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MOO3!!!!!!!


goaliejerry
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the gameplay is great, the problems lie on these interfaces that are filled with words and do nothing but make the game learning curve a tedious one. I, being a 4x strategy fan, especially a fan of the MOO series like the game and enjoy it a lot, that's because i'm a diehard fan.

From a general point of view: the game is not for everyone, you will need a lot of patience to get involved into it, and you will find that the graphics (wait a minute, what graphics?... ohh, yeahh, the little dots that you see when in a battle) are not that great. Of course, you can zoom to see a ship on battle, but the graphics are not up to the standards.

I would sugest the game to diehard fans but beware of the flaws because they're major ones.

If they change all that text with some images and clear some things it may be worth it.

Conclusion:

Stay playing what you're playing right now or get it if you need it so badly and have m,oney to spare

Pardon any incoherence

Cheers,

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I've got it. Played it.

Problems:

It's a bit TOO detached. You are barely involved in your civilization, everything happens without you. In a way this is good, in a way you don't really feel like you are helping anything.

Graphics suck. Not normally a problem, but the least they could have done to take your mind off the fact that you aren't important to your empire hardly is some pretty eye candy. Besides, with a 2 CD install, what the hell are they taking up that space with? (Music - which is pretty cool btw)

Good things:

I like proposing bills in the UN. It's fun. I like to try and get as many people kicked out and war declared on as possible. I veto everyone who tries to join the UN. It's great. Everyone who is more powerful than me I keep a good relationship with. If they talk smack to me I talk smack to them... eventually they grovel back to me.

Conclusion-

This game would be awesome as hell for multiplay. For singleplayer it just doesn't feel right. I got it yesterday, and unless my friend wants to play it with me, I've got it for sale:

$39.00 even through Paypal. Plus shipping of course. You'll probably like it if you have friends to play it with, cause it's a blast politically. The effort in the backstory is good too, but it's just the graphics that need updating.

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Feels like a spreadsheet program.. after waiting hours yes hours, to get your fleet of 5 cruisers built, you send them into combat for 30 or so seconds of fireworks. then its back to doing your taxes again..

i'm going back to space empires iv gold.. I dont know why I waste my money. I guess I had high hopes the great sequel to moo2, with a big publisher behind it.. cough

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quote:

Stardock's upcoming GalCiv is going to blow MOO3 like a nuclear weapon.

Frankly having played both games I will say, no, it is not. Not for me anyway.

GalCiv is fun, but once I started to understand MoO3 and learn how things work I fell in love with the game - same with numerous others over at GoneGold who are warming up to the game the more they play. The game has some core elements that really need to be understood before you start to "see the light", development plans being the most important. That being said, like Battlecruiser it is a game that not everyone will enjoy and requires some dedication to truly understand.

The problem I have with the game is a lack of aggression in the AI, if they fix that then I can see myself ranking the game right up there with Europa Universalis 2. Coming from me you can't get much more praise than that. Despite the flaws (and it definitely does have some flaws) I was up until 9am playing last night and 4am the night before.

If you want Civilization in space with nice AI then I would recommend GalCiv. It is certainly a fun game, but MoO3 has opened up a world of strategical depth I've not ever got from GalCiv.

[ 02-28-2003, 02:47 PM: Message edited by: Elenkis ]

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quote:

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stardock's upcoming GalCiv is going to blow MOO3 like a nuclear weapon.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Frankly having played both games I will say, no, it is not. Not for me anyway.


are you a Beta tester? the game is supposed to be released around the end of march.

GalCiv has the visuals that MOO3 lacks, that's the reason for me to like it since if the game has a solid gameplay, no matter how different it is from other 4x games, i will get used to it.

One more thing: IMO i don't see the reason why the developers/publishers wont patch the game, so you can count on some fixes,udates, etc.

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quote:

are you a Beta tester?

Correct.

As I said, GalCiv is a nice game and has great AI. It's a well designed 4x strategy game but not really anything new and it doesn't have enough to keep me playing it the way I played games like MoO, Alpha Centauri, or Europa Universalis. I just don't feel much desire to start it up.

Right now I'm having a better time with MoO3 than I have had with GalCiv, but it's still too early to say how long my love for MoO3 will last. Right now I am enjoying the ride though.

