Master of Orion 1+2

[Imperator]

thanks for the advice.

 

[Destroid]

But its very easy to make OP custom races, so after you get the hang of the game you should switch to stock or make more fair setups.

 

[Imperator]

What negative traits should i pick?

 

[Zero Credibility]

Well I always take reduced ship attack and defence - neither of these is likely to make a significant difference in a fight. In the early game missiles are kings, and later there are techs that more than compensate for these traits.

 

[Malakal]

What negative traits should i pick?

Governments are very strong, especially unification, be sure to get that for OP custom race. Democracy is overpriced. Despotism is ok, feudalism is deadly dont take it ever.

As for negatives -growth is tempting since you can go for cloning centers instead but thats a hard choice for more advanced players. Going for -attack -defence and -spying works ok in most games. -ground combat is a sure pick since it really cant hurt you.

Other good picks:
- subterranean - your planets will be worth 2 planets of other races each, makes colonizing small planets very viable
- +production is awesome
- +science is ok
- +money is kinda ok

 

[Imperator]

I want to pick dictatorship for goverment.

 

[Malakal]

I want to pick dictatorship for goverment.

Not worth it if you want to power game. Unification is so good its not even funny. Cut points elsewhere.

My personal favorite build is unified/subterranean/+2 production race. Cant lose with that.

 

[Zero Credibility]

I want to pick dictatorship for goverment.

In terms of pure power unification is the way to go, as are the rest of the traits mentioned by Malakal. But you can pick dictatorship if you want to, it's perfectly possible to win even of the hardest difficulty with it. Playing only a single min-maxed race gets boring anyway. And a later tech lets you upgrade your dictatorship to an imperium. Still not very useful compared to unification or its upgrade, but at least it sounds cool.

 

[Average Manatee]

What negative traits should i pick?

Governments are very strong, especially unification, be sure to get that for OP custom race. Democracy is overpriced. Despotism is ok, feudalism is deadly dont take it ever.

As for negatives -growth is tempting since you can go for cloning centers instead but thats a hard choice for more advanced players. Going for -attack -defence and -spying works ok in most games. -ground combat is a sure pick since it really cant hurt you.

Other good picks:
- subterranean - your planets will be worth 2 planets of other races each, makes colonizing small planets very viable
- +production is awesome
- +science is ok
- +money is kinda ok

Democracy is good. Research is stronger for a (military) blitz, morale helps even up the production while getting you further ahead in research, and the extra cash lets you rush construction very often. I wouldn't say it's the best in all situations, but it's capable of being the best in the right situation.

Someone new to the game is more likely to pick a large galaxy and play very passively though, in which case the ideal setup is probably something like Unification/Creative/Subterranean.

 

[Malakal]

You cant blitz much without production this is where unification really shines. Production translates to pop growth (with building housing) to big armies and fleets, faster colonization = faster research. Not to mention the bonus food production means that you can devote more of your initial population to science giving you a better start.

Depending on if you find enough planets with good food production unification can even beat democracy in research come mid game since with democracy you will have to only farm on your home world.

But my biggest gripe with democracy is 7 picks cost. And you pay with spy defense for that too. Sure, some extra money is good but the main bonus is research and it just isnt there until way later in the game.

Of course all of this is just powergaming bullshit, if you want nice themes and some rp or diversity in games there is no point in building like this every time. But since hes a new player and asked for easy start there it is.

 

[Malakal]

Ah also forgot to mention that earlier start is even stronger with high production race. You can colonize your system and build up enough freighters/population before you get to moving into other systems.

 

[Average Manatee]

A handful of high-tech ships will mop the floor with dozens of low-tech ships. Production only develops faster, early on when they are behind on tech they are very vulnerable.

The Unification strategy is to hope no one attacks until your production lets you become bigger and out-research the researchers through sheer might. The Democracy strategy is to conquer enough other nations that their slower self-development is offset by their ability to obtain the production of others, at the same time increasing their research lead and blitzing harder and harder.

Of course, none of this applies to Unification/Tolerant. Unification/Tolerant is basically in a league of its own.

 

[Imperator]

Thanks for the advices.

 

[Riel]

What negative traits should i pick?

feudalism is deadly dont take it ever.

While you are of course right that feudalism sucks, one of my best memories playing MooII was playing a customized Elerian empire with it and improved spies in a game that started already advanced, the ammount of techs I stole, the trouble it caused me and having the largest fleet in the galaxy made me have a ton of fun waging several wars all the time. Those Psilons did hate me man

 

[Malakal]

What negative traits should i pick?

feudalism is deadly dont take it ever.

