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how do you defeat big maso civs??
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The terror star alpha strike is still workable on bigger maps. Just a whole lot more constructors as you would expect.
An alternative is to culture bomb them to submission. Even as Maso, the AI does not know how to defend itself adequately against such an offensive.
          
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I agree with Ray about culture-bombing. I save my terror star strikes for an end-game strategy if I use them at all so I don't have to build a military to invade a star system to finish off the alien.
If the alien is getting to big for his britches, I double check and make sure I have cut off all of his trade routes to other AI by bribing to declare war. By doing that, the big bad AI must trade ONLY with you. Usually relations gradually improve especially when ALL of the AI's trading is with you. Also try to make sure the big bad dude is fighting at least 2 or 3 or even 4 wars to get him away from non-war research. Try to research things he doesn't have so you can always keep the bribes going. That is your defense.
On offense, race for cultural maximizing. If you have a chance to get cultural conquest complete with propaganda machine that is great but not really necessary. By looking at the map you can usually find a sweet spot to place your cultural starbases so they are adjacent to several alien star systems. When you are ready to make your move then build your culture starbases even though they may only be 143%. If you need to build 4 or 6, that is no big deal, but you can eventually flip them.
Some better players like Ray will tell you that culuture bombing using nearby planets plus starbases works much better than starbases alone but I haven't gotten this strategy of using PQ 10-14 planets as culture bombs smoothed out yet. Maybe others can comment. Multiple Starbases maxed with your best culture techs usually work well. Once you get the first flip, it usually begins a domino effect in that area and you are on your way to victory.
Congrats on your maso win.
    
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hehe, first of all, don't let them get too big! I think the absolute most important aspect of winning at Maso is to keep the AI's A) equal in power, and B) at war with each other. Along these lines, I agree with ricbayer about research and trade to a degree, but after the first half of the game or so I rarely have to bribe the AI's to keep them happy. Cool is OK as long as they are at war with an equal IMHO. Also, I keep a close eye on the treaties screen, and I usually wait a couple turns after they declare a truce to see if they will go back to war without a bribe from me.
So my military emphasis is on parking stacks of constructors next to resource starbases (waiting for them to be destroyed) and at AI weakpoints for a later cultural attack. My social effort is mostly based on increasing the morale of my weakest planets because the limit on taxes is the lowest-morale planet.
I research transporters, all the computers, maximizing and party palaces. I desperately try and get all the trade goods and wonders for culture, expecially the ones that increase the individual star's influence, abd build them all in the same place. With 12-15 party palaces I usually have the influence there in the 9 digit range.
Also, most of the AI's research order is fixed I believe.
Lastly, I never max-out cultural starbases. Check out my thread on Palace Magic for the calculations and emperical evidence. In short a maxed-out cultural starbase takes 12 constructors, which is less effective than building two party palace starbases at 6 constructors each.
Good Luck!
  
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| In short a maxed-out cultural starbase takes 12 constructors, which is less effective than building two party palace starbases at 6 constructors each. |
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Maxtipherous, I read your previous post but I can't recall if that was 1.05 or 1.10. Does that fact that Starbases are now 10 bc/turn in 1.10 (instead of 5 in 1.05) change your calculations? And with party palace and culture max (33% boost) wouldn't that be a total of 7 starbases instead of 6? Please help me with my math.  . Thanks.
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well, the money issue isn't noticeable to me. heck, i didn't even know they cost 5 bc to begin with! I haven't noticed a change from 1.05 to 1.1 in the effectiveness of party palaces, either.
And yes, I use 7-stacks instead of 6-stacks, but the calculations show 4 6-stacks outweigh 2 12-stacks by a huge margin (total of 24 constructors in either case). I have found 4 7-stacks are enough to overthrow just about anything even in a huge universe, provided your core influence is high enough, so that's what I stick with.
My problem with a more traditional warship and transport approach is the massive cost of the fleet coupled with the tax hit of sacrificing hundreds of thousands of tax-paying citizens, er I mean soldiers. Alternately, if you use invasion techniques that damage PQ or resources you end up with a worthless planet and have to drop your tax rate to keep it from rebelling.
cultural flipping keeps my econ stable and nice -- and I am a serious a*** retentive haha!
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I have usually found that if I build about 4 starbases with cultural maximization, all the cultural palace mods and party palace in the same sector, adjacent but not in the sector of the alien civs planet that they defect soon. If they're not all in the same sector it isn't as effective. If they're not in a sector adjacent to the one you want, they're useless.
If you've built control the cultural resources and have built all the wonders, you don't even need them. Look for a PQ 13 or 14 planet in a sector next to, or better yet IN the sector as the planet you want. If you have a lot more influence than the alien civ, this is a quick way of spreading that influence across the board. I culture-flipped an entire huge map in my last game this way, no cultural palace starbases required. That was on crippling, much tougher on maso with the influence bonus the aliens get.
    
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| If they're not all in the same sector it isn't as effective. |
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That's because influence SB bonuses in one sector *multiply* rather than add. If you scatter the bases I think the bonuses merely add: linear improvement rather than exponential! -- HtL
 
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| I still consider the SB bonuses multiplying a bug... |
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It's not a bug.
It's not a feature.
It's an enhancement! 
OK, since the aliens don't make use of it, it's more of an exploit. If they used it too, fair's fair. [Of course at some point they should consider it an attack, and demand the bases just as they demand influence bases in the same sector as their planet.]
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