Battle at Antares! (Let´s play Master of Orion II)

[Zid]

It´s a shame that the Master of Orion franschise was destroyed by Master of Orion 3, perhaps one of the worst games in the history of bad games. Before that, Microprose made Master of Orion II (MOO2), the best strategy game I´ve ever played. I found my old MOO2 cd and decided I have to share this masterpiece with all of you.

MOO2 is a standard space 4X strategy game.



The interface allows us to choose what kind of game start we should have.



Difficulty:
Easy
Medium
Hard
Impossible.

I would prefer hard here. I have beaten impossible, but it allows for very few mistakes

Galaxy size:
Tiny
Small
Medium
Large
Huge

Take your pick.

Galaxy age:
Young
Average
Old.

This affects how many habitable planets there are, number of nebulas and so on.

Number of players:

The more the merrier, I say. 8, the highest number of opponents.

Tech Level:

Pre warp- You have to research a number of techs to be able to build spaceships.

Normal- You start with a scout and a colony ship, and Tier 1 techs researched

Advanced: More tech, more colonies

Then, we have a few Yes/no selections. I´ve already decided how they should be toggled, and will leave it for you to find out during the LP.

Next, the most important choice: Choosing the race and empire. There are thirteen races in MOO2.


First, the Alkari. Birdlike superior pilots, able to dodge incoming fire. Their homeworld increases research conducted there.



Next, the Melkar. These cybernetic beings are increadibly skilled industrial workers, able to build much higher speeds than other empires.



The Bulrati have lived on a planet with much higher gravity than normal. They have the strongest ground troops, and a bonus to hit in ship to ship combat.



The Mrrshan are descended from hunter cats. They have a very large bonus to attack in ship to ship combat, and can field larger fleets than other empires, but due to their feudal society, they have a penalty to research.



The Darlock are master spies who can cloak their ships.



The Psilon live on a low gravity world. They are penalised on normal and high gravity, but are master researchers. They also have the creative trait, allowing them ALL techs in a tech area, instead of having to choose one. Very strong in the endgame.


The Elerians are a matriachal feudal society. They are telepathic, and can take over other peoples planets by mind control. They are also skilled pilots, but suffer the same feudal penalties as the Mrrsans.


The Sakkra are also feudal (Lizards lords ftw?) They are subterran, and increase the number of population that can live on a planet. They also produce lots and lots of food, freeing up pop to do other things, like building warships.


The Gnolam are master traders, earn lots and lots of cash from their own pop, and don´t suffer from bad events as often as other races. They also come from a low gravity world.


The Silicoid the only race that isn´t carbon based, instead using.... you guessed it, Silicon! They can live on all planets from the start, but suffer from low pop growth, and the fact that everyone else hates them. A lot.


The Humans, beside from being very generic, are extremly... shady persuasive. They are the only democracy in the game, giving them a large bonus to research.


The Triliarians are a transdimensional race, increasing their speed in interstellar travel. They are also aquatic. I´ve honestly forgotten what it´s good for.


The klackorns are the generic hive creatures. These insectiods (I for one, welcome them) prodce food (sugar?) and industry at very high rates. They are uncreative, and when they research tech they can´t choose what they get. Somewhat of a gamble.


Of course, you can also make your own race, choosing from all the bonuses and penalties above.

So, choose who we are going to play, and choose well.

Also, I am recruiting. I need all sorts of ministers, pilots, admirals and space hydra food scouts. Sign up below!

[Tavar]

I vote for a hard, Gigantic, 8-player, prewarp, average galaxy. As for race, real men use Customs.

[multilis]

At hardest levels it was often best to assimilate a more productive race (eg Sakkra or Silicoids) and breed them for many of your planets.

One of the strange highlights of the game was random Antarian attacks, supposedly something bad, but we could never get enough of them. Each attack was like "Yippie, another chance to steal advanced alien tech!"

