Ideas for MOO IV

[girlfight_club]

A lot of cool ideas on this thread!

Another board game to look to for inspiration is Vanished Planet. A cooperative space game where a central menace threatens to destroy everyone else. If you don't find a way to work together-- all players are doomed.

Random thoughts:

I'd have to agree with the list creator that starlanes aren't immersive. If there was a good backstory reason for their existence (a la Stargate or Cowboy Bebop) that would be one thing, but then they should be "destroyable" and/or "buildable"-- they're not naturally occuring.

Which means, yeah, I want spacecraft that I can park anywhere in space.

Of course, I'd make this unlikely for slow spacecraft, by adding a self-preservation subroutine, like the aircraft in SMAC. Or even a mutiny subroutine, if crews in inadequate ships are ordered into uninhabited space!

This would allow for deep space bases and such being more strategic.


Diplomacy/government:

Well, I mostly play SMAC, so I have steep expectations. I found MoO3's dip to be dippy, even when patched.

I think a multitiered approach to leaders would be great. First, an option to include a moddable picture of the head of government (the player) would be excellent. Then, the number and type of leaders you have to deal with is proportional to the kind of government you have. In an absolute dictatorship, you appoint a handful of likely 'regional governors' and 'social correctness ministers' and they imitate what you do throughout your society. A more democratic society would have more leaders, appointees, and bureaucracy-- more open dissent, but more options in how to handle it.

When things go wrong for the empire, oppressors would have more breakaway rebels, democracies more production problems due to protests.



Combat:

I dislike MoO3's attempt at real-time space combat. It tries to be cinematic, but is very hard to keep focussed, and respond.

The empress' wrist action should not determine the readiness of her forces. A lesson we should all have learned from Cleopatra.

Starships should be able to coordinate, assemble, and attack with very few orders. Being warned about long odds or distances before an attack is nice, too, though being surprised in space is realistic. Sure, there should be options for more hands-on admirals, but many of us want to leave the fleets to a decent AI.



As for the suggestion that ship tech upgrades be represented in the graphics... look no further than SMAC. It can indeed be done, and adds to clarity of game play.



Oh, and I don't like my settlers showing up in advance of my probe ships. That just weirds me out.


GFC

[xalauc]

well in mine it wasnt supposed to be naturally created although i should have specified this...

really most governments would do their best in any case to find faster ways of travel through their own systems... so really these should be star lanes... well the thing is that star lanes in the sense im using was included in the form of a jump gate or stargate....

but they should have made these seperate builds for each planet in my opinion because making it for every planet made it seem like it was instanteously built overnight without any thought to resources..

[Colonâ„¢]

The "perfect" MOO to me would be one that combines all the features of MOO2 with the planet-management model MOO1 had (dump individual improvements - building them is way too tedious in the later stages of the game) and a better AI.

[Father Beast]

OK, so I haven't played Moo3 yet, but I'll throw some stuff I was thinking in.

Starlanes

This was used in ascendancy, and wasn't too bad there, but I agree with whoever said they shouldn't be the only way of getting around. I like the idea of building starlanes as opposed to jump gates. or maybe that a few starlanes are leftovers from the good old days, but you can build them too, if you have the tech.

along the same lines, I was hoping for graded supertransportation. Moo2 does this somewhat with the one intermediate step of jump gate before star gate. but maybe some more? a level I jumpgate improves your speed by 1 parsec/lightyear per turn, and a level VII jumpgate by 7 per turn. But a jump all the way across a humungous map in one turn should have to be built, not given.

and for those who want to park their fleets in space, That was done in Stars!, and it was good. I would like to see it in moo.

Leaders

I had a strange Idea for civ3 a while back. it bugged me in moo2 how leaders would charge what would be, in real life, completely outrageous sums for their services. It doesn't seem decent to me to pay these guys a significant amount of my GNP. civil service salaries, while astronomical to ordinary people or even the recipients, should be fairly negligible to my government.

So I thought about a different kind of governor. You hire a guy to take care of your system, he gives a bonus to something or other, but you lose direct control of your system. he manages it for you, and takes your suggestions into account. if you get too fed up with how he's mismanaging your system, you can fire him and lose the bonus.

OK, it would be hard to get decent guys, but that's half the fun.

