MoO2

[The Dark]

After two years without this wonderful game (damn magnets), I found a new copy in EB for $9.99! Whee! And as something I'm pretty sure they actually goofed up on, it's possible to choose Custom race on Tutor or Easy (although the refitting captured ship trick no longer works). So far, I think I've put in about 60 hours in a week at the game.

[Ubiquitous]

I've said it at countless forums, and I'll say it again: if someone can tell me where I can find a copy of this game in the UK that includes a manual, I will forever be in their debt.

I am also willing to pay for people who wish to sell me this game, as long as it comes with the manual. Hell, it wouldn't bother me if it was a backup version of the game, either.

[The Kernel]

What do you need a manual for? There are plenty of good FAQ's out there with better info then the manual ever had.

[The Kernel]

After two years without this wonderful game (damn magnets), I found a new copy in EB for $9.99! Whee! And as something I'm pretty sure they actually goofed up on, it's possible to choose Custom race on Tutor or Easy (although the refitting captured ship trick no longer works). So far, I think I've put in about 60 hours in a week at the game.

It sounds like you got the latest patch version, that's all. There were some pretty significant changes made.

[Ubiquitous]

What do you need a manual for? There are plenty of good FAQ's out there with better info then the manual ever had.

Because I don't have a printer to prink vital information out, and also because I like reading material when I am on the 'loo.

[Stark]

I think I'm the only one that prefers MoO to MoO2. I now, the res was horrible, you could hardly see anything, and MoO2 has a better dip system. However, the MoO2 dip system is still shit, its Civ in space, and I *HATE* the Civ system, and its got lam0r 30 million pop planets.

AND they took out the excellent GDP distribution graphs, and replaced it with CIV/MoM style stupid colony people. GAH.

[Darth Wong]

It's a huge planet! You can fit 32 people on it!

[Stark]

It's a huge planet! You can fit 32 people on it!

And the granularity of the economy is incredible; huge career choices of farmer, worker, scientist... No market forces, just drag the silly doobs around the three bars...

[The Kernel]

It's a huge planet! You can fit 32 people on it!

And the granularity of the economy is incredible; huge career choices of farmer, worker, scientist... No market forces, just drag the silly doobs around the three bars...

Fucking hell people, this game is like a decade old, exactly how much do you expect out of it?

Besides, need I remind you that they DID remake MOO2 with a much more complex economy and called it MOO3. While I liked certain things about MOO3, I think we can safely say that MOO2 was superior.

[White Haven]

MOO3 is so...very...CLOSE...to being a good game. SO close. Would take so /little/ to make it good, which is what makes its lack of being good hurt so much. Combat needs some fairly major fixes, and overall the user needs more feedback to things, explanations of why things are happening..but otherwise it was as it should be. Now, MOO3 as it should be pisses off those who like to micromanage, but that's not the point.

[Vympel]

Moo3 would have been good if it wasnt incredbily crap.

[The Kernel]

MOO3 is so...very...CLOSE...to being a good game. SO close. Would take so /little/ to make it good, which is what makes its lack of being good hurt so much. Combat needs some fairly major fixes, and overall the user needs more feedback to things, explanations of why things are happening..but otherwise it was as it should be. Now, MOO3 as it should be pisses off those who like to micromanage, but that's not the point.

I agree somewhat with your sentiment. I actually semi-like the combat system (real-time is a big plus, as is the fact that it has a great feel to it) but they really needed to fine tune the strategy part. Big empires become so unweildy that your only choice is to either leave it entirely to your Viceroys or to spend hundreds of hours on a single game. Plus, the AI is absolutely brain dead (what's the deal with all the troop carriers instead of battleships?)

MOO3 simply suffered from losing key members of the design team during development and it shows. Hopefully someone will release a decent 4x space conquest game in the future, but the genre has been languishing recently so I don't have my hopes up about it.

[Stofsk]

Moo3 would have been good if it wasnt incredbily crap.

You took the words right out of my mouth, Vympel.

I personally would have enjoyed the game if the developers had bothered to inject some personality into the game. One of my favourite parts of Moo and Moo2 was when you meet an alien race for the first time, and it takes you to that full-screen meeting picture.

Bird Aliens: "Well met, Human. I bring greetings from the Sky Lords of my world, who hope the Humans will prosper well under our benevolent rule."

Or

Rock Aliens: "We have come to relieve the galaxy of your menace."

Or

Cat Aliens: "Pray for deliverance, for we have to take your ships and your worlds away from you!"

See what I mean by personality? Neither side could really hurt the other, but it was fun to read the bluster. What did Moo3 have?

"We regretfully inform you the treaty has brought great benefit to our people. Salutations!" whirred IX98 sadly.

