How many colony ships were ultimately needed for colonizing the Darlok world? I'm building colshipx5 in the RBMoo1C since I thought we needed 4 ships to claim the planet, and I didn't think that sending an outpost or single colony ships there for migration would help since it's a Red planet to us. If you do actually get some useful growth on a Red planet, or don't need a full pop point to claim a magnate, that would be useful to know.
RBMoo SG1 - Oh the Humanity - Team A
- Thread starter Sirian
- Start date
Sirian
Designer, Mohawk Games
One colony plus migration will do it, eventually. If you have colony ships to spare, for a magnate it may be worth the extra ones to get it sooner if the world is red to you. However, if the world is yellow, your population may grow before you can build a second colony ship!
The reason is that the planet is farther on toward the top of the bell curve of max pop growth rate. It doesn't separate the species on an integrated world, so... the total pop is counted for the growth rate, then each race gets a straight ratio share of the growth. So yes, population from an outpost on a magnate world DOES grow faster. (Whether it logically should or not is beside the point). A new outpost on an empty world is at the slowest growth rate. So... just having the magnates around boosts your growth rate. You CAN quite well just send one ship, plus migration. Maybe a second ship on a red world.
By the by, it's not only magnates who reach out to found their own free outposts in your name. ANY conquered race besides your own will do this. So... say you train two ten-packs of infantry in the early game and build one corps-trans. You sail off and invade an AI world, land your troops and take over, THOSE people will start founding outposts in your name, too. The only thing is, those AI-founded colonies tend to want migration of their own species, since the worlds they choose are green to them, but usually hostile to you. In a role playing sense, this might not be as desirable as it looks, the conquered subjects setting up their own colonies and not really inviting you along.
If your race is weak on gropo effectiveness (slow, blind, or has a glass jaw) then one of the best things you can do if there are no magnates around is invade someone's colony very very early.
Now as to whether these "free outposts" are properly balanced or not, I don't know. Your race starts to lose its unique flavor if the "best" strategy game in and game out is to find some surrogate race to grow up into a major vassal that plugs all your own weaknesses. It's got a very high "cool factor" at first, but I'm leery of what it may do to the game long term, since the magnates are literally all over the place and you can also get the same effect off any conquered neighbor.
- Sirian
The reason is that the planet is farther on toward the top of the bell curve of max pop growth rate. It doesn't separate the species on an integrated world, so... the total pop is counted for the growth rate, then each race gets a straight ratio share of the growth. So yes, population from an outpost on a magnate world DOES grow faster. (Whether it logically should or not is beside the point). A new outpost on an empty world is at the slowest growth rate. So... just having the magnates around boosts your growth rate. You CAN quite well just send one ship, plus migration. Maybe a second ship on a red world.
By the by, it's not only magnates who reach out to found their own free outposts in your name. ANY conquered race besides your own will do this. So... say you train two ten-packs of infantry in the early game and build one corps-trans. You sail off and invade an AI world, land your troops and take over, THOSE people will start founding outposts in your name, too. The only thing is, those AI-founded colonies tend to want migration of their own species, since the worlds they choose are green to them, but usually hostile to you. In a role playing sense, this might not be as desirable as it looks, the conquered subjects setting up their own colonies and not really inviting you along.
If your race is weak on gropo effectiveness (slow, blind, or has a glass jaw) then one of the best things you can do if there are no magnates around is invade someone's colony very very early.
Now as to whether these "free outposts" are properly balanced or not, I don't know. Your race starts to lose its unique flavor if the "best" strategy game in and game out is to find some surrogate race to grow up into a major vassal that plugs all your own weaknesses. It's got a very high "cool factor" at first, but I'm leery of what it may do to the game long term, since the magnates are literally all over the place and you can also get the same effect off any conquered neighbor.
- Sirian
Jaffa: I know it's chump change, but then so is a scout ship that's only building by totally trivial increments until industry is completed. I figured it's better to just wait, save up a little bit of money (which will allow ever so slightly more overspending later) and not bother with the scout until there's at least one industry DEA done. Maybe it's not a good idea, but it's nickles and dimes anyway.
Zed-F: It took one more than whatever it started at on my turn. I just let the ship that had already been ordered there go there, and it all turned out fine. I think that brings the total to two.
Jester
Zed-F: It took one more than whatever it started at on my turn. I just let the ship that had already been ordered there go there, and it all turned out fine. I think that brings the total to two.
Jester
Sirian, I found that any setting higher than "Fewer" for planetary specials makes them loose their meaning. With too many specials all over the place, well they are not so special anymore. I tried one game with an "Average" setting and quickly ended it to start with few. I can't even imagine what the "More" setting would look like.
As for the migrating captured population, this seems broken to me. In my stand alone game, my Ithkul empire found a Mrrshan magnate, a Darlok magnate, and took over a neighboring human empire. Each of these races settled more worlds on their own than I ever did. My empire now has 40 worlds, many of them well developped. I built a total of 4 colony ships and captured 3 human planets. When I want to expand, I explore more system to give more targets to all my slaves.
So, yes, the "best strategy" seems to be capture your close neighbors early and give them room to grow. If you are lucky enough to start near a Sakkra or an Etherean, you'll be all set to get the most population without much effort.
As for the migrating captured population, this seems broken to me. In my stand alone game, my Ithkul empire found a Mrrshan magnate, a Darlok magnate, and took over a neighboring human empire. Each of these races settled more worlds on their own than I ever did. My empire now has 40 worlds, many of them well developped. I built a total of 4 colony ships and captured 3 human planets. When I want to expand, I explore more system to give more targets to all my slaves.
So, yes, the "best strategy" seems to be capture your close neighbors early and give them room to grow. If you are lucky enough to start near a Sakkra or an Etherean, you'll be all set to get the most population without much effort.
Sirian
Designer, Mohawk Games
Jaxom: the planetary specials are a mixed bag. More of them also means more Rapid Rot and Entrapping Ecosystem and Hostile Gases and Active Volcanoes worlds, too. Many of the specials apply to only one region, and often you get a pathetic one: farm-boosting special in a toxic mountain zone; research special in the only fertile farming region, stuff like that. More specials may make them less special, but they also add more variance to your worlds: especially on the side of adding more crappy worlds with the bad specials. Some of those negative ones are serious penalties. Most of the positive ones are temporary or regional or minor.
Admittedly, it looks excessive this game, with multiple splinter colonies, but I've played this setting and not gotten anything like that before. The AI could have hit those and gotten the free worlds (I've certainly seen that), we just got a little lucky.
Anyway, that's my view. "More" might be too many, but I like "Average". "Few"'s OK by me, too, but I don't see it as better, just less varied. (Odd, since I normally despise luck factors, but in this case they do add a little extra personality to the planets).
Charis <<< UP NOW
Griselda < On Deck
Sirian
Jaffa
Jester
- Sirian
Admittedly, it looks excessive this game, with multiple splinter colonies, but I've played this setting and not gotten anything like that before. The AI could have hit those and gotten the free worlds (I've certainly seen that), we just got a little lucky.
Anyway, that's my view. "More" might be too many, but I like "Average". "Few"'s OK by me, too, but I don't see it as better, just less varied. (Odd, since I normally despise luck factors, but in this case they do add a little extra personality to the planets).
Charis <<< UP NOW
Griselda < On Deck
Sirian
Jaffa
Jester
- Sirian
Charis
Realms Beyond
The time has come to break out the hose and head for the desert!!
Admiral Charis I was elected for a term at the helm of the fledgling
Human empire. He follows a micromanager by the name of Iester, which
is probably a very good thing. With luck I won't do worse than a
blind viceroy would do, at least not over a 10 turn period
Plans, if you can call them that:
- Keep making spies and stay strong on that front
- Remember there's a Guardian at Altair, stay away
- I probably won't redesign any ships
- Check the Cebalrai V colony that it has an industrial DEA
- Make sure our colony ship sets up at Tyr 1 "Sweet spot with natural aphrodisiacs?"
- I wonder if colonizing or blockading Talitha or Noamex would make sense to hem in
the Ithkul? Perhaps we're strengthening Cebalrai first...
[41] I start off just getting acclimated, feeling like the mayor of Podunk
arriving in Washington to assume his role as Senate Majority leader...
- Tick up mil slider on Cebalrai V to cut a few turns off getting some defense
- Likewise on Balren IV
- An idle scout at Munsee is sent nearby to recon
- Tyr is not marked with 'Send Colony'? Since a colony ship is heading to
the Tyr system, I'm not sure if that will cost us a turn. So I click "Send Colony"
- The G2 in Tyr 6 also seems to want us to colonize it?