[Zoetrope]

Fleets in deep space are appealing: Space Empires also has this, and so of course does the MOO mod for Civ2. Should ships refuel and reprovision or just stay in space for as long as we like? What refuelling model should we use? MOO has a simple, range based fuel model. This can be modified to allow travel anywhere, and then ships can float indefinitely (not necessarily going anywhere) in range of an allied fuel depot. This is only a small step from MOO2 where we can (with modest communications technology) continually change ships' destinations so they stay in interstellar space and never have to arrive anywhere.

If instead we use a time based refuelling model (ships have enough fuel to travel for a certain number of turns between fuel stations) then ships must refuel somehow or be stranded with empty tanks.

On reflection, the range based refuelling model seems easier to manage. It allows us to build deep space stations, provided only that they are within range of an existing fuel depot. The only time factor to be concerned with then is the pace of the competition.

[Ray K]

As a programmer who is actively developing the "MOO I wish they would make", I enjoy reading threads like this and hoping to find good ideas to incorporate into the game.

Adding more elements to the game can cause many problems. They can complicate the UIs, create balance issues, add micromanagement, and also make the AI programming much more difficult. This means that it is very important to think long and hard before adding features to a game that many already complain is too complex.

Micromanagement, in particular, is a killer for 4X games. You have to ask yourself about a new feature... how will this scale up on the large maps when I am controlling 200 colonies? Do I really want to build 15 improvements on every colony (that's 3000 building decisions). Do I really want to manage happiness or food production every turn on 200 colonies?

A lot of people's answer to this is to provide 'governors' or build queues to automate this effort. However, when you start having the computer perform a task for you in the game, it become a legitimate question to ask whether that feature should even be in the game.

How many MOO3 players have complained that ship upgrades are needed so frequently that the best way to design ships is to let the AI do it? A lot! And if the AI is doing it for you, then what's the whole point? A 4X space game where you do not design your ships is not a true "Master of Orion", no matter what the copyright holders say.

My opinion is that if you need the AI to do it, then it should not be in the game. Period. In Java MOO, there are no governors except on the tutoring difficulties. There is a limit to how many game variables can be managed by a player and still provide an enjoyable experience.

It is my opinion that this limit is somewhere around MOO1 and definitely under MOO2. This is one reason why MOO1 is still considered the Golden Standard of 4X space games. Adding complexity to the spying, ship design, colony management or whatever is going to make a few players happy that really like that particular change, but it is going to make the game less enjoyable for everyone else.

Also, keep in mind that using buzzwords like "intuitive" or "immersive" means something different to everybody.

I am enjoying these discussions but remember that an exhaustive list of features is a recipe for disaster with most games.

[Fian2]

Well stated Ray! If you have to design something so that the computer does it for you, then take it out of the game. For example, when it comes to all of those buildings in MOO2, why not instead have a building bonus that increases as you get new technology? Over a period of turns your base has no building bonus and slowly moves to the building bonus max for your current tech. From a player perspective you don't have to micromanage every colony, but on the other hand if done right, a player can make decisions for colonies that make colonies specialists. Invading fleets can then decide which colonies present more tactical significance, and decide if they want to first take our their shipyards, their food planets, or their research centers.

There is one area that I disagree with you, though. Areas like diplomacy and spying do not increase exponentially as your empire grows. As such, I think it is worthwhile adding such features into 4x games assuming that they make the game more fun.

[Ray K]

[SIZE=1]There is one area that I disagree with you, though. Areas like diplomacy and spying do not increase exponentially as your empire grows. As such, I think it is worthwhile adding such features into 4x games assuming that they make the game more fun.

I agree about diplomacy, but not necessarily spying. If sabotage is done on a per-colony basis, then it will not scale well in larger games.

For example, if you are told you can perform a sabotage mission and are given 40 colonies to choose from, how long with that take? After about the 3rd time, you'll get tired of studying the enemy colonies and just wish the AI would tell you which was the best one (for factories, bases, pop, etc).

Anytime a feature is tied to colonies, it is a potential micro-management problem for the game. That doesn't mean you can't put it in, but that you have to think through the ramifications of it.

Here's a specific example from Java MOO... I wanted to add an "approval rating" or "popularity" concept to the game to help ensure that players acted somewhat according to their race's preferences. Constant warmongering as a Psilon, for example, would make you unpopular with your people.

