MOO3
 

The best game ever is going to have a part 3.
Master of Orion 3 !!!!!!

Check it out at http://moo3.quicksilver.com

This game will be awesome.
Just check out the section 'offical comments', and you'll understand why this game will totally rock.

Don't get me wrong, I think SE4 is really cool, but it's not even near the MOO series.
That's my opinion of course, and you're welcome to share it or not.
To my view, the stronger point of SE4 is the open architecture. The fact that it's so easy to customize the game file (just edit the file) makes it easier for all fans out there to adapt the game to his preferences.
But the AI is no challenge (yeah I know, it's getting fixed), the tech tree is too small and the default races all act the same (yeah I know they will fix that too).

To me it all comes to this.
When I was playing MOO2, sometime I would be in front of my computer telling myself "just another turn, just another turn and I'm going to bed" for 4, 5 or even 6 hours.
Needless to say, I suffered from sleep depravation the first month the game came out. I haven't feel the urge to play SE4 more than 6 hours non-stop. After that, I'm just bored that the AI players are not attacking, not surprising me and generally speaking, not entertaining me.

Multiplayer in SE4 looks cool though. Only problem, by playing one turn a day by PBEM, the game only starts to be interesting after 2 months...

thecyclemania

Re: MOO3
 

I have my doubts about Moo III. Moo two held my attention for two weeks. I found Stars! while waiting for Moo II to come out. Stars! has been installed for about 5 years now while I doubt if I could find my Moo disk. Not bad for a game which fit on one single floppy.

SEIV, for all it warts in its current Version, is one of the few games which captured my attention and will probably remain on my disk for the next 5 years.

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Out of curiosity, what didn't you like about MOO2 ??? Try to be descriptive.

And what do you like about Stars (and SE4) that MOO2 doesn't offer ?
I can only think of multiplayer. Stars and SE4 are better designed for multiplayer play.
The single player experience on the other part is SO bad in Stars and SE4 so far. The AI is NOT a challenge at all.

I'll always remember my first impression of Stars:
"What are those triangle moving everywhere? Are THOSE you ships ????"
Hehe, just being sarcastic...

Re: MOO3
 

Following on from thecylcemania's comments;

I must agree that MOO2 sits up there as the greatest of all space strategy games. The techs were interesting and promoted intense ship design competition, the ship design system has still not yet been surpassed, and the space combat system was brilliant - the design choices and tactical manuvring actually could have a hige effect on the combat result. For MOO3 I wouldnt want much changed at all - only beef up the graphics and diplomacy, open up the architecture.

Having said all of the above, I am really quite enjoying SE4 (AI issues etc aside). I think that once the issues are addressed, it will sit a very close second to MOO2 - further tweaking by fans and the designers might even get it up to the top spot (yes, I'm quite impressed by it and its potential).
With SE4, I havent suffered sleep depravation that I experienced with MOO2, but, nevertherless when I get back near the computer, I cant help firing up SE4 and spending 2 or 3 hours playing it - so on that basis SE4 gets a very high rating.
I played Stars! for several weeks but eventually gave up because of the clunky interface and the emotionlessness of it - basically I got bored with the micromanagement of it all - something the designers of SE4 have managed to avoid.

Anyway, you suffered my opnion enough, back to SE4 for an hour or two!

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Well, maybe I was being a little harsh with MOO II. MOO I was a great game, the kind that keeps you up to 4:00 a.m..

MOO II was missing something. It was kind of like chinese food. It had all the right ingrediants, but still left you hungry after two hours.

The ship design was great in concept, except that ships never aged out. They were far too easy to upgrade.

Tactical combat was good, especially in mid game. Towards the end those planet zappers got kind of silly.

I would really have to think about why I wasn't happy with MOO II, the best I can say right now is that the total was less than the sum of its parts.

Re: MOO3
 

thecyclemania:

Ok, I'll bite on the 'what didnt you like about MOO2'. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Lets see. MOO2 was great game for while, dont get me wrong. But it had some serious shortcomings.

1) The pacing was GLACIAL. 24 Turns to get a COLONY SHIP!...Made for some really loooonnggg games. Not always bad, but the early game was repeated 'Next Turn' hitting. That also really dragged in MP games.

2) Ship components and design had far too many 'no brainers'. Missiles and Fighters were nearly useless compared to the best direct fire weapons. You rarely got up to bat unless you had the DF weapons. The starting ranges were too short and the missiles and fighters were too slow.

3) The absolutely SILLY way you had to research! Only being able to pick one item out of field was just plain stupid IMO. Many items were NEVER seen because certain items in the same 'field' were NECESSART...hmmmm, gee, Battle Pods or Survivial Pods? Gee, I wonder! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif Same for things like 'Mech-bots for ground combat or Titan Hulls?'...umm..really big decision there...I think not.

