POST your favorite CUSTOM Race ;) - Page 5

Dunnagan · July 6, 2004, 19:42

Quote:

Originally posted by Whoha
yea that sucks dry, I demand something hoping for war, and then get it, then I have to declare war

I just roll up with the fleet. No speech, no negotiations or declarations. pearl harbor style.

Brutalisk · July 6, 2004, 20:39

Dunnagan: outspots have their use, especially in multiplayer.

They serve as a refueling post for your ships:

Thus if you can't find any good systems you build an outpost to grab one of them and allow your scouts to scout further, instead of wasting a COLONY SHIP (which is 5 times more expensive).

As for the AI races, in harder difficulties, their race picks are "biased" that is the main difference...

Dunnagan · July 7, 2004, 00:08

Quote:

Originally posted by Brutalisk
Dunnagan: outspots have their use, especially in multiplayer.

They serve as a refueling post for your ships:

Thus if you can't find any good systems you build an outpost to grab one of them and allow your scouts to scout further, instead of wasting a COLONY SHIP (which is 5 times more expensive).

As for the AI races, in harder difficulties, their race picks are "biased" that is the main difference...

that is VERY useful.

reminds me of the last game I played, had all my nuke ships out and ready to go, yet the Coids were like 1 parsec out of my range. Now with these I'll be able to hit whoever the hell I want, early, without going for Deuterium.

I had absolutely no idea they 'refueled' the ships. good stuff.

I appreciate it.

Brutalisk · July 7, 2004, 06:06

They cna be destroyed with "orbital bombardment" by as mucha s a single scout though. So usually any key outposts, such as for the purposes you've just stated, is good that you protect them a bit...

Dunnagan · July 16, 2004, 07:50

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Dunnagan · July 17, 2004, 16:06

I tried these picks and the result was interesting.

Espionage +20, Telepathic, -GCombat, Repulsive, Unification.

You'd think the race would be weak at the start, and it really is marginally weaker than Uni/tol at the start.

But you'll be starting the game with 30% spy and 45% agent, and the unification assures you won't fall too far behind in production.

Now, I got beat pretty badly the first time I tried the race, but I made a few adjustments, and this is what happened.

The first race I came in contact with was Sakkra, around T30. I immediately placed two spies on them for 'Sabotage', and the next turn they lost a marine barracks. Three turns later, my spy took out the starbase. They only had two destroyers, so I made a quick outpost ship, and sent in my solo nuke cruiser/scout combo, making Sssla my second star system at T42.

try out the race, you'll probably love it

vmxa1 · July 17, 2004, 17:22

Change it to UniTel Aqua LHW RHW to be more productive and get the ship out sooner. The spies will probably work fine without the bonus vs non uni non tele races.

Dunnagan · July 17, 2004, 22:11

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
Change it to UniTel Aqua LHW RHW to be more productive and get the ship out sooner. The spies will probably work fine without the bonus vs non uni non tele races.

I just played another game, I added -20 ship defense and picked Rich home world. (i noticed with all workers on industry at start, theres a 5turn difference with RHW on that first colony base. it's 10 turns with rhw/uni and 15 with just uni)

I can see where aquatic /lhw would be nice because I always make the colony bases and do the housing thing to max out my HW's pop for ship production. without aquatic or lhw it's a weak 12 max pop, and it maxes out to 12 quickly.

Getting back to the topic, I started out next to Darloks, which I was actually looking to do. I've been wanting to test this races espionage skills, and to do so that means putting one spy on the darlok early and seeing what goes down.

t32- I come into contact with darlok, place 1 spy on darlok under 'sabotage'

t33- spy blows up a starbase

Now I've reloaded the save file and clicked turn to see the sb blow up about five times, just to make sure the starbase getting bombed is inevitable. of course the save is included, check it out

Brutalisk · July 17, 2004, 23:44

Dunnagan, the AI is dump bud. I suggest you "experiment" online at kali

vmxa1 · July 17, 2004, 23:54

Yes most things will not change in Moo2. IOW if a spy steals or blows up something, it will happen no matter how many times you reload it.

The only way to change the out come is to alter the conditions. This could possibly be done by adding in another spy or get a new spy tech.

I can't say for sure as I have not tried it out in a long time. It is not like combat, where you may be able to alter the sequence of attacks and get a better roll.

I am presuming they have a saved RNG, so it will be the same for the event each time, unless you use the RNG on some other event, the way it is in CivIII.

siron · July 18, 2004, 05:53

Sabotage can be really nice.

I remember a 4way where i was tele and found neural by annexing the 1st homeworld...

The other both were creas and had dozens of missile bases. 2 or 3 spies destroyed 3 missile bases and a star base in 10 turns....

