Master of Orion 2 (With Video)

If you want a quick victory go with Humans in a small galaxy. You should be able to win a diplomatic victory quite fast.

If you really want to compare youself against others then you should post a save of the first turn, in the game you are going to play, somewhere. Then others can download it and play it too and post thier score.

I played MOO2 at a friends house a looong time ago. Is there any way to buy it nowadays?

Of course there is, take a look at Amazon, they even have MoO1.

I was meaning to pick up my olde copy of Master of Orion.   Maybe I'll do that next chance I get.

I wonder if it runs fine on Windows 7?

If you want a quick victory go with Humans in a small galaxy. You should be able to win a diplomatic victory quite fast.

 

How many oppoents?  Any research to focus on?

  Master of Orion 2 good game.  other good one is Age of wonders

I always play with 8 opponents; but I guess it could be faster with fewer opponents.

With the humans you should use thier improved diplomatic abilities to make friends with everyone.

Then you need to colonize as many planets as you can to make you at least the second largest empire.

With a little luck the other empires will vote you the leader in the Galactic Council.

It may not be as easy as it sounds, sometimes they just don't want to give you thier vote.

GOAL!

I just won in 29 Turns!  (Wish I had took a screen cap, didn't make the HOF, so the record wasn't kept)

Went with Telepathic/+2 industry/warlord/Rich home world/Large home world, Feudal/-spy/-ground combat(as there is none in with telepathy).

Becasue the galaxy is small, I already have multiple colonines, and if those colonies are next to my enemies, I see the enemy, and ALL of their star systems!  No scouting, no Omni pick!  No need to research fuel cells, when I take over their colony, my distance start from there!

The key to victory?  Advanced Tech level start!

It basically gives you all the techs you need that you could never have researched in time with the Feudal government, and a pre-made (albeit suckey) fleet.

2nd key to victory?  Mass Drivers!  (Since starting tech selection is random, I had to keep restarting untill MD was chosen).  No range disapataion = no wasted time moving closer while enemy missiles move closer to me)

Instead of making an empty cruiser to MC the planet, i just make a battleship design of Mass drivers with Heavy mount and Armor Piercing.

Then, I refit the suckey, pre-made fleet with my new battleship design (I called them Mass Effect) at 1/5th the cost of building them from scratch!

I move all my farming colonies to 100%, all my non farming to either trade goods or i transport them to my home colony.

Then on the home colony, All works produce mass effects.  0 research accross my empire.

From a "speed" aspect, the only way to go faster is to have my oppoents NOT research missle base or fighter garison, as they take time to destroy.  All other ships and star bases take 2-3 shots to down.

I'm having a hard time capturing the video, anyone know of a good capture utiltily?

I went on a long Telepathic binge, initially because female characters are still too rare in the context, but mostly because it was real fun to mind-control worlds like that.

For a while. Then it started feeling creepy, so I went back to my fundamental 4X rut: tech superiority. My avatar before the Elemental forum got going was a Gangster Psilon I found on the net. The only really bad thing I can say about MoO2 is that its success helped fund the debacle that was MoO3.

Well, of course if you use an über custom race there is no challenge at all; but of course, your goal was to win as quickly as possible so I guess that is the way to do it.

I just tried it myself with this configuration:

Game Setup:

Impossible/Small/2 Players/Advanced

Race:

Feudal/Industrial Production +1/Ship Offence: +50/Ground Combat: -10/Rich Home World/Uncreative/Telepathic/Trans Dimensional

I refitted my ships with the best Nuclear Missiles available (MV, ECCM, ARM, FST) made a few Outpost ships and an empty Frigate (For prolonging the battle so my missiles will hit when my BB's retreat). Then I just jumped from system to system and mind controlled the enemy planets.

It took 17 turns to win the game. I did it in my first try since you always have Nuclear Missiles available.

Now for a more interesting challenge, how fast can you win a game with a custom race that only has 'Dictatorship' and nothing else (200% score modifier) on Impossible/small/8 Players/Pre Warp. Just surviving can be a challenge.

I refitted my ships with the best Nuclear Missiles available (MV, ECCM, ARM, FST) made a few Outpost ships and an empty Frigate (For prolonging the battle so my missiles will hit when my BB's retreat). Then I just jumped from system to system and mind controlled the enemy planets. It took 17 turns to win the game. I did it in my first try since you always have Nuclear Missiles available

17?? Damn! My best so far has been 22!

I was thinking missiles, but I'm not sure if the site I'm going to submit to will judge the game based on turns or total speed from start to finish (MV, ECCM, ARM, FST missles work great, but are slower from a time perspective than beams)

I don't know why I didn't take uncreative as a racial ability, I don't research anything anyway. (Habit i guess)

I was actually saying to myself "Man, if only my ships could move faster (4-7 turns to the enemy's Star system)." But that would require I had both Mass Drivers AND Fusion drives (1 alone takes 5-10 restarts). Transdim is perfect!

Does +50 attack affect damage or just %to hit?

Is the +1 to industry worth the speed of output than the +2 for 3 more picks?

Thanks for the tips 7EA!

You are right about the "+50 attack", I just tested it and it doesn't effect damage, only chance to hit and it doesn't apply to missiles at all. I just assumed it did.

About the +1 industry, it only took me 3 turns to refit one of the BBs. I don't know if it could be done faster.

LOVED the Master of Orion series!  That and Master of Magic are my all time favorites.  MoM being my all time favorite game.  I'm hoping Gal Civ 3 will incorporate the tech "options" feature from MOO2.  I liked being able to keep an old tech viable for a while by gaining advancements like rapid fire, armor piercing, ect.  That added a lot of flare. 

Allright, with the Trans Dimensional pick, I was able to get a turn 15 Victory, and recorded it.

I could have been a 14 victory, i accidentally had 1 more turn after my last ship had been reffited.

It could have been 2-3 turns faster, but the oppoent had 1 stupid cononly on the other side of the galixy from his main cluster.

I think a 10 turn Victory is possible.  

That's my goal, but that will take a lot of luck (perfect tech combos and colony distance)

Here's a link to a low quality video of the 15 turn speed run.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYR8Qkfc4ec

I'll post a better one once I finalize it.

if you want to make it a bit more challenging, try the pre warp starting condition. Now try on impossible, huge map and 1 opponent. Who can finish it the fastest under those conditions? Ok who is up for that speedrun?

And of course no losses!

Final Vid

see below.

Forget that link.

Here's the new run

Done in 2 min.

http://postdownload.filefront.com/13273249//66c4579073060c7f46234aae7ba68087f19ab2a0193192d04ff7efb05fef1135ad5d54f766ce1003

Ok, Final, Final submission

59 seconds

That's Right, MOO2 beat in under 1 minute!

http://files.filefront.com/Moo2+HQmp4/;13366242;/fileinfo.html