Moo3's Death by a Thousand Cuts

[TheMaestro]

Originally posted by Harry Seldon


But how many times was the MOO title shuffled when the company that owned it was bought buy another? If it's been owned by three separate companies (I could be wrong on this one; please be gentle), it was probably started several times then scrapped when someone else came along with "fresh ideas" from the new HQ. I have no excuses for Civ, though. I've never played it and from the blistering anger coming from some of the posts I've read, I probably never will.

Exactly! That's a major problem...the MOOII people aren't even around, so this new version has no basis for comparison by the developers, which means it could be a supremely inferior game. One of these days we may all find out...

Civ III? I dislike it...a lot. Not as fun, bombarding is useless, bombing raids are useless...oh well.

[Kc7mxo]

. . . supremely inferior game. . .

by the same token, it could be supremely better. Perhaps all these months of waiting will be worth it, and the sky shall rain joy and the masses shall bless the name of quicksilver.

For game quality, I still have high hopes. Otherwise I wouldn't be here. Now release date wise, I'm still in the December 1st 2003 camp. Nyah nyah nyah.

[TheMaestro]

Originally posted by Kc7mxo


still in the December 1st 2003 camp. Nyah nyah nyah.

Me too, December 1st 2003 is prolly right.

And by then I'll have Galaxies, so MOO3 will be nothing major.

[Imperator Max]

I almost feel guilty (almost) for bringing it up again, but I thought the IFP idea was a very good one. My first knee-jerk reaction was to be a bit alarmed at the concept, but once it sunk in, I got to like the idea more and more.

I especially liked Xentropy's entry (all the way back on page 3) re this. I hadn't even thought of the multiplayer implications of IFPs (i.e. the end of the clickfest). I think he's absolutely right on that one.

The reasons I grew to like the idea were that, firstly, it would remove alot of the micromanagement headaches, level the playing field for the AI and let the player focus a little more on grand strategy. These were the prime motivations for inventing for IFP I think.

But as a useful side effect (apart form the multiplayer thing) would have been to create a more realistic "emperor" role for the player, rather than as a sort of generally abstracted overlord/god. And there would have been a whole new aspect to the game in the hiring, firing, promoting and (possibly) whipping/punishing of your governors/admirals/satraps/whatever. Additionally, the reliance that you would subsequently *have to* place in those subordinates would open a while new avenue for assassinating and bribing other player key people, and wondering which of your people had been "got to".

And why did they scrap them completely? Just add a button to turn them off at the beginning of a game!

Nonetheless... I still have hope yet!

Jon...

[warden]

Their implementation of IFPs was dumb. You could look at every screen or planet in your empire but only got charged an IFP when you actually made a change. This was obviously hopeless as players would then feel obliged to look at everything first and then figure out how to spend their IFPs and that would have taken forever - slowing the game down, not speeding it up.

If the idea is to limit the time taken then a time limit is the most direct way of doing it, as they have done. Alternatively, you can restrict access to information as well as the ability to make changes. E.g. charge an IFP every time you leave the top level screen to drill down into some detail - ship design, planet display, whatever.

Andrew

[booklord]

According to the preview you can play a multiplayer game with a time limit of 1 minute! Yikes! Can you imagine that in a large multi-player game?

[Imperator Max]

Think you've got a point with that. Though I still think IFPs would be a time saver overall.
Spending points to view stuff in depth would be fair enough: perhaps even advantageous and more realistic. After all, you could look at summaries etc with no problem, but any deeper inspection would be like or equivalent to a special investigation, or setting some bureaucratic task force to work on digging up the details for you imperial Majesty.

The computer moving ships for you though, I never liked that bit, but they could have just excluded it... I don't really consider that to be micromanagement.

Jon...

[Harry Seldon]

The key to IFPs would be trust. Yes, you could view each planet to see where you should spend your points, but if you trusted your advisors you could use their reports to decide what to do. I could see if you had a sector doing horribly you'd want to find out what's going on; THEN MM would come into play. That's the way the real world works and it'd be cool if MOO3 had reflected that.

[Imperator Max]

Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at.

That would add nicely to the whole people management aspect. Not only would leader/governors/etc be good or bad at a job, their accuracy of reporting would be a factor too (it would cool to find out an incompetent planetary governor who's been lying to you and fire/vaporise him on the spot!).

Jon...

[booklord]

IFPs were never a good idea.

Concept
1) Did anyone like the idea of the AI moving your ships? To make it worse the AI was apparently bad at it. Once you cut ship movements from the list. IFPs became concentrated on colony management.