My original idea was to track the popularity of the leader for each colony, based on a variety of common-sense factors, and then use the aggregate popularity as an overall approval rating for the player. If that got too low, there would be negative consequences, creating an incentive to role-play according to your race.

After I discussed this idea on the JMoo forums, several testers (i.e. MOO1 veterans) pointed out that this system would create an incentive for the player to micro-manage his popularity on each of his colonies to keep his approval rating up. Realizing that they were correct, I immediately scrapped my design and went back to the drawing board.

The system now is based on diplomatic actions and treaties with other races, meaning that it doesn't get tedious as the game goes along. Plus, there is no "sliding scale" of approval (i.e. 98% is better than 90%) to give an incentive to constantly tweak that. There are no penalties until the player reaches a certain threshold, and only then does his popularity become a factor.

[Alexander D]

Interesting ideas from all of you.
If not mentioned before, I'd like to add another game to the equation: Birth of the Federation. It has features that nicely fit into a MOO standard game.

For example, the whole map is playable, not just at the star systems. Fleets can be anchored in a specific point, to patrol/intercept. In that way, no more guessing about where they are going to attack, only the general direction. Deep space bases provide support and defense, they are build scrapping transport ships.

Systems are colonized by picking one planet and later terraforming others, managed by a system basis. Industrial capability is determined from raw materials and energy power output. These with food fertility determines the potential of the system for production. Energy power output also operates orbital platforms, shields etc, thus draining energy and manpower from other sources.

Population fills gets employement to operate factories, farms, energy plants, research facilities and intelligence buildings. Also system wonders, empire wonders and regular buildings (wind generators, food replicators, shipyards, scanning telescopes) will allow

Technology adds new improvements for buildings (like mark II factory) too, which in turn must be built.

Minor races are a bonus. They have their unique characteristic that makes them a prize to assimilate.

Something that was never metioned is the size of a homeworld. In Gal Civs, fully late developed systems contained billions of habitants. Mantaining such high level of population happily can be the trigger for expansion or just preventing revolts due to social unrest from overpopulation. Lot of ideas!

Greetings

Alex

PS. Nice work Ray K. I hope I can see your project finished soon.

[Zoetrope]

BotF and MOO 1 and 2 were published by Microprose so there may have been some rubbing of shoulders among the developers.

Do i understand correctly that in BotF one planet is colonised in each system, and that the development of the system is treated as an extension of that one colony?

When you say improvements must be built, I hope that doesn't require visiting every system. A Mark IV factory on an industrial world should be automatically upgraded to a Mark X when resources allow.

And resource allocation needs to be scalable in case an empire becomes huge.

When MOO3 was being designed, the community's opinions were canvassed, but my own experience suggests that Quicksilver did not grasp the concepts presented to them.

I proposed that the players should classify their planets, but instead QS gave us "UserDefined1" and "UserDefined2" while giving substantive control of classification to the secretive and quixotic imperial AI.

In MOO2 at least it was clear why the game classified a colony as "industrial", "farming" or "research". And that scheme had the virtue (compared to MOO3) of not affecting gameplay.

Still, MOO2 would have been much nicer if a player could have earmarked colonies and if the AI on a research world had known to build research buildings (instead of random junk).

You really don't need the overwhelming complexity of a MOO3 to make a pleasant game. Many players agree that in terms of gameplay, a variant of MOO2 with MOO1 style automation would crush all opposition beneath its heel.

So why hasn't that been done?

The nearest experience I've had to the ideal was Space Empires 3: that was really fun. But then Malfador did something horrid when they redesigned for SE4. What happened to the shipyards? Does anyone else find that the Ministers are on permanent strike? Sigh. What ain't broke, don't fix!

[Alexander D]

Originally posted by Zoetrope
Do i understand correctly that in BotF one planet is colonised in each system, and that the development of the system is treated as an extension of that one colony?

More or less like MOO1, or IMHO the way MOO1 should have treated systems and planets. Interesting in BOTF they show a number for each planet containing the number of population units that it may contain, in red if there's some terraforming to be done or green if it's ready to colonize. And terraforming was something that a ship(s) can do. Imagine MOO2 with an interface like that, where all planets of a system can be controled at once, not being worried about what to build or so for individual planets. I'd like to extend this thinking to not only systems, but later (at an user definition) entire sectors or even quadrants, gez, even eliminate individual system production management at all and treat it as a whole.

