Introduction
Even if you never played or even see any of the Master of Orion games, you might have at least heard about a handful of things, like the term “spiritual successor to Master of Orion” or how the third game is often regarded as “the worst strategy game” or how the very term of “4X” was coined around it.
My contact with the series itself started not with the first two games, but the third one, which I had the physical version. But at the time, I end never played too much. But since strategy games are one of my favorite genres, beside Japanese RPGs and visuals novels, I decided to not only revisit the third game, but solve that gap too. So I bought the three games on GoG, what happen next caught me off guard…
While one can expect the first two games to maybe didn’t hold up the passage of time, I was shocked of how well they would up, specially the second game, so no surprise that people made tons of game inspired on it.
From there, I moved to the third one, and it was a wild journey…
If you look at some of the reviews (at the time), you find them more mixed (looking at Metacritic), with some positive (such as IGN giving it 92, sadly I can't access the review itself), a lot in the range of 70–60 and some at negative, such as Eurogamer which give it 30 (can't access either). The game have its fans (and even mods and unofficial patches) and later analysis, might point it as actually, despite all, important game (https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/master-of-orion-3-retrospective)
While writing this I noticed that there was a lot about the game that I sort misremember, despite actually having playing it, maybe it was stuff I heard or read second handed, that while wrong, it feels correct, due to the game infamy.
4X as a Genre
This is a term trick term, that you might have heard about, but there is a sort of “children telephone game” effect, that even I got caught on it for a long time, where what you heard isn’t wrong, but is exactly correct either, might be variations of “Sid Mayer invented it” or “the Master of Orion games invented it”. But it more complicated.
The source of the term, came from Alam Emrich, which in a preview for Master of Orion I, would coin the term 4X to describe that game as part of a larger genre, and this is the important part, because, again, what he was doing is describe Master of Orion as a part of a wide genre of games, which was already in full swing, meaning that games which fit this category already existed for quite a while (some started in board games), is just the term itself didn’t exist, until that moment.
Now, due to the success of Civilization, you can see why people might think that Sid Mayer invented the term or even the genre, in a phenomenon, similar to what sometimes happen with dungeon crawlers, where every game is often called “Eye of the Beholder successor”, even if it makes no sense. Civilization success, sort hijacked the term.
By the way, before we move on, remember the name Alam Emrich, it will be very important later, so put a pin on that.
So, what exactly is a 4X game? Well, its 4X stand for: “eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate”, but that this means? In general, is you have a set number of players in a map (often covered in a fog of war), which they all start in single point, from there they “eXplore”, to claim territories (“eXpand”) to use it resources (“eXploit”) to improve them, to then defeat their opponents (“eXterminate), it is a simple, derived from board game, structure.
If it sounds complicated, a simple way to think of it, it is the fact players start from a single point (in other words, players start in symmetrical conditions) in an often empty map, acquire resources and territories and defeat opponents. It is a very board game like structure (remember the original roots) often more focused on direct competition and not meant to be a hyperrealistic simulation of something (they can feel like however or try to be one).
Now it might be worth to throw another word you might be heard about, but come more in use much later, the “Grand Strategy” as a genre, because the comparison might make thing easier. Now this term is often associated with Paradox games, and I think it might emerge organically, by both Paradox and its player base using it. But again, kind like the 4X, games which might be called “Grand Strategy” might exist way before that, like some old Koei strategy games.
Unlikely 4X, in a Grand Strategy game, players often start in highly asymmetrical conditions, instead of everyone start from a single point, depending on the game, player might start with anything, from huge empires to small kingdoms, with the rest of the map might be already filled in.
Another way to look, in a recent Three Moves Ahead podcast, where they compared the genres of 4X and Grand Strategy, they came with the main idea, that 4X have a more board game like structure, where Grand Strategy is akin more complex simulation, which the player is part of it. By last, another major difference, is that often, while 4X might feature competitive victory conditions (which make sense if you remember the link to board games), Grand Strategy, might not even have any victory conditions!
Please note, that there isn’t a rigid definition of both genres, a game might feature the overall frame of 4X, but verge in different ways, like dropping the competitive victory conditions, or being more focused in the military aspect and so on. In fact, in later Civilization games, you can set up the victory conditions to your liking. Also, one isn't better or worse than the other, much depend on tone, setting, aims and intentions, as both have their own challenges, strengths and weakness.
Now let's go back to the frame, like I said, in general, in a 4X, players start from a single point and move from there, this is likely the genre greatest strength and it is the greatest weakness.
The reason is simple: the focused start mean that in one hand, because small start, it is easier to introduce them to game mechanics, but it might mean that every start can feel very similar… Also, certain aspects of the game, might only happen very late.
Sometimes (I believe it was slightly more common in earlier games), a problem that can emerge is the “over optimal” start, where either my luck or by meta, you can very early on snowball to a point where the rest of the game feel pointless, or you can have such a bad start, that the match is already done. To use an analogy, sometimes, specially earlier 4X (due often the competitive victory condition), can feel a bit like let’s say, a racing game, but to a degree, where you can either be so ahead early one, that the race is done, or so behind (or behind enough) to the match feel wasted.
The ability to catch up is… is trick, if it exists…that is way hard and beyond the scope of this text, because that would require a case by case approach, for now, just keep this in mind, of how possible it is to catch up, because it will be important later.
So what even is Master of Orion?
Before all, there was Starlords (1988), created by Simtex as a prototype, more a proof a concept that an actual game or what it could be, this would be used to sell the concept, which lead to Master of Orion I (1993).
Master of Orion I, save some parts of it UI, still hold-ups very well. Now, in this game, the following factions, were introduced: Alkari, Meklar, Silicoids, Humans, Psilons, Klackons, Darlocks, Bulrathi, Mrrshan, Sakkra.
The presentation was in quite charming pixel art, most notable, the star map is made of dots, but not star lanes, a later staple of the genre, aren't present. Also, each star have a single planet too. The way you govern planets, was by a main slider, which you divide the planet said income, this was quite cleaver and simple.
