Created a savegame with uncommon starting conditions,
and added some restrictions to make it more challenging.

Get it here: https://sabercathost.com/dthK/MoO2_challenge__nov_2017.zip

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Story: After an odyssee through space with the remains of your colonization fleet and some captured ships
a timespace anomaly left you stranded in an unknown galaxy, where you just created a new colony.


Game setup: impossible, 8, huge, avg, avg, tac&antarans&random on
picks: Unification, transdimensional, omniscient, pop -50%, low-g

Players starts with 1 pop and 3 different androids on medium terran low-g planet,
make sure to check out all assets.
Expected game length: less than 300 turns to win would be quite impressive

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The rules of the challenge, if you like to play it as intended:


The android crews of the 3 captured ships will not participate in offensive actions,
i.e. these ships are not allowed to attack colonies of other species
or fire at ships of other species unless they are in orbit of a system that is under the players control,
respectively if those ships cause a blockade of a players colony..
Blocking colonisation by mere presence is ok, also fighting monsters and antarans, incl attack on antares.
Same is valid for the avenger once you took orion.

You can not win by council vote in this challenge, but you can lose. Avoid it!
The game is lost if the player loses 2 of the starting 3 military ships before turn 50 ends.
The game is lost when none of the 3 starting military ships is left.
Player is not allowed to scrap one of those 3 ships.
The player may not demand more than 1 tech every 25 turns.
The player may not spend more than 4 picks if he researches evolutionary mutation,
5 only in case he decides to "unpick" low-g which was aquired during the long time in space.


The game likes to compensate a weakness with leaders and because this is a challenge
the player is not allowed to hire any more leaders until turn 51,
he even must instantly dismiss every leader that appears during turn 2 - 50.
A 3rd leader may be hired at turn 81, no limits after turn 100.

You are allowed to prevent Death Rays from being built into your satellites!
Either remove the knowledge via savegame editor or prevent it via 1.50 configuration.
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The savegame was designed to be played with 1.50.42 mod and vanilla rules incl some changes in cfg,
but also works with e.g. 1.40.23b which does not require dosbox under xp and runs much faster here that way.

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Since i dont know whether specific entries may be required for newest 1.50.x release that could be missing in my set150.cfg,
here the changes/additions so you can also add them manually:

Changes in SET150.cfg:
strict_combat_sequencing = 0 #ships may wait multiple times/turn like in vanilla
defensive_fire = 0 #control at what your ships fire, do not allow the enemy to draw it with its crappy ships ;)
board_range_normal = 2
event_duration = 4 4 4 #back to vanilla
event_duration anomaly chance = 20 #back to vanilla
event_duration beast chance = 20 #back to vanilla

Additional lines in SET150.cfg:
max_combat_turns = 100 #there should not be a time limit at all!
satellite_capture = 1 #keep captured satellites if also the colony is captured in the same turn
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No matter whether you play it with mentioned rules or your own, have fun!

Whats the meaning of word "official" is this context? No, actually it doesnt.

I dont own the name/Brand to declare anything moo2 related as official
and the starting conditions are uncommon, so it was the obviously failed attempt of a joke.

If anybody feels offended by the word or something else in titel/message let me know here. I assume your knowledge is based on the code, do i will drop that theory for now and ever.

Nothing wrong with created challenges.

I thought you could not use the earlier fan patch on the Windows version but maybe it is only my lack of skills that hinders it.

Not quite sure whether i managed to express myself clear,
i can start orion2.exe via double click in explorer or via command line/batch

Its quite some time ago that i adjusted moo2 to run on XP so i dont know exactly which info i used,
but i i think it was lordbrazen.blogspot.de/2005/01/installing-master-of-orion-ii-v140-on.html.

Rather sure i never did the install under dosbox,
but thats perhaps because my moo2 installs were created under DOS.

btw, 1st my german 1.31 version(from magazinre CD) had some weird colors(wrong palette?)
but the program itself ran fine under XP, only the weird colors made it unplayable.
Same result with the 1.40.23b exe in that install,
just checked the gog version(also 1.40.23b) which has the same weird colors
but also freezes on the start menu screen

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Besides, if anybody dares;) to play the scenario, no matter whether with sugested rules or her/his own,
i would appreciate some mercyless feedback so i can improve on the next attempt or realize that i am not talented.

If you do have problems, please open a new thread ;)

Und es gibt auch genug die gegebenfalls in einer anderen Sprache antworten koennen ;)

For improvement, suggestion: Open a new thread, post your saves, like every 20? turns and I think more than one of us would be willing to help you improve ;)

Why? Why? Also - should it be another from the case above thread or the same one?

Why:
Because it is impolite to highjack another persons thread.
*Other people might have the same problem and hiding it in other peoples thread will not help those, right?
Derailing is frowned upon?

I could add quite a few more, put all of those are the most common ones, so are you trolling?

Further:

And why do you have to be all the time be so unfriendly?

For your last question see above *


EDIT: Yup clear trolling from Darza

have a nice day and troll in your own threads I will not reply to you anymore, troll

Did i missed something, or you indeed jumped some thread to tell topicstarter what he shouldnt add anything to his own thread and should instead open a new ones, coz its impolite to ruin another persons threads, even if that "another person" is he?

