why moo and mooII are better than gal civ 2

brapollo

Join Date 04/2006

why moo and mooII are better than gal civ 2

or how to make this game better

I have seen some comparison of the old series to galcivII and these games are way too easily written off. So much is borrowed from them in gal civ (the land invasion scheme looks and acts exactly like moo I) that some comparison ought to be made. Particulary, very little military "strategy" is needed in galciv II ("strategos" being Greek for a general). There certainly is diplomatic strategy and economic management, but the key part of strategy is missing. So if we set aside graphics considerations (playing with ship design is a game unto itself):

Why couldn't galciv include a robust combat sequence like (or far better than) games that are far older? Except for graphics, preparing for war took much more prep in the old games. I will always remember my squadron of large battleships being atttacked by a fleet of tech inferior warships armed with "assault shuttles" to board my crafts, which I was totally unprepared for and forced to hastily retreat and re-design my fleet. Or speed and maneuverability could be used to throw the enemy fleet into disorder. "Phasors" and "Plasmas" were actually different types of guns. Etc,etc... The point is that galcivII has actually taken a rather large step backwards. And given that I think Rome:Total War is more the future of turn-based strategy's future popularity than anything else (one only need look at the vast upgrade in combat possibilities in civ4 from its predecessors to see this and I can only imagine the next civ game will expand this exponentially).

The same goes for land combat. Whole populations don't fight, armies do (with occasional partisan action of course). The rather rudimentary system of MOOII was still far more advanced than galcivII. And why can't I bomb a planet into oblivion if I don't want to invade? The tech exists now (i.e. hydrogen bombs), so why doesn't it exist then? And the need to deal with alien populations was something in MOOII that seems logical to include in every space game (I always exported the cave dwelling Sakkra all over the universe to live under every colony).

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

I'm with the tactical combat posse, and we say "Bring it back"

The combat element in the game we have is without substance. Its a case of "I'm faster with, bigger guns so i win" and you can see this all in my pretty little picture window combat viewer gizmo. How is that inferior to the combat systems in Moo2? Even if you won all the time, at least you had a choice of what strategies you wished to employ to win

You could run (like a little girl) away if they're far meaner then you
your boarding ships are useless if the enemy used troop killing weapons on you
long range weapons and short range weapons
the defense of planets was awsome, you have your planetary defences going, your fleet and your defence station(the starbases in gc2 are better mind you)
Fighter bays, if anyone out there says they're not cool watch the new Battlestar Galactica (which i've grown quite fond of, even though starbuck has had a sex change and so has Boomer, thank god they got rid of that muppet dog thing??barkey??)

Unfortunately the AI was weak at the combat side, the odds were skewed as some weapons performed far better than they should, but i have never ever manged to board an antarran ship sucessfully without it blowing up in my face afterwards (did it allow you on easier levels). Truly if you had ony ten ships and they had twenty ships of a similar tech/strength they would win almost everytime. In GC2 i can be massively outnumbered but because I'm faster with a good defense rating I win, everytime.

In fact the AI was weak in most aspects of the game, but I remember loving the combat and those hero types who are either governors or admirals. But i have a deep dislike for that guy you find on Orion, he looked a bit dodgy and i wouldn't leave money lying around when he's there

But GC2 is a better game overall. More options, better AI & looks nicer too. There is still plenty of room to improve though.

A final message to those out there that keep saying "GC2 is not a wargame, its an empire building game"

"Empire building games are all about war, be it influence, trade, tech or diplomacy however you do it, its still a conflict. Slugging it out with big ships is just the most direct route"

Hope i didn't sound too manic....

Successfully updated karma reason!

This is the first 4x game that I have ever played and so can't comment on the OP's points regarding MOO. But has anyone tried out the following game.....

Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators
Link

Even though I have the the above review I still value the opinions of the people on this board before I would buy the game, I haven't got a lot of cash and so if anyone has had a chance to play it could they give an opinion please

That game looks pretty good!

