sakkra and Darlok are embroiled in a war that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. The Trilarians seem most bothered by our blockading frigates, but relations are still just north of neutal. No one is at war with us right now - we must bring the fight to them before we are left behind. ** There's a single 'extra' Qa-Cheng frigate to allow the blockaders to come back to get refit. Additionally, any that get kicked out by the local enemy fleets also are refit before being sent back. In this way we will eventually get them all equipped with shielding. There have been some close calls, but we have yet to have any destroyed, even with multiple battleship attacks, before they could warp out. ** Any industrial planet with nothing better to do invests in Colony Ships, despite the protestations of the imperial treasury which would prefer trade goods. All uninhabited planets, regardless of value, are to be gathered for the glory of the Empire ... and more importantly, for the increase in Command Points we will get from acquiring them.  Here's an exhaustive list, with the potential to increase our capacity from four to eight active cruisers if we got them all. Only Weg I is worth a darn, a former Meklar planet taken by the Darloks and then destroyed by one of the other races - the system sits empty but who knows how long that will last. We have no ships out yet, but if it remains unclaimed we will certainly snag it. Battle at Lir II (11:16) That was a long and reasonably annoying fight. With the destroyer I basically was just experimenting with how much punishment we could absorb. Our fusion beams are only moderately effective against their missiles, even at point-blank range. I wonder if even those benefit from the Alkari defense bonus? Anyway, plinking down the missile base like that was far from optimal, but it just barely worked.   I meant to kill these off, but I forgot and clicked wrong so now I'm stuck with them. For as long as we hold this, the Gem Deposits will aid the economy. Additionally, we captured the local Spaceport, something we can't build. Financially this figures to be an important system. Anyway, here's what Alkari look like and now we need to build more ships. Also, they've built a second battleship at Altair. Depending on what they decide to do with them, that could be trouble. I'm not worried about getting more blockade, assault, or transport ships up; cruisers are the priority until we get this sorted.  Their first order of business was to stay put and finally kick out our blockade. Could have been worse. The longer they are willing to dilly-dally around, the closer we get to having a full military response available. Meanwhile, the dastardly Darloks are nominated as the #2, perhaps a sign they are gaining the upper hand against the Sakkra. Alkari (2) naturally side with Mysalveer, who has four of his own; the lizards and fish-folk abstain. Our seven votes go to the enemy as well, leaving them just one shy of victory. We officially ... by the narrowest of margins, about a third of a vote ... have a veto bloc here.  And yet they refuse to submit to the 'honorable' rule of Kahless. Fools! The Alkari next decide to strike at Cryslon III, in full force. I was afraid of that. Cryslon III Defense (2:41) My goal was to take down one of them, and then hopefully survive the bombardment. This goal was not achieved. We had no chance.  We can't afford him right now. Regarding the Alkari, there was no way defend the other planet in Cryslon in time, so I didn't even try. Rather, the cruiser group left Lir and was joined by every frigate that could arrive with them, which was almost all of them. The combined force would converge on Altair itself. Either they would retreat to defend it, or find themselves without a homeworld to return to.  Clearly retreat-and-defend is not their plan. This is becoming a costly and desperate war, and right now we are losing it. The upcoming attack on their homeworld will determine everything for us. Meanwhile we colonized Weg I, but could we hang onto it? SD 3507.9 One way or another, this would be a battle long remembered. Assault at Altair (15:01) It worked ... mostly. The defenses were destroyed but we didn't have enough firepower to destroy the planet. A bomber-destroyer was en route from Kronos ... but would it arrive in time? What were those Alkari up to??  Oh nothing much ... they were just going to smash our home system. Superb. This could come down to who gets there first, and I have no clue whatsoever what the 'tiebreaker' is for that.  Here's the answer. Super-great. Pretty clear our seat of government is doomed unless I can destroy Altair right now.  You have got to be kidding me! We recolonize Cryslon III, and get a colony going on the secondary planet in Scaliger as well. But Kahless had ... other ... thoughts on his mind.  Guess how much I totally don't care right now?  I HATE YOU. We ... well, we did this.  That might have been the single dumbest war ever fought in the history of Master of Orion 2. But we 'won'. Many Silicoids died because we couldn't destroy the last living Alkari citizen on the previous turn.  Yay.  We've got a lot of pieces to pick up here ... if we can. But once we do, what next? I'd like the stock exchange thingy but I think we need assault shuttles to capture enemy ships for their tech here. There's a lot of rebuilding going to happen and I'd be an idiot if I thought it would be totally peaceful.  Yep, the Antarans are on the scene now too. So ... what in the world are they doing here so soon? Accelerated due to the Advanced start?? Anyway, the Trilarians grabbed Bier out from under our nose but it could be worse. It could also be a heck of a lot better. The Klingon Empire, aka Quagmire, is a mess. From an RP standpoint, I have to applaud such a hilariously self-destructive war. From a strategic one ... eh, I think what happens next is still a very open question. I'd try to take Bier back if our situation wasn't such a mess. We need to settle and rebuild in multiple places, get blockades back in place, reconstitute the star fleet, and somehow not find ourselves in a relative stone age compared to our rivals by the time all that's done. We're kind of going to be living on the galaxy's good humor for a while, and a new approach will clearly be needed going forward.
