[HN Gopher] Master of Orion
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Master of Orion
Author : simonebrunozzi
Score : 120 points
Date : 2022-05-09 06:14 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.filfre.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.filfre.net)
| rzwitserloot wrote:
| There is an excellent remake (with an active modding community
| and real tricky AIs if you want to enable them) available; open
| source, no less!
|
| Remnants of the Ancients: https://rayfowler.itch.io/remnants-of-
| the-precursors
| hyperpl wrote:
| I believe I tried this a year or 2 ago but I've always favored
| https://gitlab.com/Tapani_/1oom as I feel it delivers the
| closest experience to the original - also I prefer the old
| pixel graphics.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Merci; Purchased, we'll see how it fares :->
|
| (though I've historically been more of a Moo2 / MOOII fan :)
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| How true to the original is it?
| Pxtl wrote:
| TIL that the the term 4X was coined by a guy who thought
|
| > that Civilization's inclusion of global warming as a threat to
| progress and women's suffrage as a Wonder of the World
| constituted some form of surrender to left-wing political
| correctness
|
| ... ick.
| seanwilson wrote:
| Are there any games like Civilization and Master of Orion where
| the number of units and choices in the later game don't get so
| overwhelming? I usually lose interest at this point but enjoy the
| early game.
|
| It's not the same kind of game or as grand in scale, but I really
| enjoyed Into the Breach because each turn you only have a limited
| number of choices and units each turn, and each choice feels
| important.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Imho, that was the charm of Orion 1 - it was flawed about it of
| course, but the basic ideas that
|
| 1) You didn't have to manage individual buildings, they were
| just priority bars on planets...
|
| 2) Ships of the same class stacked.
|
| meant that scaling up the empire wasn't the kind of tedious
| nightmare we see in more civ-style 4X games. Sadly Moo2, while
| a superior and more polished game than Moo1, moved away from
| this innovation into more conventional construciton and ship
| management.
| syntheweave wrote:
| The most streamlined "4X-ish" I know of is the wonderful
| Slipways:
|
| https://slipways.net/
|
| However, it achieves this by eliminating the combat, the
| opponent AI, and ways to revise your decision-making, instead
| making it more of an economic logistics puzzle with immense
| numbers of dependencies to consider on every turn, which makes
| some players used to having a build strategy to exploit and an
| enemy to beat up accuse it of being "not a game", always a good
| sign that you're on to something new and different.
|
| It's originally a PICO-8 game, which gives some idea of how
| compact it is. You can still play that version right now:
| https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=30978
| mlindner wrote:
| I watched the trailer for the game, but when a selling byline
| is "still be done in time for lunch" I immediately go "no
| thanks". I want games that are engrossing and suck me in for
| hours at a time, not toys that can be picked up and dropped
| at a moments notice "on the go".
| syntheweave wrote:
| Let me put it this way: Most livestreams of this game end
| in several minutes of silence staring at the screen. It
| needs the intensity of a chess match, not Solitaire. But if
| you just want to veg out clicking around the map for hours,
| it probably won't satisfy you.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Stellaris does a fantastic job at this.
|
| Stays relevant until the very end.
| hubblesticks wrote:
| Agreed. I grew up on MOO2, played too much of it, mostly
| hotseat with a friend.
|
| I tried a few other 4X space games, but none scratched the
| itch that Stellaris did. It's the only 4X space game I play
| now. And Paradox keeps adding content!
| bhelyer wrote:
| I quite enjoyed The Battle of Polytopia -- it's a very cut down
| Civ style game.
|
| Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War is enjoyable too --
| it's quite simplified (the space marines can only build the one
| city, as appropriate for a 40k game there's zero diplomacy,
| etc).
|
| Warlock - Master of the Arcane is a Master of Magic spiritual
| successor, and I found it a lot less taxing than Civilization
| in the late game.
