[MoO] Master or Orion 4

[vmxa]

Why do you say it would ave been in good hands at Stardock? I would be afraid we would have all those questions about morale issues, that have mostly crappy options. Cheese win conditions, like trade or other build more and more star bases to gain more space/ground.

All the things that made me not enjoy Galciv. OTOH, at least we would have had something.

 

[Rocco.40]

Was just drooling on the words "It would be an updated Master of Orion 2" plus the article is from 2008, so as you said, we could have been playing it now..

 

[Ray F]

http://arstechnica.co.uk/gaming/201...drously-complex-4x-game-that-anyone-can-play/

Naturally, taking that population resource from one place and putting it in another means sacrificing build speed elsewhere. If you don't have enough, you can dedicate resources to building up your population first, which is a smart move when you're just starting out on a new planet, or you can let the game take care of it for you at the risk of missing out on specific specialisations. It all sounds simple, which is part of the draw, but the depth is enormous. Manually managing resources across multiple planets and fleets is a gargantuan task, even for seasoned players, but the rewards for doing so can make it all worthwhile.

Bolded for emphasis. This, everyone, is the distillation of the difference between MOO1 and every other 4X TBS game (Civ, MOO2+, GalCiv, etc). It's poor game design and why there will always be an audience for MOO1 no matter how old it gets.

 

[Rocco.40]

Yes, that certainly is MOO1's strong point still today. If you follow an agressive expansion strategy in MOO2, much of the work becomes repeating the same buildings queue for every new planet over and over again.* And yes there is a little variability as a poor Terran is better suited for farming or research and a Radiated Ultra Rich should always be used for production. But in essence you are executing a check list of barracks-automated factories-etc.. over and over again. Unfortunately the AUTOBUILD functionality is very weak and cant be trusted especially in early-mid game. It only becomes helpful when you let the game run for so long that it doesn't matter anymore if new planets are built-up in an inefficient manner.

Modern 4x space games have even added yet another layer and that is the need to place certain buildings on certain locations on the planets surface. Never liked this extra layer of 'realistic micro-management'.

The difference, though, is that the clumsy and quite frankly perplexing UI of the original game has been given a modern makeover

Maybe I am completely biased but i find both MOO1 and MOO2 interfaces pretty decent. Yes, offcourse there are quite some improvements possible, as you proved in your iteration of MOO1 but 'clumsy' is not a word that comes to mind at all.

Also, I am curious what game is being referred to. Like in so many reviews, when 'the original game' is mentioned it is completely unclear if it is about M1 or M2.


* when in colony screen or in colony build screen, it certainly helps to use the < and > keys to cycle through your planets.

 

[Ray F]

Unfortunately the AUTOBUILD functionality is very weak and cant be trusted especially in early-mid game. It only becomes helpful when you let the game run for so long that it doesn't matter anymore if new planets are built-up in an inefficient manner.

And this is why the system breaks. When you create a feature that is micro-managed, you add burden to the player that does not scale well. And providing a way to automate that micro-management does not solve the problem because automation never chooses what a player considers the optimal approach.

Since there will always be an advantage to micro-managing, players will feel compelled to do so rather than using the automation, at least until a point is reached when the game is won and the player doesn't care about inefficiencies.

The only real solution is to design game features that scale properly as the game progresses. For colony management, sliders > build queue & colonists. For ship combat, ship stacks > individual stacks.

There are new features that can be added to MOO1 feature set that add depth to the game without creating micro-management. They are on my "to do" list once the basic game is completed.

 

[<Nexus>]

Modern 4x space games have even added yet another layer and that is the need to place certain buildings on certain locations on the planets surface. Never liked this extra layer of 'realistic micro-management'.

I wouldn't call Ascendancy modern That also had this feature.

Also, I am curious what game is being referred to. Like in so many reviews, when 'the original game' is mentioned it is completely unclear if it is about M1 or M2.

I think it is intentional propaganda to keep Moo1 and Moo2 fans excited.
...but all these "little tricks" or theirs are starting to annoy me

 

[Ray F]

I wouldn't call Ascendancy modern That also had this feature.

