Master of Orion III

[pchang]

Science fiction fan

I enjoy science fiction, so I like MOO and fervently hope for MOO3 to come out sooner rather than later. I also enjoy the futuristic parts of CIV. However, they happen so late in the game that it is pretty much always over by the time I reach that point.

[Father Beast]

I'm still not sold on this "Imperial Focus" nonsense. but the rest of the game as put out sounds great!

I like that terraforming is race specific, and huge galaxies with thousands of worlds are possible.
I remember playing the original MoO in huge galaxies where stargates really mattered! The addition of several planets in MoO2 was quite a joy, though the game sort of sucked in a lot of other ways.

In short, the jury is out on MoO3, but I'll certainly be willing to look at it...

[Warm Beer]

I have a few answers to address some fo the concerns of some in this thread. I am a long time lurker on the official Moo3 forum (wish they had a better forum design..ugh), so take what I say with a grain of salt.

RE: Release date-
The official stance of Quicksilver has been 3 mos after CivIII of 1Q 2002, whichever is later. Moo3 and CivIII are both being published by Infogrames who doens't want to release two games at similar times that could conceivably compete with each other.

RE: Graphics-
Moo3 is not even in Alpha yet... there is a bunch of work yet to be done. But I am not a programmer nor an artist, so I know how much not even being to the Alpha stage effects art.

RE:Races-
The smaller mumber of races is a result of wanted to make 16 unique races that have individual depth to them, rather than 10 or so unique races and a bunch of silly variations on the same themes. IIRC, there will be up to 32 different player positions available in the game.

RE:IFPs-
This is probably the hardest sell. I, too, thought "This SUX!!" when I first read about it, but as I learned more about the game and the design, I am beginning to think that this is going to work.
From the sheer size of the galaxy to the mind mumbing options a player will (in theory) be able to choose from, the IFP thing may well be a blessing to help 'focus' the player in to making the most pertinent choices during each turn.

Stopping now, no one likes a long post.

[DanS]

IFPs and governors are the way to go. I've been wondering for years why they didn't do this in Civ. Helps with balance and the fun factor, just as long as the governors aren't totally retarded.

[[LordLMP]]

I don't mind the imperial focus thing...but do hope there will be an option/cheat to disable/unlimited it available when i get bored with it I like cheat codes available in games...i am no cheater, but it is useful for me to increase its replayablity play as the most advance empire in the game.....play as the richest..... play as the most advance and the richest which only controls one system and so on

Me personally, i don't give a hoot about the graphics (aslong it is not worse then MOO2), aslong as the gameplay rocks

-LMP

[Master Marcus]

"Emperor-Spectator"

I remember putting ON governors in my very first SMAC games: the AI was often qualified as artificial idiot for a reason. Thereafter I played ( like most SMAC(x)-addicts ) everything by myself, micromanaging everything. It was - and still - the only way to build an empire I like . And I'm not sure that within the last 2 years and a half the programmers have improved the AI to build a VARIETY of intelligent things to improve EVERY colony you have the same way a human player can do.

So the dreadful IFP points they'll put in MOO3 are still....a bit frightful to me, because they mean the end of micromanaging everything the way you like. We may be condemned to play, for example, the highest diff level ( not too soon I guess ) as a simple "emperor-spectator" during battles if we choose to spend ALL of the turn IFP to SOME colonies??? Sounds defeat to me....

However this system is almost essential - it's a paradox. A huge galaxy of 10,000 colonies at all (and a 1,000 ships each empire), wow, that really means the end of micromanaging- just imagine designing every ship, a single turn could take a day to make!

[Urban Ranger]

That also means you need a Cray to run the game.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Zkribbler


What?!? Haven't these people heard of Christmas??? That's spelled X-M-A-S, huge net sales numbers, ka-ching. They'd better rethink their timing.

No, they´d not; they are cool strategists. They give people 3 months to find out that Civ is just the same old Civ. Then they hit them over the head with something that is really all new. A clean knock-out.

[Master Marcus]

Hmmm, I'me sure the delay is going to be something like 6 months instead of 3. MOO3 is very far to be Beta, and when it will be, the testing is going to be delicate. Maybe this will give us the real time to play both games.

[Cybergod]

Re: Science fiction fan

Originally posted by pchang
I enjoy science fiction, so I like MOO and fervently hope for MOO3 to come out sooner rather than later. I also enjoy the futuristic parts of CIV. However, they happen so late in the game that it is pretty much always over by the time I reach that point.

