List of Rules for Playing (LAN-)MOO2 vs human Players
Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 11:28 am
We (some friends and myself) are playing orion2 for many years (some of us since release) against each other (or together). I tried out Internet Gaming vs unknown opponents as well, but it wasn't much fun, i met cheaters (for example naming their colonies "." and ".." to hide them in the galaxy, some kind of bugusing) and quitters (just left the game, when they think to loose) and many other bad players.
So we stick to use LAN Parties for Orion2-Gaming and they were much fun. Often the Time between the turns last longer than the turns itself, because several players discuss hidden alliances and War strategies in the next room before continuing their further play.
Between the games we began to invent Rules to preserve balanced and thrilling Games in the future.
We forbid lame-Tactics and other stuff we didn't like at all.
After many games we decided to invent some kind of rulebook to make the LAN-Games more interesting. The source of many of them are balance or prevent hassle Gaming-issues, others are just preferences where we decided that this way of gaming is more fun.
If someone wants to play moo2 vs friends, i warmly advise to use some or all of these roles for gaming, we experienced much fun using them and very exciting diversified games.
All Rules we invented have serious reasons i will try to explain.
1. Game Version:
- We use the really great newest VDC Mod (36h at the moment) The Game is just much(!) more fun then. Again a thx a lot to the creators of this mod.
viewtopic.php?t=613
We use two additional modifications:
- Setting nohousing switch to "+0 population bonus"
viewtopic.php?t=737
Reason: Balance issue, production-focused races gain more (=too much) benefit from producing housing and are therefore much stronger than non-production focused races. In Addition there is a serious bug in the housing formula which makes housing with 1 population extremely strong. So we decided to play without Housing. In Addition the turns are faster if the players don't neet to swap around their new growm population each round.
- (new and optional of course) Changing Galaxy generator to create huge Galaxies with fewer stars to speed up gameplay (less micromanagement-> faster turns with fewer colonies for all players)
viewtopic.php?t=146
Reason: Longer distances between stars make good engines and jumpgates more valuable and allow defending players to react if attacked. In dense galaxies you may often hop in 1 Turn between multiple enemy Systems leaving defending players little chance to defend himself. In Addition it is more difficult to win a 2 fronts-War if a strong player (wo is already on the way to win the Game) is attacked by several players at the same time.
2. Basic Gaming rules:
A) The Game is started with these Parameters:
VDCOR.exe /skipintro /noorion /hugestart /richstart /noreport /noscan /nohousing /planets=5
Reason:
- All players start with a quite nice Home System which allows them to develop fairly well.
- Orion ist left out as housing due to balance issues (too easy to get orion and his free techs which often leads to game winning)
- The Usage of the Report Button always was lame, because you can see the techs and spies of other players
- The removal of scanning enemy ships in combat adds the possibily of surprise Tactics which widens the design variations and the strategical and tactical depth.
- VDCOR.exe creates galaxies with more balanced systems (no empty systems anymore!) with more usable planets. This reduced the need of restarts due to unbalanced starting-situations.
B) A huge Galaxy with 36 Stars (See point 1, changing the Galaxy Generator) is created with 8 players, average Time and Galaxy Age at impossible mode, with activated antarans, random events and tactical combat.
C) Each player Chooses his favourite Race from a fixed list of Races:
Alkari: +2 Food, +1 Research, +0,5 MC, +50 Def, -25 Attack, -10 Groundcombat, +10 spy, Democracy, Large Home, Poor Home
Bulrathi: +80 growth, +2Food, +1Prod, +25 Attack, +20Groundcombat, Feudal, High-G, Large Home, Rich Home, Warlord
Darlok: +80 Growth, +2 Food, +1 Prod, spy+10, Feudal, Large Home, Rich Home, Telephatic, Stealthy Ships
Elerian: +2Food, +1Prod, +0,5MC, +35 Def, Feudal, Rich Home, Telepatic, Omniscient, Warlord
Gnolams: +80 Growth, +2Food, +1MC, +10 Spy, Dict, low-G, Subterranean, Large Home, Fantastic Trader, Lucky
Humanse: +2Food, -1 Prod, +1 Research, +1BC, Democracy, +10 Spy, Charismatic, Fanstastic Traders
Klackon: +50 Growth, +2Food, +2 Production, Unification, Large Home, Uncreative
Meklar: -0,5 Food, +2 Prod, -20 Defense, +25Attack, Dict, Cybernetic, Tolerant
Mrrshan: +50% Growth, +2Food, +1 Prod, +75Attack,+10 Groundcombat, Dict, Large Home, Poor Home, Warlord
Psilon: +2Food, +2Research, +0,5 MC, Dict, Low-G,Large Home, Rich Home, Creative
Sakkra: +100%Growth, +2food, +1Prod, Feudal,High-G, Subterranean, Large Home,Rich Home, Lucky
Silicoid: +50%Growth, -20 Defense, -10Groundcombat, Dict, High-G, Subterranean, Lithovore, Repulsive
Trilarian: +50% Growth, +1Food, +0,5 MC, Dict, Aquatic, Large Home, Trans dimensional
We use these Racepic List which was created from overlord:
viewtopic.php?t=613&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=285
http://www.mediafire.com/file/zctn776mm ... CESTUF.LBX
Reason: To use a fixed list of Races has several advantages:
1. The Races still maintain their individual feeling, as you can see the main statistics for each race is still as much as possible the same as in the Basic Game, they are just tweaked a bit to make them all useful and almost equal strong.
