Techromancer: I dunno - on Average difficulty (with the GOG version) I usually don't have to worry about being attacked early, Occasionally something will set off one of the neighbors and there's an early war (at the point when all I have is MIRVed nukes). They seem more likely to dribble ships in rather than send a massed fleet, too.

I suspect one yardstick the AI uses before declaring war (or making demands) is the size of your fleets vs the number of worlds in your empire. It's pretty common for me to conquer one empire (losing no ships or very few, just expending transports through assaults) and then have someone even weaker than the guy I just stomped suggest a "gift" to remain in favor (and then declare war when told "No").

On Impossible difficulty (and IIRC, on Hard as well), the AI Empires get a few extra picks added to their stock abilities. That should be why the Alkari have Transdimensional.

No idea about the Antarans, unless it looks at how many developed your worlds are compared to the other empires and that's outweighing the tech and population.

balanceofpower: Let me preface this post by saying sorry for the post spam - this being my second question in less than a day - I've just been playing a lot of MOO2 lately and I've been wanting to communicate with the GOG community about it.

I've owned the game since it released on GOG; I was new to it then but I was an old hand at MOO1. I did not take to MOO2 immediately because it felt like an inferior version to MOO1.

Still, being the completist that I am, I didn't want to give up on MOO2 completely since - as far as 4X space / sci-fi strategy games - it still holds up compared to modern games like Galactic Civilization 2 (which, despite its better AI, GalCiv2 seems to suffer from a more is less quality).


This is where my question comes in:

One of the things I've enjoyed doing has been watching Let's Plays of MOO2 on YouTube which has been primarily the driving factor in keeping my interest in MOO2 alive (as well as learning gameplay strategies). Two of the YouTubers whom I have followed are quill18 and Grimmithr, both great commentators with their playthroughs.


However, something has been bugging me since I first started watching these playthroughs. The games that quill18 and GrimmithR are remarkably different to my experience on both Average and Hard difficulty, to the point that I am convinced that there are undocumented differences between MOO2 distributions.


In my experience, on average difficulty, for the first 100 turns or so the AI opponents aren't too aggressive and expanding an empire isn't too bad. However in the mid-to-late game the Antaran attacks not only become intense they become downright unwinnable.

Moreover, they send huge, overwhelming fleets of their biggest ships even though I am neither the biggest nor the best civilization in the game. They also seem to come much more frequently than they do in the playthroughs. In one game (where I played an uncreative cyborg race) I had two massive fleets attack my capital planet within a dozen turns of each other. On the first attack they wiped out my capital; on the next they wiped out my secondary planet in that system; this despite the fact that I was not the most technologically advanced (being uncreative) - that would be the Psilons - nor the most populous, the Psilons had more planets as well.

Again - this is on Average difficulty - not hard. Compare this to games with Quill18 or GrimmithR, who see sparse attacks and for much of the time they play they are harassed by small fleets of frigates and destroyers not the titans I see so often.

On hard difficulty - as they say on the Sopranos - fahgettaboutit.

The AI is so irrationally aggressive, despite my peaceful overtures and gifts of money and tribute, they will go from "peaceful" to invading me. Within 100 turns they have huge fleets with at least one battleship (if not more) and several supporting ships and transports, this despite the fact that I have also built up my own sizeable fleet.

I let my suspicion go for a while, but watching another playthrough recently I am now convinced that my suspicion has to correct.

Case in point: [url=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5NTaE-s3vc&list=SPD6D26E88A0445CB7&lf=bf_next[/url]


Here Grimmith is doing a hard uncreative playthrough. The first 100 turns or so he expands with little oppositions even though he is bordered by the Sakkra on the right and the Alkari on the left.

Most of that time he is utterly defenseless which by all accounts should be a big red flag for the AI to come in and attack but they don't. Indeed, once they do declare war (the Alkari at turn 127), they have a minimal fleet - if any - to speak of.

Grimmith responds and quickly constructs 2 or 3 destroyers with newly researched neutron blasters, no shields and a computer upgrade.

The Alkari by contrast only have Class I shields and are still using lasers for crying out loud (despite the fact that they have an artifact homeworld).

Also at the beginning of that playthrough Grimmith - in order to have aquatic / subterranean and unification - took -20 penalties to both ship defense and offense.

Yet when he goes up against a defensively superior Alkari with his barebones destroyers he destroys them easily and then proceeds to take out the Alkari in quick order, destroying their homeworld starbase in TWO shots.

That - in my opinion - is a near mathematical improbability, but the fact he does this twice with another space station makes it an impossibility, especially with green crew.

According to Grimmith's own comment: he's not using the GOG version of the game; he says he's using a Gamestop (previously Stardock) version. (You'll also notice in the first video his version is 1.40.23 which I believe is the latest version and corresponds with the GOG versions.)

Something else out of the ordinary with that video, at 11:40 on video 02 of 12 ([url=]http://youtu.be/EEedy8Lo1Pc?t=11m40s[/url] he clicks the Info screen and brings up the racial traits: the Alkari are listed as trans-dimensional which is clearly wrong, since only the Trillarians are trans-dimensional.

The examples I cite are the most glaring but I could point out other things I see in these gameplay videos, such as the number of high quality worlds Grimmith finds. Compared to my own experience (usually with Average universe set), tiny/poor/barren planets far outnumber the number of abundant / medium sized (and up) worlds; I'd guesstimate that the former outnumbers the latter 3 to 1.