Darkchampion · July 27, 2004, 20:31

Nice to see people still playing this game. I used to play big network games at college and i've been playing a bit with old friends. Here are my favorite racepicks

Uni, Telepathic, Warlord, -GC, -SD, Repulsive, RHW, LHW

If repulsive is banned, Uni, Telepathic, Warlord, RHW, LHW, -GC, -SD, Low G ( Low G is minimized since I usually end up consolidating my initial race to the poorer planets and using captured races for everything

I made this race for online play and is best against the vast majority of unitol players out there. First for the early reasearch i get

research lab->reinforced hull->auto factories->(biospheres if a small/tiny rich planet is colonized) tritanium armor->battle pods->pollution processor->iridium fuel cells

The strat is very simple. First build the initial colony bases+1 colony ship to give you 3 systems (12 command pts). Next develop the homeworld and other rich planets and populate them with housing colonies. While waiting for pollution processor build 1 empty cruiser with reinforced hull + fuel tanks at the homeworld (for mind control) and some missle destroyers/frigates. Refit these ships with MIRV missles once pollution processor is researched. By now an enemy should have been discovered by outpost leapfrogging.

Go for the undefended systems first while continuing to build up the fleet. If the first enemy system is out of range send 2 scouts with the missle cruiser (who also has fuel tanks). Even if they have a missle base the cruiser will be able to toast it with it's missles and retreat while the scouts stay for the impact. Obviously leap frogging with the cruiser wont work if they have a decent defense set up. In that event just wait for irridium fuel cells while building up the fleet. When I run out of command points I just build more colonies (2 pts per system). For each system mind controlled you get 2 more command points allowing the construction of yet more ships. If the enemy is Unitol they will most likely have a lot of systems that will be undefended just begging for mind control when you first arrive. This snowball effect is further bolstered by the fact that you dont need any transports and the new conquered systems can be used to refit/expand the fleet. Conquered unitols are the best as i end up using them for all of my new systems and consolidating my own species to the poorer planets/farming planets to allow for maximum production without pesky pollution problems.

If my initial opponent cant hold off the blitz I can usually just blast through enough of the galaxy to win a senate vote. Although my friends and I play domination most of the time (no antarans, no taking orion, no senate victory). Also if my enemy goes nuts with defensive ships to counter me (lots and lots of anti missle rockets or PD) i can get stalled until new ships with neutron blasters arrive.

Brutalisk · July 28, 2004, 00:02

Sorry DC, but I find your strategy a bit lacking. It can easily be countered by someone who researches battlepods, fusion and battle scanners

He will blast your ships to smitherins...

logic_error · July 30, 2004, 18:12

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
Yes most things will not change in Moo2. IOW if a spy steals or blows up something, it will happen no matter how many times you reload it.

The only way to change the out come is to alter the conditions. This could possibly be done by adding in another spy or get a new spy tech.

I've tried it and it's quite easy actually. For example, let's assume that faction A has spies sent against you and they will steal a tech next turn. If you have, say, 10 defensive spies, you can send 1 of them to spy any other faction, and the next turn's results will most likely be altered. If A still manages to steal a tech, try sending 2 spies againt them and that's it, you have successfully cheated.

vmxa1 · July 30, 2004, 19:40

I think that is what I was trying to say. It is not a game where saving and replaying with no change will result in a different event. You will have to take an action to alter things, which is what you did.

Modo44 · November 3, 2004, 02:59

This one made me win every single game in MOO2 at Impossible level, after I came up with it. I tried a couple HotSeat games as well and my frieds got their arses handed.

Low-G, -(something) to Spying, -(something) to Ground Combat, Subterran, Unification, Creative. I can't remember the penalties and I don't have MOO2 installed, so you'll have to figure out on your own, sorry

. IIRC tere was just one negative penalty for those fields. I remember that before the 1.31 patch there were 2 points left after the above choices, giving me a Rich Homeworld, or possibly lifting one of the penalties. But that's just a minor difference.

The race is a whatever-you-want powerhouse on its homeworld due to huge pop and Unification. It has excess food even in mineral rich galaxies. The increased population and better production allows for fast colonization combined with a possible early tech lead. Creative allows you to completely forget about tech trading or spying, if you don't feel like it. The thing the race likes, are good diplomatic relationships established early, so that you can live with a smaller amount of ships and keep building. You need good ships and lots of spy sentries. Often you will be able to field Titans with Zortium armor and Automatic Repair while even the biggest AI has only Battleships. With increased population, you can outproduce and outresearch all AIs, so they just start going down when you're ready. This is often combined with a "surprise" attack by one of them, ending in suicide after an epic battle.

vmxa1 · November 3, 2004, 11:30

I would suggest that if you played that race you consider dropping Uni and using the 6 points to boost production or +p and +R.