Anyway, GalCiv is a very different game to MoO3. They're both strategy games and both set in space, but GalCiv plays more like a Civilization game than a MoO game.

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quote:


Originally posted by Elenkis:

Anyway, GalCiv is a very different game to MoO3. They're both strategy games and both set in space, but GalCiv plays more like a Civilization game than a MoO game.


Well thats interesting.

Thanks for the input though, I'll remember not to take MOO3 too seriously then.

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Got it, and feel like the designers wated their time and I wasted my money. MOO2 was way better than MOO1, so I thought that MOO3 would be way better than MOO2, wrong, MOO2 is also way better than MOO3. From graphics to gameplay, my advice is, if you have MOO2 stick with it, if you got MOO3, either try to get MOO2 or exchange it for Galactic Civilizations.

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I'd read a bunch of reviews before getting MOO3 so had a pretty good idea of what to expect. MOO3 certainly has a lot of stuff wrong with it that should have been done much better:

1. Only runs in 800x600 resolution

2. AI is irritating (it likes to pump out tons of troop transports and ground units, when what I really want are battleships).

3. Space combat graphics are painfully bad. The space combat is done in full 3d - but using voxels for units. The voxels look awful - dots when zoomed out and shifting piles of vaguely ship-shaped pixels zoomed in. The player has the ability to zoom and pan, but can only move the units in a 2d plane. The result: they should have tossed the voxel engine and done the combat using sprites (like Pax Imperia, Eminent Domain), or gone full 3d (like Homeworld) - either game has much prettier combat. Even MOO2 has better looking space combat graphically!.

4. The game has a very questionable design. MOO3 may look complex, but your planetary viceroys actually handle most of the detail for you. Most of what you see in MOO3 is actually just clutter that adds little to the game. The game also requires you to penetrate multiple screens of clutter to get to important things (such as planetary build queues).

5. The space combat is poorly designed (apart from the graphics). Range circles should have been added to all combat task forces during combat, since detecting your opponent is very important. The combat map should also have a minimap. It also needs an "autoresolve combat" button, like in MOO2. In one combat, my overmatched cruisers were destroyed in the first volley, but only after launching their own missiles. For the next 5 minutes I watched my 2 missles fly randomly around the screen. the enemy ships were cloaked so the missiles couldn't see them (and even if they were'nt the missiles wouldn't really have been able to damage them). There was no way to end the combat so long as I still had munitions flying about or the combat timer was going. Even the escape key does nothing in combat. I decided to wait out the combat timer (combat lasts 10 minutes max, so I had to watch these missiles fly around for 9 1/2). However, I got bored after 5 and hit ctrl-alt delete to force close the game.

Though MOO3 is certainly a disappointment, it does have a few things I like:

1. The galaxy map is awesome: It shows all the stars connected by starlanes. The map can be panned and zoomed and the galaxy is in full 3d. It most resembles the galaxy map in ascendancy, but with more loops. It really feels like this is a galaxy.

2. Being able to control large fleets of ships is kinda cool. Though the graphics are bad, large battles with 100+ ships on each side look neat from a distance with lots of beams and fighters flying about.

Though this game is certainly not what it should have been, I find myself still playing it (for now at least) and even enjoying it. I am a big fan of David Weber's books especially Insurrection, and On Death Ground. MOO3 is the closest game I've seen that captures some of that feel.

Still, if this game didn't have the name "MOO3", very few people would buy it. People who want a better designed space 4x game might want to try Starships Unlimited, Divided Galaxies. There's even a new patch out for it that adds random events and fixes the font.

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quote:

2. AI is irritating (it likes to pump out tons of troop transports and ground units, when what I really want are battleships).

This is just one example of people not understanding the game. Which is mostly the fault of the interface and lack of decent documentation... Mark the Troop Transport design as Obsolete when you don't want any being built and the AI will NOT build any. Then when you want to build some more just mark it as Active again. Believe me, you WILL be needing those troop transports eventually

The reason the AI does this is that it looks primarily at Hull size when chosing what Military to build (every ship is classed as military). If your Troop transport is your only ship designed in that hull catergory (Cutter I believe) then it will build them. Either create some new Cutters or just obsolete Troop ships until you need them.

