Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares

The Good
1) The game was released in the Fall of 1996 and no other game of that 4X genre has succeeded since then to take away its crown. But it can be argued that "Imperium Galactica II" (released in April 2000) can share the throne, "MOO 2" being the turn-based ruler in this diarchy, and "IG 2" being the real-time co-ruler. Four games will come out, in the next five months of 2000, to attempt to take away the 4X/turn-based crown: "Reach for the stars" (mid-August), "Space Empires IV" (Oct. 1st), "Stars! Supernova Genesis" (?), "Galactic Civilizations" (?). "MOO 3" is seriously under development for a Fall 2001 release.

2) 13 races to choose from, and a very detailed menu to custom-design your own race, playing with a lot of options and variables. This consequently confers to this game a lot of replay value. Three and a half years after its release, I still play that game on a regular basis.

3) Stellar systems most often contain more than one planet to colonize.

4) Even though they are 2D, graphics still look great, except the pictures of some of the races.

5) The command-points system limits the number of warships one can effectively control, preventing a race to produce massive fleets which can overwhelm the game early one.

6) A very extensive technological tree, where the player cannot select every available option, forcing him to make important choices. This also confers to the game a lot of replay value. For example, in one game, you might choose to accelerate production by selecting "automated factories", while in another game, you might rather opt to bolster your defenses with "planetary missile base", or strengthen your warships by selecting "heavy armor". That trio represents one of the tough crossroads of the research-tree.

7) You can hire amusing heroes and mercenaries: up to 3 to become efficient star-system governors, up to 3 to be assigned as warship captains.

8) You can design your own starships.

9) There are a lots of diversified buildings you can put down on the surfaces of your planets.

10) The pictorial representations of the various planetary landscapes are superb.

11) Turn-based tactical combat between warships looks great, is easy to learn, but complex to really master.

12) A 14th race, the Antareans, can be introduced later on in the game to harass the most powerful races.

13) There are 3 different ways to win the game: military extermination of the other races, diplomatic victory by obtaining 2/3rds of the votes needed to be elected Galactic Emperor, destroying the Antarean homeworld.

14) A sufficiently extensive diplomatic menu, with an exquisite "holographic" representation of alien embassadors when you communicate with them.

15) You can spy and sabotage.

16) Lots of cool weapons and weapons-effects.

17) A whole lot of stuff to play with, making it a prodigious game with lots of replay value. I'm sure I forgot something good to mention.

The Bad
1) The galactic map generator is mediocre to bad, in the sense that it can initially create a universe which puts some races in tight spots, surrounded by cheap planets to colonize. You can thus invest hours of gameplay to then realize that you are doomed because of an extremely disadvantagous starting-position.

2) Even though many star-systems offer more than one planet to colonize, there's a maximum of about only 70 systems in the game, with a few systems closed to colonization (because they contain a black hole, or no planets, or only gas giants and asteriod fields). That's frustrating, especially if you combine this limitation with what was mentioned in the previous paragraph.

3) The game, as initially released, was full of bugs. Get the final 1.31 patch: on my computer, it is very stable, bug-free, and it only crashes once and awhile when the late game has too much stuff to process ("stack overflow"). Save often on a few slots representing different times. Don't click too much for nothing when the game enters its late stages.

4) The enemy AI is of unequal value. Except in the initial learning process, don't play below the "average" difficulty setting. What often happens is that one or two races will rapidly become very strong (usually: the Sakkras, Klackons, and Silicoids), while the rest of them will stagnate on few star-systems. I think that the cause of that is a defensive programming which forces them to build early on too powerful fleets for their means, neglecting planetary building, research, and colonization.

5) There are no social and political events on your planets. You can mismanage your empire and overtax without fear of being challenged by riots and revolutions. "MOO 3" is supposed to introduce internal consequences for your decisions.

6) Consequently, it is easy to manipulate the taxation system to unfair ends. When the game has proceeded beyond the early stages, you can overtax your population for a few turns to make a lot of cash and then accelerate production by purchasing items.

7) Spies often take too much time to train. It is unrealistic to see that a planet has to dedicate all of its productive efforts for half a dozen turns just to train one spy. Instead, like in some other games, the player should be able to build FBI/CIA-style buildings which would then generate spies or espionage points, while the planet's production queue would be engaged in building other stuff.

8) Planetary ground combat is extremely simplistic and dull.

9) Starship tactical combat being turn-based, the fanatics of real-time combat might eventually become bored.