- I noticed FLU is 'allowed' - isn't it better to let them live free and colonize
on your behalf? Unsure, I leave that setting alone.
Cebalrai V has TWO industry DEA's, so not to worry.
[42] Sitrep:
- A scout at Nazin runs into a Guardian.
I try a retreat but die.
Not only do I not see 'Nazin' on the map, but I can't see where a TF is
missing, so I have no idea where this threat is. 8-\
(Even worse, I load turn 41 up again to look, and still can't see what died where)
- Kraaktka accept our offer (TA Open Border I soon see)
- Lvl 4 Phys Sci
- Four migrations reported
Nothing 'much' happened and nothing arrived, anything else to do but hit next turn?
[43] Sitrep:
- We encounter a new race! (Sounds good) Omarasis - Grendarl. (4,16)
- Two more DEA's finish
- Exploration of Andurfin is complete (?)
- L5 Econ and Business
I 'state' a request for NAP with the lizard lookin' new guy.
We seem to have met him near Munsee, and his 6 worlds are W and SW of there.
Hey, Andurfin V is a sweet spot with low grav. There is a G2 in that system too,
and several R2. Sounds like And-V is a good spot for a colony. Once Tyr 1 arrives
I'll ask one to be sent here.
[44] Sitrep:
- New spy Argos is rdy (political)
- Alansis in the SE is now explored
- L6 Social arts, L5 Energy, L5 Math
- Diplo msg
The new grendarl counters with a TA Economic, pathetically moaning and calling
us powerful. I accept politely.
With the Kraaktka I reason that a TA Intel would do us both good.
Alansis is seen to have just one planet, an R2 with a special of polution.
There is a lane (wormhole??) leading out of Alanis of 1 turn taking us rather far
away, to a M2V Red Dwarf. I'll head there with the scout.
[45] Mid turn our two scouts enter their two systems. One is Wolf, the other Orion (!?)
The Orions maul our poor scout ship, retreat failing.
At Wolf, Larchug Lulaga had a recon ship that went against ours. The battle took six
minutes to complete as we nickel and dimed either other. I seemed to have no laser,
while he did. But we had a figher. First 'matched' space combat I've seen actually.
Alas, I've now seen a total of three scouts go down on my watch already.
Orion is the yellow planet directly NE of Andurfin. Orion 1 has about 10 planetary
forces. The system has five worlds, mostly toxic.
Larchug and Lularga ships were at the end of that large jump. Beware. Wolf has 7 planets.
Sitrep:
- Omarasis refused our offer. *VERY* politely I might add. The NAP intriqued him.
- Balren 7 completes its colony ship, it's tasked and immediately sets off for Tyr 1
(Showing of course, that I should have reset the Send Colony else where. At least it's
in a TF. I'll send it towards Andurfin V. That's 24 turns away, so it can be vetoed)
[46] Sitrep:
- Space combat? Defend planet "Timarsis" vs the Omarasis? Eep! No, it's No combat.
- L5 Bio, L5 Phys Sci
I look at Timarsis for it's defense. A FtrRecon2 is in the queue. I speed it up.
The Tyr ship is there, ETA 0. It takes yet another turn to land and colonize, eh?
[47] Sitrep:
- The colony ship lands on Tyr I.
- L7 Social, L6 Econ
I get to assign my first DEA's manually on Tyr I. The viceroy started us off
with one Industrial which is ok. The Aphrodesiac will increase the pop growth
rate 'for a while', so food seems good. Two fertile regions each get two Bioharv.
I add a Govt and a recreational DEA. Add in one Mil DEA. Mining and Research get
one each to round out the mix. Viceroy chose to MBQ a fighter base and a basic
space module (seems ok).
Our power rank is 2 btw, Omar 6, Ithkul 9, Kraaktka insects 3 (not senate).
[48] Sitrep:
- Inductance, our new spy is rdy.
- Infantry x10 completes on Balren I
[49] Sitrep:
- Our war with the Ithkul ends. (for now!)
- Lots of techs complete and ready to use: Quark Cannon, Plasma Projector,
and Autofire Fighter Laser.
- L6 energy and math
[50] Sitrep:
- The Ith redeclare war. Well they wasted no time there
- Our spy Xentax is no longer available to us
- L8 Social
[51] Sitrep is:
- Tilamis IV FtrRecon2 is now rdy (Task him up)
- A new colony Cebalrai 4 has been created. Y1y(12) (hmmm.... I didn't do that)
Looking closer, the population there is Darlok. (ah)
- L6 Phys, L7 Econ
That's it. Good luck to our next leader.
(I must say, I felt altogehter useless this round. No real clue of what's
going on, not much that I am cognizant of needing to do, and watching half of
our scouts get wiped out. For a newb, at what point does Moo3 become fun?)
Save File Turn 51 RBMoo1A
Charis
PS to KingOfPain - welcome to da CF SG board
Admiral Charis I was elected for a term at the helm of the fledgling
Human empire. He follows a micromanager by the name of Iester, which
is probably a very good thing. With luck I won't do worse than a
blind viceroy would do, at least not over a 10 turn period
Plans, if you can call them that:
- Keep making spies and stay strong on that front
- Remember there's a Guardian at Altair, stay away
- I probably won't redesign any ships
- Check the Cebalrai V colony that it has an industrial DEA
- Make sure our colony ship sets up at Tyr 1 "Sweet spot with natural aphrodisiacs?"
- I wonder if colonizing or blockading Talitha or Noamex would make sense to hem in
the Ithkul? Perhaps we're strengthening Cebalrai first...
[41] I start off just getting acclimated, feeling like the mayor of Podunk
arriving in Washington to assume his role as Senate Majority leader...
- Tick up mil slider on Cebalrai V to cut a few turns off getting some defense
- Likewise on Balren IV
- An idle scout at Munsee is sent nearby to recon
- Tyr is not marked with 'Send Colony'? Since a colony ship is heading to
the Tyr system, I'm not sure if that will cost us a turn. So I click "Send Colony"
- The G2 in Tyr 6 also seems to want us to colonize it?
- I noticed FLU is 'allowed' - isn't it better to let them live free and colonize
on your behalf? Unsure, I leave that setting alone.
Cebalrai V has TWO industry DEA's, so not to worry.
[42] Sitrep:
- A scout at Nazin runs into a Guardian.
I try a retreat but die.Not only do I not see 'Nazin' on the map, but I can't see where a TF is
missing, so I have no idea where this threat is. 8-\
(Even worse, I load turn 41 up again to look, and still can't see what died where)
- Kraaktka accept our offer (TA Open Border I soon see)
- Lvl 4 Phys Sci
- Four migrations reported
Nothing 'much' happened and nothing arrived, anything else to do but hit next turn?
[43] Sitrep:
- We encounter a new race! (Sounds good) Omarasis - Grendarl. (4,16)
- Two more DEA's finish
- Exploration of Andurfin is complete (?)
- L5 Econ and Business
I 'state' a request for NAP with the lizard lookin' new guy.
We seem to have met him near Munsee, and his 6 worlds are W and SW of there.
Hey, Andurfin V is a sweet spot with low grav. There is a G2 in that system too,
and several R2. Sounds like And-V is a good spot for a colony. Once Tyr 1 arrives
I'll ask one to be sent here.
[44] Sitrep:
- New spy Argos is rdy (political)
- Alansis in the SE is now explored
- L6 Social arts, L5 Energy, L5 Math
- Diplo msg
The new grendarl counters with a TA Economic, pathetically moaning and calling
us powerful. I accept politely.
With the Kraaktka I reason that a TA Intel would do us both good.
Alansis is seen to have just one planet, an R2 with a special of polution.
There is a lane (wormhole??) leading out of Alanis of 1 turn taking us rather far
away, to a M2V Red Dwarf. I'll head there with the scout.
[45] Mid turn our two scouts enter their two systems. One is Wolf, the other Orion (!?)
The Orions maul our poor scout ship, retreat failing.
At Wolf, Larchug Lulaga had a recon ship that went against ours. The battle took six
minutes to complete as we nickel and dimed either other. I seemed to have no laser,
while he did. But we had a figher. First 'matched' space combat I've seen actually.
Alas, I've now seen a total of three scouts go down on my watch already.
Orion is the yellow planet directly NE of Andurfin. Orion 1 has about 10 planetary
forces. The system has five worlds, mostly toxic.
Larchug and Lularga ships were at the end of that large jump. Beware. Wolf has 7 planets.
Sitrep:
- Omarasis refused our offer. *VERY* politely I might add. The NAP intriqued him.
