almondblight
Arcane
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2004
- Messages
- 2,549
Reading the MOO2 manual makes me wanna play MOO1...MOO2 sounds like it's much more micromanagement, smaller fleets and less fun. I hope I'm wrong.
You're not.
Reading the MOO2 manual makes me wanna play MOO1...MOO2 sounds like it's much more micromanagement, smaller fleets and less fun. I hope I'm wrong.
MOO2 is very "Civilization: Space Edition" as far as the empire building goes - I never read the manual but can play it fine anyway because the "move workers around for food/hammers/grain" mechanics + corruption + happiness and all that is essentially the same in all Civ-type games.Reading the MOO2 manual makes me wanna play MOO1...MOO2 sounds like it's much more micromanagement, smaller fleets and less fun. I hope I'm wrong.
So I see you aren't a vampire (???) guy any more
But this game reminds me why I swore I should not play Huge maps again; despite the initial map not looking that large, it takes too much time to conquer it all.
I thought I answered this particular question but it turns out I forgot to do it. Oh well, might as well tie two "size" posts together.Are the MoOs harder on small maps? I always play that way and find both games hard on the higher difficulties.
I would say small maps are harder because it tends to be more "swingy" with things like planet generation and how much you can snatch before you are forced into conflict - you get a bad start like having no planets in range at start and you might as well just respawn the map. In bigger maps the "luck" tends to even itself out.
But like octavius said, I sadly have to take that swinginess over playing big maps because it gets god awful boring trying to stomp cockroaches.
Fusion is your best bombs? Yikes. Try missiles instead of torpedoes, they don't have a 50% damage reduction attacking planets.
For space combat go-to is usually spamming a million small ships that are too fast to be hit. Use cloaking if needed.
Are your planets at industry cap?
Are you sure they aren't making small ships? That sounds like an awfully huge discrepancy.
It's a "relative timing" thing I guess - you're probably going to be out-teched by about half of the races with better economy so you better start some kind of war sooner or later to try to catch up.
AI doesn't split planet pops to improve planet growth IIRC, so the Sakkra bonus is a lot better for them.
That said I think its 90% dependent on the map layout who becomes strong. I've had a game where I've played Darlok and never needed to espionage because I colonized around 40% of the galaxy without needing to war, just because random spawns and planet placement cut off a about a 1/3rd slice of the galaxy strictly for me.
I highly recommend giving away tech early on to the AI in order to get on their good side. Once they like you you won't have much to fear of a random DoW.
That's my weakness as a gamer; I just can't into the whole diplomacy/asskissing/bribery thing, even though I objectively know it's useful.
I try to be a nice and equal neighbour instead, establishing trade agreements (that rarely last long enough to pay themselves off unless I play the Humans) and swapping tech.