MOO3 sucked and continues to do so.

Galciv is not MOO!!

Remember, the point isn't specifically to make the game more "MOO-like" as much as it is to provide a continuing -and optional (I'm all for making it a check box option) - challenge once the player has "got over the hump." If there are other ways to do this, such as adding more frequent and serious random events, then that would be fine too. However, Sovereign77x's initial idea is a pretty darn good one that should be possible to implement within the current limits of the game.

MOO3 sucked and continues to do so.

bah!

yes, "bah!" i say! and "feh!" and had i a webcam, i would bit my thumb at this assertion!




well, ok, fine the UI does suck.

and some, if not most, of the other parts of the game are not what they should have been, to say the least.

and the game experience can be really not fun if one doesn't know how to coax and cajole the cranky planetary manager into doing the right thing.

so, yeah, it's not a friendly or accessible game, i'll give you that. it takes a lot of study and hand-holding on the forums before one can even begin to play it well.

but once you get to know it, it's actually pretty sweet, if you're willing to make the effort and turn a blind eye to the remaining warts.

still, i can totally understand players that would like a game that is straightforward to pick up, fun to play from the get-go, and doesn't require taking a three-credit online course from the University of Help!-What-The-Hell-Is-Going-On? before it can be played well enough to be properly enjoyed...

that's not an unreasonable expectation from a game, and for sure Moo3 doesn't deliver that experience, and it never will... and if that's a prerequisite for enjoying the game for some people, then yeah, it'll suck forever, for them.


but, when was the last time that you played, Skyjack? it must have been recently, based on the "continues to do so"?

i'm not saying that i think you would ever like the game, based on your history with it, and that's cool.

but we've had a couple of returning players in the last few months that have posted comments like "i hated this game when i came out, but it's soooo much better now thanks to all the work you sick monkeys have put in!"

so unless you can say that you've given something like the Strawberry UOP mod an honest try with an open mind in the last six months, your analysis of the ongoing suckage may be based more on rhetoric than reality?


anyway, i don't want to derail the thread (any further than i already have), so i should say that i agree, GC2 should not be turned into Moo3 (or Moo2)! but there are still good ideas that can be salvaged from the wreckage, like a Big Bad Elder race that shows up to provide a challenge in the endgame.

also, Moo3 tried to introduce the idea that a large empire should run less efficiently, and could fragment if morale problems became bad enough. the resulting implementations of these ideas were poor (the Heavy Foot of Government, and planets that rebel one at a time to form easily recaptured micro-empries) but that doesn't mean the ideas themselves are flawed.

Call me old fashioned but the turn based fleet battles in MOO2 worked. Even if you went second you did not necessarily have your fleet blown to smitherines. Although late in the game I could pretty much wax a 100ship fleet with 50 titians and not even sweat lossing a ship.

I think it would be better if they had something like the old Starfleet Battles (the paper game) for battles. Firing arcs would become very important and when a battle ship has a figate on its tail it woulc not just automatically blow it out of the water.

Duh

SFB rocked!

now that was a rule book!

numbered sections like 1.2.3.0.5, and lots of This Page Intentionally Left Blank and stuff, that you kept in a fat three-ring binder (thick enough to stun an ox) so that you could replace sections and pages with errata and expansions!

oh, and the check-boxes on the ships for marking off damage to different systems... bliss.

i'd love to see that done up right, in a computer game. i missed out on ever playing it with miniatures, always had to play with the cardbard chits, as a poor student... playing it with modern 3d would make up for that quite nicely!

pedxing,

I would settle for 2D. I have found in my experience the prettier the game is the slower the preformance. If they do I hope they dont use the EW and ECW type rules. I might note I was never real good at the game just enjoyed it. I never figgured out why the LDR was a minor player with those gatling phasors...... OOOOOOhhhhh there an idea gatling phasers.... screw the Doom weapons and give me gatling phasers.

while ther at it. why not shrink and lower the price of old technology as you go up the tech tree.

