Postby Shownuff! » Sat Oct 22, 2005 1:55 pm
Hi all!
This is my first post, so please forgive this virgin! I am going to writhe out some comments, and hope they help. Thanks so much for the dos version! MOO2 is my all time favorite game. I plan on joining Kali soon so I can play with my 3 friends here in town. We get together and have LAN games, but it is more difficult with kiddos to work out a schedule to all meet.
Each one of us (4 players) disagree on the best racial stats, but we all agree on the problems of the random homeworld systems generated. I am always the host of the group and this is the switch we play with.
/hugestart /goodstart /planets=5 /picks=14 /monsters=199
On the first turn I save the game, then edit using Corion. I want to make the home systems balanced for each player including the AI's. It suxs if a player has 2 or 3 ultra poor or toxic planets and someone else has a gaia or ultra rich. I also believe it should be paramount to NOT loose your home system. Since there are 5 types of mineral planets each planet in the home star gets edited to make up the 5 types, unless a player spent a points to make their homeworld mineral poor or mineral rich. With your /hugestart setting every home star has 1 ultrarich huge barren planet of the default gravity plus their medium (or large) terran (or ocean) planet. I then make the other 3 planets huge, radiated. This makes terraforming and radiation shields tough to bypass or trade for.
My friends and I like the randomization of the other planets, but we all get excited about the different specials. I love Ancient Artifacts, one friend just loves Splinters, one loves Natives, and my last buddy loves Gems and Gold (he wants to buy stuff constantly). (I hate natives and will skip them, cause I do not know how to kill them off when I colonize. Is this possible?) With the monsters=199 It makes almost all of the non homeworld stars more juicy with specials. Monsters also force players to scout, build ships and be more balanced I think than the colony ship star hopping games. It is exciting also to try and take out monsters early with cruisers to get the juicy planets nearby. My strategy is always the same. Colonize all home star planets, scout, build monster killing ships, colonize outside home star. My other friends strategy is different. Some mix up, most attack next stars early and ignore their poor radiated, and ultra poor radiated planets until mid game.
Has this next idea come up yet? I have not seen it, but it would be cool if we could have an external text file that could contain our racial stats per player. I like to have more neat traits, which means more negatives than 10. My friends do not, and some don't even take the full -10. I usually take -23 points, which means I can't take evoluntionary mutation, because it will not accept any new changes because of the -10 setting. Have you noticed that sometimes one of the AI's has not take all their points? or that they give themselves more? I am fine with them taking more (always play Impossible), just not less (which is sure death for that AI).
Ok guys, I know I have been long, but is it clear what I think? Random map, but even home system? Is there a new switch I that will do this now? I do like the idea of just typing switch=50 or switch=60 and it knows what combo it needs to use (could this be a text file?). I love nebulas and black holes. Can be a pain or help keep enemy away.
We always play with Orion and Guardian, but sometimes one of the AI's get it. The Guardian is always edited to make it very hard. Gets a stellar converter, Doom star class, etc. etc. You will always loose at least one ship when you visit Orion. I would like to put this in a text file too, to keep me from having to edit it each time.
My friends I and disagree on some of the ship officers and colony leaders, but we all want Loknar! Hehe. In the beginning we panic when one of the AI's spits out a battleship! Arrrrh! a battleship! I'm doomed! hehehe.
Thanks!