In the end we competed for smallest ship or fleet that could take out the Antarian homeworld for the win, I think we had it down to a single cruiser.

[Zid]

As for race, real men use Customs.

Real men use Gnolam. Or Mrrshans.

[Kish]

They are also aquatic. I´ve honestly forgotten what it´s good for.

Homeworld is Ocean-class. Ocean-class worlds, and Terran ones too...I think that's all (besides the actual Gaia-class worlds, of course)...count as Gaia-class for them, and a few other levels count as Terran for them.

I vote for Huge and "anything but humans," though I normally base my custom races on the Mrrshan portrait myself.

[Eldariel]

I vote for Impossible, Huge, Organic Rich, 8 players, Pre-Warp, all on. With the forum playing with you, Impossible is nothing!


For race, I vote Custom. Standard Unification/Tolerant/+Production (Elerian image, or maybe Klackon) or Democracy/Lithovore/+BC (Psilon image, or maybe Silicoid) would make for a strong build to match the computers. Uni/Tole just expands like all hell, abuses the population capacity increase of Tolerant and has infinite production (and no pollution!). Demovores, on the other hand, can just cram everyone to research and buy things when half-way through.

Something more interesting could be tried, but that's gonna make life hard for ye, especially depending on your technical level. For example, a Charismatic Spy-race could make for a fun option, but that's gonna be hugely dependent on finding people to leech off fast and having strong enough production to avoid hostile reactions. Some sort of a Hive could be fun with Subterranean, Aquatic, Pop Growth + Unification or something of the sort.

I find custom to offer the more interesting options. Some sort of Beam Race with Space Attack-bonuses and quick research to Lasers with all upgrades could also be interesting. Though I'm personally really enamored by the idea of trying to capture an Antaran vessel ASAP with a heavy dose of Assault Shuttles; their Quantum Detonators make it hard, but if you can get one and reverse engineer some tech outta it, life is good.


By the way, Aquatic means they treat Ocean and Terran as Gaia and Swamp and...some other demi-wet environment as Terran. Or something. Basically, improves the amount of people you can have. Which is good.

[pendell]

I'll sign on as Admiral. I've read a lot of HH novels and have completed all the Homeworld games.

My votes are : Pre-tech, Huge, old, Terran. Hey, I'm a speciesist.

If I can't have Terran, I vote Psilon. As a veteran Civ player, I GREATLY RESPECT better research capability.

Alternatively, can we custom-make WH40K Orcs? WAAAAAGH!

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Winterwind]

My vote goes for Pre-Warp, Huge, Standard, 8 Races, Impossible.

As for the species, my vote depends on what the difficulty actually ends up being. If it ends up being only Hard (or easier), I'd prefer to make up for the lesser difficulty with playing a default race (as they are all much, much weaker than the monstrosities one can create by Custom); if it ends up as Impossible, I vote for a powerful Custom race.

As for the specifics of the Custom race, I'm of the firm opinion that in almost all situation, Industry races are vastly superior to all alternatives and, due to the much larger number of worlds and quicker population growth, actually end up researching much faster than a Science race ever could.

Unification/Industry+2/Subterranean/RichHomeworld/Low-G/Spying-10/GroundCombat-10
would be one nasty piece of work; swapping Industry+2 for Industry+1 and Charismatic would be another strong variant (I think Charismatic is quite possibly the single strongest pick in the game, point for point, as the treaties and traded technologies provide a significant boost to economy and science as well as decreasing the risk of a multi-front-war, enabling one to conquer the other empires one by one, and most importantly it provides a good chance of getting truly strong leaders early on - and getting Autolabs or the improved government form with one of the first leaders easily provides a bigger boost than most other racial traits ever could hope to).

[Eldariel]

As for the specifics of the Custom race, I'm of the firm opinion that in almost all situation, Industry races are vastly superior to all alternatives and, due to the much larger number of worlds and quicker population growth, actually end up researching much faster than a Science race ever could.

