Moo3 holds up!

[FerdinandVeblen]

So this will probably get me more "disagrees" than anything I have posted before, but here goes. I never played Master of Orion 1 or 2, and around my freshman year of high school I bought MoO3 on sale... and thought it was awesome. The complexity you can't fully manage but have to "ride the wave" of, the development plans, the really alien aliens, the way it makes you feel like standing atop a massive bureaucracy that you can only incrementally fight against... I loved it, in a lot of ways Victoria 1 and 2 remind me of it. I just with they'd gone through with the original (and even more complicated) plans. So I played it on and off over the years, found a fanmade patch that fixed some of the more glaring problems (I forget if I have the one that makes the AI do ground invasions, should look for that), read about all the weirdness I couldn't figure out on the forums, and eventually forgot about it what with Paradox games, jobs, romance, etc... It was still my favorite space 4X though, I could never get into Space Empires V or GalCivII in the same way.

So while waiting for Stellaris to come out, I fired up old Moo3 again - and it totally holds up (graphics aside, but we're Paradox fans here, we aren't in it for the graphics ) I'm having a great time building the Silicoid empire across my arm of the galaxy, writing development plans and tweakng planetary production queues.

Any other Moo3 fans out there to defend this unfairly maligned flawed masterpiece?

 

[KingRolan]

Wait, really? It's a good game? Based on what I've read, MoO3 was one of the worst sequels in video game history.

If what you're saying is true, I may have to give it a try at some point.

 

[Jerree17]

Silicoids were always my favorite in moo1 and 2. Moo3 was a game I wanted to enjoy, but I found it confusing and unintuitive unlike anything else I've ever played, and Vicky 2 is one of my favorite games. Never tried any of the fanmade patches though, I may fiddle with it again sometime soon.

 

[Suor]

Wait, really? It's a good game? Based on what I've read, MoO3 was one of the worst sequels in video game history.

If what you're saying is true, I may have to give it a try at some point.

Its not bad in all means. Its just more casual friendly. Like Civilization 5

UPD: My bad, I was thinking tread about recent remake. MoO 3 is crap

 

[FerdinandVeblen]

Wait, really? It's a good game? Based on what I've read, MoO3 was one of the worst sequels in video game history.

If what you're saying is true, I may have to give it a try at some point.

I can't really recommend it to you, pretty much everyone hated it. I'm just saying I liked it. But i'm weird and kind of enjoyed its unintuitiveness and bureaucratic nature.

 

[The Village Idi]

I will admit to enjoying it as well. Didn't get as much mileage as MoO2 though.

 

[Safehold]

So this will probably get me more "disagrees" than anything I have posted before, but here goes. I never played Master of Orion 1 or 2, and around my freshman year of high school I bought MoO3 on sale... and thought it was awesome. The complexity you can't fully manage but have to "ride the wave" of, the development plans, the really alien aliens, the way it makes you feel like standing atop a massive bureaucracy that you can only incrementally fight against... I loved it, in a lot of ways Victoria 1 and 2 remind me of it. I just with they'd gone through with the original (and even more complicated) plans. So I played it on and off over the years, found a fanmade patch that fixed some of the more glaring problems (I forget if I have the one that makes the AI do ground invasions, should look for that), read about all the weirdness I couldn't figure out on the forums, and eventually forgot about it what with Paradox games, jobs, romance, etc... It was still my favorite space 4X though, I could never get into Space Empires V or GalCivII in the same way.

So while waiting for Stellaris to come out, I fired up old Moo3 again - and it totally holds up (graphics aside, but we're Paradox fans here, we aren't in it for the graphics ) I'm having a great time building the Silicoid empire across my arm of the galaxy, writing development plans and tweakng planetary production queues.

Any other Moo3 fans out there to defend this unfairly maligned flawed masterpiece?

I liked it, especially the combat and logistics system. Making units for ground combat though, was rather tedious, and empire management bogged down in my rather large galaxy. I didn't know back then that making a larger galaxy was a big problem in 4x games.At Turn 447 my Cynoid empire has basically won, and I now I just need to conquer and planet wipe out the remaining planets, which are like 100 of them spread across 9 different civs each with their own rebel clone factions. That's unfortunate, since I haven't even teched to the max. A smaller galaxy with more interesting enemies, would have been a better start.