Then there was the famous case of losing the game before turn 100 because the rest of the galaxy decided to vote on a new Senate leader, and you weren't even ON the Senate. The truly horrendous fleet management and planetary development screens - just try managing your ships or developing your planets, before it was a simple drag and drop, here it was "Attack of the Spreadsheets!" Battles were BORING. That was the part of the game where you're usually on the edge of your seat because it was either a surprise attack or everything was riding on victory. In Moo3, you had no idea where everything was. Then, R&D made sure all your carefully and tediously arranged ships and fleets would be made OBSOLETE. And no, there was no way to quickly upgrade your fleet cruisers with the latest can-opener. You were stuck with crap, so you had to redesign your ships. Doing so meant going back the route of tedious management.

Christ, what a sad end to a beautiful game series. I personally thought Moo2 added more than it took away, which was an overall positive experience. And I like said above, personality goes a long way. Moo may have been more simpler, but Moo2 had more personality. Moo3 had none.

[Stofsk]

MOO3 simply suffered from losing key members of the design team during development and it shows. Hopefully someone will release a decent 4x space conquest game in the future, but the genre has been languishing recently so I don't have my hopes up about it.

GalCiv was pretty fun, but it fails if you want 4x games with strategy and tactical battles. Imperium Galactica 2 unfortunately is nothing more than a much better looking IG1.

Goddamit, is it so difficult to make a 4x game which doesn't blow? You don't need spiffy graphics, you don't need a story, you don't need actors, cinematic or voice or otherwise - christ this should be the easiest bloody thing to make!

[Xon]

MoO3 is incredbily crap, indescribably crap.

Just its interface was enough to turn it into an incredbily shitty game.

Fixed 640*480(or was it 800*600?) screen resolution for a game developed pass the year 2000 is grounds for chucking the game out without even looking at the rest.

Added horrible near unreadable fonts, the utter lack of screen room (due to the pittiful resolution), the GUI is unusable based on just technical aspects of its construction.

Then chuck in inept and counter-intuitive GUI design; on some screens there are +4 different ways to get to the same dialog and the dialog behaves differently depending on how you got there. This doesnt even begin to delve into the GUIs other flaws...

This is before you even get to the gameplay element.

[The Kernel]

GalCiv was pretty fun, but it fails if you want 4x games with strategy and tactical battles. Imperium Galactica 2 unfortunately is nothing more than a much better looking IG1.

Yeah, Galactic Civ is not a 4x game and IG2 has a crap tactical battle system and feels way too artificial most of the time. Not enough real gameplay.

Goddamit, is it so difficult to make a 4x game which doesn't blow? You don't need spiffy graphics, you don't need a story, you don't need actors, cinematic or voice or otherwise - christ this should be the easiest bloody thing to make!

Tell me about it. It isn't that hard, here's all they need to do:

1) Start with the underlying MOO2 design.

2) Change combat to 2D plane real-time with simple but nice 3D graphics (please, no voxels!) but don't make graphics the priority, concentrate on strategy.

3) Expand the research tree to include combined technologies and species specific breaktroughs. Also ditch the concentrated research angle and go for the MOO3 style research scheme.

4) Give the economy Civ3 style approach with precious resources specific to each planetary system that are combined to use technology. Make the economy entirely player driven (no galactic markets aside from perhaps a limited black market) so that an embargo from all players becomes a death sentance.

5) Keep the starlanes from MOO3; they were one of the best ideas in 4x gaming in years. Tweak the battle system to make fortifications extremely powerful but extremely expensive and time consuming to create.

6) Tweak the diplomacy system and beef up the computer AI to allow for greater range of behaviors.

That's it and you have a 4x game that will last for another decade.

[Stofsk]

GalCiv was pretty fun, but it fails if you want 4x games with strategy and tactical battles. Imperium Galactica 2 unfortunately is nothing more than a much better looking IG1.

Yeah, Galactic Civ is not a 4x game and IG2 has a crap tactical battle system and feels way too artificial most of the time. Not enough real gameplay.

What do you mean GalCiv isn't a 4x game? What would you classify it as, then?

IG2 - I tried playing it. I heard good things about it, how it was MUCH better than the original. Then I played it and it was essentially the same but with better graphics. Colonial management was identical, and just as stupid - for those who don't know, IG2 tried making colony development into a SimCity wannabe - while fleet battles were... as you say, crap.

1) Start with the underlying MOO2 design.

Agreed. Moo2's design is just elegant. As is Moo1's, albeit more abstract. But both are simple.

2) Change combat to 2D plane real-time with simple but nice 3D graphics (please, no voxels!) but don't make graphics the priority, concentrate on strategy.

