Prompted by RefSteel in the thread for the game, this is a report of a run with the intention of showcasing the game and its various improvements/changes over the original MoO. I'll be writing assuming knowledge of the original game, hopefully I won't wind up skimming over new changes in the process.
Anyways, as suggested I went with the following settings: We'll be playing as the Psilons Mentarans, a race with an entirely unique and legally distinct pair of bonuses for 75% of techs showing up in their trees and +50% research. Average map size for 6 opponents and 100 stars, "harder" (6 out of 7) difficulty (usually I play 1 below, but I also don't usually play the strongest race in the game), and "base" AI, which is still significantly smarter than the original's AI, but not as absurd as Modnar (flavourful + strong) or Xilmi (pure strength, AI flavour left by the wayside) can be. For the layout, Ellipse was picked, which comes with 2 suboptions, one that ranges from Circular to Eclipse 4 that determines how flattened vs round the map is, and Void, ranging from no void to 4, which controls the size of a, well, void in the centre of the galaxy, which helps to shape the map a bit more and make it feel less like a regular one with the corners shaved off. I went went with the default of Eclipse 2, and set void from the default none to 1, to try to get more of a shape going on without making it just a loop, but via fiddling with settings you can indeed get a pure ring to play on if you'd like:
Anyways, that's definitely a bit weirder than I'd like for this game. In advanced options the only change was removing all nebulas, because while variety is *interesting* I don't think the specific conditions created by that variety are any fun, but other than that everything stayed the same. Clicked play and here we go:
So that's roughly the shape of the galaxy, with the gap in the middle existing while not being as huge when on the maximum setting. The outermost ring around my capital is the range with ER tanks, next inner one is non-ER range, and the blue circle is the default indicator for planet ownership (obviously colour varies, shape also does once you get enough AIs such that you have to double-up on colours). Generally content with this starting location, though that path north is a bit thin, which I'm sure will be fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine. As for the immediate situation, I sent a scout west and east, then the colony ship up to the orange star, hoping to avoid having to settle for a poor world at the red star (and using the scrollwheel to modify the number of each ship without any clicking). Here's what that decision-making looked like with the range indicator UI toggled on via the 4th button in the top left:
I really can't overstate how useful this is. I can see exactly what range I'd need to get to any star, calculate travel time from anywhere to anywhere, plot expansion.. lovely. The usefulness of this will become much clearer in a couple screenshots. Anyways, hit end turn for 3 turns and the scouting comes back with, uhhhhhhhh...
So here's the systems screen, one of the tabs at least. All shiny and.. yeah none of this can distract from how tragic this all is. One habitable world, 2 hostiles including the one that would set me up for a perfect path north, and the kicker? Well, here's another tab!
Now we can see in glorious HD that that arid planet is, of course, poor. So it's small, substandard, and not in the right direction, but it's the option left open, so I sent the colony ship there and had the scouts head north. Also note how this screen also displays the % of factories on the homeworld out of the maximum, so you can see on the map which colonies are and are not maxed out. Anyways, here's the part where that range indicator comes in handy!
Now we can see with perfect precision exactly how little the new colony will do for us! Current range (which you'll note has its line slightly bolded) leaves us just shy of the southernmost of the two northern stars, though luckily it'll only require range 4 still, and the red can be accessed via range 5. Anyways, I waited for the ships to all shuffle around, and once the colony was founded 3 years later I sent over 9mil pop in 3 batches. Note that in that colony window on the right in the first screenshot that you can see exactly how the population will change in a colony in advance, so I could see that Mentar's population would drop by 0-1 mil each turn I did this, rather than having to guess the precise impact. At around the same time the scouts started arriving, at the blue star they found a toxic 25 (so range 4 wouldn't be enough), leaving the final hope at the red star that requires range 5. And what do I see, just to make these opening turns even more cursed?
