|
Are you, in fact, a pregnant lady who lives in the apartment next door to Superdeath's parents? - Commodore |
|
Seemengly unwinnable games
|
|
I would like to know If i'm correct, I think there is a big amount of games that are nearly unwinnable.
One of the major examples are when you don't have a colonizable homeworld 3 parsecs away. But i think there is many more. I read somewhere in the old threads that in some famous strategy guide i never read, they said "We can't always win with mhsrans in this scenario" Can't always? There is no race that can win in every scenario as far as i'm concerned. And mrrshrans as far as my experience goes, can win less than half of the maps. Of course this is my experience I brought this point because based on what i read on the forums or I suck, or people isn't being clear. There are several strategic opinions of people around here that really surprise me and would like to talk further. One of the main things is that i cannot understand how people rate Psilons at the same power level that klackons and humans, I consider the last two incredible easy to win, they are able to win an incredible amount of maps no other race can, including psilons. I would say that even humans are A LOT Better than klackons, But that's very very map dependant, and while humans have so incredible good maps they have also pretty weak maps. They have a higher variance game, while klackons are very powerfull in every kind of map. But when humans have good maps, you just seem to be playing on simple.
Sirian's argued in the past (don't have any links offhand) that the key for Mrrshans is to pump computer tech, to run up the auto-hit bonus to damage, and also this helps with espionage. If you're not afraid of making one or two AIs unhappy, espionage is great. I've never tried to play the Mrrshans on Impossible, so I can't comment further on that, but Sirian's reasoning seems sound, to leverage that +4 to hit with good computers to max out the damage of your guns. Also, in smaller galaxies the Mrrshans (and the Alkari) can get away with much smaller fleets to defend the early worlds.
My impressions on the big three: Psilons are a VERY strong turtler: expand as effectively as possible for the first 50-80 years, build up some missile bases but ignore fleets, and tech like mad until you've got a massive tech lead. Also, they have many more research options, which helps a lot in keeping the RNG from, say, removing all of your late-game range techs (although that did happen in Imperium 20: Give Peace A Chance). The Klackons' production bonus is very generic, and I do find them to be great, and also much more flexible, so I agree that they're much less map-dependent, although they are somewhat tech-dependent because bad propulsion techs are the surest way to kill your expansion plans. Humans can turtle very well, as long as they get to second in population, because of their strong research portfolio and tough shields to make missile bases impenetrable. Frankly, the biggest bonus the humans have is that they very rarely lose the first or second vote. And a side note: It's nearly impossible to have too high a bonus to hit (even 10-15 higher than the defender's defense), because of the damage bonus. This is in stark contrast to the Alkari defensive bonus, because, at least according to the manual, and as far as I can tell the game itself, if your defense is at least 5 higher than the opponent's attack, the opponent will have a 95% miss rate, no matter how much higher than +5 your defense is. So maneuverability tapers off fairly quickly for the Alkari in its usefulness, especially with smaller vessels, unlike the Mrrshans' hit bonus.
I think that without a doubt the greater ability of humans is that they can just sit down, don't buy a single ship the whole game and win.
My Games with humans go something like this. Expand. Put planetology research almost at max, some computer research. Press the Next turn button 200 times. You win. Is very easy to convince people to not attack you. And even easier to force them go free for all while you just tech production, eventually you pop out enough to be second, the whole galaxy votes you, and you win. My major enemy when playing humans are erratic close leader, and the dreadfull, very dreadfull ambassador event. Other than that, you can just play Palpatine. Waterd Wrote:...ability of humans... Is very easy to convince people to not attack you. And even easier to force them go free for all ...The diplo in MOO is very powerful and very exploitive which is why the official RB exploit list bans threats, gifts & spectator wars (asking for a DOW against someone you are not already at war with). Waterd Wrote:I read somewhere in the old threads that in some famous strategy guide i never read, they said "We can't always win with mhsrans in this scenario" Can't always?The MOO OSG (Official Strategy Guide) says this about Mrrshans on medium maps. Other maps they decide are winnable but there is no indication on how exhaustive their trials were. There are dangers with difficult maps or early votes which can be frustrating but most situations can be salvaged. Waterd Wrote:... i cannot understand how people rate Psilons at the same power level that klackons and humans,The Psilon tech bonus (faster tech, more choices) makes them a top 3 race. They are even strong in the AI hands (as are humans). In any case we usually avoid the top 3 to keep up the level of challenge.
Oh. I don't know why that isn't stickied or somewhere, I alredy played the 22 game and used every thing you considered banned. Sorry if it says it somewhere visible and I missed it.
