Hi

A week ago I had the great good luck to be asked to be a volunteer helper in the classroom of one of my sons. Another mother was going to teach the class of 10 year olds how to make Psyanky.

I was amazed. This is not hard to do. It is, like any art form, hard to do well, but the basics were downright easy.

I was moved to purchase the makings (the scribing tools or kiska, the beeswax and the dyes) and "A Kid's Guide to Ukrainian Easter Eggs". I figured that chances were that anything that could be covered in a child's guide was something I actually could manage. :P Grand total bill, including the book, for 10 people to work at a time was $60.

The procedure is covered here. We used candles, not any fancy electricity generated tools, to warm up the kiskas. The results were surprisingly good. They were nowhere near the spectacularly detailed work here, but they were certainly creditable.

I invited all the children near our cottage to attend, and most brought their mothers/grandmothers with them to give it a try. (The fathers/grandfathers stood outside, drank beer and kibitzed while my husband cut wood. :D ) Best results came from the teenagers, surprise, surprise. They were more adventurous and had more control than the younger children. We had such a good time that I just had to post to tell you all about it.

This was not rocket science. It was a fun afternoon for a group of complete neophytes. I am sure we could get better results next time, but the point is that no experience was required to have a good time and produce something creditable. The youngest participant was 5 and he needed help from his Mom. My seven year old did two eggs by himself.

I know many of you have families, and finding an activity that can engage across generations is never an easy thing to accomplish for a family gathering. This one really filled the ticket.

Now....I have to do some investigating. The boys think that emu eggs would be fun to try, to get a bigger palette for the art work. Maybe that farmer up the road from the cottage would part with some unfertilized eggs for less than a small fortune apiece?

Hello.

I have come to you seeking help.

I've downloaded MoO 1 from :http://www.jonsullivan.com/misc/moo.php3

I downloaded the whole game, NOT the individual disk download.

I unzipped all the files, but I can't get the game to run.

OK, that's not entirely accurate. I got it to run once. But not again. Now when I click on the .exe, it tells me it needs to run in DOS mode (I understand), but won't launch. When I go to DOS mode, it tells me to install the game. Everything is unzipped and sitting on my E: drive

Additionally, the sound won't work at all. Could this be because the SoundBlaster emulator on this computer's soundcard is deactivated?

I've tried to reinstall it using the install.exe, but it keeps asking for disks.

In the one time I did get the game to run, the battle screen was terribly slow.

I'm running my wife's Dell Pentium 2, Windows 98 128mg ram TBS Montego soundcard

Any help would be appreciated. I've been wanting to play MoO again for a while now.

I couldn't help myself. Seeing the elegance in the growth curve which peaks in
the middle and slows down for both lowly populated and nearly full planets,
I knew there was a mathematical optimum in there. *NOT* an in-game, blindly use
this number optimum, but an 'all other things equal, if you want to maximize the
empire growth rather than the growth of one planet' estimate of how many to send.

I've made a post for our succession group with more details at:
Optimizing transport size

But here I'll just give the bottom line equation, an interesting growth curve graph, and
an example.

d = (m*P - M*p) / (M+m)

where d is the optimal number to transport, P and M are the current and max population values
for the first planet, and p and m are the current pop and max pop for the colony.

Exmaple: For a homeworld at 57 of 100 and a colony of 2 of 80
transport_optimal = ( 57*80 - 2*100 ) / (80 + 100) = 24.2 colonists.

The reason why sending more is effective is due to the lack of steepness in
the growth curve surrounding that "planet is half full" mark:



I stress again this is just a mathematical optima for empire growth, not a suggestion
that for a given game situation it's the "best choice." That will depend on many factors,
in particular whether you plan to continue with factory production on the homeworld or
if you will be building some ships in the near term. (Second caveat: I'm a total newb! :P )

Charis

Not quite an AAR, just more a couple of things I came across in a game I was playing today. I was playing the Darlocks, doing my bit and stealing tech from everybody. Eventually, I got everyone so mad at me they all declared war. I end up losing the vote by just a tad. I had a solid 1/3 of the galaxy. So the vote goes and I lose. Do I go with the decision? Naw, let's play this one out and see what happens. And then it hits me. The opponents will never get away from me in tech. Since they all SHARE the tech in overtime, I have FIVE times the chances of stealing any one particular piece. It took a few years, but soon I was at tech parity with the five opponents. All I had to do is keep ahead in computer tech and I was good to go. To make a long sotry short, I ended up winning this one in overtime (first time I'd ever done that). It was just one of those neat little gems you come across every now and then that I thought I'd share.

An idea was floated today suggesting that MOO would be "conducive" to succession play, which might "accelerate" the learning curve and fun factor. Far be it for me to fail to heed this call. I don't have to be prodded twice.


Difficulty Level: Average
Map Size: Large
Race: Bulrathi
Opponents: Five
Color: Red
Minimum Victory Level: Conquest

Scenario: Let's pound some dirt. Boots on the ground. Knock some heads. Mix it up.

Ten turns per player. 24 hours Got It, up to 48 hours to play and post.


ROSTER:

Sirian
Charis
??
??
??
??

Veteran players welcome, but a special invitation is extended to new or inexperienced players.

Apply now!


- Sirian

http://www.dualelement.com/games/MasterofO...rion/moofaq.txt

hit control-f and type in 6.0 Tables, or 6.0 for the lazy folk. That'll direct you to tables and charts of hard-numbers in MOO.

The most notably useful table is "6.2.2 Shield Protection" which shows: "Planet shield level where weapons cease to affect" and ditto for Ship shield level. Next down the list is weapon damage per space vs shield level. All useful data for those interested.

Well, I hope others link hard data here too. Have fun pouring over math guys!

I noticed in Charis' response to Bam-Bam's report that the new players want help/information/AARs to help and/or describe certain elements of the game.

As I feel comfortable back in the saddle with MOO I was thinking of doing a AAR on a casual game, but before I did so I was wondering if there was anything in particular that the new players wanted me to focus on in the game. It will probably be a Hard/Large to give me more time to focus on teh desired topics. I'm not an expert player, but Sirian's early management school (from his AARs) has benefitted my game immensly and I feel comfortable enough to share my game play with others.

This thread can thus be used for request for my game (and I'll post my game over the weekend), and possibly other players like Sirian, Bam-Bam and the rest who have more experience than me can pop by and pick up ideas for new AARs as well.

My initial idea was to do a game focuing on espionage and defense after my extremely successful game last night, but I'm up for anything.

"The hardest thing in the world to understand is income tax."
--Albert Einstein

Considering April 15th is exactly a week away... ;-)

For a look into how the galaxy's ground pounders, the Bulrathi, play, have a read of my first solo game report Da Bears! over at my website.

Fun game, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed playing it. Now on to Imperium 1.

Several players have asked for help and advice figuring out the combat, the ship design, the military element. There's a reason I've been unable to help much with that. If you believe you need help in this area, perhaps I can finally be of some use. The best way to teach about combat in Master of Orion may be to show you some real combat and explain what is going on and why. Not a perfect solution, I admit, but even if it doesn't meet all of your inquisitive needs, you should at least have a good time reading.

Two of my previous reports have taken place on huge maps, and none on a small map. Larger maps mean more cushion between player and opponents. Contact comes later. Conflict comes later. So let me take you on a ride through a small map. Caution: not for the timid!

Bring It On!


- Sirian