master of orion ii

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disclaimer.

this is NOT meant to serve as a "faq" or any sort of general resource on Master of Orion II. There are enough pages on the Web that already do this job; it would be something of a waste of my time (not that this isn't already a waste... oh well) to duplicate their efforts. It is instead a small stockpile of strategic and tactical ideas for winning MoO2 and making the game more interesting.

this seems to be a very well-designed game. I have not played the original Master of Orion recently enough to make a rigorous comparison, but this seems to be a more refined product. The level of complexity does make it a bit time-consuming to manage your colonies efficiently later on in the game, but the "build queue" is a great help in this respect. (Unfortunately, there's a disadvantage to using the build queue, which might be relevant if you're in a multiplayer game.)

however, as with most strategy games of this genre, this game is plagued with a poor computer AI and a number of very cheap and effective tactics that the playtesters apparently overlooked. Therefore, Master of Orion II's value lies primarily in its multiplayer network option (in which your friends can use the same cheap tactics that you do, thus creating a balanced, if somewhat unstable, equilibrium), with the single player option useful only for initially learning the game and testing out one's initial expansion against a functionally nonexistent opponent.

• unification (6): effectively, double production and +33% research (after factoring in the farming bonus), from the first turn. Sure, you don't get morale, but morale bonuses never really appear unless you're creative. This is almost always a good pick (an exception is if you're lithovoric, in which case the farming bonus is for naught).
• subterranean (6): almost doubles the size of your planets, potentially giving you almost twice as much of everything. With appropriate use of housing, this potential isn't hard to realize.
• lithovore (10): double research and close to double production from turn one, though this bonus fades as other races get farming tech. Good if you like to focus more on research than expansion (for the latter, use unification), since its "research bonus" is multiplicative with artifacts HW and/or democracy.
• tolerant (10): larger planets (though not quite as large as subterranean planets) and close to double initial production (thanks to no pollution), though this declines to a +33% relative bonus once other races discover pollution processor. This pick only makes sense in combination with unification (otherwise, you wouldn't be generating pollution in the first place) and rich HW (ditto). In this one combination, however, it becomes quite formidable; all these multiplicative production bonuses result in a race that can colonize like no other in the early game.
• HW enhancement (large: 1, rich: 2, artifacts: 3): all these picks accelerate your early development. RHW acts as roughly +50% to HW production (in the automated factory stage), which is very nice for early expansion, while AHW acts as roughly +50% to HW research (in the research lab stage), saving many turns of necessary initial research. LHW is useful for augmenting one or both of the other HW enhancements (since it potentially acts as +33% to HW production and research).
• telepathic (6): immediate assimilation of conquered colonies (via mind control), no stupid transport logistics (why don't they have extended fuel tanks??!). A necessary pick if you want to blitz (since it makes it efficient to "colonize by attacking"); otherwise, there's probably a better place to use 6 picks. The fringe benefits (+10 spying, improved diplomatic status, ability to immediately use captured ships, protection from being assimilated via mind control) are nice.
  for those familiar with Heroes of Might and Magic II, the strategic effect of the telepathic pick is similar to that of the Vampire Lord's regeneration ability. If you work out the math, it turns out that a stack of Vampire Lords can take out a 35% LARGER non-regenerating stack, without losses! So just make sure you don't fight opponents otherwise >35% stronger than you, and you should be able to do well.
• omniscient (3): enhances the telepathic blitz by allowing you to plan your attacks better.
• growth bonuses (+50%: 3, +100%: 6): these help over time, particularly if you have a lot of elbowroom on your planets (read: subterranean). Nothing helps your population growth like 1-population housing colonies, however (and +50%/+100% growth does not apply to housing-generated growth).
• negatives: a good race will probably use 19 or 20 positive picks, and thus requires 9 or 10 negative picks to balance them out. 9 picks usually come from -20 SD/-20 SA/-10 GC/-10 spy, since none of these minuses hurt development. 10 picks usually come from repulsive/-20 SA/-10 GC, low-G/-10 spy/-10 GC (repulsive is a bad idea in games with 3+ humans, and unification reduces the low-G disadvantage), or -50% growth/-20 SD/-20 SA/-10 GC (if you're lithovoric and will research cloning center quickly).

colony management: automated production is usually the first thing you want to build, since that allows you to quickly bootstrap your production level up to the point where you can produce all the other buildings and upgrades you want in fairly short order. I generally purchase an automated factory immediately upon founding a colony, and in the interest of rapid development, I don't have fresh colonies worry about farming (instead I maintain a large number of freighters to feed the colonists from my well-established worlds). Once all the automated production is in place, you can either use the planet as a housing colony or make it conventionally productive, or better yet, you can alternate between the two to your liking if you own at least two planets in the star system. Because of this, I strongly advocate colonizing systems with multiple habitable planets before colonizing lone-planet systems.

