Favourite MOO 1 tips/tricks - Page 2

ravagon · January 13, 2003, 19:54

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
I would say the back is a bigger exploit.

That I would agree with. Completely. Not the tactic per se but that the AI doesn't evaluate the ships involved before pulling back.
With a single medium ship and nuclear missiles you can force back a stack of hundreds of large/huge ships that would never take losses otherwise.
I don't really remember if it works when they out-shield your missiles though...

vmxa1 · January 13, 2003, 21:46

It can work almost all the way through the game. I use nothing better than merc on the missile boats that I use to force a backup. The fleet may have missile def of 6 or better and not be hurt by that missile and still back up. At times they ignore you and come anyway. I have had them ignore the first volley and back up on the second volley? When in doubt I have two ships (different designs of course) fire at the same fleet to increase the odds that the fleet will back up. This method is often the only way to prevent them from doing serious damage to the planet (short of making even more bases).

Zed-F · January 14, 2003, 12:53

Grinning man: exactly, those big missles are space hogs; by the time you get around to researching them, you have got a fast drive or at least a decent drive with a couple levels of miniaturization under your belt, the almighty HEF, and some decent beams and bombs with a couple levels of miniaturization. Due to the combination of faster movement and longer range guns, beam ships and bombers become much more useful at this point, and the sun sets on the era of the missle boat. Missles are still important for planetary defense, especially scatter packs, but not nearly so much on the offensive.

I think it's quite interesting that the MOO3 combat range scales up with increasing technology. That's a very good idea that goes a long way to retaining the value of indirect fire weapons like missles and fighters over the course of the whole game. In both previous MOOs the faster movement techs force a transition away from standoff weapons and towards the more efficient beams as time goes on.

vxma1, another good way to prevent bombing is to use repulsor-beam equipped ships to guard your planet, but it won't work properly against cloaked enemies or subspace teleporters. You probably already knew this but I thought I'd mention it for the sake of completeness. Also, using scatter packs to force a backup is usually better because the missles are still slow enough to outrun but can pack a much more respectable punch, so the AI will be more likely to outrun them.

For me, the backup exploit is rarely problematic. I almost never use it, as except for the times the AI decides to build lots of fusion bomb equipped fighters very early in the game, usually I'm fully on the offensive by the time big stacks of enemy ships with lots of bombs might become a problem. Of course I usually begin at least harrassing attacks during the missle boat era and don't wait for the beamer era that you prefer, so it's only natural that we would know more about different exploits than one another.

vmxa1 · January 14, 2003, 13:47

I have been known to use repulsors at times. Most of the time I do not need them and the AI will switch to range 2 weapons, if you do use it. Often they will have Heavy mounts from the start.

granid · January 14, 2003, 13:53

Well, I'm just reporting what I observed

Any time I get a revolt, the game doesn't say what the current percentage is. So, the last percentage I see is the one immediatelly before starting a revolt, and that is typically in the 40's. Of course, if their computer tech is low and you have lots of spies, you can start it much sooner: once I started a revolt from 10%. I'm just pointing out that the process is not just a single roll of a k-sided die, with the revolt being started if you get number k. Instead, it seems to accumulate angry citizens and revolts when they cross the 50% threshold.

(This is in 1.3).

Urban Ranger · January 14, 2003, 13:57

I use repulsors not to keep computer ships from my ships, but from my planets. just park your ships in front of the planet, and they can't get to it. Also, heavy mounts are very ineffective space wise.

Zed-F · January 14, 2003, 16:51

What UR said.

In the case of a defensive battle the repulsors are to protect the planet by preventing bombers from moving next to it, more than to protect the ships. You can also build repulsor ships with range 1 beams and outgun the enemy, providing he isn't also using repulsors. It also works well in combination with HEF, of course.