I think it is intentional propaganda to keep Moo1 and Moo2 fans excited.
...but all these "little tricks" or theirs are starting to annoy me

I think it's M2. The majority of MOO fans have never played M1, much less realize that it's a drastically different game. Most probably just assume it's an older version of M2 --- which is a perfectly reasonable assumption for any other game on the market.

 

[vmxa]

Ray, for us lazy people and any that wander into this thread later, add signature with you site.

 

[Rocco.40]

click on Ray F name
click visit homepage

click on Rocco.40
click visit homepage

 

[Rocco.40]

I have seen so many reviews by now, and here is yet another one that makes me hope this game is really far from alpha, so mechanics are not cast in stone yet:

http://www.entertainmentbuddha.com/modern-version-of-master-of-orion-looks-to-honor-the-grandfather-of-all-4x-strategy-titles/

in one of the 20 included solar systems, which feature over 100 unique celestial bodies to comb through as you plot your victory.

- So there will be only 20 set solar systems and no random galaxy generation?

victory can be achieved through five different conditions, which include: Conquest, Technological, Economical, Diplomatic, and Excellence (achieved by being voted Supreme Commander by the AI players).

- What is then the difference between Diplo and Excellence victory?

Players will have a tech tree [...] and it looks very familiar to the branching path setup featured in the recent Civilization: Beyond Earth.

- looks like MOO2 "chose 1 of 3" system is gone. Another review in German I read today also mentioned the CIV techtree, adding that all races can research all the same techs.

If war is your thing a scripted battle will play out for the planet in contention, and if your stats outmatch the other race&#8217;s, then you will win the dice roll, otherwise you have the potential to suffer defeat.

rather it opts for a more methodical approach to the action, so fans of the turn-based strategy genre won&#8217;t be asked to control ship battles on a ship-by-ship basis, or land on planets to scavenge resources and take them over. All of this will be handled through behind the scene dice rolls, just like games from the Civilization series.

- I really hope this is because the game is not finished and the tactical combat still needs to be developed!

 

[vmxa]

Ha, I messed up and double click his name and did not get the drop down, lol.

 

[Rocco.40]

http://geekfolk.blogspot.nl/2015/07/master-of-orion.html

&#8220;This game has all the original races,&#8221; said Beucler, &#8220;we&#8217;ll get that down first and look at the Master of Orion 2 stuff later.&#8221;

...the Alkari, a birdlike race that feature expert pilots and but also hate planets with high gravity.

Plus you&#8217;ve got 500 turns to claim victory and if you&#8217;re absolutely on fire in one game you can win in all five ways at once.

&#8220;If you wanted to play a really quick game of Master of Orion, and you&#8217;re really good at it, it&#8217;s going to be a two hour game,&#8221; said Beucler. &#8220;The first really big game I played on here though took me about 10 and a half hours, and that was me trying to do it all.&#8221;

...the user interface, to my eyes at least, looked just like it did back in Master of Orion 2 but with a cleaner and more streamlined design.

...collecting taxes...need careful management as you don&#8217;t want to piss off your own people...

 

[Ray F]

I'm ready to see more race art and screenshots.

 

[Ray F]

Or maybe not?

 

[neilkaz]

That pic looks hideous! Starlanes as well..I expect to not have anything to do with this game.

 

[vmxa]

Lol, that is not inspiring.

 

[<Nexus>]

MONKEYBIRD!!!!

As soon as I saw this pic it reminded me a cartoon a saw looooong time ago:

Spoiler :

The Pirates of Dark Water

I don't know weather to or or even

 

[Dukinson]

Oh jeez they're making number 4. If it really is an "updated Moo 2", my free time is in serious jeopardy.

 

[tamaneko]

There are a bunch of new screenshots here

http://ritastatusreport.blogspot.com/2015/08/master-of-orion-first-screenshots.html

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I love the screenshots. The planet screen where you can allocate your population to science, food or production like in MOO2 is nice to see. The tech tree looks like civ rather than MOO2 though.