4) Loss of the 'flavor' of the AI players from MOO1. The races mostly seemed the same in MOO2. The art work and music for the leaders and the diplomacy were MILES behind that of MOO1. Graphically better perhaps (resolution-wise), but failed to convey the same moods and atmosphere.

5) Tedious Colony micromanagement. It was fine in the early game when you only had a few colonies to manage, but quickly became repetitive and annoying the mid-late game. Sure, you could 'auto build' the colony, but the decisions it made were often silly. I also dont think that 'feeding the empire' is something which should be major issue in spacefaring era game. That was fine for Civ, but it should have been dropped (or muted) for 'Civ in Space' IMO.

6) The tactical combat was often brainless. This is mostly a factor of the above weapons imbalance. Basically all you did was move forward and fire your best DF weapons at the enemy until one side died. Very little maneuver or tactics IMO.

Looking at this list, you'd think that I hated the game. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif Well, I did enjoy the game, but I feel that these shortcomings prevented it from becoming the 'time suck' that MOO1 was for me.

What I DO enjoy about SE3/4 is that many of the things we ARE dissatisfied with will be changed and corrected. MOO2 had a few patches and they DID help, but I'm quite confident that the level of support for SE4 will FAR exceed that for MOO2.

Talenn

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Yes moo3 looks great im looking foward to that more than civ3,but i think moo2s a bit overated it was good in its day and i enjoyed it for a time,but i think se4 has surpassed it it every area,which it should considering how old moo2 is,and can only get better in time with improvements.

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I've never played any of the moo games. Don't know why, I just didn't. But judging from what I've read about moo3 I'll probably play that. Still playing Stars! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

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I think that for its time Moo2 was a pretty good game. In fact I remember when it came out - I was thrilled - I thought finally a game that came close to the old star fire system, and on a computer no less! Oh the late nights I burned ... trying to beat the cheating AI...
I think my problem with the MOO series was that it came across as civilzation in space. Alot of the same paradyms were in the game that you found in all the civilization games- such as having to feed the population, the inability to research more than one tech at a time, to name a few frustrations. I particularly hated the fact that I could not build on a planet and build ships at the same time, and that I couldnt expand my construction capabilites around a single star system like I can in SE3/4.
Once I found the SE series - well moo2 got shelved. Moo1 and 2 were just too limited.

I am not too hopeful for Moo3 - It doesnt look that great to me, I hope I am wrong. The Last time I read about it - I read that they had removed tactical combat. For me, the ability to do tactical combat is half the fun of a space warfare game. I prefer the ability to move the ships and fight the battles myself instead of waiting for a computer to decide the outcome for me.

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cyclemania - I checked out your MOO3 site. The second link down, read about the tech tree they are planning on writing. It's a complete copy of SE4's tech tree!

-m

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Talenn:

I disagree with you that the "choose one of the techs" in MoO2 was dumd. IMO, it's brilliant in theory, because in theory it presents the player with tough choices and forces the player to engage in some combination of conquest, espionage, and/or diplomacy to gain the other options. It's a mechanism that creates more gameplay.

In practice, I agree many of the choices were not that tough to an experienced player. But there were a few tough ones. I always agonized over Missile Bases vs Auto Factories, both critical technologies. If more of the sections of the tree had forced decisions like that, it would have been a stronger tech tree design.

On the other hand, I missed MoO1's random deletion of techs from the tree. That ensured that every game played at least a little bit differently - and, sometimes, a LOT differently. I played a game once in which nobody developed anything that could harm planetary missile bases until very, very late in the game. The only way to take systems was to try to bLast out the missile bases with spies! Eventually, the really powerful late-game weapons changed that and the conquests unrolled again.

Re: MOO3
 

James Sterrett:

IMO, the CONCEPT was sound, but the execution was silly. Many of the techs had NOTHING to do with one another, you just had to make an arbitrary choice. The example you gave was a perfect example of what I'm saying.

Now if it had been a choice between 'x','y' or 'z' weapon or variant of weapon or somesuch I would have enjoyed it. Many of their choices just seemed not too terribly relevant to the other items on the list.

Also, IMO it would have been nice to be able to go back and research the other techs perhaps at a surcharge. That would make more sense but the whole 'This is your one chance for tech 'x'...didnt take it? Ha! You lose it forever!' idea doesnt seem to have much basis in reality and IMO didnt add much to the game play.

I understand the effect they were looking for with that, but I think they missed the mark in implementing it. SE4 does and admirable job of rewarding people for specializing their techs while still allowing the ability to go back and pick up neglected techs. In fact, I think SE4 might be a bit TOO forgiving in that regard.