Duh

h! yes, "bah!" i say! and "feh!" and had i a webcam, i would bit my thumb at this assertion! well, ok, fine the UI does suck. and some, if not most, of the other parts of the game are not what they should have been, to say the least. and the game experience can be really not fun if one doesn't know how to coax and cajole the cranky planetary manager into doing the right thing. so, yeah, it's not a friendly or accessible game, i'll give you that. it takes a lot of study and hand-holding on the forums before one can even begin to play it well. but once you get to know it, it's actually pretty sweet, if you're willing to make the effort and turn a blind eye to the remaining warts. still, i can totally understand players that would like a game that is straightforward to pick up, fun to play from the get-go, and doesn't require taking a three-credit online course from the University of Help!-What-The-Hell-Is-Going-On? before it can be played well enough to be properly enjoyed... that's not an unreasonable expectation from a game, and for sure Moo3 doesn't deliver that experience, and it never will... and if that's a prerequisite for enjoying the game for some people, then yeah, it'll suck forever, for them. but, when was the last time that you played, Skyjack? it must have been recently, based on the "continues to do so"? i'm not saying that i think you would ever like the game, based on your history with it, and that's cool. but we've had a couple of returning players in the last few months that have posted comments like "i hated this game when i came out, but it's soooo much better now thanks to all the work you sick monkeys have put in!" so unless you can say that you've given something like the Strawberry UOP mod an honest try with an open mind in the last six months, your analysis of the ongoing suckage may be based more on rhetoric than reality? anyway, i don't want to derail the thread (any further than i already have), so i should say that i agree, GC2 should not be turned into Moo3 (or Moo2)! but there are still good ideas that can be salvaged from the wreckage, like a Big Bad Elder race that shows up to provide a challenge in the endgame. also, Moo3 tried to introduce the idea that a large empire should run less efficiently, and could fragment if morale problems became bad enough. the resulting implementations of these ideas were poor (the Heavy Foot of Government, and planets that rebel one at a time to form easily recaptured micro-empries) but that doesn't mean the ideas themselves are flawed.

HEY PED!!!!! That's a lot of words /\ what's it say? Kidding!! I read it. You are, as alwau=ys, well thought out and mostly open-minded. I tried for over a year with MOO3. I was there, pre-release in the forums...DROOLING!

But as the fog cleared, and it took a while, I grew ever more frustrated. Eventually I gave up because I will not work THAT hard to get a game playable.

MOO3 had some great things about it: mixed race planets, racial abiliies and weaknesses, and more.
However, too much work and never really "got that feeling" from it.

PED: Did they ever fix the "Orion initiative bug"? That was the final straw for me. After fighting all the way to ORION, it would not let you conquer all the planets in Orion. You'd actually have to relinquish one or two and RECONQUER them! Yeesh! Too anti-climactic.

GALCIV II gives the most MOO2 vibes in my opinion...not that I want to play MOO2 again, I just want to be somewhat immersed in a galaxy and all its occupants.

I got and played MOO2 late.I had a couple of nights fun and uninstalled it,very overated game...Moo3 is just boring to hell, with or without mods.I never played MOO1.

GC2 is light years ahead in gameplay and A.I.

Ahhhh but Shbery76 did you ever hot seat a game? vicious brutal and short.

Heck it was a fun way to socialize and drink beer during college and grad school. One guy James I think his name was if you broke a treaty with him he would spend the rest of the time in the game hunting you down if he survivied. After a couple times no one broke treaties with him, then again he did not break treaties either. Lots of things people do that cannot be done with AI espically bluff well.

As for AI its ok but the real challenge is with and will always be people and should be. The games should be social lubricantes of some sort not isolation tanks.

Duh

Hey, Pedx, it's Alex here, author of the Evon Experience AAR! Good to see (hear) from you!

To back up Pedx, Moo3 is a great game, what with all the fantastic work that the modders have done for it.

I will agree, that out of the box, it wasn't very good.

Alex

OK! Calm down.... Take a deep breath..... And listen to my words carelfully with a pause after each comma.


Great idea. Totally kick ass. But! Idea:

Someone decited that instead of starting to make a faster hyperdrive, what would happen when they started messing around with the stargate again and whoops! found another dimention.