Planets be keep producing ships or defenses on their own, without you micromanage it, as you only need to set which ship or stuff they should do (and even how much of it) and depending on the slider, they keep doing under certain number of turns. Also, one major feature would be the ability to customize ships or use an autobuild.
Another cleaver feature, was the GNN, which overtime would pop up, telling you what is going on, mostly giving you some rank list and minor stuff, there were also some anomalies which you and the other factions had to deal, these two elements helped to world to feel more alive.
The success of Master of Orion I lead to a sequel, Master of Orion II: Battle of Antares (1996). The presentation kept the pixel art, but made it much more detailed and unique, while using some 3D model here and there. The soundtrack was absolutely amazing. The star map was still dots, without the lanes, but now each star could have several planets around. This game marked the introduction of Trilarians, Elarians, Gnolams.
The major feature, was the Antaran raids, after a certain point, they would emerge from their pocket dimension and raid planets, you might think of this as a really annoying feature, but no. Between the presentation and the fact that the attack could be held back and some abilities can affect if they aim you or not most of the time, made it ok
Planet administration, was now very closer to Civilization, featuring different type of workers and buildings. This game still amazing, save some minor confusing stuff, like the Freighters, still really playable.
Production
While Master of Orion 1 and 2 were made by Simtex Software, the third game was developed by Quicksilver, which was published by Atari (under Infogames). The why, from what I could gather, Simtex was closed in 97 and somehow the rights of the IP ended with Quicksilver. The game would be released in 2003, after several delays.
The game not only had a troubled development with delays, but also, critical internal clashes between Rantz Hoseley, the game Art Director and Alam Emrich (I told this was important), the lead Game Designer, which would lead to the disaster the game would become in the end.
Rantz disliked the way the races in the previous game look often comparing them with “actors in rubber suits” and would advocate for more no-humanoid and realistic aliens, which fine as an idea or design concept… but when come to put in practice is when things start to went downhill… we will talk more about that later…
… But that was not all, they also clashed over the general game direction, with Alan favored a more traditional approach to the game mechanics and empire management while Rantz wanted a more “realistic” approach, where the player would, as a galactic emperor, give general orders which viceroys would execute and the empire management would be more “realistic” (and less abstract format)… again, when come to put this in action is where the problems would pop up.
These clashes led to Alan leaving the development of the game very early on, resulting in several ideas and potential features being dropped out. Leaving the game with two loft ideas, or two lines, which never actually meet or even worst where at odd which other…
You see, in one hand you have the concept of the aliens “begin more alien” that actually would require a lot of asymmetrical design, which also is likely needed to be reflected on how the empire is ruled. In the other side the whole idea of “realistic” empire management, which clash with the alien aspect while also lead to lots of UI and design problems (you might have heard about the game having around 100 UI screen at one time…) and the whole thing with Viceroys, end being just you constantly fighting against the game AI.
To quote Bruce Garyk (https://www.wargamespace.com/2014/05/05/geryk-analysis-master-of-orion-3/)
“The game is more than just micromanagement Hell — it’s micromanagement Hell where someone else (the AI) does the initial micromanagement, and you then have to go back in and micromanage the mistakes.”
In the end, Randz bold claims end creating a scenario that would require a pay-off which the game simple can't deliver. The aliens (and we will talk about them later), feel even more like “actor in rubber suits” while the empire management, becomes a somewhat flat experience, where you are never sure of how well or bad are you performing while struggling with the game AI.
To make things complicated, on top of this messy structure, there was a no small amount of bugs and other problems like delays, plus a lot of expectations from players, given the previous game's success and quality.
The Manual
There is a somewhat good chance that you might hear about the game manual, more specific, the backstory there, which many point as redeeming aspect of the game…
But, what you might don't know, is that the manual somehow, despite not making up anything, still somehow, by just describing stuff, make whole parts of the game feel way more interesting that they actually are. But then there are some omissions, things like Guardians, Planet Special Traits and other stuff, aren’t mentioned at all. I had to check the readme to figure a lot of stuff…
The writing is in general is pretty good, but the backstory for the factions and setting can feel a bit too mean spirited in some parts, plus a lot of strange retcons. Later on, when I cover the factions, I will talk about it.
General Presentation
In this part, I will mostly cover the game UI and some of its art assets, I will save the faction design for it on section.
It is often very easy to fall on the trope of thinking that anything with slightly more than a handful of UI pages is too much, but different games have different necessities…
It appears, that due to the idea of realistic portrait of ruling a galactic empire, plus problems and changes caused by Alam Emrich forced to leave the project, lead to a scenario where several ideas were suddenly removed, the end result was something which during development might have too many UI screen, but due to the conflicts and trouble production, somehow end with less that actually it needed…
The design appear to be, at least in concept of largely clean UI screens, based in blue and black design, sadly, in it this attempt, it caused information to be either misplaced in different parts of the game or not show at all.
This is a huge part of the main problems which haunt this game: several parts of it, while often having a build up, context or even a fairly elaborate system behind, because of the lack of feedback and missed or misplaced information, feel like happening out of the blue or for no reason.
I will talk about this in detail in each section, but for now, keep in mind, that somehow the game have too much and too few UI screens, where things get either hidden, buried or not show at all.
Outside from the blue and black design, the general art assets in various part of the game, are functional… most, some feel almost out of place or generic (like stock art), such as the weird image screen showing hand holding modern fire arms, others are simply used a lot and become a blur. But in general, while functional, feels generic, specially compared with the visual identity of the second game.
The game does feature different ship and stations designs and icons, but not much of them, meaning empires can share the same ship design, making everything more confusing. Again, wait until I talk about battles and ships later.
Also, when you set up a game, you can select an icon and a color to represent your empire, but the game features a rather limited selection of both elements and strangely some out of place kiddy icons, the end result is that depending on how many other players, you can have repeated colors and out of place icons.