More about Darloks & spies -- my problem with Darloks is that they build up too slowly and don't have any special benefits for colony defense, so it's hard to do well in the initial real estate grab. I play on impossible, so I find that I am usually in a significant hole early on for defensive tech. As a result, I'm a bit leery of too much spying, for fear of pissing off my neighbors and causing them to come bust up my colonies before I'm ready for them. When do you tend to start using them? Do you find they are most useful when you can already defend yourself pretty well as an aid to further expansion, or have you found ways to use them effectively prior to that point?

vmxa1 · January 14, 2003, 17:54

As for repulsors, I sometimes use them, but often I do not have the tech at the point in time where there are of value. I have used them with range 1 guns for the purpose of shooting them when they try to get close, while I do not move. My ship will likely be weak and they will often show up with numbers of large ships that even though they have low damage those range 2 shots are better than what I have. Anyway it is one arrow in the quiver and I use it when it makes sense and is available.
Spying is something I do as soon as anyone declares war on me. This way I do not have any repurcussions. Later I will do it regardless as I am not all that worried about them getting mad. Usually at this point they will be asking for peace and then turn around and declare, sometimes in the next turn. This is the stage where all planet are colonized, so war can not be avoided for long.

ravagon · January 14, 2003, 21:16

Quote:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I use repulsors not to keep computer ships from my ships, but from my planets. just park your ships in front of the planet, and they can't get to it. Also, heavy mounts are very ineffective space wise.

Heavy mounts aren't so good for overall firepower but are very useful if your opponent has any degree of shielding. I used to get into real furfights early game (with level 1 shields - when one really doesn't want to) with hordes of enemy ships with gatling lasers. As soon as I had level 2 shields I could send my stacks up against 5-10x as many ships with little to no losses whatsoever. By the time I get to level 3 I'm never taking damage even though lasers inflict 1-4 hits - one of the quirks in the damage curve I suppose.
Now if, OTOH those ships have heavy lasers (1-7 damage) they'll slaughter me.

Urban Ranger · January 15, 2003, 03:25

Even if they have heavy lasers the averge damage is 4 points, so you'll take a point from each heavy laser, big whop. That's why I really prefer the neutron pallet guns: 2-5 damage but halves enemy shields. So against a level 3 shield I can still do 2 points per gun, and I can put a lot of them in a ship.

Urban Ranger · January 15, 2003, 03:29

Quote:

Originally posted by Zed-F
What UR said.

In the case of a defensive battle the repulsors are to protect the planet by preventing bombers from moving next to it, more than to protect the ships.

Those Silicoids are evil. They use biological weapons all the time

so I really want to keep them away from my planets.

Quote:

Originally posted by Zed-F
You can also build repulsor ships with range 1 beams and outgun the enemy, providing he isn't also using repulsors. It also works well in combination with HEF, of course.

And torpedoes.

Cxwf · January 19, 2003, 01:43

Zed, you mentioned a strategy of population drain against the computer in some situations. That's theoretically sound, but I almost never see the computer build up their colonies populations anyway. It's completely normal for me to get to an enemy homeworld midgame, and see that it has 69/100 population and 117 factories, or something like that. And this doesn't change much with dificulty level. On harder difficulites they manage to come up with huge fleets despite their complete lack of manufacturing power, but they still don't build up their worlds.

Edit: by the way, i happen to still have my manual, and it details a lot of stuff including how revolts work. It is an accumulation, and when it passes 50% they revolt. The more citizens there are, the longer it takes. If they ship in new, happy citizens during the process that drives the number back down. It's not actually keeping track of percentage, its keeping track of individual unhappy citizens.

vmxa1 · January 19, 2003, 02:18

The manual is not strickly correct according to the strat guide. It in fact says the manual is incorrect on the issue. You only have to be at 50%, not above it.
Incite never fails and always does 2 to 10% of the pop to rebels. This is per spy that penetrates and is accumlative.
You can see this on a new 2 pop colony. If you select that planet it will get a rebellion.
BTW, rebelling planets contribute a chance for other planets to rebel.

vmxa1 · January 19, 2003, 02:23

The planet pop and factories is situational. That is it depends on the race and if any planets are available to colonize or capture.
The AI will likely be sending troops to either build up its other holdings or to dump on someone. Unlike humans, it will probably drop 40 or more from a large planet, severly lowering its pop. Instead of sending a smaller number from several planets, like I would. Later when you have robotic 4 or more and 160 or more pop, then sending 30-40 is fine, especially with cloning or adv cloning.
But I agree it is not uncommon to see them being lax on their pop or builds.

