Master of Orion 1+2

[whatevername]

One area MoO 2 definitely advanced was tactical combat, despite the fact that it collapsed under it's own weight late game -- turns took too long and the side that shot first had an overwhelming advantage

No advantage whatsoever if you avoid getting hit or your armor and hull are repaired back to full in 1 turn.

 

[Jeff Graw]

One area MoO 2 definitely advanced was tactical combat, despite the fact that it collapsed under it's own weight late game -- turns took too long and the side that shot first had an overwhelming advantage

No advantage whatsoever if you avoid getting hit or your armor and hull are repaired back to full in 1 turn.

In late game MoO 2 (when you get into advanced techs) the offensive capability of ships begin to far surpasses their defensive capability. Your defences stay pretty constant, but you're cramming more and more weapons onto your designs. Then you add in time warp facilitator, which compounds the problem 100%. If you're able to get to the point where two sides are at the unit cap with high tech doom stars, you can have a situation where the one side is completely destroyed before they are even allowed to fire a shot.

Late game MoO 2 tactical combat is broken, but like I said, early and mid game are absolutely fantastic. If one were to make their own version of MoO 2 combat they could fix a lot of issues. Just spit balling:

-No more time warp facilitator
-Less production at end game to make it harder to reach the unit cap and limit unwieldy battles
-Either don't let offensive capabilities scale so far late game, or scale defensive capabilities in a similar way
-Rethink the turn system, perhaps instead of letting the side with initiative move all his units first only let him move a fraction of his units before the enemy side can move a fraction of theirs. The more of an initiative advantage a side has, the more units he gets to move towards the start of combat

 

[Galdred]

Ideally you would take the best aspects from both games to make the best 4X ever. It's surprising no one has tried to do this yet given that majority of the design work it already done, yet here we are cursed by a seemingly endless stream of soulless and poorly designed indie 4X games.

The board game Eclipse - New Dawn for the Galaxy (which has an iOS port) comes closest to actually doing that, IMO.

Too bad the iOS port is the pre-expansion version of the game, since that fixes some over-dominant strategies

The main problem with iOS Eclipse is the retarded multiplayer network code. I was able to complete zero out of 15 games because as soon as someone does not play his turn for 3 days, the game disappears for everyone (instead of doing something sensible like kicking the player with AI takeover, or skipping his turn...). But it's true that pre expansion plasma missile galore would get old quickly anyway.

Have you played a recent build of StarBase Orion? How does it fare against MOO2 and Eclipse MP? I gave it a try a long time ago, but I found it lacking compared to MOO1/2.

One area MoO 2 definitely advanced was tactical combat, despite the fact that it collapsed under it's own weight late game -- turns took too long and the side that shot first had an overwhelming advantage

No advantage whatsoever if you avoid getting hit or your armor and hull are repaired back to full in 1 turn.

The advantage not being enough to offset the huge tech/resources advantage you already have =/= no advantage...
That said, MOO2 gets a bit old after you complete the 1 system challenge indeed. The problem is the multiplayer is very micro heavy. I wish I could play MOO1 MP instead, as the streamlining would really make MP more enjoyable.

 

[TigerKnee]

Have you played a recent build of StarBase Orion? How does it fare against MOO2 and Eclipse MP? I gave it a try a long time ago, but I found it lacking compared to MOO1/2.

Never heard of it, I'm not particularly much into the iOS scene actually. Maybe I'll try it out.

 

[Jeff Graw]

My room-mate has StarBase Orion on his iPad. It's very much like MoO 2, outright copying it in a few areas. Overall it's more streamlined with less micro. Ship design is simplified significantly vs. MoO 1 and 2. If I remember correctly the tech tree is the laser 1, laser 2, etc. variety. Combat is not very tactical -- you give each ship a generic objective and the battle plays out in real-time with no further player input. Battles can take place over multiple turns though. The atmosphere is of course lacking compared to the MoO games, for example you don't have a scientist pop up and talk to you about each tech discovery.

Overall seems like a MoO 2 clone that takes a couple steps forward as well as a couple back. Haven't really seen enough of it to pass judgement though.

