Master of Orion

The Good
Seems like everyone with the exception of Tony Van like this one :-)

This is a really classic game. I accidentally got this from someone back in -- I think it was '94, checked it out and loved it ever since. It's a bit hard to get used to the interface (as in most MicroProse games), but once you got used to it you'll never let go. The graphics are but OK and the music is practically non-existant, but it didn't stop this game from presenting the gamer with AMAZINGLY addictive gameplay. It is one of the most addictive games I ever played, along with the classic Civilization and Master of Magic, I just couldn't let go of it.

The strategy is great and innovative (they fixed the lack of colony manipulation in Master of Orion 2), and the combat is really great by any standard. The Guardian is also a great gimmick and adds a lot of flavour to the game.

It is a classic game which should be played by everyone.

The Bad
Well, as I already mentioned, the colony manipulation/evolution is rather neglected (which was fixed in the sequel), and there is practically no music. The sound effects are cool though.

The Bottom Line
A classic game. Play it. Now. Or you'll go to hell.

The Good
Master of Orion is brilliant. Genius. An absolute and inarguable classic. One of a handful of games that never leaves my hard-drive. What's so great about another nineties empire builder? Isn't it just Civilization in space? Not by a long shot. Its true mastery lies in its never-surpassed focus on variety and flexibility, and to that end it brought much needed innovation to anemic aspects of the empire-builder genre such as diplomacy and research. It also is the only 4x game ever that casts the player as a galactic emperor in a satisfying way.

One way to determine the unique excellence of MOO is to look at its peers. What kills the vaunted replayability of 4x empire games? What kills the wonder, the excitement? The formula player, excessive micromanagement, and a drab, impersonal, spreadsheet presentation of the world.

Civilization and nearly all its kin must bow in time to the formula player, the fellow who sits his ass in a chair long enough to learn the "One Strategy." Once found, it always beats the game dead barring only a small degree of variance from randomized maps and starting locations. The best formula players can even triumph from the lousiest of starts. After this formula is mastered, the once wide-open gameworld that seemed so free, varied and "alive" becomes dead and empty. There are no more surprises. Beating the game becomes like solving the same crossword puzzle over and over. MOO dodges this bullet through the ingenious design of its playable races, research system, and diplomacy.

Oh, the races of this game! Superficially the ten playable races are mostly unimaginative anthropomorphisms (kittens, insects and bears, oh my!), but the personality and balance of these sci fi cliches are a major factor in the game's success. Usually 4x games either make their races too wildly different or too drably alike. The result is a total failure of balance or bland, impersonal sameness. Orion's balance isn't perfect--there are strong and weak races, and while any race can become dominant you will see a few that regularly run away with the game. The shining beauty of MOO's races, however, is their -variety-.

From the player side, there are hard-coded advantages possessed by each race. Each race has a unique bonus and some accompanying weaknesses that demand a slightly different style of play: the rock-creature Silicoids can colonize any planet and don't have to worry about waste, but their birth rate is very low; the Darloks are shapeshifters and thus supreme spies, but as a result every race mistrusts them from the start, resulting in often-precarious relations with one's neighbors. This forces the player to play each race differently--if you play the Darloks with a Silicoid strategy, you are going to lose. The elegance of this system is not only the usual "advantage/disadvantage" balance, but the fact that those inherent advantages may be duplicated or overcome by the other races. Want to match the Silicoid advantage of colonizing everything? Research planetology. Want to master espionage and render the Darlok spy network toothless? Research computers. Research, research, I hear you say--what about the Psilons, whose advantage is superior research ability? Take a few of their factory-rich planets, spend lots to spy on them, or bomb them to extinction, and you will steal enough of their tech or otherwise negate their advantage.

This focus on personality and variety extends to the AI's handling of these races as well. In addition to the static advantages/disadvantages, each AI race is given a personality and purpose. One affects their diplomatic actions, the other affects their research and production choices. This isn't static, however--each race has dominant personalities/purposes and subordinates, one of each being assigned randomly each game. Thus one game you may be squaring off against Aggressive Ecologist Bulrathi, but the next you might encounter the same race as Honorable Industrialists. Moreover, if enough of their worlds go into revolt or they are losing badly, there will be a coup and a new emperor will come in with a production/personality style that is better suited to the situation at hand--brilliant! These traits are not wholly random, either--each race has a defined range of personalities and purposes. Thus they retain unique identities without becoming static or predictable formulas, -and- since there is a controlled random element you can never be sure what kind of Bulrathi you are dealing with until you meet them. One personality set can be strong in one situation, and yet in another can be helplessly weak. Viva variety!

