MOO1 Final War

Father Beast · July 14, 2003, 23:00

I discovered the joys of Final War when I played one of my first average level games. I was about to take Orion in a large galaxy and all of a sudden the rest of the races voted someone else to be high master. incensed by their stupidity, I refused their decision and found myself in one of the most difficult fights I've ever had. I held onto orion by the skin of my teeth several times and it took almost two centuries to get the upper hand, but I finaaallllly won that one. (oh well, another millenia under a tyrant...)

Since then, I have actually decided to go to final war for the fun of it, though it has never gotten that close ever again. The most obvious way is to vote for your opponent in the high council and then refuse to accept him. A really odd variant of this is to get elected to high master yourself, and then refuse to accept it. all those races who voted for you will now go to final war with you (so just who is high master, anyway?)

anyway, the reason I started this thread is because of a situation where I got my but kicked in a small galaxy, 5 races. the silicoids expanded and even though I had decent relations with the others, they all voted the silicoids in.

How can I keep these things from happening? I have been blindsided by these high council votes united against me more than a few times, and I don't always have enough to block election. is there any way I can prepare for these things, and get at least one ally to keep me from getting wiped up with.

I was not ready. I had 4 planets, warp 3 ships and robotic controls3. ahead of everyone except the psilons technologically, I was playing as the alkaris, who can defend astonishingly well with stacks of itty bitty ships. but when all those technically pathetic silicoids got psilon technology in the final war, my butt was toast.

in a side note, I wasn't conquered that game. I was hounded down to a small, poor planet, which was then destroyed by a comet. How humiliating.....

vmxa1 · July 15, 2003, 01:03

Yup, that is how it works. I use Final War as a way to stop the vote from coming up every 25 years. I just do not want to have to do all the clicking, once I have enough vote to stop others from winning.
You need to have 2/3 to win, so if you can get 1/3 + 1 either of your own or others or abstainings, you are safe.
At hard or impossible the vote is the most dangerous part of the game and how you can loss. If the Humans are in the game and get to be first or second in size they are a real threat as other will often vote for them.
So if you can not muster the votes and you see it is coming up on the election, you need to mend fences.
I like to keep tabs on who is a canidate to abstain.
Someone that is not an ally with the other guy.
You may have to bribe them before the vote. Of course you must end any war if you have one with them.
I like to play small maps at impossible and the vote is a real challenge. You will soon be stopped from expanding as you do not have the range and them the AI will have all the habitable planets. So I have a period that is hazardous. Then I get more planets and the vote is safe and the corner is turned.

Father Beast · July 16, 2003, 08:27

I guess what I'm saying is how do you get one or more of the others on your side so you can keep final war off you until you're ready. I am particularly bad at diplomacy (I've never played human), and the one time in all my games I ever got an alliance is when I went to war with the sakkra when the psilons were at war with them. the psilons offered alliance after a while.
never otherwise.

If I have a moderately strong hold on a good piece of the galaxy I can almost count on most of the others hating me. it's kind of a balancing act. if I'm small enough, I can get a friend or two to stop the vote. if I'm big enough, I can stop a vote off myself. but if I'm moderately big, they will all hate me and vote somebody else into high master. Final War, ready or not.....

Gilgamensch · July 16, 2003, 09:32

One thing you might want to do, check which medium AI is having war with whom. This AI shouldn't be to unfriendly to you, but if you declare war onto the other AI, you might be able to get a treaty with the other one (allience), sometimes you just have to declare and they will offer by themselves............

da_hal · July 16, 2003, 12:46

another trick is to do the Versaille: give whoever whatever it takes to keep you safe during the vote.

usually, if you are in 3rd place, you are very safe. however, this rarely happens in small-medium worlds (if it does, you will probably get run over pretty quick by the bulrathi or something.)

In the Versaille strat, this assumes that you are vulnerable in 2nd place, with say the sillicoids or somebody ahead of you by a substantial margin.

If anybody is at war with you, they will automatically vote against you. If they declare war right before the vote, you are screwed. However, you can sort of force them to declare peace by giving them stuff.

