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Nephtys wrote:Really a wonderful case of getting gameplay across both in a right AND wrong way is how XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012) pulled from UFO: Enemy Unknown (1993).

The tactical layer was overall, improved in many respects. Time-Units are artificial and breaking a single trooper's turn into 60-micro-units was far less intuitive than two actions, which it shares with many board or tabletop games of similar type. Particularly since it took half a turn to do the most important elements (firing a gun) for example

Two actions is also artificial, but two actions is easy to communicate to the player.

Xenonauts mostly does a decent job of communicating TUs properly to the player. In fact a lot of the reasons that it works as UFO with quality of life improvements is that it does a way better job of communicating things to the player on which they can base decisions like where you can go, shoot, get cover, etc. (And, yes, it takes out a lot of micromanagey bullshit like remembering to buy bullets every mission because the quartermaster was shot for being an alien spy)

(I am not sure that XCOM is a great example of depth because squadsight snipers are a highly degenerate strategy. Of course in UFO mind control was an even more degenerate strategy so it's all about even. Degenerate strategies are the enemy of depth).

It really does not matter how something is presented but how it fits into the overall complexity of the system. Like if your character can only wield one weapon at a time and switching takes time than it makes sense to have "move" and "combat" actions per turn. If your character is dual wielding or can switch quickly than suddenly action points start making more sense because you can economize on them for more complex strategies. Really the key is to make the game simple in areas where nothing can be gained from it being complex but not shy away from adding complexity when it enables new strategies to emerge.

you know sometimes less is more and when it comes to things like complexity in games how that complexity is presented is vital as complexity presented the wrong way will seem like gibberish to most people and they won't find those new strategies because they either quit or fall back to few simple basic strategies that work good enough.

Problem with UFO's action points and alot of the complexity in MoO2 was that the "cause and effect" of your actions wasn't presented well enough so most people couldn't "decode" the system well enough to think of new tactics.

That's why people think X-COM:EU was better then UFO:EU it's better at telling "if I do this, then this result will follow" allowing you to think of tactics within the framework.

Oh, absolutely. The issue with the X-COM games was the exact one I wrote in my post. Characters had action points but every action took so many that it was pointless because you could not economize to achieve better strategies. Thus the complexity did not add strategic options.

MOO2 suffered from less satisfying AI overall compared to MOO for much the same reasons, the added complexity hurt that too I think. I would much rather get more of MOO than the sequel in this reboot.

AniThyng wrote:MOO2 suffered from less satisfying AI overall compared to MOO for much the same reasons, the added complexity hurt that too I think. I would much rather get more of MOO than the sequel in this reboot.

Agreed. While I like MOO2, it was more complex and required more micromanagement than MOO1. I did not like that. At least in MOO3 you could automate the micromanagement if you wanted. That was the only real good thing about it.

After reading these posts, I decided to pick up a copy of MOO for old time's sake... and shit did I ever forget just how addictive it is.

I'm thinking about it, too. I've been trying out a game of FreeOrion, and it's a damn fine 4X experience. It's not nearly as complex as Space Empires, but it doesn't need to be. A little more polish and genuine choices (ie not +5% to ability x) to make the player feel like they're making important decisions and I'd call it damn near perfect. I'll probably pick up MOO1 + 2 from GOG after the game finishes and see how the originals stack up.

MOO is also a gem in that its interface and general gameplay ages very well. It's one of the rare games I get from GOG and feels even better than I remember. Most other games instead generate a sad feeling of " how did we live with this horrible ui... "


And unlike some other 4X games, the AI legitimately seems to make logical decisions when it comes to diplomacy and when they gang up on you or refuse to back down it doesn't feel arbitrary. Nothing so satisfying as building a coalition to take down the leading AI between myself and the next most powerful AI.

Tribble wrote:After reading these posts, I decided to pick up a copy of MOO for old time's sake... and shit did I ever forget just how addictive it is.

One of the first games I've played. Back in the stone age on a PC 386 or 486 iirc. I've reinstalled it too now. So addictive


One of the things that made MoO2 great was it's ambient background music, which made the gameplay and atmosphere a helluva lot more immersive (for me anyway). I can still play these songs in my head after all those years.
Here's hoping that this won't be neglected in the reboot

I've been briefly skimming for other 4x games. Does anyone has experiences with the following games?

