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Detailed Preview of Masters of Orion 3 286

Posted by Hemos from the believe-have-it-out-soon dept.
garibald writes "Constantine, the head developer, promised that there would be a detailed preview of the game this week, and here it is at Apolyton. Constantine also said the game was in it's final regression testing. Here's hoping that the game will be out by the end of this month." Oh, Lordie, if I counted the hours I spent playing MOO and MOO2 - I'm really looking forward to this one.
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Detailed Preview of Masters of Orion 3 More

Detailed Preview of Masters of Orion 3

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  • No! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Negatyfus ( 602326 )
    I think you got a couple of songs mixed up. It's Master of Puppets and Orion is another song from that album altogether.
  • Does this game's developer have a track record like Nintendo's or Rare's of delaying games (until they're perfect - good) for years? IF so, then I wouldn't bet on seeing the game soon, no matter what the developer says. Perhaps someone can shed some light on this.

    • Re:Track record? (Score:2, Informative)

      by KrizDog ( 95871 )
      They have already pushed the release back more time than I can count. They even made wired's vaporware [wired.com] list at number 5. Its about time they actually went gold.

  • favorite part (Score:4, Insightful)

    by prichardson ( 603676 ) on Friday January 10, 2003 @03:20AM (#5053361) Journal
    My favorite part about MOO 3 is the real time ship-ship combat. It always seemed anoying and wrong to have turn based combat. Turn based strategy is fine, but after playing a few RTS's I realized that there are just some really cool things you cant pull off in turn-based.

    • Re:favorite part (Score:3, Interesting)

      by hemanman ( 35302 )
      Oh, what to do, mod parrent as troll or reply....

      Ok, I guess I reply instead. Turn based combat worked just fine in MOO and MOO 2!

      Why does everything have to be real time today, where the AI is so "advanced" that the advanced part is that it attacks you on 3 fronts at once, oh gee what exitement!

      I hope they make it a bit like Bioware's Neverwinter Nights so you can pause and stack your commands on all ships, now that would be cool.

      -H

      • Re:favorite part (Score:5, Interesting)

        by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Friday January 10, 2003 @06:36AM (#5053797)
        Ok, I guess I reply instead. Turn based combat worked just fine in MOO and MOO 2!

        No, it didn't. Two fleets of identical ships face off, and they are built so that it takes a full volley of fire from two ships to destroy one. Suppose there are 100 ships in each fleet. What is the deciding factor in the outcome of the battle?

        Answer: who shoots first, wins.

        Fleet 1 fires, destroying as many ships as possible and leaving the others undamaged. Fifty of Fleet 2's ships go down in flames. Now it's Fleet 2's turn - but because half of them are dead, they only take down 25 of Fleet 1. Fleet 1 returns fire again and demolishes 37 of Fleet 2's ships, seriously damaging one other. The thirteen remaining ships (if they are at all sensible) turn and run.

        And the player _always_ got first shot. I ended up piling on as many weapons as possible to my ships at the total expense of armour and shielding. If the enemy fired a shot at me, I was going down, but I knew full well that they weren't going to get the chance.

        It got worse at the end of the game; the defence technology didn't keep pace with the weapons. Shield-piercing autofire (3 shots instead of 1 at a 20% accuracy penalty) heavy phasors coupled to a good computer (making up for that penalty) and an Achilles targeting system (which totally bypasses the target's armour and massively increases damage) were so good they were almost like cheating. Phasors miniaturised well, so you could pack a whole lot onto a ship. It got to the point where one ship could take down several enemy ships in its turn. With a kill rate of 1 a turn or greater, Fleet 2 aren't going to fire a shot; they're just going to be mown down.

        One cute thing to do is to conquer all the galaxy except one enemy world - then give them 10% tribute. With such enormous cash supplies they build fleets of hundreds of ships, which you can then use as target drones. See how many you can take down with a single ship...

        • Re:favorite part (Score:3, Informative)

          by kurokaze ( 221063 )
          True, late in the game it was whoever fired first
          wins.

          But what it interesting was that there was always
          one weapon which totally would dominate in the
          game. Most of the time it would be heavy
          phasor + auto fire + shield piercing. (Achilles
          targetting units should be standard equipment
          on all ships)

          but in some games I played the AI would build
          ships with displacement devices and energy
          absorbers, which really take alot away from the
          phasor. Heaven forbid they actually had hard
          shields to boot. Therefore in scenarios like
          that I tend to use Mauler devices and / or
          stellar converters. I actually had miniturized
          the stellar converter small enough to fit on a
          battleship.

          Now imagine this, a fleet of battleships w/
          stellar converters and time warp facilitators +
          half a dozen doom stars equipped with heavy auto
          fire phasors + high energy focus + hyper x
          capacitors + structural analyzers + achille
          targetting units + subspace teleporters & time
          warp facilitators. The enemy wouldn't have a
          chance to fire one shot against me.

          The 1.31 patch with ship initiative turned on
          negated some of that though.. had to start
          re-thinking strategy due to that!
          • The 1.31 patch with ship initiative turned on negated some of that though.. had to start re-thinking strategy due to that!

            Awww. Did they break the cloaking cheat, too? (For those who don't know, Orion 2 had a device called the Phasing Cloak, which was totally impenetrable - a phasecloaked ship couldn't be seen, let alone shot at, but had to decloak to fire and had to go a turn without firing to recloak. The Timewarp Facilitator gives the ship two turns in a row before the enemy gets a shot. This gave people a wonderful loophole...)