Hell, something like StarCraft or Total Annihilation (there are spacewar mods) would be applicable. A good 4x game was Pax Imperia, although I think it had a dull feel (I haven't played it in years). I remember it because the game had an RT tactical game for battles.

3) Expand the research tree to include combined technologies and species specific breaktroughs. Also ditch the concentrated research angle and go for the MOO3 style research scheme.

Maybe it was part of the 'first impressions last longest' thing, but I wasn't overly impressed by Moo3's R&D screen. Can you elaborate?

4) Give the economy Civ3 style approach with precious resources specific to each planetary system that are combined to use technology. Make the economy entirely player driven (no galactic markets aside from perhaps a limited black market) so that an embargo from all players becomes a death sentance.

Interesting, but I've never played Civ3. Can you elaborate? I like the idea that economy is player driven, and that there is no galactic market at the start of the game, but shouldn't that change as you progress?

5) Keep the starlanes from MOO3; they were one of the best ideas in 4x gaming in years. Tweak the battle system to make fortifications extremely powerful but extremely expensive and time consuming to create.

I don't know. You usually start off with 2-3, maybe more starlanes, although this is no different than Moo2 where you start off with 2-4 stars in easy reach. However the thing I hated about Moo3's starlane idea is that it still took too long to get where you wanted to go; comparatively, Moo2 meant you explored the immediate stars in 2-3 turns. In Moo3 you could be barely a quarter on the way by turn 3, that's assuming you could figure out how to move the fucking scout ships .

Fortifications being tougher but more expensive is a no-brainer . Pity the developers tend to forget that.

6) Tweak the diplomacy system and beef up the computer AI to allow for greater range of behaviors.

Meh. If it's computer players I really don't care, I don't trust any one of them. If it's multiplayer then who cares, you have to deal with a human anyway. Moo3's Diplomacy screen featured the interesting angle of Senate bills and votes - of course, then the braindead developers decided to put in the New Orions who had a thousand Senate votes to your 10. Yeah, that bill is going through no problems...

[PrinceofLowLight]

While MOO3 diplomacy was utterly useless, it DID have some character. I remember the Klackons sending a message that just said "I just called to say I hate you!". Plus the ambassadors looked a hell of a lot better with some kooky animations.

[The Kernel]

What do you mean GalCiv isn't a 4x game? What would you classify it as, then?

Well...I suppose it is, but the exploration part is pretty weak and the conquer part is almost non-existant without tactical combat. So while technically it merits that description, I don't feel it falls into the same category.

Hell, something like StarCraft or Total Annihilation (there are spacewar mods) would be applicable. A good 4x game was Pax Imperia, although I think it had a dull feel (I haven't played it in years). I remember it because the game had an RT tactical game for battles.

Actually, I think MOO3 has some good ideas with the use of varying weapon types and ship purposes grouped into seperate armadas based on purpose. It added a nice strategic feel to the combat, it just didn't go far enough or give you enough control. And while graphics aren't all that important to me, the graphics in MOO3 tactical combat were just embarrassing.

Maybe it was part of the 'first impressions last longest' thing, but I wasn't overly impressed by Moo3's R&D screen. Can you elaborate?

Oh, I don't want to keep everything from it, just the multiple research at the same time without having to overly focus on one technology path. I would still like a MOO2-like status screen to come up when the technology finishes however combined with a neat 2D representation of the tech (it just adds so much to the realism factor you know?).

Interesting, but I've never played Civ3. Can you elaborate? I like the idea that economy is player driven, and that there is no galactic market at the start of the game, but shouldn't that change as you progress?

Civ3 had a system that in order to build certain technologies, you need to secure various resources (coal, oil, iron, etc) and provide a trade network back to your cities. If you couldn't secure a certain resource, then you couldn't build higher technology items which could totally destroy your war effort. I didn't particularly care for the implementation in Civ3, but a 4x game would be a much better candidate (with planets natural having resources) and they would have to be protected with open trade routes (no blockades) to have access to the resource.

Unlike Civ3, I'd want to give fixed numbers on stockpiles of the resources so that a blockade doesn't instantly kill production, but for a government that doesn't have decent surpluses, it can throw a wrench into starship production.

As for the no galactic market, what I mean is that you can't go to some central NPC and buy resources, you either have to purchase them from other players or have trade agreements with them. That way you can form synergistic relationships with your neighbors and actually bribe your way to peace since you will be in effect depending on each other. Fabulous system no?

I don't know. You usually start off with 2-3, maybe more starlanes, although this is no different than Moo2 where you start off with 2-4 stars in easy reach. However the thing I hated about Moo3's starlane idea is that it still took too long to get where you wanted to go; comparatively, Moo2 meant you explored the immediate stars in 2-3 turns. In Moo3 you could be barely a quarter on the way by turn 3, that's assuming you could figure out how to move the fucking scout ships .