While you are of course right that feudalism sucks, one of my best memories playing MooII was playing a customized Elerian empire with it and improved spies in a game that started already advanced, the ammount of techs I stole, the trouble it caused me and having the largest fleet in the galaxy made me have a ton of fun waging several wars all the time. Those Psilons did hate me man

Yes, I know that custom games with custom rules can be extremely fun - try the warlord bug swarm for example. Its just that feudalism for those points it saves you is incredibly bad.

 

[Destroid]

There is a balance mod out there somewhere that might improve your experience. It also balances the techs so there are less compulsory ones, like automated factories (it doesn't add new ones, but moves techs around).

 

[suejak]

Definitely MoM. MOO is fun but very basic. It's straightforward strategy; feels a bit more like a roguelike than a strategy game.

The sheer variety and craziness of MoM are amazing. This game is unmatched in its genre to this day. Age of Wonders tried and did ok, but it's just not as good.

 

[whatevername]

This is a killer race:
Dictatorship
+1 Science, large hw, artifacts, creative, cybernetic
-10 Spying, repulsive
Great to stomp primitive aliens with advanced technology.

SPOILER ALERT

Spoiler

Don't colonize any planets and don't even explore. Research and build this stuff: 1 or 2 research facilities, hydroponic, biosphere, 2 factories, 1 pollution remover. After that build ~5 spies. Then research mass drivers, fusion beams, some drives and build a cruiser with heavy armor, hull mod, battle pods and a mix of armor piercing lasers and mass drivers. This cruiser will be mostly indestructible for several years because you have 180 armor and 180 hull and they're repaired every turn by your cybernetic ability. Obviously it'll die to a zerg or really advanced missiles/fighters, which isn't happening soon. After that just build some outposts and lots and lots of troop transports and invade everything. Then build more cruisers/bs and spies, etc. BS have 300/300 hitpoints, but take forever to build.
If you get discovered by someone, you know where to attack. Otherwise you'll have to scout a few systems.
If you meet Darloks you need to build a lot of spies. Also don't research Shield III to prevent it from being stolen by any race.

A handful of high-tech ships will mop the floor with dozens of low-tech ships. Production only develops faster, early on when they are behind on tech they are very vulnerable.

I totally agree. I've had fights like 1 of my hi-tech BS vs 4 low tech BS, 2-3 cruisers and they just exploded.

 

[whatevername]

Democracy+Creative+Artifacts+Large HW is so OP you will stomp over everything with just 1 solar system (3 planets) and save yourself from microing.

 

[TigerKnee]

You know, there's a couple of balance patches for 2, but it seems strange we don't have any for 1 yet, even though we already know the general power levels of each race (combat races bad, klackons/psilons good)

 

[octavius]

You know, there's a couple of balance patches for 2, but it seems strange we don't have any for 1 yet, even though we already know the general power levels of each race (combat races bad, klackons/psilons good)

Do we really need that much balancing in a single player game?
If the races are perfectly balanced you risk ending up with stale mate situations where no AI race can defeat another.
It also helps determining strategy when you know some races will be more dangerous than others.
It also makes it sweeter to beat the game with weaker races, and the stronger races are good for getting introuduced to the game.

 

[TigerKnee]

Do we really need that much balancing in a single player game?

It also helps determining strategy when you know some races will be more dangerous than others.

I don't know about you (I guess I shouldn't be surprised that RPG players are allergic to balance), but personally I think one of the key concepts of an FFA-style strategy game is that "anyone can come up on top!", and I think it's extremely boring when "Oh look, Psilons are the head honcho again" 90% of the time.

If the races are perfectly balanced you risk ending up with stale mate situations where no AI race can defeat another.

Random start situation, randomized research trees, AI diplomacy yadda yadda.

 

[Destroid]

Played them both recently, I've come around to liking Master of Orion 1 more.

 

[Jeff Graw]

Played them both recently, I've come around to liking Master of Orion 1 more.

MoO 1 is arguably better designed, while MoO 2 arguably has the best atmosphere of any strategy game. The research system in MoO 1 was undeniably deeper and more engrossing, while MoO 2 devolved a bit into a static tech tree and you could only research a single field at a time. A few crazy people prefer colony management in MoO 2, but they're crazy.

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 -- it was extremely deep and fun early and mid game though. I imagine the issues could be ironed out in a modern interpretation.

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.

 

[TigerKnee]

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