MOO3 debate

It's worth 9 bux to give it a whirl.
Moo2 is also worth the bargain bin price to give it a whirl.

MoO3 isn't the game most people hoped it would be. And when it was first released, it had some very serious problems.

I don't know your play-style, so I don't know if it would be your sort of game. I'd suggest you go check out recent reviews of MoO3 to see if they detail things you'd like to see.

Yeah, for $9 it's not really much of an economic loss if you don't like it. I also got MoO3 at a discounted price (at the same time I bought GalCiv as a matter of fact). MoO3 just seemed a lot less elegant than GalCiv..there's such a thing as subjecting the player to too much detail when it comes to running your civilization (particularly in the early game). I also found a problem in that when I ran into something I wasn't familiar with there wasn't much in the way of explanation and the documentation for it was either vague or nonexistent. So I just gravitated to GalCiv since it didn't have such a steep learning curve. But I'm not exactly a hardcore 4X gamer. I just play what I like.

I still play MOO3 very much and enjoy it a lot. The game is completly different from Galactic Civilization. I would recommend you to buy it, especially at such a low price. However i would suggest you some things.
1. Get the patch 1.2.5. it fixes a lot of bugs. The game out of the box is pretty boring as the ai cannot build the fleets it needs to attack you correctly.
2. Don't use the manual from the box...it was already outdated when the game was released. However you can read the history of the game in it...
3. Check the boards or some other homepages to learn the game mechanics. Like: http://www.moo3.at/ or
http://www.ina-community.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=5f15bcfb3163daf13272ec7298bf119c&forumid=278
4. You'll need patience to learn the game, however, once you understand it, it becomes very enjoyable. The complexity of the game is quiet impressive

The reasons why many people disliked are various.
1. Poor graphics (GalCiv is so much better)
2. Too hard to learn
3. Favorite races gone: Mrrshan, Bulrathi, Dalroks or Gnolams
4. Very different from MOO2.
5....and so on.
I guess if you like GalCiv you'll like MOO2 as they are more alike (in my humble opinion). MOO2 is still a very enjoyable game.

Well...finally i would say: go and play them!

The main problem with the game is none of those listed above the main problems is that one race always wins no matter that you are more advance technological, military or anything else, the game is dumb as it can be. Every time I send my ships to do the archeological search they ALWAYS are destroyed and never find a thing. My spies are always killed meanwhile other spies are killing my empire, there is no way to prevent the people to get angry with you, no police to control them, no way to enhance the planets, no way to fight against enemy spies, no way to invade other planets, etc etc etc The game is bad BAD

Also you cannot download the patch and those strategies listed on those sites, don't work.

Renegade...you don't seem to have played the game long enough. I can very well understand why you don't like it (i stopped playing the game shortly after buying it and started again only once the patch came out). But don't tell things that aren't true.
1. Every time I send my ships to do the archeological search they ALWAYS are destroyed and never find a thing
---> you need better ships. You need at least Armadas with good ships. You have to wait until your tech is more advanced.
2. My spies are always killed meanwhile other spies are killing my empire.
----> Spy system is not perfect i agree, however send spies only to empires smaller than yours and send them only at certain times. Keep spies home, they'll work for your defenses. Increase the oppressometer from time to time to the max to get most enemy spies.
3. There is no way to prevent the people to get angry with you, no police to control them
---> various aspects affect the population and you can see it on the population part of your planet. Pirats? get some ships in orbit. Unemployement? build them some DEAs. Tax burden? lower the tax on that planet etc...
4. No way to enhance the planets. ---> there's a lot you can do. Terraform, developp new enhancements in the tech tree, build bigger shipyards and so on.
5. No way to fight against enemy spies. ----> as stated before.
6. Also you cannot download the patch--->? what kind of system do you have, thousands have downloaded the patch without any problem? makes no sense.
7. and those strategies listed on those sites don't work. ---> i am not sure if you really did read them.
8. that one race always wins no matter that you are more advance technological, military or anything else, the game is dumb as it can be. ---> victory conditions are clearly stated in the game and you can choose to keep only sole Survivor...
[Message Edited]

I have done all that that you inform me but the Aldarian race always wins in my game, evertime I have tried to download the patch from MOO3 site it doesnot work. I have marked my game to sole survivor and still no matter what after 3000+ turns the game always end by the Aldarian winning, they also never answer my diplomatic offers, I have placed the quotes to build DEA's, but the planets go berzek before I had chance to build one, the help files in game are weird. How do you invade a planet, I have ships in orbit with troops and every thing else and nothing happens, and yes I have sent armadas to do the archeological research and they ALWAYS get destroyed or lost. So unless the patch (that I cannot download by the way) fixes some of these things my opinion stands the game is full of errors and flaws that should have been addressed before releasing it.