It isn't necessary to carry the concept directly from MOO3 (I agree, moving ships takes too long) but if you bumped up speeds and just made it so that paths had to go through certain star systems it would create some very tactical elements to the game. One thing I hated about MOO2 was that an enemy fleet could go right through your borders, leapfrogging dozens of heavily protected systems to attack your homeworld. That's no fun, you should have to fight your way to the core.

Fortifications being tougher but more expensive is a no-brainer . Pity the developers tend to forget that.

Yeah, fortifications in MOO2/MOO3 were a joke...

Meh. If it's computer players I really don't care, I don't trust any one of them. If it's multiplayer then who cares, you have to deal with a human anyway. Moo3's Diplomacy screen featured the interesting angle of Senate bills and votes - of course, then the braindead developers decided to put in the New Orions who had a thousand Senate votes to your 10. Yeah, that bill is going through no problems...

Yeah, but I like having computer players since it allows a multi-player game of 2-3 people, but you can add a few extra races to make it more interesting.

[Slartibartfast]

I think I'm the only one that prefers MoO to MoO2.

You most definitely are not. I prefer it also...

I now, the res was horrible, you could hardly see anything, and MoO2 has a better dip system.

Dip system in what?

However, the MoO2 dip system is still shit, its Civ in space, and I *HATE* the Civ system, and its got lam0r 30 million pop planets.

AND they took out the excellent GDP distribution graphs, and replaced it with CIV/MoM style stupid colony people. GAH.

Well, MoO had bigger planets (earthlike was 100 millions at least, as opposed to 10 or so "million"). And I agree completely with the GDP graphs, having 1000's of factories and balancing a clean environment instead of building silly improvements.

[Stark]

I think I'm the only one that prefers MoO to MoO2.

You most definitely are not. I prefer it also...

I now, the res was horrible, you could hardly see anything, and MoO2 has a better dip system.

Dip system in what?

However, the MoO2 dip system is still shit, its Civ in space, and I *HATE* the Civ system, and its got lam0r 30 million pop planets.

AND they took out the excellent GDP distribution graphs, and replaced it with CIV/MoM style stupid colony people. GAH.

Well, MoO had bigger planets (earthlike was 100 millions at least, as opposed to 10 or so "million"). And I agree completely with the GDP graphs, having 1000's of factories and balancing a clean environment instead of building silly improvements.

Huzzah! Shameless self-promotion ahoy!

By dip I mean 'diplomacy' system, the MoO one was good, but MoO2 actually had functionally alliances and stuff, so people actually helped you, changed sides, etc.

I think the MoO2 worker/scientist thing is the weakest part. The combat was fine, the dip was fine, but the lame economy was bad. In MoO you had to balance payments, you could skim off the top into a slush fund, minerals etc adjusted the results of industry etc. The bars were the core of the system (like habitiability = eco multiplier, minerals = ind multiplier, etc) and by changing it it became 'ancient ruins gives +4 research points', and thats much less organic feeling.

@TheKernel - MoO had a better system than MoO2; so its not age thats an issue.

[Slartibartfast]

Oh, I don't want to keep everything from it, just the multiple research at the same time without having to overly focus on one technology path.

That sounds awfully similar to the original MoO research method.

I did think that the MoO2 research method of "focus on one item and you automatically give up hope of ever researching the other 2 or 3 - unless you're a Psylon" was fucking stupid.

[Slartibartfast]

By dip I mean 'diplomacy' system, the MoO one was good, but MoO2 actually had functionally alliances and stuff, so people actually helped you, changed sides, etc.

Ah, alright. Yes, I can see how that one was improved.

I think the MoO2 worker/scientist thing is the weakest part. The combat was fine, the dip was fine, but the lame economy was bad.

About the only improvements (other than graphical) in MoO2 I can find were: combat, diplomacy and systems with more than one planet (habitable isn't even the issue, since lots of the planets in MoO were radiated or barren ). It was interesting the way you could put "options" in your weapons. But none of these were "huge improvements" over the first one. They merely added a bit of flavor... the "bad changes" IMO did cripple the game a lot.

I totally agree with the rest of your post.

Also, in my opinion, not having "starlanes" is part of what makes these games not suck.

It would be awesome if the guy(s) that made Strange Adventures in Infinite Space tried to make it into a serious game instead of a 5-min coffee break game.

[wautd]

Got hooked at Moo2 some months ago for the 4th time or so (and as long as its keeps runnig on my comp it probably wont be the last time either).
(altough was MoO was good also, cant get it run anymore at my pc )

God why did they screwed MoO3 so much

[Stofsk]

God why did they screwed MoO3 so much

Executive decision.