Master of Orion 2 Memories

[adamsolo]

Released in 1996 by Microprose, Master of Orion 2 Battle at Antares is undoubtably considered the reference for 4x space strategy games. But what made this game so popular that after 13 years of game design innovation, better computer resources and way better available graphics no space strategy game seems to be able to surpass MOO2 success?

I invite you to read my post about MOO2 success at SpaceSector.com

Post your comments here or in the blog itself if you prefer.

 

Cheers

Adam Solo

[Matri]

I wouldn't exactly say "no game". If you haven't already, I invite you to try out Space Empires from Malfador Machinations.

[Space Voyager]

Pffft, both fade at Sword of the Stars Ultimate Collection. MoO2 may have been the only reference for a looong time but it has definitely been overrun.

[Azrael Strife]

Overrun by SotS? I certainly think not! while may be a great game, it is yet to beat MoO2. For starters, SotS doesn't even feature colony management (at least not in the vanilla game), a galaxy map that's a bit too pretty to be really useful, etc.

And Space Empires is scaringly complex to provide a quick and simple game. MoO2 while complex in itself, presents an interface that simple that a child could use it without reading through tons of manuals, a tech tree that features the same simplicity while providing enough variety, EXTREMELY easy colony management (PERFECT easy I should say, you have work, scientist, and farmer forces easily represented by a single icon representing 1 million people).

That game is yet to be surpassed

[FullAuto]

MoO2 while complex in itself, presents an interface that simple that a child could use it without reading through tons of manuals, a tech tree that features the same simplicity while providing enough variety, EXTREMELY easy colony management (PERFECT easy I should say, you have work, scientist, and farmer forces easily represented by a single icon representing 1 million people).

 

Then why, if it was so easy to use, was I so shit at it?

[Matri]

Then why, if it was so easy to use, was I so shit at it?

'Cause you stink.

 

In all seriousness, you really do need to plan and anticipate and if that fails, adapt. Simple to learn, yes, but it will take you days to weeks to master.

 

MoO3 was just plain crap, though the ground battles interface was beautiful. I found that the only part of the game worth playing.

[Space Voyager]

Overrun by SotS? I certainly think not!

 

Ah, a true believer! We'll have to agree to disagree. I couldn't ever go back to playing MoO2.

[Azrael Strife]

Then why, if it was so easy to use, was I so shit at it?

 

Easy to use does not mean easy to master

 

'Cause you stink.

 

In all seriousness, you really do need to plan and anticipate and if that fails, adapt. Simple to learn, yes, but it will take you days to weeks to master.

 

MoO3 was just plain crap, though the ground battles interface was beautiful. I found that the only part of the game worth playing.

 

Indeed, I was very disappointed, it had some good ideas and additions, like the star lanes, but everything else was pretty much... shitty. Also, no "upgrade ship" button? that was annoying, but maybe that was the intention, you had very modern ship flying with squads of older models.

 

Ah, a true believer! We'll have to agree to disagree. I couldn't ever go back to playing MoO2.

 

I couldn't really even get into SotS, just not my cup of tea I guess.

 

Has any of you played Ascendancy? great DOS-era strategy game, in some aspects I like it better than MoO2, a very good game, too bad Ascendancy 2 never came out

[FullAuto]

Was Ascendancy the one with 3D star systems, and whatnot? Think I've got that somewhere, I was rubbish at that too. Good game though.

 

MoO2 I just always lost at, when it came to fighting I could never get my ships anywhere near as good as the AIs'. Bastards.

[Kret]

Yeah, the star systems in Ascendancy are in 3D. Shame about it's lousy AI tho, both in combat and planetary management. I also find the way that the shields work is highly innefficient, forgoing them in exchange for and extra mounted weapon or power generator depending on available tech and some of the alien races really need to have their special ability revamped.

 

I'll have to check MoO and MoO2 some time.

[Pete]

MOO2 I just kept losing against my brother I did like MOO1 and can still remember the music for certain races even though I've not played it since around 1996.

 

Wow. That makes me feel old now

[Knan]

Mwahaha. I remember with joy some well-timed backstabbing in MoO2 while a student.

 

MoO2 is still very fun, but you can get into unwinnable situations through no fault of your own - say, Psilons or Silacoids gobbling up too many stars too fast. Sakkra generally are containable even if they do that since they are crap at research. Meklar gets you a hard fight. The others are reasonable.

 

And the hard difficulty levels really are hard, especially with lots of opponents. Normal tends to be enough.

 

SotS wins out on graphics, loses on diplomacy, espionage, trade and colony management. And definitely loses on UI, the map is atrocious. About even on combat, ship design, research. (SotS perhaps even a tiny bit ahead on combat by now. Hard to say.)

 

MoO I - haven't played it in years. Expect it'd still be a bit fun.

 

MoO 3 - lost the plot entirely, somehow. Not quite sure what sunk it. I see echoes of it in SotS.

[Azrael Strife]

My only problem with MoO2 is the lack of starlanes ships can pretty much come from anywhere, and at higher technology levels where ships can almost travel instantly across the galaxy (1 turn to get almost anywhere), it gets insane, the AI just amasses a huge fleet and sends it your way, if you protect the target, it just changes target, 1 round to get there as well, and so on in an infinite loop.

 

You cannot really compare graphics between MoO2 and SotS, too many years apart to even be comparable.