- Balren 7 completes its colony ship, it's tasked and immediately sets off for Tyr 1
(Showing of course, that I should have reset the Send Colony else where. At least it's
in a TF. I'll send it towards Andurfin V. That's 24 turns away, so it can be vetoed)
[46] Sitrep:
- Space combat? Defend planet "Timarsis" vs the Omarasis? Eep! No, it's No combat.
- L5 Bio, L5 Phys Sci
I look at Timarsis for it's defense. A FtrRecon2 is in the queue. I speed it up.
The Tyr ship is there, ETA 0. It takes yet another turn to land and colonize, eh?
[47] Sitrep:
- The colony ship lands on Tyr I.
- L7 Social, L6 Econ
I get to assign my first DEA's manually on Tyr I. The viceroy started us off
with one Industrial which is ok. The Aphrodesiac will increase the pop growth
rate 'for a while', so food seems good. Two fertile regions each get two Bioharv.
I add a Govt and a recreational DEA. Add in one Mil DEA. Mining and Research get
one each to round out the mix. Viceroy chose to MBQ a fighter base and a basic
space module (seems ok).
Our power rank is 2 btw, Omar 6, Ithkul 9, Kraaktka insects 3 (not senate).
[48] Sitrep:
- Inductance, our new spy is rdy.
- Infantry x10 completes on Balren I
[49] Sitrep:
- Our war with the Ithkul ends. (for now!)
- Lots of techs complete and ready to use: Quark Cannon, Plasma Projector,
and Autofire Fighter Laser.
- L6 energy and math
[50] Sitrep:
- The Ith redeclare war. Well they wasted no time there
- Our spy Xentax is no longer available to us
- L8 Social
[51] Sitrep is:
- Tilamis IV FtrRecon2 is now rdy (Task him up)
- A new colony Cebalrai 4 has been created. Y1y(12) (hmmm.... I didn't do that)
Looking closer, the population there is Darlok. (ah)
- L6 Phys, L7 Econ
That's it. Good luck to our next leader.
(I must say, I felt altogehter useless this round. No real clue of what's
going on, not much that I am cognizant of needing to do, and watching half of
our scouts get wiped out. For a newb, at what point does Moo3 become fun?)
Save File Turn 51 RBMoo1A
Charis
PS to KingOfPain - welcome to da CF SG board
Good turn!
The scouts... meh. Doesn't matter. If the Guardian or the Orions spawn too close on the combat map, it's kumbaya for your scout, no fault of yours. I think our scout design was made for utility with other ships, not for scout-to-scout combat. So you may have been outmatched.
As for feeling newbiesh, I've played a lot of this game since it came out, and I still feel
. That's not good, because I know that, generally, I'm not. It just feels that way, like I'm treading water even when I'm 
the competition (or when I'm just plain ).
I blame the lack of offense. In Civ 3, if you were playing like a newbie, Xerxes would come and
you. No questions asked. You knew that was bad, and why it happened. Your strategic imperative was to prevent that from happening. So two strategies quickly evolved, builder (stop it from happening barely) and conqueror (make it happen to them instead), and off we went. The AI taught you how not to suck very quickly.
Here, even if you're making the stupidest moves in the book, the AI won't so much as breathe heavily on you. So, the stupid moves stay in the playbook, and you lose the feeling that your game is getting better. At best, you learn to overmaster it with cheap moves relying on their passivity. At worst, you get constantly smacked down without having any idea of how to prevent it.
This is a very small problem. Crank the AI, stop with the troop ships, give them some SoDs, and we're off to the races. This game will be Civ 3 in no time. Until then, though, it's just
, even if it is worth playing.
Not that I'm going to stop or anything.
Jester
The scouts... meh. Doesn't matter. If the Guardian or the Orions spawn too close on the combat map, it's kumbaya for your scout, no fault of yours. I think our scout design was made for utility with other ships, not for scout-to-scout combat. So you may have been outmatched.
As for feeling newbiesh, I've played a lot of this game since it came out, and I still feel
. That's not good, because I know that, generally, I'm not. It just feels that way, like I'm treading water even when I'm the competition (or when I'm just plain ).I blame the lack of offense. In Civ 3, if you were playing like a newbie, Xerxes would come and
you. No questions asked. You knew that was bad, and why it happened. Your strategic imperative was to prevent that from happening. So two strategies quickly evolved, builder (stop it from happening barely) and conqueror (make it happen to them instead), and off we went. The AI taught you how not to suck very quickly.Here, even if you're making the stupidest moves in the book, the AI won't so much as breathe heavily on you. So, the stupid moves stay in the playbook, and you lose the feeling that your game is getting better. At best, you learn to overmaster it with cheap moves relying on their passivity. At worst, you get constantly smacked down without having any idea of how to prevent it.
This is a very small problem. Crank the AI, stop with the troop ships, give them some SoDs, and we're off to the races. This game will be Civ 3 in no time. Until then, though, it's just
, even if it is worth playing.Not that I'm going to stop or anything.
Jester
KingOfPain
Chieftain
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2003
- Messages
- 4
--------------------------------------------
A scout at Nazin runs into a Guardian. I try a retreat but die.
Not only do I not see 'Nazin' on the map, but I can't see where a TF is
missing, so I have no idea where this threat is. 8-\
---------------------------------------------------
Are you sure your scout is dead? When you retreat (at least before your enemy, guardian in this case, has a chance to fire), the game always report a defeat. AFAIK, the game only has 2 screens, defeat and victory.
It suppose have a 100% success rate when running from a Guardian. Look around and click on your scout ships. You will find a TF next to a system (where the Guardian was found) but won't let you issuse any order until its safely out of harms way.
KoP
A scout at Nazin runs into a Guardian. I try a retreat but die.
Not only do I not see 'Nazin' on the map, but I can't see where a TF is
missing, so I have no idea where this threat is. 8-\
---------------------------------------------------
Are you sure your scout is dead? When you retreat (at least before your enemy, guardian in this case, has a chance to fire), the game always report a defeat. AFAIK, the game only has 2 screens, defeat and victory.
It suppose have a 100% success rate when running from a Guardian. Look around and click on your scout ships. You will find a TF next to a system (where the Guardian was found) but won't let you issuse any order until its safely out of harms way.
KoP
AS KingofPain points out, you should have a retreating scout somewhere, if you did push the general retreat button. I have never lost a scout to a guardian in well over 20 encounters. But perharps you only watched the battle? In that case, you will always loose your scout as the AI General doesn't believe guardians are real. 
KingOfPain
Chieftain
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2003
- Messages
- 4
REGARDING GUARDIAN AND MISSING SCOUTS
I am not sure if this is stepping into spoiler category so I will try to be vague.
Notice to Gris: read at your own risk
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I loaded up Charis' save file to see if I can find the missing scouts. You will find an encounter with a Guardian the very next turn. This is unavoidable anyway since you are exploring and would not know to retreat until the combat screen. So here's a hint how to locate the Guardian, therefore your scout. You will have no idea where the system is by name, but take note of the System's classification (also available on the SitRep screen), it will say something like M2X (White Drawf), or K8V (Orange Dwarf), etc. This will make a faster search when you know what color to look for. Hope this helps.
KoP
I am not sure if this is stepping into spoiler category so I will try to be vague.
Notice to Gris: read at your own risk
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I loaded up Charis' save file to see if I can find the missing scouts. You will find an encounter with a Guardian the very next turn. This is unavoidable anyway since you are exploring and would not know to retreat until the combat screen. So here's a hint how to locate the Guardian, therefore your scout. You will have no idea where the system is by name, but take note of the System's classification (also available on the SitRep screen), it will say something like M2X (White Drawf), or K8V (Orange Dwarf), etc. This will make a faster search when you know what color to look for. Hope this helps.
KoP
Charis
Realms Beyond
Oh, that's logical. How could I have missed that? Only two screens, won't tell you there was a successful retreat.
Thanks!! I think that's it. I think I watched, I'm not sure. In any case, I ended up with a ship in the SE corner for whom I could not reissue an order. He was heading back to the nearest star. As I wasn't real sure where he was headed in the first place, I sent him to the nearest unexplored star. It should get there for Gris's turn. Guess who will be there? I suppose she can retreat and have the scout retreat to the identical star mine did. That pilot is going to have major deja vu, let me tell you!
Charis
Thanks!! I think that's it. I think I watched, I'm not sure. In any case, I ended up with a ship in the SE corner for whom I could not reissue an order. He was heading back to the nearest star. As I wasn't real sure where he was headed in the first place, I sent him to the nearest unexplored star. It should get there for Gris's turn. Guess who will be there? I suppose she can retreat and have the scout retreat to the identical star mine did. That pilot is going to have major deja vu, let me tell you!
