Moo3 did the following things extremely well that I almost never see in 4X games before and since.
- 3D space map: There's very few games that make good use of this if they use it at all.
- Race Variety: Huge number of races with race 'groups' that have their own histories and back-stories that are linked within one another. Ithkul were an amazing concept. Almost every race had a distinct 'feel' to them. Each empire (even the custom ones you could create) felt much more 'alive' than races in any game before or since. There were even 'magnate' species or minor races that could add to the demographic complexity of the galaxy.
- Policy Direction: As a gameplay element, this was incredible. You could create planetary, system, and empire policies (and save and load them between games) and then set up your planets and systems with these policies and franchise out the management of your huge empire to smooth out gameplay. This also allowed you to focus on a handful of planets to get them up and running quickly or to fix problems that your policies haven't anticipated.
- Political Systems: The political, social, and economic areas of your empire were malleable in many ways that had direct and clear effects on the character of your empire. The sheer scope of the differences between each government style, economic plan, tech path, and infrastructure policies made this aspect so incredibly important.
-Social/Cultural/Racial Politics/Issues: On planets, in systems, and empire-wide, it was incredibly important to keep track of the demographic makeup of individual planets. People had character, and they would interact in specific ways. Managing the demographic makeup of your planets was incredibly important.
- Colonization, Migration Patterns, and Terraforming: People moved on their own. The conditions on planets create push and pull factors that are different for each race. These factors made a HUGE difference in how each planet develops, how your population terraforms it, and what race populates it. The other thing about terraforming is that it mostly happened on its own based on your population's wants and desires along with your technology and infrastructure.
- Espionage, Unrest, and Oppression: These were done incredibly well. There were so many mission types for espionage, so many unrest factors and ways to deal with them, and so many ways to keep the lid on your people (each with their own consequences).
- Theme and Lore: Guardians, Galactic Council, the Orion fleet, Ithkul. The 'space opera' elements of this game were incredible and deeply part of the map/game. You didn't need to play along a plot line, but the universe sort of comes alive through these elements.
So why does everyone hate it?