Zed-F · January 19, 2003, 06:04

Yeah, the AI doesn't seem to go in for spending extra cash on ecology to boost their pop after shipping out a bunch of troops. Hence if there's some planets changing hands you'll see stuff like this quite commonly. Also, if the AI gets in a fix where they are spending too much on maintenance (usually when you're taking away their good planets) they will sometimes pollute their own planets by not spending enough on ecology.

vmxa1 · January 19, 2003, 13:41

One trick that is used is to see that they have sent off a bunch of citizens and drop you troops in the planet that is now under manned.

vmxa1 · January 22, 2003, 19:26

Quote:

Originally posted by Zed-F
I primarily use shoot-and-scoot medium missle ships at this point in the game to expand my territory one planet at a time. I still don't have a big defensive fleet at this point and what I do have follows my offensive fleet to protect my conquests while I consolidate; my own systems are still relying mostly on missle bases for defense. By the time megabolt cannons, high energy focus, and the like show up, I'm usually in a pretty commanding position and am ready to press for the endgame, and tend to switch to beam weapons, with either swarms of small fast ships built for punch & dodging or large/huge ships built for durability (or a combination of the above) depending on the game & what my opponents have.

Zed, I was going to mess around using your shoot and scoot missile ships.
First what size maps do you use this on primarily?
Second, what is the design and the numbers that you tend to use?
Do you tend to use 5 shot racks in the early part of the game, when the ships are 1 move and maybe two move and then switch to lessor racks as they get faster or maybe by that time it is Beamer time?

vmxa1 · January 22, 2003, 19:31

Oh, I forgot to ask, you said you use 3+ players. I use the max as I figure that will increase the chances that I can prevent a bad vote. Few players, may lead to one race having too many planets and winning the vote.
So the question is on a small map are you using 3,4 or 5.

Zed-F · January 23, 2003, 09:39

I use 3, 4, or 5, depending on what I feel like.

With 3 players, assuming you don't get an unbalanced start (like where one of the AIs gets 6+ planets and everyone else has only a couple) the balance of power is more evenly distributed, which I've found can make for a more interesting game. I've also found that you don't seem to get a significant number more of badly distributed starts with 3 players than with 5. You also have the fact that voting starts a bit later (takes a bit longer to settle most of the galaxy) to help with the vote balance.

Anyway, the design I use will pretty much always have sublight engines and merculite missles or better. I only attack with nuclear engines or less than merculite missles if I'm really desperate for space and I have a sufficiently weak neighbor. Smaller ships are usually better from a # weapons-per-BC perspective, and you don't get attacked unless you mess up, so survivability is not usually an issue. Still, I can't usually fit a useful missile on a small ship until TL 25 at least, so my first versions usually end up being mediums, unless the weapons space doesn't work out right on the design, in which case I switch to larges. The idea is, field the most missles for the least cash, and screw everything else except decent movement and computers; you do want at least combat move 2 to allow you to move up a bit before launching. I never use 5-shot missiles as that leaves you vulnerable to enemy missle bases -- your own missiles are slower and you're not going to get the extra shots off anyway. I think you also can't launch missles out of a 5-shot on the first combat turn.

At first, these are usually more of a harassing attacker than something you really expect to go out and capture stuff, as they don't have any staying power. Start by trying to wear down your opponent's missle bases and fleet strength gradually by either bouncing between enemy planets or just jumping back to the same one repeatedly. Once you've got a sizeable force that can put a good dent in an enemy fleet before being forced to retreat, you can start building a couple beamers to take out whatever's left. The goal is to hold a captured planet against an enemy fleet (with the help of a couple salvos from the missile boats) long enough to get a shield and some missile bases up. For staying power ships, I often will use a huge ship with autorepair and a repulsor beam, if I have the tech. I rarely use huges unless I have autorepair, though.

Later on, once beam tech really starts getting going (TL 30-35 range) missles start being pretty hard to use against planets. They do miniaturize nicely, however, since they don't require much power, so by this time it's possible to design a small fighter with a stinger mount. You can field absolute hordes of these for a small shipbuilding investment, and they will do wonders to soften up an enemy fleet for your own beam ships. They will also distract enemy missle bases from your own bombers if you have enough of them. By this time the enemy is more likely to be able to take some of them down before they retreat, but they are also very easily replaced.

vmxa1 · January 23, 2003, 14:03

Yeah, I never use 5 shot either, but I never used missile ships as attackers either. I was not so much thinking of planets as ships. When they are only one move ships, you could get in more than two shots, but I am not sure if they would fit on med so early in the game.

