Master of Orion 3

I never played moo2. I still haven't, so I came at this game with an open mind. What I got was a 4x game that was really complicated, but also had a lot of automation to it. Supposedly the developer wanted more complex simulation, but there was no hope of allowing the player to micromanage it, so he made it to where the computer would do most of the minutia, and the player would just direct it on a macro level. Unfortunately that isn't very satisfying. Well, the problems are many fold, the AI does a passable job, but it makes bad choices, but trying to take control yourself was extremely micro intensive and not fun in the least. That said, with various mods that were out, and patches, etc, the game wasn't horrible. I did make several play throughs, and it had some interesting gameplay if you were clever. Sometimes the super advanced race at the center would revolt and cause it to mass expand exterminating every race around it, and it was a lot of fun to fight against by manipulating other races to help you defend while you teched up. Overall though, there are better 4x games out now you could spend your money on like sword of the stars. There is a real possibility that there are mods out there that fixed the gameplay, but I don't know if it is worth the time to search them out.

I hope MOO4 Just returns to the roots It started selling games with. The first two namely ... the second. Up the graphics & race choices, add more random events, A plethora of space monsters/ships etc. and keep it the way people expect it simple, fun, and random. Or maybe make MOO3: The way we should have made it...sorry...dropped the ball there.:P

If you don't let the AI (with automanage) take over, this game is an excellent way to spend good hours of your life. I played hundreds of hours.

If you want a really good spiritual successor to MOO and MOO2, check out Galactic Civilizations 2. MOO3 just really isn't worth 10 bucks. 6 maybe, but not 10.

I love the first two games, soI bought this game in the first week that it out, but I took it to a used book store to sell that same week. It is awful. Don't waste your time. The mechanics are annoying, and not worth the effort.