I like how Gamespot described it. "It feels sort of like a space-age version of Sid Meier's Pirates!, only one created by madmen with far too much time on their hands"

Successfully updated karma reason!

I think planetary bombardment should be allowed, but you should take a massive morale penalty (say, -25% morale for 6 months, per bombardment?). I think that would represent your citizen's shock at your blatant disregard for life. They may also start to fear you. In my opinion, this would allow the feature to be kept in check. If you start to destroy worlds left right and centre your population is going to think you've gone insane. Pretty soon, you'll have to drop taxes to make them feel more at ease, and your economy will go bye bye.

Apart from that, I don't really have any strong opinions on what the original poster said. As another member already mentioned, its a matter of taste. Personally, if ground combat was made more complex I would find it a bit of a turn off. I don't play this game for ground combat, I play it to move around the pretty ships. I find ground combat to work well enough for what its supposed to do, without getting in the way.

I still like MOO2, but that monsrosity MOO3 killed any chances of seeing a more up to date (and good) version. I also love GC2, and I think its filled that little niche superbly.

Just for the record, I enjoy GC2 much more than Civ 4.

Successfully updated karma reason!

As for the person who said Gal Civ I came out in the early 90s... Eh? Seems like I remember GCI came out a few years ago. MOO2, and esp. MOO1, are far older.

I seem to remember a Dev (Frogboy?) mentioning that there is an even earlier version of GC that predates MOO. I saw it among the responses to one of the front page articles, but I don't remember which one (and I'm too lazy to look).

I find the combat in GC2 to be quite tactical already, but its incorporated into the rest of the game. I hide weaker ships behind planets, so it costs an extra movement point for the enemy to reach them. I can use defenceless ships as a decoy, and then counterattack with the ships that were just out of attack range (after I draw them into range of one of my starbases of course

). A little expansion or couple of extra ship functions would be nice, but I would hate to see the combat system completely revised.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I've played it. Amazing game with the first truly dynamic universe I've ever played in.

The following two threads should tell you everything you need to know, but bear in mind, the less you know when you start, the more fun you'll have discovering all the little touches.

http://www.octopusoverlords.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=14837
http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=1998

Bear in mind that SR2 is nothing, NOTHING like GalCiv2. Besides both being set in space, there are zero similarities.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Wow -I am suprised at the number of posts. It is interesting that many people seem to agree the lack of orbital bombardment is odd for a space strategy game. As for the comments about MOO2 being imperfect, of course it was. It was eventually possible to beat it against the worst odds. But by changing your racial make-up, you could always (or at least for a long time) change how one had to win. And like all strategy games, the end game (stellar converters on doom stars for MOOII) is always boring- and the same goes for GalCivII- it always is apparent at a far earlier point that you are going to be victorious. Though I can't think of any game with more fun multiplayer than MOOII because of the complex combat and real ship design (i.e. one made design changes that actually had an impact). However, THAT would be an apples/oranges comparison, to use the seemingly popular vernacular, as GCII doesn't have multiplayer.
As for comparison, we can ONLY compare things that are different. If things were exactly the same, there would be no reason to even think of making any comparison in the first place. So while I can respect those who don't like to fight battles and instead just manage an empire, I prefer to in the end be a "strategos" developing a strategy, not primarily an economist/sociologist managing a economy. So perhaps if this type of management is more popular
than I imagined, perhaps GalCivII is truly trying to develop a different genre which we might call "economic" gaming (in the original Greek this referred to wider household management, not just financial matters) with some strategy tacked on for fun, just as Rome Total War tacks on some economic management to a mostly strategic game (whatever its numerous problems).

Successfully updated karma reason!

As for the person who said Gal Civ I came out in the early 90s... Eh? Seems like I remember GCI came out a few years ago. MOO2, and esp. MOO1, are far older.