Auto Play
There is a little hidden feature, which is way too cleaver for the game, as you choose your species and start a new game, you can use an “auto play” function, which instead of starting at turn 1, you can set the game to already start at what ever turn you wish, and the game simulate itself until that point.
It is a bit weird, as the game start as normal, until you goes for the next turn, where then the simulation start to run. For me, this was a key to understand a bit better what the game expects, because soon as you get control again, you can check what the AI did, that when I noticed how many times the AI used the shipbuilding function (as how many ships were designed and how many were marked as obsolete) and other little details.
Every Turn
Something the game does, which others might have done before and after, but I feel that really hurt this game, it's that enemy empire turn are completely hidden from you, you only see this screen and that is it.
Remember how the GNN in the previous game would give some reports, making the world feel more alive? There is no such thing here, so despite enemy factions begin active, you only can guess what they are up to, by checking lots of different parts of the UI, such as in the Victory screen and the Diplomatic Matrix tab in the Diplomacy Screen. Same with ship movement, unless you are checking at every turn, you can get off guard.
Now at the beginning of every turn you have the Sitrep, which as general report of what happened in your empire between the previous turn and now, problem being that, despite the filters, it can get flooded with messages, specially with all reports of tech, building, task forces formed and other stuff. Battles are also reported here, which you can assume some stances or try to direct control it, but more of this latter.
The end result, is that, world or better, the space, feel dead even if it is alive, because things are moving, factions colonize planets, battles are being fought and so on, but you never know or told any of this, outside glimpses in hidden parts of the UI and this make difficult to notice when it is too late to react to something.
Galactic Map
Look, I have no way to prove, but I suspect that something is slightly off with the way the game generate its map.
In general, it is an upgraded version of the way the game represent space in the MoO 2, where you have Star systems, which can feature several planets inside, however, unlike the previous two games, now you do have “star lanes”, which you can think like a line connecting the dots, which are the star systems.
Now, when the game start, not all lanes are showing up, you either need to move fleets to figure if there is are more lanes or get an intelligence pact with other empire, meaning that entire parts of the map can remain sort hidden from you or appear unconnected… This will cause a problem, because you might look at a map, thinking that an empire is X size, when in really it might be 3 times that, but you can't directly see…and you might not notice until it is too late…
This also make the whole map quite hard to read, despite the use of lines to make the position of dots clear, the result here is strange, due to attempt to represent a 3D position, the lines and dots feel weirdly placed, sometimes you see at least one or more ridiculous long line, that felt it should take tons of turns to cross, but somehow it did not… But that is only one small problem…
The real problem begin, I suspect, not with the kind of map (if it is cluster, galaxy arm etc… or how many planets) or size, but with the way it used to position the player and the other empires on it, I feel that some of the rules the game uses often clash. In general, the game appears to place the New Orions in the middle of the map, with every member of the Orion Senate around them, everyone else (which isn’t a member) is then placed, I believe, behind or around the members.
This might, depend on how many empires you start at the game (and remember, the New Orions are always present, so it is X+1 in the total), mean that there might be not enough space for everybody, the Senate members can get squished with little space to expand, meanwhile those outside can often enjoy a lot of space to expand, to a point, which can become out of control.
Then game use a quite vague rules, that determine when you can colonize or not a planet. Let me explain, imagine the following, you have three star systems, A, B and C (in this order). You got A, someone got B, in general you could colonize C…in fact you might even already did get a planet there, so you build another colony ship aiming for another planet in that system, except, that turn after turn, nothing happens, even it the function where the AI controlling colonization is on and saying that build a task force with the mission of colonize one more planet in that star system, the ship just stands in orbit doing nothing.
To the best of my knowledge, there is a bizarre or obscure rule, if there is a ship of other empire in orbit too, you can’t colonize, for some reason, and even sharing a non-aggression pact with the other empire, does not make a difference. Also, the AI might send two colony ships to the same planet causing some type of jam, meaning you need to clear it in order and do it manually. You can even cause that for other empires too, in some plays I noticed whole fleet of colony ships of the other empires moving around or stand in position.
Then there is the rule for when two empires can make contact, because running in to other empires ships and even having actual battles, won’t initiate contact, only when you have a colony at least two jumps away from a colony of theirs. This can become an issue, because you might find yourself under attack and being unable to do anything diplomatic.
As the game progress, the various empires can start to overlap one another at the borders, which while might sound cool, but sadly it does cause a ton of problems, first, make the map really hard to read, your only indication that this is happening, is the presence of brackets around the star system name (but not how it split). But the real issue, is that the AI can’t handle this very well…
While the AI (for both you and the other empires, as you can leave the AI on for this when playing), when it comes to colonization (using the available colony ships), appear to perform well, as the game moves to the later parts, it clearly becomes more confused on what to do when space become smaller. Often it will send colony ships to the middle of some other empires, where often they either got destroyed or unable to colonize due the rules above.
Then, in the diplomacy part, first I suspect, but I can't prove, that due to the shared borders, you can take diplomatic penalties, since other empires don't like your fleets around them. But more than this, when war broke out, this shared border became a nightmare, since you can't stop other empire ship roaming around (nor the other empires can stop you), when conflict happen, expect lots of planets and ships suddenly come under fire.
Economy and Development Plans
So, one part of writing this post, which I have been struggling is how to explain this part… not because it is complex, no like I said above, in general MoO 3 isn't so much different from other 4x from the same period… it is just because the game kind play itself, you never have to worry about this part, to a point which I never need to look in depth in too it… that said, let me try at least give you a general idea…
So, the base element is the planet, which one can have several zones (think of them as slots), depending on their size, in each a DEA (in game term for Development Economic Area, but in simpler term, as general kind of building, such as Biohaverst, Mining, Industry, ect…).