That...depends, actually. If there's a monster world nearby, Science Race can keep up quite well (with their ability to comparatively launch Missile Boat much earlier), while if you're stuck with weak stars to colonize, Production race rocks, especially one built to last (though if all your worlds are Average or worse with maintenance, Demovores of course pull ahead since they can colonize anything thanks to Lithovore). The real key to both is having population boosters (and the proper use of Housing).

But I must point out that Uni/Tol is stronger than Uni/Sub in many cases since Tolerant "enables" ignoring normal population restrictions getting you more people all the way up until Androids (though your guys are better), or Gaea Transformation itself. That, and it's extremely resilient even with weak opening planets, and the obvious utility of having no pollution with Uni Prod+1.


All that said I'm not sure pure strength should be the goal here; after all, it's against only AI, and seems we've got a rather experienced President/Hive Queen at works here. With our combined leadership, surely we can overcome slight handicap in the race optimality? But if going for optimal, I vote Uni/Tol/Prod+1/Large/Rep (that's not very interesting for a Let's Play though, even if it's fairly strong)/Ground-10/ShipD-20

[The_JJ]

Hard Huge Young 8 pre-Warp Custom.

[Winterwind]

That...depends, actually. If there's a monster world nearby, Science Race can keep up quite well (with their ability to comparatively launch Missile Boat much earlier), while if you're stuck with weak stars to colonize, Production race rocks, especially one built to last (though if all your worlds are Average or worse with maintenance, Demovores of course pull ahead since they can colonize anything thanks to Lithovore). The real key to both is having population boosters (and the proper use of Housing).

Though if you manage to conquer the homeworld (or other moderately large Terran/Gaia type world) of a race with bonuses to food production early on, you can colonise everything no matter if you have Lithovore or not.

But I must point out that Uni/Tol is stronger than Uni/Sub in many cases since Tolerant "enables" ignoring normal population restrictions getting you more people all the way up until Androids (though your guys are better), or Gaea Transformation itself. That, and it's extremely resilient even with weak opening planets, and the obvious utility of having no pollution with Uni Prod+1.

That's quite true. I admittedly have a slight irrational aversion to picks that get completely obsoleted by tech (as Tolerant does), but yes, the boost provided by Tolerant is truly awe-inspiring.

All that said I'm not sure pure strength should be the goal here; after all, it's against only AI, and seems we've got a rather experienced President/Hive Queen at works here. With our combined leadership, surely we can overcome slight handicap in the race optimality? But if going for optimal, I vote Uni/Tol/Prod+1/Large/Rep (that's not very interesting for a Let's Play though, even if it's fairly strong)/Ground-10/ShipD-20

True enough.

Though as far as optimal is concerned, against the AI anything involving a combination of Charismatic and Telepathic (ideally with something that gives you more population, like Subterranean and Industry for quicker colonisation and housing) is quite possibly even better than all science and industry races could ever be, because it subjugates the galaxy by making the other races give you their empires one planet after the other as gifts, and has everyone who is not Repulsive vote for you at the elections - with the upper combo, I have won Huge/Impossible/8Races games within less than 150 turns several times.

It would probably be rather boring for an LP though.

[Tengu_temp]

Difficulty: Impossible
Size: Huge
Age: Average
Tech level: Normal (why is everyone in love with Pre-Warp?)
Race: Custom with Democracy, Creative (my inner completionist cringes without that ability), as much +Industry as possible, Large and/or Rich Homeworld and penalties to land combat and spying.

[Prowl]

Oh I wish I knew where my old MOO2 CD went off to... I lost track of it about the time I got MOO3, and boy did I live to regret that.

[LurkerInPlayground]

Research +1, Democracy and Creativity.

Yes, it's probably newbish as hell, but it's also very, very fun to steamroll your enemies with godly powerful tech.

Science races are a bit slow to start, but they're more than capable of turtling on a few worlds before hitting their full stride. They definitely get more per world/ship in the long-run than any other race.

