15-11-2002 02:32									#1
	Romulans Remove this text

I thought it might be fun to play the big science fiction races again before MoO3 came out. I just finished my Romulan style game.

For them I used:
Dictatorship
Warlord
Espionage +20
Telepathic (but I never used it to take colonies)
Large, Rich Homeworld
Low G
Ground Combat -10
Ship Defense -20

I have three things to say.

First, massive spying is very much like being creative. The techs kept rolling in, and I had pretty much all of them. However, its much less effective than creative, for two reasons. First, you can never be ahead in tech, only slightly behind. Second, rather than getting a diplomatic bonus from giving away lesser techs, you have a major diplomatic penalty from spying; I was at war with everyone much earlier than usual.

I didn't have to put many people on science, so I had better industry. However, I had to use that to build spies for tech ... I'm not sure if that breaks even, or what.

Sabotage just doesn't impress me. It is too random and you can't target it at any planets or buildings. Having better spy defense is ok, I guess, but since I'm the one who's behind in tech and has to steal, that is much less valuable than if I was ahead.

Therefore, I think creative (8) is much more effective than spying (6). I don't really see any reason to choose spies. But it was fun to try.

Second, cloaking isn't so great. I was really hoping to make it work with torpedoes, and have the warbirds alternating turns: shoot, cloak, shoot, cloak, and so on. I added shield capacitors and ARU to make the turn cloaked more worthwhile.

However, this didn't really work. You'd actually have to wait two turns to spend a turn cloaked, which ruins the whole thing. I was really disappointed about that; I think cloak should take effect the same turn you do nothing.

Cloak does have one great thing though, it kind of lets you get the first shot, even if you lose initiative. This is huge in MoO2, where shooting first is all important. Of course I think thats the real advantage of being warlord.

Third and finally, another ship design thing. When I realized the cloak wouldn't work that way, I decided to just try to make the warbirds be weak defensively, but have a powerful first shot. So they would be protected by the cloak at first, fly up close, and wipe them out with a big first shot.

For this I tried hyper X capacitors for the first time. I was really surprised. I thought they were kind of useless, but wow are they nice. Having double fire power for that first volley really wipes out the enemy ships. Really speeds up those late game big battles.

Oh yeah, also, for some reason having green ships is fun.

	15-11-2002 04:22									#2
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Sabatoge can be used very very early to take down star bases for tele race. This is because the ai will have so little on the planet at that time. Very effective in a tough game with a HW close to you.
Hyper X is effective, I have used it, you just don't have to use it. Some items are not better or worse just another option.

	15-11-2002 18:42									#3
	Remove this text

Phasing Cloak can be made to work fine along with Time Warp ....

	15-11-2002 23:26									#4
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Yes it can and you have to read the changes that 131 has for the use of them.