The game is officially taunting me now. Yes, it's lovely that it's an artifacts planet, a size 55 steppe to be precise. Yes, I'm theoretically happy that it's a free tech. But it's the most useless possible one! Barring an outright negative result like improved robotics controls III, there is no result that could provide less utility, unless I proceed to get zero range techs prior to researching all the way to either controlled inferno or controlled toxic. Still, the situation wasn't *unplayable*, so I figured the run was still worth being the one to showcase, and went back to building factories and rearranging scouts. Though I really should have built more at this stage, I wasn't as incentivised to do so because scout blockades do nothing in this game and I wouldn't be able to really use anything I'd found until I'd researched further, and building scouts would have simply led to that taking longer. Regardless, before I even had time to make that mistake, you see the sudden unwelcome green ship north of Elion?
I mean, at least it's not the silicoids, and there's a bit of breathing room, but still! We're 10 turns in! A couple turns later the Klackons Kholdan offered a trade deal, which the AI does immediately upon getting within range, I clicked through without thinking but really should have taken a screenshot given that this is a showcase. It's possible to see using that range indicator that it would be pretty hard for them to threaten Maxwell any time soon unless they could leapfrog along the red star, but I mean, it's a red star, of course it wasn't hostile:
As the scouts started to spread out, the need for range 5 became even more clear, as Margulis in the west opened up as another candidate for colonisation. So I went back to anxiously maxing factories, which finished on turn 26:
Mostly just documenting here to show what I mentioned in the other thread about behaviour upon maxing factories, the game immediately starts to try to build up to the default max number of missile bases, currently set to 1. I sent back about 6mil pop from Elion and put everything into research, opening up with just construction (reduced waste 80% over ii9) planetology (improved eco over seemingly-useless controlled barren) and propulsion, opting not to advance that last tech tree by picking range 5 over range 6 (or nuke engines) to get Maxwell and Margulis into range ASAP. While I was getting my act together, I got this frightening notification:
Of course the most successful AI would be the one I started next to, of course! But somehow, this notification came without a colony popping up at Pasteur, they must have been really busy expanding in other directions. It would be a bit before my brain stopped being preoccupied with taking screenshots and writing notes and instead remember to set up basic spying on the bugs to see precisely where their colonies were. Range 5 finished a couple turns after it hit percentages (apparently my notetaking was incapable of noting the year/turn) and I immediately started on a colony ship as the scouts excitedly shuffled around:
This screenshot wasn't taken immediately (as you can see by the colony ship completion time) but rather prompted by my scout being forced to retreat from Pasteur. I wasn't immensely worried about this, the planet wasn't anything exceptional or anything, but I'd still like to have it if possible. Joule in the east was ofc toxic, but the red star even further east combined toxic with also being rich! And size 10, can't get everything.. Then north of Joule was a size 40 Dead Rich world, followed by a barren 40 (controlled barren looking a bit more useful now). At this point my research had largely been put on hold, every tech had been in the percentages so I'd gotten the initial wave (with the second tier being ii8 with no choices, controlled dead with no choices (or complaints), and nuclear engines) but hadn't made a dent on getting any more. I did manage to snag Maxwell though, prompting some satisfying scout rollouts and Elion providing the population for it:
That blue ship would belong to the Mrrshan Fiershan, who'd eventually show up at the orange star north of the hostile trio I was just talking about. At this point I'd gotten out 3 colony ships, but the Kholdan were contesting my second two planned planets, so I had built a round of basic fighters to try to push them off, which succeeded at Margulis but failed at Pasteur, renamed to Chojolom by the bugs. I built a couple more colony ships and sent them north with the expectation that they'd find something to be useful for, but the combination of finally getting spies up and scout reports in painted a bleak picture:
Not only were there no non-hostile planets in range, there weren't even ones *outside* of current range! I switched back to research at this stage, which was going well, until of *course* the virus event hit nuclear engines, because why wouldn't it! But there was one bright spot on the technology front:
Here's the comparative tech display produced by spying. As you can see, neither AI had any colonisation-related tech I lacked, meaning there was no threat of them snapping up any of the colonies I couldn't yet found. It was at around this point, turn 60, that I stopped my first session:
There's definitely been a lot of skimming so far, but there's just not that much to talk about early-game, even in one as exciting as this, especially given what portion of the "wildness" came down to shock at what I *couldn't* do. Future entries should hopefully be more structured and/or interesting. You can see based on the orbs below the treasury capacity on the left that I'm about halfway to all 3 techs, once I get engines + controlled dead I'll probably open up the other 3 categories too. Anyways, happy to answer questions about anything related to the game!
