Ideas for MOO IV

[Fusion Rifle]

Well, it's bound to happen. MOO III was a traumatic experience that reverberated through the strategic gaming community in 2003. Nearly two years later, you can still encounter scattered lament on various discussion boards, like Paradox for instance, which in themselves have nothing to do with 4X games. The game is not forgotten, actually the franchise probably has the highest sales potential of its genre.

I'd like to use this thread to present, spread and share ideas about what you people think MOO IV ought to be like. We'd better hurry up doing this. Sooner or later some goons at Atari (or wherever the franchise ends up) are going to shape a MOO in their own image which might not be everyone else's. Any talented designer needs to get the bearings of the community. The Atari boards are closed for everyone not possessing a personal e-mail address so that's the reason I choose to start such a discussion here.

[Fusion Rifle]

I'll start with a few scattered remarks of my own and of course they reflect my subjective opinion. They might not be the of a really decisive nature or all equally important, but I've got an exam coming up and I haven't got the time to be systematic right now. If you don't like it or wish to concentrate on questions that are of greater principal weight in your opinion, please say so!

Here we go:

* Naturally, all the MOO II races should be in. Yet then I wouldn't mind if the designers invented an additional batch. I believe it's important though that these should have some meaningful set of characteristics that'll fit them into the game to the largest extent possible. It would also be nice if the animalomorphic paradigm was abandoned, like dog, cat, and bird races. We don't need a badger or squirrel species. However, I would like that the new races, whether all that original or not, do conform to basic scientific ramifications. That is, what is viable that evolution might bring forth on a distant planet. Science-fiction can presumably offer a lot of inspiration in this area. To clarify, what I don't like to see is some race of "Ethereals", looking like flaming humans with red eyes and angel wings.

* MOO III contained a whole story of the MOO universe with some rather ridiculous features. There was a lot of "the Trilarians invented the Sakkra by genetically modifying themselves in order to live on the planetary surface. Their Saurian slaves rebelled however and moved to another starsystem"-stuff. Please, no more of this Hoagland rubbish! The races, as a rule, naturally have localized and ordinary origins. (There are exceptions to this of course, the Elerians are obviously derived from modern humans. See: separate thread by me on possible explanation.)

* As a rule I would like MOO IV to put more emphasis on scientific validity as a backdrop to the game, which is not the same as forcing it into a "realism" straightjacket. In fact, MOO II already managed quite well in this area in certain regards. For example, blue and white massive stars in reality are shortlived. In MOO II this was acknowledged as making their planets primarily mineral rich, radiated and non-life supportive. Also no races originate from blue stars, which is correct. They simply wouldn't have had time to evolve.
Realism can also be traced in several technologies, not least propulsion systems. Nuclear, fusion, ion and antimatter drives are all real scientific concepts. Ion drives are in use today and nuclear (fission) drives actually were developed in the 1950's. However, the propulsive capabilities in MOO II of such systems are often totally out of scope. I have begun to prepare a list of propulsion systems (both real and imagined) that would more closely mimic actual progression while at the same time causing minimal harm to gameplay.
The last point is all important. Supplying a realistic "feel" should not be allowed to compromise gameplay, at least not by much. Whenever there is an intolerable conflict between realism, gameplay and fun factor, the latter two should take precedence.

* I think the game should retain the light-heartedness and wit of MOO II: Examples of this are the GNN News Network, Space Amoebae, the gesturing of the diplomats and the like. MOO III obviously strayed from this mood, while adding nothing to realism, rather detracting from it. All for no purpose, consequently.
Space according to me is a colourful, fun and optimistic place. I'd hate it if the prevailing mood of MOO IV was one of say, the "Alien" movie series gloom and doom.

* Suggestion: what about changing the scale from parsec to lightyears? I believe that many people, myself included, get a better sense of distance this way. One turn could suggestively be one year, thereby conforming exactly to the velocity of fleets as measured in lightyears.

