Master of Orion II
Encyclopedia
Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares (MOO2) is a 4X
turn-based strategy
game set in space, designed by Steve Barcia
and Ken Burd, and developed by Simtex
, who developed its predecessor Master of Orion
. The PC
version of the game was published by Microprose
in 1996
, while the Apple Macintosh version was published a year later by MacSoft in partnership with Microprose
. The PC version was on sale as a download until late 2010 when Atari silently removed the game from their on-line store. While the game is no longer on sale directly from Atari copies can be found on Amazon
, online distributor and other stores. Despite its age the game still has a large fan-base and is still played online.
Master of Orion II won the Origins Award
for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1996, and was well received, although reviewers differed about which aspects they liked and disliked. It is still used as a yardstick
in reviews of more recent space-based 4X games.
Victory can be gained by military or diplomatic means. Major elements of the game's strategy include the design of custom races and the need to balance the requirements for food, production, cash and research. The user interface
, which is mainly mouse-based but includes keyboard shortcut
s, provides a central screen for most economic management and other screens that control research, diplomacy, ship movement, combat and warship design.
As at November 2011, Master Of Orion 2: Battle At Antares can be freely downloaded,
and one group of enthusiasts has developed a patch
which adds set-up options.
". The Orions then departed from the galaxy, but left behind a very powerful robotic warship, the Guardian, to protect their homeworld. Whoever beats the Guardian gets military technologies which players cannot research for themselves and the opportunity to colonize the Orions' homeworld, which is usually the best planet in the galaxy in all respects.
Some time after the start of a game, the Antarans, breaking out of the prison dimension to which the Orions banished them, begin sending increasingly powerful fleets against players' colonies, simply to destroy rather than to invade. The only way to stop the Antarans' campaign of terror is to carry the battle to their home universe through a Dimensional Portal.
s and asteroid
s require the planet construction technology. Colonizable planets vary in several ways, making some more desirable than others:
The most desirable systems are usually guarded by space monsters, much less powerful than Orion's Guardian but still a severe challenge in the early game, when fleets are small and low-tech.
an entire system, preventing the delivery of food.
Each player can change each of its colony's output by moving colonists between farming, industry and research, except that natives can only farm. All normal colonists pay a standard tax to the imperial treasury and in emergencies one can set a higher tax rate, but this reduces industrial output. A player can use surplus money to accelerate industrial production at specified colonies, but not to increase agricultural or research output.
Maintaining buildings costs money and so does running an excessively large fleet. Ships of different sizes require different numbers of "command points". These are provided by orbital bases, which are major construction projects for small colonies. This severely limits the size of empires' fleets in the early game, where one can have only one frigate (smallest type of ship) per starbase or one battleship (largest type of ship in the early game) per 4 starbases without having to "buy" command points, which is very expensive.
Research, usually followed by construction of appropriate buildings, can improve all types of productivity including cashflow and command points, and can also reduce or eliminate pollution, which otherwise is a serious constraint on industrial output in the early game.
Falling behind in technology is likely to be fatal. There are eight research areas, each divided into several levels, each of which contains one to four technologies. To research a higher-level technology, one must first have researched the previous level. "Creative" races get all the technologies at a particular level by completing one research project at that level; most races must choose only one technology from each level; "uncreative" races get no choice and the game software randomly selects a technology for them at each level. Players can also acquire technologies by exchange or diplomatic threats, spying
, hiring colonial leaders or ship commanders with knowledge of certain tech, planetary conquest, or capturing and dismantling enemy ships, random events and just by stumbling upon it in a derelict craft orbiting a newly discovered planet.
All weapons and some other combat-related components benefit from miniaturization, in which further advances in the technology area that provides them will reduce the size and production cost of these components. Miniaturization also makes available modifications for most weapons, which usually entail a significant increase in their cost and size but can greatly improve their effectiveness in the right situations.
Colony ships, outpost ships, troop transports and warships benefit from technology advances which increase the travel range and speed of all of an empire's ships free of charge.
Players can design warships, provided they choose the "tactical combat" option in game set-up. One can design a maximum of 5 classes at a time, but can have an indefinite number of classes in operation. Players can also refit ships to take advantage of technology improvements which do not provide free upgrades.
or Master of Orion III
where interstellar travel is possible only or mainly via "wormholes" and it is possible to set up easily-defended choke point
s.