When you say improvements must be built, I hope that doesn't require visiting every system. A Mark IV factory on an industrial world should be automatically upgraded to a Mark X when resources allow.

IIRC the automatic mode AI will build the improvements more or less based on the needs of the colony to survive, but for strategic decisions, like shipbuilding or an strategic building (i.e. telescope array for scanning) must be done by the user. The manual upgrade of facilities was something somewhat annoying because the upgrade of a Mk IV factory to a Mk X factory costed so much that sometimes you wondered if it was entirely necesary. Something from MOO1 that I praised was the multiple queues per colony. I mean, you can upgrade your colony's improvements and build other stuff in parallel, like real life. Also a carry forward resource building would be interesting thou. If I put, say 5 units to build (at 100 a piece) and the planet has 400 industrial output per turn allocated, then in that turn 4 units must be completed in that turn.

And resource allocation needs to be scalable in case an empire becomes huge.

I'd like something like sliding bars but applicable to all the planets, with restrictions. Also some screen for shipyarding can be useful. Like in MOO1 or MOO2 not all the planets will be building the important ships, only a few will be "shipyard" planets. By the way, IIRC shipyard upgrading was something that was in BOTF. But what I do want really is the ability to relocate (some, a % maybe of) resources to a system/sector/quadrat/empire level to help do something to other planets on specific projects, much like the tax thing of MOO2 or the resource thing of MOO1, but more specific. I think MOO3 had something like that.

When MOO3 was being designed, the community's opinions were canvassed, but my own experience suggests that Quicksilver did not grasp the concepts presented to them.

MOO3 was a huge heartbreaking for me. I played it twice and left rest on my shelves since. I hated the graphics, starlanes, the ships design the battle, the interface... But few things can be rescued. I think a lot was written on that subject.

You really don't need the overwhelming complexity of a MOO3 to make a pleasant game. Many players agree that in terms of gameplay, a variant of MOO2 with MOO1 style automation would crush all opposition beneath its heel.

Well, micromanagement and uber-complexity have their reasons of exist, one is to tweak it to the user's preferences, other is to create the illusion of that a huge empire of millions with many things going on and he is in charge. That illusion must be kept from breaking without saturate the player to boredom.

The nearest experience I've had to the ideal was Space Empires 3: that was really fun. But then Malfador did something horrid when they redesigned for SE4. What happened to the shipyards? Does anyone else find that the Ministers are on permanent strike? Sigh. What ain't broke, don't fix!

I never tried the full version of SE3 and that was long time ago. I can't really tell, but I remember some clever approaches to the 4X thing.

Greetings

Alex

PS: Nice FTP site!

[Zoetrope]

MOO3 tried to deter micromanagers by making the whole game a chore: the main path to victory was as tedious as trying to clear a jungle using a rasp: it can be done, but filing through a million vines is nowhere near my idea of entertainment.

So the MOO3 approach won't do at all.

Imagine MOO2 with an interface ... where all planets of a system can be controled at once, not being worried about what to build or so for individual planets. I'd like to extend this thinking to not only systems, but later (at an user definition) entire sectors or even quadrants, gez, even eliminate individual system production management at all and treat it as a whole.

The issue has been on my mind for some time. I'd like to make large-scale management the most profitable option, not by penalties for being hands-on, but by rewards for thinking big.

How should sectors and quadrants be represented for this purpose? What constitutes a sector or a quadrant?

One advantage of a scalable management model is that if large empires are most profitable when governed on the largest scales, then niches remain for smaller empires to prosper below the radar of the giants.

In real life large companies engage family businesses to make specialist tools. Likewise the game's economics should encourage larger powers to employ smaller ones on contract. (Instead of assimilating them and thereby destroying their distinctiveness - in MOO2 and 3 we are all Borg!) That way, some players could fruitfully start on a small scale in a game even long after others had established a sprawling empire.

Offering and bidding for contracts could be a part of the economic fun.

It might lead to an engaging online galactic empires game, almost like an RPG but in the flavor of MOO.

