I was wrong about MOO3

[Lazarous]

...and this game is all about micromanagement, right? I thought the point was that you're the emperor and give policies that your underlings follow. If you have to fight the AI, kicking and screaming, as you force it to do what you want, there are serious issues with the interface.

That being said, i find the planetary control interface managable. The dev plans and planet AI do a reasonable job once you accept that it won't be working at maximum efficiency as compared to a human player microing. I find that only focusing on a few core planets to micro lets my empire run along smoothly and gives me at least a semblance of control.

But..as i said above, there are things that you simply cannot do in-game and these things will make running your empire a royal pain in the ass. You can deal with the endless swarms of support troops and transports and other useless crap the AI builds...but the reason you have to is because of shoddy game design, not any underlying concept of what it is like to run a galactic empire.

Laz

[Ianpolaris]

Laz,

Agreed....fleet balance is the most egregious example that you have already listed. From what you have said, the "so called" ideal fleet composition is hard coded. That is bad design. This is a strategy game. As such the game should let the player attempt to build an all BB fleet if he wants too. Sure it may be a lousy move and sure that fleet might get torn apart because of the lack of escort ships but part of the fun of any strategy game lies in allowing the player to make such mistakes.

That's one (of many) things I find lacking in Moo III.

-Polaris

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Ianpolaris
. From what you have said, the "so called" ideal fleet composition is hard coded. That is bad design. This is a strategy game. As such the game should let the player attempt to build an all BB fleet if he wants too.

It takes five minutes to cut the picket and escort requirements from the game. Also you can increase the max armada size to whatever you want it to be.

And you can prevent troop ships from being built by just obsoleting them.

And you can change the ratios of ground troops to support by editing the spreadsheets as well. Takes another five minutes. Well this isn't "in-game" you're right. but is there a time in game when you want 10 magazines or something per troop?

I've found that many of the complaints here on the forum can be easily fixed, such as the ones above. You will see that, while I argue about this stuff, I don't touch the PD problem or make assertions that the AI is perfect or anything. You are pointing out problems, and I am pointing out solutions. The problem is, you've taken the game back, so you don't really want solutions.

[Lazarous]

You're missing the point - while you change the various AI files you're changing them globally, as in every single AI empire will now build up forces as to the specs you designed. Further, unless you go and change those values every time you want a new fleet composition, you're still going to be stuck with a set design that your AI governors will try to build, no matter what your current technology and ship designs would make you want to dictate.

The only real 'solution' to this problem is a new menu (or add the various sliders somewhere) that lets you tell the AI the ratios of fleet composition you want. Changing .mob files is at best a half-way fix, and still doesn't allow anywhere near the level of control something like dev plans does for planetary development.

As for preventing troop ships being built by obsoleteing them...great, you've now just increased the amount of support ground troops your AI will build. Wonderful. This still entails fighting the AI to get what you want accomplished.

As i said before, its the horrible inconsistency in the interface that well and truly pisses me off. Dev plans for planets? Great. Why no dev plans for military matters?

Laz

[Ianpolaris]

Asleepathewheel,

Please, PLEASE, listen to what you are saying!

You are saying that to play Moo III effectively, I as the casual gamer am supposed to go in and make my own Mods?!

Are you INSANE! That is horrid design!

-Polaris

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Ianpolaris
Asleepathewheel,

Please, PLEASE, listen to what you are saying!

You are saying that to play Moo III effectively, I as the casual gamer am supposed to go in and make my own Mods?!

I'm saying that some of the things you complain about are easily fixed. Now, if you just spent half the time you spend posting here on modding, even one-tenth, then you would probably find your experience to be more enjoyable.

If you would rather post ad nauseum about this and that, than fix the game yourself, then thats your prerogative.

And, no, a casual gamer need not make his own mod. Mods already are online, they even come with self-installers, so even casual gamers with no programming experience can use them to enhance their gaming.

Originally posted by Ianpolaris
Are you INSANE!

I think the word sadomasochist would be the more appropritate term here, as in I must like self mutilation to keep replying to you.

Originally posted by Ianpolaris
That is horrid design!

Did you play Civ3?

At first nearly all the values for the game were hardcoded and people freaked out. Now its patched and many, but not all, of the things are changeable through the editor.

Can you imagine how much less regard there would be for the game if modders couldn't play around with the game and get it to act differently?

As I said above, causal gamers might not find anything wrong with the game at all. But if they do, it takes ten minutes to find a mod and five to download and install it. I would think people would take fifteen minutes to do this rather than immediately write off 50 dollars.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Lazarous
You're missing the point - while you change the various AI files you're changing them globally, as in every single AI empire will now build up forces as to the specs you designed. Further, unless you go and change those values every time you want a new fleet composition, you're still going to be stuck with a set design that your AI governors will try to build, no matter what your current technology and ship designs would make you want to dictate.

My point wasn't that it woudl make the system flawless, as there are still major problems as you have pointed out. My point was that you can adjust things so that the AI will be more competitive. Not perfect, that probably can only be patched, if even then.

