Why should i buy Master of Orion III
- Thread starter SunTzu
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metalhead
Angry Bartender
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2002
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Buy it!
If you are expecting MOO 2.5, then don't. If you were hanging around these boards when Civ3 first came out, you will notice a lot of similar criticisms of MOO3 that you heard about Civ3. Having never played MOO2, here's the objective viewpoint.
MOO3 is a great game. Or at least, will be a great game when the patch comes out; right now it is merely a very good game, and worth buying to plod through all of the menus and to figure out the interface to the point where a few clicks will get you exactly where you want to go. Having spent about 10 hours on this game so far, I'm hooked. I'm now exploring the depth of the game - there are so many management tools at your disposal that it will take awhile to get the hang of.
The steep learning curve is due as much to vast number of features to explore as anything else. If you think Civ3 is a complex game, than MOO3 is probably not for you - there are so many things to explore about this game that it will take awhile to get used to. I think many people gave up an hour or 2 into it due to impatience; if you are impatient this game is also not for you.
One thing - get used to not knowing what is going on. The one glaring weakness of this game is the lack of documentation - with all that is going on, there is no explanation anywhere about why things happen when they do, how different buildings affect planetary development, etc. Thankfully, the good people at Infogrames message boards have begun explaining many of the features already, and in the coming weeks will have completely revealed the inner workings of the game:
http://moo3.quicksilver.com
The bottom line is that the game takes a little getting used to, and is quite unique in its implementation. Don't expect a ton of eye candy - the graphics do their job adequately, but if it's eye candy you're looking for than you're in the wrong genre. I think it is a brilliant gaming concept, but there are many gamers who think the opposite, so caveat emptor.
My advice would be to buy it, but make sure your game shop will give you a full refund if you don't like it. Don't dismiss it after an hour if you find it too cumbersome, but if you still don't get it after a couple weeks, go get your money back.
If you are expecting MOO 2.5, then don't. If you were hanging around these boards when Civ3 first came out, you will notice a lot of similar criticisms of MOO3 that you heard about Civ3. Having never played MOO2, here's the objective viewpoint.
MOO3 is a great game. Or at least, will be a great game when the patch comes out; right now it is merely a very good game, and worth buying to plod through all of the menus and to figure out the interface to the point where a few clicks will get you exactly where you want to go. Having spent about 10 hours on this game so far, I'm hooked. I'm now exploring the depth of the game - there are so many management tools at your disposal that it will take awhile to get the hang of.
The steep learning curve is due as much to vast number of features to explore as anything else. If you think Civ3 is a complex game, than MOO3 is probably not for you - there are so many things to explore about this game that it will take awhile to get used to. I think many people gave up an hour or 2 into it due to impatience; if you are impatient this game is also not for you.
One thing - get used to not knowing what is going on. The one glaring weakness of this game is the lack of documentation - with all that is going on, there is no explanation anywhere about why things happen when they do, how different buildings affect planetary development, etc. Thankfully, the good people at Infogrames message boards have begun explaining many of the features already, and in the coming weeks will have completely revealed the inner workings of the game:
http://moo3.quicksilver.com
The bottom line is that the game takes a little getting used to, and is quite unique in its implementation. Don't expect a ton of eye candy - the graphics do their job adequately, but if it's eye candy you're looking for than you're in the wrong genre. I think it is a brilliant gaming concept, but there are many gamers who think the opposite, so caveat emptor.
My advice would be to buy it, but make sure your game shop will give you a full refund if you don't like it. Don't dismiss it after an hour if you find it too cumbersome, but if you still don't get it after a couple weeks, go get your money back.
hey metalhead, I'm glad I'm not the only freak that loves this game 
Actually I played MoO2 and I like MoO3 more, it's totally different so comparing these two is almost impossible.
I think MoO3 is one of these rare games where it's impossible to say in advance, whether or not you will like it. You will just have to try yourself.
Actually I played MoO2 and I like MoO3 more, it's totally different so comparing these two is almost impossible.
I think MoO3 is one of these rare games where it's impossible to say in advance, whether or not you will like it. You will just have to try yourself.
Its good to see other people are also enjoying the game.
It took me about half a week to understand the game but I am still learning new things even now (a month on).
Once the patch comes out for the game it will be a masterpiece IMO.
metalhead: a better manual is also in the works by QS.
It took me about half a week to understand the game but I am still learning new things even now (a month on).
Once the patch comes out for the game it will be a masterpiece IMO.
metalhead: a better manual is also in the works by QS.
Galactic Civilization was good out of the box. I didn't even have to wait for the first upgrade patch (upgrade=operative word). The first patch was actually a bonus pack that added features to the game. After wasting my money on MOOIII I was very happy to see GalCiv come out right after and at least soothe my need for 4x TBS.