- Stardrive 2 looks like a very nice MoO clone, but scores rather mediocre in the reviews. What's the main problem with it?
- Galactic Civilization 3? I've been addicted to GC2 for quite some time main issue with it was the limited research tree (there were like 3 types of weapons which you could upgrade to level 10 or something. Very dry and dull). Has this been improved in Gal Civ 3?
- Stars in Shadow looks amazing but isn't out yet afaik

Does anyone know how the MoO games compare to Space Empires IV? That's basically my golden standard for x4 complexity in space and thus a comparison would be welcome in telling me if I should be excited or not and if I should maybe start looking the originals up on GOG or something.

I couldn't say how they compare to Space Empires, but I spent countless hours and dusk-to-dawn play sessions in the various installments of the MOO series, and I never came away disappointed. It is very fun and very addicting. The good old "One More Turn" syndrome is alive and well with MOO.

Purple wrote:Does anyone know how the MoO games compare to Space Empires IV? That's basically my golden standard for x4 complexity in space and thus a comparison would be welcome in telling me if I should be excited or not and if I should maybe start looking the originals up on GOG or something.

The MoO games are far less complex than the SE games. I bought MoO 1+2 from GOG.com yesterday and I'd say the complexity in MoO2 is closer to the Civilization series than SE IV. I don't personally consider that to be a bad thing, but it sounds like you would given your tastes.

Between MoO and MoO2 I prefer the former due to its simplicity, though both games are excellent.

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:The MoO games are far less complex than the SE games. I bought MoO 1+2 from GOG.com yesterday and I'd say the complexity in MoO2 is closer to the Civilization series than SE IV. I don't personally consider that to be a bad thing, but it sounds like you would given your tastes.

Thanks. That's what I figured. And whilst overall you are probably right I do have to inquire which civilization game? For reference I enjoy Civilization IV the most (especially once heavily modded) and can play III but can't tolerate the later issues (like 5). Speaking of CIV one game that was fantastic for me was SMAC. That thing had about the optimal level of complexity as far as the CIV series is concerned.

MoO2's complexity is very similar to SMAC. Perhaps a few more options in vehicle designing and not as many in tech research.

In the end it's not really about simplicity as much as good presentation, you can have really complex systems if the players have fairly good idea on what does what in the UI.

What MoO (and to lesser extent MoO2) excells in is telling the player exactly what he needs to know, so that when you lost it felt that you lost because you made a mistake and you could do better next time.

One of the major problems of MoO3 was that they screwed up this big time and often it felt that you lost because the game screwed you over either intentionally or due to bad design.

Yeah. Visible complexity just makes the player slow down and think carefully- and turn based strategy players like that or they wouldn't be turn based strategy players.

Hidden complexity, particularly hidden complexity that doesn't make intuitive sense to a human player, is a very different matter.

The thing I liked most about MoO1 was the reasearch system. I just don't understand why other games have not copied it.

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:

Purple wrote:Does anyone know how the MoO games compare to Space Empires IV? That's basically my golden standard for x4 complexity in space and thus a comparison would be welcome in telling me if I should be excited or not and if I should maybe start looking the originals up on GOG or something.

I bought MoO 1+2 from GOG.com yesterday

If you waited a day you'd got them for free (if you buy the Early Access copy of MoO4 anyway, which should be available starting today on Steam).

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:MoO2's complexity is very similar to SMAC. Perhaps a few more options in vehicle designing and not as many in tech research.

In that case I might check it out. Like how's the modding community for that thing? Does it still exist? Like I know that the SE IV community technically still exists in a way.

Simon_Jester wrote:Yeah. Visible complexity just makes the player slow down and think carefully- and turn based strategy players like that or they wouldn't be turn based strategy players.

Hidden complexity, particularly hidden complexity that doesn't make intuitive sense to a human player, is a very different matter.

One must be careful with Visible complexity too much info might overwhelm or confuse the player in effect turning your visible complexity into the hidden unintuitive complexity I would say that predictebility is more important then visibility.

lets take chess for example each chess peice has very predictable actions yet how those actions interact can create very complex games.

Intuitive vs non intuitive is a whole different axis than visible and invisible. As a rule intuitive complexity does not have to be overtly visible because the player will pick up on it easily. That's a hallmark of a lot of good adventure games. It's only when you are dealing with unintuitive complexity that you have to hold the players hand and show him his options. What is essential either way though is that the player always has feedback that tells him what effect an action had. Without that it's not complexity any more but random clicking.

wautd wrote:If you waited a day you'd got them for free (if you buy the Early Access copy of MoO4 anyway, which should be available starting today on Steam).

I've been burned by reboots and spiritual successors too many times to pony up for an Early Access. Never again after Planetary Annihilation!