So, you think you're good at MoO

[Smegged]

The actual reason I set up this game was because I seemed to remember having some problems with telling the yellow and green apart (I'm red/green colourblind). I knew that I picked one of the two colours . I was going to make a request that we never use yellow or green colouring in the imperiums if I could not tell the difference easily enough. Fortunately I didn't have a problem.

-Smegged

[Zed-F]

Well, I had to go considerably farther into the game than Sirian did in order to get my win, but it eventually did happen. I was well on my way to a domination or conquest victory, didn't get the opportunity to settle it quickly, as the humans stayed relatively friendly with most folks throughout, except when I convinced them to join a war on my side...

Game plan: Skip tech until I get my homeworld completely developed. Homeworld is responsible for colony ships, initial colony responsible for research and populating the universe. I plan to colonize everything in sight, and catch up on tech later.

Capsule synopsis:

• Like Sirian, I was the first to 8 planets. By the second vote, I had 1/3 of the galactic pop, so no worries from then on out, though I was never in a position to win an election until much later.
  
• Early on, the Alkari founded an outreach colony through a temporary alliance with the Humans which had since expired. The Alkari quickly declared war on me, so I convinced the Humans to fight a proxy war for me against the Alkari and then sent in the troops. Bye-bye Alkari, see you when one of us gets range 9 tech or so...
  
• I expand peacefully for a good long time, eventually building up a substantial lead in production, though I'm still way behind in tech. It appears I'm the only one with Robotic Controls III.
  
• Eventually the Klackons declare war. I have Scatter-pack equipped bases and am unafraid of their small fighters. I also get Class V planetary shields for total immunity. I start spying on the Klackons and convince the Humans to declare war on them, but otherwise ignore them as I don't have anything particularily useful to hit their shielded bases with.
  
• Subsquently the Darloks (3CC) declare war. They don't have good shields, so nuclear bombs are still effective. I take one good sized planet from them, then the Psilons blow up Nazin, so I leave them alone after that. The Psilons eventually wipe them out.
  
• Eventually I get Hercular missiles; I didn't get a decent bomb in my tree until Neutronium, and it appears no-one else did either -- at least I couldn't trade for one. Anyway, Hercular is good enough for base busting. I build a shwack of medium ships with single 2-shot missiles (pretty much all that will fit) and prepare to start inflicting major pain on the Klacks. However, the vote intervenes, and the Humans and Psilons finally decide they like me better than the Klackons. I had about half the votes by myself, and this is enough toput me over the top.

All in all, fairly straightforward. No runaway Psilons this time.

[T_McC]

Odd.

When Sirian posted initial contact with the Humans, I thought the punchline was something that just happened to me in a game I played as the Meklars. The player has a good land-grab, but only one contact. Then the first vote is called, and you and your only contact are nominated ... and all of the races you never even met vote for your opponent, winning him the game.

The "promiscuous" alliances the AI form early in the game can occasionally bite the player on the butt. I'm not sure you can pay a race off to attack a race you haven't even met, so every now and then a good land-grab is the "perfect" losing strategy.

Of course, it works the other way too. One of the least-satisfying wins I ever had was the first Hard game I played as the Humans (yes, I remember this from ~11 years ago). I only met one race, and that was my opponent in the election ... and all the un-met races voted for me! Even better, all 6 races had the same # of votes, so I had 2/3 without voting for myself. :laugh:

That one game has made me play the Humans less than other races.

[Sirian]

In my game, I met the humans at about the same time that you did.

Are you sure? "About" the same time might mean a difference of as many as ten turns. Even five could make a difference.

It's possible that MOO that has as much swing in the combination of AI behavior and rising and falling of AI's as Civ3 does. That would be a minor disappointment from the tourney point of view -- I'm hoping that's not the case, or if so, that it's less of an effect than in Civ3. We'll have to see how it plays out.

One possibility is that if one game, civs send their ships to these planets, but in another player's game, same map, the player has blockades at some of those planets, or has settled them in a different order or timeframe, it MAY lead the AI to send ships to different planets.

Certainly AI's can end up at war if one founds a colony, another sends a ship that ends up in orbit at the new colony, parks there and sends transports to attack. That would cause a war between the AI's, and it is one IMMENSELY POSITIVE effect of the "early game temporary alliances" the AI's form between one another, that while allied, no such attacks would be launched, any transports that were sent will die in space upon arrival (if the alliance holds) and a lot fewer early wars start between AI's "by accident" of the timing of how the AI's are competing for disputable territory.

