Hardest Moo2 game setting?

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Brutalisk


I get the feeling that you put 4 picks out of your pocket in there...

Huh?

[Whoha]

Tried playing a game with all possible negative settings(editor), got smacked around twice.

[Whoha]

Try this one out for size:

every negative possible.

rename Save7.gam.sav to Save7.gam

[siron]

hmmmm.....even with 8 farmers u loose 164k pop. at least for me.

[Whoha]

you are cybernetic, you need 3 farmers, 4 workers, and 1 scientist :P

[siron]

ah. okies. had just a short look at the race stats, where cybernetic isnt mentioned....and tried to go for early ship techs....

....nevertheless there is some kind of soil bug there...u dont lose pop if u dont touch ur colony....

[Whoha]

yea thats a problem with editting the save, should have gone in, touched it then posted it.

[Whoha]

anyway there are so many traits that not all of them are listed, it doesnt show that you are repulsive and uncreative either :P

[Dry]

News from my -10 picks race:
I got the dimesion door from some alien and went to the Antarans.
The score was not that high. Something like 8500. Anyway, it's the best score for me (previous was 8200 with a -4 picks race).

Then I tried the Feudal Brutalisk race (I didn't remembered the +50% Growth, so I took the +20% ShOff instead).
I forgot my paper for details home, but I can already say I stopped at turn ~450 and have no doubt I will win. There was a lot of stress situations and epic fights (lost all my fleet but 1 ship, lost my Home planet, ...).
I will try not to forget my notes tomorrow and will give you the details of the glorious gnolam history.

[Dry]

It seems my memory really failed me, cause I made a mix of the 2 proposed races.
Well, here is the story, in 10 parts:

Part I: Genesis
-----------------
Gnolam are:
Feudal
Sci +2
Tax +1
Sh Off +20%
Lucky
Uncreative
Poor HW

Being uncreative our god has reload until ResLab and AutoFact were in our tech tree. For the rest, we will need to be smart or strong.

Stardate 3500.0: The fierce Gnolam people accept the ruling of Bortis 1st.
Our system consists of 3 planets:
Gnoll I: Small, Radiated, Rich (3)
Gnoll II: Med, Terran, Poor (12)
Gnoll III: Med, radiated, abund (4)
There is a Gas Giant on a 4th orbit.

Part II: Expansion
---------------------
Stardate 3508.4: Director Khunagg (Farm, Labor, tactics, Codo) joins
Stardate 3510.2: discover Pollution Processor
Stardate 351?.?: scouts discover only empty systems + one with a space dragon. We need to explore second ring systems
Stardate 3511.3: Produce our first colony ship
Stardate 3511.7: we reach Rebar, our first colony
Stardate 3512.3: Chug the planetologist (terraform) joins.
Stardate 3512.7: Cassandra (telepath train.) joins.

[Dry]

Part III: Contact
-----------------
Stardate 3512.8: we establish contact with a race of giants. They call themselves Mrrshans. They give us TachyCom and MissilesBases and we give them Terraforming and PollProc. We sign trade and research treaty and NAPact.
Stardate 3513.0: 3rd col. ship reach Draco.
Stardate 3515.1: An eel disappear from the screen (Firma). The mrrshan colonize the system next turn. We give the Mrrshans Planetary Comp, they give us Heavy Armor.
Stardate 3516.1: On Yutz (second colony), we colonize 2nd planet: natives.
Stardate 3517.6: we establish contact with the Darlocks (another race of giants). They are repulsive, no contact possible.
Stardate 3519.3: Mrrshan give us BttlePod, SpaceAc and Tritanium, we give them PlanetGravGen, NeutrScann and RobotMiners

Part IV: Dwarves
----------------
Stardate 3522.3: Contact with Alkari... giants ... wait .... maybe *they* are not giants, maybe it's us who are dwarves. They give us FusionDrive and AntiMissRock, we give them PlanetGravGen and PollProc. We sign 2 treaties, no NAP.
Stardate 3522.9: Contact Elerians. No exchange possible. We give them 3 techs and sign 2 treaties and NAP.
Stardate 3523.8: NAP with Alkari.
Stardate 3524.1: First spy success. Got Zortrium from Darlocks.

