Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares

aka: MOO 2, Master of Antares
Moby ID: 182
DOS Specs
Note: We may earn an affiliate commission on purchases made via eBay or Amazon links (prices updated 3/26 3:56 PM )
Add-on (unofficial) Included in

Description official descriptions

Legends speak somewhere in space of the mystical planet Orion. Created by the Ancients, it remains unclaimed due to a powerful Guardian that orbits the planet and keeps out intruders. These same Ancients long ago fought a war against the Antarans and banished them into another dimension. Now... long after the Ancients empire has vanished, new races take to the stars, wishing to establish their own star empires, defeat the Antarans and become... The Master of Orion.

Master of Orion II: Battle At Antares is a turn-based 4x space empire game and is the sequel to Master of Orion, reinterpreting that game from scratch. Unlike the original the game can be played single player or with other human players. The player takes the role of a ruler of one of thirteen races, while also having the extra option of creating a custom one. They must manage planet resources to build ships and facilities, improving production. Exploration of the galaxy is done via scouts and colony ships, which can establish new planets as part of the empire. Research must also be done to discover and utilize new technologies. Alien civilizations which are encountered can be negotiated with, or ships can engage in combat in a turn-based grid system. As new systems are explored, random events are triggered and strange artifacts found in orbit around unexplored planets. Wormholes can also be found which allow transport across dozens of parsecs into new star systems.

The game can be won in different ways: through conquest of all other races, being voted supreme leader of the galaxy or destruction of the Antaran race.

Spellings

  • 银河霸主II:安特雷斯之战 - Simplified Chinese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Videos

See any errors or missing info for this game?

You can submit a correction, contribute trivia, add to a game group, add a related site or alternate title.

Credits (DOS version)

51 People (48 developers, 3 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 81% (based on 23 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 205 ratings with 15 reviews)

If you don't own it already, you're mad.

The Good
This is probably one of my favorite games of all time, most enjoyable. It's nothing amazing to look at, the graphics are from way back when and the sound is almost 16 bit. But when I comes to retro PC oldies you can't beat Master of Orion 2.

For those of you who have never heard of MOO2, it is a game where you play the emperor of a space empire that starts small and you have to build it and defend your worlds, and become the greatest empire in the galaxy. However unlike some games, it's not needlessly complicated. It all starts with the race selection screen where you can choose to do what you like, pick a race based on your play style...or create your own race (a feature I much prefer).

Hidden under the visual facade of the 16 bit graphics is a really well built ecosystem/economic system. The AI battles with each other, sometimes your blamed for the actions of other races in a very under the table spies and cloak-and-dagger kind of way.

It's turn-based, each turn is about 10 years, allowing enough time for you to justify a planet being able to develop without it seeming a little daft.

The graphics are beautiful in their design, compared to today's standards they're rubbish, but really well drawn and your scientists move in a two frame animation, which I always find quite funny.

The thing that makes this game great is game play, for a space-strat-sim it's got something for everyone:

Science, a very deep research tree with benefits that actually have an impact when you get them. You can beat the game using science and your mind instead of brute force.

Terraforming, Genetic manipulation, Chemical weapons, Mass-destruction or BFGs that would make Doom pee itself.

The micromanaging of planets is fantastic, certain buildings will give you bonuses and certain races will have innate benefits you can take advantage of. You divvy out your possible working masses on each planet in to three piles:

1: Farmers
2: Workers
3 Scientists
A simple system that really makes it easy to get on with running the galaxy at large.

Building, buildings that benefit your people anything from theatres to hospitals can be built and most of them have upgrades; every little helps. You are able to customize ships, the way they look, what the fire power is even what kind of soldiers are onboard.

The ship builder is detailed, fun and easy to use, build the kind of ship you want, make 'Death Stars' that can destroy an entire planet, (but be warned destroying entire planets can really piss of those bug-eyed ETs) All ships have there place in the game, with the Deathstars (correctly equipped) being the be all and end all.

Fight, blow planets up (really cool animation for this), attack ships, take over planets and enslave the people, bombard planets and start afresh with your own people. Genocide is, at least in MOO2, kind of cool.

The fight system is based on a grid in a 2D plane, the space version is really fun to use, cool animations, little missile that takes a few turns to reach your target it's all about tactics and tactics are rewarded (which is always nice) . There is a 'calculate battle' button, which when your going through the universe taking over each system, ironically systematically, is really useful. The planetside version of this I will get to in a minute.

Peace is an option, you could always just make peace with everyone and become head of the council, thus winning. I really like that this was an option truly a open-minded game indeed. Really at odds with when it was made.

This game still has a great online community, even to this day. It's great fun if you have a home LAN network; even if you don't there is a hot seating mode. One computer can equal loads of fun.

The Bad
It is really hard to say what I DON'T like about MOO2 because I love it so much.

But, nothing is perfect (except maybe me). Most of the time your in for the long haul, and sometimes the AI creates a cascade of events which means that you are alone against an intergalactic superpower. Which as you can probably imagine is really annoying.

The planetside battles are really badly designed, it's nothing like the space combat and you have no control over the battles. It's all automated and often you watch your simple townsfolk in there own 16bit world, with there little poking sticks; getting beaten from afar by aliens in suits with big guns. This is really frustrating, especially when your spaceships are far out powering theirs. Who cares who can benchpress more, when you have a gun that can blow up a planet?

The diplomatic relations AI is a bit rubbish. And stupid. Ask it something enough and you'll find it'll do one of two things:

  1. Do what you ask.
  2. Declare War.

Now when all you've been asking is for sub-terrainian farm technology you start to ask yourself 'why?'. Which is almost unforgivable until your beating them to death with there own flux-capacitor and they are begging for peace and offering up there own mother to placate you.

