My all-time favorite 4X strategy game was Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Then MoO.

Galactic Civ

Imperium Galactica was my favorite.

Imperium Galactica II and wait for successor

Space Empires 5

SOTS

SINS

GalCiv2 (Despite its combat system)

Endless Space

Space empires IV

In a particular order of preference:



First place: MOO 2 - Nothing like your first "love"

Tied second place: Space Empires 5, Galciv 2

Third place: Alpha centauri

Honorary mention: MOO 3 -not as bad as everyone seems to think... well after a crapton of mods and updates

Even after all those years, no other 4x space sim got close too MoO2.... but gladly Endless Space approaches that line easier than former comptitors and faster than expected... and that's just the alpha.



What Endless Space shares with MoO, and what MoO really did better than its subsequent competitors, is the clarity and the efficient minimalism in design and user interface.

Every option in MoO was only a few clicks away, the division into galaxy, system, planet, build queue (and the things you could control in there) felt like it right belonged there and there never was a real "ok, where could i possible find option X or Y?" feeling.

Sounds like a no brainer, but many other games went overboard and added tons of buttons, menus and sliders all over the place, some necessary but out of place, others only to add micromanagment fluff without a major strategic value.



Another positive thing that ES and MoO share is the movement, especially Gal Civ stood out bad in that department.... space is so mind-numbingly vast, everything in between is endless voids, so the focus should always lie on systems and planets.... in Gal Civ you ordered your ships around in space like it was a clearly laid out earthly sea and there wasn't a distinction between in system and inter system travel either.



I really wanted to be Gal Civ to be a true successor to MoO, but many design decisions like the very unituitive tax/population system (you could overcrowd the tiniest planets easily and only did it for tax, all the factories or labs seemed to be unaffected), the above mentioned presentation of the galaxy and the meandering microgamangement hell that was starbase upgrading sadly prevented that in the long run.

The race specific tech trees in the latest expansion were nice, but the AI was never really taught to use them efficiently. Especially the races with the most exotic techs fell flat on the face incessantly.



And on top of that, the music and the beautiful 2D images made MoO a joy to explore.

Both strong points in ES too.



Long love letter short, i think ES is the first title in years that one day may have the possibility to finally claim the title "heir of MoO", if it wants to even surpass it, well, that is another story ;-)...

That would need serious work, like tactical combat, a seamlessly integrated but meaningful spionage system, better planet bombardment and a comparable intuitive but elegant population distribution system.

But Amplitude is on the right track, you have my faith guys!

There are too many:

Civ Series (excluding III and V) (Fall from Heaven II deserves a special mentioning here.. and ofc Kael the mastermind that developed it)

Colonization (well thats related)

Alpha Centauri (there seems to be a pattern here...)

EoFs (nope.. the pattern breaks (^^,) )

Explorer

MoO (excluding III)

HoMM (I hate Ubisoft for that launcher)

I have always loved MOO and MOO2. But I have spent the last several yrs playing and modding BOTE (Birth of the Empire). An incredible game and free - still in Beta. I hope Endless will be the new favorite. Don't have it yet, just started research to see if I might like it. Too bad I missed the free weekend.





rojen

Master of Orion. OLD SCHOOL STILL HAS IT.