If i didnt missed - you can have a valid explanation for your question; if i did - again, you can have equally valid one for it.

Also no, i still cant get about "see above": should it result in 2 more threads or only one?

Looks like a fun save. I'll play it.

I won by conquest in 138 turns. I'm sure it can be done faster, as I only attacked along a single axis. I just built 3 cruisers and towards the end 1 battleship, plus tons of transports. I never hired any leaders, although a ship commander with some troops buffs would have been nice.

Start by researching Fighter Bays. Set up your outpost in Esser, then suicide your starting cruiser into the space dragon nearby to gain some CP (that is legal per the rules). Build outpost 2 in Dante. Go for Auto Factory, then start building a cruiser with 4 Interceptor Bays. Now Fusion Beams then Battle Pods then Research Labs. Once your cruiser is ready, send it to Meklon and solo capture Meklon II with a single troop transport. After that, build enough transports to capture the capital Meklon I.

There is no point in putting Extended Fuel Tanks on your warships, since your transports won't be able to reach that far. So the trick is always setting up an outpost within troop transport range of a target. Then destroy the enemy fleet at a planet without defenses and capture that to use as a staging point for the planets with starbases. This means getting fuel cells to give you the range should be a priority.

Early on, your single cruiser should be able to handle most fights alone. But don't forget that by the contest rules, as soon as you have captured an enemy system, you can send your starting military ships in to defend it while your cruiser moves on. But add more warships as soon as you have the CP available. After the first cruiser, all my designs just have Battlepods and as many Interceptors as I can fit in.

I went after the aliens in the following order:
Meklons
Humans (w/ deuterium fuel cells)
Elerians
Klackons
Cryslon (w/ irridium fuel cells)
Mrrshans
Gnolem

The Klackons and Cryslons have by far the best industrial production, so the sooner you can absorb them into your empire the better. It would be much harder if you can't suicide by space monster your starting cruiser to free up CP, but rules is ruelz.

From this, i take it that you played it in 1.40?

No, I played it in 1.50.8 with all the settings in the front-end launcher set to "classic". Seemed to work as the OP said it would, although I tried capturing some Starbases in one run and the board range was 0 plus game didn't "keep" them after conquest. So maybe that version screws up his preset cfg options? I dunno.

I've replayed it a few times now, and have found that with a 4-fighter-cruiser bought early to speed production, you can take out the Mekons by turn 35 (requiring 2 transports), as opposed to turn 50 with a 6-fighter cruiser (requiring 3 transports). Research order: Fighter Bays, Auto Factory, Tritanium, Fusion Rifle.

You can trade tech every 25 turns by the rules, so I was able to capture Deuturium Fuel Cells from the Meklons and trade some other useful tech from the Humans and Eleirans before I invaded them. This allows to go fo go for Tritanium Armor. Also, since you start with Mass Driver, Fusion Rifle helps a lot (iirc Mass Driver always supersedes Fusion Beams on your fighters anyways). Both those techs equalizes your early troop combat disadvantage.

I've also found that transferring the Farmer and Worker androids to Meklon creates a much earlier strong manufacturing center rather than trying to build up Rigel. At turn 50 look to hire either a good production-oriented leader, or one with troop bonuses/ faster movement. Ditto at turn 81.

I think one of the main strategic choices is whether to first research Irridium Fuel Cells (to be able to absorb the Cryslons manufacturing ASAP) or Ion/Anti-matter Drives (to save on travel times). And whether Planetary Supercomputer is required to get them quicker or not.

Ah ofc 1.50 classic. Should have thought of that first. :)
Single carrier attacks indeed work better in '1.50 classic' than in '1.50 standard' settings since missiles have no initiative in the former game mode, giving carriers a distinct advantage over star bases.
Also, starbases are not kept after combat in neither of the three 1.50 game modes, this option needs to be turned on manually.
Further, Mass Driver supercedes Fusion as you wrote, but in 1.50 classic mode the fusion (and other energy beams) still has the +1 extra dmg like it was in classic 1.31/1.40, and is the better beam to use. But since In this particular savegame you start with Mass Driver known, teching Fusion Beam is pointless for carrier strategy.

Aren't the "classic" settings closer to the original "vanilla" game? I thought 1.50.8 "standard" introduces "corrections" which changes some of the game dynamics (like missile initiative and reducing +1 fighter damage)? Although in both versions fighters are still outfitted with "normal" beams but get the "pd weapons" target bonus, correct?

Probably belongs in the 1.50 Patch thread, but in general, in my experience there seems to have been a large drop in AI aggressiveness that happened somewhere between the initial introduction of 1.50 (where one could change the config files... awesome patch btw) and the current version 1.50.8 I have installed. It almost seems as if the AI difficulty is permanently set to "easy" or something. I'm not seeing the epic late-game AI buildup I used to encounter in past game versions. Not even when using the ICE mod. Is it possible a bug has been introduced into the difficulty settings somehow through the inclusion of the front-end launcher?