Always work towards appeasement as soon as you can. In a worst-case scenario, humans hate you and set off an alliance firecracker line so that everybody hates you. Even if you can defend yourself in the short-term, you will lose the vote.

On the other hand, you can use the Holocaust strategy. When you are in danger of losing the vote, immediately attack your smallest neighbor, ideally one with only 1-2 planets. If you win, you give yourself some breathing space in the next vote. If you lose, you would have probably lost anyway at the vote.

vmxa1 · July 16, 2003, 13:06

I rarely ever even ask for an alliance. I can't recall doing it, but I probably have.
Anyway all you need is to get one race to abstain, If you are not in a position to prevent a win with one race not voting, you have a big problem.
Well I should say this is after the first 2-4 votes. The early votes will have many abtaining, if not you are dead.
Once you get out a to the 5th vote you should be close to 1/3 of the votes yourself. Then one race should be enough to stop the council.
So if you see that all hate you, start the bribing. It is usually not hard to find one race to switch to a no vote with some tech(s) or cash. I prefer techs.
I have not found grabbing another planet just before the vote to work. It does not seem to let you get the extra vote so soon.
You could get a trade agreement with one of the races that are not to be selected by the council. Often a trade deal will push the race to your side.
The only time I have a real scramble is when the select race has a bunch of alliances. It is hard to swing one of those to your side. I will start earlies by trying to frame them. I do not want to go to final war real early as the bottom raceswill now get the best techs and it willbe very hard to conquer them.

Urban Ranger · July 22, 2003, 06:23

You can always try to provoke a war between a "friendly nation" and the country with the most votes. If you can do so, you don't have to worry about having somebody else voted as High Master.

ravagon · July 29, 2003, 04:43

Going to Final war is always fun.
The tech-sharing of your opponents can be lethal. All of a sudden one of the minor empires becomes the most dangerous because they suddenly lose enough ships to scrap the remainder of a few classes and suddenly they have a whole new set of modern, lethal designs that start taking their toll.
I had one game in which I held about 40% of the galaxy before going into final war mode and it was only barely enough. I ended up taking heavy losses faster than I could rebuild for turn after turn and lost a dozen or so planets before I could complete enough exterminator squadrons (centred around dreadnought sized ships packed with engines, bombs, lightning fields and stream projectors to kill enemy planets) to take out enough of the enemys nearby ship production worlds to give my defensive fleets a chance to recover.

vmxa1 · July 29, 2003, 12:35

One good thing about Final War is that you can steal from anyone as they all have the same tech. You can often catch one of them without much defensive spending.
I have gone along tryin to steal from the larest race and making very little progrees until Final War.
I switch to the weakest and get in some quick steals.

da_hal · July 29, 2003, 12:54

there was a trick to getting out of final war, i forget exactly. i think if you eliminate the winner, and then cause revolts in the remaining players, it "forgets" that you lost the vote.

Gilgamensch · July 30, 2003, 03:29

Quote:

Originally posted by da_hal
there was a trick to getting out of final war, i forget exactly. i think if you eliminate the winner, and then cause revolts in the remaining players, it "forgets" that you lost the vote.

Doesn't sound like you would need it though...................

Father Beast · July 31, 2003, 08:52

something I've discovered about final war. even though they all share technology, they seem to do research individually. In other words, when I went to Final War recently I held about one third of a small galaxy, while the rest was evenly divided among the other 4 races, and their tech research rate was as for races of merely about 3 planets, while mine was of 7 worlds. they seemed to research so slowly.....

interesting thing, is if one of the races is very small, say confined to one planet, their counter espionage will be so small that you can steal from them most easily, and get techs from them all. Thanks for that one, vxma1.

