Civ IV Community: Thoughts on Master of Orion 2?

[AspiringScholar]

Hello! If this belongs outside of the Civ IV board and properly into a misc category, apologies and please move the thread, but as I wanted to address this community specifically, it seemed appropriate.

Yesterday, I loaded up MoO2 again and took a fairly serious look at it for the first time in a while for about an hour or so. First of all, the overall aesthetic still looks quite nice and polished (astonishingly so for a game from 1996!) and the UI was surprisingly clean and usable. Clicking around in it, I quickly found out how much information was packed into it, unassumingly so when just looking at the flat star map on its own seems a little bare bones. You have a broad tech tree, tax rates, sortable lists for planets and fleet, advisor pools, a nice diplomacy window and a score ledger. While it shares the 4X genre with Civ IV, the precise stamp of this came across as not only similar but spiritually almost identical to the latter. I know that it generally has a solid reputation for strategic depth, so, given its apparent similarity of tone, I wanted to ask if any of the older or more hardcore players of BtS could vouch for making an investment to learn it or if they would recommend it? If it has, for instance, some major flaw that isn't immediately recognizable, I'd want to go ahead and know on the frontside before making the effort to play it seriously. I personally don't mind its age but am concerned with actual gameplay and strategic elements.

Thanks

 

[Sephi]

I don't know how good the AI is compared to modern standards. Compared to civ4 it is probably pretty goofy. Master of orion 1 has a fan remake called Remnants of the Precursors with some really strong AI mods. Might give that game a try if you want games with strong AI.

In general you do not need to learn much to play MoO2 since you already know all the 4x basics. It is often about understanding what is OP in tactical combat and using that to push your advantage against an AI that produces stuff faster.

 

[Lennier]

I loved MoO II back in the day. Great game. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard played.

 

[The_J]

One of my favourite games, played it to death.
Looking at it from a modern point of view, not all things hold up, but it's still a good game. Main critique points are:

• The AI is poor, and diplomacy rudimentary. Although the latter is not worse than any of the Civ titles (2-4)
• The tech tree is all just straight linear, which is kinda boring (way better in then civ games)
• There is no real decision making for building on the planets. You just build everything (although that is also kinda similar)
• There are 4 types of shipes (plus later 2 more), but this does not matter at all. Bigger is better. The unit choice in Civ is way better
• I never played the combat. Too tedious for me, and at the beginning I did not understand certain things either. Probably better than the SoD though
• And the late game is a grind

On the positive side you have

• Nicely fleshed out alien races
• Interesting choices for the traits, and a nice custom setup
• Exploration is really nice IMHO. Finding an awesome planet system with perfect planets is just great

I think if you can deal with the graphics, and you're aware that it's ancient, you can probably still get some good playtime out of it.

 

[s.bernbaum]

I still play it now and then. I find it enjoyable. Mainly when I feel like playing a relatively short game is when I play it. Since I play CIV on Marathon with Huge maps which takes me weeks to complete, MOO2 is what I play when I feel like playing a game that I will finish in a day or few.

 

[SittinDown]

I never played 2, but I played MOO quite a bit.

It did some things uniquely well than other 4x's I've played.

Pros:

• Ship design is fun and there's a balance between building a navy now and building the one that will be better in a bit, especially because of the hard cap on number of ship types.
  • Technology has a continuous benefit to military, so you can build the same ship more cheaply over time, or you can redesign and fit stronger components into the same size ship, or you can make what used to be a large ship into a medium one for various tradeoffs.
  • Building a massive ship isn't always the best answer, though there comes a point in the game where it starts to fall apart later.
• Exploration is satisfying, and rewarding.
• Tech ladder with non-guaranteed available techs per player is interesting. So you have to steal or conquest or trade to gain certain techs.
• Races play pretty different from one another. (Wide variances in powers). Psilons = Incans / Mali on steriods.
• The planet micro doesn't get overwhelming as the game progresses. (You can micro it, but the game does a surprisingly good job for it's era in helping you manage the planets with minimal pain).

Cons:

• The dilpo is really bad. The AI's are dumb and make arbitrary decisions. It's even worse than diplo in Civ 1 and 2. It's about on par with Master of Magic (also bad). Civ4 has much better diplo.
• The planets are pretty basic. (Both a good and a bad thing. It's not a colony sim or a builder, and you won't get too attached to your planets).

 

[SittinDown]

Oh, I forgot another one -

you can lose contact with an opponent after you meet them, because you have a deep space range on your comms that increases with tech, and it's based on the radius of your nearest inhabited world.

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

I personally tried once or twice but could never get into MoO2. If you have a copy of the original, however, and have never tried it out, I'd 100% recommend at least giving it a whirl. It has a good reputation for strategic depth but puts in a relatively simple, easy-to-understand package that shouldn't be too much of a commitment to learn enough that you know whether it's for you.