| chongli wrote:
| _I usually lose interest at this point but enjoy the early
| game._
|
| I suffer from the same problem. I love these games. I've played
| Civ 1-5, Alpha Centauri, Master of Orion 2, Master of Magic;
| all quite extensively. Every single time I get bogged down in
| the late game. I automate my bases/cities/planets with all of
| the available automation options and then try to wrap things up
| as quickly as I can but it always takes longer than it should.
|
| I agree with you that the number of choices you need to make in
| the late game is overwhelming, and many of these choices are
| trivial, but there's an additional problem: you are often so
| far ahead of the computer AI opponents that it feels like you'd
| have to make some huge mistakes to give them any hope at all.
| It can then feel very frustrating that you're so far ahead but
| must still go through the whole song and dance to finish the
| game.
|
| What these games really need is a diplomatic option for you to
| demand they surrender to you completely and become a
| client/puppet of your empire. Furthermore, the AI should always
| accept this offer if they can see they have no chance at
| defeating you in a war.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's fine to admit that early game is what you like - it's
| true for many across many genres. Many players love Minecraft
| up until they get Elytra, and then really want to restart -
| optimizing factorio starts was always fun for me.
|
| It's nice when games acknowledge it as the article mentions -
| and some have a "victory" screen with a "keep playing"
| option.
|
| The 4x games are almost between normal games and pure
| simulations like the city builders - where the simulation can
| become the fun.
| pavlov wrote:
| I feel the same way.
|
| It might be fun if the goals of the game turned upside down
| when you're winning. The AI players surrender and you're the
| newly crowned Galactic Emperor, congratulations! Everybody
| works for you.
|
| Now comes the second half of the game where you try to keep
| your empire together while it decays into bureaucracy. In a
| thousand years, a Hari Seldon appears and you have to decide
| whether to exile him...
| [deleted]
| ThePhysicist wrote:
| Ascendancy is my favorite classic 4X, still have the CD version
| and sometimes fire it up in DOSBOX.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Ascendancy is an example of how gameplay limitations ruin the
| game experience.
|
| In Master of Orion I you could have huge fleets of warships
| roaming through the space.
|
| In Master of Orion II (significantly less successful if you ask
| me) there were a mechanics of "control" or smth along these
| lines, which limited you from having a large number of large
| warships by ramping up upkeep. I guess you could live with
| that.
|
| Ascendancy is nice, but: You can only have N+1 ships, where N
| is number of your planets. This means you need to spend 90% of
| time developing planets (pushing "next building") with no ways
| to utilize your industrial output when not building a ship
| replacement. Boredom of managing insignificant colonies by hand
| is what ruins many 4X games.
|
| It would be an understandable limitation if Ascendancy was a
| board game, but in a video game it's just a sign that game
| designers could not balance the gameplay.
|
| Otherwise, great game. The music and the races are awesome.
| Tech tree is very funny.
| ThePhysicist wrote:
| Hah, you can just press M (I think it was M?) to automate the
| management of colonies. Never managed planets by hand as it's
| super boring and a bit pointless as you said. In general the
| late game is a bit bland as the AI is not very good even with
| the patch they delivered, but still it's quite a fun game and
| the 3D view was really innovative at the time.
| Inhibit wrote:
| AI War and the Dominions series (generally whatever release the
| latest one is) are my go-to for that type of engrossing gameplay.
| shadowtree wrote:
| Playable in any modern browser:
| https://playclassic.games/games/4x-dos-games-online/play-mas...
|
| Enjoy!
| christkv wrote:
| Master of Magic another cult 4X game is also getting a remake
| soon https://store.steampowered.com/app/1623070/Master_of_Magic/
| hyperpl wrote:
| If MOO1 is my favorite game, this is my 3rd (2nd is HoMM3).
| Thanks for posting this. Looking forward to purchasing and
| playing it.
| corysama wrote:
| In the mean time, the original Master of Magic recently had a
| huge overhaul with a native Windows build and major content
| updates
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/1557960/Master_of_Magic_C...
| christkv wrote:
| Same company doing the remake it seems, will have to check it
| out for nostalgia :)
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| I have once played a hot seat game of Moo2 with two friends. I
| had an increased production race, one friend had an improved
| science race, and second one had silicoids on steroids - he
| picked all kinds of maluses to get eating rocks and surplus birth
| rate.