I am running a long one at the moment. I have long since researched everything, and I've taken over enemy worlds on foot periodically for the dual purpose of gaining all their recent techs, and turniing their worlds into huge gaians with my tech. since I refuse to build factories on my temporary stays, they don't gete anything from me when they take the world back (or more often, bomb it to death because they can't beat me on the ground. I figure once I do all their worlds, their pop will be more than mine and I'll start to have a fight.
but it'll take a while. I'm up to year 3600 and they just got neutronium bombs..... I mean, when I first went to final war, I was the only race with anything faster than retro engines. I guess that's what I get for playing on easy...

vmxa1 · July 31, 2003, 19:29

Father Beast playing on impossible means I need all the help I can get on techs. If the war breaks early, I need to scramble for the missing tech. They will probably be ahead of me at that point. Your tech cost are so much higher than theirs at this level. If the Psilons are in the game, they still get ahead of me with a much smaller empire.

Father Beast · August 13, 2003, 08:21

OK, I recently got stomped in an average game, small galaxy, 5 opponents. Played as the Alkari I got up against the humans, silicoids, psilons, and darloks. Darloks were on a single world, and the meklars were off in a corner by themselves. I got 5 worlds, less than the silicoids and only 1 more than the unusually bloodthirsty psilons.

Like you suggested, Around 5 -7 years before the latest vote, I played kissy face with the humans and psilons, letting the silicoids, my main rivals, be. The psilons became quite friendly fast, and regarded me highly. the humans were nice enough and signed a non agression pact, and oddly enough, the silicoids offered me non agression!!

but then the Impotent Darloks declared war on me, and I thought, "who cares?". then the Psilons went to war with me with no warning (what I get for dealing with an erratic), then the silicoids and humans declared war after dropping their NA pacts, one year before the vote. and guess what happened with the vote?

sometimes, it's just not your day.....

vmxa1 · August 13, 2003, 12:01

You need to know who is the other nominee. You do not want to spent time getting friendly with them as they will not be voting for you.
Then look at who has wars with them and get on their good side.
If someone is an ally of them, it is often a waste to bribe them. I have gotten them to abstain, but it is very rare.
I do not start more than 3 or 4 turns before the vote, as that is too long. I am presuming that you have enough vote to stop them, if you get one abstaining race. If you need more than that, you are too far behind. I am talking about after the third or 4th election. The first few votes, you will need more than one race to abstain.

Father Beast · August 13, 2003, 22:45

So if my rival is offering me a non agression pact, do I refuse?

I have read that it's a good Idea to go to war with the rival if you're friendly with some of the others in order to sway votes in your direction.

so in my situation I could have declared war with the silicoids when they offered peace. I probably never would have done that on my own. Having the psilons of all people be erratic and bloodthirsty.... Damn.

vmxa1 · August 14, 2003, 00:03

Originally posted by Father Beast
"So if my rival is offering me a non agression pact, do I refuse?"

This depends on your game situation. I prefer to have them at war with me all the time or nearly so, but I usually accept Non Aggression pacts. They will soon go away and you will not be offered them any more.

"I have read that it's a good Idea to go to war with the rival if you're friendly with some of the others in order to sway votes in your direction."

If you need votes (abstain too), then I would only war with the other nominee. It may be possible to swing one to your side if they are at war with someone and you attack them. I have nevr needed that. I just bribe or make a treaty to get them to abstain. It usually only takes one vote or two before I am able to get by on my own.

Father Beast · August 16, 2003, 19:24

I play a lot of games in small galaxy, 5 races, these days.

I just played as the meklars, and almost immediately found myself surrounded by Silicoids. I had to bust my hump to get the two worlds right next to me, and spent a lot of time looking at that toxic rich world held by the silicoids just 3 parsecs away that they colonized in year 35.

I decided to turtle up, since I can think of no race more suited to it than meks. I tried to stay on the Silicoicds good side, but after a time found myself being held as their rival in the council vote. I tried to make myself 3rd, but the sakkras somehow couldn't get ahead of me in pop. Being where I was, I couldn't even reach any race except the silicoids, and couldn't help them in any wars, since I would need range nine fuel in order to even get to anyone except the silicoids. When I finally contacted the sakkras, I tried to give them terraforming tech, but it was never an option. all they wanted was bombs. but they held 5 worlds to my 3, and they ought to have been ahead of me. I handed them lots of tech anyway, trying to get terraforming to come up. They loved me for it, naturally. That was just a couple of years before the vote, and according to the stats chart, they were slightly ahead of me in pop.