10) There's a lot of micromanagement when the game gets into its later stages, with many planets to supervise. In a single-player game, it can still be fun, but in a multiplayer game, it will introduce boring delays.

The Bottom Line
I agree with Zzap's recent review: "MOO 2" remains the very best Space-empire building game, 3½ years after its release. It has a lot of replay value, with all of its options, but that becomes even better if you can get your hands on the third-party save-game editor ("Corion2" by Gonzalus, 1997). Unfortunately, that editor does not come with instructions, and your games will fatally crash or get weird if you mismanage the editing process. E-mail me ([email protected]) if you have questions concerning the game or the use of the editor.

The Good
The second chapter in the classic MOO series, obviously, gives some audiovisual improvement: graphics and music are correct, and sound effects are specially remarkable. Now, instead of having to choose between pre-defined races, you can customize your own through a benefit / flaw system that costs or gives you picks; this is a good way to expand replayability and strategies to use, and is the best addition to Moo. Good (even necessary) fix were multiple planets in each system.

The Bad
The diplomatic model is rich in options, but making allies isn't worthy the effort, since little effect it has (improving the range of your ships, and nothing more: there is no cooperation between allies). Also, in very very few occasions you get fair tech exchanges: the AI always demands tech of superior (even much superior) value.

Tactical combat can be nice to see the first times, but it's poorly designed. Although range is taken in consideration and the Attack/Defense values isn't a bad system, current speed of the ship plays no role: if a 14-speed ship moves 7 squares a turn, in the next it shouldn't move at 0 or 14; it's unrealistic; a fast-moving ship shouldn't make a 180 degree turn at full speed, to put another example. The way combat is designed, all battles become soon a matter of close-and-shoot-until-one-of-us-explodes, so take the largest ship you can and don't bother anymore. There is no tactic. After some battles, you push the automatic (I remember a board game, Star Warriors, which combat system was the best I've seen… it would be a good system for tactical combat).

Colony management in Moo2 swifts to that of Civ-style, and that's a system I didn't like ever: a list of buildings and go on; in middle-later game, micromanagement is boring: build as many as you can, no more. How good could be the system in Moo improved. And the same can be told about tech and research: is somewhat stupid to make a choice between two or three applications in a field… and for some reason you can't research the rest! (the key to victory: Creative, and you needn't to exchange tech). The sliding bar system in Moo was better; why not simply improve it? If you're going to change anything, make something good! Changing for changing leads to the above: a silly system much worse than its predecessor.

The Bottom Line
Although improves features from Moo, replaces some good old ideas with bad ones. The sum is nothing worse, but nothing better.

The Good
M002 instantly appeals to those who've grown bored of Master of Orion's simplistic colony management. The elegant but bland production bars are tossed in favor of buildings and queues, a la CIV and Master of Magic. The Technology advances are FUN - for example, new forms of government, the capability to create new planets from asteroid fields, and a stellar converter that rips them in half.

Designing ships is implemented well - there are lots of options and opportunities to build ships for many different purposes. Ships are no longer "grouped" - they are formed into fleets but each one can be controlled separately in combat. Obsolete designs no longer must be scrapped - they can be refitted.

Diplomacy is top-notch, and espionage works well. And nothing seems wrong with the AI.

The Bad
Multiplayer is just awful. SimTex fans have been clamoring for it for so long - and it just stinks. The main culprit is the horrible multiplay code - it'll feel like play by email even on a lan. What aggravates this is that 10 turns may pass in MOO2 without much happening for a player. In singleplayer, autoskip can be used to skip turns until something happens, but waiting for other people to complete 5 turns when you have absolutely nothing to do is unbearable. And I was so looking forward to a Master of Something done with multiplayer. sigh If you really have your hopes up and must try - set up a one on one game.

The Heroes don't add much to the game - they just add bonuses to your ships and planets. In Master of Magic they may have been unbalancing, but here they're just boring.

Oh yes, and the creative skill. Don't get me started. One of the race attributes, creative, allows the race to discover every technology, where other races can only take home 1/3 to a half at their choosing. It's an expensive trait (requiring a lot of race picks when customizing a race) but it still unbalances the game so much it's difficult to play a non-creative race after playing a creative one. Creative should have made research move at a slower, but more thorough, pace.

The Bottom Line
Now I'm pissy and don't remember why I said this game was semi-successful.

But I shouldn't be so harsh - MOO2 is still fun to play dispite its flaws, and is only a letdown because of what I've come to expect from SimTex.