Speaking of which, the tech tree is almost a greater work of genius than the races. Each race researches the same tech tree for each of the 5 disciplines, but nobody's trees are complete--each race is missing techs from their trees, and in each game what's missing changes. This is random, but carefully controlled to prevent any game-breaking lack of tech. The result is -variety-. Your neat little formula for explosive expansion will hit a huge snag if you lack a necessary propulsion tech and therefore don't have the range to get any colony ships beyond your interstellar backyard. You might have a huge population, but be behind in production if you are missing factory controls tech from your computers research tree.

Thankfully, the tech system allows for you to mediate the damages. First, you can steal tech by invading worlds or by spying, and secondly the disciplines compensate for each other. If you can't get the range you need in propulsion tech, a little construction research will allow you to miniaturize reserve fuel tanks enough to increase your range anyway. If you can't get factory controls in computer tech, you can research planetology to reduce the cost of cleaning up waste, pouring the savings back into production. The tech system is flexible, it's robust, and it makes every game different. You can't just waltz to victory using the same research path every game as you can in Civilization--one crucial tech missing can thoroughly wreck any pre-planned strategy. MOO is situational. You need to adapt, and it makes the game incredibly exciting and fresh on each playthrough. It also will eternally frustrate formula players. :-)

Diplomacy is yet another area in which MOO excels. In Civilization, if you attack or an enemy attacks, that's it. You're at war. Not so in MOO. You and the AI will often have -cold wars-, where ships battle and spies plot, but trade continues and nothing hostile is declared. The AI will often "test" your weaker border worlds in this way when the galaxy is mostly colonized and there's nowhere else to expand but in your backyard.

Naturally, such tension will strain relations, which is a defined by a simple bar ranging from red (feud/hate) to green (amiable/calm, etc.). There are starting relations defined between races (the birds and cats hate each other, for example, and everyone hates the Darloks), but can be modified through player/AI actions. All of the actions that change relations make sense and feel remarkably intelligent. Gathering a fleet on the border will raise tensions, as will having your spies caught in an act of espionage or sabotage. Personality of the AI race also is a factor--negative diplomatic actions will have their impact doubled and positive actions will be halved in impact when dealing with a Xenophobic race, for example. If a race is pacifistic, the opposite holds true. So much variety! You can bribe and threaten to hold off war or invasion, you can collapse a delicate network of AI alliances into a total free-for-all of war by manipulating one of the allies, and you can make solid friends with trade and tribute or by attacking races they hate.

This works brilliantly. Meklars running away with the game? About to send a thousand-ship death fleet against your most valuable planet? No problem. Grease the wheels with some bribes and get the whole galaxy to declare war on them--they'll soon be too busy to concentrate on you. Silicoids marching to a diplomatic victory in the Senate? Steal some tech from the other races and frame the Silicoids until even their best friends mistrust them, denying them valuable votes. The diplomatic model is beautifully flexible.

There are so many other wonderful features to this game. Spying, ship design, the concept of Orion itself--this review is too long already to mention them all. So many great stories can be told within its framework--I'll always remember the game where an unstoppable Meklar fleet full of the population-nuking Doom Virus was approaching and I only triumphed through creative ship design. The "good" of this game is beyond the scope of any readable review, and this is longwinded and didactic beyond any standard of readability already. :-)

I will say however that MOO masters one last thing that is crucial--limiting micromanagement to acceptable levels, yet still allowing a fine degree of control. Its sequel missed out on this (as do many other space empire games) completely. I'm the flippin' galactic emperor! I don't want to be bothered with building individual farm buildings on each planet in a multi-parsec empire! Yet if I -do- decide to tweak a planet's production to a specific degree, I want to be able to do it without a lot of red tape or bureaucrats. MOO's simple, abstract slider production system allows for this. It maintains scope and ease without sacrificing control.