Imagine my astonishment when at the vote, I am still the silicoids opponent, and the sakkras vote him in. I almost threw in the towel then but decided to ride it out.

I actually had some leeway, since it took a bit for the silicoids to send a fleet, and I got some bases up. I also picked the weakest race on the board, cranked up my spying to max with him, and set to espionage. I would get a tech every 6 or 7 years, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but they all help with miniaturization.

I tried to build a fleet to go and take orion, but someone would come along whenever it started growing and wipe it out. after a few attacks like this, I realized that they were afraid of my 50+bases with class XV shields and hercular missiles. I built only token fleets for the next century, and started being able to build those huge monsters with 30+tri-plasmas. I beat the fleet protecting the rich world right next to me, and swarmed past the missile bases I couldn't beat with 200 surviving out of 350 swarming. took the rich world, and a handful of techs, but couldn't hold it, it was destroyed. I took it back again 25 years later and was able to hold it.

That's when I realized I could actually win this.

sent a handful of somewhat obsolete ships to orion to see what damage they would do to the Guardian, and flattened it, much to my surprise.

from there it was just mopping up. Oh well, another millenium serving under a tyrant

this is such a great game......

vmxa1 · August 16, 2003, 22:40

I agree it is great. I do not build up more than about 20 bases, because as you see they will not attack. I want them to send small fleets at me all the time, so I can smash them. This helps keep them in check.

Father Beast · August 17, 2003, 22:54

I had a problem for a while with them coming loaded for bear with death spores, and felt like I had to have enough bases to wipe them out before they eliminated the population. the massive shielding was proof against the bombing, but not the spores.

I played it again, and again had the damned sakkra vote in the silicoids about a year after I made them my best friend. I almost lost a world due to not being ready, as my research before that had been low on force fields and weapons. Fortunately the backward Bulrathi were able to supply my with some stuff right quick, but my 20+ base worlds were getting a beating. I only survived because I was able to upgrade and get up to 50+ bases per world before they could get a really big fleet after me. Then they retreated, unless they had a chance to destroy my ships.

I guess they were trying to keep my fleet size down...

Urban Ranger · August 18, 2003, 00:48

Quote:

Originally posted by Father Beast
I had a problem for a while with them coming loaded for bear with death spores

All AI players have such a fond affinity with biological weapons, while amazingly they don't suffer any diplomatic penalities for using them liberally

I discovered that early on, so that's why Planetology is always one of my main research fields. Get that antidote quickly.

One of the best ship designs for defending planets is: large ship, advanced damage control or automated repair, repulsor beam, and a torpedo weapon. [Plus best armour and shields].

Park them in front of your planet. Now enemy ships can't get to it to dump biological weapons because of the repulsor beams, and you can keep firing at the buggers. They can't get to your bases or ships either, unless they change ship designs and put in heavy-mounted weapons. That will take awhile, and that's where automated repair comes in.

Your fleet keeps the enemy fleets at bay while your planet tears them apart with massed missile attacks.

vmxa1 · August 18, 2003, 01:16

Yes it can be a real problem with bio weapons. My last game, I did not get an antidote until Universal, very late.
It caused me to lose some pop, as they could not bust my shields. I just terraformed it back the next turn. I have run into some bad spots where they did serious bio damage. In that case, I will be forced to build ships or pack in more bases. I will scrap the extra bases very soon, once I get an antidote.

Father Beast · August 18, 2003, 22:47

OK, vxma1, that's the second time I've heard references to scrapping bases on this forum. I don't think I ran into any referances to that in the manual, and I don't know how to do it.

If I knew how to do that, It would save a lot of headaches when I accidentally leave DEF on some world too high and discover it has Waaayyy too many missile bases when I see it in the planets screen about 30 turns later.

