Anyone Pick up MOO3? (1 Viewer)

[Mike Pattee]

A friend and I picked up our copies today at the local EB. So far it seems cool. After playing for a few hours its not time to hit the manual and see if I can get a good overall understanding. The game is very deep or it seems so thus far. The politics part is quite well done.

Well back to playing.

 

[AaronArmstrong]

Man my head is spinning! Of course my only game has been a
multiplayer game me and my buddy played for 4 hours w/4 other computer controlled opponents. This game has it all!
Maybe too much. I'm going to study the manual tonight.
My initial impressions are very high.

Aaron Armstrong

 

[Brian Ruth]

I'm considering picking it up. My first-year college roommate had MOO2 and I was always hankering to play it. With 3 out (and 2 in a jewelcase), I'll satisfy that intergalactic 4X (excuse me... 5X) hankin'. I'll have to see if my budget allows it, though.

 

[Shayne Lebrun]

My copy is sitting in my briefcase, waiting for me to get home.

Just do NOT walk into this game thinking it's going to be like Moo2. Cuz it ain't.

 

[Brian Ruth]

Well, I expect it to be a continuation in the series, yes, and have similar basic goals, but I don't think they'll be the same. I'm sure MOO3 is a LOT more advanced than MOO2.

 

[Shayne Lebrun]

Moo3 punishes you for trying to micromange your planets, the way that you had to in Moo2.

Moo3 is an empire sim; you're the emperor. You generally don't waste your time dealing with colony build queues and the like; you define policies, development plans and the like, and delegate to your viceroys.

 

[Mike Pattee]

The more I play this game the more becomes clear to me. Its an amazingly indepth game. Far far better than MOO2 was. I've found that usually I turn off senate vote for a victory condition because it make it too easy. I need to figure out exactly how the antaran fleets work though. Do they just get created from your reserves?

 

[Camp]

Anyone seen any reviews online yet?

 

[Brian Ruth]

Camp:

IGN has it's review up, It's rated 9.2 out of 10.

 

[Camp]

Thanks...BTW, what is "4x"? I've (obviously) never played a MOO game but always been an interested sideline observer.

 

[Brian Ruth]

4x is the typical term for a Risk/Civilization type strategy game -- typically turn based. It stand for the 4 conerstones of the genre. quoting from the Strategic Games FAQ:



When you hear 4X, just think of Civilization.

 

[Brian Kleinke]

I picked it up yesterday and played a bit of a game.. though I started in a 2 arm galaxy the AI and I started about 4 hops from each other :frowning: Back in MOO2 and Pax Imperia I'd usually just restart when that happens.

I LOVED MOO2 and Pax Imperia, so I figured I'm sure to like this game once I've figured it out.

One beef so far, why does you homeworld want to build so many military ships when you just want to colonize like mad to start. (ALWAYS the way I play on big galaxys )

 

[Mike Pattee]

The key to this game is not micro managing. You can force them into building what you want by making other ship plans obsolete. To do this go to shipyards and then click on current design, then find the ships you don't want the AI to build and click on the "make obsolete" button. If given the choice your planets will attempt to make a bunch of recon and transports.

Also turn auto-colonization in the empire menu on. The AI will then automatically build and send out colony ships. Once they establish a colony go to the planets menu find the new planet and click on "Orders" in this is a set migration button. Click this on wherever possible. This helps your population to grow faster as well as move out of more populated planets into new or less populated planets. Having too many people on a planet creates unrest and can lead to revolt.

Make sure to set up development plans in the empire menu. These allow you to tell your planet governors how you would like the planets to be managed. You can set up a plan for a particular planet type("Green, red or yellow environment, mineral rich, mineral poor, rich biodiversity, poor biodiversity, starving, border planets(you might want more defenses), new planets and so on) and then assign a primary, secondary and tertiary objective for that planet type. Planets have 2 classifications if you look at them in the close up view. And the development plans just help to nudge the governors in the direction you want the empire to go.

You can't effectively micro-manage the planets, I'm currently on turn 320+ and I have 90+ planets. I can't go through each one and make sure that its building what I want. I could but then turns would take hours.

This game has many levels and they will become apparent over time.

Wow, I just found this. This mod allows you to add to the encyclopedia used in game with tutorials and such that have been made by the public.

http://www.ina-community.com/forums/...hreadid=269820

if you guys have any questions let me know. I'm still learning but I can try to help.

 

[Shayne Lebrun]

If you see planets you like, always set 'send colony.' Sometimes, if it's a green planet for your race, intrepid pioneers will move there of their own accord.

 

[Mike Pattee]

You won't want to click send colony if you have auto expansion on. Since it will then send 2 colony ships. Hopefully this is something they can patch.

 

[Bill Griffith]

I just picked this up yesterday. Never played any of the first games, however I played a snail mail game very similar to this called Global supremacy. The only major difference was GS was played on earth, the rest seems very similar.

I encountered that dual dispatch of colony ships thing, when it happened I would go into the ship and cancel the ai orders on one of the ships. But sometimes this would permantently cancle AI decisions and the colony ship would just sit there doing nothing.

This game however is amazing, I've only played 3 games up to at most 80 turns. But you can micro manage as much as you want or let you governors run things. I've only found one instance where I had to change something. The planet was almost fully developed (it only had one more development) and it was using its last slot for industry. It had no food generating things, so I changed it to a bio"somthing". Not sure if I should have because the book says the governers will take care of the planets pretty well. Would this planet have survived if I had left it alone. Will the planets trade resources automatically between each other/each system to get what they need in terms of minerals and food?

I agree with the ship thing. they don't see to produce colony ships that quickly. Also I tend to only colonize planets that are at worst Green 2, should I not be worried about harsher enviroments, ie yellows? I'll try a game where I turn on the auto colonization and the migration on and see what happens.

I've also been envolved in several battles, and got completely destroyed. I wasn't able to avoid the combat and I wasn't able to run away. So I brought some war ships into the system and they (I) got completely obliterated, it was pretty cool. So I probably shouldn't be attack this early in the game I figure.

I'm looking forward to having an uneventfull weekend

 

[Mike Pattee]

As long as the number for food in the planet screen is yellow white or green you're fine. Yellow means that they're trading with your other colonies that have a surplus. White means they're making enough on their own and green means they're making a surplus. If its red that means you either don't have enough farms and not enough surplus from other planets to cover this one or your planet is being blockaded.

 

[Shayne Lebrun]

You won't want to click send colony if you have auto expansion on. Since it will then send 2 colony ships. Hopefully this is something they can patch.

Are you sure it's not because the colony is yellow or red for your race? If it is, you need more than one colony ship to colonize it.

 

[Bill Griffith]

Why did the game come with 2 discs? I only ever used disk 1 to install and to play.

 

[Joshua Moran]

I've got a few hours in on this game, so far I don't like it at all. Maybe Galactic Civ will be more to my liking. Bill to answer your question Disc 1 is the install disc and Disc 2 is the play disc. I haven't even tried playing the game with disc 1 since it told me to insert disc 2 after the installation so that is all I used.