What can MOO3 learn from Civ3?

moomin · December 13, 2001, 11:22

First and foremost; it's better to do some playtesting before you release. It may be trite, but the amount of frustration building over at the Civ3 side of the Apolyton fence is just amazing. If this conflicts with the publisher schedule, then that's too bad for said schedule.

Anyway; and perhaps more interestingly, the lesson Civ3 drives home is that if you are going to relay on AI automation to govern micromanagement tasks you'd better make _darn_ sure that AI is up to scratch. While the Civ3 worker automations is simply broken, at least as far as I'm concerned, I still have to option to do it by hand. That adds some amazing amount of late-game tedium, to be sure, but I still do it. I can't imagine the pain if all my workers were set on "shift-A" and I couldn't turn it off...

Those IFP govenors must be _way_ better than the Civ3 city govs and worker automation, or the frustration of watching the AI waste perfectly good resources will soon overpower all other parts of the game, however good they may be.

Comrade Tribune · December 13, 2001, 15:54

Very good points! (even though I think the MoO3 people, very bright as they, in my impression, are, have already figured that out.

)

But even so, the really important can not be repeated too often.

Kc7mxo · December 14, 2001, 01:33

I thought the lesson would be to not have Doom Star's with stellar converters lose to Cruisers equiped with level 1 tech.

Comrade Tribune · December 14, 2001, 14:01

You must give the Doom Stars some defensive ability. Otherwise you will justly share the fate of Emperor Palpatine.

I have never lost a Doom Star, yet. Probably because I conceive them as mobile fortresses, and use a larger part of their space for defense than attack. Sure, they don´t kill most opponents with one shot, but they wear them down. So what if the battle takes 20 rounds, as long as I win.

Sencho · December 14, 2001, 16:12

Considering the doom stars aren't in Moo3, you don't have to worry about them dying to tech 1 frigates.

Master Marcus · December 14, 2001, 23:04

The strange Civ III's combat system, and corruption are two compounds to be redefined that's for sure. The culture engine has its merits and should figure somehow in a space game like MoO3, yet we'll have to wait for MoO4 to see a more detailed socio/cultural engine like the cutted Ethos. Among other things, what is ticking me is when the AI declares war on the player out of a whim with no realistic reason. The AI can have productivity cheats for all I care on higher difficulty levels, but please we want a solid war engine...let the surprise attacks to the pirates.

Stormhound · December 15, 2001, 08:35

The Casus Belli system should cover that nicely. If the computer doesn't convince its own people that they want war, there'll be hell to pay domestically. Same applies to you, of course...

Comrade Tribune · December 15, 2001, 19:24

On the other hand, one might argue that the people do not know what they want in real life (until the media tell them

), so...

Master Marcus · December 15, 2001, 22:22

so...let's start propaganda

Yolky · December 16, 2001, 14:47

one thing lernt already by the MOO3 team is that they come here almost every day and talk to us. Never saw that at CivIII. Way to go guys to keep us up to date all the time.

Davor

Sencho · December 16, 2001, 19:56

The Moo3 team has been doing that from the very beginning. Particularly at the official forums.

Ingeniator · January 12, 2002, 08:05

Well, the culture thing and the enhanced trading were both good things in Civ3. All those luxuries and strategic resources really made you plan your expansion.

But I'd say the lessons are don't make more than 50% of your empire ungovernable by corruption, even when all improvements are there, make the AI better, and above all, make sure the later game is interesting. Wars in the Industrial and Modern age are a pain, moving hundreds of units around. Very tedious.

just my thoughts.

Zealot · January 12, 2002, 12:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Sencho

The Moo3 team has been doing that from the very beginning. Particularly at the official forums.

I am one of the lucky guys who had the privilege to chat with Alan Emrich at the Prospero's chat room. Unfortunatly, he had to go, so I didn't manage to sak anything, but I managed to see he talking with other guys. It's really nice to see the lead designer chatting with fans.

Don't see anybody there for quite some long anymore, but oh well, Alan's probably working on the game anyway.

And since David and "Sencho" say all I want to know...

Comrade Tribune · January 12, 2002, 16:02

Quote:

Originally posted by moominparatrooper
What can MOO3 learn from Civ3?

1. Atmosphere matters. Don´t include anything awful (CivIII advisors and leader faces).

2. Game balance is everything. No Race/Unit/Tech/Government should be all powerful/totally useless.

3. More is better. There can´t be something like 'too many' Units/Buildings/Techs/You name it. The game can still be balanced, if you make the differences incremental instead of extreme. Pleeease take a look at Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds. Countless everything, brilliantly balanced, wonderful atmosphere. That game has everything CivIII has not.

paulmagusnet · February 1, 2002, 18:42

One (of the many) things that annoyed my about CIVIII were the speedbump technologies. Some how the game designers couldn't think of what these things were good for or what they did, only that the name were important and that they were somehow related to other things. This indicates a tremendous lack of knowledge, immagination and interest on the part of those game designers. But like in american college, chemistry and philosophy are classes you take to get credit towards your degree, and are unrelated to anything you ever plan to do with your life, so why should they grants some valuable ability in a game?

