Moo3

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Abbayarra
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Moo3

Postby Abbayarra » Thu Dec 05, 2002 8:53 pm

I'm patiently waiting for this game to be released. I'm a big fan of this series, but until it is ready I'm gonna be mudding. Is anyone else looking forward to this computer game?
Tom
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Postby Kuurg » Thu Dec 05, 2002 9:23 pm

um, the game that's been pushed back like 5 or 6 times already? I thought the day after thanksgiving was a firm date, then the 4th of this month, now an undefined date...bleh...it's never going to be released.

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Chandigar2
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Postby Chandigar2 » Thu Dec 05, 2002 9:28 pm

I'm a HUGE fan of this series too. The next date is the 14th, and its also the date that most stores are supposed to have it in stock (ie Bestbuy's website).

Fingers crossed...
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Postby gordex » Fri Dec 06, 2002 1:04 am

I am eagerly awaiting the release, and will spend many late night hours playing it. Image

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Postby Selias » Fri Dec 06, 2002 2:58 am

I've been playing these games ever since I started playing computer games. The MOO series is imo the best strategy series out there, even above civilization. I'm also eagerly anticipating the release!
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Postby Gerad » Fri Dec 06, 2002 4:02 am

Yeah, I really want to play MOO3, I spent many, many, many, many, many, many countless hours playing Master Of Orion 2, and I am sure when I have a computer that can run it, I will waste just as many on MOO3.

Heres to another month of my life gone to a game! Image

G

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Postby Chandigar2 » Fri Dec 06, 2002 4:27 am

And... the reason they're delaying it is to iron out the multiplayer bugs so it'll have full multiplayer functionality right out of the box...

wink wink, nudge nudge
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Postby Grungar » Fri Dec 06, 2002 1:14 pm

Yeah, me too.

Let them squish bugs. Bugs are bad, mmmkay?

- Grungar "Psilon > all" Forgefire
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Postby Yayaril » Fri Dec 06, 2002 3:45 pm

I think Master of orion 1 was awesome. What they did for graphics and combat for master of orion 2 was even better, but in doing so, they made the economics portion of the game far too microintensive. I hope they return to a more basic economic system with less focus on creating individual buildings. It gets tedious to govern more than 5 star systems each creating buildings..

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Postby Guest » Fri Dec 06, 2002 4:04 pm

the MOO series is awsome... I was dissapointed when I heard the release date was changed from September.

Yeah, I'm anxiously awaiting it too. I'm also waiting for TSR to release the Alternity series in free PDF format.

Space... the final frontier... wait for it!

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Postby Unag » Fri Dec 06, 2002 8:05 pm

I've seen the stategy guides in an EB store already. This is usually an indicator that the game is imminently approaching. Then again you never know I suppose. The store clerk I spoke with was under the firm impression though that they were receiving the game VERY soon however.
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Postby Abbayarra » Sat Jan 25, 2003 5:27 am

The game has finally gone gold, should be in store by theend of February.
Just in case anyone is interested.
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Postby Kuurg » Sat Mar 01, 2003 7:29 pm

And lo, God sayeth, let it be released, and it was so...and it sucketh mightily.

did anyone else think the combat system is complete crap? give me back my turn based combat if the shit I have to look at is that bad. it goes from easy to handle, but your ships are specs, to looking in a port side window of your ship and unable to see anything else on the map.

I only played for about 2 hours, but I kept waiting for the fun to start, and it never did. I'll sit down to it again when I've got some time.
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Postby Chandigar2 » Sat Mar 01, 2003 10:41 pm

Yea, I just played it for a buncha hours too... I went from being excited, to disappointed, to pissed off, to less disappointed to just a bit annoyed. I think I'm finally getting it now....

Once you get to the idea of macromanagement instead of micromanagement things start to make a lot more sense. Instead of picking at stuff in each colony every turn, just let go and let the viceroys take over construction, the idea being to skip past turns a lot faster than in previous games... once you start flipping through turns you start to get a better feel for the game.