In Master of Orion II, space combat occurs only within star systems, either over a planet one side is attacking or on the outskirts of a system, if one side is driving away the other's blockade
rs or trying to prevent an enemy buildup. If the defending side has warships and several colonies in a system, they automatically scramble to defend whichever colony is attacked. Limitations on the size of empires' fleets mean that most battles involve only a handful of ships on each side. Ships do not form stacks as in Master of Orion
, but move and fire individually.
At the start of a game the gamer chooses whether all space combat should be "tactical" (controlled by the player) or "strategic" (controlled by the software), but choosing strategic combat prevents the gamer from designing his/her own ships. In tactical screen the gamer can use the "Auto" button to make the software take control of the player's ships and finish the battle.
Enemy colonies can be taken over only after all orbital and planet-based defenses have been destroyed and all defending ships have been destroyed or forced to retreat. Telepathic races can mind-control enemy populations, but mind-control is thwarted if the defending system belongs to a telepathic race or is governed by a telepathic leader. In other cases the only way to seize control of an enemy colony is by invading. In order to do this, the attacking fleet must include some troop transports, which will be lost if the invasion fails, and at least transports will be permanently deployed on the planet if the invasion succeeds. A player cannot control ground combat: the result depends on numbers, ground combat technologies, racial ground combat bonuses, and some Leaders if present. However the game displays the progress of the combat and the ground combat technologies and bonuses used by each side.
Mind-controlled colonies are instantly loyal to their new owners. Other recently-occupied colonies on the other hand are disaffected, have poor productivity, and may rebel and rejoin the empire which founded them. Productivity slowly improves and the risk of rebellion slowly recedes, and there is a way to speed up these improvements.
Instead of invading, a victorious attacker may destroy an enemy colony by various means.
Master of Orion II provides 13 pre-defined playable races, three of which are additions to those available in Master of Orion
. The game also allows players to create custom races, and a group of enthusiasts regard race design as a crucial element of strategy. Each player starts with 10 "picks" (race design points). Choosing advantageous traits reduces the number of picks available, while choosing disadvantages increases them, but players cannot choose more than 10 picks' worth of disadvantages. Most of the options are major or minor advantages and minor disadvantages in farming, industry, research, population growth, money, space combat, espionage and ground combat.
The race design system also offers "special abilities" that have various effects on various aspects of their effectiveness. The most expensive of these are:
The player chooses the empire's form of government, which has almost as much influence on how it performs as the choices described above, but the "best" governments cost a lot of picks. Dictatorships are the most common governments for the pre-defined races, and cost no picks. Democracy provides major advantages in research and money, but is the most vulnerable to spying and sabotage. Unification government provides advantages in farming, industrial production and defense against espionage, but does not benefit from morale. Feudalism provides a large reduction in spaceship construction costs, but suffers from very slow research; the race design menu treats Feudalism as a significant disadvantage. Each government can be upgraded once by research, but the upgrades generally increase the advantages of each without decreasing its disadvantages.
This is mainly mouse-driven, but some screens also have hotkeys for important functions.
The main screen consists mainly of a map of the galaxy, which can be zoomed
but not scrolled
. Stars have names which are color-coded to show which empires have colonies round them, and dotted lines show friendly and enemy ship movements. Clicking on a star that the player has already visited produces a pop-up window which shows the planets round that star. Clicking a fleet allows the player to give orders and displays a pop-up which shows each ship in the fleet. The buttons along the bottom give access to various menus, and the icons on the right provide information about the status of the empire and access to additional menus.
Players can manage their economies almost entirely from the Colony List, which can be sorted by any of one of: Name, Population, Food production, Industrial production, Research production, the item currently being built, or Cash (BC) generated. The Colony List allows the player to access any colony's Build Menu, and to change a colony's output by moving colonists between Farmers, Workers and Scientists.
The Build Menu allows the player to queue up to 7 items (buildings, ships or spies) for construction at a colony, to refit ships in that colony's system and to design ships which may then be built at any colony.
At the end of each turn Master of Orion II shows a report in which items link to the appropriate display, usually to a colony's Build menu when a construction project has been completed.
The Information menu gives access to: a History Graph which shows how the player's empire compares with rival empires; the racial characteristics of all empires with which the player is in contact; the technologies the player has researched; and descriptions of all technologies, including the exotic ones which the player cannot research but may gain by beating Orion's Guardian or by capturing an Antaran ship and scrapping it afterwards.
and Ken Burd,, and developed by Barcia's company Simtex
, which had previously developed Master of Orion
, published in 1993 by Microprose
. For Master of Orion II Simtex provided: additional pre-defined races and the option to create custom races; and multiplayer options. The first "Orion" game's graphics had also been heavily criticized, and the second included higher-quality artwork displayed at a higher resolution.
