Moo3 is a shareware now - Page 14

Atrocities · #**131** June 11th, 2003, 10:13 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Captain Jean Luc Le Grand Chat:
Fair comment Atrocities but I couldn't resist a dig at my Chief Engineer from the TSSS Phong's HEad.

What is GalCiv like then?

GalCiv is a fun game that I would recommend to any one. I really enjoy playing it.

I think that GalCiv and SEIV are two seperate games, and both are well suited to players. Now if they could just combine them, oooweee, that would be a game.

Growltigger · #**132** June 11th, 2003, 10:21 AM

Hrothgar, thanks for your response.

GalCiv sounds interesting. How does the fleet combat work? is it a case of you getting a message that your 10 destroyers have had a fight with a couple of alien cruisers and have lost 3 ships or something like that. Other than technology, can you affect the combat in any way (like using the formations in SEIV)?

Does Galciv have ground combat? and how do the graphics compare to SEIV?

Given that I get little time to play multiplayer, a good AI game designed for single player sounds grand

Atrocities · #**133** June 11th, 2003, 11:04 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Captain Jean Luc Le Grand Chat:
Hrothgar, thanks for your response.

GalCiv sounds interesting. How does the fleet combat work? is it a case of you getting a message that your 10 destroyers have had a fight with a couple of alien cruisers and have lost 3 ships or something like that. Other than technology, can you affect the combat in any way (like using the formations in SEIV)?

Does Galciv have ground combat? and how do the graphics compare to SEIV?

Given that I get little time to play multiplayer, a good AI game designed for single player sounds grand

GalCiv combat occurs during normal game play. Your ships encounter enemy ships and there is a face off. You watch it as it unfolds on the normal game screen. The ships are destoryed, but all you see is just one of your ships, regardless of how many are in the fleet, and one of the enemy ships, same applying.

When the battle is over, either your ships are still there, aside from the ones lost, or they are not in which case you lost the battle. The combat is not all that great, but it is designed that way to give the player a board game feel. I happen to think it works well.

GalCiv is not multiplayer, and the AI's seem to do well in keeping you going. The Metaverse (sp) is a good way to challenge yourself against other players by downloading hteir game style and essencially playing agaisnt them.

All in all I think GalCiv is a damn fine game and I hope you do buy it. But compared to SeIV, most players will find it kinda boring after a game or two.

Hrothgar · #**134** June 11th, 2003, 11:42 AM

Atrocities covered space combat well. As for ground combat, first, there's no bombardment from space. Troop ships must land soldiers in order to take a planet [altho there may be, and I think there are, planet-destroying weapons at high tech levels. I haven't played in a while--busy getting ready to leave the country and mostly playing only SEIV when I have time], which they can't do unless your combat ships have eliminated any screen of defensive ships which may be present. So you order the troop ship[s] to attack, and a little screen comes up showing the relative strengths of the attacker and defender, with a variable which causes the result number to be cycling onscreen 'til you hit the attack button. It's as abstract as the space combat, and, other than bringing the numbers and researching stuff to make your troops better, there's nothing you can do to effect the outcome. But, as I noted, the focus of the game is on higher level decision making, so I guess tactical nuances would be superfluous. In the end, players always claim they want this or that detail, but, if they're all implemented, the game becomes lost under the weight of the minutia. No doubt, if you want tactical refinements, GalCiv will NOT be your cup of tea, but it does what it does very well, and it has a lot of flavor despite the tactical abstraction. I think I remember reading on the board there that a demo is planned--it may even be out now. If it's a decent demo, then downloading it and playing it would be the best way to decide if you want to shell out the bucks.

Fyron · #**135** June 11th, 2003, 09:23 PM

Quote:

In the end, players always claim they want this or that detail, but, if they're all implemented, the game becomes lost under the weight of the minutia.

SE4 does not seem lost under the weight of the minutia...

eddieballgame · #**136** June 12th, 2003, 02:05 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Atrocities:

quote:
Originally posted by eddieballgame:

. This patch also made this game close to a classic. Without wasting my time revealing all the improvements, just visit the MOO3 websites for all the details.

