07-06-2004 09:17									#1
	MOO2 General tips and pointers, specific play advice Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Just thought I'd make a thread for you experienced old timers to impart some wisdom.

While I can beat the AI on impossible sometimes when the chips fall my way, usually I find I'm coming second in every game I play. I'll be taking on other races fine, until the superpower race decides to end my fun with 50 titans or so, be it Sakkra, Psilon, or most frequently, Silicoid.

I've been trying some of the play styles i've read about on this board, ie just sitting on home planet researching then exploding outwards.
I found this worked really well and I took down the whole klackon empire in no time, but by the time I met the silicoid they had some absurd amount of population, so even with all my research power they were still ahead of me in tech.

Most of you vets have no trouble with the AI on impossible, so... lets hear some hints/secrets

	07-06-2004 10:09									#2
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What do you mean by the chips fall my way. If you you mean that when you get a crappy start, you lose, I submit that is the norm for anyone.

Got no other planets in you home system, the nearest one has only two tiny or small and they are toxic? Klacs and Sakkra are on each side of you?

You got problems.

If you mean, that you have a good home system and there are some good system near you, then winning is not too bad.

So if you find you have good starts and stil get into trouble at times, what is the race you are using. What is the tech path you pick. Are you having trouble with combat or getting enough systems?

What is the universe that you play in? Is it huge or small? How many players? Do you use settign that compliment you race?
IOW if you are tolerant, do you take mineral rich?

So give us some particulars for a typical game.

	07-06-2004 10:32									#3
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attack really fast so it does not happen. Mirv nuke cruisers do wonders. Also if they are at war with you they send ships at you 1 at a time(provided you knocked off their initial buildup, which is easier the eariler you are into the game).

	07-06-2004 10:33									#4
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I always play 8 players, imposs, huge.
Either pre-warp if i'm research or average if i'm industrial.

The problem I find is that I'll be going along fine, winning battles, researching well, etc, then whichever race is leading will attack me with absolutely overwhelming force and the game will end.

Interesting to note that bad starts on imposs give experienced players trouble, I was under the impression, given that some of you can win with -10 picks, you could win with pretty much any start.

The race I played last time was:
Creative, Artifacts, Democracy, LHW, Repulsive, -ve ship A/D

Just turtled and tech'd, was all going fine, was second in all fields until the Silicoids destroyed me.

Next run i'll probably play a UniTol and see how that goes. I prefer tech to industry.

	07-06-2004 10:35									#5
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Who, I had had little interaction with this race until they were already very strong, they never sent individual ships after me i'm afraid, just 50 titans at my homeworld :\

Do I need to identify the powerful race and try to nip them in the bud early on?
I usually look for weaker races I can overwhelm rather than going after the strong guys.

	07-06-2004 10:39									#6
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also the best way to win impossible is to pick the super race(tm).

any of the production races listed here are good, anything with lithovore is probably good.

you need to be able to get the ships out and fight. In our DG our creative research race started next to the silicoids, and life sucked for a while, we lost vela, but were able to keep his fleet down due to attrition, and have been able to turn the tide with superior designs(it also helps that he hasn't stolen armor and computers from someone else, sometimes that happens and the super ai production race is a paper tiger). I'll do the next turn on monday, I wish you guys participating in the dg had posted in the poll thread.

	07-06-2004 10:40									#7
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quote: Originally posted by AvA_Majestic I always play 8 players, imposs, huge. Either pre-warp if i'm research or average if i'm industrial. The problem I find is that I'll be going along fine, winning battles, researching well, etc, then whichever race is leading will attack me with absolutely overwhelming force and the game will end. Interesting to note that bad starts on imposs give experienced players trouble, I was under the impression, given that some of you can win with -10 picks, you could win with pretty much any start. The race I played last time was: Creative, Artifacts, Democracy, LHW, Repulsive, -ve ship A/D Just turtled and tech'd, was all going fine, was second in all fields until the Silicoids destroyed me. Next run i'll probably play a UniTol and see how that goes. I prefer tech to industry.

Winning with -10 picks for me is just a get the right start situation.

	07-06-2004 10:42									#8
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quote: Originally posted by AvA_Majestic Who, I had had little interaction with this race until they were already very strong, they never sent individual ships after me i'm afraid, just 50 titans at my homeworld :\ Do I need to identify the powerful race and try to nip them in the bud early on? I usually look for weaker races I can overwhelm rather than going after the strong guys.

if they don't start next to you then obviously it won't work, but if they do start next to you, and war is unavoidable, prepare, get some mirv nuke cruisers, and try to kill their ships as they make them.

	07-06-2004 18:26									#9
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We were more at the "they've captured orion and have xentronium" stage :b

	07-06-2004 21:12									#10
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yea, thats not good.