            • Yes, they changed the extra-turn sequence.

              Stasis beams and the warp interdictor/stargate combo were still both perversely strong, however, and 1.31's ship initiative broke the black hole generator (it simply doesn't hurt the victims anymore).
          • My favorite part of the game, (until I got bored of it) was early game MIRVed missles. I would build a Cruiser hull as quickly as possible and load it with 2x missles. Also make a scout ship with no weapons, but all the speed/turning enhancements. I called this the Observer. Take the pair into battle, have the Missle Cruiser Launch both rounds of Missles, and retreat. As long as the Observer remains in the battle, the missles continue to fly. Have the Observer Run like hell. Usually, your missles will destroy the defending force before thier missles reach your Observer. After the battle is over, your cruiser (which retreated) returns for the ground battle. If you've chosen a telepathic race, mind control the colony, and repeat as necessary. Like I said, it's so easy, it's not really much of a challenge, but if you just feel like taking over the galaxy without too much trouble, this strategy can easily end a game in a Huge galaxy in under two hours.
        • One cute thing to do is to conquer all the galaxy except one enemy world

          My favorite goal, was to cripple an incapacitate the other races, without genociding them. Each race was allowed to have its homeworld, and only that homeworld. I would take all the others, beating them back to their origins... then my lvl 100 warships would patrol orbit. Never again, would I allow them to leave the surface... or for that matter, to build industry! Had to be careful, never to let them go much below 10million population, or you could accidentally extinct them on the next volley. What a pity that would be, the curator of the intergalactic zoo would have had my head! Figuratively speaking, of course. As emperor, I had him executed for sneezing in my presence.

          Those were the days. It was only later that I discovered that the Urquan had been doing the same for millenia. But that's another game, another story.

          PS I used to do this on Herzog Zwei too... ring his home base with SAMs, and he could never leave to place units, but would never lose either. Just turn the TV off for a week, come back and end the game to see that you died 4 times, but he died 376,122 times. Caimlas, if you are reading this, you won't believe that either, I suppose. Yes, I did beat Zelda without ever getting the sword, asswad.
          • >My favorite goal, was to cripple an incapacitate the other races,
            >without genociding them. Each race was allowed to have its homeworld,
            >and only that homeworld.

            You're a kind and soft-hearted leader.

            I'd leave 'em with the worst planet in their holdings, hopefully something tiny and ultra-poor.

            It doesn't take much of a fleet to babysit a planet like that :)
            • But from an aesthetic standpoint, they needed to be confined to their homeworld.

              The game should have had technology that allowed you to de-terraform the planets to small, ultrapoor. Wish it were moddable...
          • Just wondering.

            I also found it distasteful to genocide a race. --I'd let them do whatever they wanted on their planet surface. Didn't want to interferr with anything in their culture. I just wouldn't allow them to go building up wrathful armadas and such. I found it frustrating that they'd keep sending ships at me to destroy. Depressing.

            I think the game would have been improved had there been an option whereby Starfleet Federation style organizations could have arisen, rather than the law of 'All Races Must Kill All Other Races,' bullshit.

            Actually, I kinda hated that game. I liked to build, but the finished structures were always ugly, evil things. --That such must be the reality is a total lie. I gave MOO-2 a 5 out of 10 for this reason. Cool beginnings, sucky follow through.


            -Fantastic Lad

  • DIRRTY DIRRTY DEVELOPERS! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Muusssst have my ORION 3F)JSKDL Musssst have it now. WHy do they taunt me? WHY DO THEY TEASES ME? I hatesssss them. precioussssss

  • New skills sets? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by grumpygrodyguy ( 603716 ) on Friday January 10, 2003 @03:26AM (#5053374)
    I enjoyed both MOO1 and MOO2, but was a bit disappointed with the fact that the skills in MOO2 were basically a carbon copy of those in M001. I liked the improved graphics and interface of M002, but would have appreciated more expansion of content.

    It gets kinda dull when you reach the end of the game and start exhausting what you can research. Researching Planetary Future Tech 24 , or Weapons Tech 33 may improve my score...but I'd rather have better guns/ships.

    Does anyone know if the skills have been expanded for M003?

    • Re:New skills sets? (Score:3, Informative)

      by europrobe ( 167359 )
      See this FAQ [orionsector.com] and look under Technology. For the lazy, it says:

      Will the tech tree be larger than MOO2? Will there be a "creative" race?

      Oh, yes, the tech tree will be a lot bigger. Even three times bigger. On "creative": there won't be quite such a racial trait that will allow you full access to the tech tree, but some races will have larger tech trees then the rest.

      That's three times for ya!
    • Whether they make the tech tree enormous or not -- and yeah, more variety's cool -- they need to fix some play balance problems in MOO2. The "creative" race thing really got monotonous, especially for multiplayer games. Was there anything "creative" about that playing style?

      The Civ 3 tree isn't much larger than Civ 2, but when you play the game some you appreciate how much better it is. Just killing the problem with Leonardo's [Free Lunch] Workshop was a huge deal. Play balance is everything. Variety's nice, but if there's a killer race trait or technology, you won't even bother to try all the other options anyway.

  • Er..what kind of game is it? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rufusdufus ( 450462 ) on Friday January 10, 2003 @03:27AM (#5053379)
    After reading the gobblygook article and looking at the race types, I went in search of something that would tell me what the game play is like.
    After seeing this screenshot [apolyton.net], I decided I just didn't care.