Still, is not a clear Rule list, just talkng about explotations etc. So it's hard to play obeying a not clear list of rules. If you are not allowed to maximize your diplomatic options (wich i'm alright since playing palpatine is only fun one time), Humans are then definitly not the best race. I still hold that if you can use your diplomatic options at maximum potential humans are by far the best race in most scenarios, I remember only one loss with humans in impossible in a long time, and it was because I had an erratic powerfull 3 parsec bulrathi away enemy and I had an ambassador event wtih Sakkras(wich were the most powerfull race) at the same time than the bear decided to go nuts. The next two events were a Comet event and a Radiation event, and before the ambassador I had the depleting event. But As I said you don't even need to build any military with humans in general. you just win pressing next turn. That's different if you aren't allowed to threat, bribe or more important ask for DOW to every race in the planet. I would be nice if there were a sticky with a clear explanation of rules. Personally I propose that you can only ask for DOW if you are allied with someone. That would also incentive Alliance wich are imo a terrible IDEA. I never ally with anyone, that's just asking for troubles. But if it's your only chance to ask for DOW then maybe it's not so bad idea. 
After reading the whole thread. I think it would be interesting to myself to restrict from some of those exploits, since they are basically the base of my play. And it would be interesting to force myself in a change of strategy.
But I have serious doubt on the amount of games I would be able to win with certain races with those restrictions. Still I wouldn't have a problem to force myself to play hard in order to have a chance since I can't use those exploits anymore. So I created the following list for myself and will try a game in impossible with klackons to see how it goes. Asking for DOW: You can only ask that to allies. Ship retreating: If you retreated you must accept the path taken by the ship. If you have hyperspace communication you can only change paths to ships didn't retreat that turn. you can redirect only if you retreated on the first turn Yo-Yo: Hard, I will use the "only fire missles that can't be avoided" Is not a fine rule, and force me to know the range of every missle, wich is fine though. I don't have any problem with any other exploit. But the abuse of the previous three is what allowed me to win consistently in impossible. I wonder what will i do now. I'm thinking in implementing a cap base rules. Only 1 Base for each 10 max pop. But will think more into it.
Well I tried with the wrong race, Klackons are just too powerfull and I won, Blazingly fast with a diplomatic victory, but based on my expansion and development I could win anyway.
I will Try later with something not so good like Sakkras EDIT: ok Tried with sakkras in Large with 5 opponets. And the fact I can't ask for DOW killed me. The game was pretty hard already on me and I couldn't do anything to prevent Silicods to beat me on the vote council. Despite I was having more pop than him. I was In a non volunatry war with the meklars (who also were in war with the silicods) and was in a Calm state with both humans and bulrathi with a good trade and NAPs with them. I thought I was safe. Still when the vote came the whole galaxy voted Silicoids. I was surprised that I was a non favorite despite my good relationships with most of the galaxy. Still I wouldn't say it wasn't winnable I could bribe everybody to have even better relationships? I attach the game in case anyone want to give it a try.
Tried those rules with Psilons.
I had some problem, especially because a rare erratic human couldn't stop asking for peace and at the same time launching attacks at 3 different planets. Very weird attitude. Still Doing the "mass bases" thing made the game easy and I won. I'm thinking in using some kind of way to restrict myself on the amount of bases I can build or something!. Still, the 1 for each 10 pop doesn't seem to work. 10 bases alone in each of the frontline planets was enough to sit back and see fleets dying (I didn't use the bait trick, they just had bombers that did like 1 damage, and it seems it was worth to lose entire fleets to take out one base). Any good Idea on restriction on bases that force me to build ships, but can be non impossible to beat? (It could be very strong restrictions and playing in hard too)
Hm. I like the idea of no more than 1 base/10 pop (I'd use MAX pop for simplicity, especially important if playing as the Silicoids), but here's another idea that you could use which might not be viable depending on your tech tree:
Avoiding researching Planetary Deflector Shields. If it's possible to not research the PDS V or X, don't. Or avoid as much as possible building them if you find yourself forced to tech the deflector shields, such as only building the deflector shields and missile bases on new worlds. Frankly, if you're conquering and holding AI worlds long enough to set up missile bases, you've probably won the game already. To me, strong deflector shields are often more important than the number and damage capacity of missile bases. I've had a fair number of games that "turtling" didn't even require a large number of missile bases...just one and a good deflector shield were enough to force-retreat the AI assault forces. I did this in my unfinished Imperium 20, just having 1 or 2 MBs on each world, and counting on the deflectors to save me. Since we had to use nuclear missiles, the damage my bases did was irrelevant. (I didn't finish because I planned on sporing the entire galaxy in a single turn, but couldn't get a decent range tech, and just lost interest when RL intervened) |
