3.5/5 If you never played any Master of Orion, the game is just... fine. The strategy is... not overly shallow, but not particularly deep either. Tactical combat: Pretty, but not overly complex. The economics of the game: average fair. The customizability: good, but not as good as MOO2... The game just has average written all over it. But let me be a bit more specific: Economy is now like civilization instead of MOO, population growth based upon food production instead of population and Lithovore can't assign more workers to growth which creates a major balance problem. Espionage could be really interesting. You have individual agents that can go on specific missions which could theoretically have major consequences, such as a planetary rebellion or famine. In theory it looks great. But in practice, you can't build additional spies (you have to wait for them to spawn) so you can never get an edge over opponents. Moreover, only one spy works per planet, so you can't speed up missions, and getting to the important missions takes forever. You also have to have first explored a planet you want your spy to go to and then deploy the spy, which also takes a really long time to do. Essentially, espionage becomes an almost uselessto defeat an opponent because by the time you can really use it, the game is nearly over. Random events occur, but are plain. You found a derelict ship in space and found 50 credits or a free scout... Stock races are not well balanced at the moment, and if you played they old ones and care about cannon veterans of the series will find difficulty with changes (specifically thinking of the Mrrshan). Ship design is much more basic, and since combat is real time, it has a much reduced effect. Bottom line: This isn't a terrible game. But it isn't great either. It is simple and in some ways an elegant user friendly verion of MOO/MOO2. But for me, in its current state, there is just no reason to keep coming back. V erdict: 3.5/5
Deadlock II is excellent. At its core, it is a 4x game. It combines excellent population and resource management with a well designed tech tree and several fairly different species to choose from. You begin by selecting a race. each of which have distinct traits traits, and each with strengths and weaknesses. One race can see the entire map from game start but has weaker troops, another researches quickly but has morale problems in its cities, another is excellent at food production and has strong troops, but has a terrible navy. I always enjoyed the fact that Humans were also unique, having a substantial Wealth Advantage to build its cities, certain units have the unique Berserk (or suicide attack) ability, but expensive troops made it difficult to maintain a large army. A fair bit different than most games where humans are "average" at everything. Next, you select a landing location on a planet, where you must already take into multiple considerations such as where population growth will be higher vs. where resources will be more plentiful, and take into consideration neighboring territories and nearby enemy factions. You then by slowly but steadily advancing through a large tech tree, expanding across the globe, and depending upon the victory conditions, competing for shrines that grant additional bonuses. You set battle orders for your troops before they enter combat, but cannot control them once battle begins. You can also engage in rudimentary trade with your neighbors, but more interesting dealings happen with the Black Market, where you can purchase anything from intelligence, to research, to actual military units. You can also engage in diplomacy and isolate stronger neighbors, or even share vision, research or victory itself. Ultimately, this game is a ton of fun, especially in multiplayer with any computers set to an 'average' difficulty so that they are neither positively or negatively disposed towards you by default. Highly recommended.
The game currently allows you to select from one of six classes and six races, and choose specialties in up to three areas of magic (or be a novice in one and an expert in another), and then select from one of 6 races. The classes meld almost seamlessly with any race, and each are quite a bit more different than the races or magic tree selections, making this selection arguably more important than the rest, and you can choose from Class specialties like a Warlord specializing in combat and cavalry, to a Theocrat who specializes in holy damage (and holy wars), to the Dreadnought who specializes in melding machine with magic, who will send flame tanks, cannons, and pistol wielding cavalry against their foes. If it weren't for the classes, the game would be almost too balanced (as the races and magics seem to be), and lose its character, but in my humble opinion it manages well. And the game is fun. It has several game modes, and you can set up your own custom settings. Or you can play the campaign which seems engaging enough for most players. Multiplayer is available hotseat or across LAN, and you don't need an account to use it, or you can play online with an account. I have spent many hours with it and I am still enjoying setting up new scenarios. Overall, I would give the game 4 1/2 stars. But since I can't, I'll give it 5. In my opinion, it is worth buying if you have any interest in turn based strategy at all, which is the only rating that really matters.
