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Master of Orion 1+2

Destroid

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I play MoO when I want a quick hit: I can easily complete a playthrough in one sitting. MoO is a little more involved, and has a lengthier play time, but I enjoy the game more in the end, even with its annoyances (like microing colonies and very big battles taking too long).
 

octavius

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It looks like I may actually be able to win with the Darlaks against the alliance of Humans, Sakkras, Silicoids, Psilons and Alkari.
Using 15-20% of the budget on spying ensures I'm not too far behind in tech (ahead in some areas, in fact) and sabotaging missile bases makes it easy to either conquer or destroy colonies. Biggest problem is actually lack of manpower to conquer.
I'm surprised the rebel scum of The Alliance don't amass better fleets. But they tend to run at the sight of my gargantuan battleships and with no in-fighting I guess they are more stuck with obsolete ships than in a normal game.
 

octavius

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Try a game with that spy race. It's pretty different. Also, you get almost as much tech as the psilons (especially if they are in the game) -.~

Just won with the Darloks. They were the most fun race to play, as I suspected.

Now I've played all the races except the cats, and the only race that I found difficult to play was the Silicoids. But that was an abnormal game I think, with no worthwhile hostile planets to colonize, the Alkari constantly harassing me while the Meklars and Sakkras build their enormous death fleets, and me not having learnt the value of Cloning.
Final War with the Darloks was easier, and the alliance was never a threat. The Darloks were fun to play, but the mopping up phase was tedious. I wish there was a way to force the others to surrende when they are totally outmatched.
 

Destroid

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Try a game with that spy race. It's pretty different. Also, you get almost as much tech as the psilons (especially if they are in the game) -.~

Just won with the Darloks. They were the most fun race to play, as I suspected.

Now I've played all the races except the cats, and the only race that I found difficult to play was the Silicoids. But that was an abnormal game I think, with no worthwhile hostile planets to colonize, the Alkari constantly harassing me while the Meklars and Sakkras build their enormous death fleets, and me not having learnt the value of Cloning.
Final War with the Darloks was easier, and the alliance was never a threat. The Darloks were fun to play, but the mopping up phase was tedious. I wish there was a way to force the others to surrende when they are totally outmatched.

That is what the Orion senate victory is for. Or you can just glass planet after planet, preferably with bioweapons (I think they do permanent damage to the planets pop limit?).
 

TigerKnee

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I had a good start with the Alkari (spawned with an Ocean Artifacts World next to me) but I kind of blew it, sigh.

Lost control of the votes and entered into a Final War. Klackons were the top race of course that everyone else voted for.

Also it seems to me that it's never a good idea to get into a war with the Bulrathi. They have a hard time actually WINNING the game, but on the other hand you have to throw a ridiculous amount of citizens to take over their cities and I'm not sure if it's worth it... unless there's something I'm not seeing. They drag you into an attrition war and leave both your races weakened so that the Psilons and Klackons are sitting on the sidelines laughing at you.

How early should I start to go on the offensive, especially when playing a combat race like the Alkari? Are there any key techs to research because I'm pretty sure I probably shouldn't start a war with default lasers.

Near the end of the game, my opponent built this Huge sized ship and both of us couldn't kill the other ship, because when the ship was about to be destroyed they would warp out. He DID drop a bunch of bioweapons on my planet before leaving all the time which is annoying. Is there any way to prevent this scenario of having 2 super tanky units not be able to kill each other?

Also how do I know whether an earlier weapon with miniaturization is more effective or a later weapon? Is there some kind of quick calculation I could do?
 

Destroid

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Exterminatus is the best solution for Bulrathi.

The question of which weapons are better most often depends on how much shielding your opponents have, even an 'average damage per size' calculation wouldn't be all that useful.


If you want to kill ships like that, make your own ships less tanky and more guns.
 

TigerKnee

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If you want to kill ships like that, make your own ships less tanky and more guns.

6 ship design limit made that sort of annoying for me.

Also, Ship building tips people? At the start I tried to do a MOO2 strategy of "small = always good" but that doesn't seem to work out that well here. The AI seems really bad at taking care of Large/Huge ships which is why I use them a lot but I wonder if small ships are more cost-effective in the "killing" rather than tanking department.

Not sure where that leaves Medium ships.
 

octavius

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In the beginning I try to make Large ships since they can take quite a bit of beating. Later I mostly go for Huge batteships and Small bombers.
I've found Small ships to be rather useless early in the game, unless you play the Alkari, since they suffer from having only space for a Laser and not much more. Later in the game Small ships are rather useless if you face enemy ships with Repulsor Beams or Pulsars, so I found Medium ships the best choice for the Alkari, supported by a few Huge battleships. The best use for Small ships I think are as bombers, later in the game when you can fit one bomb in addition to Stabilizer and Missile Shields, making them hard to hit for the Missile Bases.