Siggy
Where's the Guinness?
Tough one. I bought it right away. I started to play it. It took me a while to get the basics. After that I started to read the manual. (I always do it in this order... 
) I like the possibilities the game offers. You have a lot of options, possible strategies to get the upper hand. However, after about ten days playing I started to play civ3, steel panthers and IL2 again. The game didn't grab me as it should have. I really don't know if this is a great game. Sun tsu, if I were you: wait. Wait for the mods, wait for the price to drop because you can't be sure that it is worth your dollars.
) I like the possibilities the game offers. You have a lot of options, possible strategies to get the upper hand. However, after about ten days playing I started to play civ3, steel panthers and IL2 again. The game didn't grab me as it should have. I really don't know if this is a great game. Sun tsu, if I were you: wait. Wait for the mods, wait for the price to drop because you can't be sure that it is worth your dollars.For all those who are saying buy GalCiv instead and so on, I own both GalCiv and MOO3 and enjoy them both immensely. The reason I bought both is that I generally can't pass up the opportunity to buy a good game.
GalCiv has more of a civ flavour to it so it is immediately accessable to probably everyone here but MOO3 on the other hand will require some adjustment as it is not your typical game.
However, I would recommend MOO3 to anyone who enjoys taking a high level approach to empire management.
GalCiv has more of a civ flavour to it so it is immediately accessable to probably everyone here but MOO3 on the other hand will require some adjustment as it is not your typical game.
However, I would recommend MOO3 to anyone who enjoys taking a high level approach to empire management.
allan2
Gone Fishing
I LOVE it! But I love games where I can tweak and micromanage and fiddle and fine-tune.
The MOO3 site has some good info posted if you're having trouble with the whole mathematics of production points, the three-tiered economy, DEAs, etc.--it can be overwhelming at first, I gave up my first game after turn 150 or so when I found out I was running things far from optimally! Now on my second game, as the Evons (I'd recommend playing them, they're a lot like humans but BETTER), I'm kicking some serious ass and won the Orion Senate presidency by turn 200 (which can be a victory condition, but I toggled it off--it's conquest for me, baby!). (Note: the Orion Senate functions somewhat like a UN but different--different empires (but not every one) have voting memberships, based on population.)
One thing I really like is designing new warships (wish you could refit existing obsolete ships though)--you get to control what weapons systems (different beams and projectiles, missile systems, fighters (for carrier craft), etc., on a variety of different sized mounts or chasses), armor/shielding, engines and thrusters, countermeasures, cloaking, and recon equipment to put on ships of different hull sizes (you might have to tweak a bit to get it all to fit!). Boys and their toys, huh?
Anyway, it is quite satisfying coming up with a design that effectively exploits the weaknesses of an enemy design!
Now, when you get to the point where you have 50 or 100 or more planets (there are I believe 256 star systems on a huge galaxy map, averaging maybe 4-6 planets apiece), turns WILL get long, especially when you keep going in and tweaking what the AI that normally runs each planet (the "planetary viceroy") does (the AI does okay, but sometimes it puts some stupid things in the build queue, or prioritizes the local budget differently than it should, or what you'd like--I recommend doing a planet-by-planet check every 5 or so turns, the AI generally will run with whatever changes you make for about that long, before going back to what it was doing before). But it's like Civ that way--if you like tweaking your cities, you'll be fascinated at how much MORE you can tweak your planets!
The research is definitely something I like, as it's far more realistic. YOU budget research monies into six different "schools" (Economics, Mathematics, Energy, Physical Sciences, Biological Sciences, and Social Sciences), but you don't specify what specific advances you're going for--they come on their own, and not one at a time (I always thought that one of Civ's flaws was how the research worked--you commanded your scientists to discover "Railroad", then only when they were done with that, you could command them to discover "Industrialization", etc.--whereas in reality, research often overlaps, and sort of develops organically rather than by decree). I think there are several hundred different advances, and you WON'T get them all--you'll have to trade or send spies to get some that you might not otherwise.
Diplomacy can be hard to get a hang of. You have 16 different races, and each has their quirks and customs, and there are different ways to optimally deal with each (there's one race that LIKES to be insulted--you will only get anywhere with them by insulting them!). It's trial-and-error (like I suppose it would be in "real life"), unless you buy the strategy guide (which I did), which gives you a few hints. Even with the strategy guide though, it'll still take you a while to cultivate good, mutually-productive relations with a lot of races, and figuring out all the other races' little quirks.
I for one like the game a lot (I've all but forgotten about CivII for the time being). There are a few bugs in it though, but that's what patches are for. But this is the first MOO-series game I've had, so I'm not looking at it in the comparative manner that some here are. I WILL tell you that it is NOT the game for someone without a lot of patience, or someone not that, well, anal--but in Civ2 I'm a control freak, and I can REALLY "get my control freak on" with this game
.
