JBMoney
04-01-03, 03:14 PM
I have a feeling I could go on forever about this, but I will try to be succinct. Maybe I should start by offering a summary.
Master Of Orion 3 has some very interesting elements that have probably not been used in any game, up to now. It has also added some new elements that would have been welcome in its predecessor, MOO2. Unfortunately, it has some problems that, at least for me, make playing it a bad investment of time. A lot of these seem to be things that could easily be fixed with a patch though.
Overall, I think they sucked most of the fun out of the Master Of Orion franchise.
That's the summary.
Details:
I'm not going to get into the conjured up historical details, but MOO3 does have a significant story line, placing it well past the events of MOO2. It's a good read too.
Diplomacy.
When you join the game you may or may not be a member of the Orion Senate. Being a member adds significantly to game play as there are constantly new bills and resolutions being brought up. I think the Senate and the other new diplomacy options are probably the most interesting aspects of MOO3, and about the only fun left.
You can see exactly where you stand with folks, in terms of official agreements, attitude, etc. It's a nice system, enhanced by the fact that you can now play against 16 computer controlled AIs instead of eight (or was it seven). There are more agreements that can be made between civilizations, including sanctions/embargoes. You can also have some fun proposing bills in the senate to throw people off.
Good times, but unfortunately seems to be a little buggy. You will get warnings from civilizations and have no idea why. Wars with some civs will be off and on. A war will 'expire' and then the Civ will start it up again, a couple turns later. Overall though, I like the new system.
Espionage.
Sucks. There are now six different types of spies you can make (military, scientific, diplomatic, etc.). You can keep them at home for defense, or send them off on missions, specific to the kind of spy they are.
The problem is that, no matter how much money you have or how many systems you control, you can only make one at a time and it takes from 3-8 (?) turns to make one.... and they die/retire/etc regularly, even if you don't send them out at all. If you do send them out, chances are they will die immediately. For example, if you send out four spies, you will be lucky if one survives the initial placement.
On the other hand, you will constantly be harassed, every turn, by spies from other cultures, even ones you've never met, regardless of how many spies you have on defense.
Exploration.
This can be intersting, but it's slow beyond belief. Somehow, even though we are in the future, we managed to get slower. Finding a new system can be rewarding though as the planets are incredibly diverse.
There are six basic types of planets, ranked by how hospital it is to your species (Green 1 & 2, Yellow 1 & 2, Red 1 & 2). Beyond that there is also a mineral level (e.g. Rich, Poor, etc), a suitability to farming, a biodiversity level, a gravity level, a max population, and some planets have specials. Specials are similar to the 'artifacts, etc' classifications in MOO2 but now there are more and they are not always good.
There are SEVERAL systems that have Gaurdians (like Orion in MOO2)
Planet Management.
Allegedly, what they were trying to accomplish in this game was to cut down on the micromanagement so that one would only need to worry about the MACRO management. In my opinion, they made it worse.
Every planet, now has THREE queues instead of the one in MOO2!!! One for military projects, one for planet improvements and one for infrastructure (I'm not sure if that's exactly what they are called - not looking).
There's also TWO sliders that control allocations to each of the military & improvements queues
There are another THREE sliders that control allocations to infrastructure, terraforming and research.
AND... every planet has it's own tax rate.
AND.. there's a place to create ground divisions from reserves.
You getting the picture yet. It's a freaking clickfest to keep up with what's going on and there's very little in the way of documentation to tell you want these things all do.
Now, what they expect you to do is allow the AI to manage all these things for you and you to use the more MACRO controls that are located elsewhere. These MACRO controls allow you to set priorities for types of planets, etc.
Problem is that the AI is nuts. For example, you're just starting out and the AI will start and continue to making troop transports and system defender ships. Also, if you let the AI run things planets will always eventually go into minor rebellion, because they are being worked and taxed to death.
Pain in the ass.
Ship Design
This is OK. Lots of info on weapon range and damage. Lots of info on engines. Lots of info on armor. VERY LITTLE info on misc equipment.
The computer will also auto-make a design for you.
You can make system ships, that don't go to warp, mainly used for defense. This frees up space for weapons and armor for defense (or you can make them smaller).
Ship Combat
Sucks big time. If you liked to run your own combat in MOO2, forget about it. You might be lucky enough to have a big enough screen to actually see both combatants, but forget about actually seeing your own individual ships, much less dictating weapon usage, etc. If ships are in the same task force you can't move them independently either.
The ship combat screen is ridiculous. Just press auto and let the computer do it for you (you have the option of watching or not).
Troop Combat
This is kind of interesting, although you don't really see anything.
If you attack a planet, and you have troop transports, you will be landing them. You have NO CHOICE to attack a planet with ships AN not land troops. Also, you have NO CHOICE on how many troop transports you want to use in the attack.
