Source
r/rotp•
Steelpoint

First Defeat, Victory and Writing/Music Thoughts

I never played the original MOO or any of its successor games, in spite of that I've kept a close eye on ROTP for a while and have been playing it quite a bit in recent weeks.

After getting myself in bad situations playing on the Hard and higher difficulties I toned it down to Normal difficulty for my first long term game. 100 stars, Star Field 6 AI on Modnar playing as the Humans (since I am always drawn to playing as Humans in sci-fi settings).

I found the intro Human text to be eloquent and well written, but ultimately it all seemed to just be fluff. Aegis? Unrest? Other leaders? Interesting concepts, and I love lore and backstory, but ultimately it's all just to set the stage.

I spawned in the corner of the galaxy, and despite good early success against the Alkari who boarder me and stopped my expansion, I found myself in a losing race against the Darloks who seemingly won the jackpot with undisputed colonization access to the core of the galaxy. I allied with them early on though and I failed to realise their gaining momentum until it was too late. The game ended with just me, barely holding onto my corner of the galaxy, the Darloks lording over the universe and the Klackon's who were in similar dire straits but more interested in fighting me as well as the Darloks. I conceded a diplomatic victory to the new rulers of the ""New Galactic Republic"", though I imagine it being a republic is a mere facade to hide the autocratic nature of the Darlok Empire.

(In terms of the AI, for most of the Darlok war I was using Medium Sized ships to great effect, but I noticed the Darloks swapped over to a missile ship platform that would annihilate my ships, though it took me a long while to notice this since 90% of my engagements were me attacking the Darloks and them focusing on my bomber ships, which could outrun the missiles while I used my Frigate fleet to destroy them, I'd only notice this massive weakness when I was forced into defensive actions or the bombers died and my Frigates would all die to 2 or 3 Large ships in 1 salvo)

What I found extremely impressive was the 'diplomatic defeat' text for the Humans. Though the circumstances of how Humanities came to become subservient to another power was incorrect, I nonetheless felt the writing was of extreme quality in conveying the sense of dread and failure of the Triumvirate to secure Humanities future.

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I tried a second game, identical conditions, except the roles were reversed where I had unfettered access to the galactic core and all the juicy colonization targets. I controlled the largest empire by far and rapidly overtook all other empires in research, production and military strength. I did flex my muscles and wiped out the Darloks (for reasons that will never be explained) but afterwards I secured a diplomatic victory after befriending most of the galaxy.

That is except for the Meklar who rebelled against my democratic rule.

The Final War was short, punctuated by my newly developed 'Galactic Republic Cruisers' armed with the latest in weapons and defensive technologies. But what I found the 'final war music' that played to be also extremely well made. It gives off a sense of finality, the galaxy is marching to a final war, freedom or extinction. If it were not for me being the new Galactic power, I think it would make a powerful and fitting soundtrack to play as the thousand nations of the galactic republic descend on your people.

(Perhaps a more 'uplifting' or somewhat more positive soundtrack is warrented if the player is the Galactic Republic ruler for the future?)

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So in summation. Great game. Excellent writing. Good music choice. Some kind of expanded lore would be great one day. Looking forward to honing my strategy as I up the difficulty.

Seems almost a shame to constrict such excellent design into a old game with a somewhat out of date balance. I'd be very interested in seeing how this game could be balanced in a new direction with the benefits of decades of knowledge.

Looking forward to that manual.

Posted Aug 31, 2021, 3:59 PM UTC

1416
modnar_hajile•

Seems almost a shame to constrict such excellent design into a old game with a somewhat out of date balance. I'd be very interested in seeing how this game could be balanced in a new direction with the benefits of decades of knowledge.

Can you clarify what you mean by "out of date balance"?

Do you mean the different Race Factions being "strong" or "weak" (Psilon to Mrrshan)? Or do you mean that the game flow can be easily dominated by snowball Empires?

5
SteelpointOP•

I was thinking more of that the game balance seems virtually unchanged from the first MOO. Of course that is 100% intentional but my thoughts were I would be very interested in seeing how this game could be developed if the balance was all stripped and rebuilt from scratch, taking the knowledge of the developers and the last few decades of experience from MOO.

Certain factions being far more powerful or weaker is a natural part of that balancing.

Things like one empire snowballing just comes down to luck in galactic positioning and/or tech discoveries/tech planets/etc, etc.

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modnar_hajile•

But would the goal of this re-balancing be to have all Race Factions be equally viable in game-win-chance?