Zed-F · January 23, 2003, 21:35

Aside from missle speed and the ability to retreat quickly, the other beneft to the 2-shot model is volume of fire. It's much easier to overwhelm enemy defenses and get a lot of kills quickly with the 2-shot version, meaning they have much less to shoot back with when they do get in range. This is particularily important in the midgame when you're defending a newly captured colony and have relatively few beamers available to defend it compared to the enemy beam fleet strength. Volume of fire really isn't possible with the 5-shot models; you're not going to be able to get together a big enough standoff attack with 5-shots to make a real difference to their fire when they do get in beam range. If you want a weapon with staying power, it's beams, and if you want a quick hard strike it's 2-shot racks. 5 shot racks have all the weaknesses of both approaches and few of the strengths.

Cxwf · January 24, 2003, 01:32

Zed, five shot racks can shoot on the first round just fine, except for one thing--they have less range than two shot racks. This means it takes generally one more round for your missile ship to advance far enough to hit the target.

When I'm shooting missiles at ships, I generally hold fire until I'm close enough to hit the far side of the screen. Otherwise the AI can and will retreat (not leave battle, just move backwards) to make the missiles run out of fuel.

Zed-F · January 24, 2003, 08:08

Ok, it just must be that you can't target a ship that's not in maximum missile range yet. I've found that with 5-shot racks of the slower missiles I often am not allowed to shoot on the first turn. Probably because no enemies are in range yet. The +1 speed on the 2-shot racks effectively gives them more range too.

vmxa1 · January 25, 2003, 01:21

Zed, I have to give up on the tactic of missile ships of any size.
I have played three games and I have only once gotten any even built.
The first two games, I never had any missiles at the right point in time.
My last run, I actually made about 6 med size with 2 shot stingers. This is the first game that I use 3 players.
The Saks killed the Darloks (1 planet) and now have 12 planets and voted theirselfs Boss. Meks have 3 and I have 6. They both have been at war with me more or less non stop. Once in awhile they will offer me lots of cash after I reject peace and I take it. They declare war with in a few turns anyway.
Just prior to this time, I sent 6 missle ships to a Mek planet and they were whacked before they got in range.
There were 28 bases on that planet with Stingrs.
I have researched Star gates and still have no engine, except the stolen Nuc. I have smashed 1000's of ships, with basically no loses at my planets.
I am doing 6% steal with very little success.
I am sure I will go on to win at Final War. This is actually a good deal for me as now the Meks will have all the tech the Saks have and it will be easier to steal.
I do not care for the 3 players as it is about what I expected, one strong race will run over the map and be a bugger to handle and may win the vote. With 5 players, I would be in good shape as I would have been able to steal from many players and have several that only needed one to abstain to prevent the vote.
It will take some time to get a fleet that can hold off theirs, once I manage to bust a planet. I may actually have to go after Orion to get the extra tech and planet.
I know that only three games is not much of a trail, but I do not see much that would change.

Zed-F · February 18, 2003, 17:53

Well, if you played 3 times and only got some built once, then you've really only tried it once, hmm? And in a game where you happened to get a bad draw on having the Sakkra baloon out to enormous size too. That doesn't offer a very useful look at it. You might want to try again in a game where you have a better distribution of tech and race strength. A game where you're struggling to survive is not a time to be trying something new.

An important thing about this missile ships is that they work best when your enemy is at the same tech level as you or lower. They are really early-to-mid-game weapons, and don't work well when there's fast engines or the largest missiles available to your opponents. You have to pick the right time to use them, and have the right tools available yourself to build effective ones as well. If you're using stingers against their stingers, you ought to be able to get one volley of missiles to hit before you are forced to retreat (i.e. fire once, not twice, and on the second turn retreat) unless the enemy has good enough drives that he can intercept you with his ships. Failing that, try a different plan.

As for the distribution of planets in the 3-player game, what can I say. You got unlucky. It happens, even in a 5-player game. The 3-player map is more interesting if you get a better draw and the races are more equal relative to one another. It's easier to survive a bad draw in a 5-player game, but because there's always someone weak to pick on it makes for a different feel of a game. As I said, I don't think the likelihood of getting a bad draw is any higher in a 3-player game, so if you want to play a game with that different dynamic, you may have to restart once or twice until you get it rather than playing them all out to the end.

vmxa1 · February 18, 2003, 18:22

Funny thing is that last night I played another small map 3 players and it was sort of even. Bulrathi had more than Darloks and Mrrs had only one. I had the most and I did use missile ships, with some success, but it may be no better of a test as I was really too strong for them. I was able to use 24 and 26 med ships to bust two planets. I never did get to build more ships as it was late and I took the vote to end it so I could go to bed.

