Need advice on playing the cats

[haphazard1]

I've been playing some MOO again recently and having a lot of fun (as always). But I am really struggling to manage a victory with the Mrrshan. The cats are generally ranked among the very weakest races for good reason. I am hoping the MOO vets here at RB can offer some advice for ways to get some value from the kitties.

With most races it is not too difficult to find ways to take advantage of their strengths -- focusing research on fields where you are strong or choosing a strategy that uses your racial bonus (spying with the Darloks, lots of invasions with the Bulrathi, etc.). But I am finding it difficult to get much value from the cats' attack bonus and weapons emphasis. I do not usually go for early aggression, preferring to develop peacefully if the galactic layout permits and tech up for more advantageous later conflict. But the cats get no advantages from that style of play, and I usually end up in diplomatic trouble and lagging economically and technologically.

Any advice for a struggling Mrrshan player would be greatly appreciated!

[Bionic Commando]

As a first resource, I would check out the Imperium 42 reports. There are many excellent reports that I learned a lot by reading. Thrawn's report is excellent if you're willing to play aggressively and win early, while Sulla's report is good to follow if you're more comfortable turtling. There are many other excellent reports as well (Ref, Ianus, RFS, Zygot, etc), but I view those two as extremes on the MOO strategy.

Some things to keep in mind if you're into faster games:

• The to-hit bonus translates most obviously into a combat bonus. In the early game, that basically means you should never lose early combat on border worlds. In the NPG/bomber era, it means that you should be able to knock an early neighbor off their game very easily.
  
• Here's a haunting gem from Thrawn:
  

The interesting observation is that if you are spending most of your production on ships, the Mrrshan bonus actually beats any production bonus.

If you're into longer games:

• Having a to-hit bonus also means that you really don't really need to research BC tech and you should be favoring IRC tech at every turn. If your to-hit is falling way behind, you can catch up with cheaper, legacy BC options which should be easily traded for, stolen, or conquered.
  
• Combining the to-hit bonus with excellent weapons research means that if you're into turtling, you should have deadly missile bases. It's very easy to get to Scatter V or Merculite quickly which will allow you to hold onto anything for the better part of the 2400s in most games.
  
• One issue with turtling as the Mrrshans is that since you don't have any real production benefits, you're really only going to continue to fall behind further and further as time goes on. If you're turtling on Impossible, I think you really have to consider taking Orion. The classic idea there had always been to amass a huge mass driver fleet of smalls or mediums. But again, reading Thrawn's Imperium-42 it looks like a couple well designed ships with mid-game tech can do the trick. He used Hellfire, but I wonder if you couldn't pull it off with Proton torpedoes and a sufficiently sized set of small repulser ships:
  

Not so many - you can see on the 2400 screenshots. The red shirts had phasors because it's their standard armament, it wasn't useful in the fight and repulsors. Repulsors, max engines, I think Ion, and stabilizers or nullifiers. The Heart of Gold had hellfire torpedoes, about 250, BC11 (Eddie had to be good for something) and DS15, with no extra maneuverability.

Overall, the Mrrshans do have upside, although there's very little margin for error and they require very strong micro and tactical play.

[haphazard1]

Thanks for the info, Bionic Commando, and the pointer to the Imperium 42 reports. I will check them out.

[Nad]

Hi Haph,

I did a very detailed Kitties LP on impossible:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJLfGNfzASM

[haphazard1]

I did a very detailed Kitties LP on impossible:

Thanks for the link! I will check out the series. I see you also have some Master of Magic games as well, will have to check those also. I am trying to learn and get better at MoM, I have only played a couple games of that so far.

[Nad]

My pleasure! I also recored a super-detailed MoM run on impossible. The other LPs are more - ehm - special-interest games... ;-)

[RFS-81]

Here's a haunting gem from Thrawn:

The interesting observation is that if you are spending most of your production on ships, the Mrrshan bonus actually beats any production bonus.

I remember someone saying that they could drop a ship design down a hull size as Mrrshans by leaving out battle computers and still hitting things with it. Maybe that was Thrawn, too.

The other LPs are more - ehm - special-interest games... ;-)

Of course I had to check what that could mean. I looked at your Schicksalsklinge (aka Realms of Arkania 1) Let's Play and now I'm completely torn if I want to play it again. I really dig the "adventuring-party management sim" aspect of the game, but not the DSA ruleset. And watching you try to find someone in a town was painful. Why does this game even have an automap if it can't tell you where to go? I don't mean it needs quest markers everywhere, but it could just show you where the important people live.