Implementation
2) In the game cutlist it was written that while the colony AIs were good they didn't eliminate the players need to control mulitple aspects of his empire in a single turn. Imagine if you will a turn in which you had emergencies in multiple colonies of your empire. ( Possible if your currently being hounded by spies causing unrest) Which would the player like to do. Make a series of quick changes to fit under the time limit. Or only change one or two and have to risk revolt or worse on the planets he couldn't help.

Usage
3) Finally you come to the ultimate failure of IFPs which can best be described in the following quote.

"Come on hurry up your turn!"
"I need just a little longer to decide how to use my IFP points!"

It's possible for some players that turns would actually take LONGER using IFPs.

[Harry Seldon]

I didn't like the AI moving my ships, either, but it would have been nice to have colonial IFPs. Give us the option to turn it off if we don't want to use it. I get tired of setting all my colonies to Trade Goods towards the end of the game only because I'm sick of flipping through the build queue trying to get back to my invasion. And if I was playing multiplayer I'd use time limits regardless of management method; the same person who plods along with IFPs is the same person who deeply considers whether to implement Terraforming or Subterranean Farming.

To reiterate, not being able to control every small detail is what real life is all about. Since they've been cut, this is a moot arguement but I still think the design was a giant leap in the right direction. This genre will eventually reach a point where if something is not done about the MM aspect, the innovation for gameplay will drown under the weight of clicks. I admire the MOO team for trying to burn a way through the quagmire before most people realized they were lost. It's unfortunate that it didn't work but there's always next time.

[kalbear]

To reiterate, not being able to control every small detail is what real life is all about.

And being able to travel starlanes to battle New Orions and join the galactic senate has what, exactly, to do with real life?

Stop being so pedantic. If that's a kind of game that you like - only having so many choices on what you can do that turn - that's fine. But comparing it to what we can and can't do IRL is silly. I play games, in part, to escape that aspect of my life, not to reinforce it.

To reiterate, IFPs only reinforced that you had to use governors to do the right thing. Those governors are still there and you're more than able to use them. You just don't HAVE TO.

In short, you have the option to use it or not. You can give them hints as to how you want the world built, let them manage it on their own, or do whatever you like in between. It's up to you.

How is that different than what it would have been IFPs? Not very much, except that you have a choice in the matter.

[Harry Seldon]

Originally posted by kalbear

Stop being so pedantic. If that's a kind of game that you like - only having so many choices on what you can do that turn - that's fine. But comparing it to what we can and can't do IRL is silly. I play games, in part, to escape that aspect of my life, not to reinforce it.

Whoa, buddy! I agree with you on this point; I'm not interested in playing a game where I go to work, get yelled at by my boss, and drive home to a lousy dinner either. If I wanted that, I'd get the Sims. Haven't you ever fantasized about being in control, as a president or a king, in the REAL world? I do. Because I believe I could change the world for the better. Now, I play all sorts of fantastic games and this one will be no exception. Isn't living in a fantasy world bound by some of the constraints of Real Life still an escape? How is controlling a galactic empire a different than dreaming about running your department or store at work (excepting the starships, lasers, etc... )? I dream of running the shop, so to speak, especially when I'm having a crappy day. When I do, I'll envision myself making the decisions I feel are correct, treat everyone the way they deserve to be treated. Of course, this is not to say I don't occassionally envision myself engulfed in flame choking people from across the room with the might of my will alone . These are two separate escapes for me.

I have many games that allow the latter type of release for me and I feel it would have been an interesting challenge to be faced with the former. I don't see many games like that, if any, and I think the concept is ahead of its time. The lack of IFPs won't keep me from buying the game or enjoying it and if they had added them in I would want the ability to turn it off, as I said before. So I don't feel like advocating a game with this design indicates in any way a narrow minded approach.

[Ghostbear]

Having skimmed through this thread, it appears to me that most of the cuts seem to be to make MP easier.

IMHO, most of the "simplification" to meet the "average" player is a direct result of trying to make a game MPish. That is simple and able to be finished in a few hours.

Has anyone else considered that?

I like the occasional MP game, but I think MP is the "unwashed masses" of computer gaming.

[Harry Seldon]

Originally posted by Ghostbear
I like the occasional MP game, but I think MP is the "unwashed masses" of computer gaming.

I agree. I wish MP had been tacked on in an expansion. Maybe this will help them sell more copies of the game out of the gate, who knows? If it contributes to sales enough to entice a MOO4 or MOM2 out of IG then you won't hear a peep out of me on it.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by kalbear
In short, you have the option to use it or not. You can give them hints as to how you want the world built, let them manage it on their own, or do whatever you like in between. It's up to you.