* "Universe" portrayal: I strongly suggest a strategic map with a top down view as in MOO II or one that could be turned to show the stellar distribution in three dimensions. What I don't like to see is a strategic map formed as a galactic spiral. Does anyone here have an idea of the size of the Milky Way? It's 91,000 lightyears across. If you had a strategic map with a diameter of 100 lightyears, say, you would be extremely far from even being able to see the edge of the given spiral arm. (Interestingly, our spiral arm where Sol is located is called the Orion Arm ). In other words, MOO II is correct in its depiction of the "universe" (or stellar 'neighbourhood', more likely), and games with spiral shapes are totally wrong.
Also, a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way is estimated to contain thousands upon thousands of intelligent species, not 14 as in MOO II. Only for that reason, galaxy shaped maps are grossly out of any sensible proportion and scale.

* Say no to starlanes! This is a stupid, unnecessary and totally immersion breaking idea introduced by MOO III. If you don't wish to have unlimited range, at least not for manned craft, a simple way of solving that problem would be to set an upper limit to the time duration a manned ship could be in transit because of biological, age, social and a number of similar reasons. Say this time limit was set to 24 turns (each turn being a year - it doesn't have to be this of course) and you had a rather early propulsion system capable of 60 percent lightspeed (the actual velocity of a real world antimatter drive, in fact), you would have a stellar range of 14 lightyears from the nearest colony or outpost.
In MOO II, the same function was regulated by the (fictional) idea of fuel cells. In fact, there are several potential ways of solving this issue.

* Turn-based or real-time tactical combat? In this day and age, the idea of making a game not having real-time combat might be regarded as preposterous. However, there are numerous advantages to turn-based combat in a game like MOO, where so much revolves around ship design. It gives you full control to utilize the best tactics your equipment was designed for. Personally, I have no problems with turn-based combat, but I'm not sure about prevailing opinions among the rest of the community. Let's say I'm divided on the issue.

* Here's a smallish idea. What if technology level could be illustrated in the graphical depiction of a spaceship? If your drive system is Antimatter, perhaps rather elongated engines could be superimposed along the sides of the model? I you discover Photon Drive, the exhausts might have large rounded semispheric shapes to illustrate the light reflective nozzles of this technology. If your current propulsion level was Gravitron Drive (I'm making things up here) perhaps curved hull shapes could be added, somewhat resembling a classic UFO shape?
Opinions?

* Multi-stellar starsystems: Many stars in the universe are actually part of double or triple (etc) starsystems. They are very common. It would be great, I think, if this feature could be represented in a 4X game. However, there are obvious risks for micromanagement hell since it could uncontrollably boost the number of planets and thus colonies.
On the other hand, many multi-component starsystems are quite close to each other, meaning that stable orbits around each are highly restricted. For example, Alpha Centauri (which is a triple starsystem) has its stars A and B separated only by the distance of Sun to Saturn at their closest approach. This would make safe orbits around each extend out to about from Mercury to Mars, or 4 rocky planets.
To keep planet numbers down there of course a few tricks. MOO II (obviously) only included planets in the so-called liquid water zone, restricting the max number to about 4 or 5 or less for each starsystem.
Switching from one stellar component to the other could be made quite easily. For example, in the backround of the system screen there could be 1 or 2 brightly shining stars. Clicking on those would take you to the relevant subsystem.

* Another tidbit - preset startypes: It would be preferable in my opinion that you could set game options in such a way that certain races would always originate around a specific stellar type. Considering that Sol is a bright yellow G-type star, it always offends my sense of immersion when the humans come from a planet circling a red M-star.
A related facet would be setting an actual planetary make-up. If we take MOO II as an example, the starsystem Sol would in such a case always contain 4 planets:

Sol I: Radiated (Mercury)
Sol II: Greenhouse Inferno (Venus)
Sol III: Terran (Earth)
Sol IV: Tundra (Mars)