Also save on the headaches of having too many bases built when I turn it back on to upgrade.

I've just had to eat the extra cost before.

Do you get any BCs back from scrapping?

DaveV · August 19, 2003, 09:30

Father Beast,

Press the "B" key to scrap missile bases. This is documented in the technical supplement and reference, which is included in my manual. If you have an old enough version of the software, this may only be in the README.TXT file.

Iasius · August 19, 2003, 09:35

Press 'b' to scrap bases. I think it comes with the patch for 1.3.
Heh, I had a planet with 960 bases yesterday because I forgot about it.
Just for reference:

-NEW KEY CONTROLS

F1 - Help
F2- Cycle to next colony
F3- Cycle to previous colony
F4- Cycle to next newly created fleet
F5- Cycle to previous newly created fleet
F6- Cycle to next fleet
F7- Cycle to previous fleet
F8- Cycle to next colony that has enemy ships enroute
F9- Cycle to previous colony that has enemy ships enroute
F10- Instantly saves game to Continue Game File
The F8 and F9 keys require Advanced Scanner tech.
1. Pressing ALT-P will change all emperor personalities at random.
2. Tech Screen: '=' sets all research allocations to the same
amount.
3. You can toggle random events off and on by holding the ALT key
down and typing 'EVENTS'.
4. ALT-M will display a 5 parsec by 5 parsec grid on the control
screen.
5. The "C" key will tell you how many spies were caught that turn.
6. The "B" key will allow you to scrap missile bases.
7. ALT-C centers the screen on the current planet.
8. ALT-R changes all RELOCation destinations to the selected
planet.

vmxa1 · August 19, 2003, 12:21

Yes there are several bugs that can get you and they are the main reason to use smaller maps.
Getting Class XX shields, often does not pop up the msg that they were completed and you get bases built until you discover it.
Getting a new Robotic Control or Terraform tech, sometimes does not give the msg when it is done. In this case you discover your are still pumping money into factories. This money is going into the reserve.
These bugs force me to keep a sharp eye on my planets, which is harder to do as the map gets bigger. It is not hard to end up with a ton of bases. This is why I check the planet list once in a while to see if anyone has more than the desired number of bases.

Urban Ranger · August 19, 2003, 22:42

Father Beast, there's a thread for you in the Off Topic forum.

Urban Ranger · August 19, 2003, 22:44

Quote:

Originally posted by Father Beast
OK, vxma1, that's the second time I've heard references to scrapping bases on this forum. I don't think I ran into any referances to that in the manual, and I don't know how to do it.

It's not in the manual, it's in one of the text files.

Father Beast · December 5, 2004, 02:36

one interesting way to go about final war is to vote myself in, then refuse the decision and have everyone combine against me.

I had one game as the alks where I had a lousy starting position and only got beyond my first couple of planets about 30 years before they voted the darloks in as high master. They kept beating me back and soon I was down to my first two planets. in desperation I switched almost all my production to little bombers and went on a killing spree. went around with a stack of 200+ tiny ships with omega-v bombs and destroyed colonies everywhere they didn't have a big fleet. My only advantage was in warp, and could beat any of their fleets to a world.
Astonishingly, I ended up winning after devestating the enemy production.

One thing I've noticed about the final war alliance is they aren't neccesarily nice to each other, despite being putative allies. I can hit a weak race (which supplies me with lots of tech) and bomb their only planet back to just a handful of factories, all without anyone else lifting a finger to help. Once I even saw a group of transports come and land at the world I had just bombed back to starting point. They took it over and wiped out their "allies". Go figure

vmxa1 · December 5, 2004, 03:27

I used to force the final war with the idea that it would stop them from taking each other out, but as you noted, they will at times.

What I do now is to just stay at war with everyone, so they will tend to be too busy to attack each other.

BTW I have used the small bomber ploy to the same advantage in some impossile games, where I was seeing massive fleet build ups. It keeps them from being able to support all the ships, till I could get to a point where I could hold a new planet.