[Douglas]

Yes, it's probably newbish as hell, but it's also very, very fun to steamroll your enemies with godly powerful tech.

It's especially fun when you're outnumbered by a whole galaxy. Impossible, Huge, Pre-warp, never expand beyond your homeworld. Turtle up, develop your homeworld to the absolute limit the game allows, research everything, and go on a rampage. It's rather amusing watching a single doom star wipe out armadas of dozens of doom stars while you gradually destroy the galaxy with stellar converters.

[Krade]

Man I haven't played this in a while. I always loved making a doomstar with a couple hundred rapid-fire, shield piercing phasors, achilles targetting unit, the thing that lets a ship move twice, and a few other things I can't remember the names of. It was basically the ultimate ship-to-ship combatant. It could easily destroy any fleet the computer will send at you single handedly. Then make around 700-800 of them in the span of a year.

Also, after I finished my researching, I would always replace my entire population with android workers.

[Winterwind]

I have to say, I would prefer this greatly to go without Creative. Not because I think it sucks (which I do - it costs extremely many points for a benefit that is actually far smaller than it might seem, as one can get most useful technologies by other means if the need be, while being that much more effective thanks to saving all those points), but because I think the game (and, by extension, this LP) is a lot more interesting when one has to make decisions which technologies to get and which ones to skip, and has to actually employ other means than just ordinary science to appease that inner completionist (whom I, too, know all too well). Diplomacy and spying become that much more worthwhile if one does not use Creative.

For a similar reason I would vote against Lithovoric, too, by the way. Everything that takes an entire aspect of the game out of the game makes it poorer, more boring and would therefore, in my humble opinion, be detrimental in an LP.

[Eldariel]

It's especially fun when you're outnumbered by a whole galaxy. Impossible, Huge, Pre-warp, never expand beyond your homeworld. Turtle up, develop your homeworld to the absolute limit the game allows, research everything, and go on a rampage. It's rather amusing watching a single doom star wipe out armadas of dozens of doom stars while you gradually destroy the galaxy with stellar converters.

It's fun to tech deep into Future Techs, then pack a Doomstar with Phasing Cloak, Time Warp Facilitator, High Energy Focus, Hyper-X Capacitors and Achilles Targeting Unit full of Autofire Disruptors with a skilled Gunnery-captain and watch it oneshot enemy's entire navy.

Other is making a Tank with Heavy Shields, Multiphased Shields, Shield Capacitor, Heavy Armor, Reinforced Hull, Automated Repair Unit & Energy Absorption Field and go to town. Alternatively, Damper Field over Shields releasing spots for Displacing Device, Inertial Nullifier, etc. But that makes it horribly vulnerable to Transporters, Plasmas and Stellar Converters. Either way, having one ship solo entire armadas is lots of fun. Buut, that all requires quite a bit of tech.


That said, I think a "standard" game would be more interesting than a challenge-style "no expansion" or similar.

[Smight]

It's fun to tech deep into Future Techs, then pack a Doomstar with Phasing Cloak, Time Warp Facilitator, High Energy Focus, Hyper-X Capacitors and Achilles Targeting Unit full of Autofire Disruptors with a skilled Gunnery-captain and watch it oneshot enemy's entire navy.

Mother of all cheese builds , you can't destroy what you can't fire on, only way to destroy this ship is suicide bomb it whit your auto destruct,
(well, that is of course if you know how to properly abuse this build)

[Eldariel]

Mother of all cheese builds , you can't destroy what you can't fire on, only way to destroy this ship is suicide bomb it whit your auto destruct,
(well, that is of course if you know how to properly abuse this build)

Actually, if you have your own Phase Cloak, you can both just sit there for 10 turns. That's really exciting, let me tell ya Though I think they altered the combo so that opp might have a turn in-between. But yeah, it's pretty crahzy.

