Was the designer of MOO3 a superfan of MOO and MOO2?

[Tiltowait]

I found this on another site:

Fun fact about MOO3 - the designer of the game was a superfan recruited from some forums, who had no real game dev experience (IIRC) and was chosen because he loved MOO and wrote some huge design bible for MOO3.

Is this true? Who was this person? Does this design bible still exist somewhere? How did MOO3 turn out so horribly? What happened?

[Ray F]

Alan Emrich and Tom Hughes were the designers for MOO3. Emrich got the boot from Quicksilver during a shakeup, not sure if Hughes did.

Both were involved in the design of MOO1 and Emrich write the Official Strategy Guide for that game. He's like the #2 guy for the original game, imo, after Steve Barcia.

I don't think either of these guys fit your description.

EDIT: Here's a listing of the MOO3 team: http://moo3.quicksilver.com/about/team.html