Hypothetical Question (Next-Generation MOO2)

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Riftwalker
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Hypothetical Question (Next-Generation MOO2)

Postby Riftwalker » Sat Jun 23, 2007 6:28 pm

[Long time lurker, first time poster.]

Just wanted to throw out a question and get some input. Let's suppose that someone was going to develop a MOO2 sequel that was going to stay true to the gameplay of MOO2 rather than going the route that MOO3 did. There are a handful of small and medium sized improvements already posted on these forums (and the older forums) that I'm sure would be welcome in such a sequel, such as customizing the equipment on star bases/battlestations/star fortresses.

I would imagine such a sequel to essentially have four modes:

1) Strict MOO2. This merely replaces MOO2.
2) MOO2 with a relatively open framework for plugin development, something akin to the Space Empires series. Plug-ins should not have to involve breaking out a hex editor.
3) "MOO2 Improved" (MOO2 + small / medium improvements (i.e., customized star bases)). This could possibly be done via the plugin framework proposed in #2, assuming it's powerful enough
4) The next generation of MOO2. This is what I want to talk about below.

I think most people here would agree that MOO3 went off in the wrong direction while attempting to make the "next generation" MOO2 game. The question I pose is: in what way can the next generation MOO2 game still keep the soul of the original game while adding some further complexities or game dynamics that influence the fundamental way the game works?

Or, to look at it another way, consider Starcraft 2. Starcraft 1 was extremely popular. What is Blizzard doing to prevent Starcraft 2 from going down the same road as MOO3? What would a game designer of a next generation MOO2 game add, remove, and change from MOO2? Does anyone have any ideas on what new spin on the MOO2 gameplay the "next generation" MOO2 would have?

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Postby siron » Sat Jun 23, 2007 8:41 pm

Welcome :)

The sad thing is we can be sure there wont be any MOO4 as long as atari exists.

So why do you want to discuss it? Are you a game dev on your own? :wink:

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Postby Riftwalker » Sat Jun 23, 2007 9:16 pm

Bad news about Atari, for sure. But consider the question purely as an academic exercise anyway.

I'm not a game developer, though it turns out that I am a software engineer by profession. I've always had an armchair interest in game design, game rules, and so forth, particularly when the games are discrete in nature. Mathematically, MOO2 can be reduced to a relatively small number of integers and some graph theory. Playing the game is merely manipulating this data in a relatively constrained way. Yet doing so is fun, especially against other humans. I would argue that the game itself is well-designed. (Chess would be an example of another type of game like this, though it is even simpler. Yet despite its simplicity it ends up being complicated enough to be fun and interesting.) The atmosphere, GUI, music, animations of aliens, etc. add to the fun of course, but the core game mechanics are solid and stand on their own. No amount of fancy graphics can save a game with a poor design, at least among the folks that post on these boards.

So from this angle, what does MOO4 (or whatever the title of the next generation MOO2)--even if it never ends up existing--play like? How can the core game mechanics of MOO2 be improved? Can they be improved in a way that would capture the interest and receive the blessing of the MOO2 fans here?

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Postby siron » Sun Jun 24, 2007 5:52 am

Or, to look at it another way, consider Starcraft 2. Starcraft 1 was extremely popular. What is Blizzard doing to prevent Starcraft 2 from going down the same road as MOO3?
They simply choose mode 3 IMO (3Dgraphics, though2D gameplay(!), no new races, just some new units a.k.a. rebalancing). I wouldn't consider it a next generation SC. I read a nice post on the gamespot forum regarding SC2s design:
These are some of the core gameplay aspects that make Starcraft a great game--and why others (including Warcraft III) fall short. We already know about the crticial importance of race balance, but hopefully Blizzard remembers the other equally important aspects:

-No unit obselescence - all units, even first tiers like Marines and Zealots can always fill an important role, even in the endgame when more advanced units are available
-All units roughly equally cost effective - depending on the situation, of course; further, no units should be prohibitively costly to reach techwise that they are avoided in competitive play
-Purity of purpose - units are highly specialized (attack, support, siege, flyers, etc) so that a well-conceived mixed army always trumps a homegenous army of equal cost; period
-All units have hard counters - anyone who chooses to field a homegenous army should, in addition to the previous point, also get badly owned by a prepared player fielding the correct counter
-Hard counters are based more on effects, not damage types - Siege tanks are weak to Zealots because tanks have no short range attack, Mutalisks are weak to Archons because of their tendency to cluster around the latter's splash attack, Scouts are weak to Wraiths because Scouts (without other support) cannot see cloaked units. Using damage types and armor classes--which are essentially math tables--to encourage a mixed army, which Warcraft III overdid, is lazy and uncreative. I am worried the Protoss Immortal may end up like this--can't you create a anti-siege tank unit whose unique ability is something OTHER than "takes less damage from siege tanks"??? Lazy.
-Clear strategic tradeoffs - Focus on economy, assault, or tech; an emphasis on one comes at the expense of others. Rushing unsuccessfully early puts you behind economically. Expanding aggressively carries the risk that your tech level may be lower than your turtling opponent, etc.
-No mirror units/tech trees between races - Goes without saying in RTS nowadays, but even Warcraft III was more than little guilty of having overly similar units, production, and teching amongst the 4 races. This is a lazy way to ensure balance in the races.
-Clear racial themes - If Protoss have extraordinarily mobile deployment, than it should be mostly unique to them. If Terrans have great fortification capability, it should be mostly unique. If Zerg can build the most units and fastest for the cheapest cost, than it should be mostly unique. Each army, viewed it its entirety, should have unique, well-maintained strengths and weaknesses so that the game feels completely different depending on the side you take.
-Uber units should not be a "do-all end-all" pancea - In other words, do not reward players for being strategically uncreative, or encourage newbs to turtle. Any uber unit should still require a mixed army and smart application to be used correctly. Would hate for the Protoss Mothership to be like having 12 Carriers in the sense that "if I build it, I don't have to think any more", and that it's not much of a strategy to begin with.
-Emphasis is on "macro strategy" - The winner should first and foremost be the player who makes the best strategic decisions in terms of economic focus, army composition, tech strategy, and battlefield tatics, NOT the person who can click and point the fastest (although this should still be an important edge if all else is equal). If people want to play a game where fast reflexes and memorizing patterns are king, they should go play Pong, Tekken, or an arcade shooter instead of a real-time STRATEGY game. Make players think strategically, not reflexively.
I have not enuff SC2 experience to comment on his post in detail. But it sounds instructive. It sounds like a SC2-winning formula that won't be altered by Blizzard for sure. MOO2 could learn from it. In fact, MOO2 is in many ways unbalanced.
What would a game designer of a next generation MOO2 game add, remove, and change from MOO2? Does anyone have any ideas on what new spin on the MOO2 gameplay the "next generation" MOO2 would have?


MOO4 should also be based on mode 3 "MOO2 improved".
How can the core game mechanics of MOO2 be improved?
The core game mechanics are solid and can't be improved. It is about some 3D graphics (but 2D gameplay should be kept IMO), some rebalancing, AI/UI improvements.
Can they be improved in a way that would capture the interest and receive the blessing of the MOO2 fans here?
I would doubt so.

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Postby Time » Sun Jun 24, 2007 3:31 pm

What would a game designer of a next generation MOO2 game add, remove, and change from MOO2? Does anyone have any ideas on what new spin on the MOO2 gameplay the "next generation" MOO2 would have?
As a long time fan of MOO2, Warcraft 2, and Starcraft) and disapointed non-fan of MOO3 and Warcraft 3. (Starcraft 2 better not be dissapointing)
I can think of a few changes I'd like to see.