Originally posted by Lazarous
The only real 'solution' to this problem is a new menu (or add the various sliders somewhere) that lets you tell the AI the ratios of fleet composition you want. Changing .mob files is at best a half-way fix, and still doesn't allow anywhere near the level of control something like dev plans does for planetary development.

I never advocated this as a panacea, did I? I was merely saying that it was a method to use as a half-way fix to make the game more enjoyable. It does for me. It does not fix all the problems, but makes the AI more competitive. And I agree that there should be internal sliders that can control this.

Originally posted by Lazarous
As for preventing troop ships being built by obsoleteing them...great, you've now just increased the amount of support ground troops your AI will build. Wonderful. This still entails fighting the AI to get what you want accomplished.

One of the problems with the AI and with me was the HFoG. I am now using the HFoG removal mod, which means the AI and I have about 2-3 times the production capacity. This also means that there are more ships instead of troops. HFoG is flawed because the AI cannot manipulate it like the Human.

I have found that this increases the amount of ships built versus the amount of troops.

What happens is this: I have certain ship designs that can be built. The AI will only build something that is within a certain amount of the total PP of the planet. Not sure what the ratio exactly was. This meant, before, only my most well developed planets would have the capacity to build the titans etc. The rest would default to troops and mobiles and stuff like that, cause it didnt have much capacity. Removing HFoG allows more planets to build more ships than troops.

Make sense? that was a convoluted paragraph.

Again, removing HFoG is a temp-fix. I like the idea of HFoG, but it just doesn't play out correctly, especially when it is so easily exploitable by the human.

Originally posted by Lazarous
As i said before, its the horrible inconsistency in the interface that well and truly pisses me off. Dev plans for planets? Great. Why no dev plans for military matters?
Laz

FWIW, I agree, I was just pointing out some things you could do to make the game more enjoyable. Not final solutions, but more than just shelving the game entirely.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Ianpolaris
Please, PLEASE, listen to what you are saying!

You are saying that to play Moo III effectively, I as the casual gamer am supposed to go in and make my own Mods?!

No you can just download the text file if the idea of using an unzip tool and notepad is too much for you. Its really easy to do however.

I've never "modded" in my life but I've had no problems using the Civ 3 editor, character editors for roleplaying games or editing text files in Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron or MoO3. They are all made very easily accessible precisely because they do expect people to want to change them.

[Ianpolaris]

Asleepathewheel and Grumbold,

I am of the firm opinion that you both are deep into denial. The game sucks. Futhermore I actually seem to be in the overall majority (if not on these boards). Go check out Gamespot or Amazon.com and look at the user feedback...and tell me that I am wrong. I have already listed all the reasons why I think Moo III sucks...no need to rehash it now. Basically (and thanks Laz for a very complete list of the problems) it comes down to this:

If I have to rely on Mods to make a game playable (that is assuming I can even understand the numbers behind the game enough to make intelligent Mods), then the game is doomed to fail. Moo III is failing: Just look at the buyer feedback at Amazon.com if you doubt.

As for CivIII, I played Civ III and didn't like it. I felt Yin's comments on the game were pretty much dead accurate. NEVERTHELESS, the game was interesting enough to put up with all of it's faults and your strategy *did* matter (unlike Moo III). I also note that Moo III does not come with an Editor. The devs obviously never intended this game to be modded.

In short saying "Wait for the Patch" or "You can modd the fixes" is denial. If you have to do these things to even play the game (and Ellestar in another thread made a good point that the game is unplayable both on the SP and MP level), then the game is wretched almost by definition.

-Polaris

[darcy]

The design flaw, as correctly pointed out, is not the value of the hard-coded ship ratio, it's the choice to keep this ratio hard-coded and therefore constant throughout a whole game, for all players. There is no way to adapt the ratio to a specific situation, and therefore once again a possibility for interesting choices has been removed. This lack of interesting choices is omnipresent in Moo3.

This example also proves that "manage macro, not micro" has not been a design philosophy but merely an afterthought. Had Moo3 really been designed with convenient "macromanagement" in mind, it would be possible to order a complete task force of arbitrary composition on the imperial level, and the viceroy AIs would build and compose accordingly.

[kalbear]

Ian -

you still didn't answer my question. A bummer, that.

Also, I'm sorry that you haven't had fun with the game. I'm having a blast. That doesn't mean all players will, nor does it mean that MoO3 isn't riddled with some very serious flaws.

But your contention that just because a majority of people don't like MoO3 makes it a game that no one will like, and thus I am in deep denial, is simply wrong. By that argument, why is anyone playing computer games? We're all in denial, correct - it's hardly what you'd call a majority activity. Console games, sure, that's a majority, but not PC games, not by a longshot.

I like playing MoO3. It's a fun game for me. I can see why people don't like it, and I don't like parts of it, but I also have a great time playing. If you can't see why, that's fine - I can't really understand why you haven't gotten into the game either. But hey, that's okay.

