MoO IV by FIRAXIS

[Hardin]

I loved Master of Orion 3. It was one of the best games I ever played. Especially after they released the last patch. It was easy to modify the spreadsheets which could radicaly alter the gameplay. I don't understand why it recieves so much flak. It was much better than Galactic Civilizations which came out around the same time. My only real complaint with the game was the graphics.

 

[Zhahz]

I loved MOO 1 & 2 but they're gone...done...just like lots of other great titles that spawned via Microprose (XCom and more).

If you want an excellent space-based 4X game that's like Civ and/or MOO check out Galactic Civilations, or better yet, get Galactic Civilazations II when it releases at the end of February (www.galciv2.com). GalCiv I was a refuge for a whole lot of disappointed MOO fans with MOO3 came out (they came out around the same time).

Check out the dev journals for some very cool and interesting articles on how the lead developer is refining the excellent AI, how they get and incorporate feedback from Soren (Civ IV designer who's in their beta/gamma) and other testers, and how they're optimizing game performance...amongst other juicy topics.

 

[Ranos]

I guess some people really missed point of the thread.

What if Moo4 was made by Firaxis?
Could it return to old Moo1/2 glory?

Firaxis seems to make some pretty good games. Given what they would have to accomplish with MOO4 and the fact that Atari owns the rights to the title, it would depend.

Fans of the series would want a game that was as good as, if not better than, MOO2 but with the complexity and depth that MOO3 was capable of. They would have to design and program the whole thing in a timeline set by Atari, who seems to only care about getting the product out the door, not about the quality.

It has potential, but there are a lot of factors that could result in a repeat of MOO3.

 

[Reignking]

Um, no, we're quite smart enough to realize what he was asking. MOO3 was so @#$@#$ awful that no matter what we will never, ever go near anything related to it ever again.

 

[player1 fanatic]

I guess you missed great Moo1/Moo2...

 

[Caprice]

Would you buy Master of Orion 4, made by Firaxis?

I'd consider it.

I really enjoyed 1 and 2, but I just cannot get into 3... I don't get it.

 

[Brancaleone]

I used to play a modded version of MoO3 that was really fun. It took out many bad aspects of the game and made it more balanced. I used to spend weeks messing with the spreadsheets mixing mods togheter. I used an hibrid of megamod and (damn cant remember) mod. Still, once you got your hundreds of planets or so, it becomes.. repetitive.. to micro your planets. I used to put huge quere lines for buildings for each planet, and after a few turns the AI somehow messed with the production lines; THAT pissed me off.

Gal Civ II dosent seem cool to me. I dont know, maybe i care too much with the storyline. Instead of placing unique human cultures in there they used our good old Terra as the base for humankind. I just cant belive that our world will ever be united! (except when im a militaristic russian dictator invading the aztecs and the americans at the same time while researching space ship parts ).

Sword of the Stars, a 4x strategy game, seems like an hibrid of Master of Orion and Homeworld, looks very cool. One im saving my money to get. Check it out http://www.kerberos-productions.com/sots.shtml

Damn i had to try my password hundreds of times because im too lazy to open my email and get a new password. >>

 

[Ranos]

I loved Master of Orion 3. It was one of the best games I ever played. Especially after they released the last patch. It was easy to modify the spreadsheets which could radicaly alter the gameplay. I don't understand why it recieves so much flak. It was much better than Galactic Civilizations which came out around the same time. My only real complaint with the game was the graphics.

It was easily moddable, but it had far too many problems. AFAIK, there was only one official patch. Anything beyond that was mods and the hacked patch. The problems people have with it are too numerous to mention in great detail. I will name a couple for your benefit though.

Diplomacy was terrible. There was no feedback as to why the AI civs were happy or mad. Threats would come only a few turns after a compliment.

The victory conditions were pathetic. Diplomatic victory required luck or use of points when creating your species to ensure you were in the senate. Victory came far too quickly, even after the patch. Scientific victory was tedious and boring. Send out expeditions, which only required clicking a button to send out the expedition and then waiting around for the reports to come in. The only fun victory was taking over the galaxy.

The interface wasn't very friendly and nothing made sense. It said you would get X AUs next turn but instead you got Y.

City controls were pathetic. You have to have the Viceroy on because controlling the ammount of spending on 40 worlds was tedious, but Roy would shift production away from building that last Dreadnaught you needed to complete you Armada so he could build a statue for you.

