Won a large, 6 ai extreme difficulty game. Scientific victory, but I tried to put it off as long as I could. Eventually I thought one of the ai's was going to get it soon so I just finished it up.
Race was:
Cybernetic
-20% ship cost
+25% Beam Attack (didn't notice this at all)
+50% production
Uncreative (this includes -25% research)
Small HW
Repulsive.
So not that different from the last race I played, except this one didn't have the growth bonus. Had a great empire location and managed to claim more than my usual 4 systems before it gets crowded. I claimed 6, maybe even 7. I spent so much time on expansion that I had to bribe 2 different ai's to keep them from coming in and wrecking up the place, since I didn't have a fleet of my own.
I spent so much time on expansion that I was still establishing new colonies around turn 280ish. Usually I don't bother and just start taking ai colonies, but my race had strong pop units and I was already covering a decent part of the map so I just kept going.
I won on turn 329, which is sort of late for a science win, but I beat up two ai's before that, so that took a lot of time and resources. 3 ai's were completely destroyed, the Sakkra had just started fighting the Humans, who then bribed me to go to war with the Sakkra, while the Psilons were my allies at their behest. They also voted for me in the council.
Was a pretty fun game but mostly it was about expanding and developing as fast as I could. The fighting was sort of secondary.
I'm not sure what I can do to make my next game interesting and less repetitive. We'll see. I might have to drop the difficulty because some of the non-expansion races I'm interested in just can't keep up on the hardest difficulty.
Master of Orion-Reboot
Moderators: LawBeefaroni, Arcanis, $iljanus
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GreenGoo
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dbt1949
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
I usually ignore my neighbors unless they start a war. I play my games like my real personality. 
Ye Olde Farte
Double Ought Forty
aka dbt1949
Double Ought Forty
aka dbt1949
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GreenGoo
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
I used to do that as well, but the early money you can get, not to mention the boost in research, from treaties means Xenowhatever is often my 3rd, 4th or 5th tech researched. Even if you just want to be left alone, getting embassies with all the ai you can see, then treaties, means you get extra money and science, but also build positive relations with the ai. This can result in needing less to bribe them, or even receive gifts from the ai. This is particularly true if you're much bigger than ai and also have a good relationship. They will bribe you to stay on your good side, even without threatening them.
There's no good reason not to get all the treaties you can. Then build up all you want. Eventually someone is going to piss someone else off, and then you'll have to pick a side usually, as trying to maintain good relations with both sides of a war rarely works for me, but I pick repulsive, so trading with an ai's enemy gets a little extra negative effect.
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GreenGoo
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
Just finished a game with an experimental custom race that did fairly well. I also held off winning a scientific victory until I had researched the entire tech tree for the first time, so I got the achievement for the tech tree.
The race was:
Repulsive
-25% beam attack
Small HW
-25% credits from pop (hate hate hate taking this, but like I said, it was an experiment, and this is one of the few places that can give you decent race points)
-20% ship costs (as always, this is huge when war breaks out, but helps with your early colony ships too)
+50% production
Creative ( so +50% research plus all techs).
While I avoided slow early game picks such as -growth or low g or -food production, it was still pretty slow going. The main problem is that the ai gets huge boosts early on, so they have a full combat fleet AND more colonies than you can churn out by following the rules. On the plus side, they are rarely aggressive, or if they are, a decent bribe can turn them away. This feels like failure in a lot of ways, because for the first hundred turns almost any ai empire could come and squash you. You're always behind and until you start building up your early expansion colonies (this happens around turn 100 or so) you are really poorly positioned. I suppose you could stop expanding earlier and give up the advantage of more colonies in the mid game for more safety in the early game, and that's probably what you'd have to do if the ai was more aggressive, that would give the ai another advantage (more expansion versus your less expansion).
Still, a race with +50% production and ALL techs can do some pretty cool things, like building a Titan every turn on major production worlds (with a decent # of planets in the system).
I also captured Orion for the first time. Tech was decent, but not really game changing. I mean, It was better than what I had (the armour in particular), but only incrementally better. The death rays were great for a little while, but eventually were outstriped by normal tech (and this was earlier than I expected).
As usual, I find it very hard to start a fight as early as I'd like. The game has lots of little brakes on combat that are usually only overcome with time. You don't get troop transports until a decent way up the tech tree (in moo2 you start with them), early combat tech is pretty weak, and despite the early ships being cheap, they aren't cheap enough to produce in quantity until you have more production, and even with +50% production you still need to wait. And you need to bring disposable ships because until in Moo2 where you can manually target incoming missiles, that's pretty much impossible in this game, which means military outposts and starbases are going to hit you, and your ships are going to die, even if you win the fight. Which means you have to build more and then fly them to the front line, a process that can take 10's of turns.