First I'd like to point out the link to the MOO3 section, where many of us have provided some input there. I know I thought I gave some useful advice there.

viewtopic.php?t=18&start=0

The most important thing they can do is learn from those who have succeed in sucessful upgraded products.
Microsoft learned this when they started including in their new OSs the ability of the user to view in the earlier version's mode.
I know I used Win XP, in Win 98 mode for a long time, before converting to XP mode.

When making any new game, there should be a way to have a similar experience as the previous game, not drastic changes.
For example, MOO3 could have had a map that looked like MOO2 as an option.

Other improvements I could suggest?

1) A check box list of the races to include in your game. Which would have included the races killed off too (Many of us didn't like our favorite MOO2 race being totally eliminated).

2) Start location choice.
It helps in a 2vs2 game to start off near your ally. Such as Left side vs right side or at least place all allies with one side near another ally. I have also wanted to play a 2 human vs. 1-6 comps game where my opponent and I are on the exact opposite corners. Thereby forcing us to eliminate a comp player in our route to eliminate each other. :)

3) Allied from the start, with shared vision (Empire Earth did this well).

4) Individual Comp difficulty choice.
If I know from the beginning I can always outproduce the Alkari, then to make them more of a challange, I would set them 1 difficulty higher than the others)

5) An easy to use Map Editor included with the game.
I have made maps for Warcraft 2 and Starcraft. That customization aspect helps when you know your game will be 2 vs 2, or 3 vs 3, they can be designed, balanced and approved by your group as fair maps to use.
(Just to note, I tried this in Warcraft 3, it has 17 levels of depth from mt top to the lowest the sea level. That is a bit extreme. Adding 1-3 levels would have sufficed there)

6) Improved Ground Combat.
A Ground Combat screen should pop up, just like the space combat screen does, when combat is selected. These can be animated units like Starcraft units or non-animated (for users of slower computers, CIV3 and CIV4 had this option too)

7) A way of having partial control of a planet or ship.
A) The example I mentioned in the other link was of an Aquatic race inhabiting a wet region of a planet while a subterranean race is underground. If allied or NAP'd this could be more beneficial for trade purposes and relations with Comps.

B) This could be applied to ships too.
A Doom Star with its thousands of occupants would not be as easy to capture, as a frigate with say <50. During the space combat, we could recieve a message at the bottom of the screen saying, "The Bulrathi have captured Heavy Plasma Cannon #1 Control Room. We have lost 10 crewmen!"
We would lose the ability to fire that weapon, but, could recapture it. Curently in MOO2, Raids destroy a random number of ship systems with no chance to restore that weapon mid-combat (unless race is Cyber or auto repair is on that ship). It would be nice to recieve a message
"Reinforcements have arrived, Heavy Plasma Cannon #1 Control Room, is back under our control."

8.) A Size Pick.
Humans are what, 1000 times as massive as an Ant. If a race is Tiny (-4), it might have a ship limitation of not being able to produce Doom Stars. Where a race that is Huge (-1) might not be able to produce fighters or frigates.

That seems like a good start. Others will undoubtly add to this. Hopefully, providing you with enough of an answer to your question.
MOO1 Fan, MOO2 Fan, MOO3 needed too many changes = hopeless, getting older waiting for a MOO4 (still).

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Postby siron » Tue Jun 26, 2007 5:00 pm

1-5 are minor things. They don't effect the core-gameplay.

I really dislike point 6. First, Ground Combat doesn't make much sense when you control the sky anyway. And along that point Kerboros made actually a right choice by excluding it in their 4X Game SOTS.

More emphasis on Ground Combat would significantly slow down multiplayer games. X-ways would become unplayable. Wait...wait...between the turns.

7a would probably also just add micro IMO further slow down. At least I can't imagine a nice UI to handle it.

7b could be interesting when well done. There is potential to reduce micro in current MOO2 battles, that such a additional feature wouldn't harm too much.

