For the first time this morning, I had a chance to play "Master of Orion 3". I never actually tried the game because everybody else said that the game was bad.
Many people said that there was less micromanagement and more macro management. Since, I hate losing time on details and often want to get to the point, I thought that it might not be that bad for me. Also, I am playing more board games right now and due to the limited amount of information it can keep track, it needs to simplify and abstract much more information than in video games.
So I thought that Moo3 could be for me. So I started a new game, read the tutorial windows and relatively learn how the game works to realize that right now, it is horrible.
I understand that in order to manage a large galaxy with a lot of colonies, they implemented an AI that will do routine task for you. That is OK and I agree with the decisions. It's just that the game has too much detail and information for what the user needs to know.
For example, each planet has various types of regions which can hold various kind of buildings an districts. The idea is that a part of your production could be applied to planetary development of these region to make your colony better. Since the AI manage where the stuff is going to get built, Why should I know all this information, why should the game keep track of all this information.
If would have been much more simple to have 1 development level stat which tells you how developed is your colony. All the regionning quality and buildings available could be sumarized as 2 values (Current and maximum development level). Then you would have the choice (or let your AI choose) if you want to improve your colony, of if you want to produce something useful. That way, it would have been much simpler to manage, analyze and understand rather than having tons of numbers where 3/4 of them could be ignored by the player but not the AI.
I am going to take a look at a FAQ and give it a second try. The only thing I hope is that elemental does not become like this.