Since I played the game for quite awhile with only uncreative races, I find that I'm really enjoying playing creative races now. Things like microbiotics (+15% growth) and cloning centers (+25% growth) can really make a difference when used in tandem. Not to mention core waste dumps and deep core mines are a huge jump in production. I actually find core waste dumps the better tech, given the way pollution works in the game.
Forgot to comment on the more controversial race pick in this experiment, -25% credits. Since I build EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE eventually, maintenance costs can be crippling. And even if you were picky about what to build where, the early core buildings can create a deficit, especially if you've taken anything that slows down pop growth. Lots of colonies with lots of autofactories/research labs/biospheres/hydrofarms are actually really expensive if you only have 2-3 pop on each colony.
Early on I just made trade treaties with everyone, and that easily covered my costs. But as things heat up, the ai tends to not have enough credits on hand to pay for trade treaties (treaties have an upfront cost that seems to scale based on the empire size or value of the treaty) and eventually you find yourself unable to get new trade treaties when the old ones run out, because none of the ai can afford them.
That's when it starts to hurt. I had to focus on credit producing buildings MUCH earlier than I usually would, and even with that I had to turn some of my major production worlds over to credit production for awhile. This isn't as bad as it sounds, because until you're building a fleet, these production centers don't have much to do anyway. Since credits are produced at 0.5*production (there are race picks that alter this) you have to have a LOT of production going on.
You also have to turn taxation way up to max far too early, and this hurts in lots of ways because morale becomes crippling on new worlds.
On the whole the race was a success, but I'm not skilled at dealing with credit shortfalls (whereas slow pop growth I can deal with in a number of ways) which made it a major challenge. I won about 75-100 turns later than I have with an uncreative production race, but then again I spent a lot of time conquering instead of striving for victory conditions. I ended with over 1000 pop and around 75 colonies (all of which I managed their production queues manually. Phew).
My ships in the end game were MUCH tougher than the ai's despite them nearing the end of the tech tree as well. This is as expected, but it was nice to see theory in practice. Even with the best computers and a battle scanner, my ships would still miss semi-regularly. Which is kind of crazy, even with my -25% beam attack. The amount of firepower I could bring to bear made up for it however.
Eventually I was a
The race was:
Repulsive
-25% beam attack
Small HW
-25% credits from pop (hate hate hate taking this, but like I said, it was an experiment, and this is one of the few places that can give you decent race points)
-20% ship costs (as always, this is huge when war breaks out, but helps with your early colony ships too)
+50% production
Creative ( so +50% research plus all techs).
While I avoided slow early game picks such as -growth or low g or -food production, it was still pretty slow going. The main problem is that the ai gets huge boosts early on, so they have a full combat fleet AND more colonies than you can churn out by following the rules. On the plus side, they are rarely aggressive, or if they are, a decent bribe can turn them away. This feels like failure in a lot of ways, because for the first hundred turns almost any ai empire could come and squash you. You're always behind and until you start building up your early expansion colonies (this happens around turn 100 or so) you are really poorly positioned. I suppose you could stop expanding earlier and give up the advantage of more colonies in the mid game for more safety in the early game, and that's probably what you'd have to do if the ai was more aggressive, that would give the ai another advantage (more expansion versus your less expansion).
Still, a race with +50% production and ALL techs can do some pretty cool things, like building a Titan every turn on major production worlds (with a decent # of planets in the system).
I also captured Orion for the first time. Tech was decent, but not really game changing. I mean, It was better than what I had (the armour in particular), but only incrementally better. The death rays were great for a little while, but eventually were outstriped by normal tech (and this was earlier than I expected).
As usual, I find it very hard to start a fight as early as I'd like. The game has lots of little brakes on combat that are usually only overcome with time. You don't get troop transports until a decent way up the tech tree (in moo2 you start with them), early combat tech is pretty weak, and despite the early ships being cheap, they aren't cheap enough to produce in quantity until you have more production, and even with +50% production you still need to wait. And you need to bring disposable ships because until in Moo2 where you can manually target incoming missiles, that's pretty much impossible in this game, which means military outposts and starbases are going to hit you, and your ships are going to die, even if you win the fight. Which means you have to build more and then fly them to the front line, a process that can take 10's of turns.
Since I played the game for quite awhile with only uncreative races, I find that I'm really enjoying playing creative races now. Things like microbiotics (+15% growth) and cloning centers (+25% growth) can really make a difference when used in tandem. Not to mention core waste dumps and deep core mines are a huge jump in production. I actually find core waste dumps the better tech, given the way pollution works in the game.
Forgot to comment on the more controversial race pick in this experiment, -25% credits. Since I build EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE eventually, maintenance costs can be crippling. And even if you were picky about what to build where, the early core buildings can create a deficit, especially if you've taken anything that slows down pop growth. Lots of colonies with lots of autofactories/research labs/biospheres/hydrofarms are actually really expensive if you only have 2-3 pop on each colony.
