If you like Master of Orion 2, then this is the game you want to have. It is actually the game, everyone expected from MMO3. However, as good as this game is, there is still some room for improvement and I will tell more now. The game is mostly a 1:1 copy of all concepts from MOO2, which is fine, because MOO2 was already a cool game. I also like, that some new concepts have been introduces, which makes sense: * A very innovative exploration system, which helps, that even in the middle game it makes sense and fun to explore the galaxies further. * Planet Infrastructure, this concept helps to specialize a planet and also restricts the number of buildings on a planet. So it really gives huge planets much more value over tiny ones. * A culture system, which has mutual exclusive culture perks, which helps you to shape your species to the playing style you prefer. * In the tactical combat, there is now the concept of overheating: you can give a small boost to your ships by overheating a single system (weapons, drive or shields). You cannot do it too often and it increases the heat on the ship. If the heat is at maximum (some enemy weapons also heat up your ship), it simply explodes. The room for improvement is: * It would be cool, if there would be species perks or technology to improve the exploration. For example a "treasury hunter" species perk, which increases the probability to find ruins. Except from two culture perks, there are no further possibilities to improve the exploration system. * I think there should be more specializations of planets from the infrastructure system. So having also infrastructure projects, which are cultural or scientific bases, would be cool. * The enemy AI is okay-ish, but could be improved. * Having a more random bases invention system like stellaris would be cool. All in all this is a great game and I hope those improvements will come with further DLCs.
Sadly this game is just almost good. It brings a lot of interesting things and makes some kind of fun, but it is not a really good game. Pro: - The campaign story makes fun and is a real driver of the game. - The campaign missions are very well designed. Every mission was interesting to play and challenging. - There are interesting and diverse characters inside the game. - It makes fun to maintain and improve the Mechs while the game is improving. Cons: - There is really a lot of grind inside the game. In order to improve your company, you have to do the same random generated mission over and over again. In the mid of the game I switched from normal difficulty to easy, not because the battles where too hard for me, but because I want to have more payment and salvage in order to improve my company faster and get rid of those boring random battles. - There is not much tactics in a battle. The most important thing is to concentrate your fire on a single Mech and in the same way to encourage the enemy to split his fire on different Mechs. Or to allow only some Mechs to fire at you at all. Also when you skill your MechWarriors, there are just two skill combinations, which are important: a scout, which has higher initiative and can sensor-lock enemies behind walls and then the Lancer, which maximizes damage output. Other roles are possible, but since you can only bring 4 Mechs to a fight and damage dealing is essential in every battle, it makes no sense to bring a MechWarrior with with less damage output but a special role. - You cannot control the path of improvement of your Mechs. It is kind of random, which Mechs and Weapons you can buy in a planet system and which salvage you will find on the battlefield. Thus you have to do a lot of random missions (grinding) to find the Weapons and Mechs you need for driving the campaign. All in all the game is ok, but not really good. After the campaign was over, I lost interest in playing more (random battles).