This is however a really nice moment.

One thing that really really got on my nerves was the Antares, aliens from another dimension that would randomly attack random systems and decimate the planet and then fly back to their own home world (going to there dimension and killing them is a way of beating the game -not an easy feat I can tell you), if they happen to be attacking a system your just developing and it's not protected by your entire fleet you might as well give that planet up because it's back to the drawing board. This is a really annoying game mechanic that punishes those you don't get the fast engine tech early. Which is mean because I think that food is more important on developing worlds because rocket fuel doesn't feed babies. At least not yet.

The Bottom Line
Master of Orion 2 is at the end of it a game that has never left my hard drive, something which I've always thought as an achievement for a good game. MOO2 is a game I still play, I still enjoy and occasionally brings me something new that I never expected, something that is missing from the games of today.

This is a game for the ages, if you don't own it already; you're mad.

Windows · by BinaryDragon (18) · 2008

If I could make love to one game, this would be it

The Good
Everything. The diplomacy was awesome..the researching was incredible...the micromanagement was not too tedious, and the whole fact that this is a strategy game at it's greatest makes this a must buy for anyone.

The Bad
The fighting and upgrading ships could use some work.

The Bottom Line
I strongly recommend that any fan of strategy games buy this. Ever wanted to be a Napoleon of space? Here is your chance.

Windows · by xTSx (13) · 2001

Addictive as hell. even after you are sick of it, every couple of months you just have to play it again. a great sequel to a great game.

The Good
Everything. good graphics, designing your own spacehips, fun battles, different alien races means different gameplay. Master of Magic colony management style. lots of random encounters (space flux which prevents ships from travelling in space for a random amount of time, stars going supernova needing reserch points to be saved, wealthy merchants donating you money etc...) fun fun fun!

The Bad
Stupid AI, the colony autobuild is so dumb it hurts. (sometimes it decides to build trade goods instead of important buildings even though i have 70k+ credits and earning a great amount of money each turn). the diplomacy is virtually non-existant. alien races will decline a trade pact but will accept it after you offer it again after offering a reserch pact in the same conversation!
The Antarens are too easy to beat at a late stage, so even if you are going to get crushed by your enemies you can always win by destroying the Antaren homeworld. If you have a large amount of ships that need to be refitted you still have to redesign each and every one (why not change the basic design and just press a "refit to design" button?) If you deselect Tactical Battles when starting a game by accident you'll never have a chance to change it. and you will want to change it! (as stated before, the game's AI is not exactly amazing)

The Bottom Line
Despite the evil things listed above the game is still superb and as addictive as Master of Magic and civilization (well... almost as addictive as civ ;-) ) fun. go and play it. Seriously.

Windows · by Oren Hadas (3) · 2001

[ View all 15 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Compatibility - just use Steam MerlynKing May 8, 2022
Has anyone witnessed the battle at Antares? CalaisianMindthief (8172) Oct 6, 2015
Master of Orion II How to install in win7 Dim Gri (30) Oct 24, 2011

Trivia

Combat system

The whole tactical ship combat system has many similarities with the system used in Renegade Legion: Interceptor. This not is not only restricted to technical aspects. If one examines the ship graphics in Interceptor more closely, there should be a moment of déjà vu.

Development

The folks at SimTex were calling this game Master of Antares when it was in early development. Later the name was changed to Master of Orion 2 so the game would be more easily recognized by consumers as the sequel to the award-winning original.

References

  • Loknar’s ship was christened as “Avenger”, exactly the same as the ship you need in X-COM to travel to Cydonia. Even the graphics are similar! Take a look at them and compare! Coincidence?
  • Another coincidence with X-COM? Perhaps the similarity between "Elerium" (the alien energy source from X-COM) and the "Elerians" (the matriarchal psychic race of Moo2) is intentional?
  • In another X-COM coincidence... both Master of Orion games as well as the first X-COM game have an alien race named "Silicoid", however the look of the creatures is very different between the two game series.
  • The Antaran Star Fortress (when you travel to their homeworld via Dimensional Portal) is commanded by a Ship Captain. His (her?) name is Xyphys, the Antaran Warrior, and has the following abilities: "Fighter Pilot* Helmsman* Ordnance* Security* Weaponry*" as noted in the moohero.lbx archive.
  • Phasers, food replicators, transporters, federation type government, the human leader being bald, charismatic and democratic and a few of the ship designs may be references to Star Trek:The Next Generation.

Awards

  • Origin Awards
    • 1996 - Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game

Information also contributed by Chris Martin, Dum Gri, lilalurl, NGC 5194, PCGamer77, Technocrat and WildKard.

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Games

Master of Orion
Released 1993 on DOS, 1995 on Macintosh
Master of Orion 3
Released 2003 on Windows, Macintosh
Imperium Galactica II: Alliances
Released 1999 on Windows, 2013 on Android, 2017 on Macintosh...
Master of Orion
Released 2016 on Linux, Windows, Macintosh
Battle for the Galaxy
Released 2014 on iPad, Android, 2016 on Browser...
Master of Orion: Revenge of Antares Race Pack
Released 2016 on Macintosh, Linux, Windows
Starlink: Battle for Atlas
Released 2018 on PlayStation 4, 2018 on Xbox One, 2019 on Windows
Antares
Released 2020 on Windows
Antares
Released 1991 on Amiga

Related Sites +

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 182
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Tomer Gabel.

Macintosh added by Terok Nor.

Additional contributors: PCGamer77, Kalirion, David Ledgard, CaesarZX, Patrick Bregger, Dim Gri, MrFlibble, J D.

Game added August 4, 1999. Last modified January 31, 2024.