Early on I just made trade treaties with everyone, and that easily covered my costs. But as things heat up, the ai tends to not have enough credits on hand to pay for trade treaties (treaties have an upfront cost that seems to scale based on the empire size or value of the treaty) and eventually you find yourself unable to get new trade treaties when the old ones run out, because none of the ai can afford them.
That's when it starts to hurt. I had to focus on credit producing buildings MUCH earlier than I usually would, and even with that I had to turn some of my major production worlds over to credit production for awhile. This isn't as bad as it sounds, because until you're building a fleet, these production centers don't have much to do anyway. Since credits are produced at 0.5*production (there are race picks that alter this) you have to have a LOT of production going on.
You also have to turn taxation way up to max far too early, and this hurts in lots of ways because morale becomes crippling on new worlds.
On the whole the race was a success, but I'm not skilled at dealing with credit shortfalls (whereas slow pop growth I can deal with in a number of ways) which made it a major challenge. I won about 75-100 turns later than I have with an uncreative production race, but then again I spent a lot of time conquering instead of striving for victory conditions. I ended with over 1000 pop and around 75 colonies (all of which I managed their production queues manually. Phew).
My ships in the end game were MUCH tougher than the ai's despite them nearing the end of the tech tree as well. This is as expected, but it was nice to see theory in practice. Even with the best computers and a battle scanner, my ships would still miss semi-regularly. Which is kind of crazy, even with my -25% beam attack. The amount of firepower I could bring to bear made up for it however.
Eventually I was a
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dbt1949
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Zenn7
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GreenGoo
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
Not sure what happened there. Might be a max size to the field?
In any case, I don't recall what I said there. "Eventually I was able to something something".
And thanks for taking the time to read that wall of text. I appreciate it.
In any case, I don't recall what I said there. "Eventually I was able to something something".
And thanks for taking the time to read that wall of text. I appreciate it.
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Zenn7
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
Thanks for posting it. I own the game, played it once or twice and might play it again, but I rarely get into games with the depth I see you getting into them. If it's a game I am interested in, I like to read other peoples in depth thoughts. Not something I want to scour the web and spends tons of time doing, but I come here pretty much daily and usually enough time to read these detailed posts (if not immediately, eventually). Gives me thoughts/ideas for when I play the game again.
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GreenGoo
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
I finished another game that played out sort of weird. I'll try to write something up about it but I'm already starting to forget since I'm about 1/2 through another game.
In this current game, I'd tried to work on the financial side of things. By turn 200 I had over 18,000 in cash and an income of 800 per turn, and that's with the the lesser trading trait and the lesser money trait.
I've bought out a lot of building queues, but given how most of my games play out, I sort of didn't focus on it and missed lots of opportunities to jump start colonies and such. There is no way I should have 18,000 sitting around. I haven't even built my first battleship yet.
Oh, and I've mostly taken over the Sakkra, using destroyers and cruisers. We had a good thing going trade-wise when they threw it all away, declared war and surprise attacked me. I spent a TON of money getting defenses up, held them off, smashed a couple of fleets and by the time my war fleet was ready the Sakkra fleets were in shambles. It was a pretty simple thing to start taking colonies.
I demanded peace when I had eaten my fill, and I'm hoping we can start trading again after a long recovery period of rebuilding relations. They are no longer a threat.
In this current game, I'd tried to work on the financial side of things. By turn 200 I had over 18,000 in cash and an income of 800 per turn, and that's with the the lesser trading trait and the lesser money trait.
I've bought out a lot of building queues, but given how most of my games play out, I sort of didn't focus on it and missed lots of opportunities to jump start colonies and such. There is no way I should have 18,000 sitting around. I haven't even built my first battleship yet.
Oh, and I've mostly taken over the Sakkra, using destroyers and cruisers. We had a good thing going trade-wise when they threw it all away, declared war and surprise attacked me. I spent a TON of money getting defenses up, held them off, smashed a couple of fleets and by the time my war fleet was ready the Sakkra fleets were in shambles. It was a pretty simple thing to start taking colonies.
I demanded peace when I had eaten my fill, and I'm hoping we can start trading again after a long recovery period of rebuilding relations. They are no longer a threat.
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GreenGoo
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
You guys probably know this already, but the Antarans come in, kill anything orbiting a planet (fleets, static defenses) then bio-bomb the planet, which only kills marines and population. This leaves the entire planet intact minus the population. You don't even need a colony ship to re-colonize, a civilian transport will do. And at any point after about midgame, you can generate an enormous amount of population in just a couple of turns (if you're not lithovore at least). So the best strategy, assuming you can't just hand them their ass, is to move everything away from the planet, scrap the defenses (for free whatever you get. Cash? Production?) and let them bomb the planet. They will sit on the planet for 1 turn, then head back to their portal. Assuming you have star gates, you can repopulate the entire planet in like 5 turns.
It makes the Antarans kind of a joke. Which is too bad, really.
It makes the Antarans kind of a joke. Which is too bad, really.
