I have never played Master of Orion and have no intent to, but from what i have seen i still don't understand why people treat the series with such admiration......

You're not alone, Igncom1.





I actually played MOO2 -- I owned the game at one point -- and it utterly failed to grab me. It seemed to be a solid enough game, and was put together reasonably well, but I've never understood what's so special about it (or why it appears to be considered the genre's "gold standard").



Perhaps I was spoiled by the fact I didn't try out MOO2 until well after I'd played a number of other, newer space 4x titles? I don't know. Whatever the reason(s), though, it just didn't enthrall me.

The MOO series when it was released was a ground breaking series. BUT you had to be there at the time to play it. Looking back now it is shadowed by other games that have much more of well everything.



However for its time it was amazing and will still hold a special place in my gamers heart for a long time. The third one in the series did kind of kill the franchise though sadly



Over the years games like Haegamonia (sp?), pax imperia, and imperium galactica 2 have improved on the design substantially. The only thing I can compare it to is playing the latest (not c&c4 that sucked) command and conquer games and then playing the original Dune 2, same company produced the games but they are worlds apart. However if you played Dune 2 at the time you will have fond memories of it.

Ahh that makes sence.

The reason MOO3 killed it was because the developers were forced to release the game before they had finished. It was only about 75% finished when it was sent out to stores.

oui230 wrote:
The reason MOO3 killed it was because the developers were forced to release the game before they had finished. It was only about 75% finished when it was sent out to stores.

Having played MOO3 myself not too long after it was first released, I have to agree that it was not a finished product.

I completely missed all the MOO's and feel that it is something I wish I had tried, as it does sound like its the best of the genre to date. I know I loved the early Civs and the early SimCities far more than the later incarnations. But you never know buying Endless Space may make up for missing MOO2. Its certainly the only game lately that has me playing it every day.

I ll agree with the above post, its hard to take a look right now after all these years after all those games that came after it. But you must not forget MOO was the beginning of the 4X style. It may look old and mess cause of micromanagement but its the one that inspired ES after all

Nomas wrote:
I ll agree with the above post, its hard to take a look right now after all these years after all those games that came after it. But you must not forget MOO was the beginning of the 4X style. It may look old and mess cause of micromanagement but its the one that inspired ES after all

I think though that ES has been inspired by all the previous 4x games and I can see features from many of them in ES, not just MOO2. But I can also see a lot of new features in ES that I think that sets it apart from all other 4x games, I think it can stand on its own merits. The superb GUI and music are the most immediate impressive features but once you get into the game you really start to appreciate the simplicity and breadth of the gameplay. Its actually been really well designed. I am really looking forward to seeing what other additions the design team has in store for the game.

MOO2, with the community patch, is something I still play regularly, and I feel that Endless Space is the first game that comes close to it.



Why do I like it so much?

* It has the capability for extreme micro-management,without the necessity of it. This is at the colony level, and the combat level.

* Excellent tech tree

* Interesting Good and Bad random events to add a little random chance

* The ability to create your own (fairly) balanced race using a point system.

* The ability to design custom ships.

* Detailed colonies: population could be shifted to do industry, farming, or research. You could create a colony of 100% scientists that rely on regular food shipments from nearby planets, that would collapse when blockaded, but researched phenomenally well. Industrial production being offset by the need to mitigate pollution was a cool mechanic, which resulted in diminishing returns from adding more industry, at least in the early and mid-games.

* Interesting planetary anomalies.

* Detailed battle: while you could let the computer run a battle, you could also control it ship-by-ship tactically. The result of tactical battle were often better, and it allowed you to disable a ship, pull along side, board, fight for control, and take over enemy ships mid-battle (although it took a couple turns). Very very cool.

* System for espionage and sabotage. Spies could be trained and used defensively, or sent out to steal technology or destroy enemy installations and ships.

* And much much more.



The amazing thing was the variety of effective tactics. I custom-built ships with fast drives, and tons of point-defenses that would run interference against missiles for other ships in the fleet,freeing up more space for weapons in those ships. I build ships that specialized in capturing enemy ships. Such heavily specialized ships could turn the tide of a battle if you played the tactical battles, even when heavily outnumbered.



Oh, and you could research planet-shattering (literally) super weapons that when used to destroy enemy planets (rather than invade them) would almost always result in panic and surrender with concessions, unless it resulted in an alliance forming against you.



tl;dr: Master of Orion 2 was (and is) excellent for the amazing range of options and viable strategies that it offered, as well the the incredible level of detail that it offered for each and every option.



GOG has it for sale cheap if anyone wants to try it that hasn't. The graphics aren't great though, and the pace is too slow when playing with other humans.

I also wait what more ES can do cause i am sure it can improve more Nats.