    The article and the screenshot together just make the game look mush-brained.
    • It would have been nice if they'd got a reviewer who'd played MOO and MOO2. Just copying race descriptions out of the manual isn't exactly a review.

    • Re:Er..what kind of game is it? (Part 1) (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tigress ( 48157 ) <rot13.fcnzgenc03@8in.net> on Friday January 10, 2003 @04:21AM (#5053531)
      The observant reader might notice the subtle hints, like "PART 1: LET'S MEET THE PLAYERS" and suspect that (surprise) there might be OTHER parts in the article, perhaps posted LATER. And that those OTHER parts of the article might contain more information about OTHER parts of the game. =)
    • no kidding. this "detailed preview" offers zero useful information about how the game plays. the writing is some of the worst I've encountered:

      The purpose here was to expediently observe these base cultures' histories in, as the manual states, "an effort to gain insight into their own dilemma" (Page 23). The goal was to reproduce the elements that led to the Elder Civilizations' conflict on a smaller scale. Whether such research led to discoveries sought by the Orions is unknown. What is known is that these pain-staking efforts would lend rise to no less then five distinct races. Two of these, the Klackon and Psilon, are playable civilizations in MoO3. Another race, the Humans, adamantly rejected suggestions that they too would found their origins within the universal petrie-dishes of Orion whims.

      the purpose of this article is to expose the base underworkings of a twisted syntactical constructive that passed the a spell checker, but no passing the whims of sensibility-making.

      it's just page after page of ridiculous race backstory. for great justice, does anybody have any idea how the game PLAYS? is it 3d? what are the new weapons and ships like? do you still have a cool movie clip that plays when you fire that mega planet destroying weapon? Do you have to let battles between large fleets run overnight because the engine bogs down?

      • Re:Er..what kind of game is it? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Alsee ( 515537 ) on Friday January 10, 2003 @02:15PM (#5057117) Homepage
        does anybody have any idea how the game PLAYS?

        While I haven't actually seen the game, I have been following it pretty closely. There is a lot of information available on exactly how various parts of the game work.

        is it 3d?

        While there are pretty 3-d graphics, the gameplay is effectively 100% 2-d. I beleive you can view and rotate the "galaxy" in 3-d but the stars effectively lie in a plane. The space combat occurs in a 2-d plane with 3-d models. The game does not require a 3-d accelerated graphics card.

        what are the new weapons

        You can to some extent design your fighters and missles almost like they are mini-ships. I don't know anything about new weapons. The game system for weapons seems to very similar to MOO2 for weapon mods, miniturization, and general weapon classes.

        [what are] ships like?

        That's a HUGE question, and a lot of it is the ENTIRELY NEW combat system. I'll just skim a few points.

        There are now 14 ship sizes for each of starships, system ships, and starbases. I think they expaned the text-space because of popular demand for the name "superdreadnaught", and that one is merely size 11. The space available on system ships is effectively one size class larger and starbases are effectively 2 size classes larger. YOU GET TO DESIGN YOUR STARBASES! You can have multiple starbases over a planet and they actually orbit the planet during combat. Beta testers have described the weapon capacity of larges starbases as "staggering". Planets and starbases have enormous range on their weapons - *if* they can see you.

        MOO3 you are going to making and using larger numbers of ships than MOO2 and you are handling them as task forces. Dozzens, hundreds or even thousands of ships. You are probably going to need a mix of ship sizes and weapon types. It's a lot more sophisticated than MOO2's basic plan of simply making all your ships the largest hull size and stuffing them all with the same weapon. Your task forces will be made up of a variety of ships with different roles.

        The combat is real-time, BUT! Lots of MOO fans freak out when they hear "real time combat", but as I understand it is NOTHING like the typical real time combat system and that "turn-based fans" who have used it are actually happy with it. It is not a hectic click-fest. It is strategic in nature. The ship captains and task force leaders in the fleet are "smart" and you give them combat strategies.

        The combat uses "fog of war" where you can only see ships within sensor range (planets are always visible). One of the roles for small ships is as perimiter scouts acting as eyes for your big ships with and ultra long range beam weapons and/or missles. You want to keep those ships out of the enemy's sight while they hammer him.

        Starships can move from any star to any star just like in MOO1 and MOO2, but they're added starlanes. Starlane travel is MUCH faster than going "offroad". I think they are trying to get the "best of both worlds", starlanes help you build frontlines and choke points, but in starlane-only games things can get too restricted and the chokepoints become become stupid. From what I've read they seem to have done a good job and it works well. Hopfully the combination will give strategic richness.

        There's a LOT more, but my "just skim a few points" already turned into 5 paragraphs. The starlanes and realtime combat have been very controversial, but the general consensus is that you have to actually see how it works and that it really does work out well.

        -

        • MORE (Score:2)

          by Alsee ( 515537 )
          Oops, I forgot to answer the last two questions...

          do you still have a cool movie clip that plays when you fire that mega planet destroying weapon?

          I don't know about movie clips, but the "blow up the planet" option is gone. I *think* there is a weapon option to sterilize a planet and turn the entire surface into a smooth sheet of glass.

          Do you have to let battles between large fleets run overnight because the engine bogs down?

          As I mentioned battles are realtime. I've read that 1000+ ship fleets can be a strain, but system requirements are a mere 300 Mhz Pentium II. It shouldn't be a problem.

