The Orionator: an Obz3hl33t Strategy Guide to Master of Orion 1

[Obz3hL33t]

If you know all the tricks you can win consistently on Impossible. You need to know how to use 2-shot missile skirmishers, repulsor beams, and warp dissipators to help you survive the early game.

You can micro your planets to keep them slightly polluted to boost max production, although I only have the patience to do this in the very early game.

Your first tech should be improved pollution cleanup. This tech is huge.

Clog up all planets in range with a long-range scout, which will force the AI to send armed ships in order to colonize. Don't retreat unless the AI makes you.

If you're at war with a lot of enemies conduct missile raids on the enemy of the enemy most dangerous to you. This will move relations in your favor and hasten a peace treaty.

Mount a small laser on your 2-shot missile ships. The AI will always have better tech, including faster ships, so nailing them with the 2-shot often means needing to move forward, fire, and move back in the same turn.

Second place is a dangerously easy way to lose the game to a bad vote. Colonists on transports don't count toward your population, though, so the year before an election you can send a bunch of transports to suppress your population and slide into third place for the election -- then cast a spoiling vote from third place so no one wins.

Max your spying until you're well ahead, and unless there's a critical tech like Repulsor Beam you desperately need always steal COMPUTER tech first. You will be technologically behind the AI for a very long time, and spying runs off Computer tech differential, so to maintain at least a little parity try not to fall behind in Computers.

Build your spoiler ships (Warp Dissipator, Repulsor Beam, etc) with the hardest defenses you can. Build your 2-shots with no defenses, or maybe an armor upgrade if it doesn't cost too many missiles. Just as you mounted a laser on your missile ships, mount a 2-shot nuclear missile on your spoilers and beam ships to preserve their movement. Don't fire the missiles -- they're just to preserve your movement points.

Overlap your spoiler designs, even if that means building an extra obsolete ship or two. An "obsolete" Dissipator or Repulsor is just as good as the one mounted to your latest design.

In the mid-game you're probably putting reserve fuel tanks on your colony ships, but for that third slot it's not a bad idea to toss in a Warp Dissipator or Repulsor Beam.

Unless you're ahead lean more into trading tech and less into hoarding. You probably don't want your enemies improving their Computer tech, so hang onto that. Trade ANYTHING for upgraded robotic controls, though, even another Computer tech.

When invading a superior ground-fighting enemy, which will be most of the time on Impossible, use logistics to make up the difference. Calculate how many invaders per turn you want (up to 300 I think), start the farthest planets sending waves first, bring each nearer planet in as its turn comes up, and don't stop sending waves until the planet has fallen -- and given up its precious tech.

Speaking of population, it's worth it, even without Cloning, to buy colonists with Eco spending on non-hostile biomes. If you have a Fertile planet use it as a nursery to populate the other planets. Sakkras don't need careful micro to fill planets, but with micro you can reproduce their advantage with a species that has other advantages.

The small size ship makes for an expendable Buzzbomb.

Scatter packs are devastating in missile bases and counter small designs like the Buzzbomb. AI Buzzbombs are also hard-countered by Repulsors, although a player can dodge.

Small warships are so vulnerable to Repulsor you almost shouldn't make them without Cloaking (for an exception see "Orionator").

Cloaking Device hard-counters defensive Repulsor fire but not offensive. I've never seen a speed-1 cloaked ship, though, so this knowledge is of limited value.

The most efficient ship size is almost always Large. Pay attention to which systems are fixed-size, like Battle Scanners, versus scaled to ship size, like Inertial Dampener.

The 2-shot missile ship inflicts attritional damage. This is, for most of the game, the best you can do. They don't need armor or shields, but they do benefit from speed. 2-shot missiles have a speed bonus, which plus an opening advance can get your first missile volley completely across the playfield. Always attack the enemy's most dangerous ships first. These ships don't really need a secondary waepon to preserve movement points until the enemy starts fielding speed 3 ships.

A skirmisher design can, with speed or aid from a spoiler, also outrange the enemy, especially if they have no long-range weaponry. If the enemy does have long-range weapons you'll need to have a higher attack level, which your technologically inferior ships might nonetheless have since you've been prioritizing stealing computer tech. A Battle Scanner can also tip the scales. Like all ships skirmishers require a "secondary weapon" to preserve movement points. Use a 2-shot nuclear missile launcher.

Accidentally Pearl Harboring your enemies and trashing your reputation is always possible. Never accept a peace treaty with transports enroute. When colonizing a contested system send enough colonists to fill the planet in one wave, then keep it topped up as successive enemy waves invade. If the enemy invades your planet under truce or treaty and you take it back the next turn with transports sent while it was yours that counts as "treacherous betrayal" of the treaty. These rules also seem to apply in AI vs AI diplomacy, which explains why they're always fighting.

Watch for unguarded wealth. As the early game losses pass into mid-game stability look for opportunities to invade planets with factories but no missile bases.

Tie goes to the defender. If your attacker can't close the deal run out the clock. This is especially true if you are defending a planet with a spoiler. If you gunk up the enemy's engines don't retreat, just end turn repeatedly. If your only spoiler is a Repulsor you'll have to dance around a bit. When time's up you win.

The most dangerous creatures in the game are of course players with tech, but the second-worst are Klackons with tech. Unfortunately there's not much you can do if the bugs seem to be absorbing tech from their Psilon neighbors.

Because you'll always be behind technologically the most powerful Impossible-level species is probably Darloks, although Humans with their ability to avoid unfavorable wars and win elections come a close second. Bulrathi are probably third, as they can steal tech from technologically superior foes with even low-tech ground invasions. If you can get lucky stealing tech Klackons are of course always nice, and Meklars are one of my favorites as their economic advantage is flexible and early, when you need it most, and they're naturally good computer researchers, making them above-average spies. Mrrshans are first to Orion, but not by much.

Bonus advice:
It's almost impossible to have a game that balances on capturing Orion, but as a bonus I give you the Orionator:
Size Small
Effective Attack Level >= 5
Mass Driver or Megabolt Cannon (eff. against shield 9)
Speed at least 3 (to dodge missiles)
3 fleets of at least 700 each

Build those 3 fleets and a Repulsor ship which does NOT have a Warp Dissipator and you're golden. Speed 3 is the minimum to dodge the Guardian's scatter pack missiles with a Repulsor helping hold the Guardian to its side of the field. Speed 4 works from anywhere.

[Someone]

This guide is amazing, thank you

[Mickmane]

Originally posted by Someone:

This guide is amazing, thank you

Guides are in the guide section, where people looking for them can find them. This is just going to be lost among old discussions.

[Obz3hL33t]

Well if you think it's worthy who am I to argue? However I'm going to let it brew here for awhile, just in case there's more stuff I haven't thought of to put in it.

[Someone]

You can also write a whole guide about bugs. The game has a lot of unique bugs that can be exploited. For example, dodge cap reduction with rockets or megabolt cannon, which stacks for different weapon slots

[Obz3hL33t]

How exactly does that work?

[Someone]

Try to fight Guardian with megabolt cannon in each weapon slot. Guardian's evasion will be 0 regardless

[Obz3hL33t]

Is it 0 on every shot or does it drop step-wise as each weapon fires?

[Someone]

It drops. You can see the numbers in fight. This also means that hi tech missiles ignore ECM. In 1oom 1.7.6 this behavior is fixed by default but the fix is optional.

[Obz3hL33t]

Is the drop cumulative per battle, per turn, or per firing sequence?

[Someone]

I think you can figure it out on your own