Then "certain factions being far more powerful or weaker" would be the opposite of that balancing.

Or maybe you just mean to give Race Factions different game-play bonuses?

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SteelpointOP•

That would be up to whoever is leading the charge on a utter rebalance, I think the faction imbalance is interesting. Personally it could be somewhat toned down so there's no major extremes of too good factions and too bad factions.

But perhaps the major factions imbalances help improve the game overall in some way?

I'm would not know how to go ahead with balancing, its not exactly my forte.

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modnar_hajile•

You can take a look at my MOD. There is a version where I've added six new Race Factions with new bonuses.

Here's a full list of new features/changes in the MOD.

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The-Goat-Soup-EaterHuman•

Speaking of expanded lore, there is an artbook/sourcebook planned that will (presumably) have the original high res art and more lore on the races

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SteelpointOP•

Very interesting. Would help flesh out the races, at the very least contextualise some of the concepts that are being floated around in the intro/outro texts.

5
RayFowlerDeveloper•

Thanks for your opinion.

The writing is tricky. The more immersive it is, the less likely it is going to match your gameplay experience. There are, I believe, 11 different endings defined and each of the 10 races has a multi-paragraph ending for each of those endings that is thematic with each race's introduction. I agree that Jeff Colucci is a very talented writer.

Also keep in mind that all writing is ultimately fluff and exists for those players who appreciate it. It is easily skipped for those who don't and ignoring it does not impact your ability to play the game.

With regards to the music, I honestly don't have a good "ear" for this so I ultimately found Remi Agullo based on a some work he had done and he agreed to dive into the game and come up with a cohesive sound and music design for the it. I thought he did an incredible job and I like having multiple background themes for the galaxy map based on the state of the game (there are 4). I suspect very few people have heard or noticed the final war theme.

We do hope to expand the lore with a sourcebook and later releases. Keep in mind that the lore in ROTP is already greatly expanded from the almost non-existent lore in the original game (MOO1) that ROTP modernizes.

However, I do take some exception to the characterization of MOO1 as having out of date balance. Its game design still holds up against modern games and adhering to that is ultimately more than anything what makes ROTP a great game. imo, of course.

I am also looking forward to the manual!

4
CHP41•

I'll add that I noticed the Final War theme, and I agree that it's phenomenal. It's sufficiently good that I've intentionally opted to initiate a final war just so I can listen to it while crushing the last AI empires. The soundtrack for ROTP is really excellent.

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SteelpointOP•

I think I worded that too harshly. My main point was I am interested in seeing what, if anything, the devs would change, add or remove if they decided to.

The design as it stands is very good as far as I am concerned.

At the end of it all, the main reason this game exists is to essentially revitalise the original MOO. Radically changing how the game worked would've killed the project.

3
RayFowlerDeveloper•

My main point was I am interested in seeing what, if anything, the devs would change, add or remove if they decided to.

You will be seeing that at some point. The design goal of 1.0 was to be a modernization of MOO1. Once that is behind us, I can start working on additional changes.

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SteelpointOP•

Then I eagerly await for the future.

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I-Am-Uncreative•

One thing I really would love is troops not being taken from population. That's the one thing that bothers me (I know that's exactly how it was in MOO1, so I'm not complaining).

5
Elkad•

That's a MASSIVE part of gameplay - I can't even comprehend changing it to something like moo2 where you build and manage troop transports instead.

It's part of what makes MoO/RotP so great. It's all the same interface. Send people to your planets or someone else's planets.

Heck, the planet could change hands a half-dozen times during the transport flight. Doesn't matter. They land prepared to fight or build, as necessary.

2
SevenElementsWriter•

Thanks for the kind words! As far as the full lore for the races goes, there were a lot of concepts/inspirations that went in to every race and it was difficult to cram them all in, and as Ray will tell you if you leave me alone I will spend an infinite amount of time tweaking and re-imagining everything until I feel it is perfect. You are ultimately correct though: most of the things you read in the game exist to set the stage for or explain each races personality, outlook, and ultimately the ending you get in the game. I know that a lot of people don't really care one way or the other in games, but I wanted to still put in enough stuff to give each race life and put in some mysteries to fire the imagination for those who appreciate detailed background lore.

There will definitely be expanded lore that will fully delve into the backstory of every playable empire (in fact I'm taking a short break right now from working on it!), including many concepts that you might not have even realized were there. I'll do my best to have it live up to the quality that is in the game now. In the meantime I hope you enjoy discovering more of the ending texts for each empire, and once again thank you very much for the kind words in your post.

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