Yes. Brad made it as the first 4x game for os/2 back when he was in college. It was succesful, so he made gc2. When it went to the pc, they came up against direct competition for MoO2, whose "tiny" art team was the same as the entire gc2 team, so they dropped a lot of good ideas. MoO was the copycat here, if anyone.

Successfully updated karma reason!

To the problem regarding genocid planetery bombardment is the same for any straightforward game concept prohibition.
You discover a tactic that allow cheesy victory (obviously unbalanced), you forbid it.

In my opinion these are artificials game design limitations. And more important they have no justifications, as many pointed before, there are many many possibility that would have been nicely implemented to balance the impact of planetary bombardment.

I guess the devs dicovered some cheesy content during alpha test and purely and simply removed them from the game. Interesting game design concept isn't it ? or lack of maybe

Reasons ? lack of time to fix/balance the game, or lack of imagination, or both, anyway ...

On the other way it prevent the game to fall into a massive and completly unbalanced gaz factory with so many options and obviously broken cheesy tatcics like moo2 was.

Note : For tactical combat. Galciv2 do not require tactical combat because the game do not emphasis on combat like moo2 was (many many differents weapons/defense and devices for ships).

Successfully updated karma reason!

In my opinion these are artificials game design limitations. And more important they have no justifications, as many pointed before, there are many many possibility that would have been nicely implemented to balance the impact of planetary bombardment.

FFS, read the forums properly. YES, they have got orbital bombardment coming. YES, it was cheesed like hell. They're working the balancing out for Dark Avatar. If you think the dev's have no imagination, why are you playing it?

Successfully updated karma reason!

Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2419

GalCiv II has orbital bombardment already in the form of transports and selecting mass drivers.

We just don't alow orbital bombardment for the sake of genocide runs. GalCiv will NEVER EVER have that.

I appreciate the feedback of fans but at the end of the day, it's my game too. And orbital bombardment was one of the features in MOO 1 and MOO 2 that I thought really wrecked the fun in those games -- for me.

Obviously other people don't agree with me, but someone has to have the final say on such features and that person is me.

The most we'll do would be Terror Stars and even those I don't want to have for the same reason (cheesey genocide runs).

I loved Master of Orion and MOO 2. The story I tell regularly is that I know when MOO 2 came out because I played it on my laptop in the delivery room for my first born child (top THAT fan story! ).

Galactic Civilizations for OS/2 predates MOO in terms of availability.

Screenshots from GalCiv on OS/2:

https://www.stardock.com/products/gcgold/gcg81.jpg

https://www.stardock.com/products/gcgold/gcg70.jpg

https://www.stardock.com/products/gcgold/gcg51.jpg

The graphics were pretty primitive but we're talking 1993-1995 time frame.

"Better" is always subjective. They were different games that target different kinds of players.

They also have different design philosophies. I won't put in a feature that the computer players can't use effectively. In 1996, great games like MoM and MOO could get away with features that the AI either didn't use or didn't use effectively. But today, gamers tend to be less forgiving.

I can't just throw in tactical combat because if players found that they could, using tactical tricks, win battles that they really shoudn't have been able to win then it will take away a lot from the game and players who don't care about that feature would feel obligated to play out all their major battles. I would only put in tactical combat as long as I could do it where even the best players couldn't do better than 1.25X what the AI would have been able to deliver and that's a lot of effort.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Two questions. One, can you sticky that so we don't get anymore "zomg game suxs nuke rules!" threads, and how will Terror Stars be stopped from genocide runs? Making them expensive, weak, or using one is an auto-war declaration (like a spy planting a nuke back in civ2), or just rooting them in place? (I didn't play galciv1 much, so don't know how they operated, as I only heard about gc2 from Penny Arcade)

Successfully updated karma reason!

In GC1, a Terror Star had a speed of 1, which could not be increased by any means (well, there were some bugs at first, but that was the intent of how they worked). That was enough to keep me from trying to glass all my opponents planets. Then again, when I did want one, I'd build it in place since constructors were so much faster.

Successfully updated karma reason!