Thats right! First Listen to the opening again, (remember calm down! read slowly, i can feel the tention geting high reading these) The stargate cost so much money, and was so highly powered, even though the humans got fusion not fission to power it. It was like a trillion dollars. OR MORE! so its expensive.

Second, You have to go to a planet that gives you the technology to travel, that is protected by the evil, non attacking, robots/dread lords. Have anyone played metal fatigue? they did the samething there!

Third Now you have the tech, which is a combination of all your highly advanced knowlage, and you have the money, and you rescued the tech from the planet. Now you can enter the gate. The gate is only one spot! so you have to fight your way through it! Protect it, from both sides, they could come through. And you must fight your way to the home world when the end of the game has a cool Victory screen that says you won!

Please tell me what you think. Do you really think they would have a power to travel to another world and first make it cheep, second make it small or third make it so that everyone can do it? i think not! i think that a hole opens up and out spitts the dread lords. You have to get to the other side and destroy their gates so that they cant come and mess you up anymore. Also it starts to make things you can do besides just going after planets, you could go after their gates!

Now when on the other side, you could get cool advancements or tech or what ever to help you out. from the planets you get.

Finally the last thing i want to say is that you could get the other civilizations involved. Think, you could tell the others to come with you, if they were allies, and they could fight beside you! I dont know if it would work, but it would keep them involved.

Please comments? I would love to hear what you guys think!

CaptainObvious,

Great Idea, Infact Gal Civ could do it better than MOO2 did (the Idea is very MOO2ish).

First Paragraph... thats a dimensional portal by the sound of it. How about the experiment blows a few of the planet its done on tiles away (lots and lots of energy released). But they know how its done now its a mater of refining it. more research needs to be done.

Third Paragraph. Thats Orion in the Moo series you get a BIG technology boost when you capture it and some really nasty unresearchable weapons too. I think the defenses of that planet should be daughting. At least a couple of 37 point dreadlord fleets. You would need have at least 5 fleets to get through them. So you would have to be in a pretty secure positition to get that planet. Also would put you at a disadvantage against the AI with so much of your military tied up taking that planet..

4th paragagraph. I agree I always found the antarens to be poorly defened that easily swamped for a people who had all that time to build up a truely nasty fleet. Personally I find the dreadlord frigates easy to take out with tiny fighters. Sure some die but there cheaper and in the long run the dreadlords have a real big handycap in production.

Not sure about that I would not even want my allies involved there two spotty and tend to switch sides.

Duh

CaptainObvious... go re-read the the post that started this thread and the first replies. That kind of idea is basically what kicked this whole thread off.

@Skyjack:

thanks for taking that all the right way! i wasn't sure if i got the tone right...

That's a lot of words

blame the caffeine monkey on my back.

PED: Did they ever fix the "Orion initiative bug"?

that was the one where the NOs had such godlike initiative that they could always force you to defend one of the planets that you'd already taken, such that you could never (or at least rarely) attack the next planet in their system?

not that i know of... nobody seems to complain about it anymore, though.

i never understood the factors that went into initiative... maybe system engine speed? goodness knows what.

maybe people are assaulting Orion later in the game these days, and have a better chance of winning initiative?

or people are just being clever about not actually taking any planets in the system until they have space superiority and the NO's reserves are completely drained? maybe with a light dusting of orbital bombardment on each planet, to kill their production ability, slowing production of new ships?

back in the dark days before the Allied Victory patch, i only played Senate games, so i never really noticed the problem.

@Alex:

Good to see (hear) from you!

same here! i think there's a lot of us here... mostly lurking?

Hi!

SFB rocked! ... i'd love to see that done up right, in a computer game

Ther was a Starfleet Command series of PC games based on SFB pen-and-paper game. AFAIK first two titles were quite tightly tied to rule book. I've played only the second one, but after some time missons started to repeat too much. Still quite fun game.
BR, Iztok

server application error instead submitted message

Or, you know, they could fix the diplomacy system so the AI actually notices your rise in power and gangs up on you.

In MOO2, (not 3), the Antarans sent very weak ships with high technology. Assault shuttles captured them and then poof my race had powerful ships.

Wow Mek,

Capturing ships was one of the most challenging feats in MOO2 ...

