strat guide info

[Barshy]

could people who have the strat guide start posting some non-spoiler info?

[BleedTheFreak]

Sure, like what? It's a 238 page guide and loaded with great stuff, anything specific?

[Barshy]

Does the strat guide make you more excited about the game, or less so?

How does espionage work?

I guess that's all right now... haha, I originally wanted info and now I'm thinking I'd rather be surprised. I guess I just want a little teaser

[BleedTheFreak]

Oh, I am MUCH MORE excited about the game now. The game really really impresses me, on paper. In experience is a whole other thing of course, but yeah, I am even more revved up.

Espionage isn't a great big secret or anything, basically you train a spy, seperate from planet build ques, and he is assigned a specialty (econmoic spies can slow down and even bankrupt an enemy, military spies can take out goverment buildings, research spies can steal tech). If you leave your spies on active status but not assigned to a mission, they defend against other spies (counter-intelligence). Each type of spy has a list of possible missions they can undertake and stats (cloak - ability to succede and get out before noticed; dagger - ability to pull off an offensive action, like theft, or sabatoge; luck - the maxiumum number of turns a spy can operate before being caught; loyalty - the ability for a spy to restist torture/etc. before revealing whom he works for).

There is many many things spies can do, but I won't get into them now. Espionage and all it's racial and tech upgrades will be very cool, I strongly suspect.

[vmxa1]

Her ya go from PTW guide:


"There is one and only one, area where the AI actually has an ablility that you don't. From the the start of the game, the AI knows th entire world map. For the purposes of interaction with other cicilizations and overseas trade, the AI can not see the whole map -- it is still affected by the fog of war. However, the AI knows the location and contents of every terrain tile, including the locations of every strategic resource before it appears."
They go on to say that trading maps to the AI is a freebie item that you can give away with little regret.
"The only thing you're actualy providing is the ability for the AI to trade across bodies of water." The AI must be able to "see" across the water from harbor to harbor through the fog of war in order to have a trade route.

Also :

page 123. "The AI in civilization III cannot differentiate bewteen the human player and other AI players, so the AI can't gang up on you just because you are the human."
Oh and another quote from P124:

"The development team went to great pains to make sure that if you play and make the same decissions as an AI opponent, given the same conditions, your game and the AI's game would be absolutely identical. So, if you think the AI is cheating you, it's just a case of sour grapes on your part."


This for all of the people that swear the ai cheats and trade unfairly.

Hey you did not say what guide.

[Skanky Burns]

Considering it's the MoO3 forum...

[wervdon]

You scared me vxma1, I didnt notice the PTW at the top at first, and thought I was reading that the moo3 ai knows the entire galaxy map at the start Not that it'd be all that useful cept to know what the optimal colonization order is to maximize your range to reach juicy planets fastest or to make war on the poor human sap sooner

[campfreddie]

Vxma1, you are pure evil...

Bleedthefreak: Can you give some info about custom race design?

Is it like MOO2 (build from scratch and pick any race art) or can you only make minor adjustments to the existing races (e.g. you can make a human race that has better farmers and worse diplomacy but not one that lives on gas giants)? I've always campaigned for the latter, otherwise the races lose their character.

Any info you can give on this would be cool, and I don't think it will spoil the game, just let us plan our races.

Perhaps put a ***SPOILER!*** notice if you post though.

[Barshy]

Another question (thanks for answering them!): how different really are the races? Are they just about as different as the SMAC factions (which I thought were pretty different but could have been much more so)?

Oh yeah, and no info on Ithkul please, of course..

[BleedTheFreak]

Originally posted by Barshy
Another question (thanks for answering them!): how different really are the races? Are they just about as different as the SMAC factions (which I thought were pretty different but could have been much more so)?

Oh yeah, and no info on Ithkul please, of course..

They seem very different. There are a lot of things that define a race, from mining to bioharvesting, to research and starting goverment, etc. Each race seems to have a strong advantage in one or more areas and then weaknesses to balance them out, basically a little something for every playing style, but if you prefer one race's "look" to another races actual stats, you can always tweak the race custom style and make a race that is perfect for you. Plus, each race has several unique "fingerprints" if you will about them, such as a diplomacy bonus/penalty for different combinations of races (as an example, I don't have the book in front of me these numbers are made up, humans and psilons are 20% friendly to each other, and humans and Silicoids have a mutual hatred of one another that sours relations by 17% or something. While you can customize a race, you can't change what it is fundamentaly. You can re-shape your humans but they will still hate the silicoids (as I understand it, and again, based on example numbers I made up, I don't really remember if the humans hate the silicoids).

I hope that helps?

[Barshy]

yeah, it does.... what does the guide say about casus belli? That's how your people feel about a certain race, right? Can you influence it, or what is it effected by?

[Alex-C]

This "grudge" or "liking" of other races. Although its predetermined and definitive of the race you choose, may it be altered through diplomacy or war? (i think this is also what Barshy was kinda asking too, sorry ) Also, say if you declare war on a race that your race "likes", or make peace with a race that your race "hates", can it split popular opinion to the point of rebellion/civil war?

[Yolky]

some of the stronger races in Moo and Moo2 are the weakest ones now, wich caught me by suprise. They have a ranking in from strongest to weakest to play the races and was suprised it said to play the weakest race for a challenge.

Davor

[Ray K]

Originally posted by Yolky
some of the stronger races in Moo and Moo2 are the weakest ones now, wich caught me by suprise. They have a ranking in from strongest to weakest to play the races and was suprised it said to play the weakest race for a challenge.

Davor

Having stronger and weaker races is a Good Thing (tm), specifically for the reason you mentioned.

[BleedTheFreak]

Originally posted by Alex-C
This "grudge" or "liking" of other races. Although its predetermined and definitive of the race you choose, may it be altered through diplomacy or war? (i think this is also what Barshy was kinda asking too, sorry ) Also, say if you declare war on a race that your race "likes", or make peace with a race that your race "hates", can it split popular opinion to the point of rebellion/civil war?

Yeah, everybody is pre-disp'd to other races. For example (again, making it up for the sake of an example) let's say humans and silicoids hate each other. Then, when you first encounter them, you can declare ware on them withought angering the people. However, let's say instead of declaring war, they actually initiate peace talks and go so far as to reach out with a trade agreement and a non-agression pact. Now, against this one race of silicoids (if there is another say splinter race they may still hate you) your people will be really pissed if, all of the sudden, you up and decide you want there territory and you have a larger fleet then they do. So, from what I understand* yeah, it starts a set way but is very fluid from then on as the game develops.

*I have not played it, but there are 17 written examples of gameplay in the strategy guide, so it sort of feels like I have played it to a small degree.