2. A fixed List is an Easy way to prevent too strong combinations without forbidding several pics at all. As you can see, almost all possible Pics are used at this list.
3. The Races all have their individual strengths and weaknesses and i think anybody is able to pick his or her favourite from them.
4. When you meet another race (KI or Player) you know, what you are up to. We think it destroys the game expierience if you all of a sudden meet telepathic Bulrathi, democratic Klackons, aquatic Silicoids or other WTF Races.
We decided to fill up the remaining Playerslots with KI Races. To play without KI Races if fewer as 8 human Players start together is considered boring. KI Races are really nasty at the beginning and give several Races the possibility to use special abilities (for example for some races it is fare more easy to spy KI Races out or to wipe them out at early state of the Game to grab more colonies)
During play these rules prevent hassle between the players and lead to more balanced play:
D) It is forbidden to produce or use android workers on Planets other than toxic.
Reason: Other balance Issue, android workers get full production boni from morale and are much stronger than normal population. If someone researches these workers builds them he gets too much production in short time. In Addition it values up toxic planets, they are of much more use in later games (fill them up with android workers and they produce quite well).
E) No Splitted Systems:
- Players are not allowed to place a colony in a System, where another human Player already placed a colony or an outpost.
- Players ARE allowed to place an outpost in a System, where another human Player already placed a colony or an outpost.
Reasons: Splitted Systems get in conflict with galactic peace, because they usually would lead to an early war. In Addition they are just pain in the ass for both players and can be used to harass other Players.
F) Galactic Peace:
Until Round XX (set before beginning of the Game, for example Round 100, depends on the players) there is a Galactic Peace Set.
- During Galactic Peace, Players are not allowed to attack colonies of other human Players.
- During Galactic Peace, Players are not allowed to declare War to other human Players.
- All Players ARE allowed to attack fleets and/or outposts of other players.
Reason: Removes Rush-Gaming whish destroys fun in x Ways (X way = Games with more than 2 players, for example 8 players): If the rush succeeds, the player gets big Advantage and usually wins the Game, if the rush fails, the Rushing-player has seriously misplayed his overall strategy and usually no chance of winning anymore.
Important: These Rules only affect the behaviour against human Players, the KI races are free to kill at anytime and anywhere!
G) Pacts:
If a non agression pact is set between Human players, the players are not allowed to attack Fleets, outposts or colonies at all.
Players are only allowed to attack colonies if they declare war at least 1 full round before. (there has to be "war" at the beginning of the round where the attack occurs).
If there was a non agression pact between players, the players have at least to wait for 5 full rounds before they may declare war to each other.
Reason: Players should use pacts wisely, they should be advantages and disadvantages to conclude a treaty with another player. They shall not be dishonored by breaking them. If you want to attack another player anytime, just don't accept a non agression pact or just declare war some rounds before.
These Rules only affect human Players as well, you may trick and kill KI Races as you want at anytime.
H) KI Races:
Players are not allowed to invade or mindcontrol KI-RACE Planets, unless the same planet was successfully invaded by the ki race before.
Players are allowed to destroy KI Race colonies and place an own colony at the same place.
Reason: Balance issue: It is much too strong and much too easy to early invade KI Planets to get their (often awesome strong) population. This kills the balance between the Players. If you want to invade other planets, wait until you can invade the Planets of other human players, of course these planets are allowed to invade if you are at war.
I) Players are not allowed to scrap invaded antaran ships for technologies.
Reason: Balance Issue: It it far too easy to get too strong techs by invading antaran ships and scrapping them.
3. In combat:
A) In combat the defender has the right for the last wait, See more about the Reason for these combat rule here:
viewtopic.php?t=1481
B) If the Game breaks down after a combat and the combat has to be played again, all players should try to replay the combat as it was in the 1. combat. If not possible, the players destropy manually the ships they lost in the 1. combat.