An early game capture of an Antarian "Maurauder" ....???

Wow

I've made games where I've played as a similuted borg and won on impossible by pure ship capturing. Capturing antaran ships just means several battleships or higher with assault shuttles and send about 4 at each antaran ship. You usually get one. Sometimes they explode, but often it works. teleporting on is no good on dampening fields and if you do a tractor beam they immediately explode.

---- also someone please help me with this FORUM BUG ----

FORUM BUG

"please post a message before submitting your article". I keep getting this and can't get out of it even trying new posts. The message post looks different (with rich text stuff on it), too and I can't get back to normal. I've rebooted, restarted my browser, cleared the cache and cookies, nothing. It only happens when I create new threads.

This forum won't even load on MSIE, just firefox. Netscape loads it but it freezes Netscape.

I tried making a new account (with cookies cleared) and still the same problem.

Meklar

I always prefered tractor beams, augmented engtiens and heavy armor and troop pods and transporters when I got them, because one ship could capture multiple nonantarean ships. With some missle ships with EMG to back them up. I found when you put EMG opn your missle the puter suddenly takes a intrest in antimissle and missle defense weapons lowering the numbers of heavy weapons on a ship.

This weekend I dug out my MOO2 and played it. And yes I had a dedicated fleet to capturing anterans. The differneces besides the graphis (which are a wash in my opinion would rather have that processing power on the AI).
Ship Design..... GalCivII prettier .......... MOO2 requires more thought because MOO2 has more moduels
Colony Managment ...... Gal Civ Harder and more challenging ...... .. MOO2 easier
Colonizing Strategy.... Even same stratigie works. Although I would like to see some space monsters gaurding the PQ 26 planets.
Fleet Battles ...... Gal Civ poor..... MOO2 ok... would like to see better ship initatiev.
Ground Combat...... about the same.
Vicotry conditions Gal Civ hands down.

I guess I am werid but it came out as a wash. Although I would like a switch in the game to turn off moons orbiting, and special effects. I guess I am very oldschool, After I have seen a couple of fleet battles I could care less just tell me who won. I have no "buy in" into the battle because I am not in control.

In both games if I can get past the 2nd or 3rd X I gots it in the bag.

Duh

Wow Mek, Capturing ships was one of the most challenging feats in MOO2 ... An early game capture of an Antarian "Maurauder" ....??? Wow

My whole MOO2 strategy was to capture Antarian Ships as early as possible. It's the ONLY way I ever played! After a while, you get good at it.

Well ...
ALL CREDIT to ..

Mek, Duh and Skyjack ...

I played MOO2 for YEARS ... (until GalCiv2)

and I can add this ...

CAPTURE of ANY ship in MOO2 was NOT easy ...

SO, KUDOS to all of you ... a job well done ...

Lt Byram

Byran

its not that hard. I mean just get or steal all the soldier techs you can. Battleship designed like this,
Augmented Engines
Troop Pods
Heavy Armor if it will fit
Fill the rest of the ship up with Neutron Blasters (Death Rays better).

Have at least 3 or 4 of these

Softening ship
all the defense tech and offense tech you can cram into it
Fill the ship with Netron blasters.

2 of theses

at least one carrier to suppress there fighters and to give them something to shoot at. Funny fighters were like ablative armor in that game..

When I got Titains I usally giggle manaically.

with one of theses theres about a 40 to 80% chance to capture a ship.
Augmented Enginges
Battle Pods
Troop Pods
Transports if you got them
Lightnening field.
TRACTORS at least 6 of them.
Stasis Field for those times your too busy to send a cornholio-gram.
NON heavy death rays 2
non heavy neutron blasters
Heavy death ray or 2 distrupters (for popping sheilds)
point defenses (mass drivers or phasors).

I have even captured those Doom Stars with theses things when I put a legendary captin on them (that is if the ship does not get hammered into the nonskids enemys dont like them.)

Also fun to have is emg pure missle boats in a fleet it always makes me smile to see a ship move then blow up before it can shoot.

Have fun Lt Byram

Duh

oops first one you need at least 5 tractor beams too.

Duh.