Are religions/ethos(es?) still in?

[Arnelos]

Ok, I honestly haven't been paying scrutinizingly close attention to all of the individual features taken out of Moo3 and what's been left in... a lot we apparently just don't know about.

But can either the people who have been spending all of their time on the IGMoO boards or someone like Rantz please let me know whether the religion/ethos system proposed by Alan, et al is still in the game.

Personally, since one of my two (the lesser) degree fields is sociology and my undergrad minor was ethics, I found their model REALLY COOL

I just want to know whether either:

a) That model is still in and in a somewhat similar shape to that originally proposed. I never saw it listed as one of the items officially removed, so it's possible this is still the case.

b) Somehow integrated into other elements of gameplay. For instance, I noticed the "code of honor" for the Saurian species, which seems strikingly similar to the "honor" principle that was one of the ethos options and the tendency for homogeneity of the aquarian races (I don't feel like looking up how you spelled the I-word ). Does this mean that the ethos system has been scrapped and you just decided on a selected ethos for each species/race or does it mean that this is just something of a common element to all Saurian races, but that other aspects of their ethos are adaptable to race, time, and development over the course of the game

Personally, I think it would be really cool to see the ethos develop over the course of the game and for it to be related to public reaction to government type and government activity as originally suggested. Since my primary field is comparative politics and political change in particular, I'm fascinated at how MoO3 is going to handle this and I'd find the game VERY enjoyable on an intellectual level (far more than SMAC, though it was cool) if this stuff was "in".

That said, I can understand if they decided it was too much for the tastes of the mass market

I'd be appreciative of clarification on this. It's not a make-or-break issue for me, as I'm sure I'll find MoO3 a very fun game either way, I'm just curious as to whether they left the system in

Thanks.

SIDE ISSUE: I don't know Greek all that well, despite all of those ancient philosophy classes I took as an undergrad Anyone know what the plural for "ethos" would be?

EDIT: grammar

[Adacore]

I'm pretty ceratin that the ethos system was removed. I think it was either very difficult to implement, or just overly confused the game. I think it's a pity really, because it did sound cool, but if it didn't work, then removing it was the best thing to do.

EDIT: Just looked into it, and ethos was cut in september 2k1.

[93143]

IIRC the plural is "ethe." On Delphi we just called them "ethoi" for lack of better data, until someone looked it up and ruined our fun. Then we kept calling them ethoi because it was easier to say...

[Wainamoinen]

ethos and religion are gonners.

still can choose (within racial limits) gov type and gov policy (from peace & prosperity, steps through 5 to holy war). All AFAIK.

[Alexfrog]

They were cut back in april.

The reason was that they didnt have much effect on the game, and it was very difficult to use them / try to accomplish something with them.

I agree they were cool, but they were cut because they didnt really fit into the game, and I understand that.

[Alexfrog]

or maybe they were cut back in september 2001 as Adacore says.....anyways, they are way long gone

[Arnelos]

Ok. As I said, it's not a make-or-break issue for me. It just would have been cool if it was in.

Thanks for the info.

Btw... as I noted above, I did notice that the Saurians seem to have the "Honor" principle and the Trilarians and Nommo (the I-species#1 ) seem to have the "Homogeneous" principle. Any chance those are more than just color? (at least having an impact on AI behavior, I would assume...). I noticed similar possible principles held by other races (pasifist for one or two races, the Evon could have one of several different principles, etc...). Are there any other principles from the religion/ethos system that were incorporated into the various species/races that I missed? (though people may not know all of that).

[Alexfrog]

Where did you see that?

The saurians tend to have fairly good citizenship stats. (the loyalty rating that effects morale). Is than what you mean by honor...that they have duty citizenship?

[Arnelos]

No, I don't remember where I saw it, but it was in the racial description of the Saurian species somewhere (very recent - might have been a quote from the strategy guide) where it said that all members of the Saurian species had this "honor code" which was referred to as the Saurian Code of Honor or something like that and it could impact diplomacy or whatnot (sort of like the "Honorable" AI trait for the Moo1 AI that made them more trustworthy if they signed an agreement, but holy terrors if you ever broke one with them). There were similar comments about other species, I just don't remember them all.

Considering that I read part of the strategy guide about the races while sitting in Best Buy, I might have picked it up there.

[patrickjb53]

No, I've heard they've been taken out.

[campfreddie]

Dan used that extract from the manualk about the saurian honour code in part 1 of his preivew.

I expect these things will be implemented slightly via the diplomacy tendencies of each race (a bit like honourable/pacifist/xenophobe in MOO2 as you suggest).

Dan says in the latest preview that Sakkra have to be addressed in cold or aggressive terms in diplomacy. If you use a friendly or begging style, they interpret it as weakness and are more likely to get annoyed at you or declare war. Keb (a beta tester) has also said that insulting the Sakkrans tends to earn their respect (as long as you can walk the walk as well as talk the talk!) but hasn't given me any precise details.

[darcy]

But if they are implemented as an AI parameter only, won't that make the whole race relation chart meaningless in multiplayer?

And that Sakkra thing sounds like it boils down to clicking an "Aggressive Tone" button every time you talk to them, and if you don't the AI will ignore you.

I hope the diplomacy model won't be so simplistic and predictable.

[RolandtheMad]

Originally posted by darcy
I hope the diplomacy model won't be so simplistic and predictable.

Me too.. guess we`ll find out soon enough though.

[Craig P.]

Ethos / religion were among the very first cuts, the ones that Emrich and co. made because it just wouldn't be feasible from a resource standpoint to fit them into the game.

[Destroyer]

For me the biggest disappointment in most 4x games is the implementation of Ideology. Only Smac has had a real good crack at it, but no game has really tried to develop it since.

Civ3 should have had a go, but didnt even scratch it. As an example, Democracies IRL are Freedom loving, and tend to stick together, but in Civ3 they are just an economic model. Fundamentalism was removed and advanced form of Military Dictatorship not developed.

I had high hopes for MOO3 when I heard about their socil modeling, Its a shame it was removed.

In my opinion, a lot of the inovation seems to disappear from 4x games these days, and as they are so few and far etween, this genre will start to stagnate if we are not careful.