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Aug 17, 2019 21:10
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The mixed race penalty goes away with an alien management building. At least you didn't trade blows with the stock Elerians then you would have really traded planets.
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Aug 17, 2019 22:27
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This was a great victory. A few more like it and you're doomed.
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Aug 17, 2019 22:32
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The Alkari that you misclicked and spared aren't that big a deal, because Klingon and Alkari both make citizens of the same quality. Unless the problem is that you want to ship in citizens, which you can't do without getting a multi-race penalty unless you build a management center. If you just want to be rid of them, you can always load them on a transport and send it to a full planet. If you have such an "accident," then the inbound colonists all die on arrival or in orbit or whatever. The point is they're gone and don't make planetfall.
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Aug 19, 2019 05:35
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turol posted:This was a great victory. A few more like it and you're doomed. Well put. I don't think we can afford any more actually. MechaCrash posted:If you just want to be rid of them, you can always load them on a transport and send it to a full planet. I'd forgotten about the warnings for that, good idea. I need all the population I can get now, but originally I was thinking I'd want that planet for humans to farm as another agricultural one.
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Aug 19, 2019 23:36
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Thotimx posted:Ender's Game, Klingon version "Oh no, while we were gaming them, we got gamed! The Ender's Gamers have become the Ender's Gamed! [EXPLOSIONS]" Araganzar fucked around with this message at 06:12 on Aug 20, 2019 |
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Aug 20, 2019 06:09
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MOAR explosions then! An Uneasy Recovery Kahless paced irritatedly in the Imperial Throne Room, which is more control than his War Council had showed. They wanted to strike at the Trilarians immediately, an understandable impulse - nothing grates a proud Klingon warrior like a period of extended peace. After a stern lecture on the failures that had led to the losses of the Alkari conflict and the need for better preparation and training, Kahless informed them that the next conflict needed a new approach. The Empire required Battleship-class ships that could go toe-to-toe with their enemies. He would be reviewing the results of simulations personally on a weekly basis while the new designs were perfected and built, and then the training reports afterwards. Anyone who did not meet their new duties with surpassing excellence should consider themselves fortunate to be manning a cargo freighter shuttling dilithium back and forth from the mines. It was a well-considered challenge; the mind of his commanders needed something to be occupied with and the need for larger combat ships was very real. At the same time, it was also a naked diversion. They were in no position to fight anyone anytime soon. The outlook in terms of improving system defenses was bleak; nothing the researchers came up with seemed sufficient. The Imperial Fleet would need to handle both attack and defense.  A change of approach was decided upon in the direction of research. The population had been seriously reduced, and investment in Microbiotics to boost growth more quickly was deemed a worthwhile investment. The next task was resuming blockade activities. Two of the other races didn't even have the basic sense to aggressively combat such efforts. The fleet still retained five frigates, and only eight total were needed for this duty, so not much was required.  45M citizens. It had been well into the 70s - about 40% had been lost. The conquered homeworlds were the only systems close to productivity. Cryslon I was the center of industry and would take over colonizing duties - unfortunately, no other planet was suitable for industrial work right now but Scaliger II would have to do in getting the blockade ships going. Sol I ensured there was enough food for everyone. Several Alkari and Silicoids still needed to be assimilated. Incubator worlds in Scaliger and Sol weren't yet ready for that duty, many more researchers were needed, Weg I needed citizens to get built up ... there was so much to be done. Establishing a presence on as many planets as possible was vital though. If we didn't do it, others would eventually. Whatever territory could be acquired without war must be.  