For all I know, that may even be the PURPOSE of those early alliances: a bit of a kludge solution that keeps AI's working within the vital rules of the game system but gives them a shortcut to reduce a negative side effect of luck. If that was not the intent, it is surely, in part, the effect.

Also, generally, early wars are unable to wipe anybody out, and all civs are on fairly equal footing in sending transport groups back and forth to hot potatoes.

I really don't know how the humans got so far ahead in your game.

Well we now also have Zed's game to look at, and he did not experience a runaway Psilon either.

I'm fairly confident that terrain plays the lion's role in the fortunes of empires. Looking at the terrain, the Humans and Mrrshans had the best available. Psilons had Darloks up in their area. So I would think if many games were played, a lot more would lean toward how it went in my game than in yours. The real question is, how much of the difference is purely luck based, random rolls deciding important events, and how much turns on player activity impacting AI choices. I suspect we'll have a decently valid impression on this after a few tourney games, but it may take a dozen to pin down enough data to draw reliable conclusions.


- Sirian

[Erick the Red]

I also tried this game and lost in a planetary vote. I'm very bad at managing the diplomatic situation, and I'd like to ask for some general advice in that regard, but first a brief summary.

First of all, I'm confused as I find that there was a colony in range 3 when I open up the game. I have a different approach to early game management as Sirian - I send more troops to the second colony, and only build my home planet up to around 160 factories before starting on colony ships. I send population to newly colonized worlds from both my planets. This results in a delay getting the home planet to max, but my first colonies are founded earlier and get a lot of factories built earlier as well. In exchange my last colony ships come out later. Some time I will compare openings and see how much I lose out by not following Sirians lead

In any case, I grab a lot of territory. The Psilons colonize one of the planets that Sirian mentioned that he ceded. I get the other (Bootis) and the humans contest it. An event causes it to shift to mineral poor, so now my missile base won't complete in time to chase the humans away, and I cede the planet. Relations stay calm with the humans and I turn to building.

Once I see that I have access to waste reduction, terraforming, robotic controls, missiles, and fast engines as well as a boatload of planets, I'm wondering what is hard about this game. Then I get cocky. The psilons are slightly ahead of the humans in territory, and about equal to me in population. They colonized 8 worlds first, and in the first vote many races vote for the Psilons, while the humans abstain. No one has been at war with anyone else.

Once I finish researching missiles and I think sub light drives, I see that I'm in a position to attack the humans and claim some territory. I manufacture many large missile ships, and can easily defeat any human fleet. I take Bootis and am starting on the next planet, when the humans research Planetary Shield X. Uh oh, they will be immune to my damage 15 missiles once they get them up.

Meanwhile the Klackons delclare war on me. There fleets are no threat to me, but soon another vote is held, and everyone votes for the Psilons.

When I attacked the humans I remember thinking to myself that I was asking for trouble since while the humans and psilons were not in an alliance, they each had alliances with other races, but I was in such a strong military position at the time that I would flex my muscles and hope for the best. Ok, that is pretty sloppy thinking, but can you give me advice on how better to handle the situation?

If I could get any other race to ally with me, I would have been safe in the planetary vote, but they rejected my alliance offers. If there had been a war, I could have tried to make a friend by attacking one of the warring parties. Should I have waited for a war to break out naturally? Trying espionage and hoping to frame a third party seemed very risky. I assumed that I could not get the Klackons to break their alliance with the humans and declare war just by asking.

[Zed-F]

Originally posted by Erick the Red@Apr 16 2004, 12:56 PM
I assumed that I could not get the Klackons to break their alliance with the humans and declare war just by asking.

Actually, you'd be surprised how easy it can be to get a race to declare war on another race. They won't declare on someone they are allied with easily, but oftentimes it's not hard to convince an AI to go to war with another AI, especially if they are feeling squeezed. Sometimes they just need a bit of coaxing, and they'll say, "you know, that doesn't sound like such a bad idea!" Usually you'll have more trouble getting a weaker race to declare war on a stronger one, than getting a stronger race to declare war on an equal or lesser one. I think the game uses the Total Power meter for this, but races with higher fleet strength ratings might be more inclined to be more aggressive.

Once you start a war going, oftentimes the alliances start to fall like dominoes shortly thereafter, and the whole galaxy devolves into a massive barfight. Partly this is due to AIs contesting who gets to remain in orbit over or capture planet X, and partly this is due to AI-AI diplomacy going on behind the scenes.

In your position, I would have tried to stir up trouble between the Humans and the other AIs when I saw the results of the first vote. That way, when the next vote came around, either (I) the alliances would all be gone and it would be a free-for-all, or (II) you could at least get some of the AIs on your side by attacking one of their enemies.