In June 1995 Microprose agreed to buy Simtex, and turned it into an internal development division. The acquisition continued to be known as "Simtex Software", and the Simtex logo appears briefly before Microprose's while MOO II is loading. Microprose released Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares for IBM-compatible PCs
in 1996, and an Apple Macintosh version was published a year later by Microprose in partnership with MacSoft.
The production team included:
As of November 2011, GameAxis Unwirder supplies Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares.
(2000), Galactic Civilizations II (2006–2009) and Lost Empire: Immortals
(2008).
Lombardi (2006), writing for Armchair General, compared favorability Master of Orion against Galactic Civilizations II:, as: a player of Galactic Civilizations II must balance micromanagement
against the ability to let the details manage themselves; while Masters of Orion II includes a tactical battle option, Galactic Civilizations II automatically resolve combat, which emphasise the need to redesign for new opponent; Galactic Civilizations II′ tech tree
is so long that one could spend months researching the tree in detail. However, Chick founded it easy to readjust every few turns in Masters of Orion II.
"trancejeremy" (2007) wrote that Master of Orion II was long regarded as the greatest of space-based 4X
games. In his opinion, Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar′ first expansion pack now borrowed features from Master of Orion II, and adds a few but significant additions enhancements which change gameplay greatly.
Ocampo (2008) condisered the upgraded Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords
to have out done Master of Orion II, as the new claimant very latest version of the sequel looks like the very late version of the sequel, Galactic Civilizations II looks like now Master of Orion II has the heir that everyone has been waiting for.
For many turn-based space strategy gamers, at the top of the genre Master of Orion II is still occupies the top point, which Yahoo finds depressing, as the game was first released in 1996. However, that could change soon, because it looks like someone is finally coming out with a faithful successor to Master of Orion II. Stardock announced this week that it has finished work on Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords, the follow-up to 2003's strategy gem Galactic Civilizations. The first Galactic Civilizations was a great strategy game with excellent artificial intelligence and deep gameplay, but it wasn't quite full-featured enough to be a proper heir to the Master of Orion throne. Stardock took note and went back to the drawing board, and as Yahoo concluded while playing with a very late version of the sequel, Galactic Civilizations II looks like the Master of Orion heir that everyone has been waiting for.
s. A review specifically for the Mac version complained that the user interface
was "clunky", as this PC port lacked features common in programs originally developed for the Mac.
CNET Archive considers that Master of Orion′s graphics come alive, while those of Space Empires: IV are "plain and unpolished".
as worthy extension of the tradition of space-based conquer.
for the MS-DOS version, which fixes some bugs and adds more game set-up options, and a few mods
which adjust the game balance
. Difficulties have been reported in running the game directly under Windows XP
, Windows Vista
and Mac OS X
, and the same enthusiasts recommend running the MS-DOS version under the control of the emulator
DOSBox
, which they say also offers some advantages for online multi-player games and works equally well for Linux
and Mac OS
users.
So far there has been one sequel, Master of Orion 3. Comments by reviewers and players have mostly been unfavorable. Despite the similar names, there are large differences in gameplay between Master of Orion II and Master of Orion 3.
4X
4X games are a genre of strategy video game in which players control an empire and "explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate." The term was first coined by Alan Emrich in his September 1993 preview of Master of Orion for Computer Gaming World...
turn-based strategy
Turn-based strategy
A turn-based strategy game is a strategy game where players take turns when playing...
game set in space, designed by Steve Barcia
Steve Barcia
Steve Barcia is a game programmer, game producer and entrepreneur, having founded the computer game developer Simtex Studios Inc. in 1988. The company released computer games such as Master of Magic, Master of Orion and Master of Orion II....
and Ken Burd, and developed by Simtex
Simtex
Simtex was a video game developer established by Steve Barcia in 1988. It created a number of well-known turn-based strategy games for the PC, most notably the first two Master of Orion games...
, who developed its predecessor Master of Orion
Master of Orion
Master of Orion is a turn-based, 4X science fiction computer strategy game released in 1993 by MicroProse on the MS-DOS and Mac OS operating systems. The purpose of the game is to lead one of ten races to dominate the galaxy through a combination of diplomacy and conquest while developing...