Amusingly the fleet was still nearly competitive. Overall though the situation was not so kind. In terms of combat abilities we still weren't impressed when diving into the details - everybody now had Class III Shields and capacitors, some neutron blasters were making an appearance and even the odd ion pulse cannon ... but overall if we could get some larger ships out there, the natural advantage that Klingon warriors enjoy by virtue of superior genetics and will should prove more than equal to any of their designs. Whether that's still true by the time we get to that point ... that's much less certain. And the latest estimate on microbiotics was 27 turns. This was clearly unacceptable.  SD 3508.4 - In the long-term this was the linchpin, along with simply raw aggregate effort from multiple other worlds, for keeping pace in the tech race. What other races did through increased efficiency, the Klingons would attempt to match through sheer numbers and through the many discoveries to be had here on Altair. It was a clear choice for the first new colony ship. SD 3508.6 - The Sakkra and Darloks have made peace; for now there is no war in the galaxy. The Antaran attack appeared to take out a few citizens and presumably some buildings on the Sakkra homeworld, but with a maximum of 26M they had plenty of buffer to absorb a couple of destroyers. Rebuilding commences slowly, and all the blockades save one - we were kicked out of Firma temporarily - are in place. So the first phase is complete.  The Trilarians have declared war on the Sakkra. This is probably good news for us, as their trio of Battleships moved from Bier to Sakkra. So long as nobody decisively wins, then it could be trouble.  Rebuilding the last planet destroyed during the Alkari War. And just like that, peace reigns again a single cycle after war broke out. Meanwhile Sol II reports it is ready for breeding at 184k Silicoids per turn, and a Cloning Center comes online in Scaliger. Bits of vital progress in the growth effort. More troubling, a Trilarian cruiser is en route to Sol ... if this is an end to the peace, it is very troubling.  I didn't want to start building these yet, but it seems we have little choice. The Cho'nek deploys the capacitors for the first time and brings plenty of fusion firepower to bear. It'll take a while before we can finish any though ... longer than we are likely to have.  I can only hope this lasts no longer than the Sakkra conflict did. Battle of Sol Prime (0:39) That ... did not go well. Two more Trilarian battleships are en route. We have no chance of defending Sol as things are. As terrible a thing as it is to say, we may need to depend on ... the diplomats. The planet was destroyed the next time around, and with it all vestiges of humanity. Sol II was next, and then Scaliger. We simply didn't have enough firepower to stand against three battleships and a cruiser. I tried to intercept with what ships we had, but they slipped past us and unlike the other races can move as fast as we can. And smashed Cryslon III. Our one remaining industrial center eliminated, it was now hopeless. Kahless knew he had acted too late. If the fleet had been upgraded to battleships prior to attacking the Alkari, the galaxy likely would have been his as was the intended destiny of the Klingon people. Instead, he could only watch hopelessly as the Trilarian ships obliterated what was left of his people.  By the time Aqualius was willing to negotiate peace, there was almost nothing left of the once-glorious Klingon empire. Stripped to three relatively undeveloped systems, the 'treaty' agreed to effectively made our proud warrior race a client state of the vile fish-folk. And worst of all was the knowledge that it could all have been avoided. It would have helped if I'd inherited the AI's magic 'sue immediately for peace' skill ... instead of 'no diplomatic negotiations while we are at war' or 'unless you're here to surrender, go away' or similar messages. But more importantly, I needed to make sure I could match their fleets so that I could at least smash their planets as quickly as they smashed mine. By the time I realized that danger fully, it was too late. This was a completely winnable game I think. Ahh well. Consider it one to learn from I guess. Biggest major mulfunction in my brain was probably getting confused on the requirements to build Battleships - just need to have a starbase up but I was thinking for a while that I needed a battlestation for some reason even though that's not a requirement.
