Master of Orion 3

[DaEezT]

I got it today and just played a bit in my first game and i gotta say: OMG, this simply rocks!
started as humans, changed the default race abilities to increase research and diplomacy and reduced ground combat and spies, started in the orion senat and they just proposed a bill for banning nuclear weapons
I'm currently fighting my way through the menues, theres an awful lot of them!
managing one planet makes you click though more menues than managing your whole empire in civ
Seems like this is gonna be a long night for me

 

[damunzy]

My wife is going to wonder why we are missing 50$ in the bank account.

Is MP is the game, out of the box? If so maybe we can hook up for a game.

 

[Hitro]

They haven't published it here yet for some weird reason. No store has it. Same in Hamburg from what I've heard.

I've read bad reviews about the AI. Can you confirm that?

 

[DaEezT]

MP is already in it

on turn 4 a "praise human" bill was proposed but failed
I also got 2 leaders so far and already my first defeat after the mekla sent one of their big, fat warships agains my scouts
but luckily my good friend in the senate just came up with a "total war agains mekla" bill

now I just have to find out how the game works


Edit: nah, the AI is good so far, but maybe thats just me, screwing up all the time

 

[.:KNAS:.]

I heard a rumor that MOO3 is in real time? that can't be true can it?

 

[Reznaak]

Originally posted by .:KNAS:.
I heard a rumor that MOO3 is in real time? that can't be true can it?

Realtime combat, the rest is turn based.

 

[damunzy]

Damn, can't find it around here to buy - maybe a good thing.

 

[handyandy]

do you now when it id out in great britan (england)? as differnt sites quote different release dates

 

[Grisu]

I just ordered it yesterday. My store (www.wog.ch) says that it will be available on feb 27th. so I propably will get early next week, which is just as well since I have two weeks holidays starting next week oh well, two more weeks wasted to gaming

 

[Eklektikos]

Originally posted by handyandy
do you now when it id out in great britan (england)? as differnt sites quote different release dates

I'd love to know that too... When I checked yesterday Amazon.co.uk was telling me that I'd not be getting my hands on a copy until March 11th(!), and the Infogrames site didn't even mention the existence of the game!

EDIT: Game are also saying that they expect to get MoO3 in on the 7th of March. Do I scent a cunning French plot to piss off the British?

 

[Hitro]

Well, I have played it for some hours now and my first impression is not good.
The game reminds me of Space Empires IV, which may be a nice game, but which (to me) always lacked atmosphere. This is also the case with MoO3.
Reasons (and remember I've only played for some hours):

- Ship combat is neither optically attractive nor (which I consider more important) informative. You can't even really distinguish your own ships, not to think of the enemy's. You can't see his ships names nor information about them, like their interior.

- The graphics is monotonous, in fact I think it looks worse than that of its predecessor, which was, IIRC, published in 1996!!!
There's not more than one (1!) ship model for every ship size of a race. So all your fighter designs (for example) look the same.

- You can't (as far as I have realized it) not renamed systems or planets, which may be insignificant to others, but for me it is a vital part in creating my own empire.

- There are, except for the maximum four leaders in your council, no other personalities in politics or the military. No King, President or Emperor (that you could assasinate ). There are spies, but you can't change their codename as well. To me that would be regocnizing them easier, and it would be more fun, especially with the more weird races.

I can't comment too much about the ingame mechanics after a few hours but I can say that there are a few concepts that bothered me:

- Starlanes, definately a matter of taste, I don't like them

- Along that lanes your ships seem to have unlimited range from the beginning

- You produce ships into the reserve (not to the planet itself) and can then mobilize the reserve whereever you have a mobilization center. So you don't have to bother much about distributing your fleet to vital point within your empire. You just build up a reserve and summon it to the front if needed. I think that subtracts alot from strategical planning.

What do you guys think?

 

[damunzy]

- You produce ships into the reserve (not to the planet itself) and can then mobilize the reserve whereever you have a mobilization center. So you don't have to bother much about distributing your fleet to vital point within your empire. You just build up a reserve and summon it to the front if needed. I think that subtracts alot from strategical planning.

