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[USEC_OFFICER]

Spoiler: lol, cats (click to show/hide)

Man, how long has it been since I've played MoO2? I'm going to say... three years. At least.


We research fusion rifles, since we already stole the (largely useless) beams from the Mrrshan. That ought to buff up our soldiers a bit for when we get attacked.


Our scouts pick up Commander Hawk in the Tarazad system. Of course I will completely forget about him and not put him in any of my space ships.


The Tarazad system, if you were wondering what it looked like. Not a place we'll be colonizing any time soon.


Battle Scanners are stolen by our wonderful spies. I think I'll go more towards beam weaponry this game, so it's a welcome addition to our tech arsenal.


Now we j-

What the hell? I don't remember skipping any diplomacy messages or anything. Meh, either way we're at war with the Mrrshan, I guess.



We're also really weak on military tech. Luckily the Mrrshan are also weak as well, but we're not going to get much done without MIRV'd nuclear missiles.



Fun fact: I have no clue what the hell the Mrrshan were doing. Their ships just dicked around in our space and then retreated after I attacked.


Also I discovered that their scouts were commanded by a spider-guy, but meh. He'll die soon enough.


We also research Cloning Centers because I forgot to change the research because extra population equals more workers, soldiers and ships.



The Bulrathi and Mrrshan declare war on each other for all of one turn. I wish I was kidding.


In response to the Mrrshan dicking around our planets, we decide to do the same for Sarwa.


Except this time we're dicking around with nuclear bombs.


Sweet, sweet nuclear bombs.


The Mrrshan decide to respond in kind against Arkham.


Pictured: The horrible devastation they caused. That's right, they did absolutely no damage, and we even managed to complete our Supercomputer in time.


May T'bbhaug bless Gnolamistan.


With all the fancy new ships and transports we're building, I've had to bump up the tax rate. It's going to fluctuate up and down throughout the rest of the update, but you folks don't have to worry about all that.


We research Merculites, though I'm not entirely sure if we'll switch to beam ships before we get a chance to MIRV them. Still, better to have them and not need them than the other way around.


I set up an outpost in Dunwich (née Sarwa) to help us strike of the Mrrshan.


And of course I forgot to check the distances between systems. Doh!


Since pollution is starting to be a big problem, I've researched Atmospheric Renewer. That ought to boost our industry and get us one step closer to MIRV'd Merculites.


I'm not entirely sure if the AI now builds better ships with the patch. Though if they do, I now have something to help against their missiles.


Also something for their beams as well.


Telum gets its own little outpost, allowing us to strike at the Mrrshan (finally).


The Antarans also jump into our dimension, but they decide to give someone else a bad day.


To help with out little CP problem, we research better communications.


Which is good, as we definitively do not have the firepower to deal with a Star Base right now. *sigh*


Adding injury to insult, Kadath II (our largest industrial colony) gets a massive earthquake and loses a lot of important buildings. It'll be a while before they recover, but thankfully we don't need their services right now.


The Bulrathi, having enjoyed their previous five-second war against the Mrrshan, decide to go for broke and declare war again. This time the war manages to last more than a turn.


I kinda forgot to keep some defenders in Telum, so that outpost will have to be rebuilt. Yay.




We manage to get some more techs in the meantime, however. Everyone on Gnol II is researching, so we're getting tons of RP and powering through the bottom part of the tech tree.


This time I remember about my officers, and put Galis to work in Gnol, helping out with our money situation.


The Antarans, hearing about how wonderfully awesome we are, decide to come and ruin our stuff.


Hello...



The Antaran fleet (all two of them) decide to go after Arkham. However we do have enough money to hurry a missile base...


Let's do this.


The star base (and the lovely CP it provides) goes down quickly.


However swarms of Merculites quickly down the Antaran frigates without much further damage. Perfect. I'm not entirely sure at what point Missile Bases become worthless against the Antarans, but hopefully that's far, far into the future.


More research get. I think I'll actually take a closer look at the tech tree for the next update, to rush for some awesome/amazing techs instead of getting anything that catches my eye. Still, can't complain about Inertial Stabilizer. More beam defence and faster turning is nothing to sneeze at.


Anyways, I haven't been dicking around too much during this update. While the Antarans were attacking Arkham, I've been refitting our Goblins and Gremlins with MIRV'd nuclear missiles. Sharru V now has a Missile Base, but at the very least we can smash the Star Base to pieces and come back later to finish the job.


...

Scratch that, I overestimated how strong Star Bases are.


The base goes down without much fuss.


Unfortunately, due to size constraints, our missiles aren't very fast and we lose a couple ships due to counter-battery fire.


Luckily our counter-counter-battery fire proves to be effective, and smushes the Missile Base into paste.


The only problem is that I didn't bring my transports over since I thought I'd have to make a second run at this. Whoops.



With the Mrrshan having no ships to speak of, the Bulrathi come charging into their systems.


Our transports manage to reach Sharru just in time though.


Is it just me, or does it look like our soldiers are old-timey (American) football players?

...

