Master of Orion overlaps with Civilization insofar as you are the leader of one of several races. Technological advance, realm expansion and combat are all key elements. Where it differs is in being set in space.

The planet Orion itself is a lush, fertile planet with vast mineral resources. It is guarded by the Guardian - a powerful vessel which you have to defeat in order to plunder Orion's riches.

As you attempt to expand your empire, you will have to trade and steal technologies form rivals, again much like Civ. Your ships can be improved over the game, in terms of engine power, shields, cloaking devices and weapons, and different combinations of these can be integrated. Resource management is largely set using sliders, which reduces the amount of time spent on micro-management.

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Alternate Titles

"MOO" -- Informal abbreviation

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Part of the Following Groups

Merchant	Title	Platform	Price
	Master of Orion	DOS	$12.96
	Master of Orion
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User Reviews

The pinnacle of 4x gaming, infinitely playable even today, and one of the only empire games that eats formulaic players for breakfast	DOS	J. P. Gray (111)
Quite simply, the best TBS ever!	DOS	Jeffrey Graw (61)
Fantastic	DOS	Cyric (50)
Total Classic	DOS	William Shawn McDonie (1153)
A great game.	DOS	Wolfang (134)
Most addicting turn based strategy ever	DOS	Darryl White (9)
Strategy players looking for a challenge will love it.	DOS	Yeah Right (57)
A great classic by all standards.	DOS	Tomer Gabel (4418)
An addictive and epic game	DOS	Jonathon Howard (106)
Space Conquest just got much better	DOS	MaiZure (114)

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The Press Says

All Game Guide	DOS	1998		100
Computer Gaming World (CGW)	DOS	May, 1994		90
PC Player (Germany)	DOS	Nov, 1993	78 out of 100	78
Power Play	DOS	Nov, 1993	70 out of 100	70
Svenska Hemdatornytt	DOS	Mar, 1994		67
High Score	Macintosh	Jul, 1995	3 out of 5	60
Dragon	DOS	Feb, 1994		60

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Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
Help me get into this game	4	Indra was here (15463) Apr 29, 2009

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Trivia

Jerry Pournelle

Famous Sci-Fi novelist and long time technology columnist Jerry Pournelle frequently mention his appreciation for Master of Orion i his Chaos Manor columns. He's often stated its one of his all time favorite games.

References

When playing against the Meklars, one of the names for the leader (picked randomly from a pool in the NAMES.LBX file) is TX-1138. Likely a reference to George Lucas's movie THX-1138, which he himself has referred to in little in-jokes throughout the Star Wars movies.

Star Lords

Star Lords was a sort-of prototype game for Master of Orion. It was released as freeware in 2001.

Spaceward Ho!

Master of Orion borrows several game elements from Spaceward Ho!.

Awards

Computer Gaming World
- June 1994 (Issue #119) – Strategy Game of the Year
- April 1996 (Issue #141) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
- November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #33 in the “150 Best Games of All Time” list
GameStar (Germany)
- Issue 12/1999 - #64 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
PC Gamer
- April 2000 - #37 in the "Readers All-Time Top 50" poll
- October 2001 - #31 in the "Top 60 Games of All Time" list (They go on to credit the game for the creation of the '4X' genre of strategy gaming ('explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate').)
- April 2005 - #44 in the "50 Best Games of All Time" list