The reason is that as a uni you loose all those morale boost that a creative could otherwise have.

siron · November 3, 2004, 14:14

Uni Sub Crea.....is a *****.....

normal negative Picks for this race are:
rep -shipdef -gc

Many new players underestimate this race.....

when it has CIII level with warp diss and zort-battlestations u need a nice fleet to kill such a crea-*****....

but experienced players kill such a crea early on. (early some mirv-nukes bbs....before crea has radiation shield+CIII)

--------------------

uni pick (with 50% on prod and food) is better for this race than prod or research picks. This race scraps normally its starbase and barracks in the first turns and can build bases before it has to research autofacts.

Modo44 · November 3, 2004, 14:46

vmxa, Unification helps in a number ways. First, you don't have to build the morale related structures. For example I don't need Marine Barracks, which is a nice thing early on - I only get them when I plan invasions, which is in the mid game. Second, you don't get morale penalties for mixing races. The conquered races have +5 race picks (because I play at highest difficulty), so they make great additions to a mixed population - without causing any trouble. The not so obvious benefit is more food. It only really shows when you play Subterran. I need it badly once planets get really big. While more research per scientist can help, I prefer to just have more well fed scientists, because they can be quickly turned into more well fed workers...

Basically it works like this: have huge pop, easily manageable. You can research or produce at extreme pace or do both at a good pace. The production bonus counts mostly as a measure against normal G worlds (I'm low-G, remember), until Gravity Generators come into play. Them and Terraforming mark a sudded leap for this race. All planets do both things at full production (yes, almost completely droping research for a couple turns) and all of a sudded you go from "a little stronger than others" to "that horrific monster". Pop is power, almost like the Agricultural trait in Civ3.

What I've seen in the HotSeat games was like this: at some point my friend noticed that he was worse at research than me, so he switched half of his people to do lab work and started grinning. Ok, so now we had about the same research. The thing was, I still could produce Titans, because only half of my pop was busy researching. At the same time his only planet still building ships (home) could just manage Battleships. He did have better designs than me (yes, that's a MOO2 skill I never learned

) , but was simply overrun by larger and more numerous foes.

vmxa1 · November 3, 2004, 16:25

Hey it is a good thing you expalined it to me as I never played this game before. Please, I am well aware of all its functions and the concept of scrappy your barracks for any uni. Who do you think proposed this race for the demo game?

This is an SP game as I can't imagine too many would take a creative race in a tough MP game. That means you can have some fun and take advantage of Holos and Pleasure Domes.

It means you do not need uni and can afford to not pay the price for capturing planets.

Anyway I merely suggested he give it a try.

Modo44 · November 3, 2004, 16:35

Okay, sorry for sharing with those less enlightened. Over and out.

siron · November 3, 2004, 17:30

vmxa,

u overreact in ur response. (I even remembered ur posts here where u mentioned that uni can scrap base and barracks.)

But my point is that this is generally not a good choice for uni.
For uni crea it is surely optimal....because:
1. u have missile base early on
2. ONLY(!) with this money it gives u the option for early housing on col bases

If u propose a race here....and others should not seriously comment...it......hmmmm.....u should mention some words like:
"Fun Race", "u can enjoy the moral techs" or sth like that.....

i (and i guess modo too) have not understood ur post in that way, because i think ur following impression is wrong:

"This is an SP game as I can't imagine too many would take a creative race in a tough MP game."

1. Modo talked about MP.
2. Uni Crea Sub is quite popular, even in tuff games. (Just try to hide till turn 120....and u have FANTASTIC chances in 4ways.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

modo,

gravity generators have one big drawback for crea (thats why lowg is unpolar for that race):
u have to take neutron blaster and graviton........so u dont have this pretty nice hv ion-cannon for ur battlestations. Quite important
to survive in "tuff" MP-Games.

Modo44 · November 3, 2004, 17:42

Actually i was posting about SP games mostly. I don't play much MOO2 anymore and have had only a couple MP games with my friends, just as inexperienced in MP as I was. The first post in the thread does not mention a requirement to have played 100 MP games before posting the race, y'know. The forum itself does not have a "MP -only" sticker on it either. It's about the game in general and that's what I was talking about. I have a race which plays good with the style I like and gives very good results. So I posted it, end of story.

vmxa, you know, there "could" be people reading this thread that know less about the game than you do. You could at least try to consider this.

siron · November 3, 2004, 17:59

"The forum itself does not have a "MP -only" sticker on it either."

Keep Cool. Noone thinks that.

vmxa1 · November 3, 2004, 18:21

Ok let me try to recover. I do not wish to bulldoze anyone.

I will say however that the number of MP players is so small as to be the ones that need to make a note that they are addressing that aspect. I siron is an MP player, but in the last three years I can count them on my fingers.

The most common way that I have seen others play a creative races (SP), is to do some form of turtle. Then go to take down the rest of the races. The uni will make grabbing and holding planets very painful.