* A final idea: what about as an option introducing a real life stellar neighbourhood map? Sol would in such a case be located in a correct position in regards to other starsystems in its neighbourhood and these would largelly conform to the physical characteristics known to them. Since there would be an awful lot of stars on a map only 40 lightyears across a great number of inconsequential M-stars could of course be omitted. (Within 20 lightyears there are actually about as much as 133 individual stars.)
Many systems would also have to be renamed for aesthethic reasons, since often they are just called things like "GJ 408". A star like 82 Eridani could for example be called "Taranis" (from science-fiction, denoting the same star) and Zeta Tucanae could simply be referred to as Tucana.

[vmxa1]

Now if only you could get someone to create the game.

[Fusion Rifle]

Now if only you could get someone to create the game.

Thanks, do I take it this means you approve of some of my suggestions? I was afraid I'd get some derogative initial reply, since much of what I dealt with could be considered periphereal from a game mechanics and/or 'winning' point of view, and therefore perhaps a bit excentric. I think the "unimportant" parts of a game do carry weight however, since much of its eventual atmosphere relies on such things.

I will add a few game-mechanical considerations immediately though:

1) The AI really needs to be upgraded when it comes to ship design. I believe there are several easy ways to achieve this. For example, one could begin with banning bombs from the AI design schemes, or at least such weapons could be restricted to a few cases/ship designs. Since transports already carry bomb loads there is no need to waste space on a battleship to house such orbital weapons.
Also you could make it so that certain races tend to design ships along certain race specific principles. For example, the Alkari might be thought of as making substantial use of fighters. It would add flavour and variety.

2) Careful attention should be put on Diplomacy AI. In my opinion, lasting peace should be achievable for races previously at war, even to the extent of making them close allies in the future. Peace would mean peace. The habit of many strategy games where a new war breaks almost immediately following a cease-fire/peace agreement, is not worth the effort to portray. A lot of bargaining could also go into peace deals. For example, a race on the fall might well have to convince an enemy of the advantage of restoring peace. It could therefore offer solar systems and the like as part of achieving a settlement.

3) Idea on governorship. In MOO II you only had four slots for planetary governors/administrators. What would you think about the following: there could for instance be an empire senate screen with a number of available governors. Each system needs someone to administer it, although their traits might not always be to your liking. For a newly colonized system you'd pick one of those that you have on hand. (You would not run out. New senatorial members would always replace the assigned ones.) Fleets could be handled in roughly the same way. Each fleet might need a commander and you'd have a number of admirals who'd you perhaps could assign to the flagship. Naturally, this would not have to rule out the system of aqcuiring famous space travellers and heroes either.
Just an idea.

[Tiemler]

Also, a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way is estimated to contain thousands upon thousands of intelligent species, not 14 as in MOO II. Only for that reason, galaxy shaped maps are grossly out of any sensible proportion and scale.

From the best numbers we have available at the moment, and plugging those into the Drake Equation, it may be overly optimistic to expect our galaxy to contain even a hundred intelligent species, let alone a hundred spacefaring species.

* Say no to starlanes! This is a stupid, unnecessary and totally immersion breaking idea introduced by MOO III.

Starlanes are pretty much a crutch for weak AI. Now, I wouldn't mind seeing stargates enter the game earlier. They could be easier to research and build than in MOO2, but only act as a bridge between two systems.

[vmxa1]

Starlanes are not the problem, but if you do have them make them the only means to get anywhere. I would prefer not to have them as they make travel take too long as in Ascendency.

I think we can safely say there are no intelligent life forms in the Milky Way at this point, but it matters not for the game. I do not think I want more than 10-12 as that is too many to make unique and for me to play and get to know.

I am not real interest in govenors. I do like the way it is in Moo2 and if they allowed more than 4, it woudl be too stong. If they toned them down, they would be of no value. Maybe it could be improved, who knows.

Bombs are a waste and I really had that I had to redesign to rid myself of them on most default ships. Maybe they could make beams and such be very ineffective against planets. This woudl allow bombs to have a place.

