26 replies to this topic

[Mathias_Zealot]

It's easy to harp on the game, and deservedly so. Nobody enjoys seeing their favorite series sullied with a stillbirth of such proportions. I still have the mac box in the other room (IGN: 9.2/10 oh my god what) and it's money and hope I'll never get back.

 

That said, I'm more interested in mechanical concepts and their execution. Could DEAs have made a viable replacement for the mini-cities of MoO2? Were the pressure/temperature levels a more interesting terraforming system? Did the additional races add variety or just more of the same? and such questions. (all of these assuming they weren't weighed down by the game's flaws)

 

So I challenge you: Name something that the game that should not be named did right.

 

(Expecting "Could be Uninstalled" to be an early response)

[TheKhaosDragon]

I liked that someone cared enough to try....

But now we have the new Master of Orion!

[TheDonDude]

- I liked the concepts for a lot of the modified races and that there were so many of them

- I liked that races had different preferences in colony biomes

[JosEPh_II]

Diplomacy: Learning which responses worked better for which races. Example if Sakkra came "snarling" at you you give a "snarl" response back and trades/exchanges etc. became much easier to negotiate.

Moons: giving an extra DEA and on a poor planet that green Moon could be a life saver.

DEAs: allowing you to turn that poor large planet into an Industrial powerhouse.

Option flexibility at game set up.

Multiple galaxy sizes coupled with shapes, coupled with variety of type and number of starlanes. (I have no problem with SL's) Plus you could travel "off road" if you wanted too.

Antaran Xs and the Random Events (which were also adjustable at game set up).

 

I could make a rather large list since I was one of the "idiots" that played it regularly since it came out. And it taught me the basics of modding it too. And yes I was an active member of the AtmoO forum After all those who wanted a moO or MoO2 remake left. Was a great personal experience too.

The Best 4x Strategy single game I've ever played came from a 6 month+ long  Average difficulty game of MoOIII Before Bhruic introduced his MoO3Patcher and Patches. Which after the Patcher brought on More great games, even Pbem games we called Succession games.

 

 

JosEPh (Random Gov't Mod for MoOIII)

 

 

Edited by JosEPh_II, 27 March 2016 - 08:07 PM.

[Zeraan]

I liked the auto-migration for some reason.  

Ability to pick planets that you want to colonize, and colony ships automatically head to them once built.

Other things I liked are already mentioned above.

[Francois424]

System Defensive ships not needing Stardrive

Terraforming mechanics

The new races and overhaul of the old ones.

Lots and Lots of size of ships.

The racial customization (not as good as Moo2, but enough cool things it it to be very good, only in a different way. (I used to modify the harvester's race and it worked like a charm)

 

Moo3 is far from being all bad, but I went back to Moo2 rather quickly.

[Lucian667]

I like the fact that it at least attempted to add deep and complex gameplay in a world where dumb, simplified casual games generally sell better. That was a brave move and it could easily have paid off if the devs were even remotely competent. Its just a pity that it failed so miserably and totally in delivering any of what it promised.

 

I also liked the concept of DEA's although the abysmal implementation ruined it completely, same as with many other MOO 3 "features". But yes the uninstall feature remains my all time favorite as well as being one of the few game features that actually worked.

[Vahouth]

I liked the Gas Giant dwellers, and the Klackon.

[Endsor]

the clock.

[JosEPh_II]

Easy to Mod.

 

JosEPh

[Mikko_M]

I liked that the races were taken to a more mature direction from their classic Earth animal appearances.

 

Also some nice new races where introduced as well, although the lack of some of the classic races was disappointing.

[JosEPh_II]

There was a Mod that took the Evon and converted them to Mrsshann. I don't think I still have it though. And besides I really liked the Evon.

 

Yes having a few more of the Original Races as Playable Races would've helped MoOIII's reception.

 

Another feature that I really enjoy is the research tree and matrix. It actually was superior to it's predecessor's in many ways. Too bad this new game did not go in that direction but is using the MoO2 tree.

 

JosEPh

[JosEPh_II]

EmP64213, on 14 April 2016 - 12:33 PM, said:

Ground combat had cool ideas, various unit type you can use in conquests, various stats they had and ground combat on single planet could last multiple turns. Too bad the combat was jumbled with factor X player had no real control at and there was no feedback for why a combat turned out the way it did.

 

In game documentation and UI feedback was a problem. But Pedxing and another player made a combat chart that laid out what formation/tactic worked best vs another. Then you had to remember Species traits at game setup to modify for different terrains.

 

Once you got the hang of it you could tell fairly quickly if your Ground Invasion was going to succeed or fail.

 

My longest game in terms ot turns, 620, I had hundreds of GCs in that game. I might have 20 different Space battles and 4-5 GC's afterwards per turn during mid game into late game. So I got plenty of ingame eXperience with the Combat system. It was really too bad QuickSilver's graphic's team was so.....limited in their abilities and imagination though.

 

When I was making my Mods If I had known or realized it was SL that was turning so many players off to III I could've made (still can If I want too) a Mod that reversed the OR and SL speeds in game and the AI would've Had to use them too.

 

But I did not realize that perception problem for diehard MoO and MoO2 Purists, mainly because it was not a Problem for me that MoOIII used SLs. It was after all a 3D map and not a flat 2d the 1st 2 games had. And the sheer number of stars possible in III just blew the 1st two's maps out of the water for me.  Later when modders began adding more maps the difference between 1 and 2 vs 3 was even greater.

