Master of Orion 1+2

If you like sci-fi (Star Trek, Babylon V, Battlestar Galactica, etc), you will love these games. Heck, if you even moderately interested by sci-fi and you've had enough patience in your life to sit through a chess or board game, you will love these games. They are not perfect (which gives us TBS game designers out there something to strive for), but they are probably the closest things to perfection I've seen and this is from someone who played over 500 games spanning all genres. So many games out there are overly ambitious and barely manage to make a coherent whole out of many elements that individually feel very shallow. Well, these 2 games were overly ambitious and they managed make a hell of a game out of many elements that are individually very satisfying and that, when combined together make something that can be described with words... it must be experienced to fully grasp the magnitude of what was created. Concerning the comparison between MOO1 and MOO2, here are a couple of points from the top of my head: 1) The spaceship battles (with individual ships rather than stacks) were more detailed and satisfying in the second game. 2) Ship design was also more satisfying in the second game (things like specifying point defense or firing arc for the weapons was a nice touch) as it was more detailed. 3) Spying (with more direct control over the outcomes of both espionage and sabotage) was more satisfying in the first game. 3) Colony management was interesting in the second game in the early game, but once you started having many, many star system, it would become more tedious than fun so that aspect was better in the first. 4) Interracial colonies was an interesting aspect of the second game. 5) Planetary defense was better in the first game, because you could build as much of it as you wanted (with financial constraints in mind) as opposed to being limited to one defensive building of each type per colony. 6) Ground combat was ok in the second one, but felt more satisfying in the first one (sending your population directly to do battle against his with the possibility of passing through planetary defense with losses if you couldn't take them out in space combat wasn't realistic, but it was epic). 7) Space monsters and Antarans was a nice addition to the second game. 8) Race customization was also a nice addition to the second game. 9) The tech three in the second game forced you to make some hard decision (in the first game, you'd get the vast majority of the tech three with a few techs being skipped over at random) which was probably better, but creative was kinda imbalanced. I wish that instead of giving all techs, it could have given 2/3 of the techs or something.

I created a username for this site just to make this review. I'm a fan of some older games not because I'm on a 486 or anything weird, but it's because there're some good games out there and they're cheap and no worries about your hardware with these gems. Simply put, MOO1 and MOO2 belong on your hard-drive if you think you're a 4x fan. I honestly don't know where to start. I bought MOO1 probably 15 years ago and MOO2 around the same time. I had a lot of fun with MOO1. One of the things I think it did better than MOO2 had to do with its design screen for ships. If I recall right, the selection of weapons and upgrades for ships in MOO1 was wider and less linear than in MOO2. There were probably some other things I liked about MOO1, but it has been a long time since then. I actually lost my copy of MOO1 several years ago. (Recently, I played the pre-MOO1 game that Barcia made. I think it was named Star Lords. It's an ok game, but it's not on the same level of completion as MOO1. I'd still try it if you haven't tried MOO1. Just keep in mind that MOO1 is a much better deal than it's.) I've played MOO2 off and on for well over 10 years. In fact, I can remember playing it in 1998 while doing 8 hour shifts at a cannery. It adds a lot to the game, and removes little. Overall, it's a better game than MOO1. As I already stated, there were some things I liked better about MOO1, but MOO2 has enough on its plate that its few shortcomings can easily be forgiven. A few things off the top of my head are its improved graphics (a big bonus), the leaders (and pilots), and its customizations. There's more too. It's a rock solid game. For some reason, I keep coming back to it every 2 to 4 years and play for a few weeks stretch. It's that good. It's easy to get into, but hard to master. As others have said, each game in MOO2 is different because of random placements of things (at the start of the game) and events that happen later from various sources, The random events (monsters, disasters, antaran attacks) can be disabled at the start of a game, but the universe will always be a new one unless you load a saved game. I'm not sure whether the races make the same choices in saved games, so cannot comment about that. I can say that I have been paying for the past couple days and there's one saved game that I keep redoing. I saved it on the first turn - 3100.1. I've lost 3 times now. The good thing is, I keep getting better results with each new attempt. It's a hard map because the psilons and sakkra are on it and also because my race customizations are not the best. But this game has a habit of keeping you coming back because you want to figure out how to win a certain setup. Maybe that's why I always come back. And that's the nice thing about MOO2 because you can customize things and new games are different. I'm sure there're thigns that can be better about MOO2. I myself have thought of a few things. None of these are worthy of a whole new game series, but could be put into special edition patch or deluxe version. A few of my ideas are: 1) more functionality with the auto build feature so that you can have auto build profiles and can also dictate what a colony can and cannot build 2) improved graphics and resolution - perhaps even a 3d revamp, but this should retain the 2d top-down view 3) ability to rename any/all star systems at any time 4) more leaders and pilots (extra flavor) 5) A range calculator tool that allows you to measure the distance (in parsecs) between two star systems 6) Etc All my ideas are not meant to make a new game, but to enhance the original in a way that I think is ok. I also have Galactic Civilizations Deluxe. I haven't played Galactic Civilizations nearly as much as MOO2, so i cannot fairly make comparisons. But I will say that it's an amazing game as well. There're many things in it that you cannot find in MOO2. Some people will say MOO2 is better or that GCV 1/2 are better, but as a 4x fan you deserve to have both.

A true classic, one of the best and most significant strategy games / concepts ever, with its successful follow-up. Nothing more to add, apart from that this is so bought once I get my freakin' salary :)

Can be played every year again.

How I love MoO 1. It's been one of my favorite games for over 20 years. I've just started MoO 2 and am baffled by it. While MoO 1 excelled in elegant simplicity, MoO 2 has so many screens, options, and controls that I have no idea what to do. So far, I haven't even found a way to exit the game without closing the window. I may spend more time reading the manual than actually playing.