Successor to MOO?

[m4gill4]

Hi,
I was reading through the old MOO write-ups here at RB and it got me all nostalgic. Unfortunately MOO is rather dated and it's sequels suffer from many of the same flaws that are plaguing civ 5.

Anyway, I've been hankering to play a "4x" game in the vein of MOO (but not MOO). I had some fun with Galactic Civilizations but the lack of tactical combat was a factor in diminishing replay value.

Can anyone recommend a good 4x strategy title in the vein of MOO? I specifically take note of "Star Reign" and "Gratuitous Space Battles", both by Stardock. The screen-shots are attractive but I wanted to know if any of my strategy-game-nerd-brethren around these parts had any firsthand experience with either of them, or perhaps some other good one I haven't discovered yet?

Thanks!

[Zed-F]

Gratutious Space Battles is a fairly fun pastime, but it's not by Stardock. It's also not a 4X game, but rather is a bit closer to tower defense in that you design your ships and give them general orders, but then watch the battle play out rather than controlling things directly. Even the campaign mode (now in beta), though it has some of the trappings of 4X in terms of resource management, is more about providing a context for battles to happen in and less about providing a symmetrical AI to fight against; the AI doesn't play by the same rules as you do. That said, if you take it for what it is, bear in mind that the development team is a one man show, and realize that you are paying for the level of quality/content you should expect to get, then it can certainly be worth it.
You can find out more about it here: http://www.positech.co.uk/gratuitousspacebattles/

I'm not aware of any game by the name of Star Reign by Stardock. Are you perhaps thinking of Star Ruler by indie developer BlindMindStudio? I don't know much about it except that it was released while still in beta and at beta quality levels due to money troubles as BlindMindStudio is a new developer without solid financial footing. I've heard however that they are being very diligent at continuing to work on and improve the game post-release.
You can find out more about it here: http://starruler.blind-mind.com/

If you are looking for a true 4X successor to MOO that retains streamlined and (mostly) low-micro gameplay while still managing to have a lot of depth of content and strategy, I would suggest looking at Sword of the Stars by Kerberos Productions and published by Paradox Interactive. (Paradox Interactive also has a lot of other strategy titles if you are willing to look at terrestrial games rather than space opera.) Sword of the Stars has been quite successful and has had several expansions and updates; you should be able to get a bundle for a good price these days. Also, Sword of the Stars 2 is due out late next year, so it's a good time to get familiar with the lore of the game, which is quite substantial for a 4X title.
You can find out more info here: http://www.kerberos-productions.com/
and here: http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/sword-of-the-stars

[Cyneheard]

From browsing Sword of the Stars, it does look like it very consciously borrows heavily from MOO1 and MOO2. Note: I have not played the game, but did read up a bit on it after it was mentioned. If I wanted to add a new 4x game, Sword of the Stars would be very high on my list, as I'd like a MOO successor with a functional AI (the MOO1 AI is capable considering its technical limitations, but is known for making many moves that are almost pure RNG, and sometimes get lucky (Ship design, anyone?). Heck, on Impossible, we're giving it a 100% bonus and still usually winning).

For instance:
Semi-randomized tech tree (Yes!)
Highly unique races (Most immediately apparent in the fact that the 6 races all have different FTL capabilities! Everything from a standard fixed-speed hyperdrive to the humans who move really, really fast, but only along pre-defined nodes; tech tree includes some unique techs and also randomizes shared techs differently)
The "breakthrough" potential: A tech is discovered somewhere between 50% and 150% of the tech cost, with increasing likelihood as you approach 150%.
A quasi-2D tactical battle system. This sounds much like MOO2. Hopefully the auto-combat works fairly well, particularly for MP play.

I'm not sure I like the specialized research projects with their risk of accidents in exchange for double-speed: That just seems like a way to bait the RNG and/or require lots of extra micromanagement for limited strategic gain. (However, the risk of bioweapons blowing up when teching them? That fits very well flavor-wise, and when it's an optional tech that may blow up in my face, that's a fairer choice).

[m4gill4]

Thanks Cyneheard and Zed!

@Zed
You are correct that Star Ruler by Blind Mind is what I had in mind, for some reason I have a hard time keeping my publishers straight. I read some reviews of the game that mentioned some problems mostly with the UI, but I also read that many of those problems were later mitigated with patches.

The battle screenshots for that particular game look almost too good to be true... so beautifully chaotic that even if one can issue tactical commands, it seems like it would be hard to issue them in the 3d view, what with the hundreds of ships flying around... Anyway it looks good but so did civ 5 and after that fiasco I'm really hesitant to trust official literature or big name reviewers, ya know? That's why I asked here, who better?

@both
I may have to take you up on Sword of the Stars. I hadn't seen that one and it does look very promising.

Thanks for the tips, and if anyone else has experience with a good 4x game, either the ones discussed here or some other, please don't hesitate to chime in!

[Zed-F]

A quasi-2D tactical battle system. This sounds much like MOO2. Hopefully the auto-combat works fairly well, particularly for MP play.