Designs of ships is very tricky for any AI. Much could have been done, but in the end it is a losing proposition. You see many argue for all sorts of designs here, so humans cannot agree either.

[Fusion Rifle]

A hundred to zero intelligent species in the Milky Way? Guys, you appear surprisingly pessimistic.

Seriously though, these kinds of things are almost entirely hypothetical and therefore matters of wide dispute. Personally of course, I hold the Drake Equation to be mainly whimsical.

My "thousands upon thousands" wasn't meant to be a factual statement, nevertheless, it was most closely inspired by Robert Zubrin's Entering Space (1999). I can recommend this book because it's *very* good. Zubrin isn't just anyone but belongs to the very elite in today's space community, something of a heir to Carl Sagan. In one chapter he toys around with the Drake Equation and presents three case models, depending on assumed lifespans of intelligent civilizations. In one case there are 1 million civilizations in the galaxy with an average separation of 316 lightyears, the second holds 5 million civilizations with an average separation of 185 lightyears and in the third case there are 20 million civilizations, 131 lightyears apart on the average.
Space is a big place.

Starlanes might be a crutch for the AI, but I don't think it's worth it because the very idea of starlanes is so goddamn ugly. There is absolutely nothing out there that could even remotely excuse the concept of starlanes. They also criss cross and force interstellar space into some simplistic pattern, which I find highly immersion breaking. Space in my opinion, should on the contrary be a vast, empty and mysterious place. Therefore I hate them.
MOO II had no need for starlanes, so why should a later and improved game even consider such silly nonsense?

I am not real interest in govenors. I do like the way it is in Moo2 and if they allowed more than 4, it woudl be too stong. If they toned them down, they would be of no value.

Much sense to this, I'm afraid. I'll see if I pursue the point. In fact, governors aren't precisely make or break important to me either. It was just an idea.

I do not think I want more than 10-12 as that is too many to make unique and for me to play and get to know.

Yup, I mentioned in passing that there might be a risk uniqueness would be difficult to create with many more races. MOO II has 14 and they are all very well thought out. At the same time though, I can't escape the feeling that this number is a little low and that I'd liked more potential opponents, since you get to know them a little bit too quickly.

Finally about AI ship design. Yes, human beings do not agree on the best designs either, but that's part of the charm of the game. AI design surely doesn't have to be optimal. In fact, it would be rather boring if it was, since all that would be left to do in such a case would be duplicating it. It should try however, not to be totally idiotic.

[vmxa1]

One thing about more races is that it is not practical as it takes too many resouces to design and implement and drives up the cost.

[Impaler[WrG]]

https://www.freeorion.org

We are using starlanes and making a number of other BIg departures from traditiona here but its so far as I know the most developed Open source Moo out their. Pitch your ideas/opions on our forum if you like and try out the v0.2 release.

[Fusion Rifle]

We are using starlanes and making a number of other BIg departures from traditiona here but its so far as I know the most developed Open source Moo out their. Pitch your ideas/opions on our forum if you like and try out the v0.2 release.

Wish I could but it's simply not my game. I'd only be a burden.

[Fusion Rifle]

vmxa1, about new species and originality/game function, I'd like to make another remark. I believe the sense of uniqueness actually can be enhanced if you consider that some types of lifeforms in the universe can be considered to be much more common than others. For example, there's little reason to introduce a second aquatic species and if you did you might easily risk feeling, ah, that's just another type of Trilarians. To get a technological civilization started among an aquatic species is hard, since it requires inventing enclosed spaces where metallurgical experiments can be carried out, although it's probably not impossible.

Likewise, most higher lifeforms in the universe can be expected to be carbon based oxygen breathers, since the high rate of metabolism required for multicellular organisms and smartness nearly has no equal to oxygen. In MOO2, only the Sillicoids actually deviate from this rule. There are a few other alternatives to oxygen other than silicon based lifeforms however, and in a second batch of max 14 new species, it would suffice to create one such lifeform, and still maintain the given balance.

