Master of Orion 3

This game was released unfinished, we can only guess why. So it has a ver poor reputation. However there are 2 places you can go to get files to make this game a most worthwhile one to play. http://www.moo3.at/ and http://bhruic.dyndns.org/patcher/ is a must to get fixes and great patches for the game. Without a visit to these 2 sites, you will be disapointed. I rated 5 stars to let you know how well the fan version is. 2 stars for released vanilla version.

Where MoO2 was a jewel, MoO3 is a disaster. When I first run the game, I was marveled by graphics and a load of new races and ideas. But the promise quickly turned into disappointment. The biggest problem of the game is not that it's bad. It's a decent manager - if you ignore interface so bad it chases you away all on its own. The real problem is, the game refuses to be played. It's so focused on its million tabs, controls, checkboxes and sliders that it doesn't really allow you to make much of a choice, or if it does, it fails to deliver a decent feedback. So you just sit, keep hitting end of turn button and watch how technologies appear (no, you can't chose the direction of research, you're researching everything at once), planets develop (you can make some token decisions regarding placement of zones, but if you leave it on automatic, it produces just as good results), and sometimes get to produce a ship a send it around. MoO2 had one of the best tactical combats I've seen in space 4X game. Well, here you can forget it. Clumsy realtime battles where individual weapons only manifest as differently colored beams and flashes, since you control taskforces not individual ships anymore. The game is overcomplicated, but not in "hardcore" sense where you draw satisfaction from having complete control over everything, but in sense of burying you in loads of meaningless data with little to no significance, leaving you utterly frustrated. Bottom line - stick with MoO2, there's very little better here and most of the game is much much worse.

I love Master of Orion 1 and 2 - easily in my best all time games top ten. However, MOO3 is a completely different beast, and the biggest disapointment I have ever had in computer gaming. There is nothing that links this game with the other two, it is over complicated and under fun. If you love MOO 1 and 2, then don't get this game, it will leave a sour taste in your mouth. I brought it when it first came out in 2003, and since then I have kept trying to play it, just one more time, to see if it was in fact better than I thought, perhaps I had missed something? Each time I have turned it off after a few hours of frustration and confusion. This game does not deserve to be on GOG.

It seems the strategy game market is all into complex tech trees and insane amounts of learning. Master of Orion 3 has an AI for practically everything, which makes the game sort of unique. While games such as Hearts of Iron 3 have automation in them, they don't really invite you to go ahead and allow the AI to control those parts of the game because ceding control of anything in that game cedes control of the gameplay experience. Master of Orion 3 is much different. You control what you want to control (and you can micromanage basically everything), and you get as reward what effort you put into the game. For instance, I personally don't like tech trees, so I let the AI do that for me. I do all the scouting, do about 30% of the resource management, and do all of the combat. This provides me with a unique experience for myself that others might find less enjoyable. For others, they can let the AI control OTHER things, and have fun that way. For this reason, I call this a flexible strategy game. One reviewer mentioned that you can just hit "Turn" constantly and still win. This is pretty much true, but this is a game about learning your own boundaries and expanding your strategy skills through taking control. Likening the mindless atitude toward the game to platforming games, would you like Super Mario Brothers if there was a pipe at the beginning of the first world that led you to the end of the game? Chances are, you'd try to play the game by going through the levels and not put up a stupid review saying it was too easy for you because you knew how to jump and press down. For all those complaining about the game being buggy on release, this is the latest version (1.2.5), so those comments are only relevant to year 2003. As for modding the game, there are a lot of bugs that were fixed by the community as well, which means that you probably should go through a little effort to play this game to it's highest potential, but isn't that the same as say Freespace 2, which is highly acclaimed as one of the best games ever? If you want to play it right from GOG.com, here's a little list: 1) Install GOG's package; this installs MOO3 1.2.5 2) Download the Tropical Mod from http://www.moo3.at/mods/ 3) Extract the contents of the Tropical Mod into a NEW DIRECTORY. 4) Delete "MOO3.exe", as this is a modified version of the original, CD checking EXE. They installed a bunch of patches, but those patches and patch software are included in the package. 5) Copy the contents over to your MOO3 directory. 6) Run "Moo3Patcher.exe" 7) Hit "Install" on the DLL installer. 8) Step through all the patches one by one, hitting "Patch" to patch GOG's EXE. 9) Run MOO3.exe This worked fine for me even in Linux using Wine 1.1.42.