[Dry]

Part V: War
-----------
Stardate 3527.3: We were framed by ?, the Mrrshan break all treaties.
Stardate 3528.3: One Mrrshan BB is heading Gnoll (6 turns), our HW. We prepare 1BB (mass driver) and 2CL (missiles) to welcome them.
Stardate 3529.0: The ship is captured. We hope to disover the secrets of 3 possible unknown technologies: Shield III, Neutron blaster or Graviton beam. We scrap the ship and understand the neutron Blaster technology.
We build a second BB and arm her with neutron blaster, marine killers. We hope to capture more ships, because we see already 2 more in approach (2 and 4 turns away).
Stardate 3529.6: Second ship captured. We understand now Graviton beam. Unfortunately, the battle was hard (as was the armor of the ennemy ship). Our weapons were weak against HvyArmor. We lost our neutron Blaster BB and our missile CLs. Our glorious fleet consists now of 1 single BB.
Stardate 3529.7: 3rd BB captured. No tech understood. It seems we cannot understand shield tech by scrapping ships. This lesson will be reminded.
Stardate 3530.0: 4rth BB captured. We keep it.
... ?? no archive for some time ...

Part VI: Survival
-----------------
Stardate 3532.7: A fleet consisting in 9BB, 1CL, 1DD is in approach (4 turns). To meet them, we have 4BB, 3 CL.
Stardate 3533.1: The Battle for Homeworld. They win, having still 4 BBs alive. We could save (retreat) only 1 single BB. Our HomePlanet is bombed to the ground and we transfer our Capitol to Rebar.
The 4 wounded BBs change target and are expected in 3 turns at Draco. This give us the time to build a 2nd BB.
Stardate 3533.4: We meet at Draco. 4 vs 2. We win. Kill them all, lost one. Once again our fleet is reduced to 1BB.
Stardate 3534.1: 4 vs 4. We have 3 survivors, they: none.
Stardate 3534.?: We manage to exchange Shield III vs GalStockExch.
Stardate 3534.8: Fieras is now Elerian colony... good for us. We exch. Titan construction vs Android Workers.

[Dry]

Part VII: Women
---------------
Stardate 3535.5: 4BB, 2CL, 2DD, 1F 5 turns away. To meet: 8BB and our first Titan ... if we rush it ... we do.
Stardate 3536.0: They are destroyed, but we lost our TI and 3BB (they moved first). We captured 1BB and 1 CL. We scrap and discover Adamantium and Zeon mssls. We give Elerians Confed and got Phaser... PHASERS!!!! YES !!!! PHASER... YEEEEEEHA!
Stardate 3536.8: Elerians declare war...?!?!?!?
Stardate 3536.9: 2Ti, 5BB, 1CL, 1DD (Elerians) 3 turns away. 8BB (Mrrshan) 4 turns away. We have no archive of the results... but historians think it was victory.
Stardate 3538.2: Eler: 7Ti, 5BB (BeamAtt/BeamDef = 177/227), 1CL, 3DD and ... Loknar's ship . We have 6Ti, 7BB (195/160). With such numbers, if we stay, we are dead meat.
We kill 2BB and 3DD and retreat... we hope to have better odds with the help of the BattleStation... but no ... wait ... they do not attack... should we be happy or sad? They blocade...
Stardate 3538.3: What ?!?!? ... They are gone ... ?!?!?! Does anybody understand women ?!?!?!

Part VIII: Conquest
-------------------
Stardate 3538.6: Our spies got HyperDrive from Elerians.
Stardate 3538.8: Our spies got DeathRays from Elerians. We exchange them vs MolecComp from our last friends the Alkari.
Stardate 3539.3: We are now ready for offense vs Mrrshan, but we notice they have discovered RadiationShields. Anyway, with Phasors, it should be ok.
Stardate 3539.6: We head to Firma and expect RadShi + Shie V = defense of 10 on the planet.
Stardate 3539.7: 9 Trolls (230/150), 7 Ogres (245/170) , 13 transp. meet 3Ti, 2BB, BttlStat, MsslB, StellarC and FightG. The Ogres fire first: they take down the ships and the Station. The Trolls take care of the planet defenses.
Stardate 3539.9: Firma (3 planets) is all ours. Our first conquest.

[Dry]

Part IX: Masters
----------------
Stardate 3542.0: 13Ti, 11BB, ... (Elerian) meet 9Ti, 2BB of ours. They all died before even pulling a trigger.
Stardate 3544.9: We put our first foot on Fieras. Our craddle is avenged. Let the galaxy know we are not afraid. The Mrrshan thought we would be their slaves. They are now ours.

Part X: Future
-----------------
Is to be written.
Today is Stardate 3545.7. We have secured our conquests (Orion was taken from the Elerians) and we are ready for another conquest campaign

[Brutalisk]

So, has it been done yet?

[Dry]

Originally posted by Brutalisk
So, has it been done yet?