This is where the Development Plans act, because there you can decide the general directions which the AI take or focus on. If you set a plan to focus on mining and industry one mineral rich planets, that is what the AI will do. Now… You might think that need different plans for each faction, but no… in general you are going to make a single set of plans, which you can save and load in other games and simple reuse, because is setting up obvious stuff, such as, yeah, focus mining in a mineral rich planet.
So with a good set of said plans, you never need to worry much about how each planet will build…
I mentioned already the confusing nature of when you can (or not) colonize a planet, but there is a little more I need to cover. You might think, like in many games of the genre, that to colonize certain planets, you might need certain tech, but not here. While each species have it own ideal range of planets they can live, which determine how many colony ships (in general a single one) you need to send, you can as soon as the game start colonize all planets, however those outside the range, might need more colony ships to become full colonies, and they might have slow growth (and sometimes to population can decline).
Then, there is a weird hidden mechanic, you can mark one or more planets as a target for migration, increasing the population growth without needing extra ships (I think), but this adds a lot of micromanagement, as you need to manually do (and undo it).
The why need to colonize a lot of planets is twofold: One is that Senate victory condition require a huge amount of population; Second, you need them to produce ships, because….
Each planet can produce military units and infrastructure, how fast depends on how well-developed the planet is, these two types aren't affect by Development Plans, which often introduce a small problem, while the AI is good a building infrastructure, the same could not be said of when come to military units, where most of the time it performs well, but unless you mark some ships as obsolete, get ready to have tons of transport ships or old ships…
Each planet also generates taxes, which you collect in two forms, in local and empire taxes, then there is also interest rates and other stuff, but… no of this matter much… You can't use money to rush anything and 99% (not in the way you might do in other games) and the time you will have a surplus of money (and other resources too) … excess could be thrown in some sliders where you decide how much to things like research and so on, but incremental in a small scale, plus the UI issues, make the effect hard to see. This also make the effect of something, such as trade, less visible or even noticeable too…
Now, you might notice that some games often use small quantities (almost comical) to represent resources or money, mostly because it makes way clear how well or bad you are performing, since huge values make everything trick. In Master of Orion 3 while minerals and food follow rather small amounts (in numerical sense), the money part can get out of hand, so you could be making 200, 1000, 2k, 12k, 42k and so on of profits, which can trick you thinking that you are performing well, but not really…
Because while you might have tons of money it feels useless, since you can't rush, you can't give it away in diplomacy (unless you use some of the obscure options) and is use in the sliders might not be that noticeable (since you might only make very small adjustments and increments).
What matter most of the time is industry, because, all money in the world is useless unless you planets are with their best shipyards and building the best ships you can. Because you need tons of different ships (reasons which will make clear as we move on), so you need lots of planets.
Remember, way above, when I talked about catching up? So, can you catch up in case you fall behind? It is very hard to tell and this is a huge problem the game have, because notice that is hard, unless you keep an eye in several different parts of the UI (such as the Victory Tab), so to use that racing analogy again: the game can feel like a racing game where you can't exactly see where each car is or when you do, it is too late, or you will be so ahead the whole thing feel wasted.
Tech
While in the past, tech was spread out in fields, and you choose one tech inside one of the fields (except in with the Psilons, which research the entire field at once). Now tech is spread out in several more fields, which you allocate funds to each, and the actual techs being researched are random, I mean, you don't select which tech get researched. There is a ton of techs inside each field and each on sort got it own description, some longer than other, which had to require a lot of work.
But since you can't control which tech got researched, you likely never read each tech description, since you never really need to check that screen, you like only be informed that something is under research, maybe told of some potential setback or breakthrough and finally when the tech is ready… in fact this reports will spam your Sitrep, as you have several techs under research all at once, all in different steps, it quickly can turn in to white noise.
Ok, now that I described the general way the game handle tech and research I need to address one thing, which I become aware listening to the Three Moves Ahead Podcast. One advantage that Civilization style of 4 X (in other words, the historical 4X, but fantasy too), have is that it is a lot easier to group things in a line of progression clear to the player. I mean, the line between from using spear to a tank is pretty clear.
However, sci-fi games, have much harder time making this readable or clear, the tech terms there are often a mix of real science terms and sci-fi jargon mixed together, which is much harder to organize in a clear way to the player. Which is the direction the series takes, lots of terms which can become a blur where you wonder what hell a Hard Beam even is and if it worst or better that some other term.
The end result is that is quite hard to know how well or bad you are doing, you can guess by checking the Victory screen and the Diplomacy screen (using the Exchange option, you can see which tech each empire have, but you don't), but this is sort of a wild guess, there are so many techs that is hard to know exactly, like they might have a bunch of not very useful stuff ahead of you…
In one game I was in a situation, where the Victory screen suggest that I was ahead of the Itkhul, however their fleets crumb stomp my fleets with easy, so maybe the got the tech for Battleship or other late game ship model, ahead, while in other field they have fallen behind.
Orion Senate
This is a feature, that at the time, is quite developed, where members can propose a ton of potential bills, which can have all kinds of effect. Sadly, this entire feature is also the less reliable due to a simple problem:
You, see the New Orions give themselves a comical voting advantage, which render this whole thing almost useless, because 99% of the time it feels they will simply vote no to everything, except once in a while when they say yes, which you can never know.
This mean that the entire experience of this game aspect is having things being proposed and shoot down over and over again, save some stuff, like a handful of bills, which they appear to agree in general, which make the whole thing feel useless or random.
But that is not all, there is a deep weird inconsistency, in one game, they (New Orions) agreed (out of the blue) to declaration of war against someone else, and later they also accepted the invitation for the same faction to join the Senate, only to refuse any propose to cease that war, leading to this bizarre scenario, that faction was a member, but somehow the whole Orion Senate vs them war still going on.
In another play, a faction was kicked out of the Senate, during the first four turns, because another faction proposed that, and the Orions, for some reason agreed… I have seen also, for very frustrating reasons, Orions agreeing to declare a total war, when an AI faction proposes, but never when the player does.