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dbt1949
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
That's interesting. No matter how many times you beat their fleet sooner or later they're going to beat you. I never thought of just repopulating the planet like that. Good work!
Ye Olde Farte
Double Ought Forty
aka dbt1949
Double Ought Forty
aka dbt1949
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GreenGoo
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
And sometimes they don't bring enough bombs to actually kill everyone, so you don't even lose the planet for any turns, although you still need to repopulate it since your population will have been devastated in any case.
If you have a LOT of marines, that helps keep your civilians alive by giving the bombs more non-essential targets. Not sure if tanks/battloids fall in that category.
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dbt1949
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
In the early game I can usually beat the Antarans but I'm constantly rebuilding my fleet and having less money on hand because of it.
One game they chose a planet besides my home planet and I let them have it for target practice but I never thought of repopulating it.
But I can see now, even with my home planet, that with the buildings still standing it would be best to abandon it to the Antarans and not engage with my fleet. It would certainly save my fleet for better uses.
I had one game where I had like 5 Titans around 9 battleships and a host of others and got my ass handed to me. Like I said,eventually they will get you.
One game they chose a planet besides my home planet and I let them have it for target practice but I never thought of repopulating it.
But I can see now, even with my home planet, that with the buildings still standing it would be best to abandon it to the Antarans and not engage with my fleet. It would certainly save my fleet for better uses.
I had one game where I had like 5 Titans around 9 battleships and a host of others and got my ass handed to me. Like I said,eventually they will get you.
Ye Olde Farte
Double Ought Forty
aka dbt1949
Double Ought Forty
aka dbt1949
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dbt1949
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
Once you get the Universal Antidote it pretty well negates the Antarans Death Spores or whatever they are.
Ye Olde Farte
Double Ought Forty
aka dbt1949
Double Ought Forty
aka dbt1949
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GreenGoo
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
Not sure what you mean there, dbt. The Death Spores are biological bombs that only kill living things. If a ship is not bombing you, you aren't being affected by the bio-bombs (there are 2 versions in Moo4).
Universal Antidote provides a growth boost (i.e. makes the food accumulation box smaller). It's no different than microbiotics or cloning center or the growth race attribute. To the best of my knowledge it doesn't do anything else.
I'll look into it a bit to confirm.
edit: Huh. You're correct, according to the tech description. My bad. It also replaces microbiotics, it's not cumulative. I didn't realize that. That sucks. I'll keep an eye on things during Antaran bombing to see if there is a notable difference. It's probably why sometimes my colonies survive the bombing. Thanks for pointing that out.
As a side note, I very rarely have the antarans bomb me, because I'm very rarely in the lead. Well right up until I win anyway. I'm almost always behind on military might and technology, and I only get competitive on population near mid/late game. Antarans always attack the top score on the leader board.
Universal Antidote provides a growth boost (i.e. makes the food accumulation box smaller). It's no different than microbiotics or cloning center or the growth race attribute. To the best of my knowledge it doesn't do anything else.
I'll look into it a bit to confirm.
edit: Huh. You're correct, according to the tech description. My bad. It also replaces microbiotics, it's not cumulative. I didn't realize that. That sucks. I'll keep an eye on things during Antaran bombing to see if there is a notable difference. It's probably why sometimes my colonies survive the bombing. Thanks for pointing that out.
As a side note, I very rarely have the antarans bomb me, because I'm very rarely in the lead. Well right up until I win anyway. I'm almost always behind on military might and technology, and I only get competitive on population near mid/late game. Antarans always attack the top score on the leader board.
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dbt1949
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
Finally beat the Antarans. Used the unlimited Doom Star mod. Had eleven Doom Stars.
The ending was very unimpressive. Probably last time I go for it. I had to do it just once.
Their last attack on my homeworld was more powerful than their defending fleet, not counting their Doom Star.
The ending was very unimpressive. Probably last time I go for it. I had to do it just once.
Their last attack on my homeworld was more powerful than their defending fleet, not counting their Doom Star.
Ye Olde Farte
Double Ought Forty
aka dbt1949
Double Ought Forty
aka dbt1949
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GreenGoo
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
The last time the Antarans attacked, they had something like 30k offense 50k defense. I didn't even bother to engage them. I just built 10 civ transports ready to repopulate afterward. I'm sure the former population was unhappy to be abandoned, but the rest of the empire didn't notice.
I just won a large extreme difficulty game with 7 ai opponents using this:
Uncreative
Repulsive
small HW
-20% ship costs
+25% credits from pop
+25% credits from trade treaties/building trade goods
+50% production (this, more than anything, I'm finding I can't live without. I just don't have the patience for normal or even +25% production right now. It's too slow)
I never did tax more than 4 BC per pop, otherwise I would have had even more cash. My plan was to build shitty ships early and then just buy upgrades as I researched them, but it never really occurred. I had a small (large by early standards) fleet with 4 cruisers and 6 destroyers and a few frigates, and those got upgraded often, but overall they were fairly cheap to upgrade. I was thinking BB's and titans, which are often in the 10's of thousands to upgrade each time, depending on various things.
