Well MOO III is out whos picking it up?

[BadBadNeil]

Just saw that its being released today. I missed MOO II, i think im def gonna check this one out.

[Someone Stupid]

I will be for sure.

[Optimus Prime]

Cool, i'll be getting it, after the disappointment of IGI 2, im sure this game will lighten my spirits.

[BadBadNeil]

their website sucks though, had to find other ppls websites to get more info and screeenies on the game.

I never played the first two, is it sorta like civilization in space?

[hoodedrat]

all the screenshots make the game look freakin lame... i dont think i'll be wasting my money on it

[Bigjakkstaffa]

Bah, its strategy, no way

As for IGI2 OP, it may have been a lil easy and short, and the ending was pants, but it was prety amusing all in all

--Jakk

[AllGamer]

i'll give it a try

i'm a Big Fan of MOO2

but BOO 3... erh,, i mean MOO 3 like they said, seems a bit lame, for Todays technology and compared to other games

i was expecting something more in the C&C Generals / Hegemonia.

but from the Screenies looks like just the same old MOO 2 with new screens layouts and more features/options

so well... it's simply not living up to i hoped for

[Someone Stupid]

Went to get it today, but the FedEx hadn't arrived at EB where I have about 55 in credit thanks to Sim City 4 being ****ty. So I'll probably get it this weekend.

[Rugor]

I'm interested. It may be a while before I get it what with NWN, Morrowind, Dungeon Siege and Freedom Force all on the HD, but it's definitely on the "To Buy" list.

[Someone Stupid]

Well I've picked it up, pretty good game. Some people on the Gamefaq's forums are complaining that it lost it's soul - well if you liked the stupid robot popping up all the time telling you of galatic events, or seeing your scientist tell you of the breakthroughs they've made, then that is what your going to miss. The interface is a bit hard to grasp at times, at first it seems to take about five clicks to do anything, but once you realize the shortcuts, it can take only two at most generally. The AI is better than the first two, despite what those idiots who generally know nothing about anything say. They fail to take into account technology you have, your forces, the distance te enemy is from you - and most importantly, who you have trade pacts with. It will do the occassional declare war, not do ****, then five turns later ask for peace, but I've only seen it happen when I was a member of the senate and the other enemies closest lines of attack were a hundred turns away or so. In combat itself, if the enemy can reach you, it can be a REAL ******* unless you have built up your defenses - unlike the other two, this one has individual planets in each system, so it'll attack that one newly colonized planet without the planetary defenses up (planetary defenses are murdurous early to mid game unless you have a Large fleet). Then that also means the rest of the system is blockaded and suffers the effects of piracy, thus you can have revolts and stuff. So this isn't like MOO1 where you just loaded up on plantary defenses from the getgo of building a defense base (they take awhile to build, and you can't buy anything instantaneous), or MOO2 which was easier to defend do to the nature of the game. This game has starlanes, if you don't use them, travel is SLOW - like take something that would take 5 turns, and multiply that by ten, so it would take ten turns to get there, hence exploration is necessary, especially if someone declares war and can't reach you without lanes (which make perfect chokepoints, so now there is some strategic strategy now which I like) and you know how to get there by bouncing through a few systems, you can attack him, and he'll never consider launching a fleet that's going to take 50 turns to hit it's destination at the earliest.

The game IMO is much better - it doesn't have some of the "soul" that 2 had - like someone was complaining that he couldn't look at his elerian scientist anymore giving him tech breakthroughs. If your hard up for a virtual girl to look at, this isn't your game, which is I think why everyone is so upset at the gamefaq's forum. If you want a solid strategy game though, I'd recommend it. The AI does have a few stupid faults, and it's hard to determine what pissed it off without careful anlysis of what you have been doing (the only thing bad about the game is it just tells you its pissed or happy because of recent actions, but not what they were) - but thats the only diplomatic irritation. It doesn't make stupid demands for good technologies and only offering you **** - it will give you comparable techs, and friendships go a long way in this game diplomacy wise. In my first game I was attacked by one enemy and had NO forces in the area, but I had a Full Mutual Protection treaty and the AI I had it with was nearby as it was next to his border and wiped them all out then went rampaging through my enemies systemd for around twenty or so rounds taking quite a few planets and building a buffer zone for me while expanding their holdings. Rather nice of them considering it was my technology they were using to kill them.

You need a decent system later in the game, as large space battles that the computer is resolving between turns, especially if there are many of them can take awhile. But it isn't every turn, nor is it really that long until it's been awhile. Longest I've had has been around 30-45 seconds turn wait (with a common of around 5 - 10 seconds on the duron, on the xp the wait time is next to nothing. So as always, if your running the minimum specs, its gonna blow, if your running much higher, or much higher than the recommended, then you can play large galaxies, 16 empires and have turns go by rather fast even by midgame (which is where I'm at in the current one) - played one on the duron for stability purposes (thanks to one other game, I'm now cautious of anything from a publisher - no matter who) where I got to a high enough tech level to take on certain things which will eat you for lunch like in MOO2, so I was at that level, and won by the senate electing me, as I didn't have enough votes to throw it off to go for the ending I want - there are 3 btw.

If you have below a 1 gig processor and less than 512 of ram, I'd be weary of buying it - I'm not sure how ram hungry it is, as both systems have a good amount of memory, but I'm imaging from the processing power that it might take up a fair amount of memory in the late game especially. Anything at that level or above I THINK you'll be ok. Oh, and no crashes or anything, seems fairly polished in my opinion. Lacking some eyecandy in some areas, but it isn't a game revolved around eyecandy, more strategy, so the graphics are rather good for what it needs to show unless your REALLY picky about eyecandy in all aspects of the game.