Then, there is something which appear a bit of mistake, like in general, you won't know which other empires exist, until you make contact, except that, you can! For some reason, you can check everyone which exist in game using some of the bills, which require a target, since it show all in game empires, so yeah you can propose a bill against or in favor of someone which you or anyone else have meet yet.
Now, I talked a lot about this system, to give a general idea of how it works… with that done, I need to explain a crucial aspect… how you got in the Orion Senate, because once again, the game does take some curious decisions:
Despite all the work to design this system, unless you modify your race to pick up the Orion Senate option, which does not come free… it is random!
So what if you don't get the Orion Senate at the game start? To be fair I don't know if you can join, because while there is a way, since a Senate member can propose to some other race to join, since you are outside, you can't check the Senate nor what they are doing, so I can't tell if maybe some other specie is proposing you to join, but the Orions keep shooting it down or maybe this simple does not happen at all.
Yeah, this also mean you never know what bills are being proposed or not, unless you are inside, meaning that maybe someone proposed a war against you, but there is no way of knowing it.
But that is not all, this does introduce a huge problem with the victory conditions, because one of is the Orion Senate victory, which is all about getting to be the president, this requires you to beat the Orions in votes, which requires a ton of population and other empires to maybe vote for you (hard to tell if it happens). If you are inside, it is easy to keep in check what is going on, however, from the outside, unless you set this victory condition off, you can take a very sudden game over screen with no warning.
You might think that begin inside the Senate might protect you from enemies, but no, the New Orions won't move a finger (or do anything), and the other members might still attack you.
Espionage
Oh, here is a small feature that is a reflective off the major issues plaguing the game, because overall, it is fairly developed concept, however the execution…
Problems begin, that you can only queue four spies for hire, however there are several different types of spies, military, diplomatic, politic, scientific and others. You need tons of them for both defense and or actual use, specially if you start in the Orion Senate, since members will send spy against you as soon possible. Oh, spies often also die or get killed, so keep this in mind as you need to keep checking this tab to see if you have any left.
Each spy have a name (which often make zero sense), some stats and its role. Once send or left for defense, and here problems begin, while their role, dictate what missions they will execute, you have no control, and most of the time you only know the mission they performed when they manage to succeed… which is very rare…
Because while the game suggest, that those stats might affect their performance, there is little to no feedback, you might be told in the Sitrep, that a spy, might be working in something or find an issue, most of the time the message is just too vague and there is nothing you could do. By late game, your spies simple appear to fail at everything with no explanation, due to the cross with two elements.
You see, general spy performance (for both in mission and defense) is affect by the weirdly named “Oppressometer” of your empire (when defending against other spies) or of the other empire (when send in mission), in general, higher it is them lower are chances of success for enemy spies.
Now, you might expect the Oppressometer to be tied to the Personal UI, where you hire spies, but no, it is on the Government tab, where you likely forget it exist. But while you can adjust it, you can't check how it is for other empires… and some species, such as the Ithukul, have some absurd levels that make spying them impossible.
Also, you most have no reason to adjust it, you might put it a maximum possible, in the beginning of the game and forget it exist. Then there is the tech tree, some techs do affect spies (for both missions and defense), meaning that empires in late game, might be also very hard to spy too.
Combine this two, with the very little feedback, make the whole thing feel like busy work, where you need to keep hiring spies of different roles, that often fail at everything… But even when they succeed, there is no way to check out if what they said is true, save cases where you got some tech, meaning that while a spy might claim that sabotage the enemy reserve ships, there is no way to see it.
To make the system more annoying, enemies spies will often appear to work way better (might be for a good reason, such as some species limited Oppressometer, tech and so, but no feedback), so get ready for constant vague messages of unrest, your leaders being killed and tech being stolen, building begin damage (which the AI itself will rebuild in no time)… Again, while your defense spy might defend you, the little feedback, make this feel strange.
Diplomacy
This is, somehow, the feature which kind appear to work best and the one which frustrate me the most. Because, while in general, other empires do behave in a stable way, due to the lack of feedback, sometimes it is hard to tell what is going on.
To begin, while the diplomacy screen does feature a lot of options, some of which are most never used, other which go unexplained or are easy to forget it exist, you run in a small problem, while the UI features a “tone” setting, it is hard to know exactly what it does… but this setting I feel clash with another one, which remain hidden in the Victory tab, where you set your actual policy toward each empire (and where you can check their policy). Both appear important, but it is hard to tell if anyone does anything.
Problem begin right away as there is no variant text for the difference alien species, all use the same exact text, which make the game feel bland in comparison with the previous games, worst the text itself, despite slightly different tones (in terms of being happy or angry), is often very vague, specially when com to threats and praises.
Also, completely hidden, each empire have a certain hardcoded hostility toward others, this is pretty crucial, but never explained anywhere or articulated, for example, everyone hates the Ithkul, so if you play as one of them get ready for lots of wars, but they never say why.
Remember that sometimes people make fun of Civilization, due it some of the leaders entering in contact with you just to tell that they are mad with you because you haven't enough boats or something like that? Silly as it is, it makes a lot of sense now (at least to me), once I played more o Master of Orion 3… Since at least you know why… because in MoO3 while often they will tell how happy or unhappy they are with you, BUT NEVER WHY!
This makes hard to know what is going on, to make it worst, they sometimes send threats and praises out blue, only to return to default behavior like nothing happened.
Things are made more complicated because espionage, does play a role here, but you might and most time don't know why. I think, at least from what I read, you can be framed (by enemy diplomatic spies), however there is no message nor warning, nothing, except suddenly someone changes behavior.
Now, you might think that having a nonaggression pact or alliance, might be safe, but no, sometimes other empires might suddenly cut all treaties, other times they can declare war with you without a grace period. In fact, in one game, an empire, which I was allied, declared war on me on the same turn they answered positive to join me in a war against an enemy…
Majority of all interaction you will have with other empires will be a constant spam of the three types of treaties: research, trade and intelligence, which exist in different levels.