I'd have to see it for myself but I think they put this in here because people were tired of having to move the ships all over the place - though a nice que-then-send system could have helped with that. I would like to see a game where you can build multiple things on a planet and ships would be built on planet A but needs materials from planets B, C, and D. How about dealing with that logistical nightmare? Could be fun!

 

[task48]

i heard a similar complaint hitro, but since they said you could only use names up to 12 characters long, you must be able to rename planets. I dont have it yet but I'm still going to get it despite some bad first reactions to it. I've always wanted an expanded moo2, but it seems moo3 is going to be its own game, new from the ground-up.

if it truly disappoints, no biggie, there's always civ3 to fill that gaming void

 

[lakon]

I received MOO3 yesterday (thanks to amazon.de).


I started as Evon and I played now 66 rounds and have a not too small empire and good relations to 2 neighbours.
You have to get used to the gameplay a little bit and there is a lot of automation but overall I like it.

When I'm deeper in it, I will let you know about my experiences.

 

[DaEezT]

I like the game

So far ther are only 3 things I don't like:
1) manual and in-game help are outdated/vague eg. the effect of governments is stated like: "performs average in" or "is more effective" etc instead of numbers.
2) Spies!!!! they are very effective and there are no "counter spies". Only way to defend yourself against them is opressing you ppl...
3) Part of the combat system: I have fighting ships + colony ships in a system. When I'm attacked the whole fleet will defend the system, even the colony ships which means they can't colonize in that turn and even be destroyed...

I like the combat system. Not enough info about enemy? well, what did you expect, that they just e-mail your their blue prints everytime they launch a new ship? You just gotta be prepared for everything.

The reserve thingy.. well, When you create a task force it'll be ready the following turn, so you still need ships to defend yourself against staelth ships (and stealth technology is there from the start). Combat looks fine enough IMO, don't need any fancy gfx.

Diplomacy is pretty cool! apart from the senate there are all sorts of treaties (intelligence, research, trade, improved trade/research) and Alliances (full/defense) and embargos

I like star lanes. In moo2 I hated it when enemy ships always moved around between the plantes where I couldn't attack them, especially later when you could change cours while traveling...
Also It makes certain points where many lanes/wormholes meet strategically important. I haven't seen all thechs yet, but maybe there is a drive later that allows travelling space without star lanes at a reasonable speed.
In theory, every point in the galaxy can be reached from the start, but there are still guardians like in moo2 which attack all your ships + the orion system + other races that attack you + at the start, travelling along lanes takes 4-8 turns to get from one system to a another, in a huge galaxy with 250 systems that would take quite some time

The new region system on planets is nice too, as well as the government settings (opression/working hours, mobilization(5 levels from peace to holy war).
Research system is nice too.

There are 3 kinds of vessels: planetary(space station), system(no warp drive) and spaceship.
they vary in size, planetary are the biggest and spaceships the smalles and in addition spaceships also need a warp drive which takes up space, thus system ships are armed more heavily.

Setting up fleets is nice but seems to lack strategic value. there are 3 rings in a fleet: picket(for scouts), escort and core. It is a good idea to have the long range attackers in the core and the short range point def ships as escort, but you can't choose any tactics or formations, which is kinda sad since other space strategy games (like homeworld) had 3D formations.

In my current game I'm doing pretty well. I was number 1 in power for quite some time, now I'm only number 2. I just conquered a system with 3 plantes. In tech I'm at 37/38, the leading race is at 40/41 and two other races I know (4 and 6 in power) are at 34/38, so I'm pretty optimistic

So far I'm pretty happy, apart from the 3 things mentioned above. One other thing would have been nice too: flag ships whith combat leaders like in moo2.

But you can'T have it all

 

[Hitro]

Originally posted by DaEezT
I like the combat system. Not enough info about enemy? well, what did you expect, that they just e-mail your their blue prints everytime they launch a new ship?

I'd expect scanners to show some things about the enemy, at least if they're good enough.