I had more cash than I ever could use, winning by vote around turn 350 after eating 3/4's of Sakkra early and then about 1/2 of Meklar late. I had around 1000 pop and over 200k BC with an income of around 10k/turn. If I tried that again, I would spend way, way more money on buying production to speed up colony development and such.
The game played out a bit differently for me, as the Sakkra attacked and I stopped to build a war fleet and conquer as much of them as I wanted. This meant that my colonies stopped developing while they built ships, and my expansion was non-existent while I fought. Of course I took a lot of new semi-developed colonies, but I noticed that this did not make up for the lack of development in my core systems. It's partly why I won around turn 350 instead of 300ish.
I had turned off economic and scientific victories, which is another reason it wasn't over earlier. Myself and more than 1 ai had hit the end of the tech tree long before the game ended. I think I had 2500-3000 rp/turn at the end. Not bad for uncreative (and the -25% research that comes with it).
The Psilons asked to ally and I agree, and they voted for me every vote after, which was nice. I even got the Klackons to vote for me once despite no alliance, but on the final vote they abstained. That was a little disappointing. I had declared war on another front at their behest. The least they could do was support me as I defended them. The Mrrshan of all people were kicking the Klackon's butt. Not sure how that happened.
On the whole, the game played out as it would have with just about any production race, except for the early war. I should note that I tend not to start wars in Moo4. I don't know if it's a lack of confidence with low tech or just that the trade treaties are so lucrative, but I normally wait for 2 trade partners to declare war on each other, and then my dealing with them pisses both off and the first one that gets pissed off enough to do something about it gets wacked. In this game no one wanted a piece of me after the Sakkra for a long time, so I was left alone. It got boring so I eventually asked the Alkari what they would give me for going to war with the Meklar (who were in second place and eating the birds). It was 2 pieces of tech and a smattering of cash. Good enough.
I just won a large extreme difficulty game with 7 ai opponents using this:
Uncreative
Repulsive
small HW
-20% ship costs
+25% credits from pop
+25% credits from trade treaties/building trade goods
+50% production (this, more than anything, I'm finding I can't live without. I just don't have the patience for normal or even +25% production right now. It's too slow)
I never did tax more than 4 BC per pop, otherwise I would have had even more cash. My plan was to build shitty ships early and then just buy upgrades as I researched them, but it never really occurred. I had a small (large by early standards) fleet with 4 cruisers and 6 destroyers and a few frigates, and those got upgraded often, but overall they were fairly cheap to upgrade. I was thinking BB's and titans, which are often in the 10's of thousands to upgrade each time, depending on various things.
I had more cash than I ever could use, winning by vote around turn 350 after eating 3/4's of Sakkra early and then about 1/2 of Meklar late. I had around 1000 pop and over 200k BC with an income of around 10k/turn. If I tried that again, I would spend way, way more money on buying production to speed up colony development and such.
The game played out a bit differently for me, as the Sakkra attacked and I stopped to build a war fleet and conquer as much of them as I wanted. This meant that my colonies stopped developing while they built ships, and my expansion was non-existent while I fought. Of course I took a lot of new semi-developed colonies, but I noticed that this did not make up for the lack of development in my core systems. It's partly why I won around turn 350 instead of 300ish.
I had turned off economic and scientific victories, which is another reason it wasn't over earlier. Myself and more than 1 ai had hit the end of the tech tree long before the game ended. I think I had 2500-3000 rp/turn at the end. Not bad for uncreative (and the -25% research that comes with it).
The Psilons asked to ally and I agree, and they voted for me every vote after, which was nice. I even got the Klackons to vote for me once despite no alliance, but on the final vote they abstained. That was a little disappointing. I had declared war on another front at their behest. The least they could do was support me as I defended them. The Mrrshan of all people were kicking the Klackon's butt. Not sure how that happened.
On the whole, the game played out as it would have with just about any production race, except for the early war. I should note that I tend not to start wars in Moo4. I don't know if it's a lack of confidence with low tech or just that the trade treaties are so lucrative, but I normally wait for 2 trade partners to declare war on each other, and then my dealing with them pisses both off and the first one that gets pissed off enough to do something about it gets wacked. In this game no one wanted a piece of me after the Sakkra for a long time, so I was left alone. It got boring so I eventually asked the Alkari what they would give me for going to war with the Meklar (who were in second place and eating the birds). It was 2 pieces of tech and a smattering of cash. Good enough.
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dbt1949
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
It's late in the game and one thing lead to another and I'm at war with two empires. I send in a Titan to attack a colony and surprise! He has a Titan, a battleship and numerous smaller ships and all the planetary defenses.
I win!
He must have taken the shortest research route to get to the Titans.
