Wow, that's alot of misinformation on MoO3 there PBP. First of all your racial set up actually does matter in MoO3, that you call all the races " more or less similar" only demonstrates that you either havn't actually played MoO3, or that you simply don't understand how those differences change the style of the race. Sure there are some racial traits that don't demonstrate much of a differnce in choosing different levels of them, but most traits actually do matter... alot.
Certainly there are differentiators in GalCiv as well, and its not worth arguing over cosmetics like being able to play as a nonhuman (which is kinda irrelivant, but it matters to some). There is a fundamental difference in the approach to planets and thus colonization in MoO3 too. Not all planets are suited for all races, and some races are more tolerant than others, and thus can colonize more planets. Again that is more depth than the GalCiv model, which I have nothing against, its a game design decision, but there is more depth in the MoO3 system than the GalCiv system (again, not a knock on GalCiv, just a difference).
Ship combat in GalCiv has zero depth to it, again this was a game design decision. You research a ship tech, you build that ship, that ship gets various mods based on planet or empire wide effects. Then that ship goes off with simplistic speed and range effects, its difficult (without cheese) to blockade sectors, the only things worth fighting for are resources and planets. Planets themselves cannot defend themselves from ships. In MoO3 you have choices not only with what kind of components to stick on your ship chassis, but also how to designate that ship as far as what function it should play in an encounter. Planets can build various defenseive structers. Sectors can build sector ships (what the def ships should be in GalCiv, but since range and speed are kinda borffed...) and orbitals (similar to defensive or offensive star bases). In fact you can design your own orbitals so you can make missle/beam/fighter orbitals or mixtures or whatever.
The actual tactical combat itself, while not particulary good looking to some, allows for more control of your fleets (yes fleets matter in MoO3, in GalCiv they do not) as well as the option to retreat should you doubt you can pull out a victory. I'm not going to knock GalCiv combat, but it has zero depth, its not a feature of the game that was developed to have depth, its fine that way for what it is, but don't try and pull down the depth in combat (which includes ship design) in MoO3, its there, weather you realize it or not.
The dev plans (surprisingly perhaps) were not intended to have depth, at least to the player. Planet development in MoO3 is meant to be abstracted from the player, alot of people have major issues with that, but if you take the time (and it might take a fair bit) to learn how dev plans work, you'll never have to worry about your plants other than to full up the military ques. However, you also can overide your viceroys and specify how you want to zone your planets. Perhaps there is more depth to planet development in GalCiv, in that you must choose what buildings to build on each planet (govs help for lots of planets), but again, this was a design choice, and the added depth in MoO3 comes from the habitability indecies for planets and races. Since you can have multiple races in your empire in MoO3 you can fill up the sweet planets for them with them, thus increasing your overal economy.
"But as far as your strategy having an impact on the game, and as far as the ai actually putting up a fight and giving you some game and attacking and defending in several ways Galviv stomps. There is no comparison, the depth in that regard is all Galciv."
Now this is currently quite true, at least where the AI is concerned. The AI in MoO3 is passive, and thats an understatement. However, the AI will still defend itself adaquately and with certain existing mods it will also attack effectively. The strategy part of it is false though. It does matter how you approach your neighbors in MoO3. It matters if you build a fleet or infrastructure, or pump research. It matters as much as it does in GalCiv, though the victory paths for the two games are certainly different.
The last comment about the lack of direction... within QSI is laughable. Yes there was a major shake up in the MoO3 team, there was a major pruning of features, there were internal issues wiht QSI and IG. But from reading what you've said I don't think you've actually followed the facts, it looks much more like you are parroting the usual line from the MoO3 haters, there's enough information on the MoO3 forums to counter or explain what happened.
Finally though let me repeat, I like GalCiv, I like MoO3, they are quite different from each other, and each has some pluses and minuses. Right now GalCiv is more polished, and it'll probably stay more polished, but it also suffered from and continues to suffer from alot of cheese. MoO3 has issues now, and it will have issues after the patch, but if the patch does even 50% of what the devs have listed then MoO3 really can become something special.
There I've exhausted myself on this topic, rebut me or what ever you want, I'm done with this debate
Stardock Forums
Multi-player is not a big issue for me either, especially in a TBS environment-- I simply do not have the time to play a games like these with other people.
