Game Club 199X #21 - Master of Orion (DOS)

[Feynman]

Jul 8, 2013 8:31:58 GMT -5 Bobinator said:

OK, here's a couple of questions:

1. I know 'BC' is your money, but how do you see how much is left, and how do you get more? I'm figuring it has something to do with your production, but I don't know how to see how much you have total.

2. One of my planets rebelled, and I'm not sure how to fix it. I parked one of my fighters near the planet in question for a few turns, but nothing happened. How do I get things under control?

Also, protip: Don't fuck with The Guardian. No matter how many ships you bring, no matter how good the stuff on them is, it's not enough, and you WILL need more.

Here's a couple answers!

1. The first thing to remember is that BC is a per-system currency. Rather than being a giant pool of resources, each system produces and spends it's own BC (with the exception of the Planetary Reserve, explained below). Click on the "Planets" button to see an overview of all your planets. On this screen, the "PROD" column shows how much BC each planet is generating.

Now, you can also see a slider at the bottom of the screen... this is the one way to exchange BC between worlds! By increasing the slider, you generate taxes, which takes a percentage of each planet's BC production every turn and adds it to a big pool. By using the "Transfer" button, you can transfer any credits in this pool to any planet you want... this is a good way to increase production of factories on new colonies (which generally take a while to really get going), quickly build needed ships, fix certain disasters (like supernovas), etc.. Be careful about using the reserve, though! It costs TWO BC in resources for every ONE BC sent to the reserve... that's a 50% loss! The reserve is useful for sending money somewhere fast, but it is wildly inefficient, and must be handled carefully... often it is not necessary to generate a reserve at all (and almost never worth it in the early game, when you need every BC you have just to get decent production and tech research started)!

2. Unlike games such as Civilization, you don't have to worry about citizen happiness. Rebellion can only be caused by two things: either a rare random event or one of the alien races you are in contact with has a shitload of spies in your empire stirring up rebels. How do you solve the problem? Easy! Simple use the "TRANS" command on the main screen to send population from a nearby planet to the rebel world to bring back order, just like fighting a ground battle when invading an enemy world. Once you beat the shit out of the rebels, the rebellion ends! Of course, this can be very costly to your production, so it's best to avoid letting spies gain a foothold in your empire (though if it was the result of a random event, you just got unlucky).

[xerxes]

I've played one long and pretty successful, but ultimately doomed, game. If you want to stand a chance, I suggest you start your game carefully. Here's my work-in-progress guide to start-scumming MoO, as well as getting your early priorities straight. My spy-heavy strategy is probably not the best, but it's the best I've got.

STEP ONE -- COLDPLAY FACTOR

Yellow stars are the most likely to have good planets to colonize. Just keep in mind that they may be another race's home world. More on that later. If there isn't more than one yellow star relatively near your home world, restart the game until there are.

STEP TWO -- SAVE THEN SCOUT

Save the game first, then send your scout ship to as many stars as you can. Try to reach one or more of those yellow stars and see what's there. Build your one free colony in a strategic location to maximize your scout's reach. What you really want are a good number of nearby worlds that are not barren, tundra, dead, inferno, toxic, radiated, or hostile. You won't be able to colonize those until you've done some serious planetology research. (hostile, barren, and tundra worlds require the least research to colonize, so a few of those nearby isn't so bad.) Also, if you can, make sure the nearest yellow star isn't some other species' homeworld. If there are enough livable stars, of any quality, nearby, make a note of where they all are and restart from your save game. If not, you're doomed and should restart with a new map.

STEP THREE -- PRIORITIZE

Knowing what stars to colonize first will give you a small leg-up on the competition. Send your first free colony ship to the best world you can reach, colonize it, and start building more colony ships. Once you have a few worlds under your belt, pump up your research a bit and lean on planetology and propulsion for a few turns, but don't do that exclusively. In fact, early in the game, I don't think you should do anything exclusively, unless you really need to build some ships.

While you're doing all this, and as your empire expands, send scouts out to try to rub elbows with a few other races. Once you make contact, send a few spies their way to get information about them. Just leave the spies on "hide" until…

STEP FOUR -- SWARM, SCHMOOZE, SWIPE

Once you've researched up some good weapons and targeting computers, start amassing an overwhelming swarm of expendable-but-deadly little warships. It doesn't matter if they die in one hit, so forget about shields or armor; just give them one of whichever beam weapon is the most deadly available, one good ol' fashioned nuke, and enough speed and range to be useful. Then pump 'em out like crazy. Design a new pest (but don't scrap the old ones until you fill up all six spots) whenever you get a major ship-to-ship weapons breakthrough. I just name my models Pesky A, Pesky B, etc. That way you can tell at a glance which is the most outdated when it's time to scrap a design.

