Just played my first game of Moo3...

[Dr. A. Cula]

...and must say I'm very confused.

The game is much more different from Moo2 than I would have thought.

When I started, I moved my ships around, explored some systems, sent out a lot of colony ships. I liked the idea of star lanes, or whatever they are called, given that otherwise your ships would take forever to get anywhere. At one point I discovered a few systems owned by another race, but I could not make contact. Is there a technology that one has to discover before that?

Anyway, as I explored further, one of my ships was attacked and destroyed by someone else's fleet, again with no diplomatic contact. That fleet eventually arrived at my capitol system (the one I started in and the one with the strongest industry) and proceeded to "attack" one of my planets. At least I kept receiving messages that the planet has been atacked, but nothing else happened: no bombardment, no decrease in population or industrial output. Eventually I becamefed up with it and built a fleet of my to get rid of these guys, especially since they refused to speak to me. My first attempt at removing them failed miserably, but at least now they contacted me and I proposed econmic, research and non-aggresion treaties, all rejected. They had not issued a formal declaration of war, yet they kept "attacking" the same planet over and over again. I went through several ship designs until I could destroy that fleet completely, and still these guys did not declare war and were very polite every time they made contact.

Then, a few turns after that, I get the message that someone has been elected president of the Orion Senate and that I lost. How did that happen? I wasn't even a member of the senate and I didn't even know what you have to do to become one.

All in all, a rather disappointing experience. Maybe someone here can convince me there is more to the game than this.

And no RTFM, please. I will eventually do it, I'm just too lazy to read it now.

[CharlesBHoff]

There are some MOD you can use to make the game better.
There is the Data Patch you can download, I believe there is than link to it in this Fourm. Before I forget welcome to the fourm. Great game.

[Dr. A. Cula]

Thanks, I have the data patch.

My problem is that my first game ended before I got a clue about what I was doing. That never happened with earlier Moos, or even in Civ1/2/3 or SMAC(X).

And I'm not sure I like that fact that I was not in the Senate and someone else made a decisive political move and I had no influence over it. I remember in Moo1/2 that when someone else became leader of the Senate, I could oppose the move and I had a shot at winning the game by destroying everyone else. Here, I just lost the game.

And what was the deal with people not making contact with me even after I visited their systems? I could see systems with another colour on the map, yet my diplomacy screen was empty. The only race that contacted me did it after I attacked their ships.

[PotatoKing]

yeah its different

Well unless you have a racial pick that has you starting in the senate (costs 10 points) its random whether you're in or not. If you are in the senate you can particapate in votes and see if somebody might win (including you) and make a move to stop it. If you don't start in the senate then you either have to get voted into the senate by becoming buddies with sombody already in, or you have to make sure to kick the butts of all the large empires in the senate so they dont' have the population to out vote the New Orions.

Or you can just turn off the Senate Victory when you start the game...., if you leave it on the game will probably be over by turn 200.

As for not having diplomatic contact with other empires, you only get contact when you have a colony within 2 jumps of one of their colonies.

Keep at it, its different but in a good way:-)

might try the www.moo3.com forums, more people there, though you should stay off the general forum, its still a bit of a zoo


PK

[Ozymandous]

RTFM, it's there for a reason.

Pretty much all of the questions asked are answered in the manual somewhere. I know, because I had most of the same questions and it wasn't until I "wasn't too lazy" and tried to help myself that I found the answers.

You are correct, MOO3 is not like MOO1 or MOO2, that's why they included a manual for reference (what little reference it's worth). Games *do* change, and sometimes, if they are worth a damn, they aren't simply the exact same game over and over with different graphics. If you want an example of that look at Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 vs. Rollercoaster Tycoon 2, where the games are exactly the same.

[PotatoKing]

Well yeah you should read the manual, though some of it should be taken with a grain as salt as some stuff was changed before the game was released. Still it will cover the basics, the game has a very steep learning curve, you can't just dive in without some reference material. If you want quicker answers than reading the entire manual, try www.moo3.com, and check out the forums. There should be links to various FAQs, newbie guides and other helpful stuff.

PK

[CharlesBHoff]

It than great game. I hear they tone down the other empires AL as some game tester have than very hard time winning at the easy level. They did it 2 week before their release the game to ther public they didnot have than enough time to test the changes.

[protista]

Hang in There!

MOO3 is very complex, and very different from previous versions!

I well remember having some of the same feelings and frustrations the first time I tried to work with the program!

The good news is that the program will slowly grow on you, and that once you have mastered some portions of it, your desire to keep coming back to play and learn more will only increase!

Some suggestions:

1.If you have Microsoft Word, load the Readme.txt file into it, increase the font size, set font to bold, and print it out. It will be about 32 pages at #14 font size, but will be very readable, and contains much information to help you work with and understand the program!

2.Download the "Beginners Guides" found on the INA MOO3 boards, and print them out as well. They are very useful in going through the program step by step, and explaining the purpose of your interactions with the program.