The MOO3 site has some good info posted if you're having trouble with the whole mathematics of production points, the three-tiered economy, DEAs, etc.--it can be overwhelming at first, I gave up my first game after turn 150 or so when I found out I was running things far from optimally! Now on my second game, as the Evons (I'd recommend playing them, they're a lot like humans but BETTER), I'm kicking some serious ass and won the Orion Senate presidency by turn 200 (which can be a victory condition, but I toggled it off--it's conquest for me, baby!). (Note: the Orion Senate functions somewhat like a UN but different--different empires (but not every one) have voting memberships, based on population.)
One thing I really like is designing new warships (wish you could refit existing obsolete ships though)--you get to control what weapons systems (different beams and projectiles, missile systems, fighters (for carrier craft), etc., on a variety of different sized mounts or chasses), armor/shielding, engines and thrusters, countermeasures, cloaking, and recon equipment to put on ships of different hull sizes (you might have to tweak a bit to get it all to fit!). Boys and their toys, huh?
Anyway, it is quite satisfying coming up with a design that effectively exploits the weaknesses of an enemy design! Now, when you get to the point where you have 50 or 100 or more planets (there are I believe 256 star systems on a huge galaxy map, averaging maybe 4-6 planets apiece), turns WILL get long, especially when you keep going in and tweaking what the AI that normally runs each planet (the "planetary viceroy") does (the AI does okay, but sometimes it puts some stupid things in the build queue, or prioritizes the local budget differently than it should, or what you'd like--I recommend doing a planet-by-planet check every 5 or so turns, the AI generally will run with whatever changes you make for about that long, before going back to what it was doing before). But it's like Civ that way--if you like tweaking your cities, you'll be fascinated at how much MORE you can tweak your planets!
The research is definitely something I like, as it's far more realistic. YOU budget research monies into six different "schools" (Economics, Mathematics, Energy, Physical Sciences, Biological Sciences, and Social Sciences), but you don't specify what specific advances you're going for--they come on their own, and not one at a time (I always thought that one of Civ's flaws was how the research worked--you commanded your scientists to discover "Railroad", then only when they were done with that, you could command them to discover "Industrialization", etc.--whereas in reality, research often overlaps, and sort of develops organically rather than by decree). I think there are several hundred different advances, and you WON'T get them all--you'll have to trade or send spies to get some that you might not otherwise.
Diplomacy can be hard to get a hang of. You have 16 different races, and each has their quirks and customs, and there are different ways to optimally deal with each (there's one race that LIKES to be insulted--you will only get anywhere with them by insulting them!). It's trial-and-error (like I suppose it would be in "real life"), unless you buy the strategy guide (which I did), which gives you a few hints. Even with the strategy guide though, it'll still take you a while to cultivate good, mutually-productive relations with a lot of races, and figuring out all the other races' little quirks.
I for one like the game a lot (I've all but forgotten about CivII for the time being). There are a few bugs in it though, but that's what patches are for. But this is the first MOO-series game I've had, so I'm not looking at it in the comparative manner that some here are. I WILL tell you that it is NOT the game for someone without a lot of patience, or someone not that, well, anal--but in Civ2 I'm a control freak, and I can REALLY "get my control freak on" with this game
.
andrewgprv
Second Class Citizen
I love empire building and complexity but I get annoyed with to much monotony, your description sounded like once your empire is big it can get monontous, is this true?
This was one of my major objections to MOO3. We all know from the CIV games that the AI doesn't have a clue as to what to build for you. If you want to play optimally, you have to control production yourself and keep the AI off of it. (Some people complain about micromanagement, however if you want to win at higher levels in any strategy game you have to micromanage.) MOO3 won't let you do the micromanagement easily.
In CIV3 or MOO2 you set up a build queue and when the queue is empty the game tells you, makes a silly suggestion as to what to build next, and puts you into the right screen to build what really needs to be built. MOO3 has a planet finish building the one item you can tell it to build and, without telling you or taking any input from you, starts building an obsolescent destroyer instead of doing the terraforming needed to keep the population from starving.
I understand the concept the folks at Quicksilver had. They wanted the player to not have to worry about what each individual planet was doing and instead concentrate on the Empire as a whole. However, the AI isn't smart enough to run each individual planet. So the player has to do it, with the AI fighting him all the way.
Esuh
Hypocrite
Do not buy it. The best part of it is the manual. You will be constantly hampered by the awful parts of the AI, but slightly impressed by the good parts of it. It will do amazingly intelligent military decisions, like producing 500 transports. Unarmed transports. Most of your time will be spent trying to avoid the game wrecking your plans.