 

[Wintermute]

-Rethink the turn system, perhaps instead of letting the side with initiative move all his units first only let him move a fraction of his units before the enemy side can move a fraction of theirs. The more of an initiative advantage a side has, the more units he gets to move towards the start of combat

MOO2 had a Ship Initiative option. Combat order was determined by each ship's beam attack rating and combat speed.

 

[Destroid]

MoO1 sidestepped the issue by starting all the ships out of range (until you got teleporters). It was nice that initiative was still useful after combat commenced though, as a higher initiative ship would get it's reaction fire before it could be hit by a lower initiative ship, although this sometimes resulted in some rather comedic battles where you fruitlessly try to close range on a target armed with repulsor beams.

I find Eclipse (at least with the meta in my local group, we don't play it much) doesn't really play very much like computer 4X games, it has relatively little combat and conquest. We don't have the expansion.

 

[Jeff Graw]

-Rethink the turn system, perhaps instead of letting the side with initiative move all his units first only let him move a fraction of his units before the enemy side can move a fraction of theirs. The more of an initiative advantage a side has, the more units he gets to move towards the start of combat

MOO2 had a Ship Initiative option. Combat order was determined by each ship's beam attack rating and combat speed.

You're correct but in practice the vast majority of the time one side has higher initiative for all of his fleet, or at least a majority of it -- especially against the AI.

For the benefit of simplicity imagine each side is comprised of homogeneous ships, with one side having a single point more initiative. My solution would be to let the side with more initiative begin moving his forces first, and generally move a few more units each time than his opponent. On the other hand, if the one side has ten points more initiative he can move a far larger portion of his fleet than his opponent (at the earlier stages of a combat round of course, as by the end of the round both sides have moved the entirety of their forces).

Of course heterogeneous fleet composition where different ships feature different levels of initiative complicates things, but it should be possible to combine the two systems.

MoO1 sidestepped the issue by starting all the ships out of range (until you got teleporters).

With the exception of BHG MoO 1 also didn't scale ships' offensive capabilities so much farther than defensive capabilities at late game, which helped the side with higher initiative not have too overwhelming of an advantage. Teleporters could be an issue sometimes, but there's a good chance everyone has interdictors when you get to the far late game. BHG + teleporters in a game without interdictors was pretty overpowering.

 

[Destroid]

Another thing to consider is that end game techs in 4X games are usually intended to bring the game to a close, so it's no surprise they have a destabilising effect.

 

[whatevername]

In late game MoO 2 (when you get into advanced techs) the offensive capability of ships begin to far surpasses their defensive capability. Your defences stay pretty constant, but you're cramming more and more weapons onto your designs. Then you add in time warp facilitator, which compounds the problem 100%. If you're able to get to the point where two sides are at the unit cap with high tech doom stars, you can have a situation where the one side is completely destroyed before they are even allowed to fire a shot.

Late game MoO 2 tactical combat is broken, but like I said, early and mid game are absolutely fantastic. If one were to make their own version of MoO 2 combat they could fix a lot of issues. Just spit balling:

-No more time warp facilitator
-Less production at end game to make it harder to reach the unit cap and limit unwieldy battles
-Either don't let offensive capabilities scale so far late game, or scale defensive capabilities in a similar way
-Rethink the turn system, perhaps instead of letting the side with initiative move all his units first only let him move a fraction of his units before the enemy side can move a fraction of theirs. The more of an initiative advantage a side has, the more units he gets to move towards the start of combat

Oh, ok, I never got that far into the game. In a few games some AIs have managed to built like 2 titans max before they went extinct.

 

[Pantalones]

-Rethink the turn system, perhaps instead of letting the side with initiative move all his units first only let him move a fraction of his units before the enemy side can move a fraction of theirs. The more of an initiative advantage a side has, the more units he gets to move towards the start of combat

MOO2 had a Ship Initiative option. Combat order was determined by each ship's beam attack rating and combat speed.

You're correct but in practice the vast majority of the time one side has higher initiative for all of his fleet, or at least a majority of it -- especially against the AI.