While you're doing this, butter up some of the races you contacted by starting trade treaties. You want to build up some good will before you start stealing all their crap.

Once you have a tiny armada of suicide fighters orbiting most of your worlds, max out all your spies and steal like crazy. Once your tech starts to outpace everyone else, slow down the espionage on all but the most advanced rivals and up your own anti-spy protection. In my experience, rivals will very rarely go to war with you simply for conducting espionage. Wars will start if you get caught blowing up a bunch of factories or missile bases, though. I usually play as the darloks, who have a spying bonus. About 50% of the time I steal tech from a rival, I get the option of pinning it on another empire.

If there's one rival empire that's shaping up to be a threat to you, consider fomenting rebellions on their most important planets. It will slow them down without provoking them to war.

STEP FIVE -- ? ? ?

STEP SIX -- VICTORY

BONUS TIP -- NEVER WASTE RESEARCH ON BIO WEAPONS

If you use them, everyone will hate you almost immediately.

[kal]

Space Combat is visually quite simple but there's quite a bit of math involved behind the scenes (and the manual explains it to a reasonable degree). For a basic TL:DR...

Each ship type is assigned a single stack on the combat map, with the total number being the ships in orbit pre-fight (that little number beside the ship). Every ship is on its own time line based on its maneuverability I believe and the actual distance movable is based on engines, with the option to fire after every movement (range of weapon is based on each individual weapon) most weapons have unlimited ammo barring missiles (which I believe replenish after each fight). Now each ship has its own weapons and each weapon (with some exceptions) can only target ONE SHIP in the chosen stack - meaning simply that even if you have a powerful weapon (like the Plasma Cannon) a stack of two fighters is only going to lose a single ship. Of course a ship with 4 weapons can target up to 4 ships in the stack (counting that it scores some kills).

Defensively there's some behind the scenes rolling as well as some flat damage reductions - watch out as it's completely possible to have ships that will give/receive literally no damage so it's important to keep your constructed ships up to par. ECM's will make it possible for missiles to miss completely and lasers have varying chances of hitting or missing as well based on various stats (read the manual if you want more detail, there's a lot behind it but the game gives you a rough idea itself).


Unrelated but early tip watch out for the Bulrathi - they can win pretty much any ground fight with little effort and will be almost impossible to remove barring an extended bombing campaign. So keep your early colonies reasonably well defended.

Also avoid completely destroying a colony if you have troops on the way as when they arrive they'll all just starve.

[xerxes]

Jul 9, 2013 0:41:35 GMT -5 kal said:

Now each ship has its own weapons and each weapon (with some exceptions) can only target ONE SHIP in the chosen stack - meaning simply that even if you have a powerful weapon (like the Plasma Cannon) a stack of two fighters is only going to lose a single ship. Of course a ship with 4 weapons can target up to 4 ships in the stack (counting that it scores some kills).

And that, right there, is more useful knowledge than anything I've said.

[Joseph Joestar]

I'm gradually "getting" it, but haven't had any luck. Every time I start out I crap out when it comes to planets, and just can't expand. It also takes way too long to make colony ships. Any hints?

[Soulhouf]

Sorry for getting slightly off-topic but I have a little question. Can we suggest games to be qualified for the randomizer?

[kal]

Quick extra note if you've noticed the enemy are firing before you can

Initiative: The order in which ships move and fire is determined by their
initiative ratings. A ship’s initiative is the sum of its maneuverability plus the
level of the ship’s battle computer. In addition, ships equipped with battle
scanners add +3 to their initiative. Ships with the highest initiative then move
first, ties being resolved randomly by the computer. Furthermore, a ship with
a higher initiative can fire first if an enemy ship moves into range. There is one
exception to the firing order. Ships utilizing a subspace teleporter to move or a
cloaking device to surprise an enemy always fire first after moving or decloak-ing.

Also while I've found Missiles to be of mixed usefulness - your missile bases are upgraded to whatever your HIGHEST missile rank is via production cost. So if you completely ignore missiles, good luck repelling a ground assault. The manual mentions that Zeon Missiles are the best for the bases except there's one additional missile upgrade proceeding it - unsure if upgrades past that point.

Final Addendum : If you're wondering why you should research/steal redundant tech it increases your Technology level in that category which unlocks more research options and decreases construction/size costs.

[kal]

Jul 10, 2013 7:16:59 GMT -5 Joseph Joestar said:

I'm gradually "getting" it, but haven't had any luck. Every time I start out I crap out when it comes to planets, and just can't expand. It also takes way too long to make colony ships. Any hints?