I have a Dell computer with 1.2 gig memory and 60gb hardrive and using windows ME, and every single time I have attempted to download the patch, it comes as file not found.

Aldarian race? i have never seen sur a race in MOO3. Is it the name of an Empire? Do you mean the New Orions, the Antarans? they despise you and i haven't been able to talk to them yet either. I know that once they respect or fear you, they start to talk to you :notsure:

3000 turns is way too much and probably due to the fact that you play unpatched.

For the patch try Apolyton: http://apolyton.net/moo3/

Concerning building DEAs. Some aspects have been corrected in the patch. However you have to remember that on each planet you have a viceroy. He decides what to build. You can give them an indication on what they should build with the developpment plans and they'll follow it as good as they can.

You can have only have 10 Task Forces(armadas and so on) to attack a system or to fight another fleet. So if you have 10 Long range TF and 2 troop TFs on orbit, chance is that you'll have 10 LR TF waiting around an undefended plannet = no invasion possible. So send two LR TF back.

As i mentionned before, Armadas are not enough to find the X. You also need better ships. Will you loose some? sure...will you find an X, yes,i've done it so many times.

Is the game out of the box a shame? YES IT IS!!!! the game should never have been released as was. The patch is very good. I really hope you can download the patch and give it another try, there's a good (not perfect) game beneath. I wouldn't want to play it unpatched either

Great, thanks for the link, I like the game, the problem is that I need the patch, yes I meant the New Orions, they always win, no matter what and sometimes if I choose only few races instead of the total 9, the Senate will not work, is that also part of the patch?

You don't get automatically in the Senate (you may choose it by customizing your race...but you'll loose some points on other aspects). You may restart the game a couple of times and see if you're in the senate or not. You may also enter into the Senate later, but that requires that some powerfull races in the senate vote for you...difficult, but not impossible. If you play the Ithkul...forget it, this race will never be in the Senate.
you may have up to 16 empires at the start of the game.

Thanks for your throughts on the subject, so far from the online reviews, one site hated MOO3 one loved Moo3. I'm just going to order online and get it for like 15 bucks, maybe I'll get Moo2 while I'm at it.

MOO3 simply didn't work upon release, and for a long time they showed no inclination to fix it. Post on their boards that it does not work and they tell you you are stupid for not playing the game They wanted you to play (as if they were paying US to use the product instead of we paying them).

The instability problems, lack of features I expect, and indications that the basic game will no longer be updated in an effort to push sales of AP are all reasons I am considering going back to MOO3 and see if after all this time they ever have corrected the screwed up thing. After all, galciv is just MOO with the ship design left out, and a lousy interface.

Galciv is more like civ then moo.

And correct me if I misinterpret but are you calling Galciv's UI lousy in comparison to moo3?


The UI is one of the MAJOR complaints with Moo3. I'd say was the second biggest behind the broken ai at the start. The average of 3-4 spreadsheets to wade through to finally get to something you can change that affects things is notorious. It's been dubbed Master of the Bean, the Accountancy wars because of this.

And for good reason. Screens with buttons that slide out to reveal more menu items with multiple tabs that show ... etc. etc. etc.! For crying out loud, I don't want to spend my whole life trying to figure out the UI.

I got MOO3 for free from Amazon.com (they were that desparate to get rid of it) ... all I had to pay was the shipping costs ... and I still feel as if I paid too much for it!

I tried the link to download the patch and it doesnot work!!!

Can you download at all? just wondering cos i just downloaded again the patch from Apolyton. Maybe you should try at a time when the internet is not so full.

I downloaded the patch from dlx.gamespot.com

The patch starts to download and then it stops like 3 seconds after that, like it was already downloaded, but I know that it cannot be, because is like 5 MB of download, when I try to open whatever was that I download, it keeps saying that I need to download it again because the file is invalid, I have done this same process over 20 times, the link from Apolyton is not a good one.

I am going to use the other link provided by Jab2565, that seems to work. Thanks.

Jab I downloaded the patch, but it doesnot install, it gives me an error about a bikdll file missing, I downloaded the 3 patches and still not luck.

3 patches? you should have only 1 : patch 1.25
You don't need any others.

Somebody Please tell me what is MOO3? I've probably played it but don't get the whole abbreviation thing. I think trolls and flamers suck, by the way how do i become a veteran? Do i have to send money?.

That would be Master of Orion 3.

~SDC~

Answer questions, help people, if you do it enough and Stadock notices it you will be made a veteran

~SDC~