Those were some tips I read, I'm gonna go give it another try.. see if they're right :P
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Postby Gromikazer » Sun Mar 02, 2003 12:35 am

Once you absorb all the information there is to absorb the game is good except for a three things.

Only being able to build mission ships, instead of willy nilly ships (any kind you want) is lame.
Only being able to build certain types of armadas, instead of just puting 10-15 ships together is lame as well.
Lastly the research system is too overwhelming. Instead of there being categories you have to research every little gun, every little use of technology.

Other then those three, I think the game is good. In the end do I think its a 50 dollar game? no... I think it is a 30 dollar game in my opinion.
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Postby Gerad » Mon Mar 03, 2003 12:05 pm

Wont waste my money on it.

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Chandigar2
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Postby Chandigar2 » Mon Mar 03, 2003 2:19 pm

Gromikazer wrote:Once you absorb all the information there is to absorb the game is good except for a three things.

Only being able to build mission ships, instead of willy nilly ships (any kind you want) is lame.
Only being able to build certain types of armadas, instead of just puting 10-15 ships together is lame as well.
Lastly the research system is too overwhelming. Instead of there being categories you have to research every little gun, every little use of technology.

Other then those three, I think the game is good. In the end do I think its a 50 dollar game? no... I think it is a 30 dollar game in my opinion.


Hrmm... what do you mean by only being able to build mission ships? There are mission ship types for pretty much anything you want... and if you want to build a 'short range attack' ship but load missiles and other long range stuff you can...actually, I'm pretty sure the type of mission ship you set and the armada size is only used when the comp does AI combat, but if you're controlling it, its pretty much up to you.

Even if you're forced to build armadas to their specs, its not that big a deal... with the biggest fleet you need to throw in a couple picket ships and a couple escort ships... which you should anyway with their space 'fog of war' and the power of missiles and fighters... a point defense escort usually works nicely.

As for the research, yea its too much... but after a while I realized that each race has pretty varying tech availabilities so you just let your workers research everything anyway, and send out spies to get what you don't have :twisted:

Chandigar 'growing to like moo3' ofnolastname
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Really?!

Postby Guest » Mon Mar 03, 2003 5:02 pm

So, lemme get this straight... :shock:

it's Macromanaged and you let the game drive all production/etc...

Sounds like a space screen-saver? Tell me this isn't true :?:
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Postby Chandigar2 » Mon Mar 03, 2003 10:34 pm

Naa, not quite. Sure seems like that at first tho :P

Once you learn to work WITH the AI its a lot more enjoyable. You can take an active role in building your colony, but usually you set general goals and priorities and the AI works with that.

I'd suggesting browsing some of the reviews at gamefaqs.com, most of the positive ones and at least one of the negative ones is pretty good, a couple negatives appear to be written by someone thats spent about an hour with the game.

I'd also suggesting downloading a... uh... trial copy... and checking it out. Give it a couple hours and if you still don't like it then don't buy it. But if ya do like it, please buy it... I have a feeling there will be a lotta patches coming out to satisfy the MOO3haters.
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MOO3

Postby watashi420 » Fri Apr 04, 2003 7:47 pm

I have loved the MOO series since it came out, i believe MOO1 was the first computer game i ever got addicted to, and once i got MOO2 i ended up upgrading my computer to make it run smoothly. I sure MOO3 is as good, i just saw it in a store, but im broke, so itll be a lil bit before i can purchace it.

§pecial K
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Try Galactic Civilizations

Postby Azenilsee » Sat Apr 05, 2003 2:28 pm

Something in the vein of MOO3 and been getting good reviews is Galactic Civilizations. You can buy and download it online while waiting for the CDs to be sent to you at http://www.stardock.com. Plugging the game cause I think it's pretty good and the Stardock people are putting out a lot of good stuff.

I'm posting the review from Gamespot.com, cause the review is probably locked and only Complete members can access it.