FWIW, I'd like to see all techs in SE4 take a minimum amount of time to research or else give diminishing returns on huge piles of RPs.

Talenn

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Here's a point I mention with great trepidation . . .

Anybody recall how buggy that game was when released? They released three patches and never did get all the DTDs out of it. MOM was even worse. As shipped, it was impossible to finish the game and they never addressed even half the issues.

I loved both games and would probably still be playing MOM if it didn't have a weird conflict with the video card on my newer computer. I do think, however, all the fuss being made over SEIV's progress should be considered in light of exactly how unstable the game to which it is most frequently compared really was.

BTW, whatever happened to Steve Barcia, anyway? I liked his designs very much!

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No idea on Steve Barcia. I believe Alan Emrich is working on MOO3. I really look forward to it simply because of his input. He has done a number of other board games that have all been VERY well done IMO.

He used to also be a review/columnist for CGW years ago and many of his views on what was or was not a good game mirrored my own.

Talenn

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I guess this is an "agree to disagree" - I had no problem with the unrelated nature of the techs - and, in fact, I don't think the concept would work as well if they were, since it would make the choice simpler. The factory/missile base choice was hard precisely because of the split: you could choose to apply the concept of "automation" (IIRC) to either defence or production.

I do think SEIV is too forgiving. 8)

And, yes, Psi, I *do* remember the bugs. Especially MOO2 v.130, where the diplomacy model was broken suich that the other races declared war on you as soon as they saw you. (I did manage to get an alliance for one turn... once.)

Re: MOO3
 

Wow, this topic sure generated a lot of interest.

A few comments,

Mafia -----
You're right. There are similarities between SE4 and MOO3 for the tech tree. You can research on pure sciences (like chemistry) or application (like armor). Hey, it's a good idea, why not use it. But they intent to create a 'web' instead of a tree. Meaning that tech will have more dependencies. In SE4, it is too linear. Technologies don't have enough dependencies. Remember Civilization II...

Talenn----
The pacial was slow. Game were long. I totally agree. But from what I read, that's what they're working hard on. Improving the pacing. A cool idea (I think) they are implementing is "action points" (or something). As the player/emperor, you can only involve yourself directly in a limited number of actions each turn. You CAN'T do everything. You'll have to play with ministers or something similar. I really love this idea. Sure, in a way it limits your involvement in the game, but it adds gameplay. As the leader, everything shouldn't go as you want all the time. One things for sure, this will accelerate the pace.

Combat in general--------
I don't know if you guys read the section on combat, but it's totally different.
Ground combat looks promising.
Check it out at http://moo3.quicksilver.com/ground_combat.htm
Space combat will also be different. You will play the role of the commander of the fleet. So you won't control the movement and fire action of every single ships in the fleet. Then again, I think it adds so much more to the gameplay. Hey, If I want to play a game where I control every single unit in combat, I'll play TA or Starcraft. Those are tactical game. But combat in a 4X game should have a different feel to it. I think this will definitively be a move in that direction.
Personnaly, I think tactical combat in SE4 sucks big time. I always play strategic combat instead. What's the point ? Get in range, shoot then move away. Shoot then move away. From time to time, shoot seeking weapons. If you have the tech, you might have some "super cool variant" (being sarcastic) and you can board the enemy ships to capture it. Wow...
I think I enjoyed tactical combat more in MOO2 just because the icons were bigger, they looked more cool, and the explosion and fire effects were a bit more complex. In SE4, the icon are just plain too small. "Is that a battleship or an escort? can't really tell..." I want to be afraid of the enemy big mamma ship. Just seing that battleship, I should freak out...

Anyway, there is so much more to say.

And I said before, I love SE4. I bought this game just to play PBEM (no tcp/ip for now). I never play alone, the AI sucks and is never a challenge. Maybe we'll have a challenge at some point.
Remember the "Mshrann" (the cat) in MOO2 ?
They were my favorite enemy (very aggresive, bonus in space battle). I would play small galaxy, 8 players, impossible level of difficulties. You had a war going on within 10 minutes of gameplay...I loved it.

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IMO MOO3 looks like it will be more of a roleplaying game. I am actually looking forward to this because I think the SE series in general has always lacked things like a storyline and generally substance behind the alien empires. For instance I thought the basic concept behind Imperium Galactica II, and SMAC was great. You felt immersed, you seemed to need to explore, and there was pretty good variety in the scenarios that inevitably played out.

SE4 is more of a wargame, always has been. And not just a wargame but a blank canvas. That's what iv'e always enjoyed about SE, I can do it however I want. Honestly neither IG2 or SMAC hold a candle to SE4's strategic depth and replayability. Both ways of doing things are good in their own right, but I can't wait until someone finally puts them together, maybe SE5 ?