New MoO announced

[Sirian]

I think the idea is to provide incentives for growing cities/planets early so that the game doesn't turn into spamming settlers/colonies ICS style.

There is no "ICS Style" in a nodal game. There is no way to cram in more planets than the game balance intends.

Imagine a Civ map with pre-placed city locations. There would be no cramming more cities in between other cities, which is the definition of ICS: cramming in more than the intended number of production centers (not caring that they can't ultimately grow as tall as intended) to exploit holes in the design.

Nodal games come with a hardwired number of nodes, with predefined local traits that determine how tall each one can grow. There is no sacrificing of tallness at some or all centers to support a wider number of smaller centers.


I believe the term you are looking for is REX: Reckless EXpansion. Pushing horizontal expansion at the expense of all else. Even in Civ3, this concept was a bit of an illusion, for the reasons Sulla identified: when the other civs are doing it, too, and will fight to gain or maintain their claims, you have to focus enough on military to enforce your planted flags or you will lose some (perhaps many) of them. And to support military, you need (enough) military production centers, and perhaps other support needs to pay for what your armed forces need in the way of supplies or unlocks. This implies having to let some cities/planets in your core grow tall, and the exact balance of what to grow tall vs what to reach for wide is a gaming art lost to anybody grown up on "modern" 4X games with their heavy-handed limits on empire size -- starting with Civ4 and including all others made since then.

There are plenty of games that put the smack down on "Bigger is Always Better" -- or tried to. And that's fine. But after more than a decade since the last BIAB 4X game hit the market, perhaps it is time for one to reappear. The new MOO needs difficulty levels, improved AI and other features and tweaks to get there properly, but perhaps in time it will do so.

Although there has been some angst among fans of the old games about things the new version did not preserve or honor, here is a big huge one that they have: Bigger is ALWAYS Better in Master of Orion. More economy, more votes, more power, bigger fleets, more tech. No gentleman's rules about empire size. No peaceful era when no one can benefit from conquest so why bother. No complicated, heavy-handed smackdown from the designer about how you're allowed to expand or what you're allowed to settle (or conquer!) and when. No colony traps, where you realize after the fact that you've settled (or invaded!) something that will be a net loss to your empire. No sections of the map that have to sit empty until some arbitrary point later in the game (or forever, in some games). Sucky planets may be long term projects but you can let them simmer on a back burner instead of having to ignore them. Every civ covets your space and can benefit from taking it. Defend it if you can.

Not everyone's cup of tea, of course -- some may even view this as a "barbaric" way to play an empire game -- but some players will welcome a return of this particular tea flavor. Perhaps we should call it "old school flavor". Pretty sure we can count Sulla as a connoisseur.


- Sirian

[HansLemurson]

I guess if everybody REX's, then you get back to a dynamic like in MoO1, where you colonize every rock you can land a ship on, but the issue is whether you can defend it or not.

I'm going to try to generate an old organics-poor galaxy in MoO:CtS and see how far I can get with the "Colony Ships Über Alles" approach.

[HansLemurson]

Playing as the Alkari, who I chose because they seem not to have any bonus to settlement or expansion, and because I wanted to hear John de Lancie's voice in diplomacy.

On turn 50, I have 5 colonies, 2 colony-ships en-route, and 3 more in queue (eta 52, 53, 55). I anticipate 10 total colonies by ~t60.

The graphs say I am ahead inAnd I am ahead in colony-count:
Alkari: 5
Sakkra: 4
Humans: 4
Psilons: 3
Mrrshan: 2 (I think Kitty lost a colony ship...)

And middle of the road in population.
Sakkra: 18
Psilons: 14
Alkari: 12
Humans: 12
Mrrshan: 10

Population in Colony-ships isn't counted, so I should be at something more like 14, but nonetheless I feel my population is a little low overall. I've been avoiding food growth in favor of Production, and Altair has been stripped down to 5 Population. All of the cheap buildings have been built and soon regrowing Altair's pop will have the best return-on-investment.

I'm uncertain whether this is the correct strategy. Keeping population low decreases the total food cost for growing it back up again, but at the same time I wonder if perhaps that extra food-cost would be paid for by having an extra farmer working. Then again, when I have to choose between Food for Altair and Production for colony-ships and buildings, I've been going with the latter.

update: I hit 10 colonies on turn 60, just as expected, and population up to 15. Pop still seems low to me, but I know it's being made up for by all those colony-buildings. Am earning 16 science per turn, with zero scientists.