But I don´t want it to be up to me.

I want the game to simulate friction:

'Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult. These difficulties accumulate and produce a friction which no man can imagine exactly who has not seen war. Suppose now a traveller, who towards evening expects to accomplish the two stages at the end of his day’s journey, four or five leagues, with post-horses, on the high road -- it is nothing. He arrives now at the last station but one, finds no horses, or very bad ones; then a hilly country, bad roads; it is a dark night, and he is glad when, after a great deal of trouble, he reaches the next station, and finds there some miserable accommodation. So in war, through the influence of an infinity of petty circumstances, which cannot properly be described on paper, things disappoint us, and we fall short of the mark. A powerful iron will overcomes this friction; it crushes the obstacles, but certainly the machine along with them. We shall often meet with this result. Like an obelisk towards which the principal streets of a town converge, the strong will of a proud spirit stands prominent and commanding in the middle of the art of war.

Friction is the only conception which in a general way corresponds to that which distinguishes real war from war on paper. The military machine, the army and all belonging to it, is in fact simple, and appears on this account easy to manage. But let us reflect that no part of it is in one piece, that it is composed entirely of individuals, each of which keeps up its own friction in all directions. Theoretically all sounds very well: the commander of a battalion is responsible for the execution of the order given; and as the battalion by its discipline is glued together into one piece, and the chief must be a man of acknowledged zeal, the beam turns on an iron pin with little friction. But it is not so in reality, and all that is exaggerated and false in such a conception manifests itself at once in war. The battalion always remains composed of a number of men, of whom, if chance so wills, the most insignificant is able to occasion delay and even irregularity. The danger which war brings with it, the bodily exertions which it requires, augment this evil so much that they may be regarded as the greatest causes of it.

This enormous friction, which is not concentrated, as in mechanics, at a few points, is therefore everywhere brought into contact with chance, and thus incidents take place upon which it was impossible to calculate, their chief origin being chance. As an instance of one such chance take the weather. Here the fog prevents the enemy from being discovered in time, a battery from firing at the right moment, a report from reaching the general; there the rain prevents a battalion from arriving at the right time, because instead of for three it had to march perhaps eight hours; the cavalry from charging effectively because it is stuck fast in heavy ground.' -Clausewitz: On War

A Computer Strategy Game would be able to simulate this concept, but none do. I had hoped for Moo3 to be the first. But it was not to be, because, apart from Emrich and Stormhound, no one else at QS understood the WHYs of the original design.

[Comrade Tribune]

Of course it would have been possible to replace IFPs with something else to achieve a similar result: Let´s say you have an Imperial Organisation Value. This Value goes down whenever you do something. Low Organisation means Production goes down, Troop Morale decreases, the chance of Catastrophes increases. This would serve the same function as IFPs: To give you a penalty for doing anything, because every action will disturb business-as-usual, and should therefore carry a cost. In short: The player is not God-almighty, and should not feel as if he were.

This would go a long way to remove the game from mickey-mouseyness.

[Grumbold]

I played a game on my Atari ST which imitated this in some ways. Every time you created a new prototype ship, the first one cost double to build. When you changed what a factory was producing its first unit was always double cost (so switching to a prototype made it 4x cost in total.) The same sort of inefficiencies could be applied to anything. Thus the micromanagers could still plan to tweak in an optimum way but the emphasis was sticking with any decisions you made because changing the same stuff every turn was bad.

Would you rather have one brand new warship or five that were almost as good? Do you switch all factories at the same time or slowly phase in new designs? Nice idea and one I wish had been followed up by later strategy games.

[booklord]

To give you a penalty for doing anything, because every action will disturb business-as-usual, and should therefore carry a cost. In short: The player is not God-almighty, and should not feel as if he were.

No I'm the Silicoid Uni-mind located deep in the recesses of the silicoid homeworld were I with my unmeasurable cognitive capabilities can control every aspect of the silicoid collective. ( Should I desire to do so ) After that I may be the "Supreme Unquestionable Unimpeachable Emperor of the Human Democracy"

Come on, most strategy games, Civilzation ... SimCity 4 ... are all about playing god. Controlling an empire or building a world which in reality would beyond the ability ( and lifespan ) of any one individual to accomplish.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by booklord
Come on, most strategy games, Civilzation ... SimCity 4 ... are all about playing god. Controlling an empire or building a world which in reality would beyond the ability ( and lifespan ) of any one individual to accomplish.