Anyways, as suggested I went with the following settings: We'll be playing as the Psilons Mentarans, a race with an entirely unique and legally distinct pair of bonuses for 75% of techs showing up in their trees and +50% research. Average map size for 6 opponents and 100 stars, "harder" (6 out of 7) difficulty (usually I play 1 below, but I also don't usually play the strongest race in the game), and "base" AI, which is still significantly smarter than the original's AI, but not as absurd as Modnar (flavourful + strong) or Xilmi (pure strength, AI flavour left by the wayside) can be. For the layout, Ellipse was picked, which comes with 2 suboptions, one that ranges from Circular to Eclipse 4 that determines how flattened vs round the map is, and Void, ranging from no void to 4, which controls the size of a, well, void in the centre of the galaxy, which helps to shape the map a bit more and make it feel less like a regular one with the corners shaved off. I went went with the default of Eclipse 2, and set void from the default none to 1, to try to get more of a shape going on without making it just a loop, but via fiddling with settings you can indeed get a pure ring to play on if you'd like:
Anyways, that's definitely a bit weirder than I'd like for this game. In advanced options the only change was removing all nebulas, because while variety is *interesting* I don't think the specific conditions created by that variety are any fun, but other than that everything stayed the same. Clicked play and here we go:
So that's roughly the shape of the galaxy, with the gap in the middle existing while not being as huge when on the maximum setting. The outermost ring around my capital is the range with ER tanks, next inner one is non-ER range, and the blue circle is the default indicator for planet ownership (obviously colour varies, shape also does once you get enough AIs such that you have to double-up on colours). Generally content with this starting location, though that path north is a bit thin, which I'm sure will be fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine. As for the immediate situation, I sent a scout west and east, then the colony ship up to the orange star, hoping to avoid having to settle for a poor world at the red star (and using the scrollwheel to modify the number of each ship without any clicking). Here's what that decision-making looked like with the range indicator UI toggled on via the 4th button in the top left:
I really can't overstate how useful this is. I can see exactly what range I'd need to get to any star, calculate travel time from anywhere to anywhere, plot expansion.. lovely. The usefulness of this will become much clearer in a couple screenshots. Anyways, hit end turn for 3 turns and the scouting comes back with, uhhhhhhhh...
So here's the systems screen, one of the tabs at least. All shiny and.. yeah none of this can distract from how tragic this all is. One habitable world, 2 hostiles including the one that would set me up for a perfect path north, and the kicker? Well, here's another tab!
Now we can see in glorious HD that that arid planet is, of course, poor. So it's small, substandard, and not in the right direction, but it's the option left open, so I sent the colony ship there and had the scouts head north. Also note how this screen also displays the % of factories on the homeworld out of the maximum, so you can see on the map which colonies are and are not maxed out. Anyways, here's the part where that range indicator comes in handy!
Now we can see with perfect precision exactly how little the new colony will do for us! Current range (which you'll note has its line slightly bolded) leaves us just shy of the southernmost of the two northern stars, though luckily it'll only require range 4 still, and the red can be accessed via range 5. Anyways, I waited for the ships to all shuffle around, and once the colony was founded 3 years later I sent over 9mil pop in 3 batches. Note that in that colony window on the right in the first screenshot that you can see exactly how the population will change in a colony in advance, so I could see that Mentar's population would drop by 0-1 mil each turn I did this, rather than having to guess the precise impact. At around the same time the scouts started arriving, at the blue star they found a toxic 25 (so range 4 wouldn't be enough), leaving the final hope at the red star that requires range 5. And what do I see, just to make these opening turns even more cursed?
The game is officially taunting me now. Yes, it's lovely that it's an artifacts planet, a size 55 steppe to be precise. Yes, I'm theoretically happy that it's a free tech. But it's the most useless possible one! Barring an outright negative result like improved robotics controls III, there is no result that could provide less utility, unless I proceed to get zero range techs prior to researching all the way to either controlled inferno or controlled toxic. Still, the situation wasn't *unplayable*, so I figured the run was still worth being the one to showcase, and went back to building factories and rearranging scouts. Though I really should have built more at this stage, I wasn't as incentivised to do so because scout blockades do nothing in this game and I wouldn't be able to really use anything I'd found until I'd researched further, and building scouts would have simply led to that taking longer. Regardless, before I even had time to make that mistake, you see the sudden unwelcome green ship north of Elion?