. The PC
IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
version of the game was published by Microprose
MicroProse
MicroProse was a video game publisher and developer, founded by Wild Bill Stealey and Sid Meier in 1982 as Microprose Software. In 1993, the company became a subsidiary of Spectrum HoloByte and has remained a subsidiary or brand name under several other corporations since...
in 1996
1996 in video gaming
-Notable releases:*January 29 — Duke Nukem 3D, successor to the simple side-scrolling originals, and a genre-redefining title for first person shooters....
, while the Apple Macintosh version was published a year later by MacSoft in partnership with Microprose
MicroProse
MicroProse was a video game publisher and developer, founded by Wild Bill Stealey and Sid Meier in 1982 as Microprose Software. In 1993, the company became a subsidiary of Spectrum HoloByte and has remained a subsidiary or brand name under several other corporations since...
. The PC version was on sale as a download until late 2010 when Atari silently removed the game from their on-line store. While the game is no longer on sale directly from Atari copies can be found on Amazon
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
, online distributor and other stores. Despite its age the game still has a large fan-base and is still played online.
Master of Orion II won the Origins Award
Origins Award
The Origins Awards are American awards for outstanding work in the game industry. They are presented by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design at the Origins Game Fair on an annual basis for the previous year, so the 1979 awards were given at the 1980 Origins.The Origins Award is commonly...
for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1996, and was well received, although reviewers differed about which aspects they liked and disliked. It is still used as a yardstick
Yardstick
A yardstick is a straightedge used to physically measure lengths of up to a yard high. Yardsticks are flat wooden boards with markings at regular intervals.-Construction:...
in reviews of more recent space-based 4X games.
Victory can be gained by military or diplomatic means. Major elements of the game's strategy include the design of custom races and the need to balance the requirements for food, production, cash and research. The user interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
, which is mainly mouse-based but includes keyboard shortcut
Keyboard shortcut
In computing, a keyboard shortcut is a finite set of one or more keys that invoke a software or operating system operation when triggered by the user. A meaning of term "keyboard shortcut" can vary depending on software manufacturer...
s, provides a central screen for most economic management and other screens that control research, diplomacy, ship movement, combat and warship design.
As at November 2011, Master Of Orion 2: Battle At Antares can be freely downloaded,
and one group of enthusiasts has developed a patch
Patch (computing)
A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance...
which adds set-up options.
Backstory
Long before the time in which the game starts, two extremely powerful races, known as the Orions and the Antarans, fought a war that devastated most of the galaxy. The Orions won and, rather than exterminate the Antarans, imprisoned them in a "pocket dimensionPocket universe
-In science:A pocket universe is a concept in inflationary theory, proposed by Alan Guth. It defines a realm like the one that contains the observable universe as only one of many inflationary zones.-In fiction:...
". The Orions then departed from the galaxy, but left behind a very powerful robotic warship, the Guardian, to protect their homeworld. Whoever beats the Guardian gets military technologies which players cannot research for themselves and the opportunity to colonize the Orions' homeworld, which is usually the best planet in the galaxy in all respects.
Some time after the start of a game, the Antarans, breaking out of the prison dimension to which the Orions banished them, begin sending increasingly powerful fleets against players' colonies, simply to destroy rather than to invade. The only way to stop the Antarans' campaign of terror is to carry the battle to their home universe through a Dimensional Portal.
Victory conditions
Despite the game's name, conquering the Orion star system does not automatically win the game. There are three routes to victory: conquer all opponents; be elected as the supreme leader of the galaxy; or make a successful assault against the Antaran homeworld. To be elected, a player needs two-thirds of the total votes, and each empire's votes are based on the population under its control.Stars and planets
Star systems have at most five colonizable planets, and a few have none. Players can colonize all types of planets although gas giantGas giant
A gas giant is a large planet that is not primarily composed of rock or other solid matter. There are four gas giants in the Solar System: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune...
s and asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
s require the planet construction technology. Colonizable planets vary in several ways, making some more desirable than others:
- Population capacity, which on most planets can be improved by terraformingTerraformingTerraforming of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth, in order to make it habitable by terrestrial organisms.The term is sometimes used more generally as a...
. "Toxic" planets cannot be terraformed. - Ease of growing food, which is important for the reasons described below. At the start of the game most planets are incapable of supporting agriculture, but terraforming can remedy this, except on "toxic" planets.
- Very rare "splinter colonies", which automatically join the empire that discovers them and acquire its racial advantages and disadvantages.
- Sometimes other features that increase or decrease productivity in one or more of farming, industry, research and cashflow.
The most desirable systems are usually guarded by space monsters, much less powerful than Orion's Guardian but still a severe challenge in the early game, when fleets are small and low-tech.
