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[forsaken1111]

Races are not as differenciated as Moo2 IMO, but they do have diferent ways of traveling. Most races (morrigi, tarkas, and liir) use a variation of Moo2 travel, while Humans and zull use a Moo3 starlines travel style. Hivers uses portals.

 

The races in SOTS have different FTL drive tech, different technology tree percentages, different voices and art, different ship styles, even different battle tactics and play styles. Liir ships circle like sharks, human ships turn for broadsides, tarkas ships just kinda charge right in like the lizard monkeys they are.

Tarkas use the only drive system which is close to Moo2, which is a warp system similar to star trek. You move at x speed between stars and that's it. While in warp you cannot communicate with the ships unless you research FTL Comms, so no changing orders until it drops out of warp.

Liir use a stutter drive which teleports the ship rapidly in small increments. It doesn't work efficiently near gravity wells, so the closer a liir fleet gets to a planet the slower they go. If you ever fight Liir in deep space, you will FEAR THE DOLPHINS. Theirs is the only reactionless drive as well, allowing them to change direction and speed in the blink of an eye. It's goddamn unnerving to see a Liir DN whip around and swat your destroyers out of the sky.

Hivers use STL drives to plant teleportation gates at other planets, but then have instant access to that planet any time from any other gate forever. (Until the gate blows up.) The gate network has an overall capacity which increases with the total number of gates.

Humans use 'cracks' in subspace which form naturally between stars. They can travel these lines very quickly, but they can ONLY travel along these lines, any other route requires super slow STL speeds. Incidentally, a human ship cannot refuel in node space, so you must have fuel available to travel the entire distance of a node line or you simply cannot go. Also, things live in nodespace which can attack you.

Zuul don't use the natural lines between stars but instead 'rip their way' through nodespace creating new nodelines wherever it suites them. These lines are unstable, and must be maintained, but they can be made anywhere the Zuul can reach.

Incidentally, Zuul are the only race with almost no diplomacy options. Zuul consume natural resources at a ridiculous pace, and can take slaves to do their construction work.

The only differences from one race to the next in Moo2 were the various traits, like a bonus to maintenance or research, or the ability to survive without food. There was literally nothing beyond traits and art which made them different.

[Lightning4]

As mentioned, each race has different chances at rolling certain tech paths. Hivers tend to be best at ballistics, Liir best at energy, etc. Some races are even guaranteed certain techs.

There's also race-specific techs and abilities. Some are guaranteed, but most have a very high chance of appearing if not.
Liir get the most bonuses, but there's a small chance of not rolling some of them.

[Krelian]

The only differences from one race to the next in Moo2 were the various traits, like a bonus to maintenance or research, or the ability to survive without food. There was literally nothing beyond traits and art which made them different.

yeah, I know about the drives differences, I was just being simplistic to not overwhelm the new player :p

about race diferenciation; I think you are really underestimating Moo2, it had great job in doing it.

I will make a list comparing both games in the "race differenciation" area. The opinions are my PERSONAL opinion, feel free to think diferent, and point in what, but dont flame me :p

Also, I must say I love SotS A LOT, and I also grow up playing Moo2. So I dont have a favorite betwen them. And it must be said, SotS had in Moo/Moo2 it greatest source of inspiration. But if I want to play today, I pick SotS, obviously.

Comparison of race diferenciation:

Tech wise:

-SotS have some race specific techs, and some races have different chances to get some tech that others. There is the "uncreative"  zuul that can get like 50% of the techs in average, and the "creative" Liir with like 90% on most (or was it morrigi?). Races have different tech speed too. Tech tree is randomized as in requirements, and also, you are not garanteed to get every tech.

-Moo2 have a value on races that determines the tech speed, it works just as with SotS. More importantly, you would have to pick one of every 3 (on most cases) available techs. This would usually lead to have very different races from mid game onward. The tech tree is always the same tho, so there would be "perfect plans" for seasoned players (that's a point for SotS). The most fun part is that there is the special cases, Psilon with creative, and the Klackons uncreative. Psilons was the I got all techs race, and Klackons made every game different. SotS kinda make this as mentioned above, but it is just not the same thing.

