The complexity of what you can manage in this game is by far greater than any turn based strategy game I've ever played. The predecessor Civilization: Call to Power was great as well. There is a chance to conquer your enemy with multiple types of subversion from religion to cultural rebellion. This was one of the best Civilization games of all time even though some licensing stripped the Civilization name away from it before it could be released. This game rivals even the most recent Civilization V (Civ 5) which I do enjoy playing.
Yes both of these games equally fall into the best game of all time category. If you have yet to play either then pick these up and play! Their open ended sand box play provides for countless hours of enjoyment building your civilization and then setting out to conquer stars and learn the mysteries of the galaxy.
After the countless hours wasted playing the first two I was very hopeful and followed the launch of Master of Orion 3 pre-ordering my copy over a month in advance. I was active in the early modding community and even after many patches and user mods the game was just unable to be fixed from the failure that arrived at release. Please go purchase Master of Orion 1 and 2 and skip this one!