The "build a ship on a certain planet and be able to deploy it with a fleet on the other side of the galaxy" way of managing ship deployment was pathetic. The fact that there could only be a maximum of ten TFs in a battle (increased in the hacked patch) but you could send 100 TFs to the planet was bad. Then, even if you lost, you could still send your remaining TFs to the next system made defense extremely difficult and attacking the AI extremely easily. The AI would also send only a couple of TFs (sometimes consisting of only a few ships) to a system defended by ten TFs made up of twenty ships.

I could go on, but I'm already way off topic.

 

[player1 fanatic]

The most tedious part in Moo3 for me was managing ship models.

Every few years new tech is up, and since AI is incapable of making good ship models, I needed to micromanage ships designs every few years.

Lots of mictomanagement for a game that is supposed to be about macromanagement.

Also macromanagement part was pure black box, which wouldn't be bad if it also wasn't intuitive.

Also space battles were like back in the time of 90ties.

I played Moo1/Moo2 for a few years.
Moo3 just for few months.

As long as it's not Quicksilver I would dig Moo4.

 

[Hardin]

I can't argue with you because I noticed the same problems. But I think the good aspects outwayed the bad. I liked Moo3 so much that I bought Moo2 and I didn't think it was as good. It just seemed like it had a much smaller scope than the third one.

 

[enchanter100]

I originally played MOO and MOO2. MOO2 and X-CoM still my favorite games today. I followed MOO3 very closely and actually ran one of the first websites. Including making the very first official faq that was posted on the official website. It looked decent, sounded decent, but was far from decent.
I felt like I was playing a giant spreadsheet. With no real reason of playing. One of the funniest things is, I heard that before the patch came out you could literally not do anything and win.
I would pretty much "try" any MOO game that comes out, not guarenteed on buying it though. I did enjoy galactic civ, but it lacks multiplayer and replayabitlity. What ever happened to Micropose? They were pretty sweet.

 

[Specialist290]

I also like MOO3, despite its "quirks." What helps w/ the ship designs is to have a set "schedule" to follow or specific techs to look out for, and not just update a design every time you get "Armor Piercing This" or "Such-and-Such Miniaturization I." Except for the Miniaturization mods, I really don't pay that much attention to weapon mods. I have also played MOO1 (thanks to DOSBox) and have found no problems relating between the two.

This is not to say that I would not mind seeing MOO4 done by Firaxis, since I will admit that Quicksilver did do a few things wrong (using "few" in the relative sense of the word), and Firaxis is pretty good w/ strategy games. I'm just saying that MOO3 doesn't necessarily have to be judged as "cheap" simply because it was a wild departure from its predecessors.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Actually evey Moo sequel was wild departure from previous one. Probably because all of them had different developer (although first 2 had same publisher).

For example MOO2 is CIVized and MOMized (*) version of MOO1. Big departure from slider economy of first part. Same for leaving "power of numbers" mechanic for ships to "bigger is better" in MOO2.



(*) Master of Magic

 

[Specialist290]

I see. Well, like I said, I've only played I and III, so I wouldn't know too much about II. Thanks for the info

 

[Horizon]

I am a definitive fan of Master of Orion 2
Even after all those years, i even continue to play it regularly, and i always enjoy it.
Certainly if a Master of Orion 4 would be produced in the same spirit as Master of Orion 2 , i would certainly consider the purchase (i never played the 1s one though).

But if it is something like Master of Orion 3, using the same king of gameplay mechanism, no just no, i don't need products like that.

 

[haleigh1000]

I to would like an updated Red Storm Rising. Spent way to many wasted hours on that game, CIV I, and Railroad Tycoon

 

[Shaihulud]

es I wpuld buy it, MOO3 isn't that bad once you get the patches and the mods. The economic structure was a thing of beauty, but I admit that the implementation of it is very bad, I even like the idea for viceroy and macromanagement, if they had done it better. I would like MOO4 to be a continuation of MOO3 in the same vein, but better of course.

 

[Sahkuhnder]

MoO2 was great. MoO3 wasn't.

If there was a new one I'd wait for some positive reviews first, but sure, I would love to play MoO4.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

After my horrendous experience with Civ4 I will never ever ever buy another Firaxis product again. So no I wouldn't buy a MOO4 if it was made by Firaxis.

 

[Hardin]

I'm sorry you think that way. I like Civ4 and I would buy Moo4 if Firaxis made it, but I would like for them to make Alpha Centauri 2 first.