The production is not a concern in this form of a game. Of course it does not really matter all that much, you can win either way.

Siron
"gravity generators have one big drawback for crea (thats why lowg is unpolar for that race):
u have to take neutron blaster and graviton........so u dont have this pretty nice hv ion-cannon for ur battlestations. Quite important
gravity generators have one big drawback for crea (thats why lowg is unpolar for that race):
u have to take neutron blaster and graviton........so u dont have this pretty nice hv ion-cannon for ur battlestations. Quite important"

Creative race will not have to chose any tech over any tech, they get all tech. I know you just over looke that.

The real reason to not use LowG is the number of lowg planets is likely to be small and you will have to suffer the penality until you get the gravegen and build it.

I used to use that neg pick all the time, but I never liked it. I do like Rep -GC -SD, but mostly only MP players go that route. It is a freebie for them. I do it because I do not want to be able to trade with the AI and extort them.

Anyway sorry for being so short, I did not intend to imply my idea for sancrosac or even anything, just an idea.

Modo44 · November 3, 2004, 18:47

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
The most common way that I have seen others play a creative races (SP), is to do some form of turtle.Then go to take down the rest of the races. The uni will make grabbing and holding planets very painful.

Could you explain what you mean by "turtle"? I'm not familiar with this term.

And what exactly is so painful about conquering planets with a Unification race?

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
The real reason to not use LowG is the number of lowg planets is likely to be small and you will have to suffer the penality until you get the gravegen and build it.

The Uni production bonus helps to even things out and does a pretty good job. Especially together with the increased pop from Subterran, which helps even more. Gravity Generators count as a boost, not as penalty removement - at least that's how I always felt.

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
I used to use that neg pick all the time, but I never liked it. I do like Rep -GC -SD, but mostly only MP players go that route. It is a freebie for them. I do it because I do not want to be able to trade with the AI and extort them.

I see. Well, I guess anyone likes to play his game. I enjoy diplomacy too much (not only in MOO2, but in all similar games), to remove it from my game.

vmxa1 · November 3, 2004, 18:50

I guess what I was trying to address originally was the painful amount of time it took to get alien pops under control.

The funny part is the thing that everyone touts about the uni is no barracks or other moral structures.

This is not the real truth, except for planets founded by you. IOW what do you have to do when you conquer a planet? You have to build a barracks and it yields no bonus. You will be building armor baracks as a creative race as if you have them, you tend to stiffle revolts better.

So now you have built two barracks and get no benefit from them. You may as well drop the uni and use holos and domes.

Anyway after years of using uni creatives like everyone else, decided to drop the uni to make the assimulation easier on me, since I had to build the barracks anyway. Now I get the boost and can use holo/domes.

My fleets can leave sooner and have fewer baby sitting. I no longer have to drop extra marines on extra lare pop planets to placate them.

I have not measured to see which is actually better, one is much easier on me. I do note that with all the boost available to a creative race, it will prbably be more productive with the booster than the + for uni, given I have 6 point to use on top of it.

siron · November 3, 2004, 18:56

vmxa,

sorry for my bad english....

"Creative race will not have to chose any tech over any tech, they get all tech. I know you just over looke that."

I havent overlook that.. im not that kind of noob

...I wanted to say:

1. Hv Ion Pulse Cannon is the best defense weapon a Creative can have....(in combination with mass driver to eliminate the shields)

2. Creative dont go for graviton gen at all, because:

a) They cant research it, without ALSO researching neutron blaster and graviton beam. (they have to take all techs in the techfield which is the drawback in this case, because:
b) The Battlestation would have Hv Neutron Blaster and later Hv Graviton Beam in this case (automatically update).....but Hv Ion Pulse Cannon is surely more effective if u also have Mass Driver BBs.
c) The loss of the HV Ion Pulse Cannon in ur battlestation is the drawback...too risky in MP.

Croesus · November 3, 2004, 18:59

Hv ion? I thought they got rid of those? I thought the mods for ion were continous and autofire.

Also, siron was saying that you can't AVOID researching neutrons and gravies, so that you could retain ion. Personally, I'd take gravitons over ion, because they can pierce Class 3 shields better, and they are smaller. Plus, I would be trying to get subspace and phasors fast, so my power tech might be lacking, and I've found neutrons to be quite necessary to deal with class III shields + IS.

:edit:
and my favorite race is Unitol warlord repulsive -GC -SD. All hail the battlescanner! for with it, you will be smitten with af nr co ap lasers. Also good for shooting down the missiles of races that chose -SD. If I can't chose repulsive, then I pick -spy -research, and try for a quick game.

siron · November 3, 2004, 19:01

"Hv ion? I thought they got rid of those? I thought the mods for ion were continous and autofire."

Starbase and Battlestations have them in HV. Thats the point.