Besides that and stuff like exchange (of tech or planets or some agreements), this leave us with some undocumented options, such a cease-fire and some surrender options. Only later, checking out the read me, is that I figured, that the many surrender options, actually just mean giving a part of your income to the enemy.
I suspect, that other empire's AI for diplomacy, might make decisions sometimes based in two things, how many ships you have and how much space there is left, this and that is why late game AI will suddenly declare war.
In one game, I got in trouble when suddenly an allied empire declared war on me without warning (around turn 175), I tried to return a couple of turn earlier, different diplomatic options but nothing worked (always declared war around turn 175), I then checked their fleet numbers vs mine (again, hidden in the victory screen), where no surprise, they had way more.
So I back to an even older save, pumped up all ships I could, and for a long while, things remain stable, until it happen again, much later this time.
By last, you might notice the Matrix tab, which show you some numbers that might suggest how things are going between you and other empires, but there is no tool tip or way to check what is causing the number to go up or down.
Ship Building and Task Forces
As had become a tradition by this point, the third game does feature the ship customization feature, but things get trick, unlike the first two games, where the game itself autobuild new ships models based on the tech you have, or you can customize them, in Master of Orion 3 you have to manually use an autobuild function or going by hand.
The ship customization part is overall more functional, most that other parts of the game, you have to balance how much stuff you want with how much you can cram inside. Ships are split in two parts: the type (destroyers, cruisers, ect…) and their mission (long range, carrier ect…) and you can add weapons, special functions (colonization) and so on, but…
For the type, don't even bother with anything below what minimum your planets might be able to produce, which at the game start will be Light Cruisers.
Now for mission, is where thing get trick, because you will need a steady supply of each: long range, short range, carrier, point defense, indirect fire and reconnaissance. The reason being, that to create a fleet (which the game calls a Task Force) you need to fill certain requirements and to make the largest ones, armadas, you need to fill several rules which require several different ships.
Oh, small note about the manual, because here is a part, that the manual got it wrong, there it suggests that armadas are up to 64 ships, however… the readme points (and you can see it in game) that the maximum is really 18 ships… I wonder what this mean, it was just an error, or some problem they did run during development.
But let's continue….
While the game start with two premade ships (outside of colony, outpost and transport ships), for everything else beyond that you need to use the ship building function.
It is a lot of busy work, it means going in the ship building, mark old models as obsolete, so the AI won't start making them, create new ships for each mission, by either using the AI autobuild or doing it by hand. But also you have to keep in mind, that each planet posses maximum ship size it can build, until you build whatever they need to increase size, so you can't just mark every light cruiser as obsolete soon as you got cruisers, I mean you can, but it might take a while until all or majority planets can build them, which can cause you to run out of ships.
Since we are talking about ship building you might wonder if you can produce a multirole ship, and you can, but I suspect, that for the sake of the rule to form a fleet, you still need the different roles.
Unlikely previous game, you can't retrofit ships… and this cause a ton of problems, you likely end with ton of old ships around and might even use them by accident, where they get absolutely destroyed. You can mark old ships for scrap, but… since old ships they still count in the fleet size thing, which I suspect it influence diplomacy, maybe make them useful (as long you remember to not actually use them)… Also, when it comes the time for looking the Antaran Xs, they actually became useful.
Like I said, way above, the game AI, at least during autoplay, it was pretty good at this (or does cheat a lot, hard to tell), as it mark old ships as soon it can as obsolete and start to produce better ships as soon it can.
One curious aspect of the game, while you can expect, that the game tracks where ships are produced and store, and this limits which fleet you can raise in each planet, this is one are which the game, despite the claims of realism, actually abstracts and maybe for the better.
Because, while System Ships (which stays in the local system) or Orbitals, is actually tracked where is produced, in fact Orbital are deployed soon as you create them. Everything else goes to the “reserve”, which any planet can use, no matter where is it (as long there is a spaceport). This, actually, is quite helpful, as you can quickly deploy a fleet in an emergency, instead of doings tons of busy work.
But…there are still a problem, how to reinforce fleet? You don't. I mean, you can only disband a fleet and remake it again.
Last, another major problem in the UI, is while in the map you can see enemy fleets, you might think you can't see their actual formations or size, but you can… again is quite hidden, but you got to tab in while looking at the planet, where you can see everyone which share orbit in that planet, but that only tells the enemy fleet size and the ship types, not its strength. Also, here, and only here, you can see if the planet have defenses.
Space Battles
Space battles, in the game, are in a strange position. Your first struggle will figure the combat scheduler during the sitrep, when fleets meet which other, you have to choose one stance, while the enemy also (I think) choose too, and depending on the combinations, a battle may or not unfold (but the game never shows what the opponent select). Meaning that you have to carefully wild guess the right option to avoid attacking someone and will sometimes get attacked for no reason or a battle might start by accident. Notice, that there is no just retreat option. You have done to that manually…
Now you might notice allied and enemy strenght… which will be useless. Because it only tells the number of ships, not their actual quality or type… also it does not count if the planets posses missile or beam bases, and I am not sure if count orbital ships too. You can be easily mislead to think that you can win a battle, only to be absolutely defeated. That number 2 in the screenshot? That is the Guardian, a special enemy which you can find around in the map, so powerful that I have no idea when you are meant to face him.
While you can control the fleets during a battle… there is not much to do there, you can only move the fleets and order a retreat, making it not very useful, you mostly like just use the watch option… because watching the battle, and credit where credit is due, is not bad, just very small and a bit difficult to read, beams and weapons appear to came out of nowhere, but the small fighters animations it pretty cool. There is some slightly feedback, since the color of damage does suggest some stuff, like blue mean it hit shields, red mean direct damage and yellow I think mean hit the shield and armor (all that info is in the readme).
