Master of Orion 2

Like many, it's always been a life-long ambition of mine to become grand emperor of the universe.  Unfortunately, the boys in the lab have really dropped the ball in getting a faster than light propulsion system off the ground, throwing a mighty big spanner in the works for making that a reality.  As such, I've been forced to content myself with ruling the universe in a virtual setting.  There have been plenty of 4X games to come along in recent years that let players try and exert their influence across the galaxy with the likes of Galactic Civilization 2, Sins of a Solar Empire, Space Empire V, Star Ruler, Sword of the Stars, and others all vying for our attention.  However, sometimes it's nice to go back to one of the games that helped to cement this genre's popularity: Master of Orion 2.

As great as those modern 4X games I just mentioned are, it's still fun to hop into MoO 2 every now and then for a quick game.  I like how everything is so condensed into one screen, and being able to hop between my colonies and research relatively quickly via the menus.  It's kind of weird because modern games in the genre do a really good job of reflecting the sheer expansiveness of outer space, but MoO 2 makes the cosmos feel like a surprisingly manageable place to build an empire.

Lately when I play a game, I've been making a bee line for the custom race.  I like going with something reasonably productive that is really good at research.  Going into "Creative" is just too good to pass up.  Getting all of the tech in each branch of a research tree = yes please!  To offset this, I'll often take a hit to my military and spy performance early on, and just try and tech up to compensate later.  There are no lack of nifty things players can research to improve their spying, and if you're lucky you may get a leader gifted in espionage and assassination to help you out too.  In terms of military, there are scores of leaders who can join your empire that will give a noticeable buff to your space fleet, and if you're teching up your weaponry really fast, that also helps.

After playing a few games over the last week or so, I've had terrible luck in the sorts of planets I find near my home world.  Most star systems have only had a few planets, often consisting of either gas giants, high G, or toxic worlds.  As such, getting things started has been slower than I'd like, having to look at ways for my home world to help get supplies to the colonies since a lot of them have problems like lacking enough food to eat, or suffer from their production being hamstrung.  Thankfully research has helped with this too.  Assuming I can stay on good terms with my neighbors (bribing them with some useless tech seems to help), and the Antarans decide to leave me alone, it's reasonably doable getting tech to offset planetary gravitational issues, or toxic atmospheres.  It's just getting over that early hump that has been a challenge, and a tad frustrating since it's been happening again, and again.

As old, and dated as this old DOS game is from a presentation standpoint, MoO 2 still manages to tug at my nostalgic sensibilities.  I still really like the music, as it taps into the synth-y sci-fi themes that were prevalent in the 70s and 80s so well.  It almost makes me want to sit down and watch the old Hitchhiker's television series, or some Red Dwarf.  Even the portraits of leaders, researchers, and ambassadors hark back to the science fiction of a bygone era, and it's nice to be reminded of it.

Being one of the most influential games in 4X space strategy, MoO 2 is a fun game to come back to.  While nostalgia plays a small part in this, the game is still amazingly fun over 15 years after it came out.  It threw so many options at players.  Be everyone's best friend and get voted leader of the galaxy, build a huge space fleet and try to destroy the Antaran home world, be a war monger, a researcher, explore space, conduct diplomacy, hide in your own star system.  It's how the game keeps tempting players to do just a little more of each of these for a few more turns before stopping that give it such lasting appeal.  Just one more turn.  One more turn.  Oh, crap.  It's 3AM now...