I win!
He must have taken the shortest research route to get to the Titans.
Ye Olde Farte
Double Ought Forty
aka dbt1949
Double Ought Forty
aka dbt1949
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Freyland
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
I'm kinda confused, btw. I had gotten the impression, especially from Goo, but with some pessimism from DBT, that you guys really didn't like the game due to it's many warts and short-comings, but you continue to invest time into it. So, do you like it or not? How many tentacles?
Sims 3 and signature unclear.
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dbt1949
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
Actually I think the game is great. I just think it's not much different than MOO2. I wouldn't keep playing it if I wasn't enjoying myself.
I think that's the best judgement I can give.............I keep playing one more turn and have for almost 200 hours.
I can complain about Civ 5 too but I have like 5700 hours in it.
I destroyed a planet using a Stellar Converter for the first time. Cool little cut scene.
I think that's the best judgement I can give.............I keep playing one more turn and have for almost 200 hours.
I can complain about Civ 5 too but I have like 5700 hours in it.
I destroyed a planet using a Stellar Converter for the first time. Cool little cut scene.
Ye Olde Farte
Double Ought Forty
aka dbt1949
Double Ought Forty
aka dbt1949
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GreenGoo
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- Location: Ottawa, ON
Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
It's about a 6/8 tentacles. Without the Master of Orion tie-in and nostalgia, about 5-5.5/8.
There are a lot of good things about it, some things that I don't like but are only personal preference, and there are some bugs. Before I bought it I heard that it was a 4x with good production values and somewhat mediocre gameplay. I'd say that's fair.
If it didn't follow Moo2's mechanics so closely, I'm fairly certain I would have already stopped playing. But since it does, it's like playing my old favourite, but with some changes and improved graphics and such.
I'm struggling right now to find interesting races that play out differently than others, but a lot of what they did to make the game more "fair" has also made things more vanilla between races. When I say races, I mean custom races.
There are mechanics in place that affect the pacing of the game. Conquest is limited by needing tech to build troop ships. Telepathy is slowed down by needing Battleships. Spying is weakened by needing tech, and making defense somewhat easy to come by. Expansion is slowed by tech, production, colony development and morale. Teching is slowed by needing population growth, and countered by other races by tech buildings that are at least 1/2 of an empire's research, no matter what the tech bonuses to the race.
In short, they took a lot of what made Moo2 interesting and allowed many styles of play to flourish (at least against the ai) and either reduced their effectiveness or increased investment to get the style working. It's all designed to even the playing field no matter what racial traits you pick. Does it work? I have no idea, as I have not played nor plan on playing multiplayer, which is where the balance really gets shaken out. I know they've made solo play a lot less varied from race to race, which I think is a net negative, even if I respect what they were trying to do.
I'm playing it because I can play it mechanically without using my brain too much, which is what I like sometimes. I'm realizing as I get older I am much happier with games that I am familiar with, which is why I'll play 5 or 6 alts through the same gameplay. The character builds are different, but the content is the same. In the case of Moo4, I can play scores of turns micromanaging the entire time, but never taxed mentally. Sometimes for me, that's ok.
There are a lot of good things about it, some things that I don't like but are only personal preference, and there are some bugs. Before I bought it I heard that it was a 4x with good production values and somewhat mediocre gameplay. I'd say that's fair.
If it didn't follow Moo2's mechanics so closely, I'm fairly certain I would have already stopped playing. But since it does, it's like playing my old favourite, but with some changes and improved graphics and such.
I'm struggling right now to find interesting races that play out differently than others, but a lot of what they did to make the game more "fair" has also made things more vanilla between races. When I say races, I mean custom races.
There are mechanics in place that affect the pacing of the game. Conquest is limited by needing tech to build troop ships. Telepathy is slowed down by needing Battleships. Spying is weakened by needing tech, and making defense somewhat easy to come by. Expansion is slowed by tech, production, colony development and morale. Teching is slowed by needing population growth, and countered by other races by tech buildings that are at least 1/2 of an empire's research, no matter what the tech bonuses to the race.
In short, they took a lot of what made Moo2 interesting and allowed many styles of play to flourish (at least against the ai) and either reduced their effectiveness or increased investment to get the style working. It's all designed to even the playing field no matter what racial traits you pick. Does it work? I have no idea, as I have not played nor plan on playing multiplayer, which is where the balance really gets shaken out. I know they've made solo play a lot less varied from race to race, which I think is a net negative, even if I respect what they were trying to do.
I'm playing it because I can play it mechanically without using my brain too much, which is what I like sometimes. I'm realizing as I get older I am much happier with games that I am familiar with, which is why I'll play 5 or 6 alts through the same gameplay. The character builds are different, but the content is the same. In the case of Moo4, I can play scores of turns micromanaging the entire time, but never taxed mentally. Sometimes for me, that's ok.
