Four Questions

[nato]

I had decided to wait-and-see before devoting a lot of time to MOO3. I still can't decide whether its something to try or not.

So, I have some questions for people who are playing and liking the game:

1. What do you do between pressing the turn button? Just a brief, general idea of what the player does, not the Viceroys.

2. Do you really make an impact? If two different people played the same game/start position, would they be able to make significantly different games?

3. If the enemy AI really never attacks, how is the game exciting? Is it just fun the way a Simcity game is fun?

4. Is the AI's strange diplomacy having an impact on games, or is it just like a lot of 4x games where they all hate you automatically anyway?

I'd just like to hear from the game's defenders. I really appreciate any of them taking the time to answer these.

Thanks!

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

If you like Sim games you will like MoO3.

[asleepathewheel]

Re: Four Questions

Originally posted by nato
I had decided to wait-and-see before devoting a lot of time to MOO3. I still can't decide whether its something to try or not.

So, I have some questions for people who are playing and liking the game:

1. What do you do between pressing the turn button? Just a brief, general idea of what the player does, not the Viceroys.

Things I do at various times, not all turns for all things are:

adjust military build queues (viceroy selects bad options sometimes, and I've never seen them do the 5x, 10x options)
adjust military spending on the planetary level
add spies to the recruit queue, insert if need be
design new ships, obsolete old ones
send out scouts or fleets to other stars
decide which planets I want to colonize, send out colony ships (not fond of how the aI does this aspect, leaves lots of red planets in the interior of my empire, just waiting to be colonized by other empires)
diplomatic stuff

basically I do everything that i could do in Moo2, other than I no longer have to click on and build stuff on every single planet, the stuff is taken care of automatically.

Originally posted by nato
2. Do you really make an impact? If two different people played the same game/start position, would they be able to make significantly different games?

Silly question, of course!

From the first turn things can/will be different:
do I use the spare colony ship to land on a planet in my system or do I move it to another star?
How do i set my dev plans for the viceroy to implement?
who to attack and when.
etc, etc.

Its very easy to have completely different games. Granted, if you leave the Viceroy on auto, it would probably be similar, but I prefer to have a bit more control on things than that.

Originally posted by nato
3. If the enemy AI really never attacks, how is the game exciting? Is it just fun the way a Simcity game is fun?

The enemy won't attack (well, only in pathetic dribbles), but it will blockade your planets causing them to starve to death if you leave the system undefended.

Obviously this needs to be fixed as it is the major problem, IMHO, but some modders are hard at work fixing now.

The game is still fun for me because I like building an empire and fleets of ships. Even though you won't be attacked, the enemy will still have ships and defenses you have to go through to capture a planet. And the new orions, well, they have quite a fleet, which is scary when they send armadas out on walkabouts.

but yes, needs improvement here.

Originally posted by nato
4. Is the AI's strange diplomacy having an impact on games, or is it just like a lot of 4x games where they all hate you automatically anyway?

No, its pretty different than other games I've played at least. In a current game, around turn 350, I have about 4 empires that I've been in full alliances with nearly the entire game. OTOH, I have been at war off and on with four the entire game as well. and there are the rest that I have pacts with but no alliances, but they sometimes threaten or praise me sporadically, so they could easily be pushed one way or another.

Some races are coded to hate the others, ie Ithkuhl.

The diplomacy does need some work, as you get threats sometimes for not doing anything. other times you get praised for doing nothing. very strange. And we need more info from it to know whats going on.

Hope that gives you some input, not all positive or negative. The game needs improvement, luckily a lot can be done by modders.