12-06-2002 02:44									#1
	RANTZ HOSELEY interview! Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

our first moo3 interview with Rantz Hoseley

http://apolyton.net/misc/interviews/moo1-rantz-1.shtml

Last edited by MarkG on 12-06-2002 at 05:25

	12-06-2002 08:56									#2
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Hmm, sounding much better then when I had first heard about it. No more IFP, and you can actually control combat somewhat, and lots of other cool stuff. It also seems that Infogrames must actually be listening to all the people who complain when they make developers rush games.

	12-06-2002 09:25									#3
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infogreed not the root of all evil?


Good interview, will be interesting to see what 'Poly people say when its released.

	12-06-2002 12:57									#4
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Good work, Markos.

I do wish there had been a question or two about the recent purges at QS, but otherwise we have now confirmed that the guys left there still think it's a game worth paying for.

A real shame they won't be relasing a demo, though.

	12-06-2002 13:38									#5
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Before I ask anything else... what is MoO3?

	12-06-2002 14:18									#6
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Solver,
Are you joking?


Anyway,
It is long awaited Master of Orion III

	12-06-2002 16:53									#7
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I know it's Master of Orion 3, and that's exactly where my knowledge of it all ends.

	12-06-2002 17:42									#8
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It is like Civ in space. One of the official scenarios for Civ2 was about MoO.

	12-06-2002 17:52									#9
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TBS's apart from Civ just can't be good .

I think I should find a preview somehwere.

	12-06-2002 17:57									#10
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The series was originally made by Microprose, so some of the people who worked on MoO knew some of the people who worked on Civ.

	12-06-2002 18:01									#11
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

quote: Originally posted by Solver I know it's Master of Orion 3, and that's exactly where my knowledge of it all ends.

It's a Civ-like TBS. The "Feel" is a bit different because of the planets vs. terrain nature; if you can imagine an island-hopping Civ map, where there's a potential city but only one on each island, that's a glimpse of what the landscape would be like. Space Combat can't occur just anywhere, though -- only within solar systems.

There's lots more to it than that, of course. MOO's strengths compared to Civ include the fact that you can design units (in MOO3, that includes missiles and fighters and mines, not just ships), a richer espionage and diplomacy system (especially in MOO3), and an open-ended timeline -- the game goes until a victory condition is met. Weaknesses compared to moo3 -- well, I'm biased, so I don't see many, but Civ is a little easier to approach for new strategy players (without sacrificing richness), and since it's historical to near future, the game setting is more familiar than an interstellar, distant-future universe.


Totally off-topic: Can I ripoff your Avatar?

	12-06-2002 22:50									#12
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Who did the interview and why is his name hidden behind the site name. That is really screwed up.

	12-06-2002 23:20									#13
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I'd be awfully surprised if it wasn't MarkG...

	12-06-2002 23:35									#14
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The interviewer should be named.

	13-06-2002 02:26									#15
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quote: Originally posted by GP Who did the interview and why is his name hidden behind the site name. That is really screwed up.

Who cares, questions were asked, thats what he answered.

	13-06-2002 04:46									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Pythagoras Who cares, questions were asked, thats what he answered.

The interview is more than just answers to random questions. The identity of the interviewer determines what questions are asked, what followup is etc. Especially in this case, where we had a live interactive (i.e. real) interview, not just an e-mailed script of questions. The interviewer also deserves credit (good or bad) for the quality of the interview.

I don't mind using the "Apolyton" moniker in fron tof the interviewer questions. (I assume this is aping the Playboy interviews.) I just want the interviewer identified at the beginning of the interrview text. Let's say this wasn't MarkG. The identity of the interviewer gives me some basis to judge the interview and put it in context. When Larry King interviews someone I know it will be a "light" interview. If it is Sam Donaldson, I expect some tougher questions.

	13-06-2002 12:43									#17
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i guess you didnt read the whole thing GP

	13-06-2002 15:06									#18
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Exactly why Moo3 doesn't excite me... space civ... blah. Civ is meant to be on earth and historical. Though, OTOH, I'm not a hardcore gamer, that is, don't play many games.

At least I can say I wasn't the one to make this interview, so don't blame me .