[Johnny Blade]

Play on Hard, I say. Means you don't have to powergame your way to victory and can make more...interesting decisions.

Oh, and I vote for Darlocks.

[Oslecamo]

Don't know much about the game, but I'll join this crew!

And yes, I'm still working in my LP, but missions are getting bigger and bigger so harder to make the videos and comment.

Vote for trying to make an Ork race, and maximum everything on settings.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Go with a Demo/Lith build. Repulsive makes for wonderful roleplay about how disguisting those "pretty races" are. Gives a good excuse to wipe them out. Also gigantic size so we can get some good play time.

[Zid]

It seems all we can agree on is a huge galaxy, then. I´ve always seen a let´s play as a chance to show off as much of a game as possible. Just abusing one tactic seems boring to watch. Perhaps a custom Darlok variant. I´ll think, and start it up later (within a few hours). This is your last chance to give input!

[Johnny Blade]

Uhm...well, how about the following for input: ignore each and every vote on galaxy size and number of enemies. Instead, ask yourself how much you want to write for each step in the game. How much you want to explain, how much stuff you want to write in-character (in case you have one character), and so on. And then decide what size/number you have a good feeling about. I mean, if that ends up being the maximum in both cases, I'm all for it, but really, that's something I'd never let the audience decide.

[psilontech]

Lets play the Borg!

Impossible, Huge, Average, Average. Antarans on, tactical combat on.

Uni/Repulsive/Telepathic/-1/2 Food/Cyber/+1 Prod

Tech up to Assault Shuttles and their ships turn against them right before their planet is assimilated!
Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha!

[chiasaur11]

Uhm...well, how about the following for input: ignore each and every vote on galaxy size and number of enemies. Instead, ask yourself how much you want to write for each step in the game. How much you want to explain, how much stuff you want to write in-character (in case you have one character), and so on. And then decide what size/number you have a good feeling about. I mean, if that ends up being the maximum in both cases, I'm all for it, but really, that's something I'd never let the audience decide.

He's being all clever-like here. Listen to him.

[Dexam]

I have to say, I would prefer this greatly to go without Creative. Not because I think it sucks (which I do - it costs extremely many points for a benefit that is actually far smaller than it might seem, as one can get most useful technologies by other means if the need be, while being that much more effective thanks to saving all those points), but because I think the game (and, by extension, this LP) is a lot more interesting when one has to make decisions which technologies to get and which ones to skip, and has to actually employ other means than just ordinary science to appease that inner completionist (whom I, too, know all too well). Diplomacy and spying become that much more worthwhile if one does not use Creative.

I agree completely with this. In fact, about half the time I used to play Klackons because the random research of Uncreative made it more challenging and interesting. When you are forced to work with what you're randomly given, and have to get new tech through spying/diplomacy/capture/intimidation the game can go in some rather unusual and interesting directions.

[Eldariel]

Sounds fair. Then I suggest some rounded-out race. As stated, we don't need as much mechanical power since we are:
A) Against AI
B) Playing a Let's Play

By the way, I trust you're using v 1.40b23? It's an unofficial patch, but fixes a slew of bugs and rebalances some of the racial picks and so on. In particular, it makes Uncreative -10 (which it should be) offering you a very interesting option in picking Uncreative and then trying to compensate for the randomness with good trades and conquest and spying. Then there's stuff like -.5 money, -20 Ship Defense and such. It also makes computer races somewhat more interesting (and is a compatibility basis for Difficult Choices and Very Difficult Choices-mods, but not going there right now; those would be interesting, but you clearly want vanilla MoO2 here).


I think a bunch of combination picks would then make for an interesting game. Telepathic could be good, except removing ground combat from the equation can be a bit annoying. Of course, nothing stops you from doing ground combat; it just becomes a waste of fleet cap.