How planets' economies work
Without food, a colony will starve to death. If an empire as a whole has a food surplus, it can prevent starvation by sending food in freighters, which are produced (in groups of five) like any other ship and require a small amount of upkeep when in use. However, just one hostile warship of any size can blockadeBlockade
A blockade is an effort to cut off food, supplies, war material or communications from a particular area by force, either in part or totally. A blockade should not be confused with an embargo or sanctions, which are legal barriers to trade, and is distinct from a siege in that a blockade is usually...
an entire system, preventing the delivery of food.
Each player can change each of its colony's output by moving colonists between farming, industry and research, except that natives can only farm. All normal colonists pay a standard tax to the imperial treasury and in emergencies one can set a higher tax rate, but this reduces industrial output. A player can use surplus money to accelerate industrial production at specified colonies, but not to increase agricultural or research output.
Maintaining buildings costs money and so does running an excessively large fleet. Ships of different sizes require different numbers of "command points". These are provided by orbital bases, which are major construction projects for small colonies. This severely limits the size of empires' fleets in the early game, where one can have only one frigate (smallest type of ship) per starbase or one battleship (largest type of ship in the early game) per 4 starbases without having to "buy" command points, which is very expensive.
Research, usually followed by construction of appropriate buildings, can improve all types of productivity including cashflow and command points, and can also reduce or eliminate pollution, which otherwise is a serious constraint on industrial output in the early game.
The technology tree
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
, hiring colonial leaders or ship commanders with knowledge of certain tech, planetary conquest, or capturing and dismantling enemy ships, random events and just by stumbling upon it in a derelict craft orbiting a newly discovered planet.
All weapons and some other combat-related components benefit from miniaturization, in which further advances in the technology area that provides them will reduce the size and production cost of these components. Miniaturization also makes available modifications for most weapons, which usually entail a significant increase in their cost and size but can greatly improve their effectiveness in the right situations.
Diplomacy
Master of Orion II provides a wide range of diplomatic negotiations: gifts of money or technology or even all the colonies in a star system; opportunities to demand such concessions from other players; technology trades; trade, non-aggression and alliance treaties. The diplomacy menu, called "Races" in the game, also enables the player to allocate spies between defensive duties and spying or sabotage against other empires, and to check opponents' technological progress and diplomatic relationships.Spaceship design
The designs of colony ships, outpost ships and troop transports are fixed.These three ship types will be destroyed instantly if they travel without an escort and are attacked by anything, even the weakest combat ship.Colony ships, outpost ships, troop transports and warships benefit from technology advances which increase the travel range and speed of all of an empire's ships free of charge.
Players can design warships, provided they choose the "tactical combat" option in game set-up. One can design a maximum of 5 classes at a time, but can have an indefinite number of classes in operation. Players can also refit ships to take advantage of technology improvements which do not provide free upgrades.
Combat and invasion
Ships can travel to any star system within their range, unlike games such as Space EmpiresSpace Empires
The Space Empires series is a long-lasting series of 4X turn-based strategy games by Malfador Machinations that allows the player to assume the role of the leader of a space-faring civilization.-Gameplay summary:...
or Master of Orion III
Master of Orion III
Master of Orion III is a 4X turn-based strategy game and the third in the Master of Orion series. MoO3 was developed by Quicksilver Software and published by Infogrames on February 25, 2003.-Backstory:...
where interstellar travel is possible only or mainly via "wormholes" and it is possible to set up easily-defended choke point
Choke point
In military strategy, a choke point is a geographical feature on land such as a valley, defile or a bridge, or at sea such as a strait which an armed force is forced to pass, sometimes on a substantially narrower front, and therefore greatly decreasing its combat power, in order to reach its...
s.
In Master of Orion II, space combat occurs only within star systems, either over a planet one side is attacking or on the outskirts of a system, if one side is driving away the other's blockade
Blockade
A blockade is an effort to cut off food, supplies, war material or communications from a particular area by force, either in part or totally. A blockade should not be confused with an embargo or sanctions, which are legal barriers to trade, and is distinct from a siege in that a blockade is usually...
rs or trying to prevent an enemy buildup. If the defending side has warships and several colonies in a system, they automatically scramble to defend whichever colony is attacked. Limitations on the size of empires' fleets mean that most battles involve only a handful of ships on each side. Ships do not form stacks as in Master of Orion
Master of Orion
Master of Orion is a turn-based, 4X science fiction computer strategy game released in 1993 by MicroProse on the MS-DOS and Mac OS operating systems. The purpose of the game is to lead one of ten races to dominate the galaxy through a combination of diplomacy and conquest while developing...