          -
        • YOU GET TO DESIGN YOUR STARBASES!

          Excellent! In MOO2 I was always infuriated by the choice of weapons on my starbases. Antaran death rays are nice, but impractically large; I'd rather have my starbase capable of firing several smaller shots. Later in the game, if you go into extreme physics territory, your conventional weapons have been miniaturised to such an extent that your Star Fortresses are totally outclassed by your light cruisers.

          You can have multiple starbases over a planet and they actually orbit the planet during combat. Beta testers have described the weapon capacity of larges starbases as "staggering". Planets and starbases have enormous range on their weapons - *if* they can see you.

          Proposed plan of attack: take a Doom Star hull and fill it with rocks. Launch it directly towards the starbase at high speed, and have the fleet follow close behind it. By the time the planetary defences have melted the thing down, the fleet's there on the spot and has negated the starbase's superior range. In general, can my lightly armoured killer ships hide behind tougher ones?

          One thing I'd like to see (and I imagine it's a bit late to hope for it to be in MOO3 :-) is for there to be a benefit from standardisation. As it is, I decide I want a battleship, and I specify a variety of parts to go into it, then I order it to be built. So the parts are manufactured, a hull is built, the ship fitted and configured as a one-off affair. What I want is a discount if I order ten at a time.

          Or perhaps more realistically, I might run an imperial arsenal. Things like stellar converters and black hole generators I'll only ever need a few of, but I get through thousands of point-defence phasors and pulson missiles. I should order them in bulk, and allocate them to shipbuilding projects as required. Once stockpiled weapons become obsolete, a new option arises for the technologically leading player - become an armsdealer! I notice the Sakkra and Klackons are having a major and very bloody war - would either of you two be interested in buying a few dozen ex-Psilon graviton cannons?

    • Let me guess: the words "Ambassador" and "polite" scared the heck out of you, and you went running back to blasting Cyberdemons.

  • The Moo Purification (slashdot?) (Score:4, Funny)

    by $$$$$exyGal ( 638164 ) on Friday January 10, 2003 @03:28AM (#5053387) Homepage Journal
    The [so-called] Purification... was a lengthy process, and not all Slashdotters survived the transformation. Those who did not wish to undergo the Purification were granted goatse and politely but firmly invited to leave Slashdot forever. Those exiles settled on a distant world and called themselves the Trolls. -- Slashdot Manual (Page 76)

    Ok, so I slightly changed it. ;-)

    --gal [slashdot.org]

  • Waiting (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Vardan ( 172720 )
    I've had my preorder at EB since October. I really hope they get it out soon, it looks like it's going to be great. Maybe they'll actually make a Master of Magic 2 as well...oooh...*drool.* For those of you who haven't played the old Simtex games, see if you can find them, they're worth playing even now.

    • Re:Waiting (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ender81b ( 520454 )
      Master of Magic! Somebody who appreciates good, old classic games! I have a pentium 90 boxen with a (massive) 64 megs of ram, 1gbyte HD, some trident svga card, and sound blaster 16 dedicated to playing old dos games. Stuff like Master Of Magic, Master of Orion, tie fighter, dark forces, the *original* civ, and Crusader: No regret/No Remorse. Man I wish their was a way to run these on more modern machines... you just don't appreciate how much the 640k barrier/irq settings suck until you have to deal with it all over again =).

      Man they just don't make games like that anymore.

      P.S.
      If you are a true MOM fanatic you know that playing with chaos and using flamestrike is cheating! =)

      • If you are a true MOM fanatic you know that playing with chaos and using flamestrike is cheating! =)

        Hehe...

        I personally enjoy picking all Life Magic and that leader ability to make all trained units one level higher than normal. Then you cast Crusade or whatever it was (the global enchantment to *further* increase the levels of all your units one more).

        Then destroy the AI with Champion Halfling Slingers or Champion Javelineers. Mwahaha :-)

        Torin the Chosen can also become quite powerful at high levels and good custom equipment through the item creation spell.

        Aah, the memories. ;-) It's definitely better than the MOO games. hehe
        • I liked the chaos global that gave a random affect to all new creatures. I had fleets of flying halking slingers attacking everything.
        • Halfling Slingers + 10 books in Life + warlord + Crusade + Call to Arms + Lionheart + Invulnerability + Endurance = One stack of a "normal", low cost unit that brings down Sky Drakes and 900EP Champions with one hit and can stand up to everything those units can dish out.

          Talk about cheating.

          I always thought Zombie Mastery was good for a laugh, too. When I play as a Death Wizard, I don't play Master of Magic, I play "Night of the Living Dead"
      • Try using VDMSound [sourceforge.net]. It helps with both memory and sound issues on these old DOS games. It's a "must-have" utility for retro-gaming.