Carbon is also good from an aesthetic point of view because you can end up with almost any colour, shape or way of life, it's not a hindrance to variety in itself. Still, there is the problem of fitting in new races in the makeup if you strongly emphasize the wish to make each species highly specializised in a game function sort of way, of course. Maybe a sort of default limit could be set on that while developing the game, designers not creating more races than they can vouch for without glaringly duplicating those already invented.

[Tiemler]

Originally posted by Fusion Rifle
A hundred to zero intelligent species in the Milky Way? Guys, you appear surprisingly pessimistic.

When I said perhaps a hundred, it seemed like guarded optimism to me at the time.

If you want the pessimistic view, at least when it comes to the prospects of scoring with blue alien chicks, check out Marshall T. Savage's The Millennial Project sometime.

MOO II had no need for starlanes, so why should a later and improved game even consider such silly nonsense?

With you on this.

Yup, I mentioned in passing that there might be a risk uniqueness would be difficult to create with many more races. MOO II has 14 and they are all very well thought out.

I'd miss the balance of the races in Moo2 if a random setup meant the Psilons, the Silicoids, and the Darloks weren't even in the game, replaced for this session by the Qurrans and the Tapeworms and the Screwheads. And even though a feature could be included to force the classic races into the game, it'd kill the immersion, IMO.

One thing I'd add to Moo2 if I woke up one morning with programming skills and too much free time on my hands, is a button for "Just Create A Random Smegging Galaxy, Already," where the mineral richness, organic richness, and size are all randomly determined.

AI design surely doesn't have to be optimal.

No, but I'd love to see a fix where player-designed ships are incorporated into the AI's strategy. Have the techs needed for X ship design? Build it. Have most of the techs? Research them and build it. Etc.

You could even factor in the personality of the AI ruler. Where some rulers might wait for all the techs they need for a killer fleet, an Erratic Technologist would get his hands on a new technology and couldn't resist the urge to go "Gentlemen, BEHOLD!"

[vmxa1]

How about a quick game that just used the previous settings and genned up a map. You could also offer fast path to use the same settings and you could just go to the race creation.

[Aabraxan]

I don't know about the probability of given life forms evolving far enough to develop space travel, nor about how difficult any particular programming aspect of this (propsosed) MOO IV would be, but I do know what I like and don't like in my games. There are many good suggestions in this thread, and here's my two cents' worth:

1) Real-time or turn-based combat: My vote would be for turn-based every time. If I design the ships, I know what I need them to do. To my mind, all real-time strategy games, at some point, become games of reflexes. I like to be able to stop, think about my next move, make a sandwich, think about it some more, and then take my shot. I don't want my shiny new battleship destroyed because my telephone rang. I have v1.3, so I don't have individual ship initiative, but I like the thought of it.

2) Spying: This is one of the least appealing aspects of MOO II (and I gave up on MOOIII quickly). You send out spies to (a) commit espionage; (b) sabotage; or (c) hide. Then you get reports on what happened. This lacks some depth. I'd like to be able to direct my spies more than that. For example, maybe MOO IV shouldn't let you get an intelligence report on what techs a different species has unless you've sent spies to find out, or unless you've faced one of their ships equipped with a given tech in battle. Once you've discovered what tech they've got, you could send spies to try to steal that tech (e.g., send spies to the Psilon empire to steal phasors), with, perhaps, some (lower) chance of stealing a different tech. At the very least, I'd like to know who my spies stole a tech from. If they've stolen from the Alkari, I'd like to know, so that I could decide whether to have my spies in the Alkari empire hide for a while.

3) Micromanagement: I have read many complaints about the micromanagement aspect of MOO II. Admittedly, in late game stages, it can get rather burdensome to have to visit 15-20 colonies to tell them what to do. At the same time, I like having fine control over what goes on. It's my empire, after all. I like being able to tell X, Y, and Z colonies to stop building something and switch to trade goods to finance the war effort for a while.

