Slow Race Strategies

[KFizzle]

we all know what the best races in moo2 are:
unitol +1prod large &
uniaqua +2prod rich large

both of em them are extremely fast, especially at building.

though i consider uniaqua +2prod better than unitol but theyre both just as good

with uniaqua +2prod its very easy to always get supers by turn 55 while expand upto 4-5 systems. very easy, ive seen it happen, ive done it myself.

unitol +1prod is another case, it doesnt really get supers till turn 70, but after turn 70 and just poppin' in supers at every colony there is, it catches upto tech with uniaqua +2prod just like that.

but that's not what this post is about:

this post is about:
what do you do when you play slow races? races other than this two mentioned?

with uniaqua +2prod / unitol +1prod its optimal to both expand and tech to supers right away, while its better to race for supers first then expand, for example: unilith +1prod or unisubaqua +1prod

but what about other races? races with +1prod or less?
example:
uni aqua heavy-g rich
uni aqua/sub creative
uni aqua warlord +1prod large
etc..

what about these races? what do you in these cases?

ive re-tested new strategies with my uni creative, but i cant get past 60 pop by turn100, even though ive had saves where i made 80-100 pop with creative, but thats only cause i had an ultra rich in home system... so that doesnt count....

how do you uber pop with slow races??

ive figured one strategy that would work would be:
tech soils first, and expand faster with extra farmers on prod, but that only slows down teching by a good 10 turns.... so what then?

its very easy to break 100 pop with unitol, uniaqua +2prod, or unisubaqua +1prod, but thats rather harder with slow races...

so i imagine 70pop by turn 100 would be a good goal with slow races.

feel free to post any ideas you might have or anything you like to share:

my strategies with slow races:
tech soils 1st, expand like regular prod races or
tech supers 1st, then start expanding

but either way, theyre still slow, and hard to compete with races such as unitol / uniaqua+2prod

[KFizzle]

guess what?

i did it, i did a slow race test using uniaqua +1prod/warlords
and i did it...

http://nekrebagh.homelinux.com/moosaves/save8.gam

i had to completely revamp my gameplay style but i pulled it off.
i used orange, and i had a good sector, but NO RICH/URICH
and best of all, i popped 100+ without cloners/robos...

but it can be done..

my only catch now:
if this was a slow race...., what about regular races like uniaqua +2prod or unitol....

[llylwyyn]

How did you get soil enrichment without researching it?

[KFizzle]

arti*

[llylwyyn]

I think that sub-aqua-creative is the slowest race, and since I've been testing it anyway as a viable race, here's my lastest attempt at high pop by turn 100 on a large map, with 3 AI thrown in for giggles.

http://ez-files.net/download.php?file=4173300f

While I was building the second colony ship, I found a splinter colony (3 pop, no blds), so I used the PP for DDs to take out the ameoba and switched production to a BB to save PP for later. I didn't use cloners or soils, instead going straight for supers. This gave me a better result than previously when I'd gone soils and clones, using clones on the pop planets and soils on my homeworld to speed up research. Also, in previous attempts I had much better planets in my home system, so I really think slow races pop faster (while keeping up tech) by skipping biology entirely - the savings by not having biodomes & cloners adds up fast in the first 100 turns, enabling speed-building of more colony bases.

[siron]

Tried this race also a few weeks ago...in one of the map mods. But even when u have enuff planets to tech...it is still insufficient.

[KFizzle]

hi,

ive come to conclusion that having home system and 1st cship system being 4+ planets each will have best effect on pop growth considering you have more colonies as housing planets that way.

so its really the map that decides how much pop you can grow by turn 100.

it doesnt really depend on race, but having a race that helps growth in any way will pop faster.

it also depends on what type of tech path you follow after autos/rlabs basics.

1) supers 1st, youll have a tech edge then
2) robos 1st, youll have production edge as well as best pop growth
3) cloners 1st, youll have growth edge, especially on colonies that are near full
4) pol procs 1st, youll have clean pollution edge, helps build cships faster, as well as battle techs/path
5) soil;s 1st, necessary for some races such unitol, gives farming edge but best to wait till supers 1st

the tech path and expansion really decides how much pop youll have.
for example if you get robos by turn 60-70, youll have a 30 pop boost to your normal pop by turn 100, cloners 1st will enable to keep popping while you expand

after that, there's also 2 families of players on kali moo2 servers:
people who believe in cloners (cyber/inver family of players)
and people who rather live without (skip) cloners (zircon/step family of players)

i used to belong to cyber family till i switched to zircon/step family later on.
another difference between these two families is for example the type of beam weapons they use:
example cyber family predominantly used mds/c3s for beam weaponry while
zircon/step family predominantly used fusions/subspace comm for beam weaponry.

another difference would be:
cyber family used atmos for pollution techs mainly while
zircon family uses pol procs for pollution techs



truth is? it doesnt matter what race you use and what tech path you use, its what that works best for you is what you should use.

personally i like getting pol procs 1st, simply because of monsters, quick assault before turn 100 if needed, and i can always tech supers in 5 something turns when i have enough pop. it slows me down in tech little bit, but ive learned to optimize my teching skills.

