Let’s be clear now. There are too many MoO2 clones and not nearly enough MoO clones. ;)
orald
6510
On this we can surely all agree.
Confused. Space Game Junkie says MoO2 is the one that is classic.
MoO2 is a classic. C’mon now, don’t be daft.
It’s just that MoO is better.
Bluddy
6513
Why would you say it’s better? Less micro?
I feel like it is a more streamlined, fun design.
Less micro is one thing, and something I have noticed with older, more abstract games is that I tend to infuse the computer players with personalities that may or may not be there. In the first Civ like in the first Moo, this gives me the sentiment of a much more vibrant and lively world.
I think the first game aged much better than the second one, but as I hinted above, I also think the first Civ game is better than its sequels, so I cannot be trusted!
When I was in grad school studying international security affairs I had to take a class about the history of war. I actually used MOO 2 as a tool to illustrate how balance of power worked in an anarchic state system (still taking into account the whole Galactic Council formation mechanic). I wish I still had the paper Those Darloks were jerks and man a Gaia planet was really a rare treasure.
Bluddy
6517
There definitely seems to be an advantage to keeping an idea pure and simple. The first Civ game not only had charming - and sometimes beautiful graphics - it also presented a very specific, brilliant idea and its implementation. The second game started to expand on that idea, but the problem is that when you expand on ideas, you’re never really quite done. There’s always more expansion to do, and you end up creating an imbalance in the mechanics, much like expansion packs tend to do. At some point you might also just be expanding for the sake of expansion, just because a new iteration must be shown to do enough new things.
I can’t speak for the MoO series though – I was never able to get into it, though I’ve started countless MoO games.
I liked how MoO treated a planet as a planet, and not a city.
You could also set defense to max, and forget that you did and then, when the AI surprised you with a sneak attack, instead of being screwed, you just see that the AI gets destroyed by hundreds of missiles.
orald
6519
Who didn’t love the research breakthrough music of MoO 1?
And I think MoO 1 was the first to have space elves?
The Elerians were added as a new race in MOO2. So no, MoO 1 didn’t have the space elves.
They were definitely aiming that art at a certain demographic, weren’t they? About as subtle as an atom bomb.
Another point in Ascendancy’s favor, the aliens were actually alien. There weren’t any humans in that game, and I think the nearest thing to a humanoid was a six-limbed reptile.
Moo1 had a lot less planet fiddling. It was straight forward. The “tiles” system or Moo2 left a little to be desired, even though some mechanics were superior to Moo1.
JoshoB
6524
Such as…? I cannot think of any. The combat, maybe?
I think combat was better in MoO2, but I hated the way planets were treated.
JoshoB
6526
Yeah, the city model doesn’t work at all in MOO2. But for some reason, everybody keeps doing it that way, instead of the superior method from MOO1…
MoO 2 got a lot right though, it just people copy the wrong things verbatim.
One thing that I enjoyed was being Uncreative in MoO2. You never knew what kind of techs you might end up with.
I took Uncreative a few times. Sometimes I got really screwed by it, but I did enjoy having to work around it.
God, you guys are going to end up making me re-install it again. Such a great game, MOO2. I definitely haven’t played enough of it. That’s why whenever I play a game similar to it, I can’t shake the feeling that I should be playing more MOO2 instead, which is what I end up doing.
