Moo2 and Settlers2 - some thoughts

[lord of the mark]

The last two games ive bought and played are Moo2 and Settlers2.

Some interesting parallels.

I came to Moo2 having played Civ2 and Smac, games with complex govt/happiness models.

Moo2's govt and happiness models are simple. Instead it emphasizes the core of a TBS 4x - research, buildings, units, and combat. In particular the combat is notable - epic fights between flights, with a wide array of special weapons, counters, etc.

Yet Moo2s combat is vaguely unsatisfying - the epic battles are in 2d, despite being space battles, and the dimensions are unrealistic - the width of a lined up fleet easily exceeds the opening distance between opposing fleets. One asks, for this I gave up the a relatively complex political/social model?

I came to Settlers from more typical citybuilders, like Simcity, Caesar3, 1602. All of which have complex luxury/happiness model. S2 has no happiness model, and the only lux seems to be the need for beer to build soldiers. S2 compensates with (aside from its odd combat/territory model) a more complex, more detailed economic model. Yet - the economic model has no housing, no need for food except for miners, and road systems that tend toward the bizarre. For this I gave up a standard citybuilder happiness/luxury model?

Two unique games, to be sure, but one of their principle contributions is to confirm the wisdom of the more mainstream games in their respective genres (i note that many may consider Moo2 quite mainstream)

[Bkeela]

I don't think Master of Orion II's combat system is unsatisfying. It is obviously a graphical/abstract representation of reality. I mean, turn based games aren't very realistic in the first place.

I find it incredibly fun to tinker with constructing new ships, and then taking them onto the battlefield to see all the bells and whisltes in action.

Perhaps Nexus: The Jupiter Incident, or Homeworld II would be more to your liking.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Bkeela
I don't think Master of Orion II's combat system is unsatisfying. It is obviously a graphical/abstract representation of reality. I mean, turn based games aren't very realistic in the first place.

Blasphemy - TBS wargames like TOAW or Age of Rifles are among the most realistic games there are.

However in the broader strat genre, where phases and other things to make the turns more realistic are considered too complex, TB is one limit on realism. I see a parallel with Imp2 - the TB, abstract, tactical combat, within a larger strat game. But in Imp2 the rest of the game is far richer. I just dont find shipdesign that satisfying, esp. when the techs have no intuitive feel (well i understand the beam vs particle thing in space combat, but what the hell is zortium armor?)

[DrSpike]

Maybe you are just hard to please LoTM.

[General Ludd]

The thing I love most about MOO2 is being able to design your own ships, I agree that the combat was far from ideal, and could be a little tedious, but I still wouldn't give it up for a more complex political/social model (although I would ask why I couldn't have both).

That is, incidentally, why I don't like Galciv. What kind of grand space strategy forces you to use cookie cutter space ships with arbitrary combat values?

[GePap]

I love tactical combat in Moo2- I have had trully epic battles- yes, the 2D view is not great, and the fact battle lines mingle in strange ways is annoying, but still, it makes for some exciting gaming. The differences of races adds complexity that is absent in something like Civ (since all human are the same race).

[lord of the mark]

Dont get me wrong. Im NOT saying Moo2 isnt a good game. I played it enough already to justify a new game price (and many times over the bargain bin price I paid). I was speaking in more comparative terms. Had I played Moo2 without ever having played Civ2, or Settlers without having played the other citybuilders, I might have felt differently. Civ2 is afterall, thus far my favorite PC game of all time. So being less than that is no shame.

I was looking carefully at these games in large part because some have called them the best, or close to the best, strat games around.

It was more that the WAYS these two games fell short of the best, was so strikingly similar.

And of course I realize that some aspects of the games that were of only marginal interest to me, like ship design in Moo2, were very important to some others.
I freely admit I didnt much care for the unit workshop in SMAC either. I guess in a 4x im looking to run an empire, and dont really want to worry about the nitty gritty of designing the optimal ship give me designs that meet different grand strategies, and let me decide how much of each to build is enough.