|
| ... and he wiped the floor with both of us, silicoids are OP,
| please, nerf.
|
| Great games and happy memories from childhood. Moo1 was better in
| feel, but moo2 was better at actual gameplay.
| FredPret wrote:
| I always found population trumps all else. So if you have
| modifiers like subterranean (higher max pop per planet) plus
| maybe a pop growth increase, you're likely to win.
|
| Another one I always went with was to pick Repulsive (no
| diplomacy) since you'll end up at war with everyone anyway.
| nurettin wrote:
| You can wipe the floor with everyone early using a warlord +
| telepathic + trans-dimensional combination. Fire missles and
| run around. As soon as the planetary fortress falls, the
| planet is yours, no invasion needed. I abused it so much that
| friends banned the combination from multiplayer.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| I liked Telepath and silicoid - you skip all food and ground-
| combat skills, since you take over planets with your mind!
| Better than the Psilon who get all tech branches - you don't
| even need half of them! And can do industrial development on
| all planets (no wasted population making food)
| kadoban wrote:
| Really enjoyed this game.
|
| My real favorite is Space Empires 3 though. Anyone else?
|
| The multiplayer for that one is especially great. A few friends
| and I still play it to this day, it's a blast.
| frabert wrote:
| I was never able to understand how to "git gud" at that game :(
| The AI always seemed to be able to outperform me on any front,
| and the only solution was to use ministries for everything,
| which turned the game into a battle between AIs
| kadoban wrote:
| Ah, interesting.
|
| I'd definitely recommend playing against humans if you can, I
| never found the computers quite as fun to play against.
|
| Which may have helped me avoid that issue, by the time I ever
| played against a computer they were pretty easy just because
| I'd played my friends a lot.
|
| If there's any big advice I'd give though, it's just
| definitely focus on expanding your production and planets as
| quickly as you can near the beginning.
| chrchang523 wrote:
| Previous discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22140337
| giantrobot wrote:
| I was always partial to Stars![0] though I did enjoy MOO. It
| looked a lot like a Windows productivity app so I could play it
| with no one being the wiser. It wasn't as deep as MOO other some
| other games but I enjoyed it.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars!
| omnibrain wrote:
| I remember from around the same time another game in this
| windows "productivity" optic. Something with ships. You don't
| happen to know the name of that one?
| astockwell wrote:
| Stars!! Finally another living human who has heard of it.
|
| I remember finding the limited demo on one of those "101
| games!" $1.99 CD-ROMs, and then tracked down a full version at
| some remote Circuit City. Still have the installer and the key,
| and occasionally load it up on a VM (plays fine, only needed
| like 32mb of RAM :P )
|
| A great game, but another one which suffered from the burden of
| overwhelm in the late game stages, and was hampered by the un-
| expected and abrupt limitation that you could only have 255
| fleets (or some such thing). I read a breakdown that the cause
| was due to the designers only using an 8 bit integer for the
| FLEET_ID, so once you had that, the game would just discard any
| additional fleets you made.
|
| Ahh, nostalga.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Civilization, Master of Orion, Master of Magic and Alpha Centauri
| are the four 4X gems. Unfortunately they don't seem to make those
| anymore.
| zem wrote:
| stellaris is a pretty good recentish one. it has the same
| quality that the article called out in civ, which is that
| you're playing a story as much as a game, and deriving
| enjoyment from both aspects.
| chem83 wrote:
| I thought MOO: Conquer the Stars was a very fair/faithful
| remake. It's more of the same, though.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| Nah. I tried it once and was disappointed. It was unfinished,
| and barely a copy. Better graphics and sound, sure, but
| nothing else. If I recall correctly, the tactical combat
| system was real-time, instead of turns, and it had flaws.
| There was a community patch as some point that fixed some of
| the issues.
| Arrath wrote:
| SMAC is one of my all time favorites, and I still have an
| install directory I move around from computer to computer to
| play now and then.