Still, getting diplomatic bonuses, Spying-bonuses & mind control from one pick is really nice. Meh, I'd probably go for some combination of Heavy G Homeworld, Subterranean, Democracy (Unification ignores morale), +Spying, +Production. This gets you bits of bonuses to everything without being a total trainwreck; you get extra money (Demo), extra Science (Demo), extra Spying (Yeah), Ground Combat (Heavy G) and have the basic production bonuses. Maybe toss out Heavy G for Cybernetic + Ground Combat Bonus (this is all according to 1.40b23 pick costs; most of this stuff is more expensive in 1.31 hence why I mentioned 1.40 first).


But yeah, that'd lose out on nothing and gain a bunch of interesting bonuses (not to mention, the perfect slavemaster race since your only real racial bonuses are Subterranean and +Production, meaning other races with more "citizen upgrades" make for nice subordinates...that and the fact that you're Heavy G meaning you can "purchase" lower G people to work some planets you'd normally be unable to utilize before Gravity Gens; try to get one planet from each computer and found a real Galactic Federation with all races mixed (thanks to Subterranean, you'll fit where most won't)). Thanks to Impossible (provided you don't retcon into Hard), AI races tend to be really yummy.

So yeah, my vote:
Heavy G Homeworld
Subterranean
Uncreative
Spying +20
Democracy
Production +1

And just pray Uncreative doesn't deny you Automated Factories or Research Labs. Honestly, everything else is doable, but if you miss out on those techs early on, you'll be left in mud. That's kinda why I like the mods; they make both lone techs so you can't miss them. Forces AI to tech them too.

Oh yeah, and I'm voting for the Elerian face.


EDIT: I just tried said race (on Imp/Huge/8/Organic Rich/Pre-Warp/All On) with -.5 BC/Ship Defense penalties, lost to some awful luck and rustiness. But it was a ton of fun. Quick report for the interested (may help with race choice here and all):

Spoiler

Show

More precisely, my planets were excellent, but I started in a corner with an expansionist production race (Meklar) right next to me. Meklar got three stars before I even got my first Colony Ship underway and them being Repulsive, we quickly ended up in a fight. They tried to hit my Colony Base with a Frigate and a Destroyer. I switched to Missile Boat Cruiser (before MIRV...) and wiped them out promptly. I realized they seem a bit weak as they prolly have no navy right now, built a Transport Ship and thanks to Heavy G bonuses, easily conquered their first planet.

Then, with improved Fuel Cells I continued my assault and spent a bit of time with spies, managing to steal Tritanium Armor while teching Pollution Processor (and MIRC) that enabled me to go all the way. I also killed a Space Crystal in the meanwhile as that enabled me to colonize a planet close enough to hit their homeworld (that and opened up a system with Ultra Rich Huge Terran planet). Once I started facing defended planets, capturing the Starbases (and even one Battlestation in their homeworld) allowed me to win (they had no ground defenses). I made few mistakes here, not hitting early enough and backpedaling from a Battlestation in spite of being able to capture it with boarding (my missiles couldn't efficiently kill it vs. a Cybernetic race). Switching to early military/production had put me behind on tech and Bulrathi had already had 9 planets when I was still locked to one so I had a lot of catching up to do; enter spies.

Quick tech forward, I got Robo-Miners and Supercomputers while pumping out Spies to catch up to others in tech (while making treaties), and then started teching to get Beam ships. I managed to steal some tech, but there was an awful lot of Dictatorships and people started to get Stealth Suits and seemed to have ridiculous amounts of spies on defense; my group of 40 45% offensive spies literally spent 50 turns at Mrrshan territory with tons of tech to steal and got NOTHING. I had managed to get some off Klackons earlier, but everyone apparently beefed up their defenses. Got Moleculartronic Computer and was about to get Plasma Cannons...but then came the reaper.