        Just last week I used it to play MOO on my Win2k box.
    • Maybe they'll actually make a Master of Magic 2 as well...oooh...*drool.*

      Sadly there is a 'sort of' follow-up to MoM (one of the best games ever). The Age of Wonders series is effectively the sequles to MoM. I recently picked up Age of Wonders II, and it is very MoM like in the way the game play works. You are again a wizard controling an army, turn based strategy, spell casting and research and graphics remenicent of MoM. On the whole its almost a great follow-up to MoM.
      So why do I say almost? Well, to begin with you no longer have the ability to choose your race. No more playing Dark Elves. You are a human wizard trying to solve the worlds problems by conquering the multiverse. Plus you are a little goddie two-shoes. Was it just me or was there something enjoyable about ransacking a city, murdering its population then building a city for your own race on its ashes? Secondly, and the biggest atrocity, the game is now level based. Its not the huge world that you can crush beneath your boot type game anymore. You are stuck playing levels and trying to acheive objectives. Its just not as fun anymore. They have taken a great game idea and killed it by trying to put a story in it.
      I realize that most newer games are these huge productions, with high budgets and paid script/story writters. But I wonder if its a good thing? Sure, its occasionanly nice to have a bit of story to tie the violence together, but the Master of Magic/Orion games didn't need it. You were a warlord out to conquer the worlds/galaxy, that was enough. Now get the story out of my way and let me get on about the business crushing my enemies.
      I just hope MoO 3 is as good as MoO 2 was. I spent countless hours finding new and unique was to rule the galaxy, and am looking forward to doing it again.

      • Well, to begin with you no longer have the ability to choose your race. No more playing Dark Elves.

        You can pick another race in the scenarios. If you get bored with the ones that come with the game you can go to aow2.heavengames.com and get more.

        Secondly, and the biggest atrocity, the game is now level based. Its not the huge world that you can crush beneath your boot type game anymore.

        Again, look at the scenarios - you're talking about the campaign game.

  • Not really a review. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jericho4.0 ( 565125 ) on Friday January 10, 2003 @03:33AM (#5053405)
    This 'review' is just a cut'n'paste from the manual section describing the species, plus screenshots of the species description screens. Oh, and he throws in a screenshot of the logo selection screen. Some info about, ya know, gameplay and such would have been nice.

    • The link was described as a "detailed preview." That would be why it wasn't really a review.

      - DDT
      • It is, and this is being generous, 16% of a preview. ...and it was mostly backstory, which from a gamer's POV won't necessarily be that important. If he wanted to "introduce the players", it would be better to describe the race advantages/disads in GAMEPLAY terms, and then describe the races in terms of how they PLAY.

        This was more of a fragment of a preview of the MOO3 /story/, not the game.

  • Favorite MOO2 Memory (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LordZardoz ( 155141 ) on Friday January 10, 2003 @03:42AM (#5053431)
    A friend of mine gave me access to his copy of the game when I was attending school. I ended up choosing a Lithovore race (can live in toxic environments by eating rocks). I was doing ok, but an aggressor species kept attacking me and demanding tribute. I had a few plantets, but had lost most of them quite quickly.

    But lucky for me, I had some excellent research abilities. I managed to discover Planetary Converter lasers (one shot kills a planet) and Doom Stars. But I was so heavily out numbered, that I kept losing most direct confrontations. But I had enough to hold back the attackers from wiping me out.

    At this point in the game, I had maybe 5 planets, and my opponent had everything else (about 100 planets). I was despearate, so I started sending my ships to planet colonies of the attacking race, and vaporising every planet in the system, and moving on.

    Initially, he continued to demand my surrender and 75% tribute. After toasting about 20 systems, He demanded 50%. Another 20 systems turned to asteroid fields, and he was willing to settle for 25%. A few systems later, he was saying that I was no longer worth his time to squash, so lets call the whole war off. After destroying his home system, he began offering me tribute.

    I ended up destorying every star system in the entire galaxy and all life (except my own). It was the only time I can recall winning a game by committing wholesale galactic genocide.

    I look forward to buying MOO3.

    END COMMUNICATION

    • It's all fun and games... (Score:5, Funny)

      by imag0 ( 605684 ) on Friday January 10, 2003 @03:51AM (#5053449) Homepage
      Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
    • "It was the only time I can recall winning a game by committing wholesale galactic genocide."

      Man, you and I had different playing styles. I can't recall a single game where I DIDN'T win by killing off every other race. I generally didn't blow up planets though, just stripped them of all their population.

      Same way I play Civ 3 for that matter.

    • Re:Favorite MOO2 Memory (Score:5, Interesting)

      by DarklordJonnyDigital ( 522978 ) on Friday January 10, 2003 @04:42AM (#5053593) Homepage Journal
      My favourite tactic in MOO2 was not to destroy anything, but to ally with everyone and become their best friends. Seems kinda pathetic, I know, but read on.

      Eventually, my people would be in perfect harmony with the Psilons - the most technologically advanced race in the game who not only get more technologies than anyone else in every field of research, they also gain them all faster. In MOO2, technology is a huge power, one that can make or break the game, and if all goes well I'm perfectly allied with these guys. What few enemies I have won't stand a chance.

      Now, here's a the excellent part. When you're in perfect friendship with the Psilons and 'demand' one of their technologies, they'll give it. No questions asked - you're their ally, and they really do love you that much. "Hey blueface, how about some of those planet destroying beams of yours?" "No problem, human ally!"

      And it's not just technologies. They'll give you entire star systems as well. ENTIRE STAR SYSTEMS. Systems with Gaia planets, systems with Ultra-Rich planets, systems of strategic importance, systems they just spent their hard-earned cash colonising - systems with expensive superpowerful ships at them. Systems choc-full of superbrainy Psilon scientists.

      Of course, there's one thing they won't give you, and that's their homeworld. Of course, by the time you demand their homeworld, you've got every other star system of theirs, ninety percent of their fleet and all of their technology.

      Luckily, my pacifist race (the Web Designers) is Telepathic, so I once I use ninety percent of their own fleet against the remaining ten percent, I simply Mind Control their home planet into loving my race and serving my faithfully..