[Rugor]

Good review, thanks Someone Stupid.

[Someone Stupid]

Oh, and one more thing - in the latest game I haven't been doing the destroy planet option when I get it (as that's when I'd go on the offensive for the most part) - you need TONS of troops in this game, as you can only deploy them once, you also need a decent amount of transports - meaning either go with tons of the small ****ty ones you start with, or upgrade them to a bigger frame to fit more pods. Makes doing a blitzkrieg through an enemies territory and conquering everything a lot harder knowing that you have to have an equivalent army, not just one that can hopscotch around. It may have been this way in MOO2, but I haven't played it in YEARS so I can't recall, but it came as quite a shock for me to go for overkill on one planet to sieze it with troops and then realize that a quarter my total army was gone, and that was one planet out of 40 or so, as I was fightign the second place opponent (I was fifth out of eight - but I had a tech advantage - so he declared war not realizing most of my **** was sitting next to his border, so it was natural to put him on the defensive - most of my systems really on other systems for goods, they aren't self sufficient though they could be at a cost of not being as optimal to their enviroment). It autosaves every round for ten or so rounds at least - or so I see plenty of autosave files, so if you screw up, unless it's way bak, you can probably rectify it.

Tips: Get research packs early on, yeah, you'll be giving tech away, but it takes awahile to steal techs and keep stealing them, as you can only train a certain amount of spies at once, though you can grow that amount indefinantly, some retire, die of old age, etc after awhile - also they each have a very specialized field, which makes training for them harder, as you only have four training slots, and with all four taken, it take a total of 20 turns or so to clear out all four, though you can fill empty spots as they come, just it will be a twenty turn wait until you get that spy. After about midgame, ditch the packs (you'll have to cancel all treaties, so make sure you have an army nice and ready just incase you have a *****y neighbor) and research on your own, if you've developed right (after a game or so and really looking at what you need to do, you won't want the AI managing everything, though it does help - and is rather efficient, just for optimal research, it's best to take EVERYTHING into your own hands and if you've done that you should be able to then jump ahead in techs rather rapidly since you have a very solid base with practically all your base techs (this should be done around level 10-15 in techs), by the time you hit level 30+ they will be touching 20, maybe less if you make a few friends and have them fight each other - though on easy they fight each other like they fight you, relunctantly... on hard, which I'm playing my second game - being the diplomat after leapfroging ahead, yet keeping my military of a only moderate size as not attract attention, yet have the technology as not to need a large army unless I'm swarmed, which nearly happened while I was attacking number two by number 4 and 6... though my ally which was number took one of them nearly completely out, and I was able to take the loss of a few colonies from what I gained in the attack on the second on the pole. Went from 5th to a close 3rd in that attack. An extra world or two, or a few more points in ships would probably knock me into third. Not to mention I destroyed all my improvements before they took the planets or most of them caused my enemy a bit of a headache as he had to support a massive amount of people with food, then to get the colonies operative at any repspectable levels he has to invest a few grand in each of the several systems quickly - which means his moneypile is gone. Then I turned around and bought off someone to go after him. Having most of his forces near me meant his far side was unportected, and he also didnt' have the cash to rebuild. So after they exchaged shots for awhile, they declared peace, my enemy now was weak (the 4th place, down from third where he just was) in terms of infrastructure. He had plenty of planets and still had a good bit of ships which kept him - so then I turned and attacked him, even though my fleet was a bit on the weakside. Retook everything he took (and he rebuilt a decent amount of), then took a couple more systems before I literally couldn't go anymore - sued for peace, he accepted, and that's the game as of now. Addicting... it's crack.

Expect to lose sleep over this game, you will have the flu for work the week you get it - I'm only glad I have a few BS clients to entertain, which is easy during mardi gras and no school - so I can get away with it. I can look like I haven't slept and still seem professional to clients as it's mardi gras, they are the same way pretty much if they are guys, and all put one is a guy, or a group of them. I have to meet with one lady - so I'll have to get some sleep sometime before then, as it will probably be the restuarant and non bourbon street experience since - though one never knows.

[AllGamer]

i just gave it an 3 hour test today

it..... sucks to my opinion Compared to MOO2

the interface is wayyyyy too cumbersome
and there's no option to chance the screen size

oh not to mention, Direct X trouble, when you need to AlT Tab between game and Desktop

if the games sits in the taskbar for more than 20 min

but if you AlT Tab fast, and not take more than 5 to 10 min the game is ok

but over all

i like MOO2 much much better

so

so far the Strategic game of the year is C&C Generals

for now

lets see if more comes out

[Someone Stupid]

The interface is quick once you realize how to make it quick, it's just different.

And no, you can't change the 800x600 resolution, hence I play it on my secondary display, as it's a bit smaller than my primary display.

On easy, the AI is too stupid, on Hard it shows signs of life and can be deadly. Found a couple bugs, well read about them, I never encountered them as I designed my own ships, thus inadverdently avoided them.

The game has a FAR longer learning curve than you think. Its more along the lines of days or even a week or more for some people ti really seems. If you don't have patience, or aren't naturally anlytical it will be frustrating.

I've had no Direct X trouble, I'm using 4200ti's in both machines.

Three hours is like giving an fps 3 seconds for this game - it has a very long learning curve to really grasp everything.

[BadBadNeil]

Havent had a chance to pick it up yet, just installed morrowind and have been playing that

good long review though on the game, should come in handy when I eventually get it. Geez if the game is resource hungry without a lot of graphics just imagine if it had them....