MOO3 finished!

[klausD]

mephisto:
IMO this is rather a bad review. I know Brett Todd from other reviews in GD but I never liked his approach to games very much. He often scratches only on the surface of a reviewed game. Significant for this is that he dont even mention the RT tactical combat system, spies etc. but many thanks for the link.
KlausD

PS. Kriegt Ihr Deutschen jetzt eigentlich kubanische Zigarren billiger?

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by klausD:
Nobody mentions that the combat system of MOO3 is only real time. Is this real time crap so much accepted in this forum, that no one is complaining about this important issue?

Everyone who had issues with 'real time' has already vented on the MOO 3 forums. Everyone. Believe me, there can't be a person left on earth who resents real-time and has not posted a rant to the MOO 3 forums.

Since it's only combat it's not such a problem, really. You expect combat to be hairy, and many people have also complained about how unbalanced 'I go U go' combat has been. Many people here want to see SE V move towards 'impulse' combat with lots of tiny 'sub-turns' anyway. Add some way to execute blocks of 'impulses' automatically, as some people will want to speed things up, and you're almost running real-time mode. It's just interruptible.

Of course, it looks like MM has already decided to go real-time for SE V combat anyway...

[klausD]

Everyone who had issues with 'real time' has already vented on the MOO 3 forums. Everyone. Believe me, there can't be a person left on earth who resents real-time and has not posted a rant to the MOO 3 forums.
I know - I have posted there myself
I was wondering just about this forum.

Of course, it looks like MM has already decided to go real-time for SE V combat anyway... Sorry to hear this. Are you sure? (it would be a significant reason for me not to buy the game) I am glad that there is SE2-SE4 for people like myself.

Since it's only combat it's not such a problem, really. For me tactical combat is VERY important in SE4. At least so important as the tech or economical system.

klausD

[Gryphin]

Real Time Combat
What does that mean?
I infer from the conversation that it means:
I give instructions while combat is taking place.
Currently I give various Strategies to my ships and fleets and they do more or less what I want.

If RT Combat is going to require I need to react as fast or faster than my opponent I will not buy it.

[Baron Munchausen]

The point is that tactical combat is only part of the game. The clock is only ticking when you're watching ships shoot at each other, not while you're choosing facilities to build on your system garrison world, composing diplomatic Messages, designing ships, etc. It's only the one part of the game where real time can have a positive effect that it is being applied. Sure, there are problems with it. Many people would prefer an elaborate initiative/impulse system like many table-top miniatures games have. But that would require learning more complicated rules and interfaces, which would limit the market for the game. Not everyone is a micro-management fanatic like us nerds on these forums. So I can see why they went with real time.

[ February 25, 2003, 23:39: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Fyron]

Originally posted by raynor:
Even if Moo3 was unplayable, typically there would be enough people looking for it that at least someone would pirate it. I'm brand new to P2P networks such as Kazaa. But I think they use some sort of ranking so that people who have UP-loaded lots of stuff can get faster downloads somehow. I think...

This is not just directed at you raynor, so don't take it personally, but... let's stop discussing illegal activities such as software piracy on Shrapnel.

KlausD:
The main game should be turn based. That was not my point at all. But, real time for combat (with slow rates) is better because it eliminates a huge number of problems that are inherent in turn-based combat. Some examples are the complete lack of realism of one side always being able to fire all of their weapons at once, then the other side fires all of their weapons. Some games (not SE4) make some attempt to fix this by using initiative systems (like MOO3) so that some of a players ships go, then some of the other side's go, depending on whatever is used to determine initiative. But, that is still a flawed system. You can not fix the inherent flaws with turn based movement unless you have an absurd number of initiative increments to get very fine gradations, and it is just like real time combat at that point. MOO3 combat is not going to be like Starcraft or anything like that.

2. You mention that MOO3 is a "soft" form of RT combat. Maybe. But nonetheless even such a "soft" form of RT combat as in MOO3 has one important unacceptable feature. The guy which has a better hand-eye coordination wins more battles than others. Why? Well, simple. In MOO3 you can give orders at any time. (mainly moving taskforce orders) If 2 guys with exactly the same fleets and the same tactical abilities battle another, the guy which is used to play RT games and has a good hand-eye coordination will click at more optimized time moments at this "move taskforce" button and will have an advantage to the guy who just clicks later on it. It plays no role if this advantage is high or not. Its enough that there is an edge to the coordination guy. A good 4X game should be a contest of the minds not a contest of coordination. It should be FULLY FREE of honoring a players clicking abilities.

With how combat is supposed to be implemented in MOO3, faster hand-eye coordination is irrelevant because a few seconds of delay are supposed to make no difference at all. I agree that this can be a problem. But, proper balancing and mechanics can very easily eliminate any hand-eye coordination benefit. And, combat in multiplayer games (esp. with multiple human players) should always be done in strategic mode with no additional input from the players, so that it does not slow down the game for players not involved in the battle, and so that PBEM is possible. These very well eliminate any issues with hand-eye coordination.

NO they did not want to make the engine turnbased because they want to make more money if they design a mainstream product like shogun or medievial with a mixed system.(see above my rant about the likings of gamers of today)

Maybe, but that is probably not the main reason why they went with real time. Well-done and slow-paced real time combat is better than turn based combat in pretty much every way. The main reason that older games were not ever real time is that it requires more CPU clock cycles to execute real time combat as opposed to turn based. So, computers of the old days could not run real time very practically, so it was not used.

4. A further problem is that many people do make the assumption that a 4X game is a simulation of beeing a leader in a pre-specified environment like sim-city in space or so. This is not my opinion. In my opinion a good 4X game is a a computer aided board game and not a simulation. And board games have a long tradition beeing turnbased. Several thousands of years.

I hope that was a general statement and that it was not directed at me. MOO3 will be turn-based like a board game. It will just take the initiative systems that the better board games use to the next level, using continuous initiative intervals.

PS. sorry for my bad english

There wasn't really much bad English. Maybe a few punctuation errors, and a few cases of "k"s instead of "c"s, but other than that it was good English.

[ February 26, 2003, 00:09: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[tbontob]

Real time combat? I wish MM would reconsider.

However much I have complained about "Strategies", I would prefer our present way of determining a battle than real time combat.

Much better IMO would be for MM to give us a better method of programming our fleets/ships and then let the game decide the outcome.