      Assuming it supports LAN play, I look forward to buying MOO3 for my brother's birthday.

      END COMMUNICATION
    • That's my alternate end-game.

      Generally, I bide my time and work heavily on research and building up my planets. By the time they get around to picking on me, everyone else has massive fleets, and I don't have much at all. So, when the attack fleet is on its way, I start building a single Titan or Doom ship with the most massive and destructive technology I can arm it with. I pit it against their hundreds of ships and usually win.

      The nice thing about a one ship vs. hundreds of ships battle is that as you attack the enemy, their firepower continues to go down because they lose ships. You've got 100% firepower until you're defeated.

      Once I win that battle, I move the ship around my planets to protect them as the incoming fleets attack. As I am doing that, I produce more of those ships (slowly at first) to guard more planets, then eventually to attack theirs.

      At that point, the tide of war has swung in my favor, and it is just a matter of how much they can piss me off before I defeat them.

      Then, only if they'd really really really pissed me off, I'd blow up all their planets. Stellar Converters are fun.
      • That's how I played Stars! [crisium.com]

        Anyone remember that one? Anyone interested in cowriting a Linux or Java clone?
        • That's how I played Stars! Anyone remember that one? Anyone interested in cowriting a Linux or Java clone?

          Stars! works fine in regular WINE. A Linux clone would be nice, but it would be difficult to make it interoperate with Windows Stars! hosts in multiplayer - there are copy-protection lockouts.

          As far as I'm concerned, turtling in Stars! is just a non-starter. The early game is a landgrab and nothing but. If you leave it to late in the game to take on an AI, the sheer scale of the game defeats you. You can knock out his bigger planets and annihilate his main battle fleet, but colony ships are just so damn cheap... AIs always seem to have patrol ships, freighters and colony ships in random thermal motion throughout their territories, which makes it a nightmare to actually exterminate anyone.

          • I usually left a defensive ship (Nubian with almost all armor, and some Armageddon missiles) in orbit around each planet. Solved the problem of recolonizations rather nicely. And if I chose to be immune to the elements(like Silicanoids), I could just colonize the planet instead.

            Not sure I agree that it was landgrab, though. It used to say on the website that they wrote it because they wanted to play a game that "had the elements we enjoyed." Unfortunately, this has stifled inclusion of things like 3d battles and obstructions, natural space debris, etc.
        • That reminds me. Whatever happened to Stars! 3.0 (Supernova)? IIRC, it was supposed to be released in 1997, but I don't ever remember seeing it come out.
    • My Favorite MOO2 Memory

      was when those nice men in the white coats came and gave me thorazine... lots and lots of thorazine...

      I remember finding it really really funny as they pried the mouse out of my bloody fingers, but I don't quite recall what was so funny about it.

      -

  • That's a preview?! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by fishbert42 ( 588754 )
    "Constantine, the head developer, promised that there would be a detailed preview of the game this week." And that certainly wasn't it (not even deserving of being called a 'preview' of any sort, much less a 'detailed preview'). I guess they've still got a couple more days before the week is out to live up to his promise.
  • I think my favorite game of all timer -- aside from Scorched Earth [classicgaming.com] -- was Starflight [att.net] on the Commodore 64. I played that like I was getting paid to. I don't know why, but I couldn't put it down. I even found the ROMs for it and Starflight 2 and played them both to completion.

    It sounds like the MOO series is a lot like Starflight, but I never got into any of them. Can you still buy the ealier version? Should I bother looking on ebay or whatever, or just wait for MOO3 and play that? I mean, will playing MOO2 help me to appreciate MOO3, or is 3 a stand-alone game?

    -B

    • Hey, Scorched Earth was awesome ;)

      You can get MOO on abandonware sites, such as this link [abandonkeep.com]. MOO2 is harder to find free, but is actually still being sold so that's okay.

      I prefer MOO because it has a unique galaxy management interface. MOO2 is a boring copy of the Civilization/Master of Magic games where you have to micromanage city productions (s/city/planet/ and you get MOO2). This has apparently been addressed in MOO3.

      It turns out that the original MOO developers lost the MOO source code, so there won't be any prettified releases of it with updated drivers etc. It also most likely won't be open-sourced, which would rock ;) A shame.
    • MOO2's usually going for about $10 new. Try amazon.com, gamestop.com or ebgames.com -- one or more of those should have it. If memory serves, that's how much I paid for it (boxed version w/ decent paper manual, not just a jewel-case).

      From what I've read, MOO3 was /meant/ to be pretty different (imperial focus points and all)... but they scaled that back dramatically, and also have been having numerous delays and assorted issues during development. It ain't looking pretty, so you might want to wait for reviews -- and perhaps go for Galactic Civilizations from Stardock instead, which should be coming out around the same time. Brad Wardell's been pretty good about updates about it on USENET (comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic, notably).

      Incidentally, at least on my system (a PIII-ish Celeron running Win2K and a GF2MX400), the mouse frequently locks in MOO2 v1.31. This can usually be fixed with opening up a dialog box (use the keyboard), and right-clicking and dragging. It wasn't meant for Win2K... if you have a 9X-based system, it may work better for you. There's also some instability bugs when moving captured populations, AFAICT.
      • Yeah, I'll go search for a copy. Ebay [ebay.com] only has some macs versions. EBGames has MOO2 for ten bucks [ebgames.com], although it's jewel case only. (BTW, EBgames also has MOO3 for pre-order [ebgames.com]. Ships 2/25.) Dig those system requirements, too. I haven't seen a game mention Hayes-compatible modems or IPX in a long time.