I agree. But since I started playing SMAC/X, I think my satisfaction with Sci-fi has saturated a bit. All that micro-managment (AAARRRGGGHHH!!! ), I just wonder how you will get to manage thousands of colonies, let alone one Planet in SMAC. Also, what about my wallet problem!? How am I gonna get BOTH Civ3 and Moo3?! (I'll manage!)

[Stormhound]

Regarding the AI: Yes, we know it's going to be critical. That's why QS brought in someone to start working on the AI a year ago. You folks tell me, is that the usual way it works in the industry, the team starts working on the AI a year and a half before release?

So far as "emperor spectator": the situation you describe is virtually impossible for one simple reason. You get your turn's IFP in the middle of the turn, immediately PRIOR to the space combat segment. So you'll always have a fresh, steaming batch of IFP to fight your battles. Now, if you choose to spend them all fighting battles, and don't save any to manage your empire, that's your own look-out, no? (Same goes if you get into so many battles you can't personally manage them all.)

So far as what's needed to run the game: the minimum spec (which right now is just under a P2-300) is not the usual "this will be good enough to load the game, but lots of luck trying to play it". Instead, the minimum spec is being set as the slowest computer on which the game will run at an acceptable speed for the consumer. That's why, for instance, the ship graphics are pre-rendered...so space combat won't drag like a dead mule.

Any other questions?

[tniem]

Stormhound,

Thanks for the information.

One more question from me for now

It is about battles. In most RTS games you have to monitor you troops quite heavily to make sure they aren't firing on each other or attacking pointless buildings when they are taking fire. Yet I want to save IFPs and build my empire. Am I going to let fighting be handled by my commanders so much that I don't even have to do anything during the fight? Can the AI handle the battles without any interaction with me well? Can I just watch the battles? And does it cost IFPs to only watch?

[Stormhound]

Well, you understand that it's a little difficult for me to make predictions of what you're going to do...

However, I can make a couple of comments. First, the RTT space battles (not ground) will be rather more slowly paced (as in Harpoon; some have also mentioned Shogun but I haven't seen it so I can't compare). That'll cut down on a little of the frantic watching.

Ships will be grouped and commanded in task forces; task forces are designed around concepts (which you can set), and then assigned to missions (either by you, or by the AI in command) before and during the battle. There is some complexity to what's allowed, but I can't go into details. You can also override orders during the battle, but it takes the task force commander some time to redirect his ships.

Can the AI handle the battles? The good ones can, the bad ones maybe not. You see, you have Leaders in those positions (Admiral, Task Force Commanders, Ship Captains) with varying levels of ability. If you get some yutz for an Admiral who obviously got there based on his family connections, you'll have to watch him like a hawk. If you get your own version of Alexander the Great, you may be able to let him loose and worry about other things. Leaders will come and go, and they're in all areas of the game, so your attention will doubtless shift as the game goes on. Anyhow, there's a lot of effort being put into making the ships react intelligently. In fact, that's what our first AI guy started out working on.

Watching and IFP: all of this is subject to playtest, so what I tell you now may not be true at release. As things stand now, you can watch battles if you so choose (you may or may not have the ability to "jump in" and command during the battle). The first such would be free, but after that they would start costing IFP. There are also after-battle reports from which you can gain information, so I don't know how many battles people will choose to watch. Some of this is a multiplayer pacing thing; if you watch every single battle, games will take longer, which depending on the players can be a Bad Thing. We're trying to keep the pacing up, so we'll adjust things as need be.

[Comrade Tribune]

Stormhound, what I hear is so much to my liking I am going to save my IFPs. I believe You guys at Quicksilver do Your job so well that, at this time, there is simply no need for Imperial Intervention . (Good for You, because my regime is rather repressive. )

[[LordLMP]]

So to simply Watch may cost IFPs? What about checking the colonies, to simply look through to see what they are building, etc...?

In SMAC/X and MOO2, i let the governor/colony build the hoot they want unless i need something specific, like some peticular building for that colony/base, units/ships, etc...

of course, that could be a simple overview like the colony menu/base list menu... but the thing in SMAX, don't need to look at the list or go inside the base to find out what they are building, tells you right under the name of the place. So i simply quickly do a overview of the map in SMAX to see what they are building... if they are building something i don't want, like mindworms for example...i do a simple Right click to pop a little menu and go change production then i tell what they should be building or just click on the field again to reset them into build things under that fielf (Explore, Discover, Build, Conquer).

Also, will there be an option to disable the IFP in single player in MOO3? atleast a cheat code for unlimited IFP? or do we have to Cheat/hack for it?

Will there be a Scenario editor?

-LMP