MoO3 rebuttal by Bruce Geryk

[kalbear]

I'm really curious to see what happens when all I do is hit 'turn'. I've never felt this way when playing, and still feel like I can fine-tune and optimize the things early on to get better late-game results.

I'll totally grant that you can do this with senate victory on, as that's an incredibly easy win condition. But it's not the only way to do it. And if you turn that condition off, I can't see how you'd win.

So tell me, how did you do it?

[Ianpolaris]

Lockstep,

I am not a professional programmer. I learned to program largely on my own for numeric modeling for Finite Temperature QED calculations. I am adding that just to be clear...I am *not* a game programmer.

Having said that, I doubt that this game is salvagable. There seem to be too many problems with the engine itself that seem to be too fundamental to the game. IMHO a patch that adequately fixed even half of what is wrong with this game would require an almost total rewrite of the code....which isn't going to happen.

Also given the negative feedback of late and the fact the game was grossly overdue and underdone, I strongly suspect that Infogrames is going to wash their hands of this proverbial mess and move on. That means that it doesn't much matter what QS wants to do....they won't have the support to do it.

Besides, after this four year debacle, I wouldn't trust QS to write a good game of 'pong'. Especially not when they stated that they were holding back the release date 'to make sure it was done right'.

In sum, QS lied about the status of the game, and so any hurt feeling are of supreme indifference to me. [I hate being lied to.]

-Polaris

[booje]

I ran that experiment of hitting next turn until. like turn 200, when I just got bored and went onto something else.

Out of mild curiosity, I loaded up ALPHA CENTAURI, nearly automated everything and did the same thing of hitting next turn. It is actually very fun to watch a game of Alpha Centauri unfold this way! Hey, the code stands for itself when almost five years later you can load a game and still have fun playing it. Will anybody be loading up MOO3 five years from now? Time will tell.

I think the article is good in that it finally puts together the picture of what happened. It easily clear to me that everyone involved with MOO3 had the very best of intentions to put out a product which stood head and shoulders above everything. I too would've put full faith behind Alan Emrich and the dev team at QS. But in the end, it came to be a train wreck. Sid, where are you when we need you?

[vee4473]

what happened in the AC experiment?

[booje]

I (the "AI") was mostly kicking ass, building troops, building things (depending on how the governor was set to build), invading, getting invaded, lauching strategic campaigns, conquering cities, discovering new territories, basically all kinds of cool things.
I had it set to the easiest level so I'd expect as much.

The MOO3 version of tedious with a whole lot of nothing going on. Some empire declaring war, then not, then again, then not, over and over. I was "discovering" all kinds of research thingys but I couldn't tell the difference between them. Basically, pointless and boring.

[kalbear]

Ian -

what do you see as fundamentally flawed parts that are not changeable by the community directly, and would be hard to do otherwise? Right now, the only one I see that isn't instantly changeable is right-clicking for info, which requires mouseevent handlers and whatnot. Diplo options could be fleshed out as well, but I think sending more useful messages (like including a list of 'why' a threat was sent) The AI aggressiveness, the ratios of ship types, diplomacy messages, tech descriptions, encyclopedia entries, graphics themselves all appear to be highly customizable, and that's just in the last week.

So I'm not challenging you, I'm trying to politely ask - what is it that you see is a developer-only change?

[booje]

Replacing the original IFP system AND making it a playable game. Maybe this was an experiment go awry which Infrogrames realized at some point and let Alan Emrich go?

[Ray K]

It was certainly an interesting article, but the obvious point needs to be stated...

A game that manages your colonies and your fleets for you can be fun if done properly, but it is certainly not a Master of Orion game.

[NHB]

Originally posted by Hydro
It may be personal preference, but from what I have heard I am absolutely delighted that IFPs bit the dust. All the complaints about the game may be right but I know one thing: I would have hated the game and not even considered buying it if it had IFPs. ..... There are times, particularly in the early game, where I want to be a micromanager – sating a vile compulsion, if you will. With IFPs or RT you can’t focus on anything – it is literally shoot and scoot, a veritable click fest. No thanks.

While I can understand the desire to micromanage, I fail to see why you would think IFP reduced your ability to micromanage.

Yes, it reduces what you can do to and with your empire. So does Production Points, Reseach Points, Income and what have you. IFPs would be just another resource to manage. This could be both good and bad. I personally like the idea - However I don't need the 'Role-Playing AI' to like it (Though it might be neat). Being unable to adjust ship production due to lack of IFP's would be no more mysterious or unacceptable than being unable to buy ship production due to lack of money.

