Nice job with the game :) Glad i could help.

You are right and i agree, racial bonuses and setting up your custom race are very fun ( for me its probably the most fun part :D). But as you can see, highscore-freaks (such as myself in that game i linked) can only maximize their points by choosing only -10 picks, thus setting the point multiplier to x3.40. :) So its a must to achieve highest scores.

By the way dont worry about wasting time if you try to achieve more points. Time doesnt matter that much. Each turn counts as -1 point. Time starts in 3500 thats 1280 points and counting back from there taking away 1 point for 1 turn you played. If you consider that every captured colonist counts as 0.5 points, and every colonist is 1 point, you can figure it out that those are more important than time. As the game continues to progress, you will have more and more captured colonists and more population as well.

And beware if you start an impossible match, cuz AI races get a few more racial bonuses besides their default ones! ';..;'
Gets really crazy sometimes, like Sakkra (most extreme i ever saw):
feudal
-10 spy
+1 food
+100% pop growth
large homeworld
subterranean
warlord
aquatic
tolerant
repulsive

Now i'm playing a game, where i decided to not colonize other systems, just roll with my homeworld (got the idea from somewhere in a moo2 forum) :D
Just finished off Orion, that one i had to take tho' . I think i got the 4 best oriontech possible. I'll link the picture.
Gotta say it will be really hard at the end cuz i will lack commandpoints so hard. I chose Unification... Dictatorship would've been better for more commandpoints :-\ I got Warlord tho' ! Come at me, aliens!!! Q('_'Q)
If i finish the game off, i'll post the results! ;D

63 turns for win at huge 7 ai prewarp impossible.
On a less serious note - highscores in this game made pointless by game developers by easy possibilty of
giveaway\recapture of planets. While doing so you will be able to get your score rise up to cap set in game if you are bored enough. Otherwise you just need to play -300% race, and get a subterranean race from AI and the score would be set by mapgenerator then. But in general play for a score is pointless, playing for speed can rise your level as player much faster.


PS "I personally kill the Guardian in turn 160 with 30-40 frigates every one equipped with Merculite Missile EMG, Fast, ECCM. It is good to have Fusion or Anti Mater drive – but on this time you can easy have them by trade."
Actually its better be done by 9 destroyers around t100, in case you still care for orion (actually its way more easy to kill all the AI's than to capture Orion, while Orion is easy too, but it required much more tech).

Hi All,

NIce to find some folks still playing and takling about MOO2. Here's my 1st post.

Let me start by saying that I am seriously addicted to MOO2, and have been since it came out. I have migrated it from every system I've owned since DOS. Currently running nicely on my Win7 x64 Alienware machine. I developed my current playiing strategy over time, and I now play that way exclusively. My settings/picks are:

1) Level of Difficulty - Impossible
2) Galaxy Size - Huge
3) Galaxy Age - Average
4) Number of Players - 8
5) Tech Level - Average
6) Tactical Combat - On
7) Random Events - Off
8) Antarans Attack - On
9) Racial Attributes Farming -1/2, Ship Attack -20, Ground Combat -10, Unification, Subterranean, Rich Home World, Telepathic

I always choose the Elerian as my race, for three reasons:

1. The advantage of Telepathic is that there is no ground combat (making the -10 pick above a freebee). Once you trash a planet's defenses you click Mind Control and they are all 100% assimilated into your population. Unless they also happen to be Telepathic. Which means the Elarian are a pain in the ass. The best way to keep them out of the game is be them. You still have a problem if the planet has a Telepathic administrator. If that happens you can either resort to ground combat or just nuke it (Drop All) and recolonize.
2. I like the look of their ships
3. And most important of all, I have a thing for hot babes in anatomically correct armor

I know a lot of folks love Creative. I don''t. I think it's seriousky overpriced. I have found hat there is only one place in the entire research tree where I REALLY want two of the available options, and that's High Energy Focus and Megafluxers. I generally take HEF and try to trade for the Megafluxers. Note that I always make friends with the other races if possible (Research, Trade, Non-Agression), and I willingly trade whatever they want for something I need. For the most part they don't know how to use it properly anyway. I do NOT make Aliances. As soon as your new BFF race gets attacked by some agressive-assed Repulsive they insist you declare war on the attacker and then break the treaty if you don't. I prefer to chose my own wars, thanks.

The minus on Farming is alos a gimme. It's offset by Unification, plus it's easy to overcome with tech early on (Farms, Soil enrichment, Weather Control, Food Replicators, etc.)

The minus on Ship Attack is another one that's easy to overcome with tech, but not until the midgame (better Computers, the aforementioned HEF, etc.). This is fine for me since I only use missile cruisers (Cruiser class, Battle Pods, 10x 2-shot MV, ECCM, FAST nuclear missles) until the midgame anyway. Four of them plus a couple of Scouts are enough to sack the entire Silicoid race with a dozen planets if you hit them early enough. Mind control means that you can sweep through them capturing planets faster than they can retake them. And if they do retake a planet and don't defend it you can drop back by with a single Cruiser and take it back.

