Moo3 Patch Observations

[Hydro]

I thought the pre-patch Moo3 had potential, but was disappointed. Now I’ve played 10+ post-patch Moo3 games to varying levels of completion and have the following conclusions/opinions:

Start game – Decent setup, and nice pick choices. Races well done. I’d like to be able to save a customized race like in Moo2. Is that so hard to program? I’ll probably never know now.

Interface – as many have said, Moo3 has a steep learning curve. There is too much ‘stuff’ that could have been cut, obviously artifacts of the significant mid-design changes. But, it is logical even if it is too complicated.

Race balance – I don’t really know since I’ve only played them all, and have mainly played the fishes and gas bags. All the AIs seem to do a good job expanding, and fielding fleets. The Ithkul are a terror, and I always hope not to find them too early in the game. Seeing 360 Ithkul ships (two full attack fleets of 10 armada each, meaning a multi-turn attack) on a boarder world on turn 150 makes my heart skip a beat (or two).

Feedback is much better, but far from excellent. For instance, I now know what placing a Bioharvesting or Mining DEA will do and how to compare regions. Tech explanations are better, too.

Ship design – much the same. I wish there was more info to compare weapons while designing, though. The ship auto design does a decent job, although it doesn’t put enough PD or armor on ships (in my opinion).

Diplomacy – opaque, but excellent. All your actions and racial pre-dispositions count. The feedback is a bit thin (eg – why is the AI threatening me? Oh – I’m attacking his ally. Why didn’t he say that?). Having an ally really means something, and they will meaningfully contribute to a war effort and defense. This is the first TB game I’ve seen where this is true (my experience my be limited, of course). Likewise these relationships require work, and not just cheesy gifts to buy friends (I’ve tried – no go). Your priorities have to be aligned, and you have to give (AI: attack my enemy) and take (to AI: fulfill treaty obligation).

Ship combat – The PD bug is fixed – very good. I happen to really like this, particularly when there are hundreds of ships and hordes of fighters and missiles on the map. It is clear that the graphics was designed for large fleet interactions, and I honestly don’t think they could have done much more without massively increasing the game system requirements. In small squadrons it is a little crude, but I like zooming out to watch the action (and hope…). I also like the AI mode – never did like the move-one-ship-at-a-time-and-shoot in Moo2. I’m the emperor, for heaven sake, not a bloody ship captain. One wish list – being able to assign priority targets for the AI so they ignore the cheap short-range armada in the front and take out the nasty and expensive missile armadas hiding in the back.

AI and ship construction/combat – very good. There are now AI fleets of hundreds of large hull ships that are on the attack and defense, and they are effective (depending on the tech level of the race, of course). In my opinion this is the most significantly improved portion from the pre-patch game, where the AI never made any ships, only hordes of useless transports. Now you have to fight to keep your position, or arrange to have friends by carefully nurtured alliances. Neglect your fleets and you will be punished.

AI and ground combat – I’ve lost many planets to the AI, and not just undefended fledgling colonies but huge fully developed worlds. Now, this could be because of incompetence, but it is more likely due to a changing geo-political situation (and me colonizing ‘useless’ gas giants in the territory of a treacherous former ally human’s territory). There is a feeling of helplessness as I realize there is no way I can help, and will have to write them off (for now, at least…).

Governors – I find they do a good job at keeping my army stocked with troops, transports, colony ships, system ships, and developing my worlds. I’ve found I can survive very nicely without any Dev Plans, and I have perceived no real difference in games where I used or didn’t use them. The governors are not so good at building my top-of-the-line military ships, likely because of a cost to production calc. This requires manual modification in the military build cue, and the Lock Production key is a nice feature in this case (it also is nice so my high production worlds don’t make hordes of infantry, armor, or marines, wasting their potential).

Auto colonization – much improved. There is no longer an infinite conga line of colony ships streaming to the same bloody Red 2 world 20 turns away. The AI sends the appropriate number, then moves on. It also does a good job of placing system ships, with a few exceptions where it over produces one (likely due to growth before the next system ship is made). It is clear this is working for the AI, too, since it colonizes and expands like rabbits. The early game is a fight to establish territory, as it should be (but it isn’t nearly a bad as GalCiv in this regard).

Ground combat – this is a bell and whistle, and I would be just as happy if it went away. I’m not anal enough to analyze what all the choices do or mean, so it is essentially a random number generator. In my mind this is a feature they could have easily cut, replacing it with a simple high-medium-low intensity combat order.

Senate – OK, and not really improved with the patch. I still don’t like the Senate Victory, since it makes being on the Senate too powerful. I liked the Moo2 resolution, where you and the other AIs could band together to oppose the self-styled Galactic Emperor (or they could gang up against you). I’d guess that was too hard to code, though. It also means you’d have to be REALLY big to win via this modified method.

Tech advance rate – better. Before your tech would progress so fast your ships would be obsolete before they were constructed. Now it seems more reasonable, and makes any given tech important since it is around longer.

Backstory – I’m a SF buff and this is important to me. For me a game like this has to go beyond the simple mechanics, which, after all, can be mastered. But, after you master them, why should I care? That is why, post-patch, I like Moo3. They fixed most of the major game-breaking issues (and may of the irritations) and let me enjoy the story as it unfolds. Exploration, diplomacy, settling worlds, wars – it all has a context, or at least it does in my mind. In particular, the Ithkul are brilliant villains. I have a visceral dislike for them, and it colors my approach to the game. Adding them provides a natural antagonist for me and the AI, and they are powerful enough that they can be a true threat to galactic peace (I’ve written some fan fiction to that effect).