[Knan]

My only problem with MoO2 is the lack of starlanes ships can pretty much come from anywhere, and at higher technology levels where ships can almost travel instantly across the galaxy (1 turn to get almost anywhere), it gets insane, the AI just amasses a huge fleet and sends it your way, if you protect the target, it just changes target, 1 round to get there as well, and so on in an infinite loop.

 

MoO2 favors the bold & aggressive, yes. Go on the offensive and whack their planets to dust instead of protecting your own. (You better have more planets than them, of course, for this strategy to work out)

 

You cannot really compare graphics between MoO2 and SotS, too many years apart to even be comparable.

 

Sure I can! Who said I have to be fair?

[Space Voyager]

SotS wins out on graphics, loses on diplomacy, espionage, trade and colony management. And definitely loses on UI, the map is atrocious. About even on combat, ship design, research. (SotS perhaps even a tiny bit ahead on combat by now. Hard to say.)

 

I don't understand, diplomacy in SotS is far better (more options and more meaningful) than any other space-strategy game I have seen so far.

 

BTW, this is SotS with at least BoB, better still ultimate collection and ANY for us fans. Choosing between GC2 and vanilla made me choose GC2. Than BoB came and I never restarted GC2, only played SoaSE enough to write the review. Could be very different if I played more MP, probably.

 

Espionage is somewhat impractical in SotS, though. You need to deploy a sat in the tactical battle mode, which makes it practical to be used against your allies etc.. The best way to spy on my enemies has always been with a large war fleet, saying "whatsup?!".

 

I could use some colony management, though it would have to be a somewhat different game - I couldn't cope with 350 systems. Or very good auto managers...

 

Your thoughts on UI and map are incomprehensible to me though. Those were the things that I fell in love with in vanilla already and have not changed that view. Map is stunning and phenomenal. If anybody finds it disorientating there are A LOT of galaxy shapes that help in that direction (clusters, 2d maps...) or, simply, create smaller map.

[Knan]

Your thoughts on UI and map are incomprehensible to me though. Those were the things that I fell in love with in vanilla already and have not changed that view. Map is stunning and phenomenal. If anybody finds it disorientating there are A LOT of galaxy shapes that help in that direction (clusters, 2d maps...) or, simply, create smaller map.

 

Well, we're mutually incomprehensible, I think. Diplomacy is nonintuitive to me in SotS, trade? what trade? and the starmap is hopeless to visualize. Keeping a rotatable 3D map with no landmarks and no distance indicators straight in your head is hopeless to me - about as informative as a random cloud of mosquitoes. Frontier Elite 2 style would be much easier to understand.

[Matri]

I agree. Without a visual plane of reference it was a veritable nightmare to navigate the starmap. Stars which I thought were closer instead turned out to require routing through 2 or more systems to reach. It was not fun in the least.

[Space Voyager]

Well, we're mutually incomprehensible, I think. Diplomacy is nonintuitive to me in SotS, trade? what trade? and the starmap is hopeless to visualize. Keeping a rotatable 3D map with no landmarks and no distance indicators straight in your head is hopeless to me - about as informative as a random cloud of mosquitoes. Frontier Elite 2 style would be much easier to understand.

Trade was introduced in expansions, it doesn't exist in vanilla. With BoB you get trade sectors and build trade ships and trade stations in them. You can get like a half of all income from trade if you have good relations with your neighbours. You don't get to buy or sell stuff though, that is definitely not for a space empire builder game.

 

I have seen that map is a bit tiresome for some. I found it difficult to manage at first but you actually get better at that. I already recommended 2D map, which is in the game, but I love turning and examining of the map so much I'd rather see you get accustomed with 3D and start with less stars - or go with clusters map that divides stars into smaller groupings, very simple to navigate.

 

What helps a lot as well is political view (see BoB review).

 

I don't know, I adore the map in SotS... This was exactly what I always demanded from space strategy maps; true 3D. I understand we may not have the same expectations, naturally.

 

Meh, that reminds me... Gotta write that UC+ANY review.

[Veki]

MoO2 I just always lost at, when it came to fighting I could never get my ships anywhere near as good as the AIs'. Bastards.

I find that AI ships the weakest part of AI. I use mass drivers and later Gauss cannons/Disruptor Cannons with all the tech that makes it easier to hit enemy ships. In the beginning they don't do much damage but later are unstoppable.

 

My only problem with MoO2 is the lack of starlanes ships can pretty much come from anywhere, and at higher technology levels where ships can almost travel instantly across the galaxy (1 turn to get almost anywhere), it gets insane, the AI just amasses a huge fleet and sends it your way, if you protect the target, it just changes target, 1 round to get there as well, and so on in an infinite loop.

Didn't you build Warp Interdictors?

[Matri]

Yeah, why didn't you? Those plus stargates allow you to pretty much anticipate the enemy fleets and then shift a defense armada there instantaneously.

[Azrael Strife]

Yeah, why didn't you? Those plus stargates allow you to pretty much anticipate the enemy fleets and then shift a defense armada there instantaneously.

I don't remember them, so I probably didn't I probably always picked other technologies so that wasn't available. As for StarGates, I had them, that's what made the AI get stuck into an endless loop of moving its ships around as I moved mine.

[Matri]

Lemme guess, trying to get Stellar Converters as fast as you can so you can go all Death Star on them, right?

[Azrael Strife]

Actually, mine is a socialist empire I always go for stuff that increase population, happiness (i don't recall if there was unrest in this game, it plagued MoO3), growth rate, etc, like hydroponics, terraformation, soil enrichment...

 

Damn, now I just HAVE to play it again! thanks a LOT