To me the game has almost no appeal, because I like to personalize things. In MoO3 you can neither name your systems
nor choose your colour, which shouldn't really be a big thing to program.
All in all it is far too much focused on the background story, and frankly, I don't care a bit about that. I'd prefer to "write" my own story, including customizing the game.

I like star lanes. In moo2 I hated it when enemy ships always moved around between the plantes where I couldn't attack them, especially later when you could change cours while traveling...

Well as I said that's a matter of taste, I definately preferred the old system. To me a useful addition would have been to be able to attack fleets in space, not just on planets, that would have been sufficient. The star lanes also narrow the strategic planning.

And how great would it have been to built Babylon-5-like stations in outer space...

In theory, every point in the galaxy can be reached from the start, but there are still guardians like in moo2 which attack all your ships + the orion system + other races that attack you + at the start, travelling along lanes takes 4-8 turns to get from one system to a another, in a huge galaxy with 250 systems that would take quite some time

Agreed, the galaxy size is a good thing, though I want to name my planets.

Research system is nice too.

The presentation is boring, I don't care about the technology like in the predecessors. You just let the AI do it and then use the latest thing that came out...

Which is a general problem. Though I'm not a fan of micromanagement I want to be able to do it, especially at the beginning. In both Civ and MoO a great part of the fun (for me) is to build up the empire. In the later stages of the game I always wishes for a good viceroy AI, but that should be optional.

So far I'm pretty happy, apart from the 3 things mentioned above. One other thing would have been nice too: flag ships whith combat leaders like in moo2.

Yeah, I would have wanted to see an improved MoO2, not a downgraded Space Empires 4 with flashy movies.
MoO2 was a great game with a few flaws, like a pretty weak AI. They should have spend their time and money improving that instead of trying to invent it new.
This game in its current state is not great for people who like as much freedom in the way they play it as possible.
I don't want to care about the back story (it's not Star Trek or Star Wars after all...), I want control over the game and I want information about the results of my actions.

Example: You send out a spy, he successfully infiltrates the enemy and then starts his mission himself. You can't assign him a specific mission. So some turns later you just get a message like "Spy X has been captured" or "Spy X has destroyed an enemy building". Great, an enemy building. Any information about what and where? No. Sure nobody cares about a major terrorist act...

But you can'T have it all

No, but you could have had more that this. And more than MoO2, for that matter...

That said I have to say that it is not an entirely bad game and I can imagine that people have fun playing it, but it is no MoO in my opinion.

 

[shirleyrocks]

I'll second Hitro's post. This isn't "Master of Orion". I'll grant that I've only played it for a couple of hours or so but I'm VERY disappointed so far. I feel far too detached when playing. It's more like you're just along for the ride. In my first game, after maybe 100 or so turns, I just started clicking 'next turn' all the time. At some point later in the game...with very VERY little input from me...I was elected President of the Senate and won the game. That's just ridiculous.

'New' and 'different' doesn't necessarily mean 'better'. If they wanted to make this game, fine, but don't call it Master of Orion.

 

[Angmar]

I just picked it up. Havent installed it or anything ( busy busy day here at work ) but I have one gripe already. This seems to be a horrid trend at Infogrames. What happened to putting CDs in jewel cases!? MY GOD they are 10 cents each. I spend CAN$80 on this game .. why do I not get proper protection for my investment. Those paper sleeves will do nothing!

Infogrames you cheap bastards!

bah

 

[damunzy]

Infogrames sucks.....I think we can all agree on that. Maybe we should do an online petition to get them to start using CD cases again - the slim ones

 

[Grey Fox]

Got the game today, it seems awesome, and it is real fun so far. Took Humans, uncustomized, and I didn't got into the senate.

Now I'm preparing for War against the Silicoids which have been using spies against me for so long (not that I havn't been using any against them ) And they are SO slow when it comes to Diplomacy...

Well, my New 'StarDestroyr'´s and Corvettes will destroy their puny civilization...

One thing I think is bad about MoO3 is that you have to manually make new units to use the latest technology.