Comments on: In Praise Of: Master Of Orion 2.

By: Zorak

Zorak — Sun, 24 Jul 2016 20:46:43 +0000

I have a suggestion for you if you’re interested in reliving the glory days of MOO 2 again. You mentioned that it became too easy, and I agree. It did. I have recently discovered the mod called VDC. It’s a slight restructuring of the game that has a big impact on play. The UI is sped up considerably.. no more pauses when transitioning menus.. the tech tree is redone a bit, changing the choices you need to make along the way.. the race picks have also been redone a bit allowing for a greater range of combinations for races. The biggest difference however, is in the difficulty. The AI empires are a bit more capable (especially in the ship designing department), but it’s the Antarans that really bring the challenge to a whole new level. The old Antarans are tame and docile compared to what they’re like in VDC. So much so that you’re entire strategy will change depending on if you have Antaran Attacks on or off.

I have never really stopped playing Moo2 since the 90′s, but it wasn’t until I started playing with the VDC mod that I found myself going back to Moo2 on a regular basis again. I think it could breath new life into the game for you if that piques your interest.

By: Bloody Battle Brain

Bloody Battle Brain — Sat, 30 Apr 2016 08:52:13 +0000

Thoughts on nuMoo?

By: Matt Johnson

Matt Johnson — Mon, 30 Dec 2013 01:48:01 +0000

Hi yeah, everything everyone has said has me thinking about this most memorable game again. I often wonder about what made Moo2 so compelling and have people pining for it so long after the game became stale..and why people have made mistakes in trying to figure that out by making games in its image. There are these strategies of the game that I always locked into. Using the Psilons, starting with the perfect advantage of sacrificing the low G homeworld points to hold out for terraforming and spend the points on tech. Using the interstellar converter combined with the time-warp displacement in the ship design to gain that famous unbeatable advantage. These were all basically cheats that have me wondering if the game would be fun without them. Knowing that, if I had the Psilons as competition, that they would cream me. Also the classic, trying to figure out the best way to play it multi-player(with that funny bit of it not working using anything but pass the hot-seat). Maybe it was the innocents and timing of the game that make everyone so romantic about the game. Like others have said, I miss that feeling I first had when I discovered how fun it was. I had a learning curve though, something pushed me through it…mostly watching my friend play and explain it. Some of the games made in its image come off too much like DB management with a sci-fi skin on a database. I wonder if I’m (we’re) wasting our time hoping for another 4x game like it. I’ll still wait and hope though, but I’m not holding my breath.

By: Thoughts: Sins Of A Solar Empire -- Rebellion. » The Scientific Gamer The Scientific Gamer

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 11:00:58 +0000

[...] course I’d still rather play MOO 2 over both of them, but that’s something we’ve been over on this blog before [...]

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 01:59:26 +0000

That’s basically what happened to me when I went back to familiarise myself with it again for this piece. I was intending to play it all the way through to the end. I wasn’t intending to do it in a single evening.

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 01:57:52 +0000

That’s the thing, isn’t it? What I’m thinking when I look at Master of Orion is that it’s fine to have overpowered races just so long as they’re all overpowered in different ways. Desirable, even, as it accentuates the differences between them and gives them personality. This requires a game to basically accept that it’s going to be singleplayer only, but Civ V has shown that that’s no great impediment to 4Xes.

By: A different Joe

A different Joe — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 00:08:31 +0000

In my opinion, balancing is exactly what’s been holding the genre back all these years. Developers appear to be so focused on balancing these games (like the laughable rock, paper, scissors of GalCivs2) that all innovation has been left behind. They seem so set on trying to make them infinitly fair and replayable that they leave out all the charm and fun that exists in MOO2.

By the way Joe, I am delighted to see someone reference Quest for Glory. That is my favorite series of all time and no one ever talks about it.

By: Warren

Warren — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 21:35:02 +0000

I agree, I can’t say enough good things about this game. I’ve introduced this game to two people, and they had basically the same reaction: one played a game for 10 hours straight, lost, then started another one; the other played for 6 hours straight, ‘borrowed’ my copy, and I didn’t see him again for a couple weeks. I never saw my copy again…

By: Gap

Gap — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:51:28 +0000

So I guess the main thing is that it’s all in the background, and doesn’t impact the actual game. How does the story develop? Do you discover dust relics and uncover what happened to the civilisation? Something like SMAC’s approach works really well – it’s hands-off, but still an important part of how the game progresses in the end.

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 05:27:51 +0000

Again, the problem with making a game as vast and as flexible as Master of Orion is that it becomes very easy to powergame, which means it becomes very easy period, even on Impossible. That being said, I wouldn’t have the game any other way. I’m absolutely convinced that if someone went in and tried to balance MOO they’d ruin it. So yeah, I can make the time warp cloaking ship that can never be hit, but that’s actually part of the game’s charm for me.