Galactic Civilizations Review
By Sam Parker, GameSpot
03/26/03 02:03 PM
URL: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/gal ... eview.html

As its title suggests, Galactic Civilizations is a bit like Sid Meier's Civilization, but in space. Based on a classic 1994 game for PCs using IBM's OS/2 operating system, Galactic Civilizations gives a nod to the elegant simplicity of Sid Meier's popular strategy series. But regardless of whether or not you're sci-fi fan, the outer-space setting isn't the real reason you should sit up and take notice. Galactic Civilizations' strong AI, robust diplomacy, and variety of strategic options make it an outstanding turn-based strategy game.

Unlike the recent Master of Orion III, Galactic Civilizations doesn't drown you in the details of running a space empire. The game has a single galactic map that can be customized in terms of size and star density, and all movement and combat occurs on this map. Galactic Civilizations also has a handful of additional interface screens you'll open up to monitor your production, economy, relations with your neighbors, and research, but it won't take long to find your way around in the game. It might seem unrealistic for star systems to be arranged on a single tile grid, but this interface wasn't designed for realism--it was designed for gameplay.

You may find the starting conditions for each new game familiar if you've played other space strategy games. You begin with a human planet, a survey ship, and a colony ship. Hyperdrive was recently invented, and now that all the galaxy's species have it, they've all started to compete to become the dominant power in the universe, by conquest or other means. The game has a number of initial customization options for the galaxy and the AI opponents, and although you always play as the humans, you can choose from a number of ability bonuses and adopt a particular political party, all of which actually affect the game later on. Every empire is born from equally humble beginnings, and you even have to spend a dozen turns to research a universal translator before you can talk meaningfully with the races you'll encounter. The first order of the day is to send your survey ship out to scout and collect a variety of randomly placed objects that can grant bonuses. Once you locate a decent planet (anything rated over 15 is good for any race), you drop a few hundred million people on it to get a colony going.

Upon seeing another empire popping out colony ships one after another at the start of the game, or even the more expensive constructors used for starbases, you may begin to wonder if the AI is cheating. But, while the opponents come in varying degrees of intelligence, they don't cheat in any obvious way. That empire is just taking advantage of one of the more unusual elements of the economy: credit. Some corporations are actually willing to finance the operations of governments and produce units and buildings for you on credit. But obviously these companies are in business to make money, because even when you pay quite a sum up front, the monthly payments on a loan can continue for hundreds of turns. It's up to you to decide whether taking on debt is worth it, and there are suitable rewards and punishments for risky financial strategies. The net effect is that it doesn't take long at all to get a game going and chalk out some basic territorial boundaries to defend and expand later.

It won't take long to get an empire humming along, but real challenges will start popping up nearly as soon as you do. That survey ship zipping around the galaxy isn't gathering up goodies without some competition, and while you can set it to survey automatically, you'll want to pay close attention to which empire's colony ships are racing to the same planets as yours. You should get a good sense of who your potential allies and enemies are from the minute you meet other races, and if you're ever too aggressive, they'll call you up to tell you all about it.

As a space conquest game, Galactic Civilizations is all about conflict, but that doesn't mean you have to rely on your military. The diplomatic system is very flexible and lets you do much more than just declare war. Anything and everything is up for trade. Need to pacify an enemy winning a war? Offering a star system or two is a real option. Want to buy allies? Instead of depleting your treasury, you might try bartering technology or the special "monopoly trade goods" you can research. Playing a strategy of cultural assimilation and need ships quick? Buy some from a militarily advanced ally. Surprisingly, it's even a legitimate strategy to research as many improvements as you can from your empire's technology tree and then sell technology to minor races (which don't expand on the map) or allies. You can even have them pay you in monthly installments, so you you can receive regular income each turn.

There are statistics hidden behind everything in Galactic Civilizations, and the diplomatic AI does a pretty intelligent job of adding things up to see if they're in its interest. A militaristic empire may not pay much at all for communications advances or even be willing to trade prized technology for building a powerful combat base. AI empires will try to finagle a peace to pause and rearm and may even surrender if threatened with extinction.