3.For the first few experiences with the program, make sure you set the A.I. to control as many functions as you can. You can later alter many things, but letting the A.I. run as much as possible will let you explore more rapidly, get through many turns fairly quickly, and experiment.

4.For setting high level planning, try setting Farming is the primary priority, Mining as the secondary, and Terraforming as the Tertiary settings. At first, simply use the "All Planets" setting for these.

5.Trade and interact positively with as many alien races as you can access through the diplomacy screen. Trade income really increases as the games progress.

6.Try to maintain a positive attitude towards all interactions with the program! The learning curve is very steep, and I doubt anyone fully understands the program in the first few days, or even weeks! Just try to be patient, and learn a little more with each turn and interaction.

7.As far as the alien races you mentioned, there are many races found within the galaxies and clusters which cannot be contacted or interacted with diplomatically. Don't worry about them at this stage! Just interact positively with those races you are able to access in the Diplomacy interface.

8.Make sure you set the galaxy size to small or medium clusters at first. Even medium clusters will be quite a challenge, and require many turns to explore.

9.After you have become more familiar with the program, there are many enhancements you can download from these MOO3 boards, including much more readable fonts, Myros's original GUI graphics, and the starpack 2 mod. There are also very useful and improved encyclopedia modifications which you can download and install.

10.As far as interactions with the Senate are concerned, the main thing you want to pay attention to is the voting for leadership. If you are not in a very strong position, it is best to vote for the New Orions, as their winning a Senate election will not harm your status in any way. Abstaining might just hand the election to a viable opponent. Voting for another viable opponent is not recommended, as in our experience, the other candidate offered for election is often the highest ranked opponent!

11.As to your problems with the recurring "Your planet was attacked by....." sitrep messages, normally this is not something you need to be concerned with early in the game. Normally this goes on for a while until your planet manages to build some defence structure or ship, at which time the opponents normally break off the attacks.

12.Finally, make sure you download and install the latest official patch, which just came out a few days ago! It makes some very useful and desirable changes to the program. (The date should be 4/15 or later!)

[habadacus]

Re: Just played my first game of Moo3...

Originally posted by Dr. A. Cula
.
All in all, a rather disappointing experience. Maybe someone here can convince me there is more to the game than this.

And no RTFM, please. I will eventually do it, I'm just too lazy to read it now.

Hey Dr. Cula, welcome to the club! I'd convince you that there was more to it, but that's it! Don't worry, I won't tell you to RTFM, because that wouldn't help at all! The manual is a inadequate and poorly implemented as the game it struggles to explain. Just be thankful - the loss due to the vote you had absolutely no say over in a game that cost you $50 saved you hours of headache and confusion. You didn't have to redesign all your ships 1000 times only to find the point defense weapons didn't work and missiles are all you really need. You didn't have to spend hours building up defenses for an invasion that never came. And you didn't have to waste your precious time finding and scrapping 100s of magazines, psyops and troop transports. But there's hope - after you have spent all the time to figure out how "play" the game, you can now spend additional fun-filled hours hunting for and installing MODs from people who live in their parent's basements that attempt to make the game what it should have been when you bought it. Not to mention the months of fun you can have waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting for an "official" patch. Hey - I wan't QS to spend as much time as they need to send the patch through their QA department, because they did such an excellent job on the game itself. Welcome aboard, sucker! You're just in time for one of the biggest travesties in the history of PC gaming!

Suggestion - return it while you still have a chance and get Galactic Civilizations with the money. That game isn't as "complex" as MOO, but it's damn fun and the AI will kick your ass.

[CharlesBHoff]

Re: Re: Just played my first game of Moo3...

Originally posted by habadacus


Hey Dr. Cula, welcome to the club! I'd convince you that there was more to it, but that's it! Don't worry, I won't tell you to RTFM, because that wouldn't help at all! The manual is a inadequate and poorly implemented as the game it struggles to explain. Just be thankful - the loss due to the vote you had absolutely no say over in a game that cost you $50 saved you hours of headache and confusion. You didn't have to redesign all your ships 1000 times only to find the point defense weapons didn't work and missiles are all you really need. You didn't have to spend hours building up defenses for an invasion that never came. And you didn't have to waste your precious time finding and scrapping 100s of magazines, psyops and troop transports. But there's hope - after you have spent all the time to figure out how "play" the game, you can now spend additional fun-filled hours hunting for and installing MODs from people who live in their parent's basements that attempt to make the game what it should have been when you bought it. Not to mention the months of fun you can have waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting for an "official" patch. Hey - I wan't QS to spend as much time as they need to send the patch through their QA department, because they did such an excellent job on the game itself. Welcome aboard, sucker! You're just in time for one of the biggest travesties in the history of PC gaming!

Suggestion - return it while you still have a chance and get Galactic Civilizations with the money. That game isn't as "complex" as MOO, but it's damn fun and the AI will kick your ass.

There is now that data patch you can download and the
code patch will come soon.