But hey - I can just code my own game if I want it.

[Spectrex]

That article didn't make any sense. Would someone be so kind as to explain to me how IFPs somehow make the poor AI more bearable?

As someone else stated, I probably wouldn't have bought MOO3 if IFPs had stayed in. With so many people complaining that the game plays itself even now, imagine what it would be like if that was actually the case. IFPs would make it worse, not better.

[Xelvonar]

Reading the article about IFP, I remember what made me so excited about MOO3 in the first place, and clarifies, for me, why the game is so vaguely disappointing.

Let me make this clear: I am a strategy gamer. I love big, complex games and simulations, both board and computer. And I love the idea of IFPs. It sounds like the original idea was to design a galactic empire simulator, rather than simply a game. It was the intent, apparently, to make you really feel like you were the emperor of a huge, sprawling interplanetary empire---an empire so large that it would be impossible to control every aspect of its governance. And not impossible because clicking every planet and doing everything would drive you nuts, but rather because you are limited by design.

I can understand why this could be hard to design and make playable. Maybe that's what they were initially aiming for. But I think it sounds like a lot of fun.

Think of the different ways the IFP ideas could be implemented and integrated into the game, based on your choice of race/government. Monarchy and Despotism could be designed as inefficient at generating large scale wealth and welfare, but IFPs could be plentiful---the centralized authority makes bullying your underlings easy. Democracy could be the reverse. And how would a Hive mind be implemented?

True, such a game would not be for everybody, and it would be very different from MOO2. But I think it would be fascinating, and better than the mish-mash "design" that we got.

-Xelvonar

[pg]

i just wanted to say ifp's can work(that is if i understand them correctly) since it seems many here feel the whole concept of ifp's is flawed. romance of 3 kingdom games use an ifp like system which reduces micromanagement and focuses the game more.

[NHB]

Originally posted by Xelvonar

Think of the different ways the IFP ideas could be implemented and integrated into the game, based on your choice of race/government. Monarchy and Despotism could be designed as inefficient at generating large scale wealth and welfare, but IFPs could be plentiful---the centralized authority makes bullying your underlings easy. Democracy could be the reverse. And how would a Hive mind be implemented?
-Xelvonar

An obvoius way to use IFPs would also be to price things differently according to government etc. So in democracies it might cost few IFPs to alliviate unrest etc. while despotism would have an easy time controlling their military, and hives would have cheap control over their production. Reversely depotims might have a hard time fighting corruption, and hiveminds would be hard pressed to affect their research.

[NHB]

Originally posted by Spectrex
That article didn't make any sense. Would someone be so kind as to explain to me how IFPs somehow make the poor AI more bearable?

The article didn't claim that IFPs would make a poor AI more bearable - Indeed it stated that for IFPs to work the AI would have to be quite good - at least at roleplaying.

Of course it also depends on what you mean by poor AI. If you are talking about the opponent empires AI, then this would have little relation to IFPs. If you are talking about the viceroy AI, then in an IFP system the 'misbehaviour' of the viceroy AI could technically be excused by saying that the viceroy is following its own agenda, and you have to use you imperial clout (Represented by IFPs) to bring him in line.

Yes, this would mean that your governor is in a sense also your opponent, and some may not like that. But then unrest - which I don't hear many complaints about - essentially says tahtyour own population is your 'enemy'.

[CharlesBHoff]

There is two main type of scienceist research basic and apply research. They are both equally inportance to sciecist advancement of any type. Basic research is pure science where than person or persons is doing research in what interest him or her the most. Apply research has than specif goal and focus on the work. There are except and suprise discovers.

Than explame: Than scienceist was playing around with electons in a glass that have than metal wire surround by than vaccuun. There was than screen in the way of the beam which was treated with certain chemicals which glow when hit by than electon beam. The scienceist put his hand by chance in the way of electron beam, he notice and decide
to look at the screem anyway exception to see no glow as his hand is blocking the beam. To his surpise he was the bones in his hand on the screem, He move his finguer and the image of his bone move on the screem move. This is than example of pure research with than suprise distoryer.
The first X-ray machine where not very perfect machine
they needed to be make better and more efficient. Scienceist and engineer set out to study the X-ray effect and ways to improve it over time. This is example of ongoing apply research to improve something.

You need both type of research to advance in technology.