Your right, this patch did in my opinion make the game a classic. A Classic what I will not post, but never the less it is most assuredly a classic. I just wish they would have fixed the fonts.

I do not mean to offend you, but IMHO MOO3 is not a good game.

No offense taken, there are many, many "games" that are liked & disliked by one & all. If I had just "listened" only to negative reviews of certain programs, I would certainly have missed out what was to me some very good gaming. Anyways, Go Redsox!

Phoenix-D · #**137** June 12th, 2003, 02:13 AM

"Why is it ok to spew nonsense about a game , but not ok to disagree about said nonsense? (btw, "nonsense" is my opinion )"

Hint: just because you don't have a problem with something doesn't mean problems don't exist.

That bit Mechcommander 2 in the butt for example. It was buggy and slow as heck on some machines, fine on others..even lower powered ones. But since a lot of people refused to belive those with better computers could be having problems, they just laughed, and the people having problems returned the game or got pissed.

Which meant that the idioticly simple fix for those problems didn't get widely spread. The problem was TWO small files that weren't supposed to be there. Delete them, and it went away. By the time word got around though, most of the players were gone.

Atrocities · #**138** June 12th, 2003, 11:04 AM

Ya I remember when Tribes 2 came out, the backlash and negativity about the game cost Dynamix is company.

The problem was, and might be for MOO3 as well, was the pressure from fans and corporate overlords was to get the game out ASAP with the attitude that we can fix the problems on the fly in patches. A truly bad philosophy that often more than is the driving force behind game design and marketing.

Dynamix was a company full of revolutionary programmers who loved the game they were making. If people would have READ the requirements for the game before buying it, then perhaps all of the BS could have been avoided. Tribes 2 is a wonderful game, but many Tribes 1 fans never gave it a chance.

The thing about MOO3 though is that it should have been at least as good as MOO2. Hell BOTF was based off of MOO2 and it was a great game. (Although not at first warmly received by fans with to high of expectations.)

I love the Galaxy map system in MOO3, and wish that other 4x developers would follow that concept.

One thing to know is if you compare SEIV to other 4X games you will see that Aaron focused the majority of the available game area on the System map and very little on the Galaxy map. He used icons instead of menus, and his pop up windows all have a basic symmetry to them. Everything flows together well, and logically.

Moo3's interface was claustrophobic at best, nicely colored but with bad fonts. I liked a lot of that were included in MOO3, but over all the lack of ease of use and the feeling of always being trapped in the menus ruined the game for me.

I hated the fact that there were no right click menus, and every time I clicked on a fleet that damned "Do you want disband the fleet" window popped up.

Combine the fact that there were no easy ways to do anything in MOO3 really tanked the game. I love how easy it is in SEIV to build and send a colony ship to a specific planet. In MOO3 that was virtually impossible.

I loved how I can easily and simply research new technologies, design ships, and control my planetary construction ques. MOO3 was far to complicated and did not allow for the freedom needed in order to give the player a sense of control.

The SitRep was flat out atrocious. It was neither intuitive nor helpful. The LOG in SEIV is very helpful and intuitive by contrast.

Over all, MOO3 had a lot of great ideas, but poor implantation and questionable design choices really undermined the entire game. For that I am very sorry, but what can one do? Either learn how to play it, or do what I did and give up on it.

[ June 12, 2003, 10:06: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

Loser · #**139** June 12th, 2003, 12:58 PM

ATTENTION MoO3 CRITICS: Could the unpatchable (intentional) "flaws" in the game not be summed up as "They tried to make a micromanagement free 4X game."?

minipol · #**140** June 12th, 2003, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Atrocities:
Hell BOTF was based off of MOO2 and it was a great game. (Although not at first warmly received by fans with to high of expectations.)

I liked BOTF too. I never really understood every bodys gripes. It seems to me that nowadays, when 1 person starts whining about a game, it's automatically true and it spreads like a virus. A lot of people seem to find it a sport to bash programmers. True, a lot of games are released prematurely. I remember Daggerfall. Bugged like hell ( it was actually 1 big bug with some game in there ) but i liked it and i played it.