This is because Production Races can routinely out-colonize and out-populate Tech Races, which means they can ultimately even out-tech a Tech Race. In theory, there is a fair balance between Production Races (Unified) and Tech Races (Democratic). With a very few exceptions, Dictatorship and Feudal governments are suicide unless a player intends to jump an opponent very early on and gets lucky enough to find a convenient Worm Hole right to them. Democracy is also a viable pick, though generally a much tougher race to play. Unification is the preferred form of government, and essential for any production oriented race.

Lithovore is also a viable pick: it does not increase the number of colonists a planet can hold, but by eliminating farmers, it does give you more usable population. Each of these picks increases the number of colonists that a planet can hold. It is essential that your race picks include at least one of the following pop capacity modifiers: Aquatic, Subterranean, Tolerant. A race without the ability to generate a large population will almost always lose the population competition, and shortly thereafter the game. Population is the ultimate arbiter of victory in MOO. While this is a great deal of fun, the Darwinian struggle of years of combat has proven that there are certain requirements for a competitive race. One of the real joys of this game is the wide latitude to experiment with a huge variety of race combinations. Some parts of this guide do not apply when playing the DemoDict Mod. Some parts of this guide are irrelevant for strategic combat games, and only loosely relevant for small universes or Advanced Tech games. Most online games are set up for medium or large universes, at the Pre-Warp or Average Technology setting, utilizing Tactical Combat, no computer managed empires (AIs), and no Antarans. The strategies, tactics and techniques explained in this guide apply to the types of games usually played online against human opponents.

This guide is designed to help players quickly get over this obstacle and start to enjoy their online games. There is a steep learning curve when playing against human players, and many of the lessons that good players have learned offline have to be thrown away when playing against humans.

Most players who start to play MOO II online have a lot of experience playing against the computer, but very little experience playing against other human players.

Master of orion ground combat