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Aug 20, 2019 20:49
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I wouldn't beat yourself up over faring poorly as feudal repulsive on a small map having to expand straight down the throat of multiple war-footing species. A lot of the human advantage in the MOO games comes from manipulating the AI to make poor logistical decisions or the AI happily doing this on its own. There's a lot less room for this when you have a lot of eggs but only a few baskets. Even if you weren't repulsive, AI declaring war in this game sometimes feels like a tantrum spiral in Dwarf Fortress.
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Aug 20, 2019 23:28
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Clearly the Darlocks are to blame.
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Aug 20, 2019 23:51
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On the bright side, being way overaggressive and then getting beat down once overextended is exactly what I would expect from the Klingons, so...
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Aug 21, 2019 02:52
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thetruegentleman posted:On the bright side, being way overaggressive and then getting beat down once overextended is exactly what I would expect from the Klingons, so... Now that I can get behind. This run was completely in-character.
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Aug 23, 2019 19:43
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A Final (Stiff) Challenge So now, the last of my intended four forays into MOO2. Despite having lost two of my three attempts - the last of which I probably should have won - on Hard, I move up to Impossible with Stock Klackons. Am I a glutton for punishment? It is most assuredly so. But also, I will not walk away from this game saying I didn't have the guts to try it on the most stringent difficulty setting. Also, there were multiple people who wanted me to try an Uncreative race. I do this expecting to lose badly, but I'll give it a full try to avoid that fate. Let's 'enjoy' my impending epic fail together! I'll do my best not to embarass myself too thoroughly, and I'm confident the lot of you will be faithful to point out my (likely numerous) errors. But I have learned a fair bit from the previous attempts ...  *shudder*  As bug-eyed freaks, we can at least farm and build stuff. I will be known as the Overmind, ruling because I can from the planet Char. We will of course be using a red theme. My first foray with the Unification government, which boosts food and industrial production but has no morale effects.  Trilarians again. Superb. They like us though (Amiable), and are a bit incoherent as Pacifistic Expansionsists.  Fighting them would be ... bad.  Our secondary planet is not too impressive. Being able to feed ourselves instantly with a quarter (less actually) of the population is darned good.  How nice of you. It's going to be vital to maintain peace wherever we can for as long as we can. The aquatics lie and say 'there is wisdom in your words', agreeing to both research and trade deals. That's tank the treasury for a while but every such agreement we can get will help in the long run. I'm also assuming, perhaps with risk, that being Pacifists they won't go all immediate DOW on us. The Overmind does not with his minions to invest time in a combat fleet just yet.  The scouts will move in these directions, with the yellow system by far my preferred destination. The Colony Ship will go that way as well. It would extend our range the most towards the galactic centre and is the most likely to have a good landing spot.  And here's the bad news. Before I make my selection, let's look at each field, since we're told what we'll be able to choose all the way through.  It'll be freaking forever until we manage to get the slightest boost to our production. Factory builds will be a huge goal in terms of arranging some technology swaps with the Trilarians or whomever else.  Better armor types in the long run, pollution aids coming a little sooner.  Ship battle computers aren't coming for a long time. On the other hand, it looks like we'll be able to bring in every key research building.  It's a long journey from the Fusion Beam to the Plasma Cannon ...  Came to the right place if you like Bombs and Torpedoes. Might be a time to experiment with the AM Torps?  Xeno-Psych will be nice. No Spaceport but we get the other two income-boosters.  A mix here. I'd rather Biospheres than hydroponics naturally, but we'll get some growth boosts and the WCS if we last long enough for it to matter.  NO ship-mounted shields or accelerator weapons. So Fusion Beams/Torpedoes it is. Inertial Stabilizer and Radiation Shield though will definitely be beneficial. Going Optronics for the Research Lab seems mandatory to boost our tech efforts. I haven't yet decided what to do after that. A single worker for stockpiling production will prevent pollution; that leaves five scientists, and a ETA of 15 turns. We're losing 3 BCs per right now while the deals with Trilar spool up.  Two turns and they've already taken this. Fast isn't the word. An Alkari fleet is spotted below us. The wormhole in Galos leads to the other side of the galaxy.  It is a good system. It also is occupied. All five orbits are habitable. Sheesh. WE WANT.  Uhh ... what aggressive actions?? They are Erratic Expansionists, and at least agree to a reseach deal.  Good grief. Ok let's recap the situation: ** There are four reachable systems. ** Trilarians claimed one ** Alkaris claimed another ** The remaining pair have space monsters Do I just like resign now, or what? We did manage to escape Bethmoora, which has natives and four planets. Three are radiated. The other one is Gaia Rich 20 max pop.
