Beating MOO1 on Impossible

[rgp151]

One reason this game went a little longer and got into the advanced stages is because of some ships designs the Klackons had. I was behind from teh start, as usual, and got what free planets I could. The Sakkra were a viable target and I took a couple of their planets, but then the Klackons started coming in and I wasn't able to hold new planets against Klackon fleets. In particular because they had developed a ship design that was Large ships with Warp Dissipators, Auto Repair and Heavy Fusion Beams. And they were sending these in large stacks of up to 200, along with missile boats and some random beam weapon ships So at that point I had to hold off and just defend until I got the HEF so I could take on their ships from range. I had Warp Dissipators too, and was able to slow them down and then sit back and wear them down, but it was pretty tricky. They also got SP7 missiles and PS5, so their planets weren't easy targets, so it all of that delayed things quite a while.

Yeah, I definitely think Klackons are the best race for Impossible. Psilons can work and Darloks can work, but everything else falls pretty far behind. Humans can be ok.

[haphazard1]

Sounds like the Klackons came up with a decent design for once. That always makes a game much tougher, as mostly the AI puts together middling or terrible ship designs. The rare times they luck into a strong design can be quite difficult.

Congrats on the win.

[HoursWithoutTime]

I've always thought the difference in difficulty between hard and impossible was too big, so here's my attempt at finding a midpoint.

Some rule changes:
1. If I don't have a planet within 3 parsecs of my home world I restart the game.
2. My first colony must be >= 65 pop and be at least normal wealth (if there are 2 or more candidates I "fix" the one that needs the least fixing)
3. If neither Improved Eco or 80% Waste Reduction are offered, I research another planetology offering and once I discover it I use a game editor to swap them so I end up with Improved Eco for the cost of Terra10 or Barren Landings.

Too extreme?  It gets worse... 
This started when I discovered an artifacts planet and I got Robotic Controls 3 and it nuked my factory building efforts.
4. When I discover an artifacts planet, if I don't like the tech I'm given, I reload the game and discover it again.  I take the best out of 5 attempts.  Yeah I went way overboard, but what kid wants to find nothing but a lump of coal under the Christmas tree.

I know it sounds like serious cheating but you'd be surprised at how few games get altered.  Rule #2 is the one that gets used the most  And once the first few moves are done, it's impossible level from then on.

[rgp151]

Well now I tried using Sakkra and its unwinnable because I have the highest pop. I have only met 2 races. Humans have almost as much pop as me. Humans are in the middle of the map and have met all races. Everyone votes for the Humans. I have a save from 4 turns before the vote and I try everything to bribe the other race, but I can't sway them. So I lose the vote.

[haphazard1]

Losing a council vote to the humans is a frequest problem in games where they manage to get a decent number of planets. Their starting diplo is good with pretty much everyone, and they love to do trade deals to improve relations even more. Starting in the middle of the map where they can make early contact with everyone makes them even more dangerous.

That start may have been close to impossible to beat with any race. Sometimes that happens. About the only thing I can think of that might work is a pretty cheesy tactic: the turn before the council vote, send most of your population between your worlds so they are in space (and not counted). If you can temporarily drop your population enough to not be a candidate, the AIs will probably split their votes.

[rgp151]

Oohhh I didn't think of that. Of course in Moo2 you can just trade planets away, but that's actually interesting.

Ok, so I tried it but it didn't work exactly, however it still worked. I didn't get enough pop in the "air" not to be in the vote, BUT for some reason the Klackons abstained this time instead of voting for the Humans, so it worked anyway.

[HoursWithoutTime]

Oohhh I didn't think of that. Of course in Moo2 you can just trade planets away, but that's actually interesting.

Ok, so I tried it but it didn't work exactly, however it still worked. I didn't get enough pop in the "air" not to be in the vote, BUT for some reason the Klackons abstained this time instead of voting for the Humans, so it worked anyway.

That's a good way to get past the vote.  But since every vote, except the first, happens every 25 years, if you click continue when losing the vote and immediately save the game  then you can bump the year by 1 and you're good for another 25 years.  I posted a little app on the forum called MooBumpYear that does the bumping for you.  Try it.  The worst that can happen is it won't find your saved game and will therefore do nothing.

Imo, the Sakkras are tough on impossible, but they're one of my favorite races on the hard level.  Bulrathis too!  I find the Darloks, Psilons, Meklars and Humans work best for me on impossible.

[rgp151]

For me Klackons are far and away the best on Impossible. Then Psilons, and everyone else is pretty distant back. I agree on Humans and Darloks. Darloks have a very hard time getting past the early votes though, but other than that they are pretty good on Impossible, ok on Good and bad on anything below Good. Sakkra also have the challenge of getting past the early votes because if you aren't highest in population as Sakkra then you are going to lose for other reasons, so it forces you to have to deal with the Counsel. With Klackons and Psilons you can actually be in 3rd place early and then come back. Darloks are also better to try adn stay in 3rd place.

[rgp151]

Alright, so I guess just some of those early population management techniques resolved most of my issues. I just had a pretty dominant game with Darloks on Impossible. Granted with Darloks it usually either goes really good or really bad. I was able to establish the most planets from the beginning and got trade deals with everyone on turn 1 when I met them, so I was able to stay in good relations with pretty much everyone for quite a long time. The hardest at first were the Meklars who were out-researching me on Computers, but even with that I was able to pretty much steal everyone blind and turn everyone against my biggest opponent, so, from there on it was pretty much a cake walk.

That's the thing about the Darloks, the opening can be a little tricky, but if you're able to get past the early part of the game, they are arguably the most dominant race on Impossible because you can entirely control the game's diplomacy.

[haphazard1]

Darloks can be a lot of fun. As you noted, they are rather feast or famine. Their poor initial diplomacy can get you into an ugly situation early on. Also, if you get stuck in a corner of the galaxy without contact with many races then their spying bonus is a lot less useful.

I like the usual strong races (Psilons, Klackons, Humans), and am also fond of the Sakkra and the Meklar. One race I have had huge difficulty with on Impossible is the Silicoids. Unless you get lucky with lots of planets to grab early on, the slow population growth can be very tricky to manage. I have had games where I had the most planets by a sizable margin, but was badly lagging in total pop and thus production.