Thanks, RefSteel! Yes, it was a lot of fun. Just very frustrating at the time, since everything took forever to get anywhere. 
But since none of the AIs had better engines either, the game remained balanced. Of course if they had gotten better engines, then I would have stolen/looted the tech...I was at war with everyone in the galaxy for the last 50 turns or so, and stripped all the AI tech trees clean. 
It was a challenging game, and if I had not been the Meklars I probably would have lost. I started in the NW corner, and unfortunately had the rocks immediately to my south. They expanded directly towards me and took 2 of the 3 worlds between us -- I had to fight hard to get even one, barely holding on long enough to get a single missile base up to make my early claim stick. I managed to grab a couple more worlds to the east, but the rocks were going crazy. By the time I had 5 worlds they had 11; by the time I got my 6th world they were out to 17.
I had some nice large worlds, though, and since I was the Meklar (tons of factories) and they were the rocks (lots of worlds, little population) it was not as bad as the raw numbers looked.
With a lot of Propulsion research I got up to range 9 and managed to leap frog southeast to grab another world, and from it I managed to claim 3 more in the far south. Took my colony ships 9 turns to get there from my core worlds, and pop transfers took 19 turns to get the new colonies going.
The game felt like I was playing in slow motion, except for tech research which seemed to zoom along compared to actually moving ships anywhere.
Eventually I declared war on the rocks and started taking worlds. It was tough going at first as they had about a 25 point gropo tech edge, but I could afford to throw lots more population into ground combat than the rocks could. I got lucky and looted a couple key gropo techs from the second world taken, reducing them to a +5 advantage, and from there it became a lot easier. The rocks brought the Alkari into the war, but they could only reach my southernmost planets -- my core was not at risk. There was a council vote with the rocks and humans nominated, managed to vote for the humans for some positive relations. But the next turn the Bulrathi and Sakkra joined the war against me, and a couple turns later their alliances pulled the humans in as well. Meklar against the galaxy...and in just over 20 turns there would be another council vote.
I needed a lot more population fast, so I could block any council vote. Since I was now at war with everyone I unleashed my spies to steal whatever I could, and started grabbing worlds as rapidly as I could invade (which wasn't very fast...troop transports still moving at warp 1!). My computer tech was very strong so my spies started cleaning up a lot of useful techs -- force fields and atmospheric terraforming from the humans, size terraforming and controlled radiated from the lizards, andrium and advanced soil from the birds. I focused on grabbing Sakkra worlds because their gropo tech was terrible -- I ended up with a +70 (!!) edge against them. It was just brutal. I would land like 15 troops on a large Sakkra world and wipe out 120+ of their population. My edge against the rocks and birds was not as large but was still pretty good. I was eco spending to force population growth everywhere, while throwing troops at every enemy planet to either take it or at least to crush their population.
I ended up surviving the next council meeting by a fraction of a vote. Fortunately the game rounds up the 2/3 required to win, or I would have been facing a Final War. Yes, I was already fighting everyone at once but they were not allies, not sharing techs, etc. I would not have been able to withstand such an alliance, especially if the other races had all gotten the human's advanced shields. They were by far the toughest opponents in space combat, and their planets were uncrackable until I discovered neutronium bombs just a couple turns before the end.
The end was the following council meeting, which I won easily with almost 80% of the total vote. Amazing how fast things change in MoO once you reach a superior position.
The bears, birds, and lizards had all been exterminated and the rocks were down to 2 planets in the far southeast corner -- the other end of the galaxy from their original core. I finally got better engines from the next-to-last Alkari world, as they had discovered them just a couple turns previously. No time to get a new generation of ships out, but the final troop transports were actually moving along quite nicely.
It was a very fun game. MoO may be 20+ years old, but it still offers a better experience than most games out there.
But since none of the AIs had better engines either, the game remained balanced. Of course if they had gotten better engines, then I would have stolen/looted the tech...I was at war with everyone in the galaxy for the last 50 turns or so, and stripped all the AI tech trees clean. It was a challenging game, and if I had not been the Meklars I probably would have lost. I started in the NW corner, and unfortunately had the rocks immediately to my south. They expanded directly towards me and took 2 of the 3 worlds between us -- I had to fight hard to get even one, barely holding on long enough to get a single missile base up to make my early claim stick. I managed to grab a couple more worlds to the east, but the rocks were going crazy. By the time I had 5 worlds they had 11; by the time I got my 6th world they were out to 17.
I had some nice large worlds, though, and since I was the Meklar (tons of factories) and they were the rocks (lots of worlds, little population) it was not as bad as the raw numbers looked.With a lot of Propulsion research I got up to range 9 and managed to leap frog southeast to grab another world, and from it I managed to claim 3 more in the far south. Took my colony ships 9 turns to get there from my core worlds, and pop transfers took 19 turns to get the new colonies going.
The game felt like I was playing in slow motion, except for tech research which seemed to zoom along compared to actually moving ships anywhere.Eventually I declared war on the rocks and started taking worlds. It was tough going at first as they had about a 25 point gropo tech edge, but I could afford to throw lots more population into ground combat than the rocks could. I got lucky and looted a couple key gropo techs from the second world taken, reducing them to a +5 advantage, and from there it became a lot easier. The rocks brought the Alkari into the war, but they could only reach my southernmost planets -- my core was not at risk. There was a council vote with the rocks and humans nominated, managed to vote for the humans for some positive relations. But the next turn the Bulrathi and Sakkra joined the war against me, and a couple turns later their alliances pulled the humans in as well.
Meklar against the galaxy...and in just over 20 turns there would be another council vote. I needed a lot more population fast, so I could block any council vote. Since I was now at war with everyone I unleashed my spies to steal whatever I could, and started grabbing worlds as rapidly as I could invade (which wasn't very fast...troop transports still moving at warp 1!). My computer tech was very strong so my spies started cleaning up a lot of useful techs -- force fields and atmospheric terraforming from the humans, size terraforming and controlled radiated from the lizards, andrium and advanced soil from the birds. I focused on grabbing Sakkra worlds because their gropo tech was terrible -- I ended up with a +70 (!!) edge against them. It was just brutal. I would land like 15 troops on a large Sakkra world and wipe out 120+ of their population. My edge against the rocks and birds was not as large but was still pretty good. I was eco spending to force population growth everywhere, while throwing troops at every enemy planet to either take it or at least to crush their population.
I ended up surviving the next council meeting by a fraction of a vote.
Fortunately the game rounds up the 2/3 required to win, or I would have been facing a Final War. Yes, I was already fighting everyone at once but they were not allies, not sharing techs, etc. I would not have been able to withstand such an alliance, especially if the other races had all gotten the human's advanced shields. They were by far the toughest opponents in space combat, and their planets were uncrackable until I discovered neutronium bombs just a couple turns before the end.The end was the following council meeting, which I won easily with almost 80% of the total vote. Amazing how fast things change in MoO once you reach a superior position.
The bears, birds, and lizards had all been exterminated and the rocks were down to 2 planets in the far southeast corner -- the other end of the galaxy from their original core. I finally got better engines from the next-to-last Alkari world, as they had discovered them just a couple turns previously. No time to get a new generation of ships out, but the final troop transports were actually moving along quite nicely.It was a very fun game. MoO may be 20+ years old, but it still offers a better experience than most games out there.