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Aug 23, 2019 21:20
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Well, I think it's obvious that you must recruit every psionic, telepathic, and other brain powered leader you get a chance to. also, serve the hive, feel the groove...
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Aug 23, 2019 23:13
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Hey, Thot! I caught up on this thread while I was house-sitting last week and wanted to join in before it was too late.  I really enjoyed the Klingon run, it looked like you were in pretty good shape up until the Pyrrhic Alkari war. If at all possible you never want to lose too many ships once you've got your empire going; that systems claimed : fleet strength ratio gets you every time. It'd be really neat to get a proper MOO2 remake with an actual diplomacy system, heh. Regarding the last game: vis a vis when the Antarans attack and in what strength, Advanced counts I think +100 turns compared to Normal, and Pre-Warp counts -100 turns (I've never seen an Antaran battleship except on Advanced for example). Feudal is one of the rougher drawbacks unless you're playing a very particular strategy (like the actual Elerians' Mind Control capability, so you don't have to bother with transports and assimilation time and can expand very quickly), but Repulsive is one of the harshest things to pair it with. Especially on Advanced, you're missing out on a lot of RP from research treaties. Thotimx posted:Do I just like resign now, or what? We did manage to escape Bethmoora, which has natives and four planets. No, Eels and Crystals aren't too rough and those systems are amazing (Nir's splinter colony means you won't even need to wait on a colony ship, it'll join immediately once you kill the monster). Don't forget you can share systems with another alien race, and since they're not very good at building colony bases you can probably get the other 2 on Galos (or wait and see if Kronos has any other planets). Being Unification, it won't take too much time to crank out a fleet of frigates and take down those monsters and you should be good to go. It's nice of the game to box you in and deny you Production buildings to help balance how OP Unification is.  Speaking of, in your position (I actually don't peek at the available techs when I play Uncreative in MOO2 so it feels more like MOO1), I'd knock out the basic stuff first (probably up through Supercomputer) and then beeline to Astro University for that +1 to everything. Everything on the way is useful: Space Academy makes your frigates better (it may actually be the difference between getting Initiative or not), Stock Exchange solves your money issues, etc. Being a 2000 RP tech it's good trade-bait even on Impossible, too.
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Aug 24, 2019 07:00
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Welcome back!Wayne posted:t won't take too much time to crank out a fleet of frigates and take down those monsters and you should be good to go. Yeah that's what I thought in my first game and, well, it didn't work out great for me then Good Antarans info though, and I was planning on fighting the monsters as their isn't much else I can do, but suffice to say that if the Eel doesn't go down easier than the Crystal did I'm in trouble. Remember, I'm good enough for it to matter how OP Unification is, but not by all that much  . The way I see it, it's far more likely the Alkari wake up on the wrong side of the bed and decide to smash me before it's at all clear I can do the first darned thing about it. ETA: Wayne posted:you can share systems with another alien race, and since they're not very good at building colony bases you can probably get the other 2 on Galos (or wait and see if Kronos has any other planets). The two on Galos are both Tiny, max population of a whole one each. But I'll see what happens in Kronos. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 11:46 on Aug 24, 2019 |
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Aug 24, 2019 09:45
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| # ? May 10, 2024 22:33 |
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Limited Options It turns out Kronos has only the one planet the Alkari took. So much for the idea of sharing that system.  I normally wouldn't do this, instead waiting for a Colony Base. But I see no useful alternative here. We'll get a second colony up at least for the purpose of breeding, and I'm going to need every last command point for the ships we'll have to build to fight our way out of this corner. I've got to do something with the Colony Ship, and I don't think it's worth taking the super-tiny ones in Galos at this early juncture. Of course for now pretty much nothing will happen there other than paying taxes, until I get a freighter-fleet online.  SD 3500.9 - With the freighters now operational, stockpiling resumes on the homeworld. I keep the Scouts around for now for the pretense of defense until we start getting military ships out there. There's nothing I can usefully build here, and while a new citizen every ten turns isn't spectacular by any stretch, it does more than double our current growth rate. We get 89k on our home planet. Thee the Alkari response to another proposed economic deal is to 'find it unacceptable at this time'.  