I understand that the random nature of the game makes difficult to point out with certainty what is going on (if anything at all) precisely; all I know - however - is something seems very fishy either with Grimmith's game (as well as with Quill18's) or MOO2 in general and I really want to get down to the bottom of it.

Thanks in advance,

BoP

balanceofpower: Let me preface this post by saying sorry for the post spam - this being my second question in less than a day - I've just been playing a lot of MOO2 lately and I've been wanting to communicate with the GOG community about it.

I've owned the game since it released on GOG; I was new to it then but I was an old hand at MOO1. I did not take to MOO2 immediately because it felt like an inferior version to MOO1.

Still, being the completist that I am, I didn't want to give up on MOO2 completely since - as far as 4X space / sci-fi strategy games - it still holds up compared to modern games like Galactic Civilization 2 (which, despite its better AI, GalCiv2 seems to suffer from a more is less quality).


This is where my question comes in:

One of the things I've enjoyed doing has been watching Let's Plays of MOO2 on YouTube which has been primarily the driving factor in keeping my interest in MOO2 alive (as well as learning gameplay strategies). Two of the YouTubers whom I have followed are quill18 and Grimmithr, both great commentators with their playthroughs.


However, something has been bugging me since I first started watching these playthroughs. The games that quill18 and GrimmithR are remarkably different to my experience on both Average and Hard difficulty, to the point that I am convinced that there are undocumented differences between MOO2 distributions.


In my experience, on average difficulty, for the first 100 turns or so the AI opponents aren't too aggressive and expanding an empire isn't too bad. However in the mid-to-late game the Antaran attacks not only become intense they become downright unwinnable.

Moreover, they send huge, overwhelming fleets of their biggest ships even though I am neither the biggest nor the best civilization in the game. They also seem to come much more frequently than they do in the playthroughs. In one game (where I played an uncreative cyborg race) I had two massive fleets attack my capital planet within a dozen turns of each other. On the first attack they wiped out my capital; on the next they wiped out my secondary planet in that system; this despite the fact that I was not the most technologically advanced (being uncreative) - that would be the Psilons - nor the most populous, the Psilons had more planets as well.

Again - this is on Average difficulty - not hard. Compare this to games with Quill18 or GrimmithR, who see sparse attacks and for much of the time they play they are harassed by small fleets of frigates and destroyers not the titans I see so often.

On hard difficulty - as they say on the Sopranos - fahgettaboutit.

The AI is so irrationally aggressive, despite my peaceful overtures and gifts of money and tribute, they will go from "peaceful" to invading me. Within 100 turns they have huge fleets with at least one battleship (if not more) and several supporting ships and transports, this despite the fact that I have also built up my own sizeable fleet.

I let my suspicion go for a while, but watching another playthrough recently I am now convinced that my suspicion has to correct.

Case in point: [url=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5NTaE-s3vc&list=SPD6D26E88A0445CB7&lf=bf_next[/url]


Here Grimmith is doing a hard uncreative playthrough. The first 100 turns or so he expands with little oppositions even though he is bordered by the Sakkra on the right and the Alkari on the left.

Most of that time he is utterly defenseless which by all accounts should be a big red flag for the AI to come in and attack but they don't. Indeed, once they do declare war (the Alkari at turn 127), they have a minimal fleet - if any - to speak of.

Grimmith responds and quickly constructs 2 or 3 destroyers with newly researched neutron blasters, no shields and a computer upgrade.

The Alkari by contrast only have Class I shields and are still using lasers for crying out loud (despite the fact that they have an artifact homeworld).

Also at the beginning of that playthrough Grimmith - in order to have aquatic / subterranean and unification - took -20 penalties to both ship defense and offense.

Yet when he goes up against a defensively superior Alkari with his barebones destroyers he destroys them easily and then proceeds to take out the Alkari in quick order, destroying their homeworld starbase in TWO shots.

That - in my opinion - is a near mathematical improbability, but the fact he does this twice with another space station makes it an impossibility, especially with green crew.

According to Grimmith's own comment: he's not using the GOG version of the game; he says he's using a Gamestop (previously Stardock) version. (You'll also notice in the first video his version is 1.40.23 which I believe is the latest version and corresponds with the GOG versions.)

Something else out of the ordinary with that video, at 11:40 on video 02 of 12 ([url=]http://youtu.be/EEedy8Lo1Pc?t=11m40s[/url] he clicks the Info screen and brings up the racial traits: the Alkari are listed as trans-dimensional which is clearly wrong, since only the Trillarians are trans-dimensional.

The examples I cite are the most glaring but I could point out other things I see in these gameplay videos, such as the number of high quality worlds Grimmith finds. Compared to my own experience (usually with Average universe set), tiny/poor/barren planets far outnumber the number of abundant / medium sized (and up) worlds; I'd guesstimate that the former outnumbers the latter 3 to 1.


I understand that the random nature of the game makes difficult to point out with certainty what is going on (if anything at all) precisely; all I know - however - is something seems very fishy either with Grimmith's game (as well as with Quill18's) or MOO2 in general and I really want to get down to the bottom of it.

Thanks in advance,

BoP