263: How I Gained and Lost an Empire

[GoodApprentice]

Enjoyed this article as well. There is something to be said about staying true to your character and going down in epic, glorious flames. Unfortunately, I usually just get frustrated and give in to the temptation to reload the game.

The Total War series generates lots of "lost cause" battles where your small garrisons of soldiers unsuccessfully attempt to defend castles from hordes of invading enemies. It's sometimes character building to just swallow your pride and accept the glorious defeat.

 

[Rogue 9]

Nice article. I was even younger when I first played MoO 2, so I didn't grasp too many of the complexities of the game at the time (such as using spies, being proactive with treaty making and like you, how invading rather than just nuking from orbit is a really good idea) but it's been a favourite of mine for a long time.

I recently re-bought MoO 2 through GoG.com, along with MoO 1 which I've never played. I love MoO 2 so much, and I think it's a game that's aged incredibly well. The interface is fairly straight forward for a game with MoO 2's depth and the graphics and art look fine, since it mainly consists of gorgeous 2D artwork and some pretty nice pre-rendered cinematics (such as when you blow up a planet with a Stellar Converter *insert cackling*)

Also, you're totally right about Creative being broken... I never make a race without it.

 

[LINCARD1000]

Would highly recommend this game to strategy game fans, graphics might not look so hot nowdays but then the game-play more than makes up for it. As someone pointed out, legit copies are able to be purchased and downloaded from Good Old Games www.gog.com (not affiliated with them, just a satisfied customer).

 

[ColinWilson1980]

What a fantastic article, thank you for writing that. Master of Orion massacred as many hours of my life as WoW has, and I think back fondly on every single one of them.

I also was thoroughly disappointed by the third installment, the concept was neat, but they tried to make it much, much more of a 'deep' game, but they really did not realize that MoO2 really had the balance figured out, and ruined it for themselves. Bugs didn't help either, it was like they gave up on it.

Personally I think that if a developer took MoO2 (and even the original) and did a 15th anniversary edition next year, and do nothing but graphics development, I would think that there would be a lot of people who would be more than willing to pay 30-40 for the game, heck I'd buy it for as much for my son to be able to experience the awesomness that was MoO as for myself! An updated version of Master of Magic would be fantastic as well.

 

[Tohron]

If people are interested, the Galactic Civilizations line of games from Stardock are kind of spiritual successors to the Master of Orion games. I can't speak for any of your interests, but I know I've spent massive amounts of time playing GalCiv II with the expansions.

 

[WafflesToo]

LOL, I think your article pretty well nails exactly what made MoO][ the best of the series. MoO]|[, ignoring the brokenness of the thing never did anything to pull me inside the game quite like 2 did.

I usually play the game with one hand behind my back using some of the more useless abilities, you know, just to give the AI a fighting chance -_^

 

[Zan Lynx]

I still play MOO2 every now and then. It is a great game.

If you've got Windows 7 there is a stupid trick that you must use or the game colors are all messed up. You have to start the game, alt-tab out, start a Task Manager, use that to kill Explorer, then go back to MOO-2 and the colors will be fixed. After you finish playing you can use Task Manager to restart Explorer.

Dumb but works.

 

[TobintheGnome]

MOO2 is probably my favorite game of all time. I was in college when it was released and I spent many a lazy Sunday afternoon conquering the universe. I still play it from time to time.

Protips: if you're playing the unpatched version, go for Plasma Cannons ASAP. They're really, really OP. You can also transfer captured Sakkra population to your planets and they'll gain the Sakkra's Subterranean Population bonus.

MOO1 is pretty fun too.

 

[Tiamat666]

...Your advisors address you directly, personally...

- MOO2 has advisors?

Also, you're totally right about Creative being broken... I never make a race without it.

- Creative is not broken. It costs 8 picks, and that is alot. I think subterranean (+50% population), population growth and unification are more powerful, which is reflected in my games, where the Psilons are almost always weak and the Sakkra and Klackons dominate.

- The other reason why creative isn't that good is that you won't trade techs as you will eventually get them all. However trading techs is one of the best ways to improve relations.

- MoO2 is the almost perfect galactic empire game. I wish we could forget the blunder that was MoO3 and someone would make a truly worthy sequel to the franchise.

If people are interested, the Galactic Civilizations line of games from Stardock are kind of spiritual successors to the Master of Orion games. I can't speak for any of your interests, but I know I've spent massive amounts of time playing GalCiv II with the expansions.

- Galactic Civilizations is "ok" but I don't like it half as much. The "comedy style" of GalCiv and civilization leaders making comments about programming, your PC hardware and game mechanics totally spoils the atmosphere.

 

[dmase]

Sounds kinda like some of my Civ 4 games.

 

[lillebille]

awesometastic job on the article my lord!

sounds kinda like my/yahtzees/others sim city games

 

[SextusMaximus]

Never played the game, but your article was a masterpiece, sir! I congratulate you!

 

[Jodan]

amazing article bings back so many good memories
now i shall have to go play it again though

 

[2fish]

I too have found myself in sticky situations in this type of game (Kinights of Honor or Sins of a Solar Empire). However when I play a tyrant who only want to destroy ones foes I tend to build a choke point to protect my core worlds/lands. In KoH I like to use islands such as the UK. But I do know that feeling of attacking the wrong team and seeing death come twords me.

Wonderful read.

 

[(Insert name hear)]

Nice article, and I can say that anytime there is a game like that, I will also be the tyrant.

 

[vxicepickxv]

Damn you! I must re-install this now! Well, that's my afternoon gone....

EDIT - Success! And as for Creative being broken? Try Creative, Unification, and Telepathic - it's almost too easy...

I'll give that a shot, right over the Psilon avatar, so I don't have the Psilon enemy.

If anyone wants to get it, you can get Moo and Moo2 for 6 dollars for the two of them together at GOG.com

 

[Zan Lynx]

I'll give that a shot, right over the Psilon avatar, so I don't have the Psilon enemy.

When building a Custom race I always pick the Darloks. If you don't pick them, then their super-spy abilities will negate your Creative research, because they will steal it all from you. Very annoying!

 

[Luke Cartner]

I loved MoO2 although I still have a place in my heart for MoO itself. the fact it stacked the ships on top of itself meant you could build ships that where a simple engine, no shields and a single gun. This was effective because you could build hundreds of thousands of these and a ships would absorb all of a single blast. Meaning compared to damage done to a big ship with heavy shields the damage to cost ratio was low.

Personally both games I found the best way to will the 'diplomatic' way was to be the hardest badass around, then I would find myself voted in just so I wouldn't annihilate everyone else.

Custom races in those games really where a broken mechanic you can remove all sense of balance.

 

[Supp]

This sounds a lot like Civ...in...SPACE!!!

btw, as a seasoned civ vet I'd like to say that usually the best thing to do when the only way out is to cheese a victory is to just bribe everyone else into world war.

Or you could cheese through the ap or the un <,<

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Fantastic article. I want to play the game now, of course, but I ended up getting caught up in your excellent narrative. Please post more articles here my friend, you are welcome to the Escapist any day!