Feel free to ask or comment this list of rules, i appreciate any feedback.
So we stick to use LAN Parties for Orion2-Gaming and they were much fun. Often the Time between the turns last longer than the turns itself, because several players discuss hidden alliances and War strategies in the next room before continuing their further play.
Between the games we began to invent Rules to preserve balanced and thrilling Games in the future.
We forbid lame-Tactics and other stuff we didn't like at all.
After many games we decided to invent some kind of rulebook to make the LAN-Games more interesting. The source of many of them are balance or prevent hassle Gaming-issues, others are just preferences where we decided that this way of gaming is more fun.
If someone wants to play moo2 vs friends, i warmly advise to use some or all of these roles for gaming, we experienced much fun using them and very exciting diversified games.
All Rules we invented have serious reasons i will try to explain.
1. Game Version:
- We use the really great newest VDC Mod (36h at the moment) The Game is just much(!) more fun then. Again a thx a lot to the creators of this mod.
viewtopic.php?t=613
We use two additional modifications:
- Setting nohousing switch to "+0 population bonus"
viewtopic.php?t=737
Reason: Balance issue, production-focused races gain more (=too much) benefit from producing housing and are therefore much stronger than non-production focused races. In Addition there is a serious bug in the housing formula which makes housing with 1 population extremely strong. So we decided to play without Housing. In Addition the turns are faster if the players don't neet to swap around their new growm population each round.
- (new and optional of course) Changing Galaxy generator to create huge Galaxies with fewer stars to speed up gameplay (less micromanagement-> faster turns with fewer colonies for all players)
viewtopic.php?t=146
Reason: Longer distances between stars make good engines and jumpgates more valuable and allow defending players to react if attacked. In dense galaxies you may often hop in 1 Turn between multiple enemy Systems leaving defending players little chance to defend himself. In Addition it is more difficult to win a 2 fronts-War if a strong player (wo is already on the way to win the Game) is attacked by several players at the same time.
2. Basic Gaming rules:
A) The Game is started with these Parameters:
VDCOR.exe /skipintro /noorion /hugestart /richstart /noreport /noscan /nohousing /planets=5
Reason:
- All players start with a quite nice Home System which allows them to develop fairly well.
- Orion ist left out as housing due to balance issues (too easy to get orion and his free techs which often leads to game winning)
- The Usage of the Report Button always was lame, because you can see the techs and spies of other players
- The removal of scanning enemy ships in combat adds the possibily of surprise Tactics which widens the design variations and the strategical and tactical depth.
- VDCOR.exe creates galaxies with more balanced systems (no empty systems anymore!) with more usable planets. This reduced the need of restarts due to unbalanced starting-situations.
B) A huge Galaxy with 36 Stars (See point 1, changing the Galaxy Generator) is created with 8 players, average Time and Galaxy Age at impossible mode, with activated antarans, random events and tactical combat.
C) Each player Chooses his favourite Race from a fixed list of Races:
Alkari: +2 Food, +1 Research, +0,5 MC, +50 Def, -25 Attack, -10 Groundcombat, +10 spy, Democracy, Large Home, Poor Home
Bulrathi: +80 growth, +2Food, +1Prod, +25 Attack, +20Groundcombat, Feudal, High-G, Large Home, Rich Home, Warlord
Darlok: +80 Growth, +2 Food, +1 Prod, spy+10, Feudal, Large Home, Rich Home, Telephatic, Stealthy Ships
Elerian: +2Food, +1Prod, +0,5MC, +35 Def, Feudal, Rich Home, Telepatic, Omniscient, Warlord
Gnolams: +80 Growth, +2Food, +1MC, +10 Spy, Dict, low-G, Subterranean, Large Home, Fantastic Trader, Lucky
Humanse: +2Food, -1 Prod, +1 Research, +1BC, Democracy, +10 Spy, Charismatic, Fanstastic Traders
Klackon: +50 Growth, +2Food, +2 Production, Unification, Large Home, Uncreative
Meklar: -0,5 Food, +2 Prod, -20 Defense, +25Attack, Dict, Cybernetic, Tolerant
Mrrshan: +50% Growth, +2Food, +1 Prod, +75Attack,+10 Groundcombat, Dict, Large Home, Poor Home, Warlord
Psilon: +2Food, +2Research, +0,5 MC, Dict, Low-G,Large Home, Rich Home, Creative
Sakkra: +100%Growth, +2food, +1Prod, Feudal,High-G, Subterranean, Large Home,Rich Home, Lucky
Silicoid: +50%Growth, -20 Defense, -10Groundcombat, Dict, High-G, Subterranean, Lithovore, Repulsive
Trilarian: +50% Growth, +1Food, +0,5 MC, Dict, Aquatic, Large Home, Trans dimensional
We use these Racepic List which was created from overlord:
viewtopic.php?t=613&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=285
http://www.mediafire.com/file/zctn776mm ... CESTUF.LBX
Reason: To use a fixed list of Races has several advantages:
1. The Races still maintain their individual feeling, as you can see the main statistics for each race is still as much as possible the same as in the Basic Game, they are just tweaked a bit to make them all useful and almost equal strong.
