On the gamecard 1232 users have rated MOO3 and the game have just two stars. I can`t imagine so many actually
bought the GOG version and then decided it was crap?

I doubt that many GOGers have even played it either. It is just very hip to hate on MOO3 and anyone can vote regardless if they bought it or not. I am trying to form my own opinion though my backlog keeps me too busy to experiment with it.

I'm sure there are a lot of folks out there who picked it up when it first came out and just felt it was their civic duty to prevent anyone from making that mistake in the future.

I occasionally wrestle with picking it up, but as someone who thought MOO2 simply added unnecessary busy-work to an already perfect game, just the screenshots of MOO3 are enough to give me ulcers. Maybe I'll give it a go one day... if GOG marks it down to free.

I have a box version of it and every time I look at it, it makes me sad. It is a bad game. But what makes it even worse, it's the fact that it would take only few changes to make it good (or maybe should I say: they made only a few changes to previous gameplay, that spoiled the game completely). A real pity.

Basically this.

LoL, I like it :)

The base MOO3 game is terribble; however, lots of fixes and mods breathe new life into the game and make it a good experience.

I heard a rumor that the mod community saved it, but it was so long ago that I tried MOO3 and I never got back to it.

What about music? Did they ever do anything to fix the music?

Updated and patched whit the community fixes it's a great 4x game.

Theres a number of mods changing gameplay and graphics, but don't recall anyone having modded music.

The MOO3 version here on GOG is absolute playable without any mods.

The very first and highest rated review on the title page states an experience of the boxed first release about 12 years ago. He claims himself he never played it more than a couple of hours with his friend.

I tested that unofficial patch mod, the 1.21 is still OK if you do not pick everything but the 1.38 of that mod changes the whole UI to the worse IMHO.