The Bad
With such a vast game, there are always going to be flaws. Some are serious bugs. The negative ship bug (when a 16 bit unsigned integer flips over) can break the game, for example. Some of the technological variety gets overwhelming and confusing, and the in-game descriptions often need to be carefully read from the tech screen before you know what you're doing. The tactical ship combat AI needs a -lot- of work, as the computer does some very stupid things. Given the variety of all the ship gizmos, that shouldn't be too surprising. :-D

The diplomatic penalty for being too huge and powerful is fair but a bit excessive--it's not as bad as Master of Magic's, though. Also, it would be great to set a cap on missile base production, since if you leave the slider up for a few turns you can get huge unnecessary numbers of bases that drain your funds most thoroughly.

But these are all minor complaints! Forget them!

The Bottom Line
For flexibility, variety and elegance MOO can't be beat. Each game tells a meaningfully unique story that is truly emergent from a few well designed variables: the difficulty levels, the galaxy sizes, the present opponent races (and their personalities!), your chosen race, the unique tech trees, the quality of planets (poor, rich, artifacts). Each experience can feel fresh and full of possibilities, and the game is unique in its capacity for rewarding adaptation and situational thinking rather than rote formulaic play. Genius!

The Good
This game had me up wayyy pat my bedtime so many times it isn't even funny. I even played a game from the time I got up until early the next morning. <ahem> on with the review. The ability to custom build ships with all sorts of combinations gave your fleets a personal touch unequalled elsewhere (well, except in Master Of Orion II). the endless debates over small ships vs. large, more nukes or more lasers, what planets to turn into factories, etc. kept me going continuously. the diplomatic system seemed a lot more realistic than in Civilization. instead of declaring wars seemingly at random, the other empires would watch to see if you were massing ships at their borders, would start to like you when you attacked their enemies, and would generally be nice if you weren't being threatening, depending on their attitudes. the tech system gave you advantages with every advance, and often had me tearing my hair out wondering if I should devote more to weapons or construction techs (more armor). The advantages of warping across the galaxy fast enough to outrace an invading fleet were undeniable. the planetary management, with its sliding bars of planetary resource management, had me tweaking my planets endlessly for best effect. Oh, and lets not forget about getting ready for that showdown with the guardian of Orion. oh, yeah. It also had the best manual I've seen in a computer game.

The Bad
The micromanagement of a lot of planets gets tedious, especially when the game settings don't do things the way you like, and you forget which planets you have set to special projects.

The Bottom Line
It's the most fun I've had with any space game, and will suck you into its depths if you let it. Building a space empire was never so much fun.

The Good
This is a challenging strategy game and the challenge was the best part about it for me. At first, the impossible level really did seem impossible. So figuring out how to beat the game using the right combination of planetary resource allocation, research strategy, ship design, diplomacy, and trade was major fun.

Reading game guides and tips beforehand will spoil the challenge. Eventually, you'll figure out many ways to beat the game, but that was also when the game lost its appeal for me.

The Bad
I like to play a "huge" galaxy, but after taking over 40-50 plants or so, it becomes tedious to micro manage. The program could have been better written so that a human player could more easily handle all the planets at once.

The Bottom Line
Awesome player vs computer strategy game.

Good game interface. Passable graphics. Minimal sound effects (but at least it's not annoying). Play this game for the challenge, not for the bells and whistles.

The Good
Pretty much everything. Particularly the relatively simplistic implementation of controlling resources. Simple slider bars that you adjust to whatever you want your planets to do.

The Bad
Not much. Getting really picky, I could say that there weren't enough technologies, but good grief - there were dozens. Problem was that playing Psilons, you found all the technologies in a Medium game. Large or Huge games simply didn't have enough technologies to keep Psilons an interesting race (once you have everything, how much longer will you play?)

I suppose I could also say that the combat system (hex) was rather limited, and there were only so many ship designs.

The Bottom Line
Civ-like without the details of keeping every planet productive. Endless hours of entertainment.