, but move and fire individually.
At the start of a game the gamer chooses whether all space combat should be "tactical" (controlled by the player) or "strategic" (controlled by the software), but choosing strategic combat prevents the gamer from designing his/her own ships. In tactical screen the gamer can use the "Auto" button to make the software take control of the player's ships and finish the battle.
Enemy colonies can be taken over only after all orbital and planet-based defenses have been destroyed and all defending ships have been destroyed or forced to retreat. Telepathic races can mind-control enemy populations, but mind-control is thwarted if the defending system belongs to a telepathic race or is governed by a telepathic leader. In other cases the only way to seize control of an enemy colony is by invading. In order to do this, the attacking fleet must include some troop transports, which will be lost if the invasion fails, and at least transports will be permanently deployed on the planet if the invasion succeeds. A player cannot control ground combat: the result depends on numbers, ground combat technologies, racial ground combat bonuses, and some Leaders if present. However the game displays the progress of the combat and the ground combat technologies and bonuses used by each side.
Mind-controlled colonies are instantly loyal to their new owners. Other recently-occupied colonies on the other hand are disaffected, have poor productivity, and may rebel and rejoin the empire which founded them. Productivity slowly improves and the risk of rebellion slowly recedes, and there is a way to speed up these improvements.
Instead of invading, a victorious attacker may destroy an enemy colony by various means.
Leaders
From time to time players get opportunities to hire leaders, for an annual salary and usually a hiring fee. Colony leaders improve the farming and/or industrial and/or research and/or financial productivity of all colonies in the system to which they are assigned, and some improve the efficiency of defensive or offensive spies. Ship leaders improve the combat effectiveness of their ships and some improve their travel speed. A few leaders of both types also improve the performance of warships and/or ground troops under their command, or contribute directly to a player's finances, or attract other leaders, usually for a reduced hiring fee.Random events
From time to time there are lucky breaks, disasters or emergencies which are not caused by any player's actions. These can be disabled in the game start-up menu.Playable races
Master of Orion
Master of Orion is a turn-based, 4X science fiction computer strategy game released in 1993 by MicroProse on the MS-DOS and Mac OS operating systems. The purpose of the game is to lead one of ten races to dominate the galaxy through a combination of diplomacy and conquest while developing...
. The game also allows players to create custom races, and a group of enthusiasts regard race design as a crucial element of strategy. Each player starts with 10 "picks" (race design points). Choosing advantageous traits reduces the number of picks available, while choosing disadvantages increases them, but players cannot choose more than 10 picks' worth of disadvantages. Most of the options are major or minor advantages and minor disadvantages in farming, industry, research, population growth, money, space combat, espionage and ground combat.
The race design system also offers "special abilities" that have various effects on various aspects of their effectiveness. The most expensive of these are:
- "Tolerant" races have a higher population limit on colonized planets than most other races, and their industrial productivity is not reduced by pollution.
- "Lithovores" feed on the natural minerals of a planet, and do not need to farm.
- "Creative" races research all the technologies at each level by completing one research project; all other races must choose one technological application to develop out of a given research project; "uncreative" races get no choice and the software randomly selects an application to be developed out of each research project undertaken. "Creative" is the third most expensive option.
The player chooses the empire's form of government, which has almost as much influence on how it performs as the choices described above, but the "best" governments cost a lot of picks. Dictatorships are the most common governments for the pre-defined races, and cost no picks. Democracy provides major advantages in research and money, but is the most vulnerable to spying and sabotage. Unification government provides advantages in farming, industrial production and defense against espionage, but does not benefit from morale. Feudalism provides a large reduction in spaceship construction costs, but suffers from very slow research; the race design menu treats Feudalism as a significant disadvantage. Each government can be upgraded once by research, but the upgrades generally increase the advantages of each without decreasing its disadvantages.
User interface
The main screen consists mainly of a map of the galaxy, which can be zoomed
Digital zoom
Digital zoom is a method of decreasing the apparent angle of view of a digital photographic or video image. Digital zoom is accomplished by cropping an image down to a centered area with the same aspect ratio as the original, and usually also interpolating the result back up to the pixel...
but not scrolled
Scrolling
In computer graphics, filmmaking, television production, and other kinetic displays, scrolling is sliding text, images or video across a monitor or display. "Scrolling", as such, does not change the layout of the text or pictures, or but incrementally moves the user's view across what is...