Spoiler: Athletic Interlude (click to show/hide)

: Welcome back, ladies, gentlemen and interstellar space terrors to the last quarter of this intense match between the Gnolam Goats and the Mrrshan Lions! The crowd is simply fired up by this impressive display of sportsmanship between these two great teams!

: Yay.

: Go Lions! Daddy needs a new pair of shoes!

: And here's the kick-off! The Lions have the ball and are leading 23 to 19. Can the Cultists come back with only five minutes left on the clock?

: 19. 5. 6. 10-Hutt!

: O'neina gg-en T'bbhaug a'ndhlogolar!

: It'chali T'bbhaug!

: I don't believe this folks! The Goats have sacrificed the Lion's star quarterback and reanimated him with darke magicks! He has the ball and, wait, yes! It's a touchdown! The Lion's quarterback has made a touchdown against his own side!

: What the hell? That can't possibly be legal!

: Yay.

: It appears as if the Lion's coach is questioning the legality of that move. The referees are discussing the situation and we should get a ruling shortly...

: After careful consideration, we have decided that the play was perfectly legal. The touchdown stands.

: It'chali T'bbhaug!

: What an upset folks! The Goats have managed a surprise come-from-behind victory! This is definitively one for the history books!

: Fucking bullshit.

: Oh well. There's always next year, right?

: ...

: Yay.

Spoiler: This Update is Full of Cats (click to show/hide)

If you can't tell, I have no idea how football works, American or otherwise. Luckily I do know enough to build an Alien Control Center on Sharru V.


Unfortunately, due to massive penalties Sharru V is as useful as a rubber-band propelled car. Hopefully it won't take long until they start supporting themselves (and thus give me less reason to murder them horribly).


I can't remember how many irradiated planets we have, but at the very least we should be able to fend off any attacks from rival empires for a while.


We also get some stock exchanges to help with the money situation.


Having accomplished all of nothing, the Bulrathi make peace with the Mrrshan. Make up your goddamn minds already, AI.


Bugger. We control 6 star systems, but two of those have only outposts. Hopefully the Sakkra are-


Speak of the devil!


The Sakkra empire is right next to the Bulrathi/Mrrshan so logically they're right next to us. Thankfully their 75% research penalty means that we have the technological edge, but I'm a bit worried about how quickly they can grow and pump out ships with their massive populations.


The Mrrshan are down to Fieras Prime, which is actually not as well defended as Sharru V.


Oh, and we're bringing more Cruisers this time.


I believe that the outcome should be damn obvious.


I'm pretty sure that the AI's infantry gets a health bonus, but we should be fine with a invasion fleet of 24 grunts.


Wow. I've forgotten how bloody ground combat could be. 50% casualties to wipe out the last of the Mrrshan. Not a pretty sight.


We steal some Mass Drivers from the Mrrshan before they kick the bucket. Unfortunately we have better beams already, but it's the thought that counts, right?


Also we steal Dimension Portals. It seems to be one of the commoner techs for the AI to receive through cheating (?), along with Terraforming which the Sakkra already have.


Hmmm... Excellent. One down, six to go.


Fieras Prime is a pretty good planet, but it'll take forever to integrate all of these cats into our empire. Even longer since we don't have the money to buy a Control Center.


Speaking of money, we've used up enough Transports for me to set the tax rate back to 0%. Huzzah!

Spoiler: State of the Galaxy (click to show/hide)

Oddly enough we're leading in population, probably due to our Cloning Centres and Colony Base spam. Also AI continues to baffle me. It looks like the Bulrathi waited until the start of this update to do something with their colony ship.


Buildings-wise we're leading the pack, so no surprises there.


We also have the largest and most powerful fleet, with nobody even close enough to challenge our might. Hopefully.


I have no clue why the Bulrathi are so behind in tech. The Sakkra have a 75% penalty for T'bbhaug's sake and they have a good lead over them.


Overall? We could take on the Sakkra and Bulrathi at once and still crush them easily. Still, I expect that it won't be too long before someone pops up at our southern border.

[Mephansteras]

Well, you see, the Bulrathi are huge sports fan. I mean HUGE. So that colony ship couldn't really go anywhere until the Bulrathi Super Cup was over and they knew who won. I mean, if they weren't there cheering on their favorite team that team would have lost, you know? So, yeah, that whole extra colony thing just has to wait.

And science? That's nice. But those scientists still have to put in their time at the gym and get out on the field as part of the mandatory corporate sports league. That eats up time they could be doing science, but who cares? SPORTS!!

[Moron]

Also we steal Dimension Portals. It seems to be one of the commoner techs for the AI to receive through cheating (?), along with Terraforming which the Sakkra already have.

There is a leader who gives this tech when you hire him, so I guess this is how the AI gets it so early (and once one get it they tend to trade it to everyone they know.)

Terraforming, Advanced Damage Control, Autolab, Virtual Reality Network and Android Scientists/Workers/Farmers are often obtained in the same way and so show up earlier than you might expect. There might be others, but those are the ones I can remember.

[LordBucket]

I don't remember skipping any diplomacy messages or anything. Meh, either way we're at war with the Mrrshan, I guess.

Welcome to trait: Repulsive

Fun fact: I have no clue what the hell the Mrrshan were doing. Their ships just dicked around in our space and then retreated after I attacked.