Once you land, you can let the computer do everything or you can make choices such as battle intensity, whether certain types of weapons will be allowed (e.g., chemical), collateral damage allowed, and type of attack.
Unfortunately, there's no info available here about what each of these 20 or so attacks do??? Very disturbing. After you commit, you watch a cheesy little wireframe globe change colors based on how well you are doing.
Unit Allocation
I kind of like this.
First off, you don't 'grow' ground forces, like in MOO2. You have to queue them up in the military list, and 'produce' them.
Whenever you make a ship or a ground unit they are sent to the reserves. If you have a 'Mobilization Center' in a system, you can use that to call them up. You select which ships go into a task force and which troops get loaded onto Troop transports.
As long as you have Mobilization Centers, you can create a significant force anytime you want, where you want.
Research
Any particular turn, there's just too much going on with research to really bother keeping up with. There's this 'level' system that I just didn't have the patience to learn.
On any particular turn, multiple items are being completed, being started, becoming visible, etc. Buh...
SiteRep
The research issue reminded me of this. Every turn you get a report of what happened after you press the button. Like MOO2, except even in a small game you can potentially get hundreds of messages - all the research messages, the results from every queue on every planet, diplomatic stuff, planet revolt stuff, military reports, espionage reports.
You can limit what is reported somewhat, but in general, it's a fucking mess, and it's not compact in the slightest. You might be scrolling for minutes. After a while, reviewing this takes 75% of your turn.
One of the things that bothered me most is that there's no distinction between the three queues either (all outlined in the same color). If I complete a military installation or unit, I want to see that as different from a research DEA. No chance... and after a couple hundred turns it's all a blur.
Game Play
Boring. Expect very little of interest besides trying to find decent planets in the first hundred turns or more, maybe some diplomacy.
I played three extensive, days long, games (easy setting). In all three games, I was the most powerfull, most technologically advanced, and had twice the population as my nearest competitior.
I lost all three games because someone else was voted president of the Orion Senate. In all three of these cases, I wasn't even a member of the Orion Senate (and hence was not a candidate as I surely would be with twice the population).
If you want to eliminate the Senate Victory option and take over the whole galaxy, expect to spend a week on a game (even a small map).
There's also a reasearch victory possible.
Never tried multiplayer, which could potentially be a lot better than single player.
There's a lot more to it than that, but that's a summary which sums up my experience.
I'll cover Galactic Civilization shortly.
Master Of Orion 3 has some very interesting elements that have probably not been used in any game, up to now. It has also added some new elements that would have been welcome in its predecessor, MOO2. Unfortunately, it has some problems that, at least for me, make playing it a bad investment of time. A lot of these seem to be things that could easily be fixed with a patch though.
Overall, I think they sucked most of the fun out of the Master Of Orion franchise.
That's the summary.
Details:
I'm not going to get into the conjured up historical details, but MOO3 does have a significant story line, placing it well past the events of MOO2. It's a good read too.
Diplomacy.
When you join the game you may or may not be a member of the Orion Senate. Being a member adds significantly to game play as there are constantly new bills and resolutions being brought up. I think the Senate and the other new diplomacy options are probably the most interesting aspects of MOO3, and about the only fun left.
You can see exactly where you stand with folks, in terms of official agreements, attitude, etc. It's a nice system, enhanced by the fact that you can now play against 16 computer controlled AIs instead of eight (or was it seven). There are more agreements that can be made between civilizations, including sanctions/embargoes. You can also have some fun proposing bills in the senate to throw people off.
Good times, but unfortunately seems to be a little buggy. You will get warnings from civilizations and have no idea why. Wars with some civs will be off and on. A war will 'expire' and then the Civ will start it up again, a couple turns later. Overall though, I like the new system.
Espionage.
Sucks. There are now six different types of spies you can make (military, scientific, diplomatic, etc.). You can keep them at home for defense, or send them off on missions, specific to the kind of spy they are.
The problem is that, no matter how much money you have or how many systems you control, you can only make one at a time and it takes from 3-8 (?) turns to make one.... and they die/retire/etc regularly, even if you don't send them out at all. If you do send them out, chances are they will die immediately. For example, if you send out four spies, you will be lucky if one survives the initial placement.
On the other hand, you will constantly be harassed, every turn, by spies from other cultures, even ones you've never met, regardless of how many spies you have on defense.
Exploration.
This can be intersting, but it's slow beyond belief. Somehow, even though we are in the future, we managed to get slower. Finding a new system can be rewarding though as the planets are incredibly diverse.