        Gamestop has MOO2 for ten dollars as well [gamestop.com]. Doesn't say whether it's jewel case or not.

        I went and grabbed MOO1. Only got 5.1KB/sec. Still only took a couple minutes... :-)

        -B

  • Great Series, don't let the screenies fool you (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Alcimedes ( 398213 ) on Friday January 10, 2003 @03:54AM (#5053459)
    The MOO series is probably one of the best strategy series of all time.

    it is constantly recommened by long time gamers who have experienced the joy that was MOO1 and MOO2. to put it in perspective, it is the sole reason i keep a DOS machine around, just to play this one stupid game. :)

    Some other player's opinions [pcgr.com] can be found all over the 'net, and they love the MOO series.

    and it's not just the fans, game sites constantly wax nostalgic about the MOO series as seen here

    the third title, which is close to Gold at this point looks to be another great game in a great series, although it's not going to have the best graphics ever, it will likely have excellent game play, if it's anything like its predecessors.

    don't let the anemic review above be your sole example of MOO3, there are lots of better ones around (although i don't have links on-hand)
  • This 'preview' is an excerpt from the manual concerning game races. Would my copying the spell section from the Neverwinter manual qualify as a 'preview'? It's as detailed as Cheesetor's review of Grand Theft Auto: "It's the best game in the world. You can steal cars, shoot cops and run over prostitutes!" Elftor [elftor.com]

    Slashdot, don't waste our time.

    For more detailed previews of the game, check out Gamerankings [gamerankings.com]
    • Troll? Did any of the moderators read the 'preview'?

      Hmm. I put in the gamerankings.com link for a reason. So people could find some proper previews and not a darn CTRL + V out of the manual/development paper/neat ideas thrown together. This is a part 1 of 6 in 5 fragments... one 'part' per day out of the manual? With annoying underlinked phrases which make me want to click them because I subconsciously think they're hyperlinks.

      And what's the "HARVESTER" copyright notice doing at the end of 'preview'. Some incredible secret game race that will be the 6 of 9 Borg of the Orion universe?

      On another note, I'm wondering about the release date. I haven't seen any reviews of the game and it's only a week until the release (17 January).

  • Regression testing? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Snaller ( 147050 ) on Friday January 10, 2003 @08:13AM (#5054039) Journal
    is that when they are removing features?

  • Will the AI cheat? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Fredge ( 186975 )
    I never played the second one much, but I remember in the first one if you were whipping up on a race and had them down to 1 or 2 planets early in the game, they'd suddenly whip out a stack of 32,000 ships and attack you. There was no way they had the resources to legitimately build that many ships and they'd wipe out planets that you had worked diligently to build up. Very frustrating.
    • The AI in MOO2 didn't cheat. But it did get very lucky.
      • It did get production bonuses.

        As for luck... whoever was behind gets far more beneficial random events, which is why the AIs will constantly get thousands of free credits and numerous free techs, while your events will mostly consist of exploding ships and monster attacks if you've been playing well. I've seen the game try to punish a human player with an Antaran attack (good, once you have assault shuttles or tractor beams; bad before then) *and* a monster attack on the same turn.

    • Re:Will the AI cheat? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Friday January 10, 2003 @09:14AM (#5054359)
      I never played the second one much, but I remember in the first one if you were whipping up on a race and had them down to 1 or 2 planets early in the game, they'd suddenly whip out a stack of 32,000 ships and attack you. There was no way they had the resources to legitimately build that many ships and they'd wipe out planets that you had worked diligently to build up. Very frustrating.

      Of course the AI will cheat - they always do. If an AI doesn't cheat it hasn't a hope against a competent human. It took decades of programming work to develop chess programs that could take on good human players on even term; Civs and Moos are far more complex games than chess, and their developers haven't had anything like as long to develop the AI. As long as the AI doesn't cheat and get caught, then we're OK. It should really be spelled out in the manual: 'Easy: The AI pays extra for all its ships, its population grows more slowly, and it has trouble keeping its people happy. Normal: The AI plays on even terms. Hard: The AI gets discount ships, faster population growth, and less unrest. Impossible: As Hard, but more so. Also, AIs will be naturally more friendly with each other than with you.'

      I think MOO2's AI cheated in the opening game, then stopped. AIs always used to build their first few colony ships and cruisers more quickly than I could. Later on, they came out with some very large fleets, but this seemed to be a policy of going for quantity over quality, and I didn't catch them cheating in their production.

      As a matter of fact, I _liked_ seeing someone cruising about with a fleet of 120 obsolete battleships. Cheap to build, sure, but the upkeep on those things must be crippling. Here comes my small but perfectly formed Psilon cruiser to help cut their government spending... *gloat* They definitely have to pay upkeep on their fleets - I tested this once. I had an enemy on his knees, in the last free star system in the galaxy. I ordered the fleet to guard the neighbouring systems, and gave the enemy 10% tribute. This is an enormous sum - most of my great war factories are idle, churning out Trade Goods. AI promptly invests this money in producing all the ships it can, and once it considers its bases adequately defended it starts sending out fleets to attack me. I then cancel the 10% tribute, and watch the economic crisis begin ;-)

      I'm pretty sure the AIs don't cheat when against the wall; usually when they're in that state you have full sensor coverage of their territory, and are watching everything that happens. If a dozen warships appear out of thin air the player will notice something awry.

