10-03-2003 00:58									#1
	Just my few opinions and a couple questions. Inflate your Upload Space

I come from a much different background that most of you here. I had never heard of MoO before. Frankly, I was not looking to buy this game at all, but recieved it as a gift from my wife unexpectedly.

I have not found it too difficult to learn the basics, but there is allot of little things that I still need to work on.

I don't have hours to spend playing normally, and have only been able to play about a hour each day. Therefore, I just have begun my Third game, having totally messed up the economy somehow in the first game when I tried to adjust everything every turn and never once looked at the Finance section, and learning the importance of Missile ships in the second game since I had been playing through on my own without reading any strategies from here and had for no reason decided that Long range attack ships supporting carriers was the way to go until I met the first fleet comprised of Missile boats.

Anyway, I have found the game rather enjoyable despite the obvious need for a patch or two to get some of the more annoying things fixed. I just see it as a way for me to learn to play in the mean time.

All my games have been played with one of the Insectoid races, mostly because entamology is a little hobbie of mine so I like bugs.

My few questions revolve around diplomacy. Now, I know that neither of the Insectoid races are renouned for their diplomacy. What I don't understand though is what exactly the Trade Research agreement does. Even when I improve it several times with several empires, I don't really see any significant boost in research. Also, even with this in place, I can't get anyone to actually trade me the individual Techs (well, when playing the Tachidi, the Klackons once proposed a tech swap that I accepted, but I cannot get anyone to agree to anything I propose no matter how much it would be in their favor).

My second question is about Technology in general. Does this thing just randomly assign a tech tree? One thing that has frustrated me is to research, say, armor piercing anionic warhead when I do not have anionic warheads to begin with. Even after researching the Armor piercing addition, I cannot use it since I was never offered the original base technology. This is especially annoying when no one will trade me the base tech...

My third question is pretty stupid reguarding missiles. Is it the number of racks or the missiles per rack that determine how many are fired per volley?

	10-03-2003 01:34									#2
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I would like to see them correct the tech draw to eliminate getting boosters for a base tech you do not have. Miniturization II for a gun I do not have?
The missile question is the type of thing that should be in the doc. but I did not find it.

	10-03-2003 01:52									#3
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

I think racks are the number fired per turn and missles per rack are how many times said volley can fire.

No one to my knowledge has ever been able to talk the AI into trading techs. You can only accept the offers they initiate. Be sure to check your tech on that one; they always ask for high level and offer low.

As for research, how long did you watch? Those kinds of treaties take time to mature. I've never really watched it, but I think somewhere I read to be careful entering research treaties if you don't have extra cash because they're expensive at first. I wonder if you get a boost to your Additional Research spending under Finance instead of actual research points.

	10-03-2003 01:53									#4
	Suffering from ads?

1) This may be related to the last-minute diplo tweak right before they shipped. Or they just have it set that way on purpose to prevent players from abusing the AI at all. We'll know with coming patches.

2) Tech tree is random for every player. Getting a tech enhancement for a base tech you don't have on your tree sounds buggy, but may be working as designed. I hadn't noticed this in my games because I usually tune out my tech notifications by turn 30. I stopped trying to control the tech sliders about 15 turns before then.

3)If missiles are handled in MOO3 as they are in MOO2, the number of missiles per rack is how many will be fired per volley. The rack number is how many volleys can be fired before you run out of missiles.

	10-03-2003 07:43									#5
	Remove this text

quote: [SIZE=1] No one to my knowledge has ever been able to talk the AI into trading techs. You can only accept the offers they initiate. Be sure to check your tech on that one; they always ask for high level and offer low.

You have to get into a really good relationship with another race. I been in a full alliance with the Trilarians in a game I'm still running, We're real best buddies, I'm running the Humans.

It was during this relationship that I discovered a disturbing problem, that turned out not to be a problem. The Trilarians ask me to do some exchanging, the Exchange button appeared in the Diplomacy message window for them, I pressed it, another window overlayed itself here, giving a list of my techs on one side & his techs on the other. Originally, I though he was giving me a choice, and, when I couldn't select any in particular to become a part of the trade, I thought the whole thing was broken.

After I tried beginning an Exchange myself, I realised what was happening here. The game is using the same mechanism whether your side or theirs is prompting for an Exchange. When you start it, yes, you get a full list of both Civ's techs (which in itself suggests the level of trust that must exist between the 2 Civ's for this to happen) to select from, so that you can formulate the message saying "I am willing to trade my knowledge X for your knowledge Y". So, when you get a message from your ally, and you see the exchange list come up, he's not saying you have a choice, he's saying he'd like this exchange to happen. Yes, I have to admit, there might be something to some who say the alternate choice option isn't actually working here, But I'll have to try it a bit more, just to see myself.

	10-03-2003 08:20									#6
	Support Apolyton

I have been able to trade techs numerous times.

My latest game as a modded psilon, ive inititated many times. High diplo rating means a lot. I also modded in empathic, whatever that does (manual help here too please!!!)

Need: friendly terms, multiple agreements, free trade alliances etc
I usually overpay b/c I don't know exactly what it will take (unlike in Civ3 ) usu I have to pay 3-2. Use the mod that shows what level each tech is. I trade one good tech, one middle tech and one early tech. the first two are non weapons (and non spy, esp. don't want to help them there!!!) stuff like terraforming or industrial techs or farm techs are nice. depends on the civ,really, a good food producing race won't like the farm stuff, since they value it lower (guess here) the third tech is usually some crap weapon that is way outdated, but I through it out as a bone.

Whats interesting about trades in this game is how often the ai will trade frontier colonies for techs. never saw that in a game before.

	10-03-2003 09:13									#7
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Heh, just imagine. "We speant 20 cycles on a colony ship, then 80 more making the planet habitable just to get traded to a buncha bugs for hydroponic farms.."

	10-03-2003 10:29									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

just a note about trade agreement, it generates extra income (AU) for both you and your trading partner. Initially you won't notice it's effects until you wait a while. In my current game (about 200 turns) I have all possible treaties with about 6 other empires and have 1k+ AU surplus without empire tax. As for research treaty I have no idea on how to check it's effects.

	10-03-2003 10:36									#9
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

quote: Originally posted by Long Happy Man just a note about trade agreement, it generates extra income (AU) for both you and your trading partner. Initially you won't notice it's effects until you wait a while. In my current game (about 200 turns) I have all possible treaties with about 6 other empires and have 1k+ AU surplus without empire tax. As for research treaty I have no idea on how to check it's effects.

Yeah, the trade agreements can be quite huge. I've nearly maxed them out with 13 civs, turn 350. (don't ask, I just finished both ithkuls and silicoids and gearing for Orions). My per turn income is I think 2.3 milion, 900k is from trade, pretty significant portion. Research, I have no idea what the story is there.

	11-03-2003 03:05									#10
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Unortho playing MoO3?

excellent....

	11-03-2003 03:16									#11
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

quote: Originally posted by asleepathewheel Whats interesting about trades in this game is how often the ai will trade frontier colonies for techs. never saw that in a game before.

That's pretty cool!

	11-03-2003 03:39									#12
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

quote: Originally posted by Arnelos Unortho playing MoO3? excellent....

Hey Arnelos!

I figured you'd get around to noticing sooner or later.

We'll have to set up a time one of these days....