. Stars have names which are color-coded to show which empires have colonies round them, and dotted lines show friendly and enemy ship movements. Clicking on a star that the player has already visited produces a pop-up window which shows the planets round that star. Clicking a fleet allows the player to give orders and displays a pop-up which shows each ship in the fleet. The buttons along the bottom give access to various menus, and the icons on the right provide information about the status of the empire and access to additional menus.
The Build Menu allows the player to queue up to 7 items (buildings, ships or spies) for construction at a colony, to refit ships in that colony's system and to design ships which may then be built at any colony.
At the end of each turn Master of Orion II shows a report in which items link to the appropriate display, usually to a colony's Build menu when a construction project has been completed.
The Information menu gives access to: a History Graph which shows how the player's empire compares with rival empires; the racial characteristics of all empires with which the player is in contact; the technologies the player has researched; and descriptions of all technologies, including the exotic ones which the player cannot research but may gain by beating Orion's Guardian or by capturing an Antaran ship and scrapping it afterwards.
Development
The game was designed by Steve BarciaSteve Barcia
Steve Barcia is a game programmer, game producer and entrepreneur, having founded the computer game developer Simtex Studios Inc. in 1988. The company released computer games such as Master of Magic, Master of Orion and Master of Orion II....
and Ken Burd,, and developed by Barcia's company Simtex
Simtex
Simtex was a video game developer established by Steve Barcia in 1988. It created a number of well-known turn-based strategy games for the PC, most notably the first two Master of Orion games...
, which had previously developed Master of Orion
Master of Orion
Master of Orion is a turn-based, 4X science fiction computer strategy game released in 1993 by MicroProse on the MS-DOS and Mac OS operating systems. The purpose of the game is to lead one of ten races to dominate the galaxy through a combination of diplomacy and conquest while developing...
, published in 1993 by Microprose
MicroProse
MicroProse was a video game publisher and developer, founded by Wild Bill Stealey and Sid Meier in 1982 as Microprose Software. In 1993, the company became a subsidiary of Spectrum HoloByte and has remained a subsidiary or brand name under several other corporations since...
. For Master of Orion II Simtex provided: additional pre-defined races and the option to create custom races; and multiplayer options. The first "Orion" game's graphics had also been heavily criticized, and the second included higher-quality artwork displayed at a higher resolution.
In June 1995 Microprose agreed to buy Simtex, and turned it into an internal development division. The acquisition continued to be known as "Simtex Software", and the Simtex logo appears briefly before Microprose's while MOO II is loading. Microprose released Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares for IBM-compatible PCs
IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
in 1996, and an Apple Macintosh version was published a year later by Microprose in partnership with MacSoft.
The production team included:
- Design: Steve Barcia (Lead Designer), Ken Burd
- Programming: Ken Burd (Lead programmer) and 5 others
- Art: Dave Lawell (Lead Artists) and 8 others
- Music: Laura Barret
- Sound: John Henke
As of November 2011, GameAxis Unwirder supplies Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares.
Reception
| Aggregator Review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services . This system stores the reviews and then uses them for purposes such as: creating a website for users to view the reviews, selling information to third parties about consumer tendencies and creating databases for... | Score |
|---|---|
| GameRankings | 8.7 |
| Metacritic | 84% |
| From 1990s | Score |
| Meinfelder | 3/5 |
| Ward | 8.7 |
| Retrospectives | Score |
| Chick | "looming large" |
| Current (in 2011) | Score |
| Ocamp | 6.0 From 1990s |
| "trancejeremy" | 7/10 |
Allover reception
Chick's retrospective review (2001) described Master of Orion II and its predecessor Master of Orion as "looming large" in any discussion of space-based strategy games. Master of Orion II has been used as the standard for comparison in reviews of more recent space-based 4X games such as Space Empires IVSpace Empires IV
Space Empires IV is a turn-based 4Xstrategy computer game developed by Malfador Machinations and published by Strategy First as part of the Space Empires series in which players control an alien race in an attempt at galactic conquest.- Gameplay :...
(2000), Galactic Civilizations II (2006–2009) and Lost Empire: Immortals
Lost Empire
Lost Empire is a 4X turn-based strategy video game developed by Pollux Gamelabs and released in June 2007.-Synopsis:The game is set in the year 4620. There are seven major civilizations in space, humankind is one of them...
(2008).