[Skirv]

most of the suggestions I was going to contribute to this conversation have already been stated, all except one. No wait it was takin too.

As you read these it is important to know that I'm thinking in respects of Mods of MoO 2, even though this would be a completely new build of the game.

The things I vote for...

Management, yea it can be tedious to tell those new colonized tiny toxic planets, that your never EVER going to use, what to do, but that was some of the key game play in the first couple turns. It would be a shame to completely automate it. How ever I understand that it takes away from the next portion of the game which is usually military dominace. Stellar Converters are your friend. Why colonize when you can blow it up.

Jump Gates, Ok I played MoO 3 for about an hour before I realized I hated it. And these little path ways, were very retarded, thousands apon thousands of them going to nowhere? I guess we can thank the New Orions, I tried so hard to get the others to declare all out war with them in the first turn, no success. I do like the idea of the Jump Gates though, and yes it should be instant, you should have to build them, like on your key productive plantes, so you can always get there fast if need be.

Iterception, I would love to intercept an enemy heading to my world. I hate it when an ambeoa strikes one of my colonies, but it takes 7 turns to get there, and right now I have the time to take it out. Who know what will happen in 7 turns, the Psilons could turn on me, if not them the Humans.

Refueling Bases, This would be a very interesting idea, making a base that increases your travel distance, by moving them to a specific point in space not to any system, just out there, so that you could colonize more systems, or have a stratigic advantage on your enemy.

Teraforming Bases, Don't you just hate it when their are two systems right next to you, but you can't colonize them because they are gas giants or asteroid fields. This ship would be able to move into a system such as this and perform the "Make Planet" operation, assuming you have the technology for it.

Improved DiplomacyMove than anything this should be improved, I hate getting drawn into a war by an alliance. it's always the pslilons, silicoids, and me. I only pick sides with the smart ones, and use the rest for slaves, and let me tell you silicoids make good slaves, I breed them to everyone of my colonies. Anyways, I always end up in the midle of them or right next to the silicoids. Just cause your repulsive, dumb and eat rocks, doesn't mean you want war 27/7. And why would Psilons declare war with the cat people who are on the EXACT opposite side of the galaxy, they can barely get to my sysems, let alone across the galaxy. Then they demand I aid them in their war, because I'm the only one who CAN reach them, more or less they can talk to them because of me! You should be able to introduce race to each other, like in civ3. Not just hey you know them too, oh and who are these fellas, hey stop that!! That's it I hate you, WAR!

Custom Advatars If I had to give up everything else for this one thing, I would, beacuase my additions are really just cosmetic, but custom advatars would be cool. Not just for races, but for ships of all sizes, I hate knowing there is only one doomstar image.

I have mouch more to add but it really is just all cosmetic, you could just add TCP/IP to multiplay and slap MoO 4 on it and I would buy it.

Honestly that's all the next MoO need for me, things that add to the game play. I don't care that a nuclear drive wouldn't travel at the speed of light. I don't.

I was gonna run this through spell check buy I'm in class and people are walking out. so deal with it

[Ray K]

Originally posted by Skirv
Management, yea it can be tedious to tell those new colonized tiny toxic planets, that your never EVER going to use, what to do, but that was some of the key game play in the first couple turns. It would be a shame to completely automate it. How ever I understand that it takes away from the next portion of the game which is usually military dominace.

It doesn't have to be one or the other. The UI can be designed to make it easier to manage multiple colonies. The problem is that it's not an easy task so they don't always do it well. Remember in MOO1 how you would learn some tech and then the game would let you set one of your spending categories to XX% until that improvement was built? That's what I'm talking about. With one click, you just reallocated spending on EVERY colony.

Jump Gates, Ok I played MoO 3 for about an hour before I realized I hated it. And these little path ways, were very retarded, thousands apon thousands of them going to nowhere? I guess we can thank the New Orions, I tried so hard to get the others to declare all out war with them in the first turn, no success. I do like the idea of the Jump Gates though, and yes it should be instant, you should have to build them, like on your key productive plantes, so you can always get there fast if need be.

Not familiar with this, so no comment.

Iterception, I would love to intercept an enemy heading to my world. I hate it when an ambeoa strikes one of my colonies, but it takes 7 turns to get there, and right now I have the time to take it out. Who know what will happen in 7 turns, the Psilons could turn on me, if not them the Humans.