Charis
Sirian
Designer, Mohawk Games
After reading the "when does it become fun" line, I got off my rear and finished the "starter guide" Charis had sent me, editing or adding the bits that were missing, incomplete, or inaccurate.
Jester's right: the lack of feedback, in the form of in-game information and AI's who smack you around when you mess up, is part of the problem. Really, though, the main problem in my view is the User Interface. It took me about three whole pages of text to explain how to colonize effectively. The colonization method is beyond awkward: it's the most convoluted, illogical, "deliberately obstinate" design I've ever seen.
The second review over at Quarter to Three, talking about how the game was originally designed to play with the "IFP" concept limiting player's "imperial intervention" into a world of "intelligently recalcitrant" local AI's, is spot on. Originally, these AI's were intended to be recalcitrant, up to a point. They were intended to do things logically, but with a local-level logic that would sometimes conflict with empire-wide interests and player's imperial plans. The idea was to simulate a real empire, with the larger you grew, the less direct control you had over everything, and the more you had to prioritize. So the strategy would not have been just about playing well, but prioritizing effectively, and making your interventions count.
This concept was ambitious, but apparently they did not pull it off, and pulled it out instead. Unfortuneately, many of the game elements left behind did not get enough of a re-engineering to stamp out the deliberate awkwardnesses. Here's some of the game elements left in limbo, that no longer make sense without the IFP's in place:
* The entire tech tree. The overruns, the lack of player choice on research, the AI fiddling with the sliders according to local needs, and more. The whole thing was designed for IFPs. Without the IFPs, there's just not much you can do here, except observe what you have, what's coming, and plan accordingly. You can try to trade for key techs your tree in a given game does not hold, but that's about it.
* Colonization. They could not have made it more awkward and confusing if they tried. Literally, this is the one area of the game where unless you are willing to FIGHT the AI for control, and figure out over time how to take control, you sit there dazed and frustrated.
* For all the information overload the game suffers from, the real problem is a LACK of information: lack of information about what is going on diplomatically, lack of information about what the techs do, lack of information about why the automation decides what it decides, and especially lack of information about exactly what impact the dev plans have on the automation.
* Lack of an effective tutorial to lead you through and SHOW YOU how to play. Show you how to make a dev plan that does something specific. Show you how to colonize, show you how to wage a battle, show you how to decide between your fight or flight options, and on and on.
Personally, I enjoy the empire building. I enjoy selecting which worlds to colonize, which DEA's to lay out, designing my ships. I enjoy the space combat, the ground combat, the logistics.
What I don't enjoy is some of the tedium in the interface which makes the game drag as time passes. What I don't enjoy is having to micromanage my military queues constantly, all game long, to get anything useful built. What I don't enjoy is coming to the realization that I've outgrown all the competition, sit at number one on the power graph, and that even combined, the AI's can't put up a fight against me.
From the first patch, I would like to see:
* UI improvements that reduce some of the most tedious game elements: fixes to the space combat queue that would better allow me to move through it quickly, instead of demanding my attention to every encounter every turn, even when most of them are repeats of things that have been happening over and over; fixes to the colonization that make it less of a hassle; fixes most especially to the military queue. All of these involve the game ALLOWING MY CHOICES TO STICK, instead of requiring me to come back to make the same choice over and over and over and over, with endless tedious micromanagement. (Whoever thought a "repeat build" option in the military queues would not be needed ought to be flogged!)
* AI improvements that give us an opponent. Frankly, just fix the passivity aspect: get the AI to stop mindlessly sending ships to their deaths. Make them evaluate a situation, such as a flag to stop sending colony ships to a given world where they have lost two or more such ships until they send in a fleet that takes and holds space superiority. Just one example. The "trickle of ships" must stop, in general. The AI must be given a mechanism to evaluate how much force it needs to get something done and at least TRY to assemble that kind of force.
I get the feeling the community will have to mod a "beyond impossible" difficulty level, on the order of Civ3 Deity, to put the player into enough of a hole to make the game entertaining when trying to climb out. That's what's missing here. The notion that they could program an AI that would compete with human players is ambitious, but also pie in the sky. No, don't give the AI cheats and shortcuts, but do give it production bonuses, cost discounts, free fleet maintenance, etc etc. At least these are things we can mod in ourselves, so many thanks to QS for deliberately making the game mod-friendly. That decision may save their arse, by allowing the community to try tweaks and patch some elements of the game ourselves.
The fact that I enjoy the empire-building, fleet building and the space combat keep me interested in this game's future potential. Even so, at this point it remains only "potential", so I wouldn't blame anyone (Cy, for example) who said "Hey, when does the fun start?" If it hasn't started yet, maybe it never will. For me, the fun HAS started, but there are a lot of little things that eat away at the fun factor, and some very big items that MUST be addressed.
Charis, let me know if the prep guide I sent back to you helps, and if there are any questions you have that aren't answered there. Perhaps we should assemble a full-blown FAQ.
- Sirian
Jester's right: the lack of feedback, in the form of in-game information and AI's who smack you around when you mess up, is part of the problem. Really, though, the main problem in my view is the User Interface. It took me about three whole pages of text to explain how to colonize effectively. The colonization method is beyond awkward: it's the most convoluted, illogical, "deliberately obstinate" design I've ever seen.
The second review over at Quarter to Three, talking about how the game was originally designed to play with the "IFP" concept limiting player's "imperial intervention" into a world of "intelligently recalcitrant" local AI's, is spot on. Originally, these AI's were intended to be recalcitrant, up to a point. They were intended to do things logically, but with a local-level logic that would sometimes conflict with empire-wide interests and player's imperial plans. The idea was to simulate a real empire, with the larger you grew, the less direct control you had over everything, and the more you had to prioritize. So the strategy would not have been just about playing well, but prioritizing effectively, and making your interventions count.
This concept was ambitious, but apparently they did not pull it off, and pulled it out instead. Unfortuneately, many of the game elements left behind did not get enough of a re-engineering to stamp out the deliberate awkwardnesses. Here's some of the game elements left in limbo, that no longer make sense without the IFP's in place:
* The entire tech tree. The overruns, the lack of player choice on research, the AI fiddling with the sliders according to local needs, and more. The whole thing was designed for IFPs. Without the IFPs, there's just not much you can do here, except observe what you have, what's coming, and plan accordingly. You can try to trade for key techs your tree in a given game does not hold, but that's about it.
* Colonization. They could not have made it more awkward and confusing if they tried. Literally, this is the one area of the game where unless you are willing to FIGHT the AI for control, and figure out over time how to take control, you sit there dazed and frustrated.
* For all the information overload the game suffers from, the real problem is a LACK of information: lack of information about what is going on diplomatically, lack of information about what the techs do, lack of information about why the automation decides what it decides, and especially lack of information about exactly what impact the dev plans have on the automation.
* Lack of an effective tutorial to lead you through and SHOW YOU how to play. Show you how to make a dev plan that does something specific. Show you how to colonize, show you how to wage a battle, show you how to decide between your fight or flight options, and on and on.
Personally, I enjoy the empire building. I enjoy selecting which worlds to colonize, which DEA's to lay out, designing my ships. I enjoy the space combat, the ground combat, the logistics.
What I don't enjoy is some of the tedium in the interface which makes the game drag as time passes. What I don't enjoy is having to micromanage my military queues constantly, all game long, to get anything useful built. What I don't enjoy is coming to the realization that I've outgrown all the competition, sit at number one on the power graph, and that even combined, the AI's can't put up a fight against me.
From the first patch, I would like to see:
* UI improvements that reduce some of the most tedious game elements: fixes to the space combat queue that would better allow me to move through it quickly, instead of demanding my attention to every encounter every turn, even when most of them are repeats of things that have been happening over and over; fixes to the colonization that make it less of a hassle; fixes most especially to the military queue. All of these involve the game ALLOWING MY CHOICES TO STICK, instead of requiring me to come back to make the same choice over and over and over and over, with endless tedious micromanagement. (Whoever thought a "repeat build" option in the military queues would not be needed ought to be flogged!)
* AI improvements that give us an opponent. Frankly, just fix the passivity aspect: get the AI to stop mindlessly sending ships to their deaths. Make them evaluate a situation, such as a flag to stop sending colony ships to a given world where they have lost two or more such ships until they send in a fleet that takes and holds space superiority. Just one example. The "trickle of ships" must stop, in general. The AI must be given a mechanism to evaluate how much force it needs to get something done and at least TRY to assemble that kind of force.