[Carolus Rex]

This is probably last down the list of things that make a good game, but I really like the music in MOO2.

I played it a lot at night in my student room (25 square meters or so) and I always thought the game created a great atmosphere. There are two themes that really set the mood (a kind of sad one).

When I'm 64 I'll probably load the game, start playing it, and cry when they come out the loadspeakers... Ah, what a sad lad I am!

BTW, the music in Civ 2 (I'm excluding some of the wonder movies here) never caught my attention in a similar way (or, in fact, at all).

Carolus

[GePap]

Well, the problem as I see it is simple:

A wargame can be complex and deep because it is not expected to be a huge seller- Age of Rifles was an excellent game, and I whish I could play it on my new computer-a Masterpiece of wargaming.

But a game like MOO faces the need to be commercially viable, and hence can't be too deep, otherwise the learning curve will be too deep. And the AI problem remains the same always- can we have an AI that will be challenging? The deeper the game, the more likely the game AI will not be able to handle the situation.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap
Well, the problem as I see it is simple:

A wargame can be complex and deep because it is not expected to be a huge seller- Age of Rifles was an excellent game, and I whish I could play it on my new computer-a Masterpiece of wargaming.

But a game like MOO faces the need to be commercially viable, and hence can't be too deep, otherwise the learning curve will be too deep. And the AI problem remains the same always- can we have an AI that will be challenging? The deeper the game, the more likely the game AI will not be able to handle the situation.

2 points.

1. A wargame like AOR can be more detailed in combat cause it doesnt attempt to model anything else. A game that attempts to model tech research, population, economy, unit design AND combat is going to fall down somewhere.

2. I still like Civ2s approach which simplified the combat. I realize such combat in a space game would be less satisfying, and some dont care for the civ approach in any case. I also realize there are other alternatives I need to look at beyond those mentioned in this comparison.

[GePap]

Well, not many space games actuallty exist that go into space empire building- GalCivs was already mentioned as a space game with simple combat.

A basic 3D combat sphere would be great, and should not be too difficult to implement.

I think MOO1 had some good ideas. All in all, I think MOO2, SMAC, and CIV3 combined all have within them some great features that if assembled correctly would make an excellent game.

In terms of economy, one of the better models I saw in a simple game was in Colonization. There economic modelling mattered.

[Bkeela]

Originally posted by Carolus Rex
This is probably last down the list of things that make a good game, but I really like the music in MOO2.

I played it a lot at night in my student room (25 square meters or so) and I always thought the game created a great atmosphere. There are two themes that really set the mood (a kind of sad one).

When I'm 64 I'll probably load the game, start playing it, and cry when they come out the loadspeakers... Ah, what a sad lad I am!

BTW, the music in Civ 2 (I'm excluding some of the wonder movies here) never caught my attention in a similar way (or, in fact, at all).

Carolus

I couldn't agree more. I must have listened to the two themes of MoOII countless times, yet their repetition has never distracted my attention away from the game. The music provides superb ambience.

[child of Thor]

to music + sounds, often the undervalued poor relation in computer games. In FFE i really enjoy a couple of the new songs by the 'Quality Quartet' - i think my favourite is 'Atmosphere' - a very haunting, and slightly sad tune.
It fits perfectly with the pace i play this game at(not at full time excelleration all the time) and the theme of flying solo(mostly) through the huge emptiness of space.
to well realised in-game music

Its interesting really that many of us have sort of come to the same conclusions about the games that many deem the real 'classics' of pc gaming.
IMHO its also strange that we still dont have a game that succesfuly combines all the elements of these great games into one unforgetable gaming experience.

The sad part being i feel we have gone beyond the point where we'll ever be likely to see such a game, unless some indie developer can produce a miracle. Hopefully i'll be proven wrong

[Carolus Rex]

Getting lost in all the abbreviations here; which game is FFE?

Carolus

[DrSpike]

Frontier: First Encounter, or Elite 3.