Master of Orion 3

Master of Orion 3 is a game I waited to play eagerly for years, having been very fond of the previous two iterations. I didn't get what I expected and many other people didn't as well, but I believe that many of us were buying tactical games that were (and still do) masquerade under the broad title of strategy. Ultimately, that's where the misunderstanding happened. Games like the previous two in the Master of Orion series were, in essence, turn-based tactical games where the player micromanaged every aspect of a stellar empire from what was built to which weapons on each specific ship were fired in combat engagements. That sort of game is much more tactical than it is true strategy. Unlike its older siblings, MOO3 really is strategic. Players approach the game from a much more abstract, upper management perspective than in previous games and this put quite a few people off. As evidenced by other reviews, that is remains the case. My own experiences with the game were initially similar. I bought my copy only a week after it landed on store shelves, eagerly tore into it, and was overwhelmed in real strategy rather than micromanagement, the numerous bugs, and the admittedly difficult to understand interface. I put it aside and was content to forget about it until a friend and neighbor were looking around for something different to do together instead of two player LAN sessions with Battlefield 1942. We gave it a go and after getting stomped and stomping back, we were both hooked. I still play this thing on my little netbook and enjoy it as it doesn't have the problems with modern Direct X and Windows operating systems newer than 98. I enjoy the truly strategic approach to empire building that lets me set broad policies that the AI executes. It's a lot like being a manager where you give employees direction and let them go about accomplishing your goals as you see fit. Like previous iterations, it's endlessly replayable and now demands very little compute power, making it a superb traveling companion for long airline flights or dull evenings in a hotel. I love the huge tech tree, the time and attention given to the storyline, the in-game encyclopedia, and the organization of fleets and ground forces. Things that detract from the experience certainly make the game less playable. It's an understatement to say the user interface is cumbersome. Learning the game takes real effort and there are some elements of it that were never fully explained in the manual. There are some features, even with the inclusion of the 1.2.5 patch that were clearly planned but not fully implemented. While these things detract from the experience, they do overshadow the better elements and are things that people saw on release day that made the game into a commercial flop. If you're going to have a go at this, I suggest finding MegaMod and GoFur's UI tweaks. They add lots to the game including fleshing out the encyclopedia with useful information and changing play dynamics in a positive manner. My bottom line is this: Give Master of Orion 3 a couple months of play before throwing it aside and don't forget to explore the insane fun of a small LAN party game with friends.

Turn based game play with DEPTH (explore, control, blockade, take over, destroy, negotiate.....) Real time space combat. With lots of ships. Different strategies actually work! MOD-ABLE with awesome mods that make it even better. I still have the original CDs. Played steams until Win10 prevented me using mods. Trying GOGs now to see if mods work. I hope so! There have always been some rabid naysayers about this game. Yes, it is extremely detailed. But if you use the features properly, you can manage so much automatically and, as noted, with mods the game is just ENDLESSLY fun.

I loved MOO2 and I ignored my friends' warning and bought this game when it originally released. This is probably the ultimate punishment game. Take MOO2, take out all the best features of the game(including combat) and combine it with an Excel-spreasheet. The game tries to play itself and fails. You can try to give it commands, but you're not guaranteed that anything will happen at all. You never get a feeling that you are in control in this game. You want to build a certain ship? Tough luck, the computer controls the game and doesn't want to build it. Try to explore a planet? No, tough luck the game doesn't want you to do that. Press end turn and you will see that something might happen or not. You will get more entertainment from watching paint dry than playing this "game". Please, for the love of Psilons, avoid this at all costs!

Almost nobody likes this game, but I have found people who like it, and those who like it, like it much. The game is quite complex, based on thorough economic and social model of galaxy. Authors claimed, that gamers should not waste their time mingling with micromanagement, but AI is far from perfect and then I reccommend to look after all details. If it doesn't sound attractive to you, forget the game, it isn't for you then. But if you scanned all your planets in MoO 1 and 2, you could like the game. I am not hard gamer, but I am playing this game for more than a year and I control approximatelly half of available planets now. Even when I am definitelly the strongest civilization in Galaxy, other civilizations keep the pace with me and I have hard times till now.

When I was young and inexperienced, I bought a copy of MOO 3 from a discount bin at the local computer store. I'd heard good things about the series, and wanted to give it a try. What I found was a mess of sliders, selectors, and drop-menus. I could play it, but I never had fun with it, and couldn't believe this kind of game was what everyone was raving about. Years later, I recieved a copy of MOO 2 as a gift, and decided to try that; now I couldn't believe how much better the second was than the third. How could a series get worse in such a drastic way? What led the creators from the fun of MOO 2 to the horror of MOO 3?