ive seen cybersaber use cloners every single time, and pop 100+ with slow races such unisub creative on top of everything by turn 100 like that. one of the reasons why his creative was so lethal. and he was scarier with unitol.

but at the same time, ive seen people pop 100 without using any cloners at all as well, and it can be done.

i think by default, having 70+ pop by turn 100 means youre doing ok, anything less than 65 depending on race would mean youre doing bad. unitol +1prod and uniaqua +2prod can easily make 100+ by turn 100 as well but if they dont get any good map theyll have 70 pop as well. i guess i really got lucky with that warlord save.

and ive been testing with non uni races lately as well, i popped 77 with demo aqua +1bc and i popped 79 with sublith +1prod by turn 100 without cloners/robos. another game, i played tolvore, and i popped 98 by turn 96-97 without using cloners. i had 5 planet each for 1st two systems. ill put up the saves here later on. all games i had 4+ systems each.

ive noticed one thing, if youre playing non-uni, and youre not playing lith, demo aqua +2bc will have very good results, considering it techs fast as well as it can build very fast almost like unitol for non uni.

picks that help grow/pop faster:
+growth- it will help you grow faster but with full planets the pick is useless
+prod- it will help you pop faster since more production is put into housing
+money- it will help you pop faster in the sense you can build factory/labs techs faster meaning youll have more time to house, normally demo aqua +2bc can buy most stuff within 2-3 turns such autos/rlabs

another dilemma with housing/pop:
when youre playing non uni/demo, playing dict, you have -20% morale on every new colony, and for example building marine barracks on such colonies take time at least a good 5-6 turns or something which cuts down on your housing time...

you could simply not build marine barracks on housing planets and house at -20%, or build baracks and house at regular speed. its upto you. normally i always wait till i get autos or pol procs or build barracks. only catch then is youll be housing at -20% till you have barracks built.

but im starting to believe, with the right housing/teching/production strategies and with optimizations, non uni races can easily compete with uni races. at least try out or give sublith +1prod a shot, it makes 4 prod/pop but it techs fast, and it can use numbers to build stuff. in my tolvore save, with 98 pop by turn 96, i had two bbs waiting at home building up experience, fully loaded bbs. any lith can easily build 2 bbs by turn 100, in case it ever has need to defend.

it can be done.

[KFizzle]

these are the saves i found:

http://nekrebagh.homelinux.com/moosaves7/save1.gam sublith turn 0 save
http://nekrebagh.homelinux.com/moosaves7/save5.gam tolvore save turn 99
http://nekrebagh.homelinux.com/moosaves7/save9.gam sublith turn 100 save

[KFizzle]

here's another save i made:
http://nekrebagh.homelinux.com/moosaves7/save2.gam

creative save, uniaqua crea, turn 100, 75pop, 3 systems, and 1 c3s bb

[siron]

hi,

ive come to conclusion that having home system and 1st cship system being 4+ planets each will have best effect on pop growth considering you have more colonies as housing planets that way.

True. Regarding Pop and Prodraces you need to look at systems at the following way:
How many Housing Planets?
How much Pop can I store there?

And the first question is in the begin more important. That means...you obviously need also the capacity to store Pop. But not necessarily in the same system.

Though for Techraces there are high opportunity costs to build a further Cship. Therefore 2nd question matters more.

it doesnt really depend on race, but having a race that helps growth in any way will pop faster.

The race is of course a huge factor.

1) supers 1st, youll have a tech edge then

The tech edge normally doesnt last very long. So you need an early attack then because of lower pop.

5) soil;s 1st, necessary for some races such unitol, gives farming edge but best to wait till supers 1st

I disagree.

after that, there's also 2 families of players on kali moo2 servers:
people who believe in cloners (cyber/inver family of players)
and people who rather live without (skip) cloners (zircon/step family of players)

I dont like the expression family. The different style in most of their games is mainly explained by the fact that they play different setups. 1v1 or 4way, wh or nowh. For example, Zircon plays exclusively 4ways and he is a bit risk averse. So he always likes to have early fighter garrisons. In contrast some other players mainly play 1v1 and use their same build up also for 4ways. When they are blitzed there, some of them just insist on an unwritten law that you shouldnt blitz. And then there are players like Sky who vary a lot.

example cyber family predominantly used mds/c3s

He use that weapon for his crea. Otherwise he techs differently.

truth is? it doesnt matter what race you use and what tech path you use, its what that works best for you is what you should use.

I disagree. There doesnt work much besides the uberprod races. Especially for new players.

i think by default, having 70+ pop by turn 100 means youre doing ok,

When the usual ProdRaces are not banned you are dead with that low pop.

you could simply not build marine barracks on housing planets and house at -20%, or build baracks and house at regular speed. its upto you. normally i always wait till i get autos or pol procs or build barracks. only catch then is youll be housing at -20% till you have barracks built.

Once again. After autofacts you lose less than 20% since the basic 5 prod are not influenced by morale.

but im starting to believe, with the right housing/teching/production strategies and with optimizations, non uni races can easily compete with uni races.

I think you should reconsider how successful 2prods and Uni tol (and its variations) expand. Dict cant compete.