Reidemonde's review, of MOO3

[Reidemonde]

This post is my review of the game of MOO3. I was active on the Delphi, and later Prospero and afterward the Infogrames forums during the development of MOO3 in 2001 and 2002. Since MOO3 seems to be no longer officially supported with updates and patches, my review could suggest ideas for the development of new computer strategy games.

On MOO3 I used the official 1.2.5 patch, the Graphics_aruspexV2_08.zip mod and a few selections from the MOO3 Patcher v0.52 from which I included the additional strategy of enabling the use of ground troops for the computer opponents. I played several games of MOO3 against computer opponents and one partial game against a human opponent. In this review, I always used a customized Klackon race.

For me, the first few games against the computer opponents were impossible to win. I played the games in a medium sized cluster galaxy on medium difficulty level with six computer opponents. Almost all of my usual and satisfactory tactics and strategies for defeating computer opponents in games like MOO3 were unsuccessful. So I played several loosing games against the computer opponents until mostly by trial and error I discovered a few strategies and tactics that proved necessary to give me my first victory. My first win against the computer opponents was more of an intellectual victory than an emotionally satisfying victory.

After winning my first game, I allowed the computer opponents to become more difficult to defeat by choosing three computer opponents in a medium sized cluster galaxy, which allowed the computer empires to grow much larger and therefore more powerful economically and militarily, and which took me two games to defeat all opposing empires using the same strategies and tactics that I used during my first win but required a little more patience and time to defeat the larger and stronger empires.

My suggestions and ideas about MOO3 are as follows:

I wish that the itemized build list could have the option of looping the requested build order of the same items especially for automatic looping of the building of the same ships (in MOO3 of up to three different ship types or other items such as troop types), which can eliminate the micromanagement of manually ordering the building of the same items during every turn in every build order of several planets.

I think that two or more task forces in a group should all travel at the same speed, which can help to coordinate the timing of the arrival of the grouped task forces to arrive at the same planet at the same time.

All missiles from an indirect fire task force seem to sometime automatically fire all missiles at a one ship enemy task force and not first target a larger number of ships in a different enemy task force.

When I order ships for a general retreat, I do not think that the computer control of friendly ships would want to automatically retreat toward enemy ships and toward enemy fire as sometime the friendly ships do.

I miss the option of the space ships gaining battle experience as the grounds troops do.

I would also liked to have had the option of choosing which planets in a star system to attack, which can also include attacking that planet with any ground troops that were part of that task force, especially if I have troop reinforcements arriving for that planet.

The reason for the diplomatic threats from other races seems unspecific, and; therefore the diplomatic threats are a guess as how to correct.

If I change the DEA (Dominant Economic Activity) type in a region in the planetary infrastructure window and the previous DEA for example had one turn until built then the replacement DEA will display one turn to be built.

In my opinion, the orbiters and planetary defensives are too easily destroyed by enemy weapons' fire.

As a balance issue, an attack of ten full armadas of indirect missile fire seems to be too powerful and unbalancing in a competitive game. Another counter defense against too many incoming powerful missiles might have been useful.

Many times the computer controlled starting position of a space attack placed my weaker task forces and ground force carriers at the front line of attack, sometime getting the weaker task forces and the space transports for the ground forces quickly destroyed. An option to deploy the arrival starting position of the attack force would have been useful.

Perhaps ships that are ordered scrapped in the shipyard fleets window should not be added to a task force after pressing the auto build button in the deploy task force assembly window.

I do not think that unchecking the planetary econ AI in the economics window in a planets window should also seem to stop the further development of DEAs in the planetary infrastructure window. I like to uncheck the planetary econ AI only to stop the econ AI from placing unwanted items into the military and planetary build orders.

I think that planets that are unknown in the fog of war should perhaps not appear in the exchange items list of other races in the diplomacy screen of the foreign office.

[danib]

[quote]I wish that the itemized build list could have the option of looping the requested build order of the same items especially for automatic looping of the building of the same ships (in MOO3 of up to three different ship types or other items such as troop types), which can eliminate the micromanagement of manually ordering the building of the same items during every turn in every build order of several planets.[/quote]
way are you asking for something thats in the game?

[quote]All missiles from an indirect fire task force seem to sometime automatically fire all missiles at a one ship enemy task force and not first target a larger number of ships in a different enemy task force.[/quote]
a case of bad AI
the missiles get fired at the first spotted TF
the missiles hits are distributed equally among all ships in the TF

[quote]I would also liked to have had the option of choosing which planets in a star system to attack, which can also include attacking that planet with any ground troops that were part of that task force, especially if I have troop reinforcements arriving for that planet.[/quote]
agen
way are you asking for something thats in the game?

[quote]The reason for the diplomatic threats from other races seems unspecific, and; therefore the diplomatic threats are a guess as how to correct.

If I change the DEA (Dominant Economic Activity) type in a region in the planetary infrastructure window and the previous DEA for example had one turn until built then the replacement DEA will display one turn to be built.[/quote]
bugs that wer never fixed

[quote]In my opinion, the orbiters and planetary defensives are too easily destroyed by enemy weapons' fire.[/quote]
i agree.
did you tray the tropical MOD?
i gave the orions redisaind orbiters
i only ingaiged them in combat 1 time, thay are hard to kill
and i got some reports stating that thay are practically indestructible

[/quote]As a balance issue, an attack of ten full armadas of indirect missile fire seems to be too powerful and unbalancing in a competitive game. Another counter defense against too many incoming powerful missiles might have been useful.[/quote]
i hade some exp dilling whit defending a planet from 12 missile TFs
it can be done
and can be done whit 0 loses
but you have a point

[quote]Many times the computer controlled starting position of a space attack placed my weaker task forces and ground force carriers at the front line of attack, sometime getting the weaker task forces and the space transports for the ground forces quickly destroyed. An option to deploy the arrival starting position of the attack force would have been useful.[/quote]

good point

[quote]I think that planets that are unknown in the fog of war should perhaps not appear in the exchange items list of other races in the diplomacy screen of the foreign office.[/quote]
i dont agree
i see no problem in getting a list of planet that belongs to an empaier even if you are at war whit them

p.s.
I was active on the Delphi forums too

This post has been edited by danib on May 16 2012, 07:11 PM

[The ancients]

Good review, but as is pointed out some aspects do work correctly.
But still a lot of un nescessary flaws in such a great game