2. A fixed List is an Easy way to prevent too strong combinations without forbidding several pics at all. As you can see, almost all possible Pics are used at this list.
3. The Races all have their individual strengths and weaknesses and i think anybody is able to pick his or her favourite from them.
4. When you meet another race (KI or Player) you know, what you are up to. We think it destroys the game expierience if you all of a sudden meet telepathic Bulrathi, democratic Klackons, aquatic Silicoids or other WTF Races.
We decided to fill up the remaining Playerslots with KI Races. To play without KI Races if fewer as 8 human Players start together is considered boring. KI Races are really nasty at the beginning and give several Races the possibility to use special abilities (for example for some races it is fare more easy to spy KI Races out or to wipe them out at early state of the Game to grab more colonies)
During play these rules prevent hassle between the players and lead to more balanced play:
D) It is forbidden to produce or use android workers on Planets other than toxic.
Reason: Other balance Issue, android workers get full production boni from morale and are much stronger than normal population. If someone researches these workers builds them he gets too much production in short time. In Addition it values up toxic planets, they are of much more use in later games (fill them up with android workers and they produce quite well).
E) No Splitted Systems:
- Players are not allowed to place a colony in a System, where another human Player already placed a colony or an outpost.
- Players ARE allowed to place an outpost in a System, where another human Player already placed a colony or an outpost.
Reasons: Splitted Systems get in conflict with galactic peace, because they usually would lead to an early war. In Addition they are just pain in the ass for both players and can be used to harass other Players.
F) Galactic Peace:
Until Round XX (set before beginning of the Game, for example Round 100, depends on the players) there is a Galactic Peace Set.
- During Galactic Peace, Players are not allowed to attack colonies of other human Players.
- During Galactic Peace, Players are not allowed to declare War to other human Players.
- All Players ARE allowed to attack fleets and/or outposts of other players.
Reason: Removes Rush-Gaming whish destroys fun in x Ways (X way = Games with more than 2 players, for example 8 players): If the rush succeeds, the player gets big Advantage and usually wins the Game, if the rush fails, the Rushing-player has seriously misplayed his overall strategy and usually no chance of winning anymore.
Important: These Rules only affect the behaviour against human Players, the KI races are free to kill at anytime and anywhere!
G) Pacts:
If a non agression pact is set between Human players, the players are not allowed to attack Fleets, outposts or colonies at all.
Players are only allowed to attack colonies if they declare war at least 1 full round before. (there has to be "war" at the beginning of the round where the attack occurs).
If there was a non agression pact between players, the players have at least to wait for 5 full rounds before they may declare war to each other.
Reason: Players should use pacts wisely, they should be advantages and disadvantages to conclude a treaty with another player. They shall not be dishonored by breaking them. If you want to attack another player anytime, just don't accept a non agression pact or just declare war some rounds before.
These Rules only affect human Players as well, you may trick and kill KI Races as you want at anytime.
H) KI Races:
Players are not allowed to invade or mindcontrol KI-RACE Planets, unless the same planet was successfully invaded by the ki race before.
Players are allowed to destroy KI Race colonies and place an own colony at the same place.
Reason: Balance issue: It is much too strong and much too easy to early invade KI Planets to get their (often awesome strong) population. This kills the balance between the Players. If you want to invade other planets, wait until you can invade the Planets of other human players, of course these planets are allowed to invade if you are at war.
I) Players are not allowed to scrap invaded antaran ships for technologies.
Reason: Balance Issue: It it far too easy to get too strong techs by invading antaran ships and scrapping them.
3. In combat:
A) In combat the defender has the right for the last wait, See more about the Reason for these combat rule here:
viewtopic.php?t=1481
B) If the Game breaks down after a combat and the combat has to be played again, all players should try to replay the combat as it was in the 1. combat. If not possible, the players destropy manually the ships they lost in the 1. combat.
Feel free to ask or comment this list of rules, i appreciate any feedback.