02-23-2003, 07:05 AM
So, anybody play the originals (MOO I and MOO II)? I still have MOO I on my hard drive and still play it a lot. Pretty much like a lot of good old games (Civ III wasn't better than Civ II).
MoO 1 and 2 were lots of fun. I played 2 mostly and liked that slightly better, although some of the changes between 1 and 2 I did not like (a bit too heavy on the micromanagement in 2).
My biggest problem with MoO2 was that I unfortunately developed a strategy that just about always wins against comps, even in impossible mode. I suppose if I ever get back to the game I'd better use some good old fashioned Diablo "variant" thinking to put the challenge back in. :D
The strategy is two-fold:
1) use a custom race. I pick the least significant drawbacks that fit my heavy research style (LG homeworld, -10 combat, -10 spying). For benefits I usually either use one of these two:
creative, subterranean, large home world, cybernetic... these guys start of kind of slow but pick up steam due to the high population.
creative, democracy, large homeworld, artifact homeworld... especially if you start at low tech, these guys advance fast. The drawback is, until you build lots of spies, you will be getting tech stolen by the turn. And sometimes some pinheads will blow up your space station, which can slow you down early on. If you get lucky and one of the other races has the subterranean trait, try to conquer some of their people and transfer the alien colonists to your own worlds. This effectively gives you the trait free with only the cost of building some alien control centers.
In both cases I leave the extra point to improve my score slightly.
2) trade with everyone you can: by giving any comp race (except repulsive ones, of course) two tech advances, they will become very open to trade and research treaties. I usually give out useless techs such as security stations, dauntless guidance, ship labs (forget the name), death spores (which the comp never uses), etc...
If you can get 4+ races onboard the treaty train, it gives you a huge edge in cash and research (I always play 8 player so this works well for me).
After doing all this it's just a matter of doing a lot research, expanding to easily available colonies, and avoiding wars until you are ready (pretty easy, because trading partners tend to stay very friendly... only the repulsives will give you trouble).
Tibbs
MoO 1 and 2 were lots of fun. I played 2 mostly and liked that slightly better, although some of the changes between 1 and 2 I did not like (a bit too heavy on the micromanagement in 2).
My biggest problem with MoO2 was that I unfortunately developed a strategy that just about always wins against comps, even in impossible mode. I suppose if I ever get back to the game I'd better use some good old fashioned Diablo "variant" thinking to put the challenge back in. :D
The strategy is two-fold:
1) use a custom race. I pick the least significant drawbacks that fit my heavy research style (LG homeworld, -10 combat, -10 spying). For benefits I usually either use one of these two:
creative, subterranean, large home world, cybernetic... these guys start of kind of slow but pick up steam due to the high population.
creative, democracy, large homeworld, artifact homeworld... especially if you start at low tech, these guys advance fast. The drawback is, until you build lots of spies, you will be getting tech stolen by the turn. And sometimes some pinheads will blow up your space station, which can slow you down early on. If you get lucky and one of the other races has the subterranean trait, try to conquer some of their people and transfer the alien colonists to your own worlds. This effectively gives you the trait free with only the cost of building some alien control centers.
In both cases I leave the extra point to improve my score slightly.
2) trade with everyone you can: by giving any comp race (except repulsive ones, of course) two tech advances, they will become very open to trade and research treaties. I usually give out useless techs such as security stations, dauntless guidance, ship labs (forget the name), death spores (which the comp never uses), etc...
If you can get 4+ races onboard the treaty train, it gives you a huge edge in cash and research (I always play 8 player so this works well for me).
After doing all this it's just a matter of doing a lot research, expanding to easily available colonies, and avoiding wars until you are ready (pretty easy, because trading partners tend to stay very friendly... only the repulsives will give you trouble).
Tibbs