Early Artifacts Planets

[Doug.Lefelhocz]

If you get a free tech from an artifacts planet before having researched anything, what tech would you usually want to get if you could choose? Why?

[Megafrost]

To be honest, it really depends on the circumstances. I like anything that makes it easier for me to spread out and grab planets or otherwise build up the ones I already have, so basically anything from the construction, planetology or propulsion trees.

If we're going to be more specific, I think my preference would be for something in the planetology tree. Not only are planetology techs tremendously helpful, but when I open the field the tech will allow me to see what is in the next tier immediately. Given what I observed in the reports that everyone posted for Imperium 10, I think the best picks would be either Improved Eco or Controlled Dead, depending on the circumstances.

Of course, Silicoids need neither of these, so as the rock monsters I'd choose instead to have faster engines.

[Sullla]

Improved Eco would probably be my tech of choice in most games. Cuts pollution costs by 1/3, thereby boosting factory construction, and significantly reduces the cost of colony ships. Controlled Dead was probably more useful in Imperium Ten, but only due to the fact that there were so many Barren/Tundra/Dead worlds around the start.

An improved Range or Engine tech from the Propulsion tree can also work wonders. Other goodies like improved Weapons or Computers are distinctly less useful, since they don't do much to speed up the growth curve. Robotics III is usually the worst possible draw - and I have indeed gotten it from an Artifacts world before!

[haphazard1]

Just my luck to have drawn a propulsion tech that was not range or engines (IS).

Duralloy would be quite the prize as an early free tech: tougher ships and bases, plus the rapid advancement to long range colony ships.

[dathon]

While certainly not as useful as engines or range, IS can be very useful in the right situation. The AI values it very highly, so it's one of the few techs you can get a close-to-fair trade with. Plus, combined with Fusion Drives (warp 4), it lets any ship reach a planet on the combat screen in 2 turns, vital for bombers. Additionally, it lets you skip the often-useless second rung of the propulsion ladder. So overall, not the best, but certainly a better draw than, say, ECM I or Gatling Lasers

dathon

[Doug.Lefelhocz]

Since I've got some responses I'll post my thoughts. Feel free to disagree. I usually play on large or huge maps, so that might affect my thinking. Still, even for a medium sized (and even a small one) map I'll take nuclear engines. Of course that means I found almost all of my colonies faster. But, there's an extra benefit. With enough luck I can then manage to research sub-light drives and finish it off before the first vote. With sub-light drives I can speed up my growth since my population transportation takes less time (I use the "pass-the-baton" technique usually... or something like that). Of course that's less useful for Sakkra, very useful for most races, and it simply rocks for the Rocks. On smaller maps one can also then invade AI worlds faster both in terms of population points attacking the AI and getting ships to AI colonies even before they have (all that many) missile bases up. I'd think the fastest victories come when the player has popped nuclear engines early.

[haphazard1]

While certainly not as useful as engines or range, IS can be very useful in the right situation. The AI values it very highly, so it's one of the few techs you can get a close-to-fair trade with.

I did consider this, but ended up not trading IS with any of the AIs. Mostly because they did not have anything I really needed -- no one was willing to offer engine tech, and I was OK in most other areas. Better bombs might have been nice, but I only actually invaded one planet (Mentar) in the entire game.

In fact, I ended up never using the IS at all. Although the early tech level boost presumably helped on miniaturization.

Plus, combined with Fusion Drives (warp 4), it lets any ship reach a planet on the combat screen in 2 turns, vital for bombers.

Of course, one has to actually have drives better than retro for this to become a factor. Won before I got Impulse engines, so never moved faster than warp 1. Bombing Mentar's handful of bases was indeed costly, and took two tries.

Additionally, it lets you skip the often-useless second rung of the propulsion ladder. So overall, not the best, but certainly a better draw than, say, ECM I or Gatling Lasers

I'm sure this would have been valuable, if my noob fumbling of the tech tree had not screwed that up completely.

[pkrcel]

I also think that it depends heavily on the context, and based on the impresisons eveyone got, I can only say that THIS is one of the reasons why MOO is still a masterpiece after 14 years since release.

Seems to me, at least, that there si no "hard-coded" path to victory anywhere in the game...otherwsie tell me where it is and I'll followit pronto!

[Doug.Lefelhocz]

Hard-coded path to victory???

Potential spoilers follow: Defeat The Guardian of Orion colonize Orion (I've NEVER seen the AIs even try to attack it) and hold that planet. You get 6 free techs from Orion (right?), with The Death Ray as one of them. Arguably, multiple stacks of the same design of small ships... hopefully with a subspace teleporter on each of them if not a high energy focus beam which you will always have your in tech tree... with something like a particle beam or a gauss autocannon which halves shields first. The Guardian has plenty of scatter pack rockets, but it also has The Death Ray, which zaps huge ships to pieces rather quickly (if you didn't know already). Pick your poison or say thank goodness for a subspace teleporter... if you have it in your tech tree. Colonize Orion as soon as possible and develop it as soon as possible. The planet Orion gives you 4 times the tech research of a regular planet and has 120 population at its base (if you didn't know this already).

As long as you maintain control of Orion, you have a 20 percent modifier in your favor to win elections. Then again, you have to make it to a point in the game where you have the ability to go out with a rather signifcant force, especially at harder levels, to send a sizable fleet to kill The Guardian of Orion. If you play as Humans you have a 20 percent modifier for all elections, so if you play as the Apes and you control Orion you have a 40 percent base modifier. Beyond that, with them you'll probably trade like crazy, so you'll no doubt have pretty good relations. You can also gift technologies up to six times to the AIs to increase their attitude towards you... it doesn't matter if you gift them a gatling laser when they have stellar converters... all technologies work as equally valuable in terms of modifying base AI reactions to your race. Then again, you have to have technologies to gift and not have the AIs attacking you in order to do this.

I guess there's something Sirian learned in Imperium Four also (someone else taught it to him???)... but I don't think I know that one... or did I mention it here?

[timmy827]

I'm no expert at the game, but it seems in my limited experience that Orion is a sideshow because 95% of all games are decided by the point the human player has enough tech to take on the Guardian super-ship.