	07-06-2004 21:41									#11
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quote: Originally posted by AvA_Majestic I always play 8 players, imposs, huge. Either pre-warp if i'm research or average if i'm industrial. The problem I find is that I'll be going along fine, winning battles, researching well, etc, then whichever race is leading will attack me with absolutely overwhelming force and the game will end. Interesting to note that bad starts on imposs give experienced players trouble, I was under the impression, given that some of you can win with -10 picks, you could win with pretty much any start. The race I played last time was: Creative, Artifacts, Democracy, LHW, Repulsive, -ve ship A/D Just turtled and tech'd, was all going fine, was second in all fields until the Silicoids destroyed me. Next run i'll probably play a UniTol and see how that goes. I prefer tech to industry.

First, I can't speak for others, but I will have to have a super start to win with only neg picks at impossible.

Your race looks to be good. When do you move out? I like to get the HEF and Deep Core stuff and then refit my battleships. I send 5 or 6 to Orion if I have found it.

Once that falls, I will probably refit my ships for any new tech, hopefullly X-armor.

Now I will expand. Since you have Loknar, you can see the universe. I locate all the fleets and see which ones are large.

If they have any large fleets that will be my first target. I should have maybe 9 or more ships by then and should be able to whack that large fleet.

Once there are no great fleets about, you do not have to fear a massive attack. You will be adding planets and ships from now on.

The AI will build a large fleet, I keep my eye out for them and take them out. Since they are losing planets along the way it gets harder for them.

I often will bomb out a number of their better planets as I cannot hold them all. I need my fleet to be out doing damage.

	07-06-2004 21:50									#12
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quote: Originally posted by AvA_Majestic We were more at the "they've captured orion and have xentronium" stage :b

If they got Orion, you waited to long. By getting to some of the 3500rp tech I can refit my battleships (BB) and then hit Orion.

The AI will not have gotten to it by then in PreWarp game. If Orion has not been located, you should have gotten out some scouts and even outpost if needed.

The advance tech games are trickier, I have not played them in years, but if Psilons are in the game you can lose Orion.

This is because others will get some of the armor/comps and weapons they would not have had normally and be able to jump on it.

Avoid playing normal or advanced techs, until you are beating the AI regularly on prewarp.

	08-06-2004 20:44									#13
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Am playing at the moment, again I seem to be able to do the early game, but start to lose out in the middle.

I was turtling on my home planet, got 2 battleships with AF/AP Mass drivers, battle scan/inert, heavy armour, then took all 9 of the sakkra worlds without losing a ship.
went after the gnolam and took maybe half their planets

it was here it went downhill. I don't know if I was focussing too much on improving my colonies rather than building ships and tech, but I found myself behind on tech (Despite having a huge start) and the Gnolam allying with the Alkari, so i'm fighting a war on two fronts.

I should have way more production than them but somehow they're regularly churning out multiple fleets of battleships each.
I have twice as much population as the next player in the game, with robo/autofac/recyc/microlite, yet with only 4 planets to my 12 or so the gnolam appear to be outproducing me, let alone the alkari, and they're outteching me as well.

Not really sure how i've managed that....

	08-06-2004 21:45									#14
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Remember at Hard and Impossible the AI gets a researc and production bonus. They are also not limited to the standard number of racial picks. So look at what traits they have. It is not uncommon to see them with a +21 instead of our +10.

Anyway post a save.

Did you take those planets and hold them? Did you bomb out most of them? Do you have warp indictors on each system?

Are you looking for chance to trim their fleets? IOW catch 3-6 ships at a time, rather than all they have?

Did you get to Orion or did they?

	08-06-2004 21:48									#15
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quote: Originally posted by AvA_Majestic Am playing at the moment, again I seem to be able to do the early game, but start to lose out in the middle. I was turtling on my home planet, got 2 battleships with AF/AP Mass drivers, battle scan/inert, heavy armour, then took all 9 of the sakkra worlds without losing a ship. went after the gnolam and took maybe half their planets it was here it went downhill. I don't know if I was focussing too much on improving my colonies rather than building ships and tech, but I found myself behind on tech (Despite having a huge start) and the Gnolam allying with the Alkari, so i'm fighting a war on two fronts. I should have way more production than them but somehow they're regularly churning out multiple fleets of battleships each. I have twice as much population as the next player in the game, with robo/autofac/recyc/microlite, yet with only 4 planets to my 12 or so the gnolam appear to be outproducing me, let alone the alkari, and they're outteching me as well. Not really sure how i've managed that....

Thats another thing, if you aren't repulsive, watch for alliances between people you are at war with, and people you have nap's with. demand that the nap guy break the alliance, they generally will.

	09-06-2004 06:12									#16
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No-one has orion yet afaik.
I'll post a save when I can, wont be playing much now as exams are almost here
They keep sending fleets to my planets and losing them, hooray for missile base.

I've capped all the planets rather than bombing them out.


Oh also, for what its worth, i'm playing a slightly modified version, missile bases with 800 units instead of 300 ala the defensive anti blitz mod, and interceptors made to send multiple flights instead of 1....

	09-06-2004 07:00									#17
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Ok, I don't know anything about mods. Never used them.

	09-06-2004 08:36									#18
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hmm, well even with the enhanced defensive stuff, you have to use ships, planetary defenses are worthless due to initiative/attacker attacks first in non-initiative situations.