I have yet to sign an Alliance in this LP. The fish-folk are my best shot at one, and they take the next step in this probably intentionally insulting response.  I'm half-surprised it isn't the omni-present Rash-lki. An industrial assist in the early game for cheap to boost our buildup? Yes, that's a no-brainer. The initial impact is to boost the output of both planets by 0.4 each. That's another way of saying zero, thanks to rounding, so he does us no good whatsoever. But that will change.  Our scientist seems a little ... bland ... compared to some of the other portraits. He is very Klackon of course, no quibbles there.  Following the dictate that MIRV missiles are the way to go early - esp. against space monsters - I grab this for that capability, not for the range itself. Also gets us closer to those pollution-reducing techs of course.  That's a lot of pollution, but I think it's worth it - we don't have nearly enough stockpiled for the lab. Aside from the first one, the other workers produce six industry each, three taken away for pollution ... except for the last one, who got rounded up to seven and four effective industry. So I figured that was a good place to stop. No way short of buying it to get this done in a single turn anyhow. Fun fact; as of this moment just over half (7 of 13) RP are being produced by our treaties and not our own people. SD 3501.5 - The Research Lab is up. Now we have little choice but to prepare to fight. We switch back to stockpiling a bit with a scientist labor focus to get the next research in.  They tolerate me. They REALLY tolerate me!  Interesting factoid: the second planet in Trilar is Medium Barren Rich (4M max). I actually find myself wondering if I should have waited for the range to send the colony ship there. I'm not sure if it would have been better. This is an interesting choice as well. In the short-run Houri would be probably a hair better than Crassis. Do I hire her to sit there and do nothing? For the price, I think I do. I can switch them out if needed, and once we expand she's a good fit. After testing it out, she is indeed slightly better. With three workers, I get 14 industry with her, and 13 with Crassis. Crassis gives us a larger gross amount, but Houri's pollution-reduction is just good enough to make up for that with a bit extra. So she gets the job for now. SD 3502.3 - We're now up to 11M citizens on Char III.  LOL. You have done no such thing. You have repeatedly refused said access. But uh, thanks for finally agreeing? They're up to Amiable, Trilarians Affable. So a bad omen on Altair is about the only way we should end up at war for the moment. Still hangs over our heads like the sword of Damocles though.  Pollution Processor will take some while to get, but will give us that MIRV capability and help in cranking out the ships to carry them as well. Meanwhile, we can explore three new systems just because.  Is there any system in this galaxy that didn't start with hostile life? I know the space monsters probably accrue to my benefit in the long-term, but sheesh. Three habitables and a gas giant. All three are Rich or Ultra Rich.  Here's one. Long-term research colony project. Out of range for now and probably taken by someone else by the time it isn't, but hey at least we weren't under threat of being blown up upon dropping out of warp. That's a new thing.  This I don't get. An early tech lead, on Impossible MOO? That's ... well, impossible.  I give up. Has anyone ever played a game of MOO 2 without acquiring her services? Not that I'm complaining. One scout had to path through a nebula to get here, and the second had to retreat to Char after running into the Amoeba, so they took a while and arrived at the same time, sharing the honors. Naturally she immediately takes over a Char governor.  This is the 'good' planet, to go with a Tiny Barren and two gas giants. I'd want to be rescued from there as well.  This love-in is getting flat-out embarassing.  The Alkari went all 'your military sucks' on me just as I was coming up on finishing the research. I'm not losing this final run dumbly like that, so I reloaded from a few turns before and designed this. Guess I just refit them a little later on.  This caused a substantially different response, you might say. Unfortunately, this caused me to not get a leader I acquired the first time around (Urro). So the reload wasn't without price.  Ok then. Now we can get going a bit more.  I think I want the Space Academy next.  Unfortunately without Battle Pods we can't fit a second MIRV launcher. This'll have to do. A single 5-shot MIRV, btw, would be a single space unit too big. Once we slap a Pollution Processor together, we've got a choice to make. Either we make a play for that planet in the Trilar system, or we fight the Eel in Nir.
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Aug 27, 2019 00:22
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