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Postby Matthew » Wed Jun 27, 2007 9:05 am

1-5 are minor things. They don't effect the core-gameplay.

I really dislike point 6. First, Ground Combat doesn't make much sense when you control the sky anyway. And along that point Kerboros made actually a right choice by excluding it in their 4X Game SOTS.

More emphasis on Ground Combat would significantly slow down multiplayer games. X-ways would become unplayable. Wait...wait...between the turns.

7a would probably also just add micro IMO further slow down. At least I can't imagine a nice UI to handle it.

7b could be interesting when well done. There is potential to reduce micro in current MOO2 battles, that such a additional feature wouldn't harm too much.
I strongly disagree about the ground combat not making sense. Sure, you could choose to totally annihilate your opposition from the skies if you have sufficient bombardment capability but would you always want to?

What if the planet is a rebellious colony or one you're trying to liberate from the enemy? Wouldn't you prefer to take it without destroying critical infrastructure or wiping out innocent civilians?

I think that was one point of Sots that really weakened it overall. Not everyone wants to play a genocidal psychopath that totally annihilates the population of entire worlds.

Stardock did a good job with ground combat in Galactic Civilizations II. It doesn't take a long time but it gives you more than just one option for taking a planet.

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Postby Time » Wed Jun 27, 2007 7:42 pm

First, since I was just responding to Riftwalker's question, I won't be offended if someone disagrees with my opinion.
I am sure he would like as many suggestions as he can.

I would like to point out, as we can chose the option "Tactical Combat", one could make "Tactical Ground Combat" an option too.

Ground combat slowing the game down? Yes, it would some.
It would depend on just how detailed it became.

I was expecting a Starcraft-like real-time combat system for MOO3, and was sadly dissapoined.
I have played short Starcraft games of 18-23 mins.

All we would need is to use a tiny map, and limit ground combat rounds to about 3 mins max., then continuing G.C., on the next turn.
In MOO, we don't build buildings or have upgrades and such, like Starcraft does. So, G.C. should be faster.

Having Klackon's unload Stag Beetles or something like an Ultralisk would show the diversity of this game.
Just how does an Aquatic race invent the exact same tanks and battliods as the ground dwellers?
I could see Cybernetic Races having an Star Wars At-At type walker unit to attack with.

In the hands of a detailed and creative developer, this could be the next great smash hit game. Starcraft has 3 races, MOO has alot more.
MOO1 Fan, MOO2 Fan, MOO3 needed too many changes = hopeless, getting older waiting for a MOO4 (still).

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Postby Riftwalker » Wed Jun 27, 2007 10:40 pm

Another alternative along the lines of Time's suggestion: When you board a ship, fire up an X-com like tactical combat situation to resolve it. :D

However, a difference between this type of suggestion and the original topic of this thread is that (9 times out of 10) the ground combat situation, even if played in a starcraft like fashion, would end up going the same way as it does now with tne non-interactive simulation. So it really wouldn't change the mathematics of the game.

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Postby NegativeCreep » Thu Jun 28, 2007 6:03 am

Although this is only hypothetical I find it interesting what aspects of the game MOO2 fans would like to be improved or added. Here are some features which could fit into the MOO2 game concept and could give it more depth.

Trading Ships
Like caravans in Civ2 these are unarmed ships that carry a certain freight. These can be shipped to either your own or to enemy planets to establish trade routes, which, similar to trade or research treaties give a small amount of rp or bc.

Intercepting Enemy Fleets
When you see an enemy fleet coming from a system you should be able to intercept them by moving your ships in the opposite direction (say when the enemy comes from system X to system Y and you move your fleet from sys Y to sys X). You can then intercept them in mid-flight and fight them off before they reach your system.

Improved Repulsive Race Pick
When you pick repulsive, you should be allowed to make treaties like research, trade and peace, but with heavy penalties. Then the one who's having the treaty with you will gain 10 RP but the repulsive player will get only one third (or half) of that points.

