MOO2 Xenophobia Challenge

[rgp151]

If you've played this game a while, you have likely mastered it. Its really not that hard. The way they setup the difficulty levels is a bit problematic, because Impossible is not really very difficult due to the fact that the AI races are overpowered, BUT you can simply take them over and use their overpowered abilities for yourself. Thus, the best way to beat Impossible is simply to focus on conquering AI races and using their strengths. Almost always this means taking over Slicoids and Sakkra, etc. and using them to dominate the game.

So, this challenge is to win on Impossible without having any foreign populations. This means that if you conquer a planet you have to either destroy it or depopulate it and re-populate it with your own race.

[Sloan]

Originally posted by rgp151:

the fact that the AI races are overpowered

Not quite clear. The races at this level are the most powerful.

Originally posted by game-help:

impossible is reserved for those who enjoy fighting their way out from a disadvantage. Opponents get a larger set of extra racial abilities and +1 food per farmer, +2 bonus per worker and scientist, and 3/4 BC per population

[rgp151]

Right, but they also get extra starting picks, so you get things like Silicoids with +50% Population Growth and + Production and stuff like that, or Sakkra with Tolerant, etc. Once you take over some of those races and use them throughout your empire its pretty smooth sailing.

[Albinator]

I feel the game easier when you start with high tech. Did you try post-warp ?

[Sloan]

Originally posted by rgp151:

So, this challenge is to win on Impossible without having any foreign populations. This means that if you conquer a planet you have to either destroy it or depopulate it and re-populate it with your own race.

Are you planning to play with a "repulsive" race? It's just harder.

[Sloan]

Originally posted by RanDoM:

I feel the game easier when you start with high tech. Did you try post-warp ?

Play Average tech lvl

[rgp151]

I always play average tech level. I'm pretty well in now. Honestly, though I've done some reloading. Tirilarians are one of those races that sucks in human hands, but is really annoying and powerful in the ands of the AI.

I went with Repulsive, Subterranean, Creative, with a production bonus and rich home world (also spying penalty, which doesn't matter when Creative.) It's going pretty well, but the Meklars are way ahead. It will likely come down to tactical combat vs them and just exploiting the AI. I started in the middle of the map on Large, not the greatest. But at least I found two easy monster planets that really helped me get going.

Not taking over planets is a big pain and makes it slow going for sure. My normal style, pretty much no matter what type of picks I use, is to be aggressive early on take over enemy populations, so this is a big change.

[rgp151]

This game is pretty much in hand now, but was certainly more challenging than usual. Somehow on one planet a single Klackon assimilated on a planet I was annihilating, so now my civilization has a single foreigner in it that I can't get rid of! LOL! That planet is doomed to suffer a moral penalty, but doesn't really matter of course, I just don't understand how that happened.

This game did have some epic battles though. In an interesting one I had made two versions of Titians, an offensive ship and a defense ship. The offensive had Battle Scanners and Structural Analyzers, while the defensive had ECM Jammers, Shield Capacitors, Multi-Phased Shields and Auto-Repair. Both used Phasors with Shield Piercing.

I had to go against an enemy fleet that had like 40 Battleships in it using four of my Titians, 2 of each type. Unfortunately, they had Plasma Webs, which I usually scoff at, but in this case that was the only real threat. I believe I had level 5 shields. I ended up being able to win, but only just barely, and actually because of the stupidity of the AI. The AI spread the webs out across all four ships, and didn't press all their ships forward to web us much as possible. Sometimes they held back out of web range and blasted from afar. In the end I survived with 1 of the defensive designs left standing.

[McGillicutti]

In honesty this game was the lesser of its predessor and namesake "MOO1"

Master of Orion I was light years ahead in design and results, especially when you lost the council vote and Klackon had won.

There was uniqueness of tech and races in MOO1 that wasn't replicated in MOOII, and MOOIII was an oddity at best. I still have MOO2 in the box, lost my MOO1 game in storage. Take2 was part of that original game btw, remember their promoting a new game about hell on a video that was on the disc.

[cotss2012]

Originally posted by rgp151:

This game is pretty much in hand now, but was certainly more challenging than usual. Somehow on one planet a single Klackon assimilated on a planet I was annihilating, so now my civilization has a single foreigner in it that I can't get rid of! LOL! That planet is doomed to suffer a moral penalty,

Just ship your lone insect to a planet that's already at population cap. It'll die on arrival.

[Ris Dnalor]

if you want a challenging AI: https://moo2mod.com/