you should now be in a good position to colonize most of the systems around you (space monsters should fall to packs of destroyers armed with x2 MIRV nukes), and defend them properly (x2 MIRV nukes and empty frigates deter weaker attacks, and you have the production and research to counter heavier attacks as the need arises). Planetary supercomputer is your next major research priority, though you may want to get soil enrichment first.

colonizer: unification/tolerant/large+rich HW. Similar to the expansionist race, but you colonize significantly faster and research significantly slower. If the map is nice (i.e. you can reach a lot of star systems with just standard fuel cells + extended fuel tanks), don't even bother getting research lab; just build some colony bases, research freighters, build a set, research AFs, implement them, research basic chemistry, and get a few scouts while you research colony ship. It should be close to turn 40 when you finish this sequence; now it's time to pump out colony ships like there's no tomorrow. Make treaties with all the neighbors you can, and pay attention to the fleet graph so you won't be surprised (if a threat is developing, make it a priority to invent merculite missile).

this race has very poor weapons technology in the early game, so I don't suggest playing it in a competitive multiplayer game.

researcher: lithovore/subterranean/large+artifacts HW. You wait a lot longer to expand outside your home system (turn 80-90), but you are quite a force when you finally do, since you have already invented planetary supercomputer, robo miners, and atmospheric renewer. You'll probably have the ability to kill the Guardian before any other race; use it, and victory should be yours. I'll leave the early development details as an exercise to the reader, since they aren't that different from unified/subterranean.

ship design:

the missile boat is the king of the early game. Cheap enough to be purchased on any colony in a pinch, yet powerful enough to destroy ships two size classes larger, it is one of your best allies in your initial expansion phase. The best thing is, when you invent pollution processor, you automatically gain the ability to build missile boats.

there are several models of this ship... the basic design philosophy isn't obsolete until the Guardian falls.

(note: use appropriate numbers of "fodder missiles" (non-ECCM non-MIRV missiles with the same speed as your payload missiles) in the top weapon slots of your missile boats to weaken point defense.)

control frigate: an empty frigate with electronic computer and maybe augmented engines, battle pods, inertial stabilizer, and warp dissipator if you have them. This technically isn't a missile boat, but it is critical for the success of an early missile-based fleet. This ship can outrun missiles, and is extremely difficult to hit with beam weapons; thus, it allows you to prolong battles until the opponent retreats or your missiles have hit their targets.

you may want to make the warp dissipator model of this ship a destroyer, since you'll get higher beam defense and speed.

emergency frigate: one frigate armed with one to three double racks of appropriately enhanced MIRVed missiles. When you suddenly spot an attacking fleet, and you don't have a prepared defense, you make the weakest colonies in threatened system produce these.

deterrent frigate: one frigate with battle pods and two to four double racks of appropriately enhanced MIRVed missiles. 128 damage from a single frigate (if your opponent doesn't have good point defense) is enough to deter most enemies from attacking. If they still try, make them experience the humiliation of losing a battleship to a single frigate.

damage destroyer: a destroyer (with battle pods if possible) with as many appropriately enhanced MIRVed missiles as possible. This is the most common design; it is why it's a blessing to be surrounded by many space monsters, since this ship allows you to deal with them so easily. With no technology beyond pollution processor and battle pods, you can stuff 6 x2 MV,FST nukes on a destroyer; this equals 384 damage if the destroyer survives to fire both volleys. Rather nice, considering that you don't need a starbase to build it (which is one reason I advocate selling your initial starbase to accelerate non-unified/tolerant races; these destroyers should be sufficient for initial defense vs. CPs).

war battleship: a battleship with zortrium armor, reinforced hull, and as many appropriately enhanced MIRVed missiles as possible (you probably don't want battle pods since the power of this ship comes from its indestructibility; additional firepower is probably unnecessary). If you have an opponent that doesn't have EMG or zortrium armor, but is otherwise quite formidable, build as many of these as you can the turn after you invent zortrium armor, and immediately attack. As long as they don't have EMG, they simply won't have the firepower to destroy your battleships, and as long as they don't have zortrium armor, you won't have any difficulty blowing up what they build, so decimate as much of their empire as possible during this window of opportunity.

if your opponent is using an all-beam fleet, you may want to put inertial stabilizer + augmented engines on your battleships.

argh, I don't feel like writing the rest of this page at this moment...

Scott Carnahan's MoO2 page builds off of and clarifies some of the content on this page.

Antares has good message boards.

if you like other MicroProse games, specifically Civilization II, try the French Challenge.

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