I get the feeling the community will have to mod a "beyond impossible" difficulty level, on the order of Civ3 Deity, to put the player into enough of a hole to make the game entertaining when trying to climb out. That's what's missing here. The notion that they could program an AI that would compete with human players is ambitious, but also pie in the sky. No, don't give the AI cheats and shortcuts, but do give it production bonuses, cost discounts, free fleet maintenance, etc etc. At least these are things we can mod in ourselves, so many thanks to QS for deliberately making the game mod-friendly. That decision may save their arse, by allowing the community to try tweaks and patch some elements of the game ourselves.
The fact that I enjoy the empire-building, fleet building and the space combat keep me interested in this game's future potential. Even so, at this point it remains only "potential", so I wouldn't blame anyone (Cy, for example) who said "Hey, when does the fun start?" If it hasn't started yet, maybe it never will. For me, the fun HAS started, but there are a lot of little things that eat away at the fun factor, and some very big items that MUST be addressed.
Charis, let me know if the prep guide I sent back to you helps, and if there are any questions you have that aren't answered there. Perhaps we should assemble a full-blown FAQ.
- Sirian
Just a quick post to say: "Yeah for MOO3 SG!" Just reading this thread has given me some ideas to try and reduce the frustration level of this game. Hopefully I can join in with you guys on a future game, if we don't all give up...
I hope QS listens to well thought out suggestions like Sirian's here but I fear they may suffer from a bit of Blizzardness. From my reading of Rantz's comments they aren't going to make micromanaging any easier because its not "what they are trying to do with their game". Reminded me of Blizzards refusal to add a no PK game switch to Diablo II. Hope I'm wrong.
Oh, and not to completely hijack this thread but a consistent use of the CLOSE button would be nice. Is there some reason the Foreign Office and Planets screen don't have a close button. At least ESC works on all screens. And speaking of UI inconsistency, why does the SitRep behave differently depending on what link type you click on? You click on a new spy link, fiddle with your spies, and close that screen out the SitRep is gone forcing an additional click to get it back. You click on something relating to a planet, fiddle, close it out and the SitRep returns. If I'm actually going to use the SitRep please bring it back when I'm done.
I hope QS listens to well thought out suggestions like Sirian's here but I fear they may suffer from a bit of Blizzardness. From my reading of Rantz's comments they aren't going to make micromanaging any easier because its not "what they are trying to do with their game". Reminded me of Blizzards refusal to add a no PK game switch to Diablo II. Hope I'm wrong.
Oh, and not to completely hijack this thread but a consistent use of the CLOSE button would be nice. Is there some reason the Foreign Office and Planets screen don't have a close button. At least ESC works on all screens. And speaking of UI inconsistency, why does the SitRep behave differently depending on what link type you click on? You click on a new spy link, fiddle with your spies, and close that screen out the SitRep is gone forcing an additional click to get it back. You click on something relating to a planet, fiddle, close it out and the SitRep returns. If I'm actually going to use the SitRep please bring it back when I'm done.
Sirian
Designer, Mohawk Games
Quick Note: You close all the menus at the bottom the same way you open them: by clicking the buttons. Open Planet list with the planet button. Close planet list with the planet button.
As far as "not making micromanagement any easier", that's fine, except for the military build queue and space combat decision queue. The former MUST BE managed by the player because the AI is COMPLETELY INCOMPETENT (endless troop ships anybody?). The latter is simply awkward/tedious. They need to implement a few simple things to make it smoother, so that you don't have to micromanage as much!
- Sirian
As far as "not making micromanagement any easier", that's fine, except for the military build queue and space combat decision queue. The former MUST BE managed by the player because the AI is COMPLETELY INCOMPETENT (endless troop ships anybody?). The latter is simply awkward/tedious. They need to implement a few simple things to make it smoother, so that you don't have to micromanage as much!
- Sirian
Charis
Realms Beyond
Good link to the Qtr to Three rebuttal. That one made a ton more sense than the original review
And Jester, a very astute observation on lack of feedback. You're right.
Thanks for the guide edit Sirian, that helps with several of the technical questions. I'll get that up soon (been having some ftp trouble)
There's *still* something I don't get on colonization. When does a ship 'pick up' the order to 'Send Colony'? If a ship has been made and dispatched toward one system that had 'Send Colony' active. Will it switch direction if a closer system hits Send Colony? Will it stop if the destination cancels its send? If one is about to arrive at a target and another colony ship is due to complete next turn, do you cancel the send colony? To redirect a colony ship, it sounds like you must first cancel it's existing order, then will a Send Colony order direct it there, or must you send it to the new target and go through the turn waste of letting it get in system first? (It's a bad sign for how badly they've implemented this when you wrote 4 nice paragraphs to describe colonization and I still have the above questions!)
However, knowing these technical answers doesn't begin to address the question of what am I supposed to be doing (at a high lvl), and what is fun about the game? Let me muse 'outloud' for a minute here...
With Diablo and a D&D background I knew immediately what I was doing and it was intensely fun from day one, even though I die repeatedly to skeletons on lvl 1 while in a newbie stage. What was fun about it? Seeing "my" character, with his persona and ideals, grow stronger, face challenges and overcome them, and learn continuously how to do things better.
With D2 lag introduced a big disconnect between what I asked a character to do and what really happened. The lack of 'tiles' too meant that smallest lvl tactics were virtually gone. It seemed to require far less skill to fight. Add spells that couldn't hurt teammates and it did take the skill requirement way down. Throw in WWhirly bird maneuvers with a lance... hrmpf. Then D2X added 'artificial difficulty' in the most mind numbingly bad way the appeal died off. Bottom line: having characters you cared about, getting stronger and the skill trees making for very individual characters were the strong point, while broken balance and difficulty issues, penalties for things beyond your control, and broken elements like spell timers were poor.
Civ2, and Civ3. Both were *outrageously* addictive from almost the get go. You may not know full details of what you were doing, but you knew where you stood and if you were strong or weak, very quickly. The game was very very 'rich' in terms of strategic choices, effectiveness of good tactics, and in differing personalities between the civs. There was no 'best opening' sequence but everything truly was situation dependent.
WC2 I loved from a single player perspective. The fun was primarily the novelty of RTS at the time. I very much prefer their fantasy setting over C&C of the same era. The units had 'personality', were decently balanced, and there were a large number of ways to play or things to build that it had high replay. Plus the 'rush' of seeing bloodlusted ogres rushing at your peon line was something else. WC3 in some ways should have been as good or better, but it failed badly on balance, had set sequences that anyone used and could crush the AI with, and with the heroes especially, was a 'clickfest' where fast fingers ruled the day.
X-wing. Now that one is not like the others on my list, but I loved this one. It had enough controls that it beat the stay-on-the-tracks feeling of rebel assault, but you could hop in a B-wing and go kill things without a 4 month learning curve like some flying simulaters. The game was 'visceral'. It reached out and grabbed you, and the missions were very carefully designed so that i) you progressed at just the right rate where you did well enough to be excited but poorly enough to know there was a lot more to master, and ii) there was a great 'variety' of mission types, and the differences in the ships helped out a lot.
HOMM series was also a blast, combining characters, epic stories, and great variety yet balance among the city types. All were fun to play.
NWN. Boy that was one I desperately wanted to work. It has a lot of very, very good elements. And there was a lot I liked about it. But... it's a game that lives or dies by the coop experience, and the huge impact lag has (since your arrows and spells hurt each other) and the horrible pain of losing all progress in an evening if you dropped out of the game were crushing blows. And for some inexplicable reason, I had time liking my characters as much as my D2 ones. In the latter, options were so limited that I had to wrap them up in their own persona. In NWN, items weren't random, and there were definite 'ideal setups' to have, and with a decent amount of playing you could 'buy' most of these items. A properly DM'd world would probably have solved most issues, but the game just plain didn't "grab" us. It teased us, led us to think things would get better, but in the end it lacked addiction.
EU2 was my most recent 'dud'. Everything I read suggested I would love the game. But after playing the tutorial, which taught the UI mechanics, my first game left me an overwhelming sense of "what am I supposed to be doing here?" A dreadful number of popup messages did not help, some where probably of no consequence at all, and others could have been huge announcements but it was all a blur. It was a very odd mixture of 'you set very high lvl strategy decisions with sliders' but yet required fast decisions, and low lvl control of troops. And despite having like 400 nations in the game, it was hard to know anything about them. That game was just plain "no fun", I didn't "grok it" and it just didn't leave my any hope that I would have fun when I did figure it out.
This isn't a rant or a vote for what's the best game of all time, I'm just thinking as I write what it is that I've liked about my best games and what has led others to abandonment. Now to think about these in the context of Moo3.
