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Usually I am not too impressed with the effectiveness of missile boats, but I just finished a game as the Sakkra on impossible where one missile boat design proved very useful.  My main enemy, the Silicoids, had these huge dreadnoughts with auto-repair and some fairly deadly range-2 beam weapons and graviton beams and good attack level and initiative.  I had just researched Omega-V bombs and had the bombers to take out the Silicoids' bases, but I could never achieve space superiority over their planets in order to actually scout them (and I wanted to invade, not just amass enough Omega-Vs to glass their colonies on the combat screen).  These auto-repair behemoths were in the way, and even a couple of beam-laden huges of my own couldn't dislodge them (alas!  I lacked auto-repair at this point!)

So, I went to design a missile boat, thinking that if I could target this behemoth from afar in a couple of volleys, I could nullify its auto repair and weapons.  I was assuming I'd have to use a medium hull design, but to my surprise I was able to fit a 2-rack of merculite missiles on a small, plus BCII and some decent engines.  I think my tech levels were about 22 for computers, 25 for construction, 25 for propulsion, and 28 for weapons. 

This merc-boat did the trick!  I was able to pump out about 60 of these per turn from several rich planets each, and in no time I had over a thousand of these bad boys.  That's a lotta missiles!  And the enemy ships only had class IV shields, so I was easily able to destroy their huges in one volley from afar. 

This example got me thinking:  missiles on a small are really effective, as long as those missiles can pierce enemy shields.  I got on the MoO1 ship design calculator to see what other designs might be feasible.  

And I found that, in the semi-early game, it might even be feasible to make Hyper-V 2-rack small missile boats. It would need tech levels of 10 for construction (needs Duralloy + lower tier tech), at least 5 for propulsion (range 5, or range 4 + nuclear engines would work), and 16 for weapons (needs neutron blaster or merculite missiles researched, plus lower-tier techs to get there).  You're looking at about 14000 RP to get there, 

Note that, at these tech levels, one cannot even fit neutron blasters onto a small design.  Your choice is between Hyper-Vs, ion cannons, or neutron pellet guns (or lasers).  As long as the enemy has Class IV shields or worse, Hyper-V's will match or outdo the other choices in damage per volley.  And with Hyper-Vs, you can get the initiative on hitting the enemy, as long as the enemy doesn't have 3 movement speed or better.  

The drawback, of course, is that you only get 2 shots with the Hyper-Vs.  But a lot of battles are decided in the first several volleys.  It might even work to have a large beam cruiser to tag along for mop-up work after the Hyper-V missile boats have taken out the problem ships or gotten a 2-first strike initiative against an enemy swarm while it couldn't do anything to you.  Also keep in mind that you could split your missile boat production up between multiple Hyper-V designs, if needed for targeting multiple enemy problem ships.  

Finally, consider this:  at 13 BC per ship, building 3 of these Hyper-V missile boats would be SO much cheaper than building a Hyper-V missile base.  True, you don't get the staying-power of a missile base, or the extra attack level.  But raw missile racks is what you want to need to get into the battle, this would be by far the cheapest way.    

By the way, if you are willing to build mediums for about 6 times the price per ship, you have the alternative at these tech levels of building a 2-rack merculite missile boat with 2 missile racks each.  So, for the same cost, that's 10x2 raw damage per volley with +2 attack level with the medium, vs. 6x1x6 damage per volley with +0 attack level with the small Hyper-Vs.  Leaving the attack level difference aside, it is not until the enemy has class IV shields that the damage output of the medium merc boat and the small Hyper-V boats equalize.  Up to that point, the Hyper-Vs do just as well or better.  Class V shields is the first point where the merc boats do better. 

Although, depending on what sort of ships you are facing (such as smalls of any sort, or larges with decent speed), the lack of attack level might be a crippling factor in these designs...unless you are the Mrrshans.

Is there any way to get rid of the random movement that the units on the battle board do if the other side is invis/flying? It just slows things down.

Although it is based only on two games I've played with 5.11, it seems the change of alchemy guild has made alchemist really strong now. Not only do you not have to build the guild, you don't have to pay for it. Previously at least the guild essentially paid for itself.

Also the alchemy guild is a bit off in that it has library - a resource building - as prereq. With (most) everything else, you choose between resources and military.

Obviously this start is not a challenge but meant for fun.

To relax I often play Emperor difficulty, Large Map, Continents and I came across this gem.

Spain, natural wonder, straight out of the gate but an awesome city site 1W only needing an aqueduct, but the pantenal is awesome.

So, would you guys move 1W and settle or go north in search of a site near pantenal?