Just be aware that while this isn't a mainstream success, it will be a good game one day. And even if it's not to your liking, it is to other's liking.

[Ianpolaris]

Darcy,

That is correct. I will put it another (and IMHO simplier) way:

If the player wants to do nothing but build Missile Cruisers or Beam Battleblimps all day long with no escorts, the game should allow the player to do this. Of course it may be bad strategy, and of course the player probably deserves to go bankrupt, lose his fleet, or both (in essence lose) because of this, but that is what strategy games are for.

In short, a good strategy game is about making interesting and meaningful choices. That is something that Moo III consistantly and persistantly refuses to let you do (and I wonder if the Devs didn't do that deliberately).

-Polaris

[Ianpolaris]

Kalbear,

What question was that? If was the one that asked if I felt the game could be fixed, I thought I answered that (in another thread btw), but I can't seem to find my post.

I will answer it here briefly. I think that Patching might fix some of the more gaping holes, but I don't think this game ultimately can be salvaged. Here's why I think that:

1. Too many problems. Remember that patching takes time and money (and reduces the profits of the line). To actually go in and FIX all the things that are fixable in the patch, you would wind up rewriting and retesting at least a third of the code. That isn't going to happen in any patch.

2. Too many poor design decisions. The decision to hard code fleet composition (for example) is a design decision as is the half-assed macromanagement controlls. I don't see how these things can be fixed in a meaningful way without tearing apart the engine and starting over....and again that just isn't going to happen in a patch.

3. It is my firm opinion (based on the time overruns, delays, terrible press, and the firing of the lead designer) that Infogrames has essentially written off the Moo franchise. Sure QS may want to fix the game (not that I'd trust them to do it at this point), but given what the mainstream game audience is saying (and that is who Infogrames is listening to at this point), QS will have to do it for free if at all....and nobody works for free.

4. This game quite obviously suffers from 'Feeping Creaturism' and it is quite clear (just by reading their posts) that the Devs have a serious Ego problem about now. To actually fix many of the things people are complaining about would force the Devs to admit they were wrong. Considering that they obviously did not listen to their beta testers, I wouldn't hold my breath.

That's enough. Will we see a patch for this? Maybe in about three months (given what Rantz has said), but it will only fix the AI and give a new hard-code for AI fleets. In short they will do what Modders are already starting to do (because that is easy and cheap). Oh...and they will rewrite the manual (but again I am not expecting much in that department).

IMHO the game will be allowed to die at that point. After all, how many patches to Birth of the Federation have you seen lately?

-Polaris

[N4M8-]

Go check out Gamespot or Amazon.com and look at the user feedback...

All 3 of the people who wrote reviews at Amazon?

Gamespot has relative mix of reviews both positive and negative.

[kalbear]

Ian - I asked what you thought were errors in the game that you felt could not be fixed by the modding community relatively quickly. And you still haven't really answered that.

You say that it would take time to fix everything that is broken. What exactly is broken that the modders can't fix? Heck, what is broken that hasn't been fixed by the modding community already? The diplomatic AI is getting closer to being correct, and the biggest deal I can find (and this is a big deal, mind you) is the PD bug. What is so hard to do in the game that would take forever to do? Are you talking about design issues, bug issues, or something else?

For example, if you believe that the interface is fundamentally unsound, then I believe you are right from your point of view; the interface is not going to fundamentally change from here on out. There might be shortcut keys/ways to get to the military queue, for instance, or to deploy a colony ship, but I don't see them doing significant changes to the interface. If that is what you see as a flaw, well, that's understandable.

But on the other hand, you can do things like make every single planetary improvement buildable by the player through the planet queue, and thus make it so that the AI never touches them. I suspect the same is true for DEAs, but we've not found out how quite yet; they both use an invisible queue, and it's just a matter of putting them into a visible one that the AI doesn't have control over.

Poor design decisions do seem to be there. There are many things I don't like and wish were different. That being said, there's very little of the overall game I find so hideously flawed it can't be fixed. Fleet compositions are hardcoded, true, but at the same time one can make new fleet types with different compositions. One can vary the levels that these are built and favored as well. Would it be nice to build various ones as you see fit? Yep, but a corrolary is to have a mod that has all the ones you want.

As to listening or not listening to the BTs, I think they did release a game that wasn't well-polished. That doesn't mean they won't polish it. Again, I realize you played MoO2 when it first came out and loved it, but I HATED it. It was a miserable game full of CTDs (something I've not had once, yet), various graphical errors, weird bugs with ship construction, lying interfaces, odd stats, and horrible imbalance right out of the box. It was playable, but it wasn't as fun as MoO was - it was merely prettier. YMMV, apparently - it took to 1.2 to make it playable; heck, 1.1 made it worse, and 1.3 was just wacky.

I do see that it's a big disappointment to you, and I appreciate you being articulate about it, but I just don't see what's so impossible to change about the game yet.