[Erick the Red]

Thanks, this is exactly the sort of advice I was looking for.

I have a save game at the point where I had claimed my planets but not finished building them up. I will load that tonight and see how difficult it is to stir up the trouble. I'll first try asking at every opportunity, then gifting technology to see if that helps. It's pretty clear that I'm not getting enough mileage out of the diplomacy screen. I'm fairly confident that I could have managed it if there were some existing wars, but I didn't know how to get them to start.

I wonder if I just don't know the tools, or if it's just plain harder to manipulate these AI's than in more recent games.

[DaveV]

A propos of diplomatic maneuvering: I won my game by manipulating the AIs, although the wretched erratic Klackons messed me up in two elections. Here's my log:

2330 Dolz colonized, Deuterium Fuel Cells researched.
2339 Psilon colony ship chased away from Rotan. Tao colonized.
2345 Human Gunboat chases my Scout 2 away from Rotan. I send him back; the Humans have left.
2346 Darlok scout chased away from ; Escalon colonized. Contact with Humans, set up 25 BC trade.
2347 Fleet strengths: Darlok, Human, Alkari, Psilon, Klackon, Mrrshan.
2352 Paladia colonized. Sign a non-aggression pact with the Humans (they have already allied with Darloks and Alkaris, so I need to pump up our relationship).
2355 Maretta colonized.
2356 My scout chases away a Psilon colony ship at Paranar. Morrig (Psilons) depleted. Dolz restarts research.
2358 Klackons chase my scout away from Omicron. Contact with Klackons, they agree to 25 BC trade. A quick check of the Humans shows they've cancelled their alliances.
2359 Humans colonize Protus under my scout. Humans refuse to cancel alliance with Psilons.
2360 Vox colonized. Newsdroid says: I control 8 systems.
2362 Newsdroid gives census rankings: Psilon, Mrrshan, Human, Klackon, Darlok, Alkari. Humans refuse to cancel alliance with Psilons.
2363 Bootis colonized.
2364 Humans colony ship arrives at Bootis. Klackons offer to increase trade to 100 BC, I agree.
2365 Humans are sending 15 transports from Proteus to Bootis; I'm sending 24 from Escalon. Humans refuse to cancel alliance with Darloks, but at least they're not allied with the Psilons any more.
2366 Nordia colonized, Humans colonize Zoctan. Humans invade Bootis; 9 of my defenders survive (the Humans have Hand Lasers). They will probably win on their next invasion. Oh well, I didn't expect to hold all these worlds anyway...
2367 Vega colonized. Human colony ship moves away from Bootis; maybe they'll let me stay there after all!
2370 Humans increase trade to 175 BC, agree to cancel alliance with Psilons .
2375 Humans agree to cancel alliance with Alkaris. Phyco colonized.
2376 Humans refuse to cancel alliance with Darloks. Alkaris colonize Crypto, establish contact, refuse to trade.
2377 ECM 1 researched.
2378 Humans agree to cancel alliance with Darloks, declare war on Alkaris. Hand Lasers stolen from Klackons. Lyae colonized.
2379 Simius, Romulas colonized; Alkaris colonize Galos. Galactic council: Alkaris (3) abstain, Klackons (5) abstain, Darloks (3) abstain, Psilons (6) themselves, Humans (6) me, Me (7) Psilons. I have 15 planets.