[Psillycyber]

I think Sullla and Sirian have made some good points:

*The term I should be using is "rexing," not ICS, I agree.
*The fact that some planets start out incredibly weak (not even being able to harvest any food to grow) means that they need some "tall" helper-cities to help generate BCs to cash-rush essential buildings. This works against rexing, and is a good thing, I think.
*Tall planets benefit from the cloning facility, which provides a nice percentage bonus.
*If colony ships are relatively expensive, then that somewhat favors tall cities.

So maybe the New MOO is pretty well balanced in terms of tall vs. wide after all! (And yes, I do think that this is an important gameplay consideration, for reasons I'll explain below).

Still, one thing I don't want to clarify:

I'm not in favor of "punishing" wide expansion. Did Civ4 punish wide expansion? I consider Civ4 to be the gold standard in giving the player interesting choices at every part of the game as to how to expand: wide or tall? MoO1 was pretty good at this too, just because it was hard to defend a sprawling empire in an early game war with the impossible-level AI. Plus, maxed-out planets, instead of building colony ships, missile bases, and fleets, had the alternative of plowing all production into research (growing tall), which was a powerful and attractive option with the miniaturization bonuses that came from higher tech levels. (In some hypothetical cases, you would be better off in MoO1 from going up 10 tech levels and having the cost of all of your ships cut by half vs. if you just tried to settle (and defend) more planets and increase your empire-wide production by, let's say, only 75% while not making hardly any progress in tech. In such a case, you would be getting more "production" by just focusing on research, paradoxically).

I do think it is kind of neat to see small empires be occasionally viable, although I don't think it needs to be a strict gameplay requirement for victory to be possible with a one-city/planet-challenge, for example. (Although I do remember seeing one neat MoO1 game report where someone had glassed the entire galaxy by building up only Meklon into a superplanet and getting thorium fuel cells).

Wider expansion should always benefit your empire in an absolute sense. You should never be worse off, in an absolute sense, from settling one more planet. You should be having more food/beakers/production etc. coming in, IF the alternative were not having any expansion (wide OR tall) at all.

The important question is, relatively speaking, would it be better to expand wide or tall at this or that point in the game? It's about relative opportunity cost. And it makes a game more interesting if the player has to re-assess, from game to game, or across the timeline of a single game, "what would be more useful in this situation: devoting resources to expanding wide or tall?"

[Ray F]

I think the "Tall vs. Wide" arguments are interesting. The question is not whether "Tall" is a viable strategy in a particular ruleset, but whether a game should be designed so that it becomes a more viable strategy.

Given the RNG of space 4X map generation and the occasional chance that a player gets a suboptimal location, I think providing some competitiveness for a "Tall" strategy is a good idea. This doesn't mean that Tall beats Wide at the endgame when the Council votes are collected, but that Tall can make it easier to survive early on until you can research your way out of your bad start.

From a lore perspective, it also provides a rationale for those minor races that choose not to expand out of their home system, since they are the in-game representation of Tall civilizations.

[Sirian]

I hit 10 colonies on turn 60, just as expected, and population up to 15.

There should be no doubt that grabbing colonies quickly is always a good idea. However, there can be a significant difference between "quickly" and "recklessly". That difference will grow as the AI gains steam, so we don't have a final balance in place yet (or really anything close to one).

Ten colonies by Turn 60 is a lot, but I've reached that benchmark myself without being reckless. A lot depends on the map rolls. If you start a game with some dead stars near, some low-planet stars with hostile biomes, and have to wander farther to grab worlds, that drags your expansion curve quite a bit. If you start with a couple of 3+ planet systems a hop away and one is Class B or Large C+, you can drive up the planet count really fast -- and even slide by with only two Frigates for defense.

The wider you range (early) to settle, the more military you need to control pirates -- and the more you should need to deal with improved AIs. A bold grab may slow your planet-count increase significantly but establish a border that controls more systems. There's no way to do it without beefing military, blocking lanes and being ready for some conflict. Thus, bold land grabs may require more than just spamming colony ships, and the amount of military needed to enforce a particular grab will depend on the map details.