Another issue, is that while you can have several fleets in the orbit, when battle start you can't decide which ones are joining in or not, which can become a problem, as a weaker fleet might join instead of stronger one (I think, I can't confirm this). Then, when you move several fleets at once, sometimes they move all at the same time and reach the destination at the same time, but sometimes not, causing you to lose battle, because one fleet didn't move at the same speed nor the other adjust their speeds.
The end result, unless you keep in the curve and like a hawk keeping eye on several different screens, space battles feel like a throw of the dice in the worst way possible, not like in other games, where some UI which show the general potential result, so you know when you win and only fight there, but in the sense, that you just won't know what is going happen and can only expect the worst, making taking decisions really hard.
If the enemy got the advantage, there is another problem, due to the lots of info begin either hidden or buried, you won't know what to do about or what the problem even is. Is your tech too low? It is the composition of the fleet? Maybe is something in the way you build ships… Who knows?
Land Battles
There is not much to say here, except, that for some reason, a lot of effort did go in design parts of the system, you have actually tons of different troops, which can included no just from your faction species, but other species you came across too. A lot of the faction design bonus is around this, not how well each faction build or use ships, but about their troops…
However, when came to the actual battle, it is pretty simple, you just choose a general strategy and watch the outcome, that it. You can do stuff like bombard the planet to weaken its defense, but that is all. It feels like this was something maybe meant to be much larger, but end being cut short…
But to actually get a land battle is a bit trick, because you need first transport ships (and the said troops), then you got to first defeat what ever fleet is around the planet (and hope to win, because I don't think the game show clearly, if there are things like beam, missile and other defense) to then assault it…
Factions, Aliens, Empires and the Actual Plot…
For sake of context, faction design for this kind of game during this period (I mean we the game was released and while later too), was still largely based around bonuses or penalties the faction would have. Their impact, and implementation, depend on each game. Besides this, sometimes a faction might have unique units (like in Civilization) or powers, but this wasn’t so common as the bonuses.
Now o the visual aspect… ok, this is kind hard to summarize, but in a very general way, faction/character in terms of visual and presentation design, wasn't much a thing that, as one expect today (there were exceptions of course). Mostly because it wasn't a focus or possible (for one reason or another). Think how now often a game might have trailers for each faction or characters, but before that they won't even list which factions might be included in the description. Again, I am speaking in very general terms for a particular type of strategy game.
In Master of Orion 1 and 2, factions often had very huge bonuses in some particular area of gameplay and sometimes a penalty in others, which would reflect their theme, the Darloks, per example, had huge bonuses related to the spy mechanics of the game, Alkari had on piloting ships, Humans had bonuses on diplomacy and so on.
Some faction, had some form of special power or mechanic, the Elarians had a Telepathy, which allow them to quickly win land battles, Psilons had the ability to research an entire tech field at once, the Silicoids didn’t need food, only minerals. Not all abilities were good, the same Silicoids, also had a trait which made it impossible for them to properly interact with other factions. But not all factions had these abilities.
This lead to a very early form of asymmetrical design, which was not that common for the period. This does not mean that they were all balanced, oh no… Psilons were sort of broken, because of their ability to quick research everything, while other factions, felt not so useful, due to their bonuses not begin that good or even the lack of an ability…
But if you don’t like, you can make your own faction! This feature became a staple of the Master of Orion and the very space 4x genre, as a whole. Using a point base system, you could choose a general form and then customize the bonuses and even pick up special abilities.
Now one unintentional consequence of the way which Master of Orion 3 dealt with the previous game factions, plus the disaster which the game would become is that many the previous factions to become a sort of general archetype for a faction, which later “spiritual successors” would use, again and again, of course, some of those factions were already based in classic sci-fi concepts, such greys (Psilons), blue humanoids (Elarians), animal humanoids (Mrshan and Bulwari), Hive Mind Insect (Klackons) and so on, but give the previous game popularity and the third game disaster, one can see as people making spiritual successors would look and bring them back in one form or another.
With all that said…
To recap, let’s make a quick list of all factions introduced in each of the two previous games, before I talk about the third game.
Master of Orion 1: Alkari, Meklar, Silicoids, Humans, Psilons, Klackons, Darlocks, Bulrathi, Mrrshan, Saurian.
Master of Orion 2 : Trilarians, Elarians, Gnolams.
So, here is the thing, in concept, Master of Orion 3 is a sort of shake up of the setting… some factions vanish, others appear, the backstory changed a lot… but the game is terrible at actually telling you about this… unless you read the manual and were familiar with the setting, you might just think it is a sequel with slightly different factions, which was my impression (remember, I haven’t played the first two games until now), even the backstory in the manual, felt as, well backstory only, most of it don’t appear, or it is reflected in the game, save some factions and leader descriptions and a couple of hidden diplomacy penalties. Even the intro of the game is quite vague, hilarious you can even spot the Elarians on the intro (which is very strange, given that they aren't a playable faction).
The crux of the problem, which will plague the faction design in Master of Orion 3, is Rantz ideas for them, which were hard to put in practice. Remember, he wanted more “alien” faction, that felt less like “men in rubber suits”. Which as a design concept, isn’t a bad idea, but… to implement it… is another story. Like I said way earlier, this might need a lot of asymmetrical design, which the game does not have, as every faction sort plays as the same, which more than ever, make they feel like “man in rubber suits”.
Even their bonus and penalties are spread out in a way that make their potential roles not very clear or often overlap. While special abilities or traits still exist, their effect is often less noticeable and some are even hidden (meaning the manual nor the game actually explains them or there is no feedback), like the Itkhul ability to devour populations if they share a system with someone else.
Oh, and sometimes the game itself use a very confusing terminology, the Itkhul have a special trait called Tolerance, which given the description above you might find a bit weird… because in reality, isn't about tolerance as one imagine, but about resistance to pollution or something.