Point for SotS.


Ship/Combat Wise:

-SotS: While almost all races have access to almost all ship parts, the version of every part is different from the other races in numbers. Some have more Hp, more Mounts, etc. But overall they have the same mechanics behind.
Thus, the diferenciation in the "balance" department, comes from the hull themselves. As with the weapons, im not sure, but I think every race do the same damage with a given weapon.
Also, there is a few weapons and parts unique for every race. This makes combat be very different in some cases.
And finally, the thing you mentioned; the ships behavior is different from race to race.

-Moo2: The differiation is mostly in the way of bonuses and numbers. Some races do more damage, some races dodge better, etc. But besided that, all races can get the same ships if the get the same techs (escept Klackon obviously). Still, to face some enemies, you need kinda special trats, specially in the early game. Combat Computers vs Akari from example. Also, as the combat is turn based, and all ships player piloted, there is no different behaviors betwen races.

This round is for SotS, but by a small margin.


-Special Wise:

This is where, IMO, Moo2 get ahead and surpases SotS.

-SotS: Tree words; Space Travel Diversity!. Every race have a different way to travel. I wont go further, as you already explained everything perfectly. Just one addition; as I said in my previous post, while EVERY way of travel is diferent, you could divide them into 3 "families". The "direct" travel ones (liir, tarkas, and morrigi), the "starlane" ones (zuul and humans), and the "special" ones (Hiver). The direct ones all travel like in Moo2, albeit, with some special features in the case of morrigi (the more ships, more speed) and liir (slower near stars, faster away from them). Anyways, this is a HUGE point for SotS over Moo2.
But there is nothing more... well, some race get better bonus on commerce (morrigi) other get better pop grow rate (hiver), etc, but overall, those are only numbers thing, and not distinctive game mechanics.

-Moo2: Well, besides the ability to make a personalised race (HUGE!!), while most of the "race skills" were in the form of numeric bonuses, there were some special ones that shined a lot. Like the Subterranean Shakras, all planet get double size, making them powerhouses later in the game; Elerian's telephathy, that allowed them to get enemy planets unscrached, and without needing troops and boarding ships at all, and use right away captured ships; and Onmicient, they get to see the whole map!; The Psilons and Klackons tech features as mentioned earlier; the Melkars cybernethic, and even more the Silicoids Lithovore, giving them no need for food (thus changing a lot the play style of the game!). Those are clearly not just "numeric traits", but whole special mechanics behind.

Big point for Moo2.




To sum up, IMO, I feel the races from Moo2 get more personality; you really fell the stronger economy and industry behind a Shakras neighbor for example, or the perfect ships from psilons enemies, and the stealty attacks from Darlocks. While in SotS, while YOUR race feels very diferent if you pick another one in a second game, the enemies all fell a bit like the same, beside humans some times not always attacking the nearest planet. In combat the diferent models and slighty diferent behaviors gives them more personality, but I think Moo2 still get the upper hand overall.

[Sean Mirrsen]

SotS, being a combat-oriented game, has quite superior race differences, I think. Differences in design, differences in technology, and most of all differences in travel methods have far greater impact on the combat-oriented gameplay than lack of a food requirement or doubling of planetary space. For instance, whether or not your enemy is cybernetic or a lithovore won't make a difference in your strategy for taking over their worlds, or protecting yours. At most, you'll have to exercise caution against omniscient enemies or change the number of ships you build, the end result is the same - your ships move in and fight, or their ships move in and fight. Not so in SotS. Attacking a Hiver world, you never know how many defenders you'll fight. If you don't know where the nodelines are, you don't know which way that human fleet is going to move next, and won't be able to intercept. These differences add a layer of strategy that MOO doesn't have, so I would say that's a point to SotS in this regard.

[Shadowlord]

Of course, in Moo2, along with other so-powerful-it's-practically-broken things you could do, you could (meaning I did) design a telepathic species with the maximum ground combat bonus (why, you ask? To make boarding actions ridiculously easy!) and then go about researching tractor beam, troop pods, and possibly later research teleporters. Almost every AI researches the pods which increase the amount you can fit on your ship instead, so a simple trade of that for troop pods gets us both. Then we set about invading everyone, regardless of whether they're more advanced than me or not, by sending our assault ships at their warships.