Auto-resolved combat is abstracted and purely math-based, without referencing the tactical combat physics model directly. As a result it's very fast, but assumes a close range knife fight to the death most times, and may not always give similar results to what would happen if you played things out in tactical. Most MP players I'm aware of prefer to use tactical combat with time limits rather than auto-resolve, except for very small battles (e.g. scout duels) or very lopsided ones.

For SotS2, there have been suggestions that the auto-resolve feature may be closer to playing out an actual battle, only without graphics, and presenting the results. This will hopefully allow auto-resolved combat to be more faithful to what actual tactical combat results might look like and perhaps give more possibilities for different pre-canned tactics packages that might be selected for your fleet.

I'm not sure I like the specialized research projects with their risk of accidents in exchange for double-speed: That just seems like a way to bait the RNG and/or require lots of extra micromanagement for limited strategic gain. (However, the risk of bioweapons blowing up when teching them? That fits very well flavor-wise, and when it's an optional tech that may blow up in my face, that's a fairer choice).

To clarify: special projects do not give chances for accidents and can't be boosted; special projects are what allow you to discover techs that you didn't originally roll in your tech tree and do other things like hack unoccupied automated asteroid monitor defense stations. The research boost is purely for normal techs, and it's worth noting that it's intended as something of a desperation move rather than something one would do regularly. Most players treat it as such. Even so, there are a couple little interesting things about the boost system that really highlight the risk/reward aspect. It's worth understanding how to use, even if you don't pull it out for every tech.

[Cyneheard]

To clarify: special projects do not give chances for accidents and can't be boosted; special projects are what allow you to discover techs that you didn't originally roll in your tech tree and do other things like hack unoccupied automated asteroid monitor defense stations. The research boost is purely for normal techs, and it's worth noting that it's intended as something of a desperation move rather than something one would do regularly. Most players treat it as such. Even so, there are a couple little interesting things about the boost system that really highlight the risk/reward aspect. It's worth understanding how to use, even if you don't pull it out for every tech.

Ok, that makes more sense. Special Projects sound interesting (I hope they are significantly more expensive and/or more difficult than standard research). I did get this understanding from looking at the wiki and such for like 20 minutes. So expect some , but it does look like there's a lot of merit to the game (most Paradox games end up being too micro-intensive for my taste. Played HOI 1 (enjoyable, but still micro-intensive. The diplomacy model in HOI 1 was a waste of time, but combat seemed to be interesting) and Victoria (ugh. That game was a hot mess, too many fiddly bits and combat, particularly attrition, was screwy)).

Query: Does the boost system care how many turns it takes for a tech to be completed? In other words, if I can use the boost to get a tech done in, say, 1t, are my odds of it blowing up in my face a lot lower than if I instead did it in, say, 10t? If so, that would worry me, as then it becomes a cheap way to backfill or blow away the field once you've got a larger empire.

[Zed-F]

Ok, that makes more sense. Special Projects sound interesting (I hope they are significantly more expensive and/or more difficult than standard research).

Special projects cost a small amount of your budget per turn over many turns. Generally they aren't so expensive unless you have a lot of them going at once; however they can be slow, as how long they take depends on how expensive the tech involved is to start with. Moreover, they just unlock the ability to research that tech, you still have to research it the regular way afterwards.

Query: Does the boost system care how many turns it takes for a tech to be completed? In other words, if I can use the boost to get a tech done in, say, 1t, are my odds of it blowing up in my face a lot lower than if I instead did it in, say, 10t? If so, that would worry me, as then it becomes a cheap way to backfill or blow away the field once you've got a larger empire.

If you can get the tech done in 1 turn, you don't need to boost. Also you don't need to worry too much about cost overruns as the game will refund any amount you spend on tech over the 150% mark, and 150% of a cheap tech is usually still cheap. A large empire can bang out cheap techs quickly, one turn apiece... but high tech stuff can still be expensive, depending on how large the empire in question is. Tech in general tends to be easier to acquire on larger maps for this reason, and is more limited by what you rolled in your tree or can salvage than by cost. On smaller maps, cost is a much more significant issue. And naturally this can be altered by choosing different game setup parameters which influence starting economy and economy/research growth settings.

The chance of an accident depends primarily on (a) the amount of boost money you use relative to the cost of the tech and (b) the amount of boost money you spend relative to the amount of regular research you are doing/have done in the tech. The severity of an accident depends on (a) whether the tech is considered 'risky' and (b) how much boost money you spent on the tech. Boosting a little bit over several turns, concurrent with regular research, tends to be less risky than boosting a lot all at once.

That said, even low-grade accidents can carry a stiff penalty as you will usually lose the majority or all your progress toward completion so far, and higher grade accidents will have lab accidents wiping out large portions of your planetary population and infrastructure at some planet in your empire. The fear of losing all progress in a tech even for small accidents is what keeps boosting from being commonplace, as that can be a very expensive setback. Still, the risk can be worth it in some cases, as boosting money counts double toward completion, boosting money on overbudget techs is redoubled, and boosting appears to give a somewhat better chance of completion on the turn the boosting occurs.

So it leaves some interesting questions for the player to answer. Do you boost a tech near completion a little bit to try an avoid a cost overrun, at the risk of maybe wiping out all progress in the tech? Situationally, that can be the right call, if you really need that tech *now*.