If you have crap for planets that's a big problem, you want to make sure you let your starting planet + free colony build up some decent Industry before trying to build anything - this is a common problem with 4X titles where the start is typically fairly dull although more modern games will ensure the planets aren't TOO lopsided.

[Joseph Joestar]

Jul 10, 2013 10:17:29 GMT -5 kal said:

Jul 10, 2013 7:16:59 GMT -5 Joseph Joestar said:

I'm gradually "getting" it, but haven't had any luck. Every time I start out I crap out when it comes to planets, and just can't expand. It also takes way too long to make colony ships. Any hints?

If you have crap for planets that's a big problem, you want to make sure you let your starting planet + free colony build up some decent Industry before trying to build anything - this is a common problem with 4X titles where the start is typically fairly dull although more modern games will ensure the planets aren't TOO lopsided.

Cool, thanks!  I've never played Civ or any other 4x games, so this is a learning experience.  I will say that it's nice that they have hints that pop up periodically, which is kind of progressive. 

Another issue is I've been having first contact early; the last session I attempted they attacked my scout ship while I was trying to get to the nearest good planet, then they started a colony.  Fuckers.

[Feynman]

Okay JoJo, maybe I can help a bit.

The first thing to remember is that you should never start expanding too early, too quickly. Send your free colony ship to the best nearby planet (if any), and after that just start scouting. Do not build any more colony ships until your homeworld has developed enough industry to make a colony ship in 5-7 turns... at the beginning of the game, you want your homeworld to have it's economic sliders set to all IND, with just enough ECO to reach "clean" status, and then nothing else. Once you can make 2-3 new scout ships in a single turn, do so to increase your scouting perimiter, and then build your first new colony ship once maxing out ships (leaving ECO at clean, of course... ECO should never ever be anything less than clean for any reason) allows you to build one in 5-7 turns.

If you start with crap planets, allocate the vast majority of your research into Planetology and Propulsion until you have enough movement range/hostile planet colonization ability to colonize more worlds, then switch your focus to weapons so that you can take any really good planets your neighbors have by force... but try not to make too many aliens mad at you, because it would suck if nobody was willing to vote for you in the galactic election once you become strong enough to qualify as a candidate. Alternatively, just colonize all the smaller, crappy planets that nobody else wants and invest heavily in Planetology so that you can make them good... spend the game using your votes to make sure nobody wins the election and make friends with as many aliens as you can. When suddenly terraforming tech makes your population explode, they'll all be willing to vote for you!

A bad start isn't a death sentence in Master of Orion! It can suck, that's for sure, but this game isn't Civilization: early, rapid expansion is not the One True Strategy. Also remember that the AI doesn't team up against the player like it does in other empire games... your enemies will threaten each other just as much as they hassle you, and as a weaker faction you can use this to your advantage. If you don't have the resources to build a competitive warfleet, then built a fleet just big enough to make attacking you not worth the hassle, and use spies and politics to cripple your adversaries.

Oh, and park scoutships on planets you intend you colonize later, or at areas that the AI will have to pass through to reach important regions of your space. In the early game, the AI also uses unarmed scoutships/colony ships, and if they encounter your ship in orbit above a planet, they will simply turn and run away in the first couple turns (they don't know you aren't armed) when combat starts. You can use this to create a wall of fuck you that the AI cannot explore/colonize until they are willing to return with armed ships, which usually takes a while.

[xerxes]

I found a kickass bug!

If you have an artifact world, leave it undefended and let another race take over during your next little war. Then recapture the planet and you'll get new bonus discoveries! You can keep doing this until you run out of tech to discover, I think, but it will cost you a lot of troops. Still, got a lot of neat stuff this way.

[Joseph Joestar]

Thanks Feynman, I'll try some of that out when I get home!

[i30817]

Greatest timewaster game ever. Addictive as crack. You'll play this for years, enjoy. I actually think MoO1 is better than 2 because it has practically no micromanagement. 2 was far too much influenced by Civ. Build queues ugh. 2 has some neat things i wish were there like leaders and boarding actions/captures/scrapping for tech though.

[xerxes]

Jul 10, 2013 14:21:59 GMT -5 i30817 said:

Greatest timewaster game ever. Addictive as crack. You'll play this for years, enjoy. I actually think MoO1 is better than 2 because it has practically no micromanagement. 2 was far too much influenced by Civ. Build queues ugh. 2 has some neat things i wish were there like leaders and boarding actions/captures/scrapping for tech though.

I played a lot of MOO II when it was new. And for years after that. It was kind of weird going from that game to the original, which I have never played. But I'm definitely hooked. Was up for hours last night, paying for it now.

[Joseph Joestar]

Well, opened a new session, and the only inhabitable planet nearby was Orion. And the Guardian wiped out my free colony ship. Well, fuck.