I don't think any race can go to war early, since the AI players seem to start with a rather large fleet.
So you need to build up first.
The key techs for the Alkari are in Propulsion, both because you get a bonus for that research, but also because good Engines give better mobility, both on the strategic map and in combat. Weapons is also important. You may want to get weapons that halve enemy shields. Pellet Guns are also good early weapons. Also Computers for good Battle Computers and thus better Attack rating. Unlike the Large and Huge ships, Battle Scanners may not fit on the smaller ships.

Against the Bulrathi I'd just bomb their planets, either to destroy them or to reduce them to 10 or less population, unless you are a communist the Sakkras and can throw in enough easily replenished manpower.
 

Burning Bridges

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Does anyone have an opinion to share on Free Orion? I recently played MoO2 a lot, but the interface wore me out. It baffles me how a 15 year old game can still be unsurpassed.
 

Raapys

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Jun 7, 2007
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Yeah, it is rather strange.

Personally I think there are other great 4x space games too( SE4, MoO3 with mods and Distant Worlds being the best contenders), but MoO2 somehow managed to do everything well. The combat was highly entertaining, if not balanced, colony management was okay'ish if repetitive, spy stuff was decent, research was cool, ship design was great, diplomacy became the new standard( however poor... ), race creation was fun, etc.. Just as much as the actual gameplay features though, they also managed to have the best / most atmospheric music, graphics and sound effects of any 4x made. For the few 4x games that come close to MoO2 gameplay-wise, they always lose out on the presentation. That also includes MoO1, which I personally think has a bit more longevity than the sequel because of less micromanagement.
 

Galdred

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I too prefer to replay MOO, but I had more fun in the beginning with MOO2 until the amount of micromanagement (not only on the late colonies, but the population transfer to maximize growth in the beginning is horribly boring, and mandatory in MP) made me realize MOO was more fit to be replayed (and I think the AI plays better in MOO).
 

almondblight

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Damn MoO1 is like crack. I kept reading that there was no point to play it over MoO2, but I'm glad I did - I'm having a blast. The only problem is that hours disappear and I don't even realize it.
 

Nutmeg

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I have question for those of you that both prefer Master of Orion II to Master of Orion and note that Master of Orion II's strategic depth contributes to its lack of strategic difficulty in comparison to Master of Orion.

Why?

Possible reasons I can think of:
+ Role playing a fictional culture (more cosmetic choices to play with).
+ Self imposed challenges (larger set of available restrictions and goals).

But I am not sure if these are actual reasons anyone has.
 

Riel

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Licore are you confusing tactics with strategy? Theres is very little of the former in MoO1 while there is plenty int he second; it is my opinion that the tactical depth of MoO2 is what kills its AI, incapable of coping with it, so you can simply destroy it by abusing its battle tactictal particularities ... aka tactics.
 

Nutmeg

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Licore are you confusing tactics with strategy? Theres is very little of the former in MoO1 while there is plenty int he second; it is my opinion that the tactical depth of MoO2 is what kills its AI, incapable of coping with it, so you can simply destroy it by abusing its battle tactictal particularities ... aka tactics.
Cool. My question was mostly inspired by the things you said earlier in this thread. Do you feel the poor A.I during tactical battles was the only area where you felt depth was wasted?
 

Nutmeg

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Licorice is MoO2 actually easy for you on the hardest difficulty without using a custom race?
I can't remember. I remember achieving diplomatic victory a few times and once avoiding it and going for conquest. I'd usually play as the Gnolams or the Elerians and on the largest galaxy (this makes the game easier, I think). I don't remember having much luck with custom races, and I'm sure I played the game on impossible but I'm not sure if I won.
 

Absalom

Guest
MoO2 is tricky for me on impossible with a stock race. Honestly it depends on the start. An average start I can usually get a win 60-70% of the time, depending on what race.

If you get a shitty start, impossible makes it too overpowering to win. This is just me though.

As for the OP's question, I like all of them about equally. I personally feel that MoO > MoO 2 > MoM. I can appreciate the argument that MoO is superior to the sequel because of the micro and is a "cleaner" experience for it but the positives outweigh the negatives for me.
 

kyrub

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I too prefer to replay MOO, but I had more fun in the beginning with MOO2 until the amount of micromanagement (not only on the late colonies, but the population transfer to maximize growth in the beginning is horribly boring, and mandatory in MP) made me realize MOO was more fit to be replayed (and I think the AI plays better in MOO).

Yep, but but there's a funny twist in it: the AI in MoO is actually tragic, yet it keeps giving the impression of being good. It's totally incomparable to the MoM's one (which probably means: to the MoO2's one as well), and it's prehistoric compared to Civ2/SMAC AI. Spear and tank kind of "incomparable". But it works somehow better.