I have heard the above tactic referred to as QEW (Quick Early War). The basic technique for it is simple. Pop in, fire 1st missle wave at Starbase. Send Scouts flying to the back of the screen. Wait. Fire 2nd wave at planet defences and Retreat the Cruisers (2 shot, they're done anyway) while continuing to run the Scouts from incoming fire. Wait. Missles reach and blow the base (that's why they're Fast). Run Scouts. Wait. Missles blow the planet. Mind control. Next planet. The one thing that will ruin your day with this is if the base has Warp Disapators. Make sure you take it out first. Otherwise you're a sitting duck for any weapon that's left. Once you start running into fleets, bring more Cruisers. I usually have them on Repeat Build just forr this purpose.

The minus on Spying is because I don't like Spying. Since I'm not Creative I'll immediately trade anything I get for something I need. If somebody steals it - so what? I'll just trade it to somebody eles soon anyway.

I've attached screen shots of my HOF, Settings, and Picks. Comments and questions welcome.

Good luck and happy rock hunting!

--Steve

"Comments and questions welcome. "
Well, you should at least read this certain topic first, then many other stuff about moo2 in internet. Prior it its even quite hard to comment this.

I did it! I played my first ever Impossible game and got over 10,000 points.

1) Level of Difficulty: Impossible
2) Galaxy Size: Huge
3) Galaxy Age: Organic Rich
4) Number of Players: 8
5) Tech Level: Pre Warp
6) Tactical Combat On
7) Random Events On
8) Antarans Attack On

9) Racial Attributes: Klackon avatar
+ Creative (8), Unification (6), Large Home World (1), Rich Home World (2), Artifacts World (3),
- -20 Ship Defense (-2), -10 Spying (-3), Low Gravity (-5)

420 turns: 860
5606 pop: 5606
7 eliminated: 350
606 captured: 303
Tech: 262
Orion: 100
Antares 250
7731
x1.4
10823 points

This time I went for a unification instead of a dictatorship and I scrapped the +2 research so I could also scrap the -20 ship offense. It's the ideal Klackon/Psilon mix.

It took me 420 turns this time, about 210 turns less than my last game. This is mostly due to the fact that I got placed in the middle of the galaxy with some good planets and almost immediately next to the Sakkra.
Being placed in the middle also gives the advantage towards capturing Orion and keeping other races from destroying each other as well, mostly through diplomacy.
Of course I destroyed the repulsive races first. Right after that I went after the Alkari, knowing they are the only ones that can really take my advantage away. I kept them friendly as long as possible while eliminating the Sakkra, Mrrshan and Silicoid. After the Alkari I destroyed the Meklar and Bulrathi, saving the puny Humans for last. I also managed to do the destroy and rebuild planets thing this time, which gave me a little extra population boost.

I still think it's possible to crank up the score towards 12000, I could be more efficient in capturing more planets at the same time, producing more transports. However, the score for less turns will then be compensated with the lower score for captured colonists, so the difference won't be that big.
I could also turn up the total pop some more, trying to be earlier with the destroy and rebuild planets trick. I couldn't do it until I had the artificial planet tech. By the time I had it I already eliminated some races.

"I still think it's possible to crank up the score towards 12000,"

I know what quoting yourself isnt good, but what else is possble to do?

"On a less serious note - highscores in this game made pointless by game developers by easy possibilty of
giveaway\recapture of planets. While doing so you will be able to get your score rise up to cap set in game if you are bored enough [30somethingthousands]. Otherwise you just need to play -300% race, and get a subterranean race from AI and the score would be set by mapgenerator then. But in general play for a score is pointless"

No, cheating is starting a hotseat game with 7 of the 8 races custom with dict, lhw, rhw, sub, tol, -def -att -ground -spy. Have your race with -10 for the 3.4 multiplier. Save the game, go to Kali and load the game as a network game to force all the hotseat players to become ai. You could also play the first turn of the hotseat game to demand all the tech you want and get all the treaties and tributes before starting the network game on Kali. It gets pretty boring playing 400 turns of colony management, even if you cheat like this.


Stellar Converters are crap compared to a titan with Heavy Autofire Disruptors (after minaturization) with achiles targeting, structual analyzer, battle scanners, battlepods, hyper x capacitors, mega fluxors.

Did anyone else play on TEN? Then Kali?

Whats the point of describing some retard way of cheating for something what is done much more easy btw. 400 turns???

http://www.gog.com/forum/master_of_orion_series/master_of_orion_2_multiplayer

My point wasnt about the retarded way of cheating. It was that I don't consider using in game functions to boost your score is cheating. Nor do I believe score is any measure of skill. Some of the posts before had pictures with scores and 400 turns to get there.

My bad then, got you wrong, sorry. Ofc in-game exploits in general more fair than ones, with usage of some external programs.