Most likely they were blockading. If an opponent has military ships in a system you own while in a state of war, and you don't...you can't purchase buildings on those colonies, production is reduced to (a third? I think.) and you can't engage in any shipping to/from colonies in that system. That includes both colonists and food. One little frigate can cause a lot of trouble just by sitting there. For example, you're in early expansion, don't have terraforming yet and only one planet is capable of generating food so you're shipping from there to everywhere else? So, they put a ship in orbit, and suddenly now your entire empire is starving.

AI in 1.31 likes to blockade.

I'm not entirely sure if the AI now builds better ships with the patch.

The big difference is is not quality of ships but quantity. The AI is much better about building ships up to their available limit. If an empire has 100 command points available, odds are good they'll have close to 100 commands points worth of ships. But they're not always very good about upgrading to new tech. So common situation will be, you've been ignoring someone for a long time, and then suddenly they'll show up with an armada that's fills ths screen top to bottom and is 2-3 layers deep horizontally on the combat field. Sure,  lot of those ships will be low tech ships they never bothered to upgrade, but if they outnumber you 10 to one, that can be a problem.

I'm not entirely sure at what point Missile Bases become worthless against the Antarans

...so far as I recall, not until your starbase and ground beams can kill them before the missiles arrive. Which, depending on the speed you gain tech...might be never. Missile launchers generally work very well against the antarans because they tend not not use standard shields.

Luckily I do know enough to build an Alien Control Center on Sharru V.

Personally I find it more effective to simply manually unload extra troops onto planets above and beyond the default few that remain after the ground assault and exterminate them. Dealing with slaves is rarely worth the trouble.

Also we steal Dimension Portals. It seems to be one of the
commoner techs for the AI to receive through cheating (?),

There's a hirable officer who grants knowledge of it: Kronos

I have no clue why the Bulrathi are so behind in tech. The Sakkra
have a 75% penalty for T'bbhaug's sake and they have a good lead over them.

From the chart, looks like the Bulrathi have one fifth the population and half as many buildings. Also, sounds like they've been engaging in war with the Mrsshan, so probably more economy geared towards ships than research.

[Satarus]

Question.  Does the ship's computer help with initiative?  Otherwise it's just wasted production on a missile ship.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Well, I've played the next update and... well, we're back on Easy Street. A massive tech/population/buildings/ships lead over everybody else, and with no signs of things slowing down. The unknown eighth race turned out to be the Trilarians, with only a couple of systems and thus are of no importance.

I can't believe I'm saying this but... Suggestions? Right now the game's just not difficult enough to be fun. I'll supply screen shots if you don't believe me, but I'm pretty sure that we could grapple with the rest of the universe and win.

[LordBucket]

There comes a point where you know the game well enough that that's kind of just how it goes. If you know what you're doing, hard is 100% beatable every time, every game, no matter what. You can try to cripple yourself with bad picks, but that pretty much just makes the early game unpleasant, and then once you get yourself established, it's back to steamrolling. There are no racial picks that cannot be overcome simply by having more population than every other race in the galaxy.

*shrug*

Try impossible.

Or try multiplayer.

MOO2 is unfortunately a game that, while fun the first dozen or two times you play it...once learned, is learned. Tic-tac-toe isn't fun once you know it either. MOO2 is pretty much always steamroll or be steamrolled. There's very little middle ground except during the middle of the learning curve.

[10ebbor10]

Or try that GDC or whatever mudpack. It completely changes technologies and stuff.

[Moron]

Try playing a race with no traits at all - just hit clear and leave it blank in the race design screen. Go with a dictatorship government as that is the 0 cost option.

It's still winnable on hard, but it does make for a bit more challenge and has the nice bonus of doubling your score.

[Satarus]

You could try homeworld only challenge.  Of course that ends up just being a turtlefest since you can't reach very far without outposts and you don't have nearly the industrial base as everyone else.  I've done it on impossible, but I had to be creative just so I could get missile base and fighter garrison for the inevitable onslaught.

[Mephansteras]

That's why I like to go for challenging strategies like relying mostly on beam ships early on and using lots of carriers. Or trying to capture a bunch of alien ships instead of just blowing them all up. Makes the game more interesting.

[gimlet]

Fire up an editor and boost up the NPC races.  There used to be a race pack that really juiced 'em up plus gave them and the leaders funny names but I can't find it easily any more.  It doesn't make 'em smarter, alas, but at least they're not complete punching bags...

[tryrar]

I second the beam+fighter idea, it's a pretty good challenge to win with

[Moron]

Or try a "no beams or missiles" challenge - you have to rely on fighters and weird weapons like gyro destabilizers & plasma webs.

Also, don't use any of the obviously powerful race picks - Unification, subterranean, telepathic, creative.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Vanilla MoO2 is starting to wear thin for me, and I'm not a very big fan of challenge runs so I'll look into that GDC mudpack or something along those lines. Alternatively I could play Imperium Galactica, like CognitiveDissonance suggested. It's a bit like a cross between Simcity and MoO2, and should be fun once I have a better idea of what I'm supposed to do. I'll let you know what I decide to go with.