31-12-2004 12:39									#1
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Well, my personal game would be an game as demo-sub-something (forgot) on 8p impossible huge.

I took out the sakka midway into the game, but I didn't have warlord, my usual pick, so was short on command points so I didn't have an huge fleet. After finding an worm hole to the klackons I was preparing an invasion.

At this time, the evil darlocks with their huge fleet have been running all over the place, having stolen/traded lots of tech, giving it an small tech advantage. (more techs, but I had the vital ones) The Darlocks then threatened me and I gave 5% tribute.

As I send my fleet across the worm hole to take over the far out teched klackons with their tritanium armor ships against my zort missile CAs. The Darlock sensed weakness and struck. My outermost colonies conquared from the Sakka was bombed to pieces by an dozen BBs, and the Sakka homeworld taken an few turns later. My home systems did its best to crank out cruisers and BBs, but I know that they'd never stand up to the bigger than one dozen doom fleet, and that withdrawing my klackon invasion fleet won't help in time, and klackon land would be an safe heaven against the Darlocks. I juggled whatever assets I have around to blockade darlock systems to draw the enemy fleet back. The darlocks played around for an bit, but it went deep behind my lines struck at one of my well developed systems and wiped it out. Seeing that I can not wait any longer nor is it an good idea to fight stealth ships, I gathered my fleet that was dancing around and an few new ships and counter attacked, bombardarding and cleaning each system as fast as I could to force the darlocks to retreat due to fuel. In 25 turns I cleaned out 8 systems, capturing only one pop one planet for refueling, and cleared the darlocks off the map instead of fighting their fleet.

And the rest is just clean up of everyone else.

I am interested in the following game however, as it sounds like impossible odds....

quote: Originally posted by Zoetrope In MOO2, I always play Impossible; although I used MeltingPot to beef up the AI races to close to maximum extent, I haven't lost in ages. One time, a Darloks with +36 picks did beat me. A COrion2 boosted race with +12 research and +12 industry that I wasn't expecting to be up against, was encountered at around turn 50 (prewarp) after it had conquered half the huge map , but it eventually fell to my gritted determination.

Now how does one do that? At turn 50 you shouldn't even have CAs (unless you focus on it) or an second system.....

	31-12-2004 19:02									#2
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If you practise playing a strong, custom, legal race such as (1) Uni/Tol with +1Prod or RHW, or (2) Sub/Lith/AHW/LHW, then you learn to easily outstrip normal Impossible level AI empires at both colonisation and research.

However, against a maximised race with the highest possible production and research that COrion2 can give, on top of Creative, Unification, Subterranean, Tolerant, and a bunch of other power picks (as many as the game allows without crashing due to text buffer overruns), it's hard.

The only reason I survived was that I _hadn't_ maximised that race's aggressiveness. Xenophobic Expansionist or Xeno Militaristic would have made that monstrosity truly unbeatable, I'm sure.

Instead, I was able to say "nice doggie", while colonising madly, building Autolabs and Worker Androids and Space Academies everywhere, until the tech tree was topped and my production and crew experience were sufficiently respectable that superior ship design and tactics won the day.

	31-12-2004 19:17									#3
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I should add that your scorched enemy earth policy ("glass" every enemy production centre) is the only way to fight a super race that has got way too many systems. It's a matter fo who can wipe out planets faster.

Fortunately I am usually able to last until Android Workers are the bulk of my population, and then it's easy to reestablish destroyed colonies. Even so, it is surprising in retrospect that a race with +12 production per colonist couldn't vie with a +3 production Android in that department, especially as I think I would have given the baddies a Population growth bonus as well.

Goes to show that the AI needs to be not only amazingly powerful, but very aggressive from the start, otherwise it's destined to be software stew.

Given that I didn't have Omni, I wonder what would have happened if such a steroid-pumped AI empire had Stealth Ships and Xenophobic Militarism? No, that's too horrible to contemplate. I'd have to give it Melting Pot's custom race picture, the Metallic Terminator.

	31-12-2004 21:44									#4
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Sorry guys, the AI is just too easy now-a-days. I HATE the fact that the AI doesn't try to attack. I believe if it was more aggressive , atleast on the impossible setting damn it, it would have made for a much tougher opponent. I urge people to come to Kali and play multiplayer. A human opponent always makes for a far more challenging and interesting one (unless they are noobs)

The only thing I still remember though from my SP games, is my tendency to create a tiny ship the size of a scout that could handle the AI's fleets and a single DM or Titan to attack the antarans

	02-01-2005 06:13									#5
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True.

	02-01-2005 07:53									#6
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Well, the Ai isn't too tough (never lost an impossible game with uni)...... but if everyone is aggressive, than my tele race wouldn't need to declare war anymore (I petty much kill everyone on contact)

Zoetrope, did you get orion with such difficult conditions? Also wouldn't it be easier to kill ants rather than the other race? When close to the end of the tech tree, I always felt that taking over the universe proper is harder.... (or at least alot more tedius)

	02-01-2005 15:38									#7
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If people want a challenge, I can give you race setups that you will have all 20 of the picks allowed and yet have it difficult to beat the AI

	02-01-2005 23:08									#8
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Are we talking about something silly like +100 prod or something?

	03-01-2005 03:10									#9
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quote: if everyone is aggressive, than my tele race wouldn't need to declare war anymore

Who declares war?

One idea I'd like to try out is "casus belli" rules, where you have to be provoked to go to war with an opponent, or provoke them into attacking you.

	03-01-2005 17:36									#10
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No, I am referring to the standard MOO game. And as I said, you'll even have used the 20 picks.

I gave one such race-spec before on these boards several months ago. Some might remember.

	05-01-2005 19:41									#11
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quote: Originally posted by Tiemler One idea I'd like to try out is "casus belli" rules, where you have to be provoked to go to war with an opponent, or provoke them into attacking you.

If it is regular Ai, it still isn't hard to beat. Just play creative and be defensives and win by killing antarans.

I really hate that antaran battlestation however, and good tricks on killing it without requiring costy things like time warp stellar converter doom stars or an huge phaser/disrupter fleet? If one gets black hole gen via orion and phase cloak it can be easy, but thats not reliable. An +ground creative race could try boarding via phase cloaked ships, but who picks +ground? Or am I missing some late game combo here since I don't get there usually. (My Uni tele warlord usually win council before I discover phasers....)

	05-01-2005 23:03									#12
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quote: Originally posted by Brutalisk No, I am referring to the standard MOO game. And as I said, you'll even have used the 20 picks. I gave one such race-spec before on these boards several months ago. Some might remember.

yea, lucky is a pain in the butt to play with you gave 2 races, I only did one.

	06-01-2005 19:19									#13
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After several attempts ;P

	10-01-2005 05:10									#14
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that still didn't feel like victory, the ai should be more beligerent.

	10-01-2005 13:48									#15
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You can use the MPot (Melting Pot) editor to make all the AI races Xenophobic Militarists or Xenophobic Expansionists, in case that helps up the aggression.

There's an off-by-one error in MPot's reading of one of the attitudinal characteristics, so you may need to experiment a little, or check the outcome using COrion2 after starting a game.

	11-01-2005 03:52									#16
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Zoetrope: the whole point ehre bud, was that I used the game's existing parameters to create a difficult enviroment for the players whow ere seeking a challenge.

	20-01-2005 10:08									#17
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Difficult environment? How about a Scenario? The zoetrope site has a bunch of challenge scenarios (some with standard races) in the Scenarios folder.

ftp://ftp.sff.net/pub/people/zoetrope/MOO2/Scenarios/