Races. There seems to be a wonderful assortment of *very* different races that should provide much replay and very different strategies for how to win the game. At the same time, the extreme oddness of the AI phrases and decisions at the diplo screen, makes it hard not to think they're ALL insane.
Undeclared wars. You can fight other civs without declaring war. Wow, now that's different from civ 3. But... I'm having a tough time coming to grips with that. And they play by different rules? The fact that the player giving an early threat got another RBMoo1 game kicked out of the senate was painful to see. Being forthright enough to give an AI warning gets you booted, while slaughtering a colony ship of another race without being at war is ok? This and the HUGE role that spying activities play goes against my style.
Exploration and no single best opening sequence. From other games, this should be a good thing. Once I know what I want to get out of an opening, this will probably be good. Lack of feedback however is a temporary problem here.
Character development. While it's not required for a game to be good, it's not part of Moo (or Civ).
I've always been into variants, but never 'modding'. I want to play one and only one *version* of the game, and adjust my actions, not the rules of the game. The fact that we may be able to 'fix' Moo with proper modding is not at all a plus for me, but a big waving red flag.
I'm very picky about the UI. (Hey, I'm a Mac lover at heart ) The *extreme* awkwardness about some of the most vital tasks in the game, MBQ and colonization, and the smudged fonts, are a very big concern.
Anyway, I didn't come up with any answers, but I would like to know:
- for those who like Moo3 a lot... why do you like it? I've listed a number of games about and what I liked/disliked so that if it helps some comparisons can be made.
- are there any who have never played Moo before, had a rough phase at the start of Moo3, and have overcome it, so that now they've come to like it alot?
Sorry for rambling...
Charis
And Jester, a very astute observation on lack of feedback. You're right.
Thanks for the guide edit Sirian, that helps with several of the technical questions. I'll get that up soon (been having some ftp trouble)
There's *still* something I don't get on colonization. When does a ship 'pick up' the order to 'Send Colony'? If a ship has been made and dispatched toward one system that had 'Send Colony' active. Will it switch direction if a closer system hits Send Colony? Will it stop if the destination cancels its send? If one is about to arrive at a target and another colony ship is due to complete next turn, do you cancel the send colony? To redirect a colony ship, it sounds like you must first cancel it's existing order, then will a Send Colony order direct it there, or must you send it to the new target and go through the turn waste of letting it get in system first? (It's a bad sign for how badly they've implemented this when you wrote 4 nice paragraphs to describe colonization and I still have the above questions!)
However, knowing these technical answers doesn't begin to address the question of what am I supposed to be doing (at a high lvl), and what is fun about the game? Let me muse 'outloud' for a minute here...
With Diablo and a D&D background I knew immediately what I was doing and it was intensely fun from day one, even though I die repeatedly to skeletons on lvl 1 while in a newbie stage. What was fun about it? Seeing "my" character, with his persona and ideals, grow stronger, face challenges and overcome them, and learn continuously how to do things better.
With D2 lag introduced a big disconnect between what I asked a character to do and what really happened. The lack of 'tiles' too meant that smallest lvl tactics were virtually gone. It seemed to require far less skill to fight. Add spells that couldn't hurt teammates and it did take the skill requirement way down. Throw in WWhirly bird maneuvers with a lance... hrmpf. Then D2X added 'artificial difficulty' in the most mind numbingly bad way the appeal died off. Bottom line: having characters you cared about, getting stronger and the skill trees making for very individual characters were the strong point, while broken balance and difficulty issues, penalties for things beyond your control, and broken elements like spell timers were poor.
Civ2, and Civ3. Both were *outrageously* addictive from almost the get go. You may not know full details of what you were doing, but you knew where you stood and if you were strong or weak, very quickly. The game was very very 'rich' in terms of strategic choices, effectiveness of good tactics, and in differing personalities between the civs. There was no 'best opening' sequence but everything truly was situation dependent.
WC2 I loved from a single player perspective. The fun was primarily the novelty of RTS at the time. I very much prefer their fantasy setting over C&C of the same era. The units had 'personality', were decently balanced, and there were a large number of ways to play or things to build that it had high replay. Plus the 'rush' of seeing bloodlusted ogres rushing at your peon line was something else. WC3 in some ways should have been as good or better, but it failed badly on balance, had set sequences that anyone used and could crush the AI with, and with the heroes especially, was a 'clickfest' where fast fingers ruled the day.
X-wing. Now that one is not like the others on my list, but I loved this one. It had enough controls that it beat the stay-on-the-tracks feeling of rebel assault, but you could hop in a B-wing and go kill things without a 4 month learning curve like some flying simulaters. The game was 'visceral'. It reached out and grabbed you, and the missions were very carefully designed so that i) you progressed at just the right rate where you did well enough to be excited but poorly enough to know there was a lot more to master, and ii) there was a great 'variety' of mission types, and the differences in the ships helped out a lot.
HOMM series was also a blast, combining characters, epic stories, and great variety yet balance among the city types. All were fun to play.
NWN. Boy that was one I desperately wanted to work. It has a lot of very, very good elements. And there was a lot I liked about it. But... it's a game that lives or dies by the coop experience, and the huge impact lag has (since your arrows and spells hurt each other) and the horrible pain of losing all progress in an evening if you dropped out of the game were crushing blows. And for some inexplicable reason, I had time liking my characters as much as my D2 ones. In the latter, options were so limited that I had to wrap them up in their own persona. In NWN, items weren't random, and there were definite 'ideal setups' to have, and with a decent amount of playing you could 'buy' most of these items. A properly DM'd world would probably have solved most issues, but the game just plain didn't "grab" us. It teased us, led us to think things would get better, but in the end it lacked addiction.
EU2 was my most recent 'dud'. Everything I read suggested I would love the game. But after playing the tutorial, which taught the UI mechanics, my first game left me an overwhelming sense of "what am I supposed to be doing here?" A dreadful number of popup messages did not help, some where probably of no consequence at all, and others could have been huge announcements but it was all a blur. It was a very odd mixture of 'you set very high lvl strategy decisions with sliders' but yet required fast decisions, and low lvl control of troops. And despite having like 400 nations in the game, it was hard to know anything about them. That game was just plain "no fun", I didn't "grok it" and it just didn't leave my any hope that I would have fun when I did figure it out.
This isn't a rant or a vote for what's the best game of all time, I'm just thinking as I write what it is that I've liked about my best games and what has led others to abandonment. Now to think about these in the context of Moo3.
Races. There seems to be a wonderful assortment of *very* different races that should provide much replay and very different strategies for how to win the game. At the same time, the extreme oddness of the AI phrases and decisions at the diplo screen, makes it hard not to think they're ALL insane.
Undeclared wars. You can fight other civs without declaring war. Wow, now that's different from civ 3. But... I'm having a tough time coming to grips with that. And they play by different rules? The fact that the player giving an early threat got another RBMoo1 game kicked out of the senate was painful to see. Being forthright enough to give an AI warning gets you booted, while slaughtering a colony ship of another race without being at war is ok? This and the HUGE role that spying activities play goes against my style.
Exploration and no single best opening sequence. From other games, this should be a good thing. Once I know what I want to get out of an opening, this will probably be good. Lack of feedback however is a temporary problem here.
Character development. While it's not required for a game to be good, it's not part of Moo (or Civ).
I've always been into variants, but never 'modding'. I want to play one and only one *version* of the game, and adjust my actions, not the rules of the game. The fact that we may be able to 'fix' Moo with proper modding is not at all a plus for me, but a big waving red flag.
I'm very picky about the UI. (Hey, I'm a Mac lover at heart
) The *extreme* awkwardness about some of the most vital tasks in the game, MBQ and colonization, and the smudged fonts, are a very big concern. Anyway, I didn't come up with any answers, but I would like to know:
- for those who like Moo3 a lot... why do you like it? I've listed a number of games about and what I liked/disliked so that if it helps some comparisons can be made.
- are there any who have never played Moo before, had a rough phase at the start of Moo3, and have overcome it, so that now they've come to like it alot?
Sorry for rambling...
Charis
I am one of those who likes MOO in general and still have hopes for MOO 3. To me, the most interesting aspect of the serie has always been the diplomactic game. Figuring out who is your friend, who is your enemy and who is on the fence. Figuring out how to make your friends like you more and how to bring the ones on the fence to your side. MOO 3 offers many tools and has a lot of potential in that regard.
