MoO3 & 2 SYNONYMS: the song remains the same?

[Master Marcus]

"some esoteric name changes.....and new questions"

Well, after reading some stuff ( particularly at the race picks dump ), I have found a few terms and names that strucked me. Some are finely detailed next to their MoO2 counterparts, some others only an embellishment for saying the same thing, and new ones in the series. First of all the most pompous one : HFOG. "Heavy Foot Of Government". How did they come to that "heavy" statement with 4 single words ? If simplicity is bliss, then call this inefficiency : like SMACx's inefficiency when you expand your empire, HFOG is the MoO3's inefficiency system when expanding too much. The FOG is not lifting. Why "heavy foot" instead of inefficiency?

-- the BCs are now called AU ( Antaran units ).

-- the Omniscient ability is now called ....Antaran Background. I wished they have called this The Antaran Matrix instead. Is the AB ( Omniscient ) still in the plans or cancelled ? I find it too much powerful ( unbalancing ) like Creative.

-- some embellishments:

(MoO3) (MoO2)
| |

Etherean (new) ---- X
Geodic ---- Lithovore
Ichthytosian( I like that one!)----- Aquatic
Collectivist ----- Unification
Representative ----- Democarcy
Transitional (new) ----- X (MoO3
revolt result )
Tribalistic ----- -Feudal?-(not
like MoO2)
Unique (new) ----- X
Absolutist ----- X (some
Dicatorship + adv.Feudal )

Note that this is only a few conceptual glossary we can compare: the mathematical + and - in MoO3 for each differ a lot from the prequels.

Tribalistic: the archaic form of feudalism in space? Reminds me a lot of David Brin's species...

Absolutist: is that more a monarchy than a dictatorship? perhaps a bit of both....

[Bleyn]

I would imagine that at least some of the changes come because Quicksilver is trying to imbue the game with their own flavor. And I can see some good arguements for changing some of the names and terms that they have.

Like Omniscience -> Antaran Background. Among other things, it gives them more room to play with exactly what AB means and does if play balancing appears to be called for. Omniscience is one of those terms that is so specific that it sort of forces them to do it pretty much just one way, without any option to tone it down. AB on the other hand can mean just about anything they want it to.

Geodic has more implications for what the species is made of. Where Lithovore really only says that they gain their sustainence directly from rocks and minerals. Theoretically, they could down the road release an expansion pack with a Geodic species that is crystaline based, yet actually requires carbon based foods. (well if their structure has strong elements of diamond or graphite in it, why not? it is Sci-Fi after all)

You could probably use similar logic on at least a couple of other terms that they changed. It means almost the same thing, but the changes could at least allow them to go in different ways.

As for Tribalistic v. Feudal, these are very different socio-political structures. Not at all similar. I would suspect Absolutist of being more their take on Feudalism than Tribalistic. And I do know what you mean about Tribalistic and the David Brin thing.


On a complete tangent, that just gave me an interesting thought. If they release editors for MOO3, it could be interesting to mod MOO3 to semi-resemble Brin's Uplift universe.

[Ozymandous]

HFOG

After spending some time over at the MOO3 discussion boards (what a jumbled mess they are!) here is the general reason that QS is using this term.

"Heavy Foot of Government (HFOG)" is not simply a representation of governmental inefficiency, waste and/or corruption but an attempt of measuring how much the government impacts the empire as a whole.

For example...

You pass a certain ordinance or law to cut down on pollution that will boost your productivity empire-wide but it would also increase you HFOG because of all the extra government workers needed to inspect and keep track of the factories and other operations that would pollute.

HFOG represents how much government impacts society. Want to pass a law to cut down on littering to make your citizens happy, then your HFOG might increase due to having to hire and pay more police officers, etc.

I hope this clears things up a little. HFOG is, IMHO, a good name for such a concept but others might not think so. If you want to see better reasons than I mentioned and other possible names check the thread out on the MOO3 message boards that relate to this very concept.

[Master Marcus]

Bleyn, good post. I anticipate like you the "Brinesque" influence in MoO3 's space-opera background. I suspect one or more designer(s) well fond of his Uplift universe. Always think about the Soros...

Ozymandous: you have made a good résumé for those haven't the countless hours needed to lurk in their official forum ( a crowded jumbled mess, I agree ). I have deliberitely limited my thoughts to a vulgarization level ( first of all I tend to avoid very long posts ) about the name, the ACRONYM - thanks for bringing the details. Each game has its specific inefficiency system; it's just that I find the HFOG acronym ( not its detailed engine ) a bit "clumsy"...well, I'll call it the Galactic clumsiness.

P.S. to all: did you see the number of posts in some of their major threads like "MoO3 ask the fans": technology and units ??? Bewildering to say the least. I hope they split more specifically next time.

[Stormhound]

Just to toss in a few comments...

Governments are identified by "series" and "type". Absolutist is a series; Despotism (for example) is one type within that series, Monarchy is another. All series (except Unique) have more than one type.
Antaran Background is still in, and I don't expect to see it cut.

"Jumbled Mess" is a matter of what one is used to; I took to the format immediately and had no trouble with it. If this board had the same number of posts to it (over 86,000), I would defy anyone here to find the most useful information in it. Crowded, I'll give you...but one gets more ideas that way.
Other than that, looks like the answers are covered.