Somehow I missed this when it was initially released. I got this one recently and absolutely love it. Who cares if the graphics are dated, the gameplay is excellent. Get it, you won't regret it!
MOO is the best 4x space game ever made. I've played nearly every 4x space game made since and haven't found a better one. It has just the right amount of features and abilities, many other games have come along, including the sequels to MOO and added more features, and while fun at first they soon become nothing more than tedious. MOO2 is excellent also, but like I said, toward the end of the game the additional features they added to make the game more complex and seem like it should be more satisfying just end up becoming tedious to manage in the late game. The first MOO is just a masterpiece. I build all my own PCs and never consider my build complete until I get Master of Orion installed. It is my favorite game of all time. I have wasted way too much of my life playing it, but it's always fun to play again. I played it so much I still have the original DRM memorized. (on each page of the manual it had a ship design with the name of the design, you had to type in the correct design name to get past the copy protection) With modern PC's it's much better when playing on "impossible" difficulty. The computer turns don't take so long to process. lol. With my old 486 that I played the game on originally it could take a few minutes for each turn to process.(Back when developers actually spent more time on the AI than on just about any other aspect of the game. Now too many developers spend all their time on graphics and forget gameplay and AI. Or depend on multiplayer and forget the AI altogether.) Tip- You don't have to build stargates at every system. If you keep your fleet at a system with a star gate, you can select movement to another system with a stargate, then after you tell the fleet to go there, you can then select the fleet and change the destination to a system without a stargate and the movement will still happen in 1 turn. (requires hyperspace communications tech) Stargates are high maintenance so if you build fewer of them you'll have more money.