Sure, we were booted out of the Senate in Team B and it is annoying. But in a stand alone game I managed to get my senate enemy booted out and reduced to a non-entity by having the senate declare total war on them, all without firing a single shot, that was very rewarding. I hope both of these events occured because of something I did, if so MOO 3 will be a great game to me. If it turns out it was only a matter of how the dice fell, then the game will be huge disappointement.
Another aspect is the strategic AI. Modding can make the game more challenging, but that is at the expense of the diplomatic game as it requires turning all the AI into warmongers. QS have a more dangerous AI in their hands, I really hope it is more than a more aggressive AI and that you can still play on the diplomatic level with their AI. In team B game, we should be scared of being one starlane away of an Ithkul empire, we should be scared of angering the Sakkra, we should be glad the Trilarian are our friends.
About modding. Although it can fix some of game elements ad make for an improved single-player experience, it is quite useless in SG or Epic context as the modifications are not in the save game. It is also quite difficult to have multiple, and possibly conflicting, mods active on your machine. The game seems to have the basic structure to have multiple root directories for the game data, but I can't find a way to have the game select a dirrent root directoty. That should be an easy thing to select the base root directory when you start a game, and the game should insist on using the original root every time you load a save game. If these things happen through a patch, then modding will become useful to setup fun SG with interesting variants.
I currently consider attacking a world without a war declaration to be exploitative, it's kind off like the ROP rape, only worst since you can keep doing it for the whole game. Shooting down ships in neutral territory without a war declaration should be allowed, but it should have an impact on your relations with that empire, if it doesn't, then it is another broken element.
To conclude, I know I will play many single-player games of MOO 3 an have some fun. But a lot depends on the first patch and what direction they take about fixing the broken elements. If it doesn't go in the right way, I will probably forget about MOO and go back to Civ, which would be a first as I have never made the switch that way.
Somehat off topic, but I am a little surprise you didn't like EU2, Charis. Maybe you have the wrong pespective on the game. If you give it another try, pick a country you know something about its history and try to make it different. The ultimate goal in EU2 needs not be to conquer the whole world, you can set your own winning condition in your mind. For instance, play as Eire and try to get rid of the british oppression. Or play as Sicily and try to turn Italy into a sicilian province. After about 10 tries, I managed to have my Iroquois strive and build the largest empire in the world with no european possessions in North America. That was my winning condition and I was quite pleased when I achieved it.
Sure, we were booted out of the Senate in Team B and it is annoying. But in a stand alone game I managed to get my senate enemy booted out and reduced to a non-entity by having the senate declare total war on them, all without firing a single shot, that was very rewarding. I hope both of these events occured because of something I did, if so MOO 3 will be a great game to me. If it turns out it was only a matter of how the dice fell, then the game will be huge disappointement.
Another aspect is the strategic AI. Modding can make the game more challenging, but that is at the expense of the diplomatic game as it requires turning all the AI into warmongers. QS have a more dangerous AI in their hands, I really hope it is more than a more aggressive AI and that you can still play on the diplomatic level with their AI. In team B game, we should be scared of being one starlane away of an Ithkul empire, we should be scared of angering the Sakkra, we should be glad the Trilarian are our friends.
About modding. Although it can fix some of game elements ad make for an improved single-player experience, it is quite useless in SG or Epic context as the modifications are not in the save game. It is also quite difficult to have multiple, and possibly conflicting, mods active on your machine. The game seems to have the basic structure to have multiple root directories for the game data, but I can't find a way to have the game select a dirrent root directoty. That should be an easy thing to select the base root directory when you start a game, and the game should insist on using the original root every time you load a save game. If these things happen through a patch, then modding will become useful to setup fun SG with interesting variants.
I currently consider attacking a world without a war declaration to be exploitative, it's kind off like the ROP rape, only worst since you can keep doing it for the whole game. Shooting down ships in neutral territory without a war declaration should be allowed, but it should have an impact on your relations with that empire, if it doesn't, then it is another broken element.
To conclude, I know I will play many single-player games of MOO 3 an have some fun. But a lot depends on the first patch and what direction they take about fixing the broken elements. If it doesn't go in the right way, I will probably forget about MOO and go back to Civ, which would be a first as I have never made the switch that way.
Somehat off topic, but I am a little surprise you didn't like EU2, Charis. Maybe you have the wrong pespective on the game. If you give it another try, pick a country you know something about its history and try to make it different. The ultimate goal in EU2 needs not be to conquer the whole world, you can set your own winning condition in your mind. For instance, play as Eire and try to get rid of the british oppression.
Or play as Sicily and try to turn Italy into a sicilian province. After about 10 tries, I managed to have my Iroquois strive and build the largest empire in the world with no european possessions in North America. That was my winning condition and I was quite pleased when I achieved it.
Sirian
Designer, Mohawk Games
This question really misses the mark. MOO3 is still a work in progress. We don't have a finished game here yet, so there is no way to give you an answer the way you phrased it.
The question in my mind is not what I like about MOO3, but what I expect from it, hope to find inside it, and whether or not it is realistic (likely) enough that these items will show up once the game is completed (done being patched).
As much as we want games to be ready out of the box, they have grown too large and intricate to allow it. Game makers cannot field the costs of proper testing, so all games that are released are released as beta software, at least for PC games. Console games have to test more. PC games can patch, so... they rely on the patches. Maybe they don't intend to, but console games also dumb down a bit in exchange for shipping finished products. PC games go the extra mile on strategic possibility, and that requires post-release user feedback (beta testing) and then patches.
Frankly, I had higher expectations for the game than where it stands now. It's not just the AI, there are some serious structural faults at hand. If they do not improve upon the mechanism of the MBQ's, the game won't be worth playing long term. It just isn't fun to sift through all my planets every three turns, manually ordering up what is to be built. I realize that's what is done in Civ3, I have to manually direct what each city builds ALL the time. They don't want us to do that in MOO3, yet the automation that is supposed to do it for us doesn't work well enough in that area, and their efforts to "discourage" us from micromanaging by deliberately making it awkward kind of wreck the game.
That still doesn't address your issues, though, Charis. Your issues seem to revolve mainly around the lack of feedback. You can't tell what effects your actions have, so there's no sensible way for you to figure out how to play, or what is fun about playing. If your actions don't do anything, or you can't tell what they do, you might as well be a monkey at the keyboard randomly hitting keys.
For me, it is different. Having played the previous MOO's, and knowing what I liked and disliked about each, I already understand the core game concept. I already understand that the diplomatic model is based on the player actions, yet for me the lack of feedback is also problematic, since I can't tell whether what's wrong is my doing or a bug/flaw in the diplomacy.
Now that I've played more, I've found there ARE some really bad elements to the diplomacy. For one, there's no method by which to make peace. In Civ3, the AI's have an "automatic urge" to make peace after you inflict a certain amount of pain on them, or a certain amount of time passes without them making gains. In MOO1, AI's did tend not to want to make peace, but relations improved IN A HURRY and by a huge margin if you started making war on a third party who was enemy to you both. Then the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" principle applied, and so you could turn enemies into friends, or at least cordial partners, by ganging up on a third party. There was a lot you could DO to affect the diplomacy. I expected to find these elements in MOO3 diplomacy and so far I can't. Either they aren't there, or lack of feedback prevents me from making effective use of them. And worst of all, the RACE PICK dominates the diplomatic game. If you have "strong" diplomacy, it's WAY TOO DAMN STRONG. You can do no wrong for some of these races, they just beeline up through the progression of relations in a hurry. Even races that don't like them make deals with them. By contrast, playing a race with "poor" diplomacy, you almost neednt bother. No amount of gifts and goodwill gestures and positive actions matter. You can't persuade them. Only later, after you advance up the tech tree to get some of the diplomatic techs, can you even climb out of out the pit you are cast into and forge a few non aggression pacts.
The racial impact of diplomatic picks is simply way too strong, in both directions.
Finally, they really must bring back "enemy of my enemy" diplomacy. When you attack or oppose the enemy of your enemies, there ought to be mechanisms that start to improve relations, as you work toward the same interests. Maybe not MOO1 "insta-friend" E of my E relations changes, but something in that department. That this is NOT PRESENT in MOO3 just astounds me. It's like they took the lobotomized MOO2 "nothing you do matters" style of diplomacy and used all the same code.
For diplomacy to matter, the player's actions must count. If your diplomacy is predestined by your racial selection or customized race picks, there's no point in playing. That was, above all else, what ruined MOO2 for me: the race picks were WAY TOO STRONG in all directions. MOO1 was successful by offering just one minor strength for each race, plus different tech weightings and starting likes/dislikes of other races. That's it. Three items. One unique set of STARTING race relation values. One racial strength. One unique set of research bonuses or penalties spread out across the six tech trees (weighted by role playing elements: the machines sad on ecology techs, the spies good at computer techs, the efficient insects strong on construction, the cat-warriors strong on weapons, the bird-warriors strong on flight and propulsion techs but weak on force fields, etc).
