Others new to Moo1

[marasai]

Hello, I just picked up moo1+2 from the gog.com sale this weekend. I played a bit of MoO2 over a decade ago, but am interested in learning MoO1. I was wondering if there are any other new people around. I've tried to do some reading before I get started but I'm sure there will be questions.

I was thinking of starting off really easy like psilon on easy in a medium galaxy. What would you suggest? I looked at the exploits sticky and will try to avoid them and to not save scum.

[marasai]

I know posting on my own post, but already feeling frustrated. It feels like I need so many factories to build stuff, and that it takes a lot of time to build factories. So how do I get my defenses built. From reading the reports it feels like people are able to accomplish much more than I am.

In my first game I just had a colony grabbed cause I wasn't able to get adequate defenses. I know that I'm not playing right, but I'm feeling pretty lost on how a good opening should go.

[Brackard]

I always remember reading through Sirian's reports.

Went back to review, and sure enough, he had a tutorial section:

http://sirian.warpcore.org/moo1/tutorial/interface.html

[Nad]

Sirian's reports are an excellent start! You should always settle a system with the starting colony ship and send out scouts in order to block nearby systems. I did a very thorough Let's play on youtube where I explained all the basic mechanics as well. Just search for the keywords "0namelessone0 orion" - sorry, I am not a native speaker...

[Shpoko]

Sullla also has a Let's Play for MoO1 up on his Youtube channel.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuyqr11hc...Q&index=22
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FyOfL25U...Q&index=18
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLK5wHP-h...Q&index=17
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRjh7CP2i...Q&index=14
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVVrbOglG...WQ&index=8
Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZzZSjVDQ...WQ&index=5

Granted it is on Impossible difficulty, but Sullla does a good job of both explaining what he's doing and why.
Minor warning: Each part runs approximately between 1 hour 15 minutes and 1 hour 45 minutes.

[marasai]

Thanks everyone for all the help. I just finished Sirian's tutorial and now have a much better grasp of the basics. Now it makes sense what I was doing wrong on my first attempt. The problem was the lack of scout blockers. I'm sure I'll get around to watching some of the let's plays.

[marasai]

Ok I finally started a game to see if I can do it on my own, as meklar in medium galaxy on average. First planet I send my colony ship to is a size 60 artifact world that pops range 6. Can starts get any better?

[Nad]

Good luck with your newest attempt! The Meklars are tough too play, do not delay the early expansion in order to max your planets. Your artefact planet is a real gift especially as Meklar and r6 is the topping. You have to win this one.

[marasai]

I finished that game and then started a psilon game on hard and lost in the first vote before a single war had broken out to a faction a didn't even have contact with. Any ideas what I could have done to change that or just accept sometimes the cheese alliances just roll you up.

[Nad]

Depends on the game. Sometimes it is really hard to escape an early diplomatic loss. Best medicine is to make a good land grab (decent vote number, meeting the AI), sign trade treaties on first contact and do some minor tech trades to boost relations. Maybe start spying in order to frame other races (quite risky approach)...

I just played my first Psilon game after years on impossible and saw again how powerful this race could be. My second planet was a small ultra poor one, but even though I was able to outtech the AI from the very beginning and grab almost all hostile planets despite the Silicoids and Sakkras being present in the game.