I really hope the new manual will address this stuff (or better still would be a patch fixing up the UI) as it is something most people will miss due to the obscure design.

quote:

4. The game has a very questionable design. MOO3 may look complex, but your planetary viceroys actually handle most of the detail for you. Most of what you see in MOO3 is actually just clutter that adds little to the game.

Part of the depth of strategy comes when you learn how to properly control and influence your voiceroys. The voiceroys just handle the micromanagement of the plans that you set for them, the grand strategy and planning is left to you - though you can micromanage mostly everything from DEAs to every to individual ship if you really wanted to (I wouldn't recommend it). Once I got used to it I found it to be a pretty cool system as it lets me concentrate on the grand empire scale.

I recommend reading this: http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showth...threadid=267650

Also none of what you see is useless clutter, after a while you learn how all the information ties together and nothing is quite as useless as you first thought.

I agree entirely about the combat stuff which has been a disappointment to me in the game, though it does look pretty cool when you have battles of 100+ ships vs 100+ ships.

[ 03-02-2003, 05:25 AM: Message edited by: Elenkis ]

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quote:

Mark the Troop Transport design as Obsolete when you don't want any being built and the AI will NOT build any.

I already figured that out. However, all planets still tend to pump out hoards of ground units (Battleoids, commandos, hackers, and command centers). I have to constantly check the sitreps. If I see a ground unit in it, I then have to go manually edit that planet's build queue to switch it to starships.

Even when the AI does choose to make combat ships, I notice that it always seems to pick distinctly average ships and never the most powerful ones. Left on their own, my top planets will make battlecruisers, when they are capable of making much more powerful behemoths. An option to force the Viceroys to make ships with specific hull sizes and missions would really help.

quote:

This is just one example of people not understanding the game. Which is mostly the fault of the interface and lack of decent documentation

Actually, I didn't have any trouble understanding the game. Despite the awkward interface the game is actually quite easy to pick up, since the Viceroys take care of most of the detail. I actually like the fact that there isn't as much micromanagement as in other space 4x games. My problem is that the interface is needlessly complex, cluttered with info that you don't really need, and requires many more mouseclicks than it should to access.

quote:

Believe me, you WILL be needing those troop transports eventually

I tried ground assaults. They are interesting, but once my empire reached a large enough size, I stopped doing them. Its really much easier and faster to wipe out the space defenses, bombard the planet into oblivion (the entire population can be eliminated in a single round if your fleet is powerful enough), and then let your colony ships build a new colony there. In the late game, I set the AI to auto-colonize so it will colonize everything without me needing to take any action. Consequently, I have no need of the 30+ troop transports (from before I obsoleted troop transports) and the 1000+ ground units in my reserve.

quote:

Also none of what you see is useless clutter, after a while you learn how all the information ties together and nothing is quite as useless as you first thought.

I disagree. Take the ship design screen for instance. When you design a ship it lists what components are on that ship so you can play around with them. When designing a starship, the list of components on the ship is cluttered up with components that you cannot remove or modify in any way (bridge, life support, etc.). This extra information adds nothing to the game except

clutter. It would have been clearer to omit the required components from the list and just have the list represent the extra components that a player could add. They could have figured the required components into the space available on the hull type and need never show the player this clutter.

Some design decisions in MOO3 are just plain bad. Take spying for instance: The player must constantly refresh the spying build queue (which only holds 4 items) to train new spys. Even if you never deploy your spies they constantly die off or retire. Its not very interesting when your main task is to constantly top off the build queue. Why couldn't this have been done by the AI? The spys also have no personality - the same generic artwork is used for every spy.

Some other decisions just don't make sense. It takes my fleet 23 turns to cross my empire, but if I disband it wherever it is into my reserves, I can reconstitute it anywhere in my empire just 10 rounds later (at any system with a mobilization center, which for me is all of them).