The starting race relations were just that: starting values. These were fixed, they never changed. In MOO3, the Casus Belli appears to be a similar thing, only... they allow it to shift through the game? WHY? This is broken. That ought to be the anchor, and the farther you get away from it, the more force you should have to exert to hold your ground or gain ground. Thus, if you want to make friends with your racial enemies, you could. There were some ways in which you could even become allies, mainly by needing each other vs a third, more immediately dangerous enemy. Rather than forcing your hand into "always war" with your racial enemy, the game only exerted extra pressure on you there. Yes, you'd most likely end up in war, but you could avoid it if you worked at it hard enough or got into a situation where you were both threatened by a third party. That sort of ability to PLAY THE GAME, with your choices making the difference, seems missing in parts of MOO3. Why? I don't know. Will they fix it? Can they fix it? I don't yet know. If they don't fix it, this game won't be worthy of the franchise, and I will stop playing it.
I stopped playing MOO2 because not enough of my choices mattered. You were destined to go to war with any race that had the Repulsive racial pick. Diplomacy with them was not an option. WAY WAY too much of the game was decided by the racial picks, instead of player choices. Instead of racial traits coloring the game like they do in Civ3, like they did in MOO1, these picks totally dominated the game in MOO2. I'm sorry to say, they seem to have a pretty wide swing in MOO3, too. Diplomacy picks, population growth picks... the races that are endemic to higher gravity have a huge advantage, drawing the larger worlds on which to grow and expand. The races with faster population growth have a civ3-deity-like bonus, in net effect, since population equals power. I'd like to see them tone down the effects of the racial picks and abilities a little more. Make the bonuses less great, the penalties less harsh, the gap a less wide.
In MOO1, ground combat modifiers mattered a lot. You had to USE YOUR POPULATION, forming up armies out of your raw population, to invade another world. There was none of this "ground combat unit" stuff. You had to send your people en masse. It was a serious commitment to go on the attack with an invasion. The alternative was to bomb enemy planets to oblivion, and this had huge negative diplomatic effects on all neutrally aligned parties. (E of my E would see relations GO UP when you bombed the mutual enemy, though). Plus, if you bombed a planet, all the planet infrastructure would be gone. You could resettle, but it was like starting from scratch, and it would take too long to build the planet back up to strength. It would be useless, just a place sitting vulnerable for a long time, sucking your assets to try to defend it. If you invaded with ground forces, you could capture the factories intact and replace the local population with your people, and have an operational world, or at least one that you could make something of reasonably quickly.
In other words, IT MATTERED to your strategy, whether you'd go bomb everything or invade with ground troops. It cost you something big to do ground troops.
Now you don't have to dedicate any population. You only have to dedicate some production: to build gropo units. That's not the same. There's no sacrifice to it. There's no give and take. I don't think in terms of gameplay that the MOO3 way is as interesting. It may be more realistic, more tactical, but it is less strategic.
MOO3 seems to be missing the "E of my E" element, and that's to its greater detriment. The diplomacy here DOES NOT currently match up to MOO1 standards. There may be more under the hood, but in terms of player choices MATTERING to the outcome, it's not as sophisticated. And I don't just mean lack of feedback. I look and see what effects my relations with the AI, and by far the overwhelming factor, like on a scale of 50 to 1, is the racial pick on diplomacy. That's just wrong. If you want a diplomatic cake walk, take a race strong on diplomacy. If you want to be told "No No No No No", regardless of what you do, then take a race with weak diplomatic skills. The "strategy" lies in which race you pick, not how you conduct your diplomacy, and that is abysmally short of what I expected to find here. How hard is it, really, to produce a diplomatic model where the PLAYER'S ACTIONS count? They did it ten years ago for MOO1. They must patch in a better job of it for MOO3 if they want this game to receive a passing grade.
- Sirian
Darken.Rahl
Chieftain
I like the fact that MOO3 is a very Epic game. I like that you can assemble all of your empire's production capacity quickly into 1 point via the Mobilization Centers, and send armadas of ships to crush your enemies. I like having a lot of planets, a lot of races populating those planets, each with specialties. I like seeing 60 on 60 or more ship to ship battles -- they are truly awesome and fun to watch. I like figuring out and tweaking the economic model that powers the game -- it seems somewhat involved, and seems to be a bit of a feedback loop -- you make a change, and don't really know its full impact for a few turns / years, much like a real economy. I like the ground combat -- when you want it to be fun and involved, it can be, and when you just want it to be over quickly, you can do that, too.
However, I tend to agree that the game is missing a big "fun" factor. Playing it does not reach out, grab me, and suck me in. It is interesting and I like building the empire, but it seems a lot like alternatively pushing through mud (very, very slow tedious progress) or like I'm just a spectator (my actions don't always seem to directly impact gameplay). Conquering advanced planets is sheer torture -- each one has like 8-15 orbitals that simply shred my 60-90 ship fleets. So I build up a huge fleet, see it get crushed but conquer 3-5 planets in the system, and repeat. About 80 times. This is definitely not very fun hour to hour, but can be satisfying when viewed week to week (well, last week the Etherians had 120 planets. They're down to just 50 this week. Maybe I'll eliminate them in another 2 weeks). The interface is not terrible, but isn't great, either. I read where they were going for a "1, no more than 2 click" design. I think they achieved a "3 or 4, sometimes 2" click design. It seems like I have to struggle against the interface to play the game, which is Not Good.
Finally, there just isn't a sense of urgency. With either of the other 2 MOO games, or with Civ3, you have a real sense of urgency. It really comes down to AI aggressiveness. You have seen yourself get crushed by the enemy. You know roughly where you need to be in a game or else the enemy will come and crush you again. With MOO3, that just doesn't happen. I'm not sure if it is a bad AI or that the game is just massively tilted towards the defense with Orbitals, or both. Mounting any kind of concerted attack (for a human or for an AI) is a real exercise in patience and discipline.
I will definitely play 2-4 full, conquest only games, and then another 4-6 quicker Senate based games, in addition to a few SGs. But if Quicksilver doesn't release a patch that ups the fun factor between now and the end of my "trial run", I'm with Jaxom -- I'm going back to Civ3 (actually, while waiting for MOO3 to come out I busted out Sword of Aragon, which is totally Old School but is still a lot of fun. It is a straight DOS game, that doesn't even use a mouse !)
Ummm ... sorry for hijacking your game thread. But Charis started it !
Darken.Rahl
However, I tend to agree that the game is missing a big "fun" factor. Playing it does not reach out, grab me, and suck me in. It is interesting and I like building the empire, but it seems a lot like alternatively pushing through mud (very, very slow tedious progress) or like I'm just a spectator (my actions don't always seem to directly impact gameplay). Conquering advanced planets is sheer torture -- each one has like 8-15 orbitals that simply shred my 60-90 ship fleets. So I build up a huge fleet, see it get crushed but conquer 3-5 planets in the system, and repeat. About 80 times. This is definitely not very fun hour to hour, but can be satisfying when viewed week to week (well, last week the Etherians had 120 planets. They're down to just 50 this week. Maybe I'll eliminate them in another 2 weeks). The interface is not terrible, but isn't great, either. I read where they were going for a "1, no more than 2 click" design. I think they achieved a "3 or 4, sometimes 2" click design. It seems like I have to struggle against the interface to play the game, which is Not Good.
Finally, there just isn't a sense of urgency. With either of the other 2 MOO games, or with Civ3, you have a real sense of urgency. It really comes down to AI aggressiveness. You have seen yourself get crushed by the enemy. You know roughly where you need to be in a game or else the enemy will come and crush you again. With MOO3, that just doesn't happen. I'm not sure if it is a bad AI or that the game is just massively tilted towards the defense with Orbitals, or both. Mounting any kind of concerted attack (for a human or for an AI) is a real exercise in patience and discipline.
I will definitely play 2-4 full, conquest only games, and then another 4-6 quicker Senate based games, in addition to a few SGs. But if Quicksilver doesn't release a patch that ups the fun factor between now and the end of my "trial run", I'm with Jaxom -- I'm going back to Civ3 (actually, while waiting for MOO3 to come out I busted out Sword of Aragon, which is totally Old School but is still a lot of fun. It is a straight DOS game, that doesn't even use a mouse !)
Ummm ... sorry for hijacking your game thread. But Charis started it !
Darken.Rahl