To make things more fun, that continent is called Europe.

   

My first game with 5.11 I wanted to try high men for the first time. Went black and blue archmage channeler. Also the first fair sized map I've played with Caster. Expert level.

Plan was to start with ghouls asap, get first cities to Fighter's Guild level and churn out crusaders, knights, pikemen while one city at a time develops further.

Started on my own continent with ~8 city places, 1 had a neutral high elf city.

Built 2 settlers first, so 5 cities is my core.

Research was now very slow, and other resources lacking, too, so I looked at the new buildings and decided to go marketplace, magic market, library -> units. Except for the capital which went straight for crusaders after the settlers.

My second city went for magicians guild after library and a couple triremes. This was clearly ineffectual, should have kept with the ships and scout nearby neutrals and lairs.

Maybe I should skip ships altogether and pick floating island. Are islands of ghouls good at hunting ships? Do they rise as undead?

Had the first stack of ghouls about at the same time as crusaders and pikemen started coming along from the capital. Got 3 easy-ish lairs around my cities, but my 3 nodes had masses of spiders, cocks and sky drakes. Still no node cracks

By the time I took the high elf city, Sharee, my first neighbor planted a city in a mountanous spot on my continent. She is White+Black Nomads. Soon learned she is also by far the game leader, looking very much like running away. I have 3-4 stacks consisting of crusaders, pikemen, a lot of ghouls, a few knights, magicians and priests too. Every city is producing one type of unit, and for now it seems my capital cannot afford to upgrade to paladins anytime soon.

Still researching black prayer which I started as my 3rd spell. Research really seems to have slowed down - and I have at least libraries everywhere.

I felt like I had to declare war on Sharee at this point, it was only getting worse in time. Worst is, she is allied with Tlaloc, whom I have only seen roaming settlers of. I could take couple of Sharee's outlying towns, and her attacks across the sea are not decisive. But I feel I am fighting a losing battle: I am not seeing how I could assault her strong cities where it counts - her build with high resistance nomads and death units seems quite perfect counter to black and blue. It's only a matter of time when Tlaloc joins in, and attacks me from the other side...

So seems like I need to sharpen up my start. Magic Market, Library, Marketplace seem like a bargain, but perhaps I still need to skip and make faster soldiers. Not sure about those 2 settlers up front. On the other hand, without ghouls my soldiers aren't cutting much, and now they came along at about the same time (need those magic markets). Magicians were largely pointless - they are good at defense, but defending ghouls eat them before they can do anything. Offensively they can only survive with life or nature. Should probably skip crusaders for pikemen and knights - undead should keep the peace until a full garrison no longer helps.

Was surprised that crusaders can heal ghouls btw.

I am going to put here some calcs related to MoM combat system, which is rather unique -- it requires non-trivial calculations to figure out average damage, etc. The only online resource I found that allows me to run these calcs is Wolfram Programming Lab.

Anyway, here is a calculation for average damage. Start new notebook ("File/New Notebook"; you should be able to do it without registration), copy/paste code, press Shift-Enter to run. Change params to figure out expected outcome of your specific scenario:

1. Flame blade does not add 2  ranged attack to my orihalcon high-men magician with focus magic (i.e. ranged attack rating stays at 15). Looks like this is just like with some artefacts -- instead of increasing attack bonus by 2 it sets it to max(current-attack-bonus, 2).

2. Dispelling wave used in the battle (while attacking a city) removes city enchantments. Which is funny, you could remove city enchantment that is totally unrelated to combat. I casted it multiple times on overland map to de-fang AI stack sitting in his fortress and the Stream of Life survived all of them; attacked and casted it in battle -- it got immediately removed. :-) . I wonder if you could remove famine this way...

3. Can someone explain me what is so special about Horde? This unit seem to be not very different from halberdiers, but with few basic buffs (bless, holy armor, endurance, guardian trait) it becomes indestructible (especially to magicians). Is it like combination of factors (extra hit point, + to-defend, + to-attack) that pushes it over some sort of threshold?

If you sign up for Humble Monthly right now, you get Civilization 6 with 2 DLCs (the Australia Civilization and Scenario Pack and the Vikings Scenario Pack) for just $12.

According to the HumbleMonthly website, it seems possible to cancel your membership at any time. So you could just sign up for one month and grab the current Civ 6 offer if that's the only thing you are interested in as long as you remember to cancel in time.

Further information:

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/theres...0-6455926/

https://www.humblebundle.com/monthly

waiting, i have desire for civ after long time,but AI defeated me on imm so...