I mean, at least it's not the silicoids, and there's a bit of breathing room, but still! We're 10 turns in! A couple turns later the Klackons Kholdan offered a trade deal, which the AI does immediately upon getting within range, I clicked through without thinking but really should have taken a screenshot given that this is a showcase. It's possible to see using that range indicator that it would be pretty hard for them to threaten Maxwell any time soon unless they could leapfrog along the red star, but I mean, it's a red star, of course it wasn't hostile:
As the scouts started to spread out, the need for range 5 became even more clear, as Margulis in the west opened up as another candidate for colonisation. So I went back to anxiously maxing factories, which finished on turn 26:
Mostly just documenting here to show what I mentioned in the other thread about behaviour upon maxing factories, the game immediately starts to try to build up to the default max number of missile bases, currently set to 1. I sent back about 6mil pop from Elion and put everything into research, opening up with just construction (reduced waste 80% over ii9) planetology (improved eco over seemingly-useless controlled barren) and propulsion, opting not to advance that last tech tree by picking range 5 over range 6 (or nuke engines) to get Maxwell and Margulis into range ASAP. While I was getting my act together, I got this frightening notification:
Of course the most successful AI would be the one I started next to, of course! But somehow, this notification came without a colony popping up at Pasteur, they must have been really busy expanding in other directions. It would be a bit before my brain stopped being preoccupied with taking screenshots and writing notes and instead remember to set up basic spying on the bugs to see precisely where their colonies were. Range 5 finished a couple turns after it hit percentages (apparently my notetaking was incapable of noting the year/turn) and I immediately started on a colony ship as the scouts excitedly shuffled around:
This screenshot wasn't taken immediately (as you can see by the colony ship completion time) but rather prompted by my scout being forced to retreat from Pasteur. I wasn't immensely worried about this, the planet wasn't anything exceptional or anything, but I'd still like to have it if possible. Joule in the east was ofc toxic, but the red star even further east combined toxic with also being rich! And size 10, can't get everything.. Then north of Joule was a size 40 Dead Rich world, followed by a barren 40 (controlled barren looking a bit more useful now). At this point my research had largely been put on hold, every tech had been in the percentages so I'd gotten the initial wave (with the second tier being ii8 with no choices, controlled dead with no choices (or complaints), and nuclear engines) but hadn't made a dent on getting any more. I did manage to snag Maxwell though, prompting some satisfying scout rollouts and Elion providing the population for it:
That blue ship would belong to the Mrrshan Fiershan, who'd eventually show up at the orange star north of the hostile trio I was just talking about. At this point I'd gotten out 3 colony ships, but the Kholdan were contesting my second two planned planets, so I had built a round of basic fighters to try to push them off, which succeeded at Margulis but failed at Pasteur, renamed to Chojolom by the bugs. I built a couple more colony ships and sent them north with the expectation that they'd find something to be useful for, but the combination of finally getting spies up and scout reports in painted a bleak picture:
Not only were there no non-hostile planets in range, there weren't even ones *outside* of current range! I switched back to research at this stage, which was going well, until of *course* the virus event hit nuclear engines, because why wouldn't it! But there was one bright spot on the technology front:
Here's the comparative tech display produced by spying. As you can see, neither AI had any colonisation-related tech I lacked, meaning there was no threat of them snapping up any of the colonies I couldn't yet found. It was at around this point, turn 60, that I stopped my first session:
There's definitely been a lot of skimming so far, but there's just not that much to talk about early-game, even in one as exciting as this, especially given what portion of the "wildness" came down to shock at what I *couldn't* do. Future entries should hopefully be more structured and/or interesting. You can see based on the orbs below the treasury capacity on the left that I'm about halfway to all 3 techs, once I get engines + controlled dead I'll probably open up the other 3 categories too. Anyways, happy to answer questions about anything related to the game!
Surprise! Turns out I'm a girl!