Tony · March 27, 2003, 01:58

Urban Ranger Wrote:

"...All the production I put in Eco to max out population growth.

...After I hog all the closeby planets, I build colony ships if there are any good ones to colonise. Otherwise I max out Eco first, then pump up research.

...After the population of the first planet is maxed out, I switch it to making colony ships at a reasonable speed (maybe 10 turns or so).

...After I get some kind of Robotic Contol, I'll start building factories on my planets. Before then, it's not worthwhile because a Klac population is as good as a factory."
---------------------

Thats interesting theory pumping pop to full before building factories. Does anyone else have a opinion on it?

I like playing the Klackons too but I've always invested in factories and let my planets grow naturally, because I figured natural growth was free. In fact I deliberately keep my planets well away from maximum population to maximise their growth rate. Planets seem to grow faster when they are at 50% of their pop max. Whenever a planet with Max pop 100 reaches about 60-80 pop I transfer some of them out to new colonies, maximising the natural growth rate of my empire as a whole. I don't let any colony grow past 50-70% of max until my expansion phase is complete and all the new colonies have a decent pop base to grow from.

But Urban Ranger's theory of deliberately pumping eco up to speed Klackon growth may be more efficient overall, because you get an early kick of worker productivity.

Its a question of opportunity cost. The money spent increasing pop growth, could instead be put into building factories, while the population will grow on its own (slowly +2 to +4 per turn for a terran world if you keep it in the "optimal range" until your expansion phase is complete). But if you do that you're missing out on all that Klackon worker productivity in the meantime.

URanger how do you speed the growth of new colonies? I assume you send pop from the inner worlds? Does that mean that you pay eco to build up pop, then ship some out and then pay eco cost again to build the planet back up to max? That seems expensive compare to keeping your planets at or just above 50% pop and letting them grow reinforcements naturally.

I'm not saying its a bad idea, it may be very powerful, I'm just trying to weigh up the advantages and opportunity cost of each option.

Tony

vmxa1 · March 27, 2003, 02:43

Quote:

Originally posted by Tony

URanger how do you speed the growth of new colonies? I assume you send pop from the inner worlds? Does that mean that you pay eco to build up pop, then ship some out and then pay eco cost again to build the planet back up to max? That seems expensive compare to keeping your planets at or just above 50% pop and letting them grow reinforcements naturally.

I'm not saying its a bad idea, it may be very powerful, I'm just trying to weigh up the advantages and opportunity cost of each option.

Tony

At the start of a game, it can be useful to concentrate on eco (pop) as a Klac as pop does not produce pollution.
Soon you will have pollution reducers and robotics. These will make factories much better than pop.
I tend to play on a small map so grabbing planets is top priority. Second is to get so techs for planets and factories and computers.
This means I need to get my HW to throw off some research. I will send some pop to new colonies ASAP, but only a few, I want to get that planet researching.
The exception is when a planet is to be contested soon. Then I wan t o help it get up and defended.
Often I am only able to get 4 planets at the start and at least 2 will not be in range, so they can be left to grow on their own (using eco).

Zed-F · April 1, 2004, 13:21

One note on 5-shot racks:

I have been playing a bit more with these recently, and found that there are circumstances when they are useful:

- If you want your missile boats to serve double duty as space superiority forces, more total missiles divided into smaller firing buckets is better for taking out enemy ships.
- If you bring along a stack of small bombers as well as a stack of missile boats, the AI will usually fire at the small bombers first. You don't even need to have bombers that are really all that good as long as they can absorb or evade most of the missile fire long enough for your missile boats to get their shots off. This way you don't need to constantly retreat and come back so much as your missiles will do more damage per attack sequence. You will likely have to account for attrition in your bomber stack, however.

Ljube · April 10, 2004, 04:26

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1

Let me start with propulsion. I normally play as the Klac, they are poor at research of propulsion. This means I have a hard time getting engines. I could put more emphasize on that tech, but why bother. The only time I push it is if I need to reach a great planet and my draw is range 5 instead of 4. This means it will take longer and if I want to get going sooner, I must add to that research field.
Landing on hostile environments of Inferno or better is tech level 12. You will need to complete at least three advances in planetology to get started on level 12 or better. This presupposes that you will get that tech choice, you may not. I have had games where I could not research anything until radiation.

Once playing on huge/impossible, I couldn’t research anything until inter-phased drives and I had an empire spreading from one end of the map to the other. Imagine the anguish.