Challenge: Can you win it?

[Sullla]

Yeah, in YellowPsi's defense those were seriously some of the best AI designs I've ever seen. Everything very fast (none of that "one ship at warp 1" crud that the AI so often does), enough guns for space superiority, and more than enough bombs to destroy any of your homeworlds. Going on the offensive was the only safe way to approach this. Trying to turtle up when they have a massive fleet with Omega-Vs on everything... well... interesting times ahead, for sure!

[RefSteel]

Okay, loooooooong report (but not my longest by any means) posted over at my site! It still takes me forever to get all those images processed and uploaded. I tried to include a lot of detail about how I actually arranged my defenses and the decisions I made, but let me know if I skipped anything important.

Also note: The last two pages of the report ("Aftermath" and "Conclusion") reflect events that didn't really happen in the game - I got most of the screenies on those pages by reloading to the last save game after the game was over and doing a few things differently just to get those screens.)

Yeah, in YellowPsi's defense those were seriously some of the best AI designs I've ever seen. Everything very fast (none of that "one ship at warp 1" crud that the AI so often does), enough guns for space superiority, and more than enough bombs to destroy any of your homeworlds. Going on the offensive was the only safe way to approach this. Trying to turtle up when they have a massive fleet with Omega-Vs on everything... well... interesting times ahead, for sure!

Absolutely! Expanding on that in spoilers, for those who want to read my report without knowing the outcome of my game:

If the Meklar had deployed the ships they owned in the inherited turn the way you or I would have, they'd have won this game in spite of having only Range 5. As you said in your report though, the AI lacks the killer instinct it needed to put me on ice, and never did attack until it got extended range and had nearly gotten all the way up to Class XV Planetaries. By that time, I was ready to put together a real defense, and they only managed to take out one of my worlds throughout the game.

You were also right in your report that the AI will not make peace with you during Final War. (Also, the words "Final War" appear on the diplomatic screen.) This game wasn't technically in Final War; the Council hadn't chosen a winner (and seen him rejected) - it's just that no High Council could meet because there were only two races left in the galaxy!

@Tyrmith: (spoilers from my report, as above)

I teched to - and right through - High Energy Focus, though I never did get Auto-Blasters ... but I never put HEF on a ship. It can be really effective against the AI's "normal" fleets - typically high in fire power but low in tactical speed - or in combination with Warp Dissipators or an auto-repair Repulsor screen, but there wasn't really any use for them against the fleets we were facing in this game. I did wipe out the AI with a giant stack of medium ships though! In general, I agree with the rule of thumb Sullla posted in his reports: It's best to build (small) Fighters or (huge) Dreadnoughts, nothing in between! But MoO being what it is, situations do often come up that dictate a different strategy. In this case, the guns I wanted wouldn't fit on a small, and our Alkari nature, together with the design of the AI fleets, made mediums a better option: Our ships survived when they dodged enemy fire; they couldn't just absorb it.

[VM]

These reports are awesome to read. Maybe I should take a look at this game too...

[Sirian]

I always try to win as quickly as possible. My favorite guns are the Fusion Beam and the Megabolt Cannon, which both arrive right around the time I normally start to go on the offensive. I rarely see the lategame stuff very often, because I don't see much of a point in sitting around going through more techs when the game is already finished as a competitive event. It makes the rare occasions where I have to climb the entire tech tree to chase down a runaway AI empire more interesting.

In this game, I could have sat around running max tech rate (5000+ RP) for 25 turns and then built invincible fleets to kill the Meklar. But... what's the point? I could already kill the Meklar. There's no reason to drag things out another 25 turns. That's how I normally approach things.

Sounds familiar. I rarely saw the top techs, either. That one report on my page where the runaway Psilons got to like Advanced Computer X or something crazy like that was the most advanced tech I ever witnessed.

I usually took the win by vote if I had it, too. But every now and then, you just want to see that conquest victory screen, you know? And some things, like galactic conquest with Mrrshans on Impossible, are hard enough never to grow boring.

Of course, I haven't played MOO since I got my first job at Firaxis. Thats 8.5 years ago now. But I still remember.


- Sirian