Unless they can one-shot our ships, or immediately retreat, they don't stand a chance. We close within range and tractor them, and then slide alongside and send over marines, taking over their ships. In a few turns, their entire navy has been assimilated, and we assimilate their homeworlds just as quickly - we need only one ship to telepathically conquer it instantly with no ground combat.

With this kind of species, the best thing that can happen to you is for the Antarans to attempt to attack you - because your troopers, if you've been researching troop-enhancing techs, will actually stand a good chance of defeating them in a boarding action (possibly requiring multiple boarding actions from multiple ships) and taking over their ships, and the only thing stopping you is the Antaran self-destruct feature (which only goes off some of the time when a ship is captured). Take an antaran ship or two and scrap it, and you've got yourself a few super-advanced techs. Not that you needed them when nobody can stop your fleet already.

Effectively, this species design is the Borg. The unbalanced custom species designs are the hallmark of Master of Orion II, effectively, and probably a large part of why SotS doesn't have custom species designing. There's also the fact that SotS's species have a ton of flavor and customization (their FTL drives, for instance, are each unique) which would be impossible or unlikely to occur with custom species.

[Pnx]

The different ship designs are important too, Liir actually have the weakest ships, they're extremely maneuverable, have very wide fire arcs on their turrets, but  their hulls are made of paper...

The best way to counteract that is to get into shields, they get good percentages with shields, and in fact they get an exclusive shield tech that leads off from shield magnifier.

Is it just me or are the Morrigi overpowered? They seem to have decent ships, and get can get really fast fleets, AND get the best tech percentages at everything... oh and they also get better drones...

[Empty]

Mining ships are a great investment while playing a hiver.

You can easily strip a useless planet of it's resources and drop them off at any of your own planet.
My homeworld already has 12000ish resources

[Cheese]

Found my second Crow derelict, probably quite a nice planet too, whilst losing a colony to a meteor storm at the same time. The RNG doesn't seem to like me at the moment, I'm only at 50% randoms . About 10 colonies is OK for turn 70, right?

[Empty]

I wish the games difficulty wasn't less/more resource based.

[forsaken1111]

I wish the games difficulty wasn't less/more resource based.

You can adjust that iirc, in fact there is a tourney type map which has every planet identical.

[Empty]

I wish the games difficulty wasn't less/more resource based.

You can adjust that iirc, in fact there is a tourney type map which has every planet identical.

I meant easy enemies get 50% less income and output.
Hard enemies get 50% more income and output.

[forsaken1111]

I wish the games difficulty wasn't less/more resource based.

You can adjust that iirc, in fact there is a tourney type map which has every planet identical.

I meant easy enemies get 50% less income and output.
Hard enemies get 50% more income and output.

Oh, yeah that is a common practice. Its unfortunate, but most computer AI cannot stand up to a human's mind without some kind of cheat.

[Deon]

It's a problem of the AI programmers mostly . They made this myth so popular that everyone uses it.

Look for example at vanilla Civ4 AI and Master of Mana AI (a mod of Fall from Heaven with a totally new AI written by a signle person). There is a HUGE difference.

[Rakonas]

It's a problem of the AI programmers mostly . They made this myth so popular that everyone uses it.

Look for example at vanilla Civ4 AI and Master of Mana AI (a mod of Fall from Heaven with a totally new AI written by a signle person). There is a HUGE difference.

QFT

[Shades]

Why do mod writers claim they have rewritten the AI when most don't have any kind of access to the AI code but just a whole load of tweak variables it uses.

The AI for Master of Mana is more aggressive that Civ 4 but it's still not very good. Writing a good AI is really hard, writing one that can cheat without being noticed is easier. The probably I find is most games companies try to write an AI that can play the game rather than writing one that is part of the game and is there to challenge and entertain the player. The latter problem being orders of magnitude easier in most cases.

(Although to be fair Civ 4 is more modable than most games in this way)