4) Leaders: I think that it was vxma1 that commented that having more than 4 leaders would make leaders too powerful. Maybe there need to be more types of leaders. For example, powerful leaders could be quadrant leaders, responsible for multiple systems within a given quadrant of the galaxy, with system leaders having control over one system each. Or perhaps designate multi-system leaders by activity, such as industry leaders, science leaders, agriculture leaders, and trade leaders, to name a few. However, from a programming and replayability standpoint, this might also be a nightmare, I realize. At any rate, I don't think I need a leader for every system, but more than 4 would be nice, particularly on large and huge maps (which I what I play). Maybe the number of leaders could be set according to the size of the galaxy: 2 for tiny, 3 for small, 4 for average, 5 for large, and 6 for huge?

5) Races: Yes, I'd like to see all the MOO II races in the next game. I agree that there's a limit to how many can be put in the game without having them seem like carbon copies of each other. I just can't imagine that playing agains the quartz-based Silicoids, the granite-based Silicoids, and the hematite-based Silicoids all at once would be all that interesting. A few extras, if they can be designed to be unique from the other races, would be nice. But I also agree with the idea that too many just means that it'd take too long to become familiar with them all.

6) Ship design: An AI that could design better ships would be nice. I like the idea of an AI that could mirror or exploit the player's designs. The mirror concept is pretty straightforward. By exploit I mean, for example, if the player uses heavy armor, the AI could abandon armor piercing weapons in favor of autofire. Again this could be a programming, and, consequently, cost-of-production nighmare. My feeling was always that the MOO II AI built ships to use all of the nifty tech in the game, not so much to be effective in battle. On another ship design note, I'd also like more slots in which to save ship designs. While this isn't a huge headache as it is, it could be improved.

7) Diplomacy: I'd like to see the diplomacy engine improved. Quite simply, I'd like to see more variety in how it works. Example: counter-offers. If another species offers to trade tech, I'd like to make a counter-offer. They're offering me something I don't need, so why not ask for money, or some useful piece of tech that they've got?

8) The Random Galaxy: I like the idea of a totally random galaxy. MOO II already generates a new galaxy within the parameters you set, e.g., size, tech level, age, number of opponents, skill level. Would it be that hard to add an extra setting to each of the categories listed: random? That way, I could set, Impossible, 8 players, random size, random tech level, random age, for example.

9) Starlanes: No to starlanes! Starlanes only make sense to me if you're talking about a well-developed system of space travel in which traffic must be regulated.

10) Realism vs. Replayability: Without getting into the ins and outs of just how likely X, Y, or Z is, I'll just say this: Replayability is more important to me than realism. I agree that the next game, assuming that it ever comes to pass, needs some grounding in science. However, I can suspend my disbelief if the game is engrossing. Is it realistic to believe that the Trilarians could ever have developed space travel? Maybe not. Does that spoil MOO II for me? Not one bit. I need some believability, but am not about to go out and research the feasibility of an antimatter drive to determine whether or not a game is playable.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Fusion Rifle

* A final idea: what about as an option introducing a real life stellar neighbourhood map? Sol would in such a case be located in a correct position in regards to other starsystems in its neighbourhood and these would largelly conform to the physical characteristics known to them. Since there would be an awful lot of stars on a map only 40 lightyears across a great number of inconsequential M-stars could of course be omitted. (Within 20 lightyears there are actually about as much as 133 individual stars.)
Many systems would also have to be renamed for aesthethic reasons, since often they are just called things like "GJ 408". A star like 82 Eridani could for example be called "Taranis" (from science-fiction, denoting the same star) and Zeta Tucanae could simply be referred to as Tucana.

I was gonna ask if its possible to do this in Moo2. Is it not possible to create a user designed map in Moo2? Is there any customization possible in Moo2 other than customized races?