There are six basic types of planets, ranked by how hospital it is to your species (Green 1 & 2, Yellow 1 & 2, Red 1 & 2). Beyond that there is also a mineral level (e.g. Rich, Poor, etc), a suitability to farming, a biodiversity level, a gravity level, a max population, and some planets have specials. Specials are similar to the 'artifacts, etc' classifications in MOO2 but now there are more and they are not always good.
There are SEVERAL systems that have Gaurdians (like Orion in MOO2)
Planet Management.
Allegedly, what they were trying to accomplish in this game was to cut down on the micromanagement so that one would only need to worry about the MACRO management. In my opinion, they made it worse.
Every planet, now has THREE queues instead of the one in MOO2!!! One for military projects, one for planet improvements and one for infrastructure (I'm not sure if that's exactly what they are called - not looking).
There's also TWO sliders that control allocations to each of the military & improvements queues
There are another THREE sliders that control allocations to infrastructure, terraforming and research.
AND... every planet has it's own tax rate.
AND.. there's a place to create ground divisions from reserves.
You getting the picture yet. It's a freaking clickfest to keep up with what's going on and there's very little in the way of documentation to tell you want these things all do.
Now, what they expect you to do is allow the AI to manage all these things for you and you to use the more MACRO controls that are located elsewhere. These MACRO controls allow you to set priorities for types of planets, etc.
Problem is that the AI is nuts. For example, you're just starting out and the AI will start and continue to making troop transports and system defender ships. Also, if you let the AI run things planets will always eventually go into minor rebellion, because they are being worked and taxed to death.
Pain in the ass.
Ship Design
This is OK. Lots of info on weapon range and damage. Lots of info on engines. Lots of info on armor. VERY LITTLE info on misc equipment.
The computer will also auto-make a design for you.
You can make system ships, that don't go to warp, mainly used for defense. This frees up space for weapons and armor for defense (or you can make them smaller).
Ship Combat
Sucks big time. If you liked to run your own combat in MOO2, forget about it. You might be lucky enough to have a big enough screen to actually see both combatants, but forget about actually seeing your own individual ships, much less dictating weapon usage, etc. If ships are in the same task force you can't move them independently either.
The ship combat screen is ridiculous. Just press auto and let the computer do it for you (you have the option of watching or not).
Troop Combat
This is kind of interesting, although you don't really see anything.
If you attack a planet, and you have troop transports, you will be landing them. You have NO CHOICE to attack a planet with ships AN not land troops. Also, you have NO CHOICE on how many troop transports you want to use in the attack.
Once you land, you can let the computer do everything or you can make choices such as battle intensity, whether certain types of weapons will be allowed (e.g., chemical), collateral damage allowed, and type of attack.
Unfortunately, there's no info available here about what each of these 20 or so attacks do??? Very disturbing. After you commit, you watch a cheesy little wireframe globe change colors based on how well you are doing.
Unit Allocation
I kind of like this.
First off, you don't 'grow' ground forces, like in MOO2. You have to queue them up in the military list, and 'produce' them.
Whenever you make a ship or a ground unit they are sent to the reserves. If you have a 'Mobilization Center' in a system, you can use that to call them up. You select which ships go into a task force and which troops get loaded onto Troop transports.
As long as you have Mobilization Centers, you can create a significant force anytime you want, where you want.
Research
Any particular turn, there's just too much going on with research to really bother keeping up with. There's this 'level' system that I just didn't have the patience to learn.
On any particular turn, multiple items are being completed, being started, becoming visible, etc. Buh...
SiteRep
The research issue reminded me of this. Every turn you get a report of what happened after you press the button. Like MOO2, except even in a small game you can potentially get hundreds of messages - all the research messages, the results from every queue on every planet, diplomatic stuff, planet revolt stuff, military reports, espionage reports.
You can limit what is reported somewhat, but in general, it's a fucking mess, and it's not compact in the slightest. You might be scrolling for minutes. After a while, reviewing this takes 75% of your turn.
One of the things that bothered me most is that there's no distinction between the three queues either (all outlined in the same color). If I complete a military installation or unit, I want to see that as different from a research DEA. No chance... and after a couple hundred turns it's all a blur.
Game Play
Boring. Expect very little of interest besides trying to find decent planets in the first hundred turns or more, maybe some diplomacy.
I played three extensive, days long, games (easy setting). In all three games, I was the most powerfull, most technologically advanced, and had twice the population as my nearest competitior.
I lost all three games because someone else was voted president of the Orion Senate. In all three of these cases, I wasn't even a member of the Orion Senate (and hence was not a candidate as I surely would be with twice the population).
If you want to eliminate the Senate Victory option and take over the whole galaxy, expect to spend a week on a game (even a small map).
There's also a reasearch victory possible.
Never tried multiplayer, which could potentially be a lot better than single player.
There's a lot more to it than that, but that's a summary which sums up my experience.
I'll cover Galactic Civilization shortly.