For the benefit of simplicity imagine each side is comprised of homogeneous ships, with one side having a single point more initiative. My solution would be to let the side with more initiative begin moving his forces first, and generally move a few more units each time than his opponent. On the other hand, if the one side has ten points more initiative he can move a far larger portion of his fleet than his opponent (at the earlier stages of a combat round of course, as by the end of the round both sides have moved the entirety of their forces).

Of course heterogeneous fleet composition where different ships feature different levels of initiative complicates things, but it should be possible to combine the two systems.

MoO1 sidestepped the issue by starting all the ships out of range (until you got teleporters).

With the exception of BHG MoO 1 also didn't scale ships' offensive capabilities so much farther than defensive capabilities at late game, which helped the side with higher initiative not have too overwhelming of an advantage. Teleporters could be an issue sometimes, but there's a good chance everyone has interdictors when you get to the far late game. BHG + teleporters in a game without interdictors was pretty overpowering.

I think it's a good progression. At the end you feel very powerful, or can get crushed like a melon if you fall behind.

 

[Marobug]

Moo2 → Moo

Its not just about atmosphere, the game was simply more fun and had more depth than moo1. I played the series backwards, starting with 3, then 2, then 1 and 1 felt like a simplified board game with sliders in comparison with moo 2

 

[Raapys]

I started out with MoO2, loved it to death and played it to death. Only played MoO1 years later. These days I rarely play the second. There's just something about how quick and easy it is to play MoO1, while still giving you all the important 4x features.

 

[octavius]

Last time I played MoO I won on Hard with all races except Siliocids and the cats the cats because I had got a bit tired of the game by then, and Silicoidd because I played them wrong.
How do people usually play the Silicoids? I know Cloning is important due to their low growth rate, but it's not like it's technology you start with.
I decided to give the Silicoids another go on Hard. In my current game I started in the middle of the map, surrounded by the other races. Somehow I managed to survive (they could easily have wiped me out in the beginning) and built up a strong position. I think a key is to colonize and develop Rich or Very Rich planets ASAP, use Terraforming to increase max pop and transfer pop from other planets so that the Rich planets is up and running ASAP. Since nearly all Rich planets are Hostile it will be some time before the other races can send troops to invade. Regular planets I just parked scouts on to delay the inevitable colonization of other races.
How do others play the Silicoids?

Two "funny" things happend in my current game.
1. The Darloks had declared war on me and their home planet would make an excellent stepping stone to a Very Rich planet currently out of range. The Darloks had crap tech, so they couldn't withstand a Huge fighter bomber. Since they had no useful tech I decided to just purge the whole planet and recolonize it, instead of wasting manpower.
The plan succeeded, but there was a snag: it was their only planet, so I accidentall wiped out the whole Darlok race and now the other races now hate me.

2. I intercepted a Sakkra Colony Ship and its escort of 200+ fighters. The fighters proved too strong for my battleship (obsolete type with no auto repair) and I had to retreat, but not before I destoryed the Colony Ship. Mission accomplished; no colony for the Sakkras! Or so I thought...it turned out they were able to build the colony after all.
Some little design flaw there?

 

[Norfleet]

[In late game MoO 2 (when you get into advanced techs) the offensive capability of ships begin to far surpasses their defensive capability. Your defences stay pretty constant, but you're cramming more and more weapons onto your designs.

You're kidding, right? In late-game MOO2, it's possible to create a ship that can hulltank a dozen stellar converter shots and barely feel it. I have created ships that simply cannot be destroyed by any single ship because they are plain invulnerable to anything except dozens of stellar converter hits in the same turn, lesser weapons just don't even scratch the paint. Hell, with a bit of luck and chicanery, you can pull this off in midgame. You can build a ship capable of destroying half the AI's fleet...on its own turn.

 

[octavius]

Ah, the joy of playing the Mrrshans!
Playing on Hard, Huge map. Things have been rather boring with no war at all, not even amongst any of the other races (I hate it when that happens). Somehow I ended up with second most poplulation after the Psilons, but all the othe races either abstained or vote for psycos. None of the faggots like pussy. So an anticlimactic end to an uneventful game.
And I was just planning preparing war against the Klackons, who were weak in this game. I won a Final War with the Darlocks on Hard; they can always steal all the tech they need, and do sabotage to make things easier, but all the kitties have is superior gunners.