I was just refitting my ships for Enveloping Fusion Cannons when, without warning, Darlok and their Stealthy Ships had managed to get a planet past the Mrrshans to my south and attacked. Not only did they conquer an important production planet, that planet was refitting three of my Cruisers meaning much of my navy disappeared. At the same time, Klackons saw me framed for a thousandth time (first time, Xeno Psychology just got teched and saved my ass; they had like 13 Systems) and declared war and my only ally was Psilon who was down to two planets at a war with the Bulrathi (and conveniently feeding the Bulrathi with tech while at it). My biggest mistake was refitting my ships at once; not only did it open me up to such a surprise attack, but more importantly it made computer perceive my fleet strength as 0, which means they get very aggressive. Otherwise, my population management and movement was sloppy, I didn't use enough Housing planets, I made research planets too late and overall, did most mistakes in the book.

Sloppy playing; I coulda easily won that with proper playing and more aggression, but meh (or at least lasted much longer). It didn't help that the first Antaran attack came to me a turn before I could get Assault Shuttle ship to capture it (because I counted wrong planet and the planet attacked didn't have a starbase so I couldn't refit), and one of my ships randomly exploded in a random event. Oh, and Space Flux struck just when I was about to hit the Meklar delaying my expansion by about a dozen turns. But yeah, it was fun. I've rarely seen computer play so cunningly; Stealthy Ships are definitely pestersome to deal with.

Quick list of the major play mistakes I made:

Spoiler

Show

- Went Research before building my first Colony Base.
- Teched Food-techs before first Ship-techs (cut into my scouting bad).
- Built my first Scout with Nukes and crap in it, costing twice as much as it shoulda (cutting Computer is an interesting question as if you don't, you can escape some space monster fights, but you're paying a dime for the fun).
- Didn't properly calculate my Production, meaning I never got to benefit of buying Automated Factories at ½ finished (optimal money-production ratio).
- Consequently, didn't get my first Colony Ship until WAY late especially since I used money so suboptimally.
- Cut tech during the first war (initially necessary, but once I got few planets, I could've afforded to start off my dedicated research planets)
- Stalled too long on my attack; made too many spies and freighters and such, delaying my push by tons.
- Simply didn't build the Outpost Ship to finish the attack early enough.
- Pulled from a fight against a Battlestation in Meklar homeworld.
- Didn't move my population away from the Housing-planet efficiently, leading to less efficient Housing and population not doing anything.
- Had Freighter or Food lacking way, way too often.
- Used Taxes too often, with not enough Trade Goods.
- Didn't move all Meklar citizens away from a Heavy G Ultra-Rich planet which should definitely only be worked by Elerians given I was Heavy G.
- Stopped my invasion after conquering Meklar; I had a fleet and I was behind, I needed to gain more area.
- Didn't keep all my spies on the offense early enough (they were sitting in my pool since I played lazy); opps got Agents and my Spy efficiency dropped dramatically (didn't help that no Democracies outside me were around).
- Rejuvinated my science WAY too late, thinking my spies would get me through.
- I didn't use my military might early on to Demand tech.
- I neglected the Darlok planet that allowed them to get past the Mrrshan space; their Stealthy Ships made me pay for this.
- Refitted all ships at the same time, instead of one-at-a-time keeping the others in space.
- Didn't sufficiently utilize my great ground combat with Assault Shuttles.
- Didn't use diplomacy "efficiently" enough; made treaties later than when I met people, didn't actively seek to trade tech, left Tribute on for too long, didn't rebuild relations after I got framed efficiently enough (got framed on two civilizations -.-), etc.

In other words, yeah, I lost that entirely to playing too fast and playing like crap. Rusty and Quick-Game = bad combination.

So yeah, I think this race could be very interesting to play. You get to play all the aspects of the game (Morale, Spying, Ground Combat, etc.) quite competently while having the raw power to win.

Also, if this gets underway, I'm applying for the position of Domestic Advisor. Or Minister of Domestic Affairs. Or Minister of Immigration (or rather, Population Movement given we have total control over that, but hey!).

[Archonic Energy]

just thought i'd say that i am watching this and am not allowed to comment on strategy.

For Orion!