Starsystem Bases
You should be able to choose: Build a well guarded and armed star base which defends only one planet or build a starsystem base which is not that well designed but defends the whole system so small attacking fleets can not take your second and third planets in the system easily.

Individually Skillable Leaders
When a leader gains a level, you should be able to choose which of his skills are getting improved (rpg-like), so a leader which is assigned to a science only colony gets his science bonus improved but not his labor bonus.

That's it for now, I'll add some more ideas later.

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Postby Matthew » Thu Jun 28, 2007 8:31 am

To answer the OP, I would guess that option 3 would probably work the best.

What it really needs is a good game designer to look at MOO2 and similar games and player suggestions. Once they have a good understanding of it then go to work on making a better MOO2. It may not need to change that much. They could probably sell millions of copies just be updating the sound and graphics to make it more appealing to the masses. They could also do some game play balancing like Blizzard did with SC. If the basic winning formula is retained, with some improvement, they will have a mega hit game.

In interest of keeping Multiplayer playable, I think ground combat should stay simple. If the ground combat takes as long space combat, the time other players spend waiting would be too long.

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Postby siron » Fri Jun 29, 2007 1:22 pm

Sure, you could choose to totally annihilate your opposition from the skies if you have sufficient bombardment capability but would you always want to?
Yes. Investing 200k marines on japanese isles or dropping 2 bombs....hmmm. Not that difficult. The situations that make me consider a ground invasion are based on unrealistic game design in MOO2.
What if the planet is a rebellious colony or one you're trying to liberate from the enemy?
Why not just killing the marines if they don't concede in that situation. It is a bit unrealistic that my weapons have that low precision regarding ground bombardment. Only somehow realistic under the assumption that the marines use the civilians as their protection, i.e. hostages. But in this case it would be unrealistic not to use the self-destruction option (i.e. also killing the civilians) by a starting ground invasion.

The most rational choice of the defacto defeated ground marines (after lost ship battle) would be their surrender. It is unrealistic they don't have that option.
Wouldn't you prefer to take it without destroying critical infrastructure or wiping out innocent civilians?
It is also unrealistic that you can just blow up one building per turn.

I still think SOTS got it here. How did Ground Bombardment work in GalCiv2? I can't recall.
However, a difference between this type of suggestion and the original topic of this thread is that (9 times out of 10) the ground combat situation, even if played in a starcraft like fashion, would end up going the same way as it does now with tne non-interactive simulation.
Good point. And I consider the 9 out of 10 even an understatement. It is simply unrealistic to wage a close ground combat.

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Postby marhawkman » Fri Jun 29, 2007 5:04 pm

I strongly disagree about the ground combat not making sense. Sure, you could choose to totally annihilate your opposition from the skies if you have sufficient bombardment capability but would you always want to?

What if the planet is a rebellious colony or one you're trying to liberate from the enemy? Wouldn't you prefer to take it without destroying critical infrastructure or wiping out innocent civilians?
I agree. Part of what I like about MoO2, St:BotF, and SE4-5 is that you don't NEED to kill your enemies. Absorbing them into your empire is much more fun(for me).

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Postby siron » Fri Jun 29, 2007 5:15 pm

Absorbing other population doesn't necessarily require ground combat, and surely not tactical ground combat.

F.e. available surrender option for a planet.

And especially when you like to annex pop it is more important the game would prevent the players to kill their own pop. (Send to full planet.) That's an unsolved issue in our games and was probably not intended by the game designers. OTOH I wouldn't see any problem to destroy more than one building.

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Postby Time » Fri Jun 29, 2007 10:24 pm

I think we all can agree that the Ground Combat system, needs better graphics.
I would like to see more variety of units too.

The simple numbers game of MOO3 G.C., didn't improve MOO2s G.C.
MOO1 Fan, MOO2 Fan, MOO3 needed too many changes = hopeless, getting older waiting for a MOO4 (still).


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