22-10-2004 17:16									#61
	£40 of bile Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

I preordered it in the UK from an importer (who got the US version in as there was a delay on the UK version) and it cost me about £50 which is a lot for a game, I usually expect to pay £20 now and at the time £30 was not unusual.

I had followed it from early in development and you could call me a fan I learned how to mod it and tried to learn how to play it.

I was extremely disappointed though I tend not to worry about money once I have spent it I feel a fool whenever I remember how much I paid for it and the actual worth of the game, even though I realised at the time that the signs were that it was not going to be a very well implemented game. These signs were firstly that there was excessive hype (calling it a 5x game was just pretentious) and the official community would tolerate no criticism or lateral discussion and were clearly deeply introverted. I would say it is worth £10 if you really want to put yourself through that, but MoO1 is a better game in terms of play. So I suppose that is 1 out of 5.

The interface was appalling and the game processes inscrutible and uninspiring. It seemed to be the result of one man's private fantasy about the relationship between accountancy and power. While it works as a piece of software in the sense it does not crash too much, as a game it didnt work for me as it was not fun to play. It is an object lesson in how not to make a Galactic 4X game.

The intro sequence was a work of art and always draws a poignant parallel between the Ithkul as a GM project and MoO3 as a software project for me. However the MoO3 project was never finished to anyone's satisfaction and consequently the Ithkul found their most convincing realisation in that very intro.

What I resent most about MoO3 was the damage it has done to the Galactic 4X market. It seems to have utterly destroyed publisher's interest in the genre which is a lot to pin on one lousy game, but I think that is what is happening.

Hopefully a producer with the correct insight will eventually conclude that a well crafted G4X game could be popular, but it is a subtle formula to get right and MoO3 didnt. Producers without a feel for the genre would be well advised to look elsewhere lest the genre suffer another blow of this kind.

	27-10-2004 22:34									#62
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

I purchased Moo3 at a software store the week it was released.

Ratings:
Concept – 5, since they did a good job building on Moo1 and 2, and the Ithkul are a great foil; good storyline
Pre-patch execution/gameplay – 1 and 2, respectively; it almost looked like they didn’t playtest the game, and the interface was challenged;
Post-patch gameplay – 3 (but then, I’m used to the interface now)

What I like:
Fleet combat
Ship design
Big empires
Races that are really different, and work differently (but aren’t completely unbalanced)
Ithkul – great bad guys

What I don’t like:
Victory conditions – getting elected to head the Senate is pitifully easy, and would not mean you’ll ‘win’
Lack of feedback on what decisions do and mean
Opaque and goofy AI managers (I set all the DEAs at my planets and set the initial build queue since I don’t trust the AI)

	26-12-2004 20:16									#63
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

I was one of the poor idiots who thought it would be a successor to MoO2 and preordered it or 45 Euros. Aside from the horrible interface and the numerous bugs, the worst disappointment was how little resemblance it bore to MoO2, and the few similarities that existed (battles, ship design) were actually implemented WORSE than in MoO2. I really tried very hard to like it but after a week or so I gave up and tossed it into a corner. I was hoping for a patch, but when that first patch after however many month didn't address ANY of the issues I had with the game, I gave up on it. Now it is rotting in that corner and I am still happily playing MoO2 (If MoO3 had been a 1:1 MoO2 conversion with TCP/IP intenet I would be happy with it). I can't even get myself to sell it on ebay as I would feel dirty about taking money for this abomination.
One good thing came of it though, I will never again purchase any game from Infogrames/Atari which is saving me money right now as I won't buy Sid Meiers Pirates. Which in a way is what MoO3 should have been, in essence the same game as the predecessor with improved graphics and a few game engine tweaks. Not a reinvented wheel which ends up being rectangular. Granted you can see that it was rushed out and there is a distinct lack of love in that game (Why do all ships in one class have exactly the same graphics, just different sizes?) which clearly shows the Infogrames inluence. But the basic concept is good.

Oh yeah if you could't figure, I will rate MoO3 a 1. But a 5 point scala is nowhere big enough to fathom the disappointment and anger this abomination caused me and many other MoO2 fans.

	13-06-2005 20:14									#64
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Paid $9.00 second hand
installed alright
rating: Concept 2
execution miserable
if Quicksilver puts out another game Wouldn't buy it.