I agree with your point insofar as Empire Building Games, by necessity, let you play a whole succession of rulers, not just one, which is a bit unrealistic.

This problem is unavoidable, but it should **NOT** be compounded by giving the ruler godlike powers.

I don´t want godlike powers! (Because they take away from my feeling of achievement.)

[kalbear]

Well, as I've said before:

The choice is largely there for you. You still have to manage your ships - because almost unanimously it was found that people hate the AI doing part of it - but you're free to let governors deal with planetary and system-wide settings, as you pick.

How much MM you use is entirely up to you. If you want limitations, SET THEM YOURSELF.

This is a much more desirable situation in my mind than having a game where the limitations are set in stone and you have no way around them.

Want more thrilling achievment when you win this game? Play it on the hardest setting, using an Ithkul-based race, and remove all their bonus picks. Give them a huge penalty, and there ya go. And only allow yourself the luxury of modifying 5 planets every turn.

You have the power to give yourself that friction, if you so desire.

Oh, by the way - the strat guide and other BTs have indicated that massive quick changes cause unrest and therefore inefficiency in the manner you talk about. Changing governments does this as well. But if you adjust tax settings, war settings, migration settings too much too soon, it causes unrest. Sounds a lot like the IOP settings.

Finally, it's ludicrous to me to simply discount the reports of beta testers, playtesters, and designers in talking about the game and what cuts were made and why. Did that whole 'even knowing the formula didn't help us show the causality of these things' bit mean nothing to you? Things were taken out because they did not add anything to the game. Not a little bit of complexity, not a lot of complexity - they basically simulated you adjusting a slider.

If you want a game like that, that's your decision. I like games where my doing something in the game has some relevant bearing on it.

[RolandtheMad]

Even if you rationalize it by saying you play a succession of rulers, it must be godlike line of rulers. They would be rulers that are the mayors of a thousand colonies, emperors, admirals, administrators, diplomats, spy masters, scientists... :P

[RolandtheMad]

*SIGH*

Max number of ships in a TF reduced to 18

http://www.ina-community.com/forums/...69#post3333769

Originally posted by apoc527
Number of ships has been reduced to 18 per task force. Now it's been confirmed. Fnord.

I have to agree with this person -

Originally posted by Lillith
i second that thought on the limit of 18 ships per TF,
though i fear it is just another flaw in a long line of set backs.

now

18*12 = 216
216*2 = 432

well where has the main argument for the limited battle grafics and visual ship designs gone now? it poofed, 'cause we don't have those really big scale battles anymore.

[Comrade Tribune]

216 ships/battle is ok with me.

But I want to organize them without artificial limits.

If I want to place them all into just 3 taskforces -or just one!- that should be possible.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by kalbear
How much MM you use is entirely up to you. If you want limitations, SET THEM YOURSELF.

Of course I want the same limitations on everybody.

Or we can forget about Multiplayer.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
But I want to organize them without artificial limits.

Because *regardless* how large my fleet is, I *never* want to have more than 5 TFs. ==> Idiotic Clickfest

If you want complex battles, make them turn-based.

The more I learn about Moo3, the less I like it.

[RolandtheMad]

My thoughts exactly. I don`t want artifical limits on my fleet groupings either. Looks like they`ve made task forces more like real life task forces though, no more fleets or armadas for us.

Personally I don`t get the whole small TF idea anyway unless it is early in the game and you can`t afford an armada. My strategy has always been to build a few armadas for each corner of the empire... overwhelm them with numbers.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by RolandtheMad
... overwhelm them with numbers.

Yep; Zorgling Strategy works fine for me.

But even World War II task forces could be composed of more than 18 ships. I´d say a Murmansk Convoy had certainly more.

[RolandtheMad]

ARRRRRRRRGH!

Originally posted by kebzero

Currently; no reinforcements for ongoing battles.

If you have more TFs than the limit, the TFs up to that limit join the battle. The rest do nothing that turn. Should some of your battling TFs be destroyed, and the battle continue next turn, repeat.

SO MUCH FOR MY SWARM STRATEGY!

THIS HAS LONG BEEN UNDERSTOOD TO BE IN THE GAME!

[Harry Seldon]

That truly, truly s**ks. So instead of one decisive battle that will be heralded through out the ages, we're stuck with an eighteen on eighteen battle over and over and over again until we run out of ships (TFs, excuse me). Didn't the Spanish Armada of the fifteen hundreds have around five hundred ships? Are we to believe that futuristic space travelling races can cross the cosmos at will but can't organize more than eighteen ships at a time?