On the other hand, it's got awesome music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BsPphzYqDc

[shallow_thought]

Hi Haph,

I did a very detailed Kitties LP on impossible:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJLfGNfzASM

"Graphics don't matter to real nerds like me. Maybe you're also a real nerd."

[haphazard1]

"Graphics don't matter to real nerds like me. Maybe you're also a real nerd."

I also liked that line. The graphics in MOO were pretty good for their time, and they convery a lot of information effectively once you are familiar with them.

Well, chalk up another loss as the cats. I think I would have lost this one as almost any race (maybe not if I was Psilons). While I was tangled up in an early war with the Alkari in the west, the Klackons devoured the Darloks in the east. Not sure if the bugs caught the shifters spying or just went erratic on them. But the Klackons ended up with almost half the galaxy, and then it was runaway AI time.

Oh well. Time for another try. Hmmm, Psilons and Humans in this galaxy. NO Alkari this time at least. We shall see.

[HegemonKhan]

sorry to necro a dead thread, but I've always been interested with the mrrshans, due to them being the weakest race, and I've come back to playing MoO a bit now...

I am a total noob with MoO, so take this with a grain of salt, but here's my thoughts:

Mrrshans the Warlords:

they are the weakest race, due to having no bonuses for the "builders" civ-games-strategy, which is everything in MoO, and to make matters worse, they're poor researchers in one of the key "builders" tech: construction (for reduced waste and cheaper factories: more production)

also, on impossible difficulty, not even the mrrshans can compete with the production and research advantage, even in ships/combat with the AI

further bad news, while their innate bonus with targetting helps, there's quite a few races with good/excellent research with computer tech, which the mrrshans are only average/normal at, which does nullify the mrrshans innate targeting bonus a bit, and make them vulnerable to espionage as well

so, how does one win with the weakest race, how does one win with the mrrshans?

1. even on impossible difficulty, and even with the mrrshans, if you can survive and stay relatively even (in terms of planets/production) with the AI, their advantage goes away at the end game, allowing you to hopefully win... but this is quite a bit boring and long... and it's a general strategy that works for every race...

2. if playing a 1v1 on a small map, you can time (and if lucky with available techs: weapon techs) getting a weapon dominance, allowing you to wipe out their greater fleet of ships (and their planets with missile bases) (using missile weaponry makes it easier, though I've never really learned non-missile using combat yet, sighs), and hopefully crush them in a victory, winning the game, in the early game. but, having everything go just right, both the timing and getting lucky with techs, is a gamble, though it's really the only hope that the mrrshans have, and its using their one bonus that they get...

3. however, I think their true advantage actually comes in a game with many AI opponents. But, how is that possible? the mrrshans are even more racially hated than even the darlocks?

my idea is using them as the "dark evil humans" (or: the more sinister darlocks), researching weapons, and freely gifting it out to everyone, laughing madly as the AI destroy themselves with your weaponry, while improving your relations with everyone, and making them become dependent on you for even more and more powerful weaponry. Think of the mrrshans as the "merchants of death", the arms-dealers that want to see the world burnt in hellfire, you want chaos, everyone killing everyone else, with you walking over their corpses, triumphant and ruler of the scorching hell you've created. Use your excellent research against the AI, by freely giving it to them (or even better, if able to, get good "builders" tech: planetology/computers/construction back from them, for your weaponry tech: making yourself stronger or equal to them, while they become weaker from their wars with each other, using your weaponry against each other)

I can't think of anything else, as this is really all the mrrshans got over all the other races (their excellent research at weapon tech). Would love to hear what the experts think of this macro strategy with them... if there's a better macro strategy that exists, I would love to hear it! Also, what you think of the micro strategy (hoping/trying to get a weapon dominance to crush AI in the early game)? Are there better micro strategies? For example, I like how one of you pointed out that the mrrshans actually are pretty good at turtling (having advanced missiles for their missile bases, from them being experts at weapon tech) in terms of defense, but I still don't think that's a good strategy, as they're still the most disadvantaged at the "builders" strategy, having no bonuses at all for it, unlike many of the other races.