Moo3 should not have had 3 different taxation levels though, but the dev plans made sense, after some trial and errors. A lot of it had to be read about from guides and what not, though. Back before wikis became better manuals than game manuals.

 

[BogMod]

It was ambitious but the game was a technical mess. Like they wanted all the not fun parts of managing a space empire to be the focus.

 

[echo2361]

I enjoyed it for the combat and a few other things. Not as bad as others say, but not the most well implemented of games overall. I've fired it up once or twice since then but never really got back into it.

 

[Cdawg00]

I liked the Evons.

 

[goobermaster]

Oh god, MoO3. Gonna have to go disagree with you there buddy.

That game was, without a doubt, one of the worst experiences of my gaming life. After the absolute masterpiece that was MoO2, I can still remember the crushing emptiness that MoO3 left inside me. I ran to the store to buy it, ran home to install it. Booted it up. Master of Orion 3!

Then only tears. And the feeling of violation. And rage at just how bad it was.

It's like the designers sat around a table and said to each other: "You know all the cool shit about running a space empire? How about we get rid of as much of that as possible? And while we're at that, why don't we put an incredible amount of tedious micro in? And how about we castrate the AI? Oh, and make sure that the UI is horrendous as well!"

-10/10

 

[QueenoftheIsles]

I thought MOO3 was ok, since it was the first space strategy 4X game I ever played... It isn't great, or good, but it got me hooked, so that is what matters! (ant it is fun in its own sick and twisted way)

 

[espana33]

hated moo3

 

[ProfPain77]

MoO3 was the last game I pre-ordered before Stellaris.

 

[Erbinzky]

I'm playing MoO2 for 13-14 years now and up to this day I couldn't even imagine what you wrote there. MoO3 was a mess, no fun to play and not even close to be finished. I would not recommend it if you liked MoO2.

 

[Brownbeard]

MOO3 is something H.P.Lovecraft warned us about.

 

[Murmeldjuret]

If MoO3 is your first MoO game I can see why it wouldn't be that bad. A first impression is a lasting one. I played MoO2 before MoO3 and found MoO3 just a bad watered down version of MoO2. But if you did it in the opposite order you would find MoO3 has better UI and other such things, because you learnt that one first.

I played NWN before the Baldur's Gate games, and I honestly think NWN > BG2, which is not the popular opinion, but it is the one I have since that is the order I played them in.

A good sequel is one that makes you think it is an improvement on the first game after having played them in order. I played lots of AoE1, but stopped that when they released AoE2. AoE2 is a great sequel. One of my most played games is still Civ4, which is a great sequel to Civ3, but I don't play Civ5, which makes Civ5 a good game but a bad sequel.

Also note that there is nothing wrong with bad sequels. Mixing up the concept and trying new things is vital to the industry. Each also has their own opinion. I personally think Dragon Age 2 > Dragon Age Origins, which places me in a small minority, but I really liked that game for how different the storytelling is done.

 

[Tiaexz]

graphics aside, but we're Paradox fans here, we aren't in it for the graphics

Speak for yourself. EU4 and CK2 have good graphics, and Stellaris looks great.

Whilst CK1 was fun in its time, I could never return to that quality of eyesore.

 

[Mauer]

Wait, really? It's a good game? Based on what I've read, MoO3 was one of the worst sequels in video game history.

If what you're saying is true, I may have to give it a try at some point.

I've found that sometimes things most people dislike I really enjoy and viceversa, particularly with games and series, maybe it's just the prevalence of echo chambers in some parts of the Internet. Somethings you just have to try yourself.

 

[6076]

Wait, really? It's a good game? Based on what I've read, MoO3 was one of the worst sequels in video game history.

If what you're saying is true, I may have to give it a try at some point.

Probably baby's first 4x, I have the same sentiments for moo1, even if I know it was rather primitive. Moo3 had some good features, like terraformation, slightly randomized tech-tree with division of theoretical and application science, multiply biomes on single planet, yet it was mitigated by horrible interface, heap of micromanagement, simply horrible space combats, annoying characters, dying all the time, reminds me of recent Polaris game.