	13-06-2002 18:52									#19
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The interview shows IMO that you can turn MOO3 into micromanagement hell. Sure you can group planets together, and even get 2 sets of orders for a given planet. That is cool. But will you get better results out of your empire if you do that than if you micromanage? I doubt tools to help macromanagement are the way to solve micromanagement problems. Maybe IFPs were bad for gameplay, still, I'd have liked to see what they played like. So bad there isn't even a way to impose them on the AI (I can limit myself, but the AI?).
I am glad they say the game is still on track for running on low-end (old) machines.
Still, I think Rantz' comments on the AI for fights is a bit off. Basically he says "your AI will lose if you gave it silly orders". This means the AI will lose against me if they have been given silly orders. I always played manually in MOO because the AI was so good at destroying your own ships and couldn't use them effectively, I am not going to trust the AI to do better here, however much I'd like to.

	13-06-2002 19:13									#20
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it's been several years since moo LDiCesare, lets have some faith in the progress of AI programmers

	13-06-2002 19:48									#21
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Hell yes, but I still play the game... Now maybe they get better. Still, since the fights will be real-time, there is a remote possibility that having better reflexes than what the game expects will give you an edge... I am a bit pessimistic about clever tactical combat because I don't hear about it much. And asking a programmer to have faith in other programmers is hard. I know too well what some programmers call code.
I'd just like to hear from QS something like "We are testing and tweaking the combat AI" specifically, and even more the tactical AI to be more confident about the game. Without proper testing, the AI will miss points that will become obvious to human players pretty fast. Giving stance for your civ looks good for instance, but I'd be much more confident if I could write the scripts saying how to use my weapons myself for instance. I have no idea whether the engine allows such details. Like saying "use the XXX ship to teleport near the most numerous opponent ships which can cause damage to XXX, black-hole them and NEVER send more than one XXX ship at a time, rinse and repeat until opponent is less than ZZ estimated offensive power". I never saw any information leading me to think that I could not only design the ships but also the AI that should go with it. As long as there were IFPs, that was OK because I would be spending my attention elsewhere. But now if I find out one my fleets is destroyed by lack of tactics, I will mm all the fights.

	13-06-2002 21:35									#22
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Mark, is there something hidden in there, with a personal reference? I skimmed parts of the interview, yes.

Try to be a bit more of a journalist. Put the interviewer's name in the first paragraph before the interview starts. It shouldn't be a hide and seek game. Just like having a headline and a byline at the front of a story.

	13-06-2002 22:26									#23
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we usually have done that at the end of the interview GP, just like in this case

	14-06-2002 04:13									#24
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Markos, I just saw this: "Interview conducted by Markos Giannopoulos".

Was this on there when you posted it orginally? If so, it certainly hid well. Would still reccomend moving to the front. If not, maybe make it a little more prominent.

	14-06-2002 08:04									#25
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quote: Originally posted by GP The interview is more than just answers to random questions. The identity of the interviewer determines what questions are asked, what followup is etc. Especially in this case, where we had a live interactive (i.e. real) interview, not just an e-mailed script of questions. The interviewer also deserves credit (good or bad) for the quality of the interview. I don't mind using the "Apolyton" moniker in fron tof the interviewer questions. (I assume this is aping the Playboy interviews.) I just want the interviewer identified at the beginning of the interrview text. Let's say this wasn't MarkG. The identity of the interviewer gives me some basis to judge the interview and put it in context. When Larry King interviews someone I know it will be a "light" interview. If it is Sam Donaldson, I expect some tougher questions.

I dont think it matters, these questions were fairly standard and I think we know generally who did it, Mark or Dan. I dont think his answers would vary appreciably with that distinction.

	14-06-2002 11:59									#26
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quote: Was this on there when you posted it orginally?

yeap

our "tradition" of posting the name(s) at the end of the interview came from the fact that initially it was a common work of me and dan. saying that one of the pages of your site was done by you is a little too much for us so we actually didnt "sign" them. later when we had help in the questions from team members we mentiond them at the end. foa interviews which are 100% done by someone else from me and dan mention the name of interviewer at the begining. this is actually the first interview completely by dan or me that is "signed" and i'm deeply ashamed for that

	14-06-2002 14:05									#27
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quote: Originally posted by Pythagoras I dont think it matters, these questions were fairly standard and I think we know generally who did it, Mark or Dan. I dont think his answers would vary appreciably with that distinction.

If it had been done by Chris, I would have been more likley to read it all the way through. (So it matters...to me...and others I bet.) If it doesn't matter to you, fine.

	09-08-2002 02:43									#28
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Nice that the turns don't last too long.