|
| As another commenter said, Stellaris is a great newer one. A
| bit rough on initial launch, but well shaped up after patches
| and dlc.
|
| The Endless X series is another one, but personally they never
| clicked for me, feeling oddly soulless and empty.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Yes they do. The Civ series is still ongoing, Galciv and
| Stellaris have taken over for MOO, Distant Worlds came out this
| year. Only Master of Magic doesn't get the same kind of love as
| Civ and MOO.
|
| There's even a darned good FOSS implementation of Civ5 called
| "Unciv" that I got extremely addicted to.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| I disagree.
|
| I've played all countless hours (except MoM), and I can say
| Stellaris is right up there with them.
| hyperpl wrote:
| Probably my favorite 4X game ever made. Been playing as the
| Darloks for the past 6 months on Impossible but looking to switch
| to another fun race to play. Any suggestions?
| chem83 wrote:
| Meklons were fun for the added production boost. Felt like
| playing with the Borg. My experience is from playing more MOO2
| than MOO1, though. Playing with a custom race was also fun.
| dingleberry wrote:
| darlocks can be fun tho, you can win without having any fleet.
|
| just spy, sabotage missile bases to 0 and then send troops.
| Dwedit wrote:
| Their ships still shoot down your troops. Then you get bombed
| into nonexistence. Trying to take a planet without a fleet
| there won't end very well.
| billyhoffman wrote:
| Get Transports Teleporters, and your troops have a 50%
| change to bypass the ships in orbit. If its late game, the
| planet you take should have high population and production,
| so it can build a bunch of missile bases on the turn after
| you take the planet.
| i_like_apis wrote:
| I remember playing this as a kid. It was always Psilons for
| tech dominance, or Klackon for overwhelming population.
|
| I think I was on a Macintosh Classic II. I miss the 90's.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| The cat-people are the hardest. They have no significant racial
| traits.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| It's an amazing game, but it also shows how useful modern UI
| affordances are. A star system for scroll wheel support.
| bombcar wrote:
| I wonder if you could map scroll wheel to arrow keys in dos
| box.
| bombcar wrote:
| For those interested in playing MOO or MOO2 on a Modern Mac - you
| can use https://boxer.thec0de.com and open the App that Steam
| gives you with View Package Contents and find the .boxer file and
| run it with the modern boxer; it'll load just fine (they're all
| wrapped dosbox anyway).
|
| And the strategy guide mentioned is available on Archive.org:
| https://archive.org/details/MasterOfOrionStrategyGuide
| dwighttk wrote:
| I haven't tried boxer since M1... does it still work?
| bombcar wrote:
| I don't have an M1 to try boxer on - but it works fine on
| Monterey on a x64 Intel, so at worst I assume it'd rosetta.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| My favorite win: ally with the Darlok, the reprehensible race.
| Share all technology with them profligately. They grow with you
| to be the top 2 races in the galaxy. Upon the first election
| nobody will vote for the Darlok (a racial characteristic -
| everybody hates them) so they all vote for you. Win!
| Arrath wrote:
| I came of age just a hair late, and cut my teeth on the ambitious
| but disastrous MoO 3. What a disappointment that was.
| beloch wrote:
| The sequel to MOO, and most 4X games made since then, have always
| felt inferior to me. MOO was like a game of chess. The rules were
| relatively simple, but complex enough to give you the "box of
| chocolates" games this article talks about.
|
| MOO2 bogged you down in micromanaging colony buildings, etc. and
| other 4X games made since have added far more complex systems.
| The results feels like chess where each piece now has bolted-on
| RPG stats that have to be individually micromanaged. The game
| becomes more complex, but not in an elegant way. I don't want to
| manage maces and chain-mail and morale. I just want to play
| chess!
|
| I haven't really kept up with 4X games. Are there any that have
| tried to get back to the basic chess of MOO instead of bolting on
| complications that bog you down in micromanagement?
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(page generated 2022-05-11 23:00 UTC)