There is some absurdity in this, but maybe something that modern developpers should reconsider. A good bunch of games had a very poor AI, yet the gaming experience is top notch and intellectually challenging. Prime examples: MoO, X-COM, and lately a new surprise member, Eador. The trick for me seems to have 2 major points and a third minor one:

1) These games are excellently set-up to cover for any AI defficiency. They use simplification of rules, they even premeditate the rules (it seems) to help the AI. Example: in MoO you cannot attack a fleet in the space, only at planets - so the AI easily know what's the E.T.A. and destination of your ships - very effective. In X-Com, the sheer lethality of alien weapons make the AI look good. And the 10 waypoint weapon is an AI cheat, because they obviously could not make the pathfinding routine to use only 3-5 points necessary. But Eador leads all the way here, the tactical AI is dumbly advancing all the time, yet there are many combat traits to make that trivial tactic actually worthwhile - like move-and-shoot, spend-move-and-attack, and overall advantage of attack compared to defense. Eador has very smart conception.

2) The erratic character of the AI. This is strange, poor and amazing in the same time. X-COM (especially TFTD) is known for unpredictable alien behaviour, mix it with fog of war and close fight and you get the formula. Surely, the code was broken and we know there pre-programmed paths. Yet, after all those years, I keep losing my Aquatoid off sight, and popping 2 or 3 turns later killing my soldier. MoO has some incredible situations as well, massive AI decisions are separated by some kind of butterfly effect, that can send the game in an "alternate universe". Just ask the people who play the game form the same save, how differently it can spin. (Eador is not erratic, though.) The AIs that are good but formulaic stand no chance against a clever human after 25 games. The AIs that are strangely inpredictable (but not dumb-inpredictable) can win after 100 games, though.

3) The minor point: the bugs. Huh? Si, the bugs sometimes add to the game experience. Like the chryssalid hatching its egg even when it fails to hit your soldier. Or the MoO strange ship distribution (creating the fleets of doom) which is actually a bug. Or the unpredictable choice of planet target in the same game. Or the invasion to a settled planet of a player with Non-aggression-pact. Many bugs make the AI very funny to play against.
 

Galdred

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Indeed, I can only agree with this (and on a sidenote, that's why I don't like Paradox games : they are too complex for the AI to have any clue, and too long to play against humans) : AI works better if supported by the game mechanisms, and that can only happen if the game mechanics are simple enough (or the game is very asymetric).
Armaggedon Empires AI worked well for the same reason : it had limited options (because of the board gamey nature of the game), and could luck out by finding invaluable goodies allowing them to even the fight (as there was 3 AI to 1 single human).

It is even possible to build challenging games around non existing AI :
The ios Warhammer Quest AI, and FTL AI are both non existent, but the games are built around that : ie FTL AI is not allowed to target a room, so it does fire randomly, which is hardly a problem given the game difficulty, and in WHQ, the monsters activation rules are something like 1 rulebook page long, yet there are so many things thrown at the heroes that the game still feel challenging, and (on the ios adaptation), there are times we even forget that the AI "strategy" is really that dumb (spread attacks evenly among all characters mostly + don't try to move when in melee).
 

almondblight

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I kept failing miserably in MoO2 at first as well. Then I just started aggressively teching up weaponry and built a handful of large ships that I constantly rotated around to refit with new weapons. The game wasn't hard after that, but it was pretty tedious. The first game was much better.
 

TigerKnee

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Make a super awesome custom race (hint: get repulsive) and stomp all over your enemies.
 
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Yep, custom race is the key. Specifically, industry bonuses are the game breaker, they are more important than science.

Don't take creative, it's unnecessary. It sounds awesome, but there are only a couple of tech levels where it really hurts to chose one tech over the other (and there's a chance to get them from diplomacy or espionage). What is important is to pick specific technologies as fast as you can early in the game. Research labs and automatic factories are a must - get them as fast as you can. Prioritize production/research/food/money tech over weapons/defences, and production in particular over everything else. With more production you can pump out colony ships you need to expand fast early on - you can worry about warships later.

If you really need to defend, use cheap missile boats for early defence or missile bases if you can get the tech. But usually you don't at this point - just sign non-aggression and trade treaties with everyone. The only exception are repulsive races, if you have the bad luck to start next to one the only thing that will stop them from attacking you are ships around your vulnerable worlds. Obviously, all this doesn't apply if you take repulsive trait, but I don't recommend that for new players as it cripples your diplomacy options. In fact, I usualy like to play charismatic as it makes diplomacy even easier and attracts leaders to you - a good leader early in the game can make a huge difference. Some come with free techs, sometimes quite high level - even if you don't care about the tech, you can always trade it with everyone for several useful technologies.

Don't forget that you can use freighters to move population - use them to move people from your homeworld to colonies. That way your homeworld will keep growing and those colonies will be usefully much sooner. For the same reason automated factories should be the first building on every new colony. Buy it if you have the cash. Anyway, those are my recommendations for early game.
 

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