      There is one thing the MOO2 AIs do that _really_ annoyed me, but it isn't cheating. The Galaxy's split between me, another superpower that I'm reluctant to fight, and several small empires. I'm storming into one of the little guys in a blatant landgrab, and they realise they're doomed. They immediately surrender - to the other superpower. Aargh!

      • Re:Will the AI cheat? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Stonehand ( 71085 )
        On obsolete ships...

        The AI did come out with some truly bizarre ship designs. I once saw an AI running around with Doom Stars... armed mostly with vast numbers of nuclear bombs, and with practically no defensive systems. ;)
      • Of course the AI will cheat - they always do.

        From what I've read the MOO3 AI will NOT be cheating.

        -

  • My Shining Moment (Score:4, Funny)

    by jkabbe ( 631234 ) on Friday January 10, 2003 @09:16AM (#5054371)
    My best moment in a space sim was an old PC (as in, IBM PC) game called Reach For The Stars.

    During one of these games several computer opponents steamrolled over me early on and conquered *all* of my systems. Even though I now had NO systems and NO ships the game wasn't over. I couldn't do anything except hit "next turn". Now, in RFTS you had to maintain a certain level of military presence to control the planet. So when another computer opponent tried to invade one of my former planets they didn't conquer it - but they reduced the number of troops there so my people rose up. I had a planet again! And I went on to win the game.

    From zero planets to galactic overlord.
    *bow*
  • I'm surprised to hear slashdotters rallying behind the MOO series. There's an independent developer that has created the ultimate 4X (Expand, Extend, Explore, and Exploit) galactic empire game. Space Empires IV [malfador.com] seems to be everything that MOO3 is, plus it is user-extensible -- every aspect of the game is editable and customizable.

    I've never played any of the MOO games. Can anyone tell me what it can do that Star Empires cannot? As far as I can see, the only advantage MOO3 has is internet multiplayer. SEIV has all the gameplay. Or am I wrong, and missing something magical about MOO?

  • Regression Testing (Score:4, Informative)

    by dead sun ( 104217 ) <aranach@gmail. c o m> on Friday January 10, 2003 @09:55AM (#5054640) Homepage Journal
    The website for this game, www.moo3.com, the official site from Quicksilver, has stated this game has been in final regression testing since before December 4th, 2002. Read the Infogrames discussion boards, linked from the MoO3 site, if you want a better scoop as to what's been going on with the "We're near release" deal. I'm not getting excited until I see the game, they were supposedly going to have it done just after Thanksgiving. I'd take Chantz's statements that they're about ready with a grain of salt.
  • Now that they are putting out a new, fantastic, unbelievable, etc. version, how about open sourcing the old versions? If the new program is any good, then they don't have to fear cannibalism (open sourcing "Doom" didn't hurt "Quake" one bit), they're not going to do a Linux version of MOO3 anyway (I asked), and the publicity would give MOO3 a place in the press like they could never pay for.

    Of course, they would have to be really, really confident in the quality of th new version...

  • Release Date (Score:4, Informative)

    by PhxBlue ( 562201 ) on Friday January 10, 2003 @10:42AM (#5055066) Homepage Journal

    I've been tracking the release date since about November - not at the Apolyton site, but at online retail sites and actual retail stores. The release date has moved up, from 18 January to 15 January, the last couple times I've checked. I think when they say it'll be January, they mean it.

    Plus, consider this: If they don't release soon, they risk having the plug pulled. I'd imagine Chantz and company will have to settle for "good enough" within the next few days or weeks if they can't get everything worked out by then.

  • After patching the stupid game, it was possible for the opponent to strike first. Yay.

    So. . .

    I maintained three types of ships in my fleets; Death Stars in the rear, billions of tiny, nothing ships to waste the enemy time/target resources on in the fore, and a heavy division of what I somewhat unimaginatively dubbed, 'Ghost Ships.'

    Ghost Ships were equipped with cloaking, time-warping (for the extra moves), all the extra distance modifiers I could give them, as well as the wonderful, 'Stasis Field' generator (for freezeing enemy vessels). Ghost Ships had nothing else; no weapons or armor to speak of.

    And so. . , even if the aggressor went first, they used up most of their firepower on my ranks of clay pigeons, (which I liked to imagine were remote controled). Mass destruction, etc. But when my move came along, it was game over; The Ghost Ships would immediately slip across the game board undetected and snuggle up to the target vessels. --They'd then decloak and put EVERY ship in the enemy fleet into stasis. Twenty or so Ghost Ships could usually do the job.

    Then, one by one, you pull a target vessel out of stasis, and concentrate all your Death Star power on it, and efficiently win the battle.

    So long as you had enough Ghost ships and at least one major weapons platform remaining by the time it was your turn, the aggressor was done for.

    And if you got to go first. . . Well. Having zero casualties in massive space space combat? Not a bad system. I easily trounced races with far superior fire-power and technology.

    Another tactic which I used now and again, was to equip fifty or so tiny ships with really big self destruct units. It was like entering battle with a fleet of precision controled missiles which by-passed that annoying bullshit where the computer could tell me that I 'missed'. Very simply, you'd fly them up to a target and detonate them. Fairly effective, so long as the enemy didn't really rank up in the armor. When technologies were reaching their peeks for all races, Ghost Ships were the final answer.


    -Fantastic Lad --Tactics. It's what's for dinner.

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