In spite of these problems, MOO3 does offer some enjoyment. I have been playing my current game of MOO3 for over 20 hours and am now over turn 700 with tech level 40-42. I control the whole galaxy with the exception of the New Orions, who control just one system. The New Orions have over 150 ships though, and all appear to be around tech level 50. I have one main fleet of 132 ships composed of outdated superdreadnaughts, battleships and escorts. I am also building up a more modern fleet of Titans and Behemoths. So far, I have over 70 Titans in reserve. Debating whether to try to take them on now or wait till I close the tech gap further. I currently have about 20 planets that can pump out a fully-equipped Titan in 5-7 turns and a behemoth in less than 10.

While MOO3 has a lot of things wrong with it, it still has some redeeming value.

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I think mods may help save this game.

Right now there is a huge push of player mods. Apparently this game was made to be easily accessible. I mean, in 3 days the players have already made a UI that is far easier on the eyes and there is already a player micromanagement mod in beta form. I really do think with player determination and a few quality patches...this game could turn around.

It's sad that players have to fix the game....but who else would you really want doing it? heh!

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quote:

I think mods may help save this game.

You are probably right. The game is amazingly easy to moidify. With winzip and editing a single line of text I was able to change the shipbuilding priorities to make the computer automatically build much more long range attack, indirect fire, and carriers as opposed to transports and recon ships.

A simple change to another line of text and now I can field 64 ship task forces (the default is a maximum of 18 ships per task force, with the player controlling a maximum of 10 task forces in a battle). With this mod, I could now control 640 ships in a battle if I could ever make that many.

I saw a screenshot of new artwork someone is making for the interface. It already looks much better than the shipping game. Will be interesting to see what mods are available in a month.

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I am telling you, this game is ridiculous. The automation doesn't make it easier to play, but harder instead. Even if you change the minor settings to your own liking the AI will change them back eventually, so what's the point of going back every 10 turns and reseting the settings? Also, the whole interface is ridiculous, clutter, and some of the stuff are pretty much useless. As for combat, don't even get me started there. MOO2 was a TON better compared to this game, this game shouldn't even be in the same line as Master of Orion, it just doesn't belong there. Research? What research, you just wait intill they announce they got a new discovery made for you. The most you can do for research is allocate what percentage is spend on what, not even what tech to research in what area. MOO 2 had better interface, better graphics, better AI, better gameplay, you just had better control of the whole game period. Whoever made this game seriously messed up, and I think that a part of the problem is when they took out the Imperial points you could spend on controlling the stuff yourself, but left all the automation there. But in either case that wouldn't have mattered much, the game is just.... so frustrating when something like this happens to a great title.

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Guest dnoyeB!

I stumbled upon MOO3 about 3-4 months ago. Everyone sung the praises of the MOO series so I thought I was in for BC3000 but with more depth.

However, MOO3 lacks completely any form of '2003' level presentation. The game looks to me like Access + Excel + graphics. The graphic system is heavily DATED so its development must have taken all of 3 months. Why was the game delayed? I can not see any signs of value.

The single worst manual I have ever received in a game. It belongs on that worst manuals website. No tutorial, no walk through, no intro/familiarization missions...

And for the depth, their was a game, StarQuest or something like that about 12 years ago. It had far more depth than this. I am not getting ANY information from my interactions with other races. The game seems to progress without my efforts in a semi-random fashion. I dont have much affect.

The game is all effects. Where are the causes? Why did you declare war on me? Why did you end the war? Why are you spying on me? If I piss off X race, it should say why.

As someone new to the MOO series, I am getting out now. F a daggum patch. They should have respected me by releasing something worth $50 in the first place.

As far as I can tell, MOO3 has whored the MOO series and is most likely its deathnail. These couldn't be the original developers?

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Guest dnoyeB!

quote:

Originally posted by $iLk:

I've had about 70 engagements where neither side fired a shot after I committed to battle... takes up lots of precious time.

If 2 non-aligned parties occupy the same system, you will receive a engagement each turn. Period. How long was this game in development?

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quote:

I read somewhere that the AI doesn't attack??

The game I am in is my first really long game. So far, I have only lost a single planet. The AI sends fleets into my territory, but you're right - it almost never attacks with them, though it will attack my fleets in its territory. In all this time, I have only lost a single planet to an AI incursion into one of my systems.

I assumed the lack of aggressiveness is because I started this game on easy difficulty while still learning the game mechanics. I expect and hope the computer will get much more aggressive on higher difficulty settings, but I haven't yet tried it.

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