Lombardi (2006), writing for Armchair General, compared favorability Master of Orion against Galactic Civilizations II:, as: a player of Galactic Civilizations II must balance micromanagement
Micromanagement
In business management, micromanagement is a management style where a manager closely observes or controls the work of her or his subordinates or employees...
against the ability to let the details manage themselves; while Masters of Orion II includes a tactical battle option, Galactic Civilizations II automatically resolve combat, which emphasise the need to redesign for new opponent; Galactic Civilizations II′ tech tree
Tech tree
In strategy computer games, the technology tree or tech tree is a hierarchical visual representation of the possible sequences of upgrades a player can take, by means of research. The diagram is tree-shaped in the sense that it branches at certain intervals, allowing the player to choose one...
is so long that one could spend months researching the tree in detail. However, Chick founded it easy to readjust every few turns in Masters of Orion II.
"trancejeremy" (2007) wrote that Master of Orion II was long regarded as the greatest of space-based 4X
4X
4X games are a genre of strategy video game in which players control an empire and "explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate." The term was first coined by Alan Emrich in his September 1993 preview of Master of Orion for Computer Gaming World...
games. In his opinion, Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar′ first expansion pack now borrowed features from Master of Orion II, and adds a few but significant additions enhancements which change gameplay greatly.
Ocampo (2008) condisered the upgraded Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords
Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords
Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords is a 4X turn-based strategy computer game by Stardock...
to have out done Master of Orion II, as the new claimant very latest version of the sequel looks like the very late version of the sequel, Galactic Civilizations II looks like now Master of Orion II has the heir that everyone has been waiting for.
For many turn-based space strategy gamers, at the top of the genre Master of Orion II is still occupies the top point, which Yahoo finds depressing, as the game was first released in 1996. However, that could change soon, because it looks like someone is finally coming out with a faithful successor to Master of Orion II. Stardock announced this week that it has finished work on Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords, the follow-up to 2003's strategy gem Galactic Civilizations. The first Galactic Civilizations was a great strategy game with excellent artificial intelligence and deep gameplay, but it wasn't quite full-featured enough to be a proper heir to the Master of Orion throne. Stardock took note and went back to the drawing board, and as Yahoo concluded while playing with a very late version of the sequel, Galactic Civilizations II looks like the Master of Orion heir that everyone has been waiting for.
Graghic quality
There were complaints that the loading of copious artwork from the CD made the game run slowly, and both a reviewer and enthusiasts now advise players to avoid this by loading all of the files on to their hard diskHard disk
A hard disk drive is a non-volatile, random access digital magnetic data storage device. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the...
s. A review specifically for the Mac version complained that the user interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
was "clunky", as this PC port lacked features common in programs originally developed for the Mac.
CNET Archive considers that Master of Orion′s graphics come alive, while those of Space Empires: IV are "plain and unpolished".
Other aspect
VanOrd (2011) considered Master of Orion II the progenitor of space-based 4X games, and regarded Sword of the StarsSword of the Stars
Sword of the Stars is a space 4X game developed by Kerberos Productions. In the game the player chooses one of four unique races to form an interstellar empire and conquer the galaxy...
as worthy extension of the tradition of space-based conquer.
Post-publication
Atari no longer sells the PC version of the game as a download, even though they have done so until August 2010. However, Good old Games sells the game as a DRM free download coupled with the first game. , and also freely at the online distributors. Master Of Orion 2 The game is still played online, and one group of enthusiasts has developed a patchPatch (computing)
A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance...
for the MS-DOS version, which fixes some bugs and adds more game set-up options, and a few mods
Mod (computer gaming)
Mod or modification is a term generally applied to personal computer games , especially first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and...
which adjust the game balance
Game balance
Game balance is a concept in game design describing fairness or balance of power in a game between multiple players or strategic options. Each team or person would be equally matched in every aspect.- Overview :...
. Difficulties have been reported in running the game directly under Windows XP
Windows XP
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
, Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
and Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, and the same enthusiasts recommend running the MS-DOS version under the control of the emulator
Emulator
In computing, an emulator is hardware or software or both that duplicates the functions of a first computer system in a different second computer system, so that the behavior of the second system closely resembles the behavior of the first system...
DOSBox
DOSBox
DOSBox is emulator software that emulates an IBM PC compatible computer running MS-DOS. It is intended especially for use with old PC games. DOSBox is free software....
, which they say also offers some advantages for online multi-player games and works equally well for Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
and Mac OS
Mac OS
Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
users.
So far there has been one sequel, Master of Orion 3. Comments by reviewers and players have mostly been unfavorable. Despite the similar names, there are large differences in gameplay between Master of Orion II and Master of Orion 3.