	09-06-2004 10:09									#19
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Not much has changed vmx. Just made interceptors on ships more powerful (couldn't get the fighter garrison changed unfortunately) and missile bases. Thats it.

	09-06-2004 11:25									#20
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Even so, I would only be guessing and have no real experience to fall back upon.

	13-06-2004 19:42									#21
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Well, i set the missile bases back to default because they were irritating me.
Just won my first game on impossible where I didn't resort to running off to antares when my opponents got too strong, took out the whole galaxy.

Using: Unitol, what else

	13-06-2004 20:57									#22
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Cool.

	17-06-2004 05:14									#23
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Have you guys managed to finish the game yet with the race picks I had set forth?

And as for Majestic, well the players who play multiplayer tend to be a lot better, thus even on impossible the AI is too easy..

	17-06-2004 07:34									#24
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i'm aware that there are people a lot better brutalisk, the whole idea of this thread was to get some advice from aforementioned people.

	20-06-2004 05:47									#25
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AvA, the problem is there is a lot to say (and I'm not an english native).
There are many factors having an infuence on each other and it's difficult to give a general advice.
Something that puzzle me with your post is you say you reached impossible level, while on the other hand, I have the feeling you have not found a real strategy yet.
The fact you are creative, makes me think you haven't found what are your valuable/key techs.
You say you are #2 in techs, but the AI ships seems able to kill yours. I may be wrong, but I have the feeling, you haven't found the best ship design for your playstyle. Being creative (all techs available) and #2 in techs should allow you to design killers...

Anyhow, let us start with your race.

1) The first thing I noticed about your race is, you have no pop. enhancement pick (sub, tol or aqua).
For me, this is almost a must. Pop will make the difference in prod, research and cash.
2) No food enhancer. 2 food per farmer at start is not enough. 4 farmers implies only 4 producer/researcher. The food enhancer picks are: +food, unification, aquatic, cyber and lithovore.
+food: nah, too expensive.
unification: the best for productive races, and the easiest for an 'impossible beginner'
Aquatic: second best. Combined with uni, it rocks.
Cyber: Another bad choice. Well, I like this one, but it would need a lot of time to explain when (other race picks) it is not a choice as bad as that.
lithovore: the best for non-uni tech races.
3) Creative. An expensive pick for pre-warp. And a dangerous double-edged pick. You will be tempted to build everything and this is a mistake. My advice is that you should keep this choice for when you are more experienced (or experimented? Sorry for my bad english). I remember that it was once one of my personal challenges: to win impossible with a creative race.
4) Democracy. This is certainly not the easiest pick for impossible. Unification is certainly the easiest, followed by dictatorship. Keep demo and fede for later.

Ok, this is a first shot and some points (esp. the food one) need more explanations.

Now after that, there will be the research tree and the ship design topics, but I will leave it for later. The research tree depends on the race pick, and the ship design depends on the research tree but also on you play style. So, I let first people react on this post.

	20-06-2004 07:06									#26
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Thanks Dry, I appreciate it.

With the tech race I was just trying to find a way to maximise research early on, which I would think you would need the +50% research democracy offers, otherwise you cannot be sure you will win the tech race.





I've just won another Impossible 8 players, this time with Sub, Uni, +2 prod, RHW.

I was at war with six other races and still managed to beat them all, but both the sakkra and the silicoids were missing, which kind of makes you wonder how it would have gone if they were there.

	20-06-2004 10:10									#27
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try demo/lith/artifacts homeworld if you haven't already.

	20-06-2004 10:37									#28
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How does dem/lith/arti compare to aq/dem/arti/+1research LHW?

Wouldn't the aq overtake pretty quickly with addition of hydro etc?

	20-06-2004 14:00									#29
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quote: Originally posted by AvA_Majestic How does dem/lith/arti compare to aq/dem/arti/+1research LHW? Wouldn't the aq overtake pretty quickly with addition of hydro etc?

Well, with litho, you do not need to reasearch Bio for your expansion phase. You do not lose time in researching Hydro, you do not lose time/production on building Hydro. You do not lose time either on producing freighters. They are needed only to move pop, which means AFTER you have colonised your home system and AFTER you have build/send your first colony ship.
And I'm not sure the +1 research of the Aqua compensates the extra researchers/workers you may put with a Litho.

BTW: I'm not an Aqua specialist, but I have the feeling that hydro is a waste of time/money/prod. Hydro produces only 2 food, it's less than an Aqua farmer. Certainly an Aqua farmer with SoilE. Is it really worth it?

	20-06-2004 20:25									#30
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quote: Originally posted by AvA_Majestic How does dem/lith/arti compare to aq/dem/arti/+1research LHW? Wouldn't the aq overtake pretty quickly with addition of hydro etc?

Not necessarily, the demo/lith race will have a much easier time expanding, the way your race will win out is by having more planets because of the +1 research.

you can switch out the AHW for +1 res on demo/lith on a huge map, but the main point about demo/lith is the fact that not only do you get good tech, but you also get decent production capabilities and you don't have to worry about where you expand.

as for what the starting research is you get around 57 on demo/lith/AHW, 45 on your race, and 48 on demo/lith/res.