- Sirian

[Sirian]

I'm not in favor of "punishing" wide expansion. Did Civ4 punish wide expansion?

Absolutely.

In the early and middle game, city maintenance costs rise geometrically with each new city added. There's a fixed number of cities that Soren's design allows you, with perhaps one or two grace where you can suffer in the short term but survive, and beyond that you just grind your tech pace to a halt or even go bankrupt.

In the middle game, the black-box trade system loosens the boundary, allowing for a second wave of expansion or a wave of conquest in the late middle game. By the end game, "wide" is permitted and you can safely control any number of cities.

I call it "The Tyranny of Optimal Terrain". You are forced to skip weak city sites in favor of making the most of the limited number of cities that you can control. ... Others call it "Tall" gameplay, but it's really just "wide" gameplay with an impassable barrier set (arbitrarily) at some number of cities.

Civ3 was the game that did not punish "wide" empires. You stopped benefiting economically from adding more cities, but at least you could do it without harming your empire. Those extra cities were "no fun" though, because they were 100% corrupt and had only one production per turn and one gold per turn income. Civ4's system dropped the diminishing returns on production (letting the cities you ARE allowed to settle play the same) but you pay for that with all the diminishing returns coming via gold maintenance costs and having a true limit on how many cities you can control without losing the game.

No system is perfect. Not Civ3's, not Civ4's, not Civ5's, and not MoO's. Each has pros and cons. However, I utterly reject the idea that MoO's system of no diminishing returns is inherently inferior. (Of all design philosophies, this is the only one where Soren and I stand in diametric opposition.) I think it's a matter of taste, and each system serves a different taste.


"Wide vs Tall" is an argument that applies only to maps with too much space. The mechanism (the only mechanism) that creates the "Tall" option is the designer choosing a number of colonies viable (economically) to settle that is smaller than the number of colony sites available on the map. Civ5 creates it's "wide vs tall" dynamic via setting up two paths, one I would call "tall" and the other I would call "taller". Neither is a true "wide". Some people like this, but it's not my cup of tea.

My personal opinion is that the unfettered system, where Bigger is Always Better, actually offers the most variety potential, via map variety. The map, not some arbitrary number chosen by the designer, is what sets the number of colonies. Thus you can have "Tall" games by playing on smaller maps, and "Wide" games by playing on larger ones. Under, for instance, Civ4's system (in single player, at least), you are playing the same 7-city empire in game after game on a standard map size, and you never get to use weaker terrain unless the map lacks enough stronger terrain to support 7 cities' worth on the good terrain.

This above all else is why I personally got more replay value out of Civ3 than Civ4. Although Civ4's mechanics, overall, were smoother and more fun (and I had a lot to do with that!), I'd been there and done that for all its gameplay much sooner. Civ3, I got to play the terrain that the map gave me, including some half-size "fishing villages", some all-hills cities, desert cities, etc. The variety in city quality kept me entertained for longer on the economic management side of the game and not knowing in advance what I could manage to grab or not helped keep the game fresher for longer as well. ... Again, a matter of personal taste.

For too long the industry failed to offer flavors other than "Bigger is Always Better" and players who grew tired of that wanted to try other things. That was fine. A lot of players liked playing with fewer production centers. Games moved faster. Casual players joined the community and the genre grew its audience. By now, however, it's been so long since the old school style was offered, a whole generation of gamers has never even experienced it.


As for those occasions when a faction draws a short straw on its map luck, if the player is playing, they have the option to consider it a challenge, rather than expecting the game rules to offer them some kind of entitlement to hold back others with better map luck so they can "compete". They could always re-roll instead of playing it out. ... Having some weak empires among the AIs just means it's more likely one of the stronger AIs (or the player) will have a juicy target and be able to grow larger, posing a greater threat and making the later game more interesting. ... That's the beauty of the unfettered system: you truly get to play the map you are given. You also face the threat of a Runaway AI, something that cannot happen when the AIs are as boxed in as you are with their empire sizes.

Some of my most epic 4X games came vs Runaway AIs. Nothing quite hits that same level of challenge, touches that same set of taste buds on the palette. Here's one of the more memorable examples.


- Sirian

[HansLemurson]

Turn 70, 11 colonies now, since all of the good worlds are claimed, and I have to worry about my military situation now. Population has risen to 25, putting me ahead of the Sakkra. All of my colonies went from 1 pop to 2 pop in a short time frame, nearly doubling my population.