[wilebill]

Welcome Dr. Cula! Well, Galciv is a good game, I have it, I play it, I like it! But I have not returned MOO3 because it is fascinating and fun for me as it is and can only get better ... and IMHO, MOO3 has more potential for long term fascination and entertainment than Galciv.

MOO3 does have a steep learning cliff, it does require you to download all the help you can get from the forums, even reading the manual is not all bad, and I have found the much maligned Strategy Guide worthwhile and good late night reading. Note that neither the manual nor the Strategy Guide have an index.

I continue to play MOO3 in spite of ongoing and continuing perplexities because if it is true that "getting there is all the fun" there is every indication that MOO3 is a journey that will never end!

[Dr. A. Cula]

I was kind of expecting to get such mixed opinions. Thanks everybody for their answers.

Well, I resisted the urge to uninstall the game and kept playing. Eventually, I learned how to build ships properly and even managed to build some fleets, although it took forever. I am slowly getting the hang of it, but I'm still not over my initial disappointment. Mainly, it's connected to the fact that I liked Moo2 from the first few turns I played, while I'm still learning to do that in Moo3. So far, the most satisfying part was finally being able to blow out of the skies those bastards that kept atacking my undeveloped planets, and then bombing a few of their own planets to oblivion. I still have no idea wether or not I'll win this game.

I am still confused by things such as diplomacy, however. I am best buddies with empires that inform me in the most insulting and threatening tones about relationships improving, or that they accepted my treaty/alliance proposal or even to exchange technology, while others declare war on me in the most polite and humble manner possbile.

I thought things were supposed to be quite the opposite.

[Ghostbear]

My thoughts

The game doesn't get to be any fun till about turn 200-250. I know its a long time and is it worth the wait?

I think so.

Obviously this is not a blazing endorsement.

The data patch tones down missiles, which does (a bit) help the point defense problem.

Anyway, by turn 250, your empire is too big to micro manage. You end up "playing" your top 20 or so planets and managing their build queues to make large ships. Since they take a lot of time, the build queue management is manageable.

The AI will usually build lots of smaller ships (and bunches of hackers, etc.) in the rest of your empire, so you can concentrate on DNs and super DNs and bigger.

I never have enough ships to conduct a 3 front war and knock out the occasional guardian. So there is a bit of strategy.

The speed of tech advances means your leading forces start to get out gunned and attritted, so you have a hard time just rolling over the computer players.

Assaulting major systems can be quite challenging.



UNFORTUNATELY, the win criteria just suck. If you leave Orion Senate on, some race you've never met almost always wins.

If you try, you can send bunches of expeditions after the 5Xs and have another "instant win".

Winning through conflict takes eternity since there is no "Conquer half the galaxy and the New Orions" option.


My bottom line is that I've been playing almost nothing but MOO 3 since it came out. I've suffered in the beginning, but I come back because it is challenging.

[Kc7mxo]

My problem is that my first game ended before I got a clue about what I was doing. That never happened with earlier Moos, or even in Civ1/2/3 or SMAC(X).

i lost civ1 on like turn 3 once. damn barbarians. . .

[TuftedEar]

My review after three plays

Someone please fix this game!

Things I like

Different artwork on planets - nicely done

Fleet battles - Until I get hang of the game and am brave enough to try it on my own, I do like this watch feature

Couple of new races but it looks like harvester are the new psilons - too powerful for thei own good.

Variety of ground units


Things I don't like
That manual - for shame. Alan Eimrich and Johnny Wilson penned the absolute best strategy guide of all time years ago for Civ 1. What the *&^% happened here? This manual is horrible. If I'd want a story, I'd read it on the website or buy a scifi book! I see a tech improvement - so what does it do - flip flip flip - hunh?!?! Let's try the Galactica - oh - not in here. Poor Isaac Asimov must be spinning in his grave - his wife should sue for the misrepresentation of that trademark

Strategy guide is OK for some info. What about some charts like what the heck do some of the improvements do or how much damage does this weapon do.

Let me see just the ships I made this turn IE let me toggle off non military related items in sitrep - I let the AI do all the planet improvements, but I have to scroll through all that to see the military improvements.

Diplomacy screen - Alien wants to trade techs - sounds good to me. Let me see click here - nothing, ok here - still nothing, uh if I close the window do we trade...? What if I don't want to trade..... Let me check the manual...... uh.....uh.... Beavis......

No scrolling in ground units screen. I kept thinking I only had what I could see and went on a buying spree - not realizing I was stockpiling the mother of all invasion forces.

Ground combat - I like the variety of units but don't see the point of the attack screen or a huge list of attack options that I don't know what they mean.

Refit ships - is it here or am I missing it? Also tried redesigning my own and kept getting 'Bad design' message - went with autobuild.

How about in planet policy - make only these ships like BC, BB. How many *&^% troop, colony and obsolete defense ships do I need! I like the idea behind the ship, shipx5 and shipx10 - but you have to wait till whole group is done. I don't see a discount - so what's the point? If I get tech upgrade and want to use it - Do I have to lose whole group if I cancel production? I use itemX10 only for ground troops now.