Esuh
Hypocrite
I bought it. I liked it. A lot.
But then the lousy governor AI got to me, and I got very irritating.
If they had cut out the governor AI, or at least modified it to be less stupid, I might like it hell of a lot better. It had great potential, but some minor points that turned out to be major irritants destroyed it.
Oh, and keeping your space fleet updated is a pain as well, in addition to that the other empire's AI was nearly impossible to trade tech with (At least in all my games).
I have both MOO3 and GalCiv and have spent a considerable amount of time with each (MOO3 first, GalCiv more recently.)
Civ 3 - I liked it, got pretty good, played mostly RB SGs (incl. 1.29 Deity games.) Large games have too much micromanagement for my taste. Never got PTW, didn't seem to be worth the price. Planned to get Conquests until I heard it had even more micromanagement. May still get it, not sure. Overall between MOO3, GalCiv, and Civ3, Civ3 has the best AI.
MOO3 - Wanted to like it. The interface was cumbersome, but I could deal with it. I didn't trust the AI to do what I wanted with planets so I ended up microing a lot. I think if I had been willing to accept more inefficiency in my empire and been willing to spend a substantial amount of time learning how to manage my empire globally instead of micro'ing it, the game would still have been playable and been less tedious. However, the game was not well-balanced (especially victory conditions,) and the AI was not very bright. Overall, the game was much too complex and was never pared down sufficiently in scope. This resulted in the game doing many things poorly instead of a few things well. I think the major faults were introduced at the very beginning, as the original publisher wanted the game to be exceedingly grand in scope. A more realistic vision would likely have resulted in a better-produced game.
GalCiv - Better than MOO3, but still has flaws. Benefits from being a simpler game, is much easier to get into. However, the AI is not a strong point. It gets massive bonuses on the hardest difficulty and is still easy to beat most of the time. The AI initially appears to be strong, but only because it can be fairly aggressive. Once you look deeper than that, the AI is actually not that good and has many large holes in a variety of areas.
The AI only poses one threat - if it is significantly stronger than you militarily and you don't take steps to keep it happy, it will go to war with you, and if you can't distract it, it will conquer your empire. However, it's relatively easy to keep the AIs happy or otherwise occupied with one another, and once you've done that it's pretty simple to get to the point where you are stronger than they. In comparison, Civ3's AI won't go for the throat as much, giving you a chance to catch up, but it's harder to catch up to and if you don't catch up, it can win even if you never go to war.
For space TBS games, I still prefer the original MOO.
Civ 3 - I liked it, got pretty good, played mostly RB SGs (incl. 1.29 Deity games.) Large games have too much micromanagement for my taste. Never got PTW, didn't seem to be worth the price. Planned to get Conquests until I heard it had even more micromanagement. May still get it, not sure. Overall between MOO3, GalCiv, and Civ3, Civ3 has the best AI.
MOO3 - Wanted to like it. The interface was cumbersome, but I could deal with it. I didn't trust the AI to do what I wanted with planets so I ended up microing a lot. I think if I had been willing to accept more inefficiency in my empire and been willing to spend a substantial amount of time learning how to manage my empire globally instead of micro'ing it, the game would still have been playable and been less tedious. However, the game was not well-balanced (especially victory conditions,) and the AI was not very bright. Overall, the game was much too complex and was never pared down sufficiently in scope. This resulted in the game doing many things poorly instead of a few things well. I think the major faults were introduced at the very beginning, as the original publisher wanted the game to be exceedingly grand in scope. A more realistic vision would likely have resulted in a better-produced game.
GalCiv - Better than MOO3, but still has flaws. Benefits from being a simpler game, is much easier to get into. However, the AI is not a strong point. It gets massive bonuses on the hardest difficulty and is still easy to beat most of the time. The AI initially appears to be strong, but only because it can be fairly aggressive. Once you look deeper than that, the AI is actually not that good and has many large holes in a variety of areas.
The AI only poses one threat - if it is significantly stronger than you militarily and you don't take steps to keep it happy, it will go to war with you, and if you can't distract it, it will conquer your empire. However, it's relatively easy to keep the AIs happy or otherwise occupied with one another, and once you've done that it's pretty simple to get to the point where you are stronger than they. In comparison, Civ3's AI won't go for the throat as much, giving you a chance to catch up, but it's harder to catch up to and if you don't catch up, it can win even if you never go to war.
For space TBS games, I still prefer the original MOO.
I still play MOO2, and am greatful that WinXP only makes it slightly creaky. After all I've heard from people who've bought MOO3, I wouldn't take the time to play it if I got it free. I was extremely eager for this game to come out, and when it finally did . . . man.
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