Interception is something I originally considered in Rise from Ruin (nee Java MOO), but there are a lot of potential problems with it, especially if you allow Hyperspace Communications.

In the end, I rationalized the MOO1 model (no deep space interceptions) as just part of the sci-fi limitations of traveling in a warp bubble. Besides, intercepting the space amoeba in the safety of deep space would remove a lot of the drama, don't you think?

Refueling Bases, This would be a very interesting idea, making a base that increases your travel distance, by moving them to a specific point in space not to any system, just out there, so that you could colonize more systems, or have a stratigic advantage on your enemy.

Why add a whole new game mechanic when you can already equip your ship with extra fuel tanks?

Teraforming Bases, Don't you just hate it when their are two systems right next to you, but you can't colonize them because they are gas giants or asteroid fields. This ship would be able to move into a system such as this and perform the "Make Planet" operation, assuming you have the technology for it.

This sounds like it would just be a high-level terraforming tech. However, I think that "planet-less" systems are useful as differences in terrain. I'm not sure if it is really that interesting to allow every system on the map to eventually become a Size-240 Terran Gaia planet.

Improved DiplomacyMove than anything this should be improved, I hate getting drawn into a war by an alliance. it's always the pslilons, silicoids, and me. I only pick sides with the smart ones, and use the rest for slaves, and let me tell you silicoids make good slaves, I breed them to everyone of my colonies. Anyways, I always end up in the midle of them or right next to the silicoids. Just cause your repulsive, dumb and eat rocks, doesn't mean you want war 27/7. And why would Psilons declare war with the cat people who are on the EXACT opposite side of the galaxy, they can barely get to my sysems, let alone across the galaxy. Then they demand I aid them in their war, because I'm the only one who CAN reach them, more or less they can talk to them because of me! You should be able to introduce race to each other, like in civ3. Not just hey you know them too, oh and who are these fellas, hey stop that!! That's it I hate you, WAR!

Introducing races would be a good addition. Thanks for the idea!

Custom Advatars If I had to give up everything else for this one thing, I would, beacuase my additions are really just cosmetic, but custom advatars would be cool. Not just for races, but for ships of all sizes, I hate knowing there is only one doomstar image.

I agree. Every image in the game should be in a standard format and easily replaceable by a modder.

I have mouch more to add but it really is just all cosmetic, you could just add TCP/IP to multiplay and slap MoO 4 on it and I would buy it.

I love it when people say things like "just add TCP/IP to multiplay" as if that is no big deal for a 4X strategy game. That is actually difficult to do and you have to make a lot of sacrifices to the rest of the game so that it works well for multiple players.

[Brutalisk]

One of the best formats to date was CIVILIZATION's management system. (i'm talking about the original game)

Every city you had could "take care of itself" if you so wished it to, while at the same time with a couple of quick clicks you could make a few changes. There was a mixture of macro and micro management.

Micro management is always more effective. Macromanagement simply speeds the game up and requires less actions and decisions from the user (for those who find it a chore to micro manage) but at the expense of not being as "efficient" as mircomanagers.

The original MOO was closer to macro than micro. I love moo2 though, because i believe a game should allow its player to mircomanage is he so wishes. There is thus skill in everything you do in that game. Thus there are various "skills" needed to be mastered.

What Moo2 lacks is a proper way to please those who want to macromanage. The option simply isn't there.

As for MOO3, it was an attempt to create the illusion of a real life ruler, whereby you DELEGATE (the AI) to get things done and you don't actually do it yourself. That "philosophy" was applied to all its aspects. There are several players out there who loved Moo3. Granted a lot of others didn't. There are some improvemens in MOO3, for example, the way races intermix once you conquer someone. I think that's quite realistic and reflects more of the real life situation. There are other examples where moo3 is better than its predecessors.

Moo4, should take moo1's macromanagement, moo2's micromanagement and moo3's improvements and make the game everyone wanted moo2 to be.

"I love it when people say things like "just add TCP/IP to multiplay" as if that is no big deal for a 4X strategy game. That is actually difficult to do and you have to make a lot of sacrifices to the rest of the game so that it works well for multiple players"

Care to expand a little on that one? By the way, if you need help with JAVAmoo I'd be glad to help (and learn from you).