Last edited by GreenGoo on Thu Nov 16, 2017 1:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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GreenGoo
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
Now I've got to do it just to see the cut scene. Thanks a lot.
I have 375 hours in Moo4 now. A LOT of that was testing stuff, playing the first 100 turns to see if something worked and bailing on a game to try something else.
In retrospect, it's not really worth that many hours, but it beats trying to climb a new learning curve on another game right now.
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GreenGoo
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
Pretty boring win. Took an extra 150 turns to finish a game that I had already won, because I had turned off all the "easy" win conditions. Basically no economy, no research wins, so I spent 150 turns conquering. I missed one election by what must have been a very small margin so I had to wait until the next one. In the end, it was me being good friends with the distant 2nd place bulrathi, with the Sakkra being devoured by both of us.
Race was:
Repulsive
Small HW
Uncreative
-50% growth (yeah, I know, one of the worst possible picks. I wanted the extra points, and once mid game rolls around, technology covers growth pretty well)
Cybernetic (partially offset the growth negative, but the ship repair is pretty awesome in certain situations too. One of the biggest benefits is that a new colony can support 2 cybernetic workers, whereas it can only support 1 normal race pop. Twice the production on turn zero of a new colony's life)
-20% ship build cost
+50% production
Warlord (something different. Means less transports needed, which is actually a big deal during the conquest phase)
+25% Trader (meh. Was ok to good, but what happens if the ai gets ornery early? A bit of a risk. Extra money from pop might be the better pick, although it pays off much later)
The end game was pretty much identical to the game I quote below.
So not much different from a standard custom race, but the warlord and trader picks helped make the experience slightly different.
Race was:
Repulsive
Small HW
Uncreative
-50% growth (yeah, I know, one of the worst possible picks. I wanted the extra points, and once mid game rolls around, technology covers growth pretty well)
Cybernetic (partially offset the growth negative, but the ship repair is pretty awesome in certain situations too. One of the biggest benefits is that a new colony can support 2 cybernetic workers, whereas it can only support 1 normal race pop. Twice the production on turn zero of a new colony's life)
-20% ship build cost
+50% production
Warlord (something different. Means less transports needed, which is actually a big deal during the conquest phase)
+25% Trader (meh. Was ok to good, but what happens if the ai gets ornery early? A bit of a risk. Extra money from pop might be the better pick, although it pays off much later)
The end game was pretty much identical to the game I quote below.
GreenGoo wrote: ↑Wed Nov 15, 2017 1:28 pm Uncreative
Repulsive
small HW
-20% ship costs
+25% credits from pop
+25% credits from trade treaties/building trade goods
+50% production (this, more than anything, I'm finding I can't live without. I just don't have the patience for normal or even +25% production right now. It's too slow)
I had more cash than I ever could use, winning by vote around turn 350 after eating 3/4's of Sakkra early and then about 1/2 of Meklar late. I had around 1000 pop and over 200k BC with an income of around 10k/turn. If I tried that again, I would spend way, way more money on buying production to speed up colony development and such.
I had turned off economic and scientific victories, which is another reason it wasn't over earlier. Myself and more than 1 ai had hit the end of the tech tree long before the game ended. I think I had 2500-3000 rp/turn at the end. Not bad for uncreative (and the -25% research that comes with it).
So not much different from a standard custom race, but the warlord and trader picks helped make the experience slightly different.
Last edited by GreenGoo on Thu Nov 23, 2017 4:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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GreenGoo
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
Bah. I was hoping the race packs were on sale. 11 bucks (canadian) for EACH new race. I get that there are new animations and probably voice acting, but come on. 11 bucks? The base game is barely worth that much today. Endless Space 2 is being sold in its entirety for less than 2 Moo4 races.
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dbt1949
- Posts: 25742
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
Buy Master of Orion: Revenge of Antares Race Pack has all three races for 9.99.
You have to buy the collector's edition to get the extra human race.
You have to buy the collector's edition to get the extra human race.
Ye Olde Farte
Double Ought Forty
aka dbt1949
Double Ought Forty
aka dbt1949
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GreenGoo
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
Ok, thanks! I didn't see that, I just say the 11 bucks per race separate DLC. Now to decide if 3 new sets of animations and ship models are worth 10 bucks.
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Hyena
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
I can't remember the name of the race of blue chicks in the DLC, but they have an ability that is so overpowered it's not even funny. Once you clear the skies of defenders, you have the option to brainwash the entire planet, defenders and all, into being subservient. Instantly. No chance for rebellion, no need to send troops down, no need to damage any buildings with bombs. Beat their defenses in space, and the entire planet is immediately yours for permanent. Makes it so easy to sweep through an entire race of planets, sometimes in just a few turns, and blammo, more votes, production, and credits.
Hella fun at first, but can actually make the game quite boring.
Hella fun at first, but can actually make the game quite boring.
