LibriumArcana.Games

To get you computer whiz kids to come up with a forum or 'net based TBS that's akin to MOO?

Having dealt with the IT community... lots and lots of caffiene, first.

Caffiene, possibly women. Money would be nice as well. Oh and make sure that caffiene comes in very happy hyper perky Jolt(tm) format! ^_^

Also knowing more specifically what you had in mind would be great.

And wtf MOO is.

I'm guessing that MOO is Master of Orion. Mind you, I've never played it, so I'm just guessing.
- Ra

You want a Master of Orion based forum? For what purpose, may I ask this Stofsk?

As for a browser based TBS....well....Adam and Scott have to field that issue....and it has to go in line with the rest of our projects.

Dark Silver wrote:You want a Master of Orion based forum? For what purpose, may I ask this Stofsk?

I want a forum based game. Not a theme-based forum.

aahh, you want a forum based game.....like what the TGODS and all do?

Yeah, but I guess with more structure or something.

So an STGOD, then?

STGODS and TGODS seem to be about roleplaying rather than wargaming/civ-building.

Or if they're both, the ratio seems to be weighed in favour of RPGing than the latter two.

Might I suggest a "History of the Galaxy" style game of Space Empires 4? There's a SE4 play by web site, last I checked, which lets people hand in turns whenever they get the chance, and you can extrapolate on the turns in here.

More details on such an undertaking can be found at Shrapnel Games' forums.

What is Space Empires like when compared to, say, MOO? Or GalCiv?

FAR more detailed and far slower.

GalCiv, as I understand it, has perhaps the best diplomatic model of any 4X game. However, I do believe it is Single-Player only, and combat isn't that hot.

MoO, well, to be honest, I never played it.

Space Empires 4: Gold (which is what you should get if you're going to get it), is a massively detailed game. It does have flaws, but most of those flaws can be addressed by various mods to the game, of which there are several.

Now, to be perfectly honest, if you don't feel like doing something in Space Empires 4, you can let the AI handle it. This is great for some simple things, such as managing your population distribution. Just give the minister control over a handful of small cargo ships, and he'll start ferrying people from your homeworlds to the colonies, no fuss, no muss. It only starts to be a problem when you have populations that can breathe atmospheres other than your own.

However, on average, the AI does not do a great job when it comes to handling your empire, meaning you'll have to do a lot of things hands-on. On the plus side, boring repetative tasks can often be automated. On the downside, once you get a few hundred planets, managing the construction orders can become something of a hassle.

The other layer of complexity is that there are two forms of combat, tactical turn-based, where you can give orders to each ship and fighter group individually, and strategic, where the fleets simply duke it out according to their standing orders. Needless to say, mastering strategic takes time, as you have to play in the simulator to see which tactics work best. Every ship has a primary and secondary tactic, and every fleet has a primary and secondary tactic. Learning how to combine those tactics in order to maximize your efficiency in combat is rewarding, but not that easy.

In the end, my suggestion would be to download the demo from the site linked above, give it a run through a couple of times, and see if you like it. It is a damn fun game, but it's not for everyone.