So the moral of the story is that you can have too much population in Master of Orion.

 

[octavius]

The conventional wisdom seems to be that the Mrrshan's weakness is that they have no abilities that helps their economy, like most of the other races have. But the generally poor relations to other races is also damaging, especially when your game turns into one of those games where all the races held appendages and sing Kumbaya, and tell each other how much they love one another.
With all races have 1-3 allies it's hard to pick a fight without having to fight on several fronts, and with all those alliances they will vote for each other.

Oh well, I guess I suck at diplomacy which doesn't help when playing the Mrrshans.

 

[TigerKnee]

Yes, I have no idea why they gave the "war only advantage" races in MOO very bad relations on average when it's not like they can take on 3-4 races at once and come out on top.

Something like the Spartans in Alpha Centauri or Romans in Civ were much more 3 dimensional than the Mrrshans.

 

[octavius]

I like how dynamic MOO is. You never know what kind of game you'll get.

I started a new games as Silicoids. Last time I started in the middle surrounded by enemies and didn't manage to grab many planets and it became an uphill struggle. This time I started in a corner next to a Very Rich planet. Also I had the whole SW quadrant to myself, every planet was within 4 parsecs of each other, and I churned out a new colony ship every second turn. On the CNN ranking I was listed as number 1 in Fleet Strenght, which I've never seen before early in the game. And now my home world turned Rich. Isn't it typical that you get such breaks when you're on top, but when you're struggling you get novas and rebellions?

 

[kyrub]

Yes, I have no idea why they gave the "war only advantage" races in MOO very bad relations on average when it's not like they can take on 3-4 races at once and come out on top.

The idea was clearly to push them into an early war. Which is not a bad strategy, since their bonuses quickly disappear. Somehow, it does not work for Mrrshans. For me, the Mrrshan AI has poor choice in spending massively on ships, so the maintenance usually clusteres its research and they seldom make it past first 3-5 planets.

Re: silicoids and Cloning, there is massive disadvantage, that the Sils need to clean up their planet first, before Cloning works. That makes it a not-very-good option. It seems like a design flaw [bug?], Sils should always ignore the waste, it is not logical.

 

[octavius]

Re: silicoids and Cloning, there is massive disadvantage, that the Sils need to clean up their planet first, before Cloning works. That makes it a not-very-good option. It seems like a design flaw [bug?], Sils should always ignore the waste, it is not logical.

Hmm...maybe that's why Cloning felt rather underwhelming in my previous Siliocids game.. I hade a nice planet with about 120 population and 4x factories, and I think I was able to churn out 16-17 new pop each turn. Should I have Cleaned first and then got much higher numbers? I guess if you crank the slider past Cleaning to Pop+ Cleaning is ignored?

Anyways I guess the main benefit would be to quickly get more pop on on conquered planets with intact factories and no waste.

 

[octavius]

The Silicoids...anything think they are fun to play?
Being successful seems to require more micromanagement than the other races, since you really need to use the Eco slider to crank out new pop. And when a planet is full you need to send new pop to less delevoped planets. So much of the game is spent doing this at the cost of Research.

Just won a game on Hard, or rather I would have won since I was in the lead and the other races combined didn't have 2/3 majority in the last election.
Maybe Silicoids are more fun on smaller maps with fewer planets to manage?

 

[TigerKnee]

I think they're more likely to be RNG screwed on smaller maps since there's a higher possibility that hostile planets which they can use before everyone else won't be spawned enough for them to use their racial advantage.

Oh well, at least they're unique and differentiated.

 

[Destroid]

kyrub do you perchance know how to contact Ken Burd or Steve Barcia? I think one of those guys would make a great guest on Matt Chat.

 

[kyrub]

No idea, sorry, all my acquaintance is with the code. I'd love to hear what they have to say about the game, though.
It is unbelievable, how a game made basically by one person on its own (StarLords) has stood out the test of the time for 22 years. Unbelievable.