"You laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at you because you're all the same." ~Jonathan Davis
"The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives." ~Robert M. Hutchins
"The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives." ~Robert M. Hutchins
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El Guapo
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- Location: Boston
Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
The "telepathic" ability in MOO2 worked that way (though I think you had to have a battleship-sized or larger ship in orbit, IIRC, presumably to prevent you from zipping around small groups of fighters to conquer large swaths of under-protected planets).Hyena wrote: ↑Tue Nov 28, 2017 2:22 pm I can't remember the name of the race of blue chicks in the DLC, but they have an ability that is so overpowered it's not even funny. Once you clear the skies of defenders, you have the option to brainwash the entire planet, defenders and all, into being subservient. Instantly. No chance for rebellion, no need to send troops down, no need to damage any buildings with bombs. Beat their defenses in space, and the entire planet is immediately yours for permanent. Makes it so easy to sweep through an entire race of planets, sometimes in just a few turns, and blammo, more votes, production, and credits.
Hella fun at first, but can actually make the game quite boring.
Black Lives Matter.
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GreenGoo
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Re: Master of Orion-Reboot
Telepathy is a 6 race point trait in both Moo2 and Moo4. In Moo2 you need cruiser or larger, in Moo4 you need battleship or larger. That's pretty deep into the tech tree.
It is a game changing pick, but it's not overpowered in the context of custom races. In the context of all the crappy base race designs, then yeah, it's up there. Even then I'd rather play Klackons or Meklar. Sakkra is up there too.
When I take Telepathy in Moo4, it's a trade off for a slightly slower start for a much faster end game. Even then, there isn't a HUGE difference between a regular conquest plus alien management center plus assimilation time and Telepathy conquest. Sure, regular conquest planets are going to be slower coming online, but by the time you can kill an enemy fleet and sit on their home world unopposed, you've already beaten that race.
I've already pointed out earlier in the thread that Telepathy in Moo4 IS superior to Telepathy in Moo2 for a variety of reasons, including the one just mentioned, where marines are mind controlled and immediately effective in defending the planet from being taken back by the ai. But regular conquest is better in Moo4 as well, because it doesn't destroy any buildings or population (although bombing does) which means with enough marines you can take a planet intact. That was not the case in Moo2, where conquest would destroy a random number of buildings. In Moo4 there is no rebellion of any kind, so once you own a planet, the only down side is the assimilation penalty.
The biggest benefit of Telepathy in my opinion is being able to forego the supply lines in which troop transports are constantly being built and moved to the front lines. That is a serious pain in the butt when you're moving on the entire galaxy at once. Telepathy removes a lot of micromanagement, which is a major convenience, but not necessarily overpowered.
If you take telepathy and I build a faster race with the extra 6 race points that I didn't spend on Telepathy and you can't ever defeat my fleets, you've spent 6 race points and gained nothing but a little espionage security. Not a great benefit for the cost.
If we're talking the default races, Elerians are a decent pick, although I still don't put them at the top.
I did notice that the Gnolams and Elerians have a lot more traits (in terms of race point cost) than almost any other default race, so that helps. The Trilarians got screwed though. I'm not sure why they did that.
It is a game changing pick, but it's not overpowered in the context of custom races. In the context of all the crappy base race designs, then yeah, it's up there. Even then I'd rather play Klackons or Meklar. Sakkra is up there too.
When I take Telepathy in Moo4, it's a trade off for a slightly slower start for a much faster end game. Even then, there isn't a HUGE difference between a regular conquest plus alien management center plus assimilation time and Telepathy conquest. Sure, regular conquest planets are going to be slower coming online, but by the time you can kill an enemy fleet and sit on their home world unopposed, you've already beaten that race.
I've already pointed out earlier in the thread that Telepathy in Moo4 IS superior to Telepathy in Moo2 for a variety of reasons, including the one just mentioned, where marines are mind controlled and immediately effective in defending the planet from being taken back by the ai. But regular conquest is better in Moo4 as well, because it doesn't destroy any buildings or population (although bombing does) which means with enough marines you can take a planet intact. That was not the case in Moo2, where conquest would destroy a random number of buildings. In Moo4 there is no rebellion of any kind, so once you own a planet, the only down side is the assimilation penalty.
The biggest benefit of Telepathy in my opinion is being able to forego the supply lines in which troop transports are constantly being built and moved to the front lines. That is a serious pain in the butt when you're moving on the entire galaxy at once. Telepathy removes a lot of micromanagement, which is a major convenience, but not necessarily overpowered.
If you take telepathy and I build a faster race with the extra 6 race points that I didn't spend on Telepathy and you can't ever defeat my fleets, you've spent 6 race points and gained nothing but a little espionage security. Not a great benefit for the cost.
If we're talking the default races, Elerians are a decent pick, although I still don't put them at the top.
I did notice that the Gnolams and Elerians have a lot more traits (in terms of race point cost) than almost any other default race, so that helps. The Trilarians got screwed though. I'm not sure why they did that.