 

JosEPh

 

 

[JosEPh_II]

Level of experience was also very important. And one of the fastest ways to increase a units experience was Planet Guard duty. Sending experienced or better troops into a battle meant so much more than sending freshly recruited units. But if you neglected to build Ground forces then you would get caught with raw recruits.

 

Sidenote: Don't know what has happened thru Gog Galaxy but my MoOIII won't load any more. I get a exception error pop up now. !st win 10 would not recognize my 2 CD set, and now Gog has somehow changed the MoOIII version they had, and that worked. <sigh>

 

JosEPh

 

 

[JosEPh_II]

This is were knowing what formation works best against another gets important. But also terrain and species traits are just as important. Also what equipment level and type do your troops have vs enemy.

 

I need to dig in my old computer for that chart that gave % success for the different formations, for example Massed assault vs Pronged Attack, or Vertical assault vs Ruse. 

 

Also what species make up the bulk of your troops. Stock race or have you gotten some magnate races in there. Some magnate races make very good soldiers.

 

Your Crack troops if running around with needle guns and environ suits are going to get toasted by better armed and equipped opponents even with inferior numbers for example.

 

JosEPh

Edited by JosEPh_II, 18 April 2016 - 01:54 AM.

[JosEPh_II]

The community that played it, patched it, and modded it together. That community Did not have the divisive and corrosive posters that haunts this Forum for CtS.

 

JosEPh

[The_StormWraith]

I agree about the community being a jolly lot, but don't gloss over the 'Trans-Humanist' Wars. (Which, now I type it, sounds far more interesting than it actually was...)

 

StormWraith, Feudal Sakkran Researcher

and voted "Most Likely to be Declared a Virus when The Singularity Occurs" by Meklar Weekly

[The_StormWraith]

Ooo.... well, if we can agree NOT to actually open said can of worms (no, that is NOT a trilaran racial slur!) one particular user kept proselytizing (and I use the word advisedly) on the subject of Tran-humanism. While the subject was, in and of itself, potentially reevant to science-fiction discussions, this particular user was warned because it was being injected to an amazing number of threads, and was less about the game than "We should all be doing this Right Now", and then the Ban Hammer came down, and (if memory serves) the rumour - accurate or not - was that that the reason for it was "2 weeks ban for violating the Forum Rules on the Debating of Religion on the forum." The waters got VERY muddy during this period, discussions of whether 'TransHumanism' was actually a religion, it that was the reasoning behind the ban, was it fair, was the discussion itself of merit on the forum, and eventually the water got so muddy that it became land, the Trilarans complained, evolved, grew legs and a burning core of resentment, and ta-da! The Sakkran were born.

 

Umm... it occurs to me that some of that may not actually be true.

It probably wasn't Trans-humanism.

 

StormWraith, Feudal Sakkran Researcher

and Nobel Peace Prize Winner for the thesis, "The Role of Very Large Rocks in Enforcing On-Line Etiquette"

 

(And oh, for pity's sake... please don't let this evolve into a flame-war that gets me banned and sad. Just remember: A) "Troll" is not a MoO4 Race Pick. Trust me - Trolls love rocks, and if there is anything we Sakkrans know, it's Rocks. B) Sakkrans have thick skulls. This is a problem, because if the mods try to get my attention with the traditional Ban-Hammer they are likely to use enough force to be fatal. This would not only make me sad, but are Feudal Scientists still haven't really got the hang of "Phil 603 - Rocks that Talk - Communicating with the Dead with Crystal Balls". And if the Academy can't get through to me, they will have to send my acolyte/intern Ensign TailBiter as a replacement representative - and frankly, he's an idiot.)

 

StormWraith, Feudal Sakkran Researcher

and Prime Tester of the Adamantium Ban-Hammer Deflector (PATENT CLASSIFIED)

[The_StormWraith]

I do overall agree with JosePH that the forum community etc. were really great. They inspired some of the greatest creativity of my life; I still wish I could retrieve more of the "Feudal Sakkran Archive" material and song spoofs. Some of it made it into the game, but there was a -lot- more, and much of it imho much better.

 

StormWraith, Feudal Sakkran Researcher

and failed Ernst Blofeld impersonator. ("I showed up at the Terran Embassy with an Albino Mrhsaan on my lap - they called me a deviant and threw me out! What is a 'furry', anyway?)

Edited by The_StormWraith, 13 May 2016 - 06:42 PM.

[JosEPh_II]

I had saved many of the AARs and the OT thread for making popular songs relate to MoO3 on my old old 3 computers ago old comp. But as I transferred the files to newer comps I began to lose some of it from HD crashes etc. I even had a CD with parts of it stored there. But the CD is in a box somewhere, and the latest OS upgrade from Win 7 64 to win 10 64 caused even more loss. It's really hard to keep stuff from old forums for more than 10+ years.

 

Quote

Sigh, too bad MoO 3 was developed before DSL in my country. I feel I missed good times.

You did. And all the MoOIII "haters" on this board have no clue how good it was. And those same posters just plain refuse to see past their own arrogance over their ancient experience with III. Because, of course, they are more "right in their own eyes" than any MoOIII player could ever be. They tell you so all the time.

 

JosEPh