The Good
When I first played Master of Orion in 1993 it quickly became one of my favourite games. To this day not found a better TBS, including Civilization. The reason for Master of Orion's success is simple: a perfect mix of macro and micro managing, and very fast micromanaging. Because every planet can be controlled quickly from the main screen using a system of sliders, you can quickly tweak each of the systems under your control, even in late game. In later Master of Orion games and in pretty much every other TBS out there, micromanaging quickly becomes a chore which wears you down and disinterests you in the game. Whenever I play Civilization, I end up quiting around three quarters through the game as gameplay becomes bogged down, slow, and monotonous. In MOO, every control is carefully laid out so you have less screens to cycle through, and more time to strategize as opposed to micromanaging. Add on to MOO's strong foundation a solid tech tree, a very fast yet deep combat system, and an interesting array of races and random events, and you have a classic and the best TBS ever created.

The Bad
The only flaw in MOO is the building limit for ships. After you have made a certain amount of ship designs, you cannot create another without scraping an existing design and all the ships associated with it. This does streamline gameplay, but for me at least, it reminds me of an unrealistic technical limitation which takes my imagination out of the game world.

The Bottom Line
Overall Master of Orion is the best TBS game ever created, and perhaps the best overall strategy game as well.

The Good
MoO is an excellant strategy game. You take on the role of leader of an entire race, that must rule the universe, by either eliminating the other races or being voted galactic leader. MoO is all about successfully setting up, andmanaging multiple colonies, while maintaining a fleet strong enough to defend yur planets. The ease at which you can control your colonies production is well thought out. The starship customization was also a factor that made this game the classic it is. The game has a good diplomat AI, as well as an excellent spy system, which I feel accurately portrays the intricies of covert operations. Each race has it's own feel to it and unique feelings and outlook on life and the other races, the galaxies are random making this game highly replayable

The Bad
The sound, this was a big disappointment for a galactic game, one would hope it came with a grand music score to get one in the mood, but alas, a musical score is sorely missing, the sound effects are also sparse and not mentionable. The game tried to capture the feel of galactic conquests without giving one very much control, basically colonies run themselves, with you only setting quotas. The game centers mainly on building new ships that implement newer technology. At points it feels like a galactic battleship game! I feel if more time was put into micromanagement of colonies as well as making the starship construction and battle scenario's less prevelant would have helped this game.

The Bottom Line
A great strategy game that only falls short in small areas, but is otherwise fun and surprisingly addictive!

The Good
First of I liked the gameplay, it is just wonderful. You can pick from about 9 different races, all with their various strenghs and weaknesses. You then pick your name and your homeworld's name, and a color for your flag and ships. You then go into the main gamescreen where you control the game. There you can colonize worlds and build ships and send fleets to do war on the other races. You win by being elected govener of the universe. If you like strategy games you'll like Master of Orion.

The Bad
At times it was irritating that the diplomacy was as limited as it is, but thats a small complaint.

The Bottom Line
Master of Orion is a great game, that is easy to learn, but hard to master, as the old maxim goes. Definently a game that any strategy gamer should own, and if you like sci-fi games, this should be in your game library.

The Good
I loved the motivation to stay up past 5 AM trying for that last turn that would bring my victory! Then having to keep playing because there was just too much to this game! The balance between all the technologies and races. The ability to randomly generate new galaxies that may or may not give me a starting advantage.

The Bad
The only problem I can see is with the AI. They all use basicly the same system of building up massive fleets and going at it. There really isn't anything missing without comparing it to the improvements in the sequel.

The Bottom Line
The 4X space strategy title that built the genre. Even though this game has been beefed up with the release of the 2 sequels, it is still worth playing to see where it all started. I still play it today.

The Good
During the early 90's (where has the time gone?) Microprose was simply a hit machine. Pirates, Civ, X-Com, Railroad Tycoon, and of course Master Of Orion. In some ways you could call this game CIV in space. However I dont think it does this title justice. In many ways this title takes a complex and sometimes boring Catagory (space) and turns it into a easy to learn and fun game. MOO has all the classic marks of a legend. Its easy to learn, addictive, constantly challengeing, replayable, Different gameplay (i.e. the game can be played in many differnt ways), great music, and terrific design. A great deal of attention and talent went into MOO and it shows.

The Bad
Not a great deal, some of the ship views were a little bad.

A part of me would have liked to be able to research all the different tech, however the fact you cant makes you want to trade and do business with other allens.

The Bottom Line
Great classic, Highly recommended