One of Galactic Civilizations' more unusual factors is its alignment system. Essentially, good-aligned empires are much friendlier toward others aligned in that direction and tend to be more hostile to evil-aligned empires. AI alignments are set at the beginning of the game, but yours starts out as neutral and is determined by your response to random story events. It can sometimes seem that you'll benefit more often from choosing an evil alternative instead of a good one, but moving in a good or an evil direction can have an impact on how your empire is viewed by the entire galaxy, so choosing short-term rewards isn't always the best strategy.

You'll also have to deal with internal conflicts. Once you advance your government to a republic, or one of the later, more democratic forms, other political parties will compete with yours for control of your empire's senate. You don't kicked out of office if your party loses, but you lose the party bonus (for example, if you play as the Federalist party, you receive a 20 percent economy boost). The game has a numerical approval rating, so it's not terribly hard to tell if things are going well on the domestic front, and to boost approval, you simply need to watch your tax and morale levels.

Galactic Civilizations' technology tree is huge, and unless you focus your efforts and trade for technology in other areas, you'll have trouble reaching the most advanced levels. You can also research military advances, and some of the most powerful and interesting of these require cross-sector research in multiple areas, such as studying both advanced weapons and biology. Unfortunately, Galactic Civilizations doesn't provide any clear indication of what sort of research you need to perform in each of these sectors to create improvements like advanced organic armor for you ships. These advanced ships are as powerful as they are expensive, and the interesting part of Galactic Civilizations' military engagements isn't the combat, since battles themselves are resolved quickly, but rather the maneuvering of scouts and warships to detect and destroy incoming threats to your planets and starbases.

The game wouldn't be half as interesting if it were just about fighting over planets. Space is divided up into quadrants, which are owned by the empire with the most nearby influence. Influence is partly a measure of an empire's cultural impressiveness and is helped by building vacation spots on starbases or embassies on planets. It's also partly determined by ownership of starbases and planets in the area. Diplomacy is even a factor, as well-liked empires have more influence than those that are hated. Quadrant ownership can play a role in the legislation enacted by the galactic government all empires are a part of, and it's possible to build such high influence in an area that other planets are swayed by it and defect. The map also has pockets of resources scattered about that grant empire bonuses if they're claimed by building a starbase, and these can become hot targets when war breaks out.

Galactic Civilizations' greatest strength is its simple yet deep gameplay. The 2D visuals are crisp and the cutscenes are well rendered, but the ships don't look like much and don't sound that impressive. The presentation is streamlined, but it can take some clicking around to understand which buttons do what, since the little stylized icons aren't intuitive. But this is a game that's meant to be played over and over, and you'll quickly figure out what's what. Repeat play is encouraged by the "metaverse" Web-based high-score system, which ranks individual players and even clans. If you do decide to play Galactic Civilizations, you'll want to get the patch and the "bonus pack" that were made available on the game's release date, as they add a few more initial galaxy options, a clear percentage score for each victory condition, and the ability to replace the standard sci-fi music with an MP3 playlist. Galactic Civilizations may look simple, but it has a lot to offer.
Azenilsee - Faern Dalharil
Abbayarra
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Postby Abbayarra » Sun Apr 06, 2003 6:25 pm

I have been playing MOO# to the detriment of my mudding time. It took me only a couple hours to really get the hang of this game. I must admit that I really enjoy how it is put together. I find much of the game very intuitive, but I also fount starwars rebellion gui to be intuitive. I know about the faults with the AI, but they have not severely impacted my playing. The game is not overly stable and can tend to crash, but playing mp on a LAN is very enjoyable. I can only rate this game on my level of fun. I find it very enjoyable, not perfect but definitely taking up my time. I give it a 7 out of 10.
10 is the perfect game, like Ultima 4 was in it's day.
1 is a game not worth your time. One example would be Star trek hidden evil, well it's maybe a 2. A one is a game that has so many bugs you can't even load and play it more than 2 minutes.
Another game that I am trying out now and is fun if neverwinter nights.
That's it.
Abby
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Postby Hyldryn » Sat Apr 12, 2003 5:13 am

MOO3 as it stand right now is buggy, unbalanced, and not challenging.

I don't recommend the game YET. Quicksilver is working of a data+code patch to address some of the issues.

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