04-03-2003 10:10									#1
	Ups and Downs - My MOO3 experience (long) Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Let me start by saying that while this is my first post here I have been lurking off and on (here and in some of the other forums) for the past year or so.

Prior to the release I was filled with anticipation and excitement at everything I had read. I managed to get myself to the local game shop an hour after they received the game to pick up my copy.

My first impressions of the game were similar to many others here. I felt a bit superfluous. I didn't have a damn clue as to whether or not what I was doing was good or bad or if it even had much of an effect at all. I was somewhat disappointed but hadn't given up hope yet.

I decided to start playing differently, and approached the game how I thought they "the developers" designed it to be played. This brought much better results. I was still not happy with the enforced micromanagment of military build queues due to the AI's insatiable appetite for groung troops (I had long since made troop ships obsolete so the AI's fetish for those was taken care of), but overall I was hooked.

So just as I approached MOO3 nirvana disaster strikes. The rumor of the AI's inability to mount any sort of offensive whatsoever began to circulate. I thought to myself and realized that I hadn't ever been attacked by more than 1-3 ships at a time and certainly hadn't had a planet assaulted with ground troops. I began to worry and called all my friends who also play to ask if they had. They all thought about it for a bit and answered that no they hadn't.

Rock bottom folks. That is where I am now. With the AI as it stands now, MOO3 isn't even a game. It is a pointless simulation of you taking over the galaxy. As it stands now it is the equivalent of a chess program in which the computer will never make a move to capture a piece. "What do you mean I am not a good chess player? I can beat that computer on Grand Master level every time!"

Rantz has communicated that they probably won't even start working on a patch for another couple of weeks which is very disheartening. How can this not be an emergency, highest priority fix? So for now MOO3 goes onto the shelf joining other sad and lonely "coulda been great games".

Ever the optimist, as soon as a patch addresses the issue I will fire this puppy back up again but for those of you who are wondering whether or not you should buy the game I recommend to wait until the patch(s) come out. There isn't a single reason in the galaxy to play it until then.

Cheers

	04-03-2003 12:05									#2
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

LOL, yeah it's pretty funny, but I think this happened to a lot of us! I was plodding along, thinking I was doing fine, until I read that one post. Never had one post affect my opinion of a game so strongly. I was even kidding myself that I was doing pretty well. But that I too realized that the AIs that had declared war on me and that I thought I was dominating, were in fact just rolling over and playing dead. Just enough defences that I had to build a fleet to defeat, but never any counter attack or threat to my worlds. Never. Never ever. LOL it's funny how we could be all fooled into thinking we were actually playing a game, when in fact the game had been playing us all along.

	04-03-2003 21:14									#3
	Inflate your Upload Space

I've had the AI attack and invade a planet in the one game I had a chance to play, although for the most part, his attacks were ineffective against my larger fleets, the AI did get lucky on some poorly defended systems.

Mostly they just sent wave after wave of task forces consisting of about 10 ships to their death.

It would be nice if they built an actual fleet or something to send. Maybe none of the playtesters actually built a fleet or something so the game was harder for them?

	04-03-2003 21:52									#4
	Details of the Attacks? Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Dominator can you tell me what race(s) it was that attacked you with ground troops and what difficulty setting the game was on?

Cheers

	04-03-2003 22:00									#5
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

Setting was easy, and the race was the mechanical race that is not the Meklars (can't remember their name). I accidentally left the system with a minimal defense after I conquered it from them and they sent in a fleet and invaded one planet with a force of about 40 armor before I could get a few task forces in there to clean them out.

	04-03-2003 23:31									#6
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Thanks Dominator. I think I will try a game on easy. It seems that it is actually tougher than the harder levels. I have played all my games on medium.

	04-03-2003 23:47									#7
	Remove this text

Yeah, I hope they get a patch out soon. I like all the parts of the game, I just think that with a stronger AI the game will get a lot more fun. till then it looks like it is back to CivIII