neikaz: @sdgorrell, I don't like your choice of -food, especially with Uni, as now your farmers start producing 2.25 f/t rather than 3 and you need 4 farmers rather than 3 at the start, and that reduces a strong advantage of Uni. I suggest, since you're telepathic and will just make a few colonies and take the rest, getting some minuses from LG instead if you don't want to be Repulsive. There are so many better things to do early than research and build farms. ie labs and factories.

@ neilkaz, Absolutely correct. My race is heavily slanted toward production. As noted, food can be a problem early. Hydro farms is my first pick, Research Labs my second. Then to factories. One trick is use is to set Tax at 20% right off the bat. then colonize as quickly as possible. Colony bases first, then ships and more bases. The tax $ let you instantly buy a new farm each time you colonize a planet which is enough to keep your peeps in the factories. Once you hit Soil Enrichment the food problem ends. I will look into LG though...

neikaz: @ Quite a few players, sure it's easy to have spawned on the side of the galaxy with two nice planets in your system, but you'll move further along the road to playing better if you suffer with whatever start you're dealt. What fun to play a garbage race like Bulrathi and start in the middle of the galaxy and have your only planet for CB be pop 1 UP LG. Win that game and you'll learn. One learns by being put under pressure and by trying new things, yeah..sometimes you must reload lost games and try again.

@neilkaz: That I agree with as a great way to learn. Progress would be measured by incrementally increasing how long you manage to last before getting wiped out. Winning H-8-I from that starting position would be theoretically possible, but I fear most would quit out of frustration long before getting there.

As a side note, I recently finished the easiest H-8-I that I've ever played. The map spawned with no repulsives and no Darlocks. Everybody got along fine. It got to the point where all players had solid industrial bases, defenses, and huge fleets. Since I build ships better than they do I could have started a war and eventually won. But it would have been tedious. So I sacked the Antarans and moved on. It was also, without a doubt, the most boring game of MOO2 I've ever played. As much as I hate the Darlocks, they do serve a purpose.

That is very incorrect approach. Not only Hydrofarms are quite weak on their own, researching and building them prior labs and factories make them even more disruptive. They are simply not needed for Uni at all (not mention skipping the Biospheres for them). Taxing yourself so early is purely a shot into own leg, as you convert a prod into BC as 1:1 ratio, than convert BC into prod as 2:1 ratio, so simply wasting some prod for no reason (you're storing a production while researching a proper way, right?). Its a trick only to make game somewhat harder. Also Uni races colonize their homeworld prior any research done (only after that one is researching lab-fact), otherwise there is no population from housing planets at all in early game. Neilkaz provided a good link for a new player, actually, it would save many questions after you will read it.

No, progress there would be measured in the won\lost games ratio, not in a game length. Eventually a player should win 100% games using any Preconstructed races from Prewarp-Huge-Imposs-7AI's, (exept of Darloks i guess, as they are have no meaningful boni at all, so would lose in extremely bad maps) no matter of placement on a map and quality of planets around (tiny UP toxic as alone planet in a homeworld system and no harvestable planets at all in 6 parsec range with Medium poor Radiated as a best planet would work still). Actually learning curve is dropping the own race's quality after reaching 100% win ratio, going from good custom races, than to mediocre, than to weak, than to preconstructed and so on. Another useful stuff is to play with Uncreative, as it would teach about game tech in a good way. Also there is 2 quite different games in the Game. To simply beat all 7 Impossible AI's there is no need to colonize anything at all, they are easily could be beaten using only one starting planet, and on a early tech, the goal is so easy on itself, so it matter only if it did fast or with really weak race. But there is also a rich world of economic development strategy, when player use the various technology offered to build really impressive empire (totally outperforming AI in process, so there is even no point to bother about actual war with it), and compete versus population\technology benchmarks for a some given turn instead.

Telepathic races are meant to attack quickly..ie blitz. My style in this game is not that of a blitzer, but I had to try 3 H/8/I games with the following race vs from std. pre-warp settings vs the AI which have nothing resembling a chance vs such and OP race.

Uni,Tele, Trans, LRHW with std. Repulsive negs. Why TransDimensional rather than econ boosters? Well, this race has adequate production and with quick labs built in you home system adequate tech to quickly be able to MIRV Nukes and then the game is over for the AI as you just make cruisers and mind control the galaxy.

I was able to win in the GC as soon as it came up in 3 games as I was so much bigger than the couple of remaining AI's. 159 turns, 163 turns and just now, 152 turns. Perhaps a blizting expert might be able to clear things completely out sooner or perhaps they'd use fighters to start with. I went with missiles as need D-cells anyhow and pol proc are a nice help to the econ.

