What can MOO3 learn from CivIII?

[Comrade Tribune]

(Originally posted in the MOO3 Forum, but I think it belongs here, too.)

Originally posted by moominparatrooper
'What can MOO3 learn from Civ3?'

Comrade Tribune:

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' different 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.

[BanastreTa]

I agree with all those principles, except for the third one.

Civ 3 seems to fall to the light side of the spectrum, creating a tendency towards linear gameplay, but I also firmly believe there is a possibility of having "too much". While you can have some subtle, incremental changes with a large number of game ideas, at some point you just get so many that there aren't any real differences between some units/techs/buildings, that is, without making the game rules more complex than they need be (and I think one of the successes of MOO/Civ type games is that the rule set, while robust, isn't quite as complicated as many wargames). If there aren't any real differences--if you have three 2/2/2 units--that doesn't really improve strategic depth, it just clutters the interface.

Furthermore, a proliferation of too many ideas ideas may tempt designers to differentiate by getting "creative" with some aspects and stray a little far from the more fundamental aspects of the game (here, I am thinking of the televangelists/ lawyers/ecoterrorists from CTP. Never liked that type of unit, it just seemed out of place).

I think there is a "sweet spot" with just enough techs/units/buildings to present a huge number of options, but have those options subtly different and within the more traditional parameters of gameplay. Civ 2 came pretty darn close to that, although arguably a few more things could have been added.

Of course, a scenario editor that makes it easier to add new types of units to suit the taste of each individual player would be helpful......which would make my suggestion #4:

#4.: If you want your game to have longevity and suit individual tastes better, make as many aspects as possible easily changed by the user. This is important in many genres (see: quake), but it is crucial in "expand and conquer" single player strategy games


EDIT And with that post, I become a chieftain--woohoo! And it only took me a mere 32 years to reach that status .

[GePap]

Comrade tribune
I agree that atmosphere is very important, and with a game like MOO, having each race have a completely individual and engrossing aesthetic will certainly help make the game a sucess.

On the "too much" front, MOO2 certainly had a lot more things than Civ2 and even Civ3, so I doubt that MOO3 will do much oversimplification. I also agree that giving people a lot of choices is great (i loved designing my ships [and never liked missiles!]) but I have to agree with BanastreTa that there is a balance. We all know that it will take a powerful system to run the new graphics and A.I. for MOO3 (i hope my system will be able to run it) and the more and more they add may further slow it down. There is also the fact, that with the 5th X (or is it 4th?) the p[layer won't be evrywhere, so some ideas (like non-abstracted ground combat) would make little sense if the took up so much time for the leader that they kept one away from other things.

[Asmodean]

Excuse my ignorance, but isn't MOO3 supposed to be an RTS, as opposed to a TBS.

Are they even comparable

Asmodean

[Master Marcus]

Originally posted by Asmodean
Excuse my ignorance, but isn't MOO3 supposed to be an RTS, as opposed to a TBS.

Are they even comparable

Asmodean

Nope, it will definitely be a TBS - but a revolutionary one. Only the space battles will be RTS, all the ground combat and the whole remaining engine will be TBS.

At first sight Moo3 is hardly comparable to any other TBS, BUT still share the same compounds: empire building wargame with expansion, diplomacy, and corruption.....

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Asmodean
Excuse my ignorance, but isn't MOO3 supposed to be an RTS, as opposed to a TBS.

Are they even comparable

Asmodean

No, that wasn´t my point.

My point is that SWGB is very well designed, has great atmosphere and about perfect unit balance, as well as lots and lots of stuff to discover and play around with, all of which CivIII lacks, but MOO will hopefully have. In that general sense, I hope that MOO3 will be more like SWGB than like CivIII (great design, as opposed to crappy design, not RTS as opposed to TBS).

Sorry if I wasn´t entirely clear on this.

[Trifna]

Originally posted by Master Marcus


Nope, it will definitely be a TBS - but a revolutionary one. Only the space battles will be RTS, all the ground combat and the whole remaining engine will be TBS.

At first sight Moo3 is hardly comparable to any other TBS, BUT still share the same compounds: empire building wargame with expansion, diplomacy, and corruption.....

Bonjour compère compagnon

[MarkG]

sounds like this belongs to the moo3 forum....