In CIV, if you know democracy, you can be a despot and still develope 'free expression' and build a globe theater.

There is no knowledge of How religion, philosophy and government are related that there are DIFFERENT religions and philosophies, and that these differences have consiquences.

In Moo3, what philosophy, religion would a communal intelligence follow?

In england, the luddites successfully slowed technological progress and undermined england's early lead in favor of america.

Progress in Not always incremental and 'balanced', when the monitor class battle ship put to sea, every navy in the world with wooden ships was deadl, DOA. If America acted like a CIV nation, with the advantages it had at the end of its civil war it could have conqured the world. What was the 'balancing' factor that kept the real america from doing this? Politics, philosophy and war aversion.

Sarxis · February 2, 2002, 09:52

Once the game is released, stay in touch with the community.

This includes not only asking the community what they think about the game and its features, what bugs and problems they have uncovered, and just plain being chums, but also being prompt with patches!

Many gamers will just move on if bugs and game balance issues aren't fixed quickly.

But it seems like the MOO guys are already the type to do this.

Stormhound · February 2, 2002, 11:48

Yeah, it would be pretty dumb to go to as much effort as we have to reach out to and trade information with the fan base, only to run away and hide after the game comes out.

I don't anticipate that we'll suddenly unlearn the value of communication.

vmxa1 · February 2, 2002, 16:02

Man I hope Moo3 is great and sells tons. I want it to do well so I can look forward to Moo4.

Stormhound · February 2, 2002, 16:50

I hope you won't mind if we take a little break to work on something else first...

Zealot · February 2, 2002, 19:12

Quote:

Originally posted by Stormhound
I hope you won't mind if we take a little break to work on something else first...

Like MoM 2, for example!

Edit: did QS ever considered making a sequel to Conquest of the New World?

Stormhound · February 2, 2002, 19:20

I don't really know. I've only been there a year, and I don't get to hear much of the high-level stuff. But I haven't heard such a project mentioned, no.

ravagon · February 3, 2002, 20:39

Quote:

Originally posted by Stormhound
The Casus Belli system should cover that nicely. If the computer doesn't convince its own people that they want war, there'll be hell to pay domestically. Same applies to you, of course...

Sounds like somebody's been nicking stuff from EU.

?

Of course given that EU is very well done this is a good sign.

Stormhound · February 3, 2002, 23:37

Oh, was the same idea used in EU? I've never played it, so I wouldn't know.

Comrade Tribune · February 4, 2002, 22:04

Quote:

Originally posted by Stormhound
Oh, was the same idea used in EU? I've never played it, so I wouldn't know.

You should. It´s a vastly better game than CivIII.

Myrddin · February 6, 2002, 18:45

Maybe once you get to know the detail, but Civ3 is far more accessible

Sikander · February 8, 2002, 05:02

I think that MOO3 is on the right path in comparison to Civ3. For one thing, it innovates a lot more than Civ3 did. Thats' important for those of us who have played the previous versions. If the innovations succeed, then we have a new game to love. If they fail, then we still have our old games to play when the mood strikes. Civ 3 seemed like a step back. It kept so many of the annoying traits of the old Civ engine, and eliminated most of the good innovations from SMAC. The innovations which did get put in were mostly IMO poorly done, or incompletely balanced through play-testing.

Obviously we all appreciate the openess and responsiveness of the MOO3 design team to the community. I think it has created a gold mine of goodwill, and hopefully has improved the quality of the design. I'm looking forward to my next game purchase (guess what it will be), and praying that MoM2 will be put on the 'to do' list once the design team catches up on it's vacation time and sleep.

BlueO · February 8, 2002, 14:45

Yeah me too. I basically want moo3 to play like a whole new game, instead of like a moo2 upgrade. The thing that's disappointing with civ3 is that, it plays like a civ2 upgrade. Not like smac which plays like a whole new game. Civ3 would probably be a lot better game, if it was based on smac, rather than civ2.

vmxa1 · February 8, 2002, 21:13

Hummmm, it is tough to be a designer. Lots of people want the game to play like an upgrade. Lots of people find Civ3 to be a much better game than civ2. If I was a developer, I would go the civ3 route as that is going to be sucessful. Jumping out with a completely new game, may not work and failure is expensive. Since civ3 is greeted with much acclaim and sells, it would seem more people prefer it than not.

loinburger · February 8, 2002, 22:31

What can MOO3 learn from Civ3? Not to take MOO2, spruce up its graphics, and call it MOO3. IFP's alone ought to eliminate that possibility, so that doesn't leave much else for MOO3 to learn about.

Things like "Don't make stupid AI" or "Don't make the game suck" were "learned", I assume, long before Civ3 came out.

BlueO · February 9, 2002, 15:34

Actually, there's one very important thing Moo3 can learn from Civ3. If a game turn has to take 5 minutes to do, please please please, and I'm begging here, don't make me sit through all those unhappy 5 minutes at my keyboard, pressing the 'okay' button at all those annoying pop-up messages that appears every couple minutes or so.