I'm MOO2 player. if you really looking for a new MOO - try this. If you don't - stay away. In short, this is unfinished, un-balanced and massively not-optimized promissing indy. I play Feb'19 release and I don't have any crash or obvious interface problem like manual boarding/unboarding colonists. I see game got random diplomatic events - like techology gifted by alies and settlers from other race asked to join your colony for free; ability to settle other race concerns by dimplomacy efforts once you colonize/outpost their star. Intersting, huh? Still diplomacy is kind an absent. There are only few standard action available to you and the only passive way to accumulate diplomacy points. No tech trade at all. Expand planner is missed. Food consumtion forecast is a subject of in-mind calculation. You never know how many farms you need for this exact planets - you either dye starving or got extra 20 foods... Spoiling your slots. Ship upgrade - it's a pain. One just can't set fleet to upgrade to newer version of ship pre-designed. You either pay for instant upgrade or set upgrade routine manually for each ship. Manageble... but it must be fixed. Ballance... you either outrun competitor easily or just face him much more advanced than you. Stars position around homeworld would be a key for your expanse. No room for expand - you're loser. And the optimization... minus 2 stars. each next turn may take 1+ minute to calculate, while you see nothing changed in your empire or around. Remember MOO2 automatically runs through 15turns till next major event? you will easily spent 20 minites here just clicking next turn. Finally if it's not war - it's boring. Try it once developer reports about optimization. p.s. while you waiting this game to be polished and optimized - try Distant Worlds
The biggest plus is that it runs smooth on notebook with embeded Intel card (detected as 4600 or smth) I've passed the Bronze by now (9/36 races) - the asphalt tracks are easiest and most predictable. After some practice/upgrades 1st track is just 1000$ prize for 4 minutes racing. - there is defenetely some catch-up - you won't lose too much crashing as team will slow down while you restart, and there would be always one car trying to keep close if you are leading to make your nervous enough - car selection does matter. 1st car sucks, while selecting other one make me pass bronze with only few replays. so chose wise. - once you pass bronze you have to buy new silver car as you upgraded bolid sucks. so you probably don't need all the upgrades but better keep the money. good news is that silver car is allowed to race a bronze race, making easy money - bonus stunt events sucks to me, as it's not about the racing. but try it once to see if it make fun to you. to sum up: somethere between Juiced and Colin Mcrae Rally. Must buy on Sale. ('Loosing is fun' style) p.s. using 'Normal' handling + Auto.
I was able to run single easy campaign. Let's call it tutorial. I probably feel no deepness of ze game. But I can't force myself to give it another try. really. Well, your soldiers are stupid. They won't pick up/review artifact until you click on it, even if nothing happened and they just step over the body - they still won't do anything. If you order them to open/close the door - you will have no guess who will actually do this. It seems like the game just roll them 1 by 1 assigning orders. So they broke the line always. There is some idea of shielded man, but I don't have a clue how can I put him affront by default. The environment/map is quite simple, still game managed to play with you a pixel hunting, when you try to click on overlapping banners and they just run away of your cursor. p.s. closest game is Syndicate Wars. I'd better rerun it, though it was crashing for me (
This game turned out to be a full clone... well, replica of DF. truly speaking, i'm not the master of DF. I was dying by first encounters, and it was hard pain to understand how military part of DF should work. so I can't get back to it ) Gnomoria is easier to handle. After 3 or 4 restarts of Gnomoria i was able to live long enough to meet 1st beasts. and my Militia was able to understand that they need to take sword and fight. so 3 or 4 died this day ) Wohooo! I big UI progress comparing to original. well, there is still some pain with UI, menus, help (it's absent, right?) but it's definitely playable and fun. Any disadvantages? you need to pay for this, while DF is free. And once you master Gnomoria, you might want DF deepness (may be DF will have some UI/UX improvements by this moment. the more we pay for clone, the more chances DF will be improved to market level)
RRT2 is one of the most attractive and repayable game in my life. Good Old isometric view. Rotatable! Simplified but still enjoyable transportation model. Economic and Stock market model which make me understand real markets years after. I still see no competitor games which can give you an option to steal revenue of computer player, destroy his business and finally buy his company. Did I say you can buy the factories on the map? Yes you can! Though that money could give you more income if applied to your road network properly. The only issue of the game is that once you master it and know how to earn MONEY it become monotonous and repetitive - analyze, fund, establish, polish, pay back you loans, repeat... Well, some maps on Hard level will knock you out, until you find the key. I'm still frustrated by Metro map... if you want your own Railroad sandbox with challenging economy model - play RRT2. p.s. RRT3 is 3D, and it's terrible, because of it. you don't need 3D in this game. it's economy model is a bit more complicated, but it will hardly give you more fun. P.p.s. OpenTTD is a good alternative. But you must be dedicated to tycoons in order to swallow it's usability bugs and become a master of micro management. While RRT2 could be played by 10years old child. or I was elder? Never mind. TRY IT p.p.p.s I was thinking Industrial Giant can give better economic model. Well it's not even close to RRT2/3
I played this game long ago, then it was up-to day. you will need to spend 1-2 hours preparing your food-production economy. and 30 minutes trying not to spoil your expensive troops. if I'm to choose the game to play in this genre - I choose Settlers