2380 Alkaris are now allied with Psilons, both at war with Humans. Humans agree to increase trade to 250 BC.
2381 Battle Computer 3 stolen from Klackons, they issue a threat. Alkaris refuse to trade.
2383 Hyper-V Rockets researched. Alkaris declare war.
2385 Newsdroid gives census rankings: Mrrshan, Human, Psilon, Klackon, Alkari, Darlok.
2389 Class 2 Shields researched.
2390 Deep Space Scanner stolen from Klackons. Improved Eco Restoration researched.
2391 Humans increase trade to 350 BC.
2395 Controlled Tundra Environment stolen from Klackons. Reduced Industrial Waste 80% researched. Aurora (Alkari) is about to go supernova .
2396 Alkaris refuse peace treaty; Humans trade Terraforming +10 for Controlled Tundra.
2398 Klackons declare war. Bad timing .
2400 High Council: Alkaris (4) Humans, Klackons (5) Humans, Darloks (3) me, Psilons (6) me, Humans (9) themselves, me (12) abstain.
2403 ECM Jammer 2 researched.
2404 Alkaris offer peace, I accept. Humans agree to increase trade to 550 BC.
2405 Aurora goes super nova.
2406 Alkaris refuse to trade, Klackons refuse peace, diplomat gone.
2307 Klackons colonize Gienah. Irridium Fuel Cells researched.
2309 Improved Space Scanner stolen from Klackons.
2410 Humans colonize Aquilae.
2411 Alkaris refuse to trade, Klackons refuse peace, diplomat gone.
2413 Humans agree to declare war on Alkaris.
2414 Altair (Alkaris) gets comet event. This isn't their game...
2415 ECM Jammer 4 stolen from Klackons.
2417 Terraforming +20 researched.
2418 Alkaris declare war . Humans trade Hyper-X rockets for Ion Cannon, increase trade to 775 BC.
2419 Class 3 Shields stolen from Klackons. Unknown spy destroys 13 factories on Fieras. Colony ship built on Guradas (oops); scrap it.
2420 Contact with Psilons; they agree to trade.
2424 Gatling Laser stolen from Klackons. Unknown spy destroys 4 factories on Tao. Give 750 BC tribute to Klackons, they still refuse peace .
2425 Class 4 Shields stolen from Klackons. High Council: Alkaris (5) Humans, Klackons (6) Humans, Darloks (2) me, Psilons (6) me, Humans (9) themselves, me (15) abstain. Immediately after council, Klackons arrive with an offer of peace. Arrrgh!!!
2426 Comet destroys Altair. Tough luck for them. Klackons issue a threat about the scouts I keep sending to
Gienah.
2427 Battle Computer 2 stolen from Alkaris. Personal Deflector Shield stolen from Klackons. Duralloy Armor researched.
2429 Humans agree to declare war on Psilons, raise trade to 875 BC. Darloks have a colony ship on the way to Maalor; I build some ships to try to hold them off.
2430 Robotic Controls 3 researched.
2431 Sub-Light Drives, Scatter Pack V researched. Psilons ask to increase trade to 300 BC, I agree. Psilons agree to non-agression pact.
2432 Industrial tech 9 stolen from Alkaris.
2433 Battle Suits stolen from Alkaris.
2435 Humans agree to declare war on Alkaris.
2436 My ships retreat from Maalor (the Psilons have a colony ship on the way), go after Alkari colony ship at Argus. Zortrium Armor stolen from Klackons. Humans agree to declare war on Darloks.
2437 Darloks agree to trade 40 BC.
2439 I chase the Darloks away from Argus, contact with Darloks lost (so they can't frame me :D).
2440 Psilons say: "Continue to expand and it will be war". You're the one doing the expanding, brainy! Same threat from the Humans. Uh-oh. Alkaris refuse peace.
2442 Psilons establish a colony at Argus. Humans agree to declare war on Alkaris, for the steep price of Robotic Controls 3.
2443 Enhanced Eco Restoration researched. Alkaris refuse peace.
2445 Controlled Barren Environment stolen from Alkaris.
2446 I gift Controlled Tundra Environment to the Alkaris, they give an attaboy and refuse peace .
2447 Controlled Dead Environment stolen from Alkaris. Class V planetary Shield researched. Psilons and Humans have slipped to Neutral .
2448 Controlled Inferno Environment stolen from Klackons. Inertial Stabilizer researched. Psilons give an attaboy for trade.
2449 Automated Repair System researched. I gift Enhanced Eco Restoration to the Alkaris, they give an attaboy and refuse peace . I gift Hyper-X Rockets, they give an attaboy and refuse peace . I gift Hand Lasers, they give an attaboy and refuse peace . Diplomat gone. At least they're up to Neutral now...
2450 High Council: Alkaris (4) Humans, Klackons (5) me, Darloks (3) me, Psilons (9) me, Humans (11) themselves, me (15) me. Game over.

[Smegged]

So far it looks like of all results posted, mine was the only game in which the Psilons grew massive. Heck, in some of the games the humans managed to stay out of any wars at all in the early game. In my game, when I met them, the humans were at war with everyone, and continued to squable with me over the Steppe planet (which developed into a war when I settled it, sent colonists, then they glassed it before my defenses were in place, settled it themselves and my troops landed). The thing that I found so odd about this game was that it was the humans who had gotten themselves into all the early wars, which is so very out of character (when they are honourable especially).

How much of this was due to the same assassination event that I saw in my game (humans assassinate alkari), and how much was due to other factors we will probably never know.

-Smegged

[Drasca]

... You really live up to your name. You have a strange way of calling up Murphy and dialing up funky situations.