Overall I think post-patch Moo3 is a keeper. I like it better than GalCiv, which struck me as linear and a bit thin (even if the AI seems good). It is too bad Infogames squandered the chance to make a good first impression when they released a very rough game. Although the game is complicated, it does definitely have its advantages. It’s backstory isn’t as good as SMAC (none are, in my humble opinion), but it is immersive with a decent one-more-turn feel.

[Whoha]

Heres what i've seen in my quite limited time playing.

Interface: If the manual explained how everything works, then the interface would be fine, as it stands you have to just mess around for a while to know what everything does, but once you do it is fairly simple.

Don't know too much about race balance since i'm playing 1v1 games right now.

For feedback I'd suggest installing the encyclopedia mod, its quite detailed.

Ship design is somewhat annoying.

Diplomacy doesn't really play a part in 1v1(except that I alway vote for the NO and they beset me with their spies )

Ship combat, ship AI, general AI failures in dealing with conflict:
The ship ai is very poor, IF and Carrier groups run away from enemy units when told to attack them regardless of whether there are sr/lr/pd ships that can shoot, you really have to struggle to keep your task forces together. The ai on the other hand is all to happy to send in its groups piece meal. Also, as in moo2, if you camp out over enemy planets they will send whatever they can build per turn to send at you, which get easily slaughtered. If you let them build up for a while there will be a somewhat tough fight, but only if you mess up.
In all unless the ai has a numerical and tech advantage(like in this game where I get fusion cannon,next gun is railgun,and next gun after that is plasma cannon thanks to not getting more intermediate weapons in the tech tree)

Governors:These guys have some faults, but if you price your ships so that they are all the same cost the only thing you will lack will be transports and troops(yes, in the game i'm in now the ai isn't building enough troops or transports in favor of plasma cannon LR light cruisers). Also you have to take into account hfog when designing a ship, its a killer later on.

Auto colonization seems good, but I still want to do the first few. Also it doesn't take into account fleets set for always attack, so a stream of colony ships(ai or otherwise) just gets slaughtered.

ground combat is much improved from moo2.

the no spy and long live leader mods are both very good as far as I can see. Maybe i'm just playing the worst possible race for dealing with spies(humans).

[BenRipped]

For more info and some really great mods check out The OrionSector.com and MOO3Mods.com

[Vince278]

Well said. I agree for the most part.

[Grumbold]

Nice summation Hydro.

[vmxa1]

Thanks for the update. I have downloaded the patch recently and I am thinking of giving this another shot.

[Hydro]

A few more ad hoc items:

Espionage and spying ¡V better, and no longer overpowered/unbalanced. Defensive spies seem to work since my leaders no longer have a life span measured in turns, and my empires aren¡¦t constantly wracked by internal espionage events. I set my oppressometer pretty high, of course, and this helps, as does having plenty of defensive spies. I haven¡¦t played a spying race (like Evon or Ithkul) and haven¡¦t used spying offensively very often. Others may have opinions on whether the post-patch Moo3 is better in this regard. There are mods out there that effectively eliminate spies, but I find that isn¡¦t necessary post-patch.

Leaders ¡V much better. As mentioned above, with spies fixed the post-patch leaders are around long enough to be a significant factor in the game. Half of my leaders die of natural causes after long service, and only rarely are they assassinated. Of course, I have a bevy of political defensive spies to defend them (see above). Occasionally I have to turn a leader away, which never happened pre-patch where getting on my Council was effectively a death sentence.

Empire unrest ¡V largely unchanged, but functionally better:
„h Taxes - One continuing problem is that any new planet is set to a tax rate of 22%, which guarantees immediate unrest at my oppressometer and development levels. Those who let the AI build and develop their worlds (I don¡¦t: I set up all region DEAs, set the initial military production, set migration to ¡¥on¡¦, and the tax rate (~18%), then ignore the planet for a long time) will find lots of unrest on their new worlds since the AI governors are slow to reduce tax rates to deal with this. After the initial setup taxation can be tweaked, too, and I rarely have to fiddle with this after the start, and if I do it is temporary.
„h Pirates - After I learned they key tactic of building cheap police system frigates to reduce/eliminate pirates life got much better. The first two military items my planets build are police frigates. Planet anti-pirate duty is a good use for all those obsolete ships that didn¡¦t die gloriously in combat, too.
„h Social/general ¡V post-patch I have only rarely had to rely on empire-wide funding to reduce unrest, and this is largely the result of not being as vulnerable to social spies. This improves the game since I am not as distracted dealing with unrest every turn, and spending hordes of cash on placating restive populations.
„h ¡§Harv Eat¡¨ ¡V this was a subtle feature of the patch, and I LOVE it! Of course a population is going to be more than annoyed when the Harvesters move in and start sucking their brains out. This is a great improvement to the flavor of the game, well in keeping with the ¡¥Ithkul Menace¡¦. The solution to this type of unrest on an infected planet is simple: give this planet to an enemy, then glass the planet. End of problem (a ¡¥final solution¡¦, as it were). I¡¦d like to be able to exterminate all of a given race from my empire, but that is not to be¡K

Game pace ¡V decent, but it is a game of grand scale. This is not a game to be completed in hours (like our twitchy attention-impaired RTS friends demand; to each their own), but days. Some fault Moo3 for this, but Infogames didn¡¦t lie in their advertisements promoting an epic space empire-building game. The game requires thought (and patience), not reaction.