I used to play the same type of race occasionally with Aqua for econ rather than Trans but in Cluster galaxies where speed is less needed and the stars are closer together so it is quicker to get the jump on the hapless AI's.

Speed there is depends on map configuration only (wormholes, artifact planets, splinters, free leaders\BC), but in case of using that race (the best one for those settings) properly (so using fighters, as they are affected by TransD, unlike missiles, and as they are simply more effective than missiles overall, not building any colonies and not researching unneeded tech (labs, autofacts etc)) there shouldnt be later than T100 win (in worst case without any wormholes and meaningful boni at all), average for "average map" would be about 80-90.

I beat it on impossible with the largest world (8 players).
With lots of reloads and a good starting conditions.
One of the tricks I found is to have a custom race (with creative trait) and make sure you take Psilon as the picture. Why? This will exclude Psylons from your enemies, which if they will be then they will have all the tech so much earlier than you and will be cruising with several fleets of 20 hi-tech death stars each, when you can amass only 10 titans altogether.
It was really hard.
Another thing I remember is that I defeated Klackons VERY early in this game.
I might even have some saves left (small chance).

Another of my personal achievements is beating the game on Hard without any reload (except to continue the game, of course). Custom race again.

I'm not a new player. I did this like 10+ years ago. :)
I haven't played it since, except a little here and little there, nothing serious, but I might and give it a try to use other races
Not convinced you can beat impossible with a poor start, though, but then again I haven't researched many different paths of development.

I usually make sure I start with a Home system with at least 2 other Med Radiated planets or better. I also choose Psilon picture as I find computer with Creative can be a pain in the arse not to mention that they just give their tech away, or have it stolen, by everyone else which makes them even tougher to deal with.

I do NOT choose creative myself as it's not that good for the price it takes. Try Tolerant and Cybernetic.

My Picks are usually as follows:

Repulsive - 6 picks
Ground Combat - 10% - 2 Picks
Ship Attack -20% -2 Picks (in single player games this is not as important)

Tolerant +10 Picks
Cybernetic +4 Picks (ALWAYS!!! ship repairing during battle ROCKS)
Large Home +1 Pick
Rich Home +2 Picks
Research +1

I begin the game in the following way
- Electronic Computer
- Research Labs
- Reinforced Hull
- Automated Factories

At this point I build all Colony Bases that I can
- Nuclear Fission (all 3) Freighters
- Chemistry (all 4) Basic Armor

Here I usually build 2 Scouts and 2 Destroyers w/ 6x2 Nuc Missiles for system defense.
- Cold Fusion (all 3) Colony Ships
- Physics (all 3)
- Fusion Rifle
- Battle Scanner
- Battle Pods
- Tritanium Armor
- Space Academy

Now I build my first BattleShip

- Biosperes
- Soil Enrich
- Neural Scanners
- Planetary Super Comp
- Space Port
- Robo Miners
- Mass Drivers
- Inertial Stabalizers
- Class 3 Shields
- Stealth Suit
- Warp Interdicter

But if you pick the Psilons then you won't be able to steal tech from the Psilons.

That isn't really necessary and while it might be nice todo considering that all 6 other opponents would be able todo the same makes it even less tempting. Also computer controlled Psilons rarely if ever have -spying or Democracy to make stealing tech easier, not to mention they will get all the spying bonuses from tech without having to skip them.

I'll again link to here for starting strats, http://masteroforion2.blogspot.com/2005/03/master-of-orion-ii-strategy-guide.html

A few years ago when I came back to MOO2 after a decade I went from struggling at H/8/I and often losing or needing 500 or 600 turns to win, to easily winning in under 300 turns without blitzing with good (not always the best) custom races.

Oh, and they're certainly people better than me at MOO2 vs AI's.

.. neilkaz ..

We shouldn't be afraid of ghosts. Sure, the AI can steal Psilon tech too, but we'll have more spies earlier so we will steal tech faster, and we can put it to much better use. We shouldn't give up something that makes us 10% more efficient just because it makes the AI 5% more efficient.

Having no actual time on moo2 now, i cannot estimate the time needed for win on that certain mod, its too new and thus volatile as environment. But t86 for vanilla 1.40 cluster sound not so inspiring, as Cluster is pretty silly map, too easy one, without actual travel challenges providing by Huge map. If you meant average, and not peak performance by it - its somewhat ok, i guess though.