I'm still uncertain as to how powerful I am. With the wide production-base from all of those Automated Factories and Colony-bases (giving 32 out of my 87 total), I suspect I could quickly build a doom fleet and crush my neighbors. Or at least one of them. But for now I'm still focusing on infrastructure.

As the number of colonies increases, my tendency to micromanage the makes the turns take even longer, and colony ships feel even more expensive than they did before.
...
I keep getting stuck on "return on investment" calculations about food vs. production which I'm sure have been solved already Civ veterans.
For example: A new colony which has completed its Automated Factory, and is working on a Hydroponic Farm.
Its single pop unit can produce either 2 Food or 3 Production.
32 Food will earn me my second population, which will be able to choose either 2 Food or 2 Production
40 Production will give me the Hydroponic Farm, for +2 Food.

If I assign him as a farmer, my colony produces +2/+3 Food/Production
If I assign him as a worker, my colony produces +0/+6 Food/Production

A simple rule of thumb might be "Do whichever number is bigger", but I feel this ignores the fact that 32 Food is less than 40 Production (and hydroponic farms cost maintenance instead of paying taxes).
Another rule of thumb might be to focus on whichever one will finish first, and thus be paying off for longer.
Both of these approaches tend to favor the production-heavy approach, but what if the colony had poorer minerals, and a richer biome? If the trade-off is between 4 Food and 2 Production, what then?
I also feel that by focusing on the building first, I am ignoring the fact that the sooner I get my 2nd population, the sooner I can grow my 3rd (or build a colony ship...).
So...Buildings or Population?

..Wait a minute, population EATS FOOD. Screw those guys, I'm making more buildings!

[HansLemurson]

Turn 80 and I've only added 1 colony, bringing my total to 12. A 13th will follow soon.

Looking at it from a pure numbers perspective, I would wonder why my colonization has slowed so drastically. However, all the nearby good planets have been settled, I have rock-bottom relations with the entire galaxy (they are demanding chump-change as tribute), a pitiful military (not that it matters against the AI), and my latest colonies are so distant I worry about being able to defend them from attack.

There are still worlds to settle within my borders, but my tech is allowing me to build improvements on my existing colonies that give per-population bonuses. The 93 Production cost of a colony ship just seems larger and larger as the turns go by, the 12+ turn flight time to reach a new world makes the "return on investment" calculations look pretty darn poor, and it's not entirely clear how a Small Ultra-Poor Volcanic world is going to pay the empire back at all, since all of its productive output is just going to be fed back into itself.

It just seems that there are better things you can do these days than take dump 93 Production and a Citizen onto a shithole. Maybe it's also because I don't have as much cash to rush-buy Auto-factories any more...

Rapid reckless expansion was great for the early game, but it doesn't seem to be sustainable forever.

[GameThinkTalk]

Hello, I'm new to the forum but have been enjoying the text/screenshots of games played with interesting challenges (Bulrathi for ex.)

I'm a huge MoO fan and was obviously ridiculously excited for this reboot. After sinking a few games into it, I'm not blown away, but still intrigued. Here's a link to part 1 of my Let's Play with thoughts below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSgzA5g2oG0


Has the colorful charm and sense of humor of 1, and the super useful standard view of seeing the entire galaxy on one screen like 2.

Race strengths and weakness seem quite limited. Could go so much deeper to help create different playthroughs. Interested to see how variable Custom Races are.

Overall speed feels slow. Couple slow ship speed with star lanes and ships can easily get stranded 30 turns away from points of interest

I'd like to easily see what each tech does when choosing which to research

Would like a list of structures already built and the ability to see planetary details when choosing production. Too often I had to close the production window to check on: population, morale, planet type, pollution etc

Viewing colonies and planets by production/research/food could be improved. Viewing planets to send colony ships has no option to filter out those that are blockaded by enemy

I miss experience for ships (would make fighting pirates useful) and the personality of leaders for hire

Auto explore, guard are great additions

When a race declines a negotiation, the 'what would make this work' option is a great addition for give and take. Though negotiation seems too tough.


I'll be playing and discovering more pros and cons and how this game ultimately shakes down.

Will it be a worthy addition to the hallowed franchise or merely a novel distraction for 2016?