I didn't play any further.
I was the strongest and the most advanced.Despite the uncreative;
I had enough of the ship killer equipment/technology;
I had the warp dissipator and Star Gate;
the 2 really dangerous oponent (Elerians and Mrrshans) were on their knees.
The games wasn't fun anymore. It was only a question of time. I have considered it a victory.

If you want to have a look or to play it, here are some saved games until ~turn 340 (before the fall of Fieras).

EDIT: Not turn 340, turn 420!

[vmxa1]

Dry , nice story. Sounds like you had some work and fun. Got to say the leaders were most fortune ones as they all came with tech.

Some how I did not read it when you posted it. I think I was confused and thought it was about a mod.

[Brutalisk]

Dry: don't worry bud, I take your word for it

How did you find the challenge then?

I can come up with a new one if you like

Oh wait a minute, I've just noticed you deviated a bit:

"Then I tried the Feudal Brutalisk race (I didn't remembered the +50% Growth, so I took the +20% ShOff instead).
I forgot my paper for details home, but I can already say I stopped at turn ~450 and have no doubt I will win. There was a lot of stress situations and epic fights (lost all my fleet but 1 ship, lost my Home planet, ...).
I will try not to forget my notes tomorrow and will give you the details of the glorious gnolam history"

Still, all credit your victory

[Dry]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Got to say the leaders were most fortune ones as they all came with tech.

There was some good fortune in this game.
- The leaders, as you said (even Khunagg is ).
- the fact that the Darlocks never attacked and were finished by the Alkari.
- The techs. OK, I reloaded until I had RL and AF in the tree, but I got also Planet computer and - very important for me - mass driver. I was unlucky on shields...
- The very strange behavior of the Elerian, attacking me and then... disappearing...?!?!
- Nobody ever attacked my outposts. This was the most strange thing. I was afraid of loosing contact with the Alkaris, but no one ever attacked the outposts ... strange.

[Dry]

Originally posted by Brutalisk
Dry: don't worry bud, I take your word for it

I didn't worry , I posted the games only for those who wanted to finish the game... or to replay the funniest part: the war/survive part...

How did you find the challenge then?

A little too much stress for me.
In prewarp, Uncreative is a nightmare.
MOO2 is for me an 'old' game and today I like to play 'just like that'. I play to relax, not to stress.
I liked the idea of continuing despites the losts. In a normal, relaxing game, I would probably have reload to avoid the lost of my home world, or when I was reduced to 1 BB.

I can come up with a new one if you like

You may certainly, but I never said I would take it.

But I know my 'ultimate' challenge, would be a pre-warp game with an uncreative + repulsive race.

[Dunnagan]

Originally posted by Brutalisk
Well, it's all about different player strategies

I see that in general most of the players in this forum focus on production-strategies - no, PK that doesn't mean you ignore everything else. Hence why anything ... counter-productive is found on your worst-off lists


Garth: what were your other race picks then?

that is, indeed, one too many smiles. my guess, is you just got laid.

[Brutalisk]

"The techs. OK, I reloaded until I had RL and AF in the tree"

That kind of defeats the purpose...

"that is, indeed, one too many smiles. my guess, is you just got laid."

LOL, no, I have a g/f so that is a non-issue Perhaps that is why I am smiling so much -> sex on demand..

[Dunnagan]

Originally posted by Whoha
ah! i forgot about lucky, thats the pick that makes the antarans harder to capture

I understand you can get the tech from a captured ship by capturing it?(not positive on that)

I captured an antaran scout, and I couldn't refit my ships with it's tech.

when they self destruct it's cool, even though you lose out on the free ship at least you get to see the ai go out in glory!

"Blow us up, we must not surrendah!" I guess they're afraid we'll stick bamboo shoots in their fingernail cuticles until we get the xentronium armor.

[Whoha]

yea, capture the ship, and scrap it over a planet with a starbase. 1 garunteed tech, up to 3 others. They have all sorts of techs, not just the ancient stuff, you can get the best ecm jammers,computers,bombs,etc from them.

[Brutalisk]

As whoha said, you have to go and scrap it at a starbase. Do not scrap it just "anywhere"...

Any techs that are on that ship that you don't have can become "potentially" yours. That applies to enemy ships as well.

One of the more "surreal" tactics is "heavy g" for exactly that purpose. It effectively "doubles" the strength of your troops giving u a good chance of capturing enemy ships...

[Dunnagan]

Originally posted by Brutalisk
As whoha said, you have to go and scrap it at a starbase. Do not scrap it just "anywhere"...

Any techs that are on that ship that you don't have can become "potentially" yours. That applies to enemy ships as well.

One of the more "surreal" tactics is "heavy g" for exactly that purpose. It effectively "doubles" the strength of your troops giving u a good chance of capturing enemy ships...

