Hot posts in thread: Master of Orion 2 pet peeves and annoyances in general

I'll have to check out that thread (I've seen the DEA page before). I am probably one of the few that actually liked MoO3. I haven't played MoO:CtS yet. Doesn't like it offers me much but maybe I'm wrong.

Anyways, to keep this on topic still. I want to expand on the terraforming and what I didn't like.

I didn't like how easy it was to make all the planets Gaias. It also made the view just kinda boring, since all of the planets looked the same. Yeah, it is cool at first, and it gives a large boost to your empire, but in the long run, it homogenized the game too much IMHO. So far, based on what I've experienced and seen so far in PSS, this will not be a problem, so thank you very much!

Oh, and leaders. I never understood why I could only hire 4 leaders? Probably a game play/balance thing with managing them and whatnot.

 

Eh, I'd rather not, I saw enough of it (both 3 and CtS) on MoO:CtS official forum. Here is something different: good things in MoO 3. It was juggling so big numbers that it was possible to overflow 32-bit integer (2,147,483,647) with income, for a reference in MoO 2 it was possible to overflow 16-bit integer (32,767) with research points and get back to positive but you couldn't overflow it multiple times. This feat is only surpassed by idle and incremental games which can break double precision float (309 digit number). Also there is decent amount of nerd porn (safe for work example) which showcases how interesting the game could have been.

 

My main gripes were really in combat. Whoever fires first usually ends up winning. Also the fleet battles got so big, it was hard to manage. (I LOVED the plasma cannons though...wow!)
Maybe a little bit of the same build queues on every planet, and the terraforming, but these appear to be fixed in PSS, so that is good.

On a humorous note... Haha, given the other replies in this thread, MoO2 sounds like the worst game ever...I wonder what we'd see for MoO3!

 

Oh that reminds me of more:

• Planetary defenses would pick wrong weapon types. They would pick the highest tech level which takes a lot of space (less weapon mounts) and doesn't have unlocked modifications. It's especially bad when ground batteries pick ion cannon vs Antarans. Oh and I'd rather have mauler device instead death ray.
• Technology distribution made battlestation unavailable (robo-miner is infinitly more valuable)
• Computer upgrades are overshadowed by essential research boosting buildings.
  
• Espionage was a roulette much like demands in diplomacy.
• No real intelligence (ship positions, designs, colony defense information) could be gained through espionage.
• Sensor range got too short later on. Compared to ship movement speed it drop from 3-5 turns of advance warning to 1, maybe 2.
• Ocean planets were rare, no terraforming could create them and they were a cool concept .
• Planet construction was too powerful, once it starts rolling it would triple the empire's population capacity and make galaxy a very bland place where every planet is ether large or huge gaia.
• I wish there was a simple workforce distribution method. I'd often put all scientists to industry and remove them one by one until I got to the point where construction ETA would change. It would get especially tedious after researching new building you want to build on 20+ colonies.

 

For me, my pet peeves are:

• Only 1 item can be produced in a turn (in Moo1 you could build many in a turn).
• Having to choose 1 of the 3 technologies (that just made no sense).
• Only 1 missile base, 1 star base etc. per planet, this just made no sense (Moo1 you could build as many as you wanted).
• Planetary defenses were too weak.
• Who goes first in combat has too much of an advantage.
• You couldn't group select multiple ships in combat to give them all the same order.
• Too much civ city for the planets. In Civilization it made some sense to be restricted to only 1 of each building per city, but it doesn't make any sense for a planet. Why would a planet be restricted to 1 barracks, 1 factory etc...
• Too much planetary micromanagement late game.
• Populations grew too fast, they must have been breeding like rabbits.

 

You don't have to say it twice . AI had it's shortcomings, I guess it's inevitable unless serious effort gets invested in developing it. Ray Fowler, guy behind Remnants of Precursors (former JavaMoo) wrote a blog post (link) more which applies to MoO 2 AI. Point #1 is the most troubling one and I thinks it's the reason why AI was so catastrophically bad at designing ships. The game had two combat modes: strategic and tactical. Most players are familiar with tactical and sane person would assume that "strategic" is the same as tactical where computer playes both sides. Nope, it follows completely different rules, it's mostly dice roll driven (like ground combat) and ship are automatically designed following specific rules. Each ship size has fixed number of beams, missiles, other weapons and special equipment of best available type, regardless of item size and space limitation. To me it appears AI follows these rules in tactical mode and therefore builds predictably bad ships. Thankfully AI doesn't follow those rules to the letter, it tries to comply with space limitations and fills empty space with whatever it can if certain equipment type is not available. This makes for an odd situations where uncreative Klackons have better ship designs then Psilons on the same tech level.

The other rule AI mistakenly follows in tactical mode is no miniaturization. In strategic miniaturization doesn't exist and there is no need to research hyper advanced tech levels. So, once AI researches all regular technologies it diverts all scientists to industry. That's when ridiculously large fleets start to show up, every AI colony is building a starship and there is enough production for taxation to cover command point overhead.

Diplomacy was very bland overall. Early on it's impressive, big emperor holograms in a mysterious hall, trying to get good enough relations to establish treaties and occasionally trading technologies. And that's where problems begin, AI would offer you a limited set of technologies it was willing to trade but could ask for any of your techs in return. It would ask for absolutely most valuable item and you could either agree or disagree, there was no way of giving them second best item or limiting which techs are you willing to trade. Demands were a roulette, you never knew if AI is going to comply or declare holy war on you for daring to click "demand" button. Alliances were something that humans learned to actively avoid, AI would get in war with 3rd party, pull you in, make you break trade treaties with them, few turns later make peace and leave you in quarrel with an empire you didn't want pick on (yet).

There are probably more I'll remember tommorrow but here is a technical one: play order matters, even outside of combat. In one game I was allied with Trilarians (we had mutal enemy before alliance) and we were at war with Sakkra. Trilarians were down to two star systems and Sakkra was going for their homeworld. I've parked my fleet at Trilar but it didn't matter because my turn (within same turn number/stardate) comes after Sakkras. They were able to choose who to fight, choose to attack Trilarians and I had to stand by and watch them glass a planet. Play order also unfairly resolves other non-combat conflicts like who gets to colonize a planet if 2 races have bring a colony ships and don't fight or who claims first visit reward (pirate cache, artifact technology, rescue leader).

 

I think this is the main one.

 

For me it includes all ^^^^ this plus
The ratio of command points to hull size which guaranteed Titans only
The lack of a mechanic to constrain ship production in the late game

And this one which is more abstract, the game was choppy, not in an IT sense but rather an enjoyment sense. there were spaces of boredom throughout the game. Some of what Vivisector9999 refers to would have helped there but I can't help but feel that even the existing game could have been paced better.

Oh, and I'm sure (and hope) Ivan K will have more to say on it but I thought the AI was mediocre in how it handled some tasks, the AI factions stood no chance without the buffs they received on harder difficulties.

Edit
How could I forget? the way terraforming was handled, it was so exciting to have all terran and Gaia worlds with maxed pop...NOT!