Heh. so having Antarans attack on, during a multiplayer game with good players playing, can make a real change in the end game.

why cant they make more strategy games like this.

The fellas at Microprose are true geniuses. However I cannot believe that after the success MOO2 brought, they didn't independantly pursue moo3. Knowing it would've had the epic feel that Moo2 has and it lacks, they just let it slip through their fingers. realizing the success of moo2 though, I assume each and every single person on the development team has 750k+ in savings, so I suppose the motivation to make another hit like moo2 has faded.

If you add too many people to something, it will turn to **** in most cases. 50 talented people working for six months can produce the worst piece of **** you've ever seen. It's just like entertainment. First a guy gets a good idea. Then some guy on the set suggests a yellow backdrop would be better for a certain area, and then another person wants to add a bird here, and a theme song here, remove strategic combat...etc..and change the overall tone of the film subliminally.

Suddenly the great film idea becomes a piece of ****.

this is why stand up comedy is the best.

[vmxa1]

Steve Barca made Moo1 and 2 at Simtex or whatever he called the place.

Microprose was long gone before MooIII got started. Steve also made another popular game called MoM.

[Dunnagan]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Steve Barca made Moo1 and 2 at Simtex or whatever he called the place.

Microprose was long gone before MooIII got started. Steve also made another popular game called MoM.

I grabbed an older microprose game today that alot of people I know liked, 'Magic :The Gathering'.
I played it a few years ago when I was in high school, but I remember disliking it. Boy was I a fool! Probably because I went straight to duel and didn't get a chance to see the world, char creation, etc.

Of course I was a bonehead then; the game rules now that I've taken 20-25 minutes to sit down and read all the cards, and get my ass kicked a few times. the art on some of those cards is great. (necro cards are interesting to say the least)

Only thing I don't like about the game is if I'm in a duel and get a bit stressed I'll click on something three or four times. seems to 'freeze', and I have to taskmanager out of it. really annoying when I'm about to win a 10 minute duel for a decent quest. also when I goto buy spells in a town, I'll see the gold price above the spell, but theres absolutely nothing to click on ..no 'buy' button or anything. back to the game.

[Brutalisk]

The reasons are pretty "simple" and indicative of that is going on in the game-development world..

Microprose -> got bought/engulfed by Micro$oft and ocne they took whatever they wanted, everything else went down the drain

Simtex -> was a sub-division of microprose in many ways and had closed down due to financial difficulties at Microprose, even before Microprose got devoured itself...

Microprose is responsible for a lot of good games (remember civilization?

But it seems that for a gaming company to stay afloat it either needs to be a team of just 5 people or a multi-million organisation.

Even Blizzard had got into trouble, despite the incredible games it produced. It survived thanks to the Koreans who rejuvenated Starcraft's popularity and sales...

So, I don't know what the f*ck all these companies are doing. Too many "financial leakages" perhaps...

Plus if a lot of money is put into a project/game and the project gets scrapped or the game doesn't succeed, that's a lot of money gone wasted.

At the moment, we have EA, Microsoft and Vivendi owning most of the gaming community The problem is, EA and M$ just keep (re-)making the same old - same old. (FIFA and Age of Moneymaking being their two prime examples).

You still have the occasional independent developers, usually german or russian it seems. So there's still hope

[Dunnagan]

Originally posted by Brutalisk
The reasons are pretty "simple" and indicative of that is going on in the game-development world..

Microprose -> got bought/engulfed by Micro$oft and ocne they took whatever they wanted, everything else went down the drain

Simtex -> was a sub-division of microprose in many ways and had closed down due to financial difficulties at Microprose, even before Microprose got devoured itself...

Microprose is responsible for a lot of good games (remember civilization?

But it seems that for a gaming company to stay afloat it either needs to be a team of just 5 people or a multi-million organisation.

Even Blizzard had got into trouble, despite the incredible games it produced. It survived thanks to the Koreans who rejuvenated Starcraft's popularity and sales...

So, I don't know what the f*ck all these companies are doing. Too many "financial leakages" perhaps...

Plus if a lot of money is put into a project/game and the project gets scrapped or the game doesn't succeed, that's a lot of money gone wasted.

At the moment, we have EA, Microsoft and Vivendi owning most of the gaming community The problem is, EA and M$ just keep (re-)making the same old - same old. (FIFA and Age of Moneymaking being their two prime examples).

You still have the occasional independent developers, usually german or russian it seems. So there's still hope

pretty unfortunate, and yeah, the MS RTS's are shiesty compared to the older games such as MTGathering/xcom/moo2, innovative titles like these that set trends.

it's all about originality coming together properly and a good interface