But that is not all, there is a little detail, which I didn’t mention until now: You see, in the previous games every faction was unique. Meaning, when playing a game, if someone one was Alkari, there won’t be another faction with the same species. Every faction would be led by a named emperor. This mean that even with the maximum amount of player in game, no faction would be repeated, as everyone would show up, if the number would allow.
In the third game, now factions can exist in repeated format, meaning, you can have a game with three Meklars, so factions could not show up at all or show repeated… and here is a weird thing I noticed while writing this, during all my time playing, some factions appear to show up much more that other, like in 70 hours playing different games, I never see Humans show up… but that might be some weird coincidence.
Anyway, factions no longer name their emperors, instead, they got a unique name and problems begin, the list of potential names isn’t great, so you can end with those three Meklars factions, with slightly similar names akin to old cd-key, trying to figure which one you where are you fighting.
In the previous games, each faction had unique sprite for the leader (the second game feature unique sprites, not just for the leader, but some other characters), now each faction have a single early 3d model, which represent the faction as a whole, but some addition art do exist for leaders and some parts of the UI.
This does lead to a lot of confusion, like I said above, you can end trying to figure which one of the three Meklars you are fighting while all share the exact same visual; meanwhile, there is no unique flavor text for factions (some of which the previous game did feature), they all speak the same text, even the Silicoids (remember, that they were so alien that they can't really interact with other factions).
So, with all that said, how is, and how is out in Master of Orion 3? First a quick list of the new entries, which for now, just put a pin on that.
Master of Orion 3: Sakkra, Rass, Grendarl, Nommo, Tachadi, Cynoid, Evon, Itkhul, Imsaeis, Eoladi.
The first thing, is that the different species were regrouped in new categories, with Humans, Evons and Psilons throw in the Humanoid; Meklar and Cynoid in the Cybernetik; Rass, Grendarl and Sakkra are in the Saurian; Trilarian and Nommo arein the Ichthytosian category; Geodic category with just the Silicoids; Insecta features the Klackons and Tachidi; Etherean features the Imsaeis and Eoladi. By last you had the Harvester category with only the Ithkul.
If this might sound a bit confusing… as you might remember that the Saurian were a whole thing and wonder what happened, I will explain.
While the game did add some new species, overall what they actually did is pick up an old faction, and split it to two or more, meaning that instead of a faction with let's say, different aspects or sides, you now have two faction each one with a single aspect. This often make them more flat.
So what happened to…
Humans: while in the backstory they got the diplomatic victory… there is not much else to comment. They remain a faction based in diplomacy
Elarians: Remember the whole Telepathy ability? The Antaran removed that and caused their society to collapse. Funny enough, they still appear in the intro and I see screenshots of an Elarian leader, but I never got to see her.
Mrrshan: They got the awarded with being beaten down twice! In the manual, the Antaran beat them with easy and in the intro you see them getting bombarded, also their visual look really weird compared to previous entries.
Saurians: Got ovethrow by the Sakkra, Rass and Grendarl.
Gnolams: Again, the Antaran with easy beat them.
Bulwari: If memory isn't wrong, they just get feed up with everybody, and they just leave.
Silicoids: With all the claims around faction design, you might imagine, that the Silicoids would get a spotlight, I mean, they were the most “alien” like of the classic factions. However, in MoO 3, they are kind just there. They don't interact with the manual backstory (or appear to do anything at all), they lost the unique trait of being unable to interact with most factions (with no explanation of why).
Now, defeated factions, still show up, as Magnate Civilization, a special trait, that some planets might feature, which allow you to recruit troops of these populations, outside this you can still run in some leaders which are from those species.
What About the New Guys?
Saurians were split in three different factions, the Sakkra, Rass and Grendarl, clearly the focus and best stories, come from the Rass and Sakkra, since their plots interact with the Nommo and Trilarians, there is a whole arc (in the manual), about the “War in the Depths”, about their conflict and even before that, they had their own arc about throwing the Saurians off. The Grendarl, meanwhile, were just Space Spartan Lizards.
Meklar were split in Meklar and Cynoids, with the first becoming full robots, while the second still cyborgs. Which does not mean much, except, the Meklar lost what sort made them unique, of being organic creatures trapped inside their robotic suits, most faction difference is overall bonuses. Both factions even share the concept of using minerals and food, instead of only food, for population growth.
The manual backstory does mention the Meklar becoming fixed on turning everyone in robots, but outside hidden diplomatic penalties and dislikes, this does not amount too much.
Klackons were split in Klackons and Tachadi, and you likely noticed a pattern, the first still full hive mind, the other not so much. But the game have no mechanics for hive mind or anything like it, so their difference is just bonuses and penalties.
Evons, outside being described as “mysterious”, there is nothing else, in a small ironic way, they got rid of the Elarians which were sort the “blue space humanoids” to somewhat add another “blue space humanoids”.
Imsaeis and Eoladi share the Etheran category, as their name might suggest, they are the ones which live inside gas giants, while visual unique, they are the ones which most clash with the game mechanics. As it is a bit strange that they, as creatures inside a gas giant, use stuff like marines or some other stuff.
Nommo and Trilarians, in the Ichthytosian category, suffer from the “Antaran did everything”, and were created by them, while somehow, I think, the Trilarians end creating the Sakkra, which is another weird retcon that does not add much.
Itkhul where the last new addition, they were meant to be a creation by the Antarans, acting both as super soldiers and a parasite, surprising, they do have a hidden unique mechanic, where if they share a system with someone else, they will start to devour the population on the other planets. Problem is, because everybody hates them (and they hate everyone too), wars break so fast, that it is unlikely you share a system with anyone.
Now, there is a curious thing in their lore… as I told you, they were super soldiers, as tropes goes, you might expect that the idea is that Antarans lose control over them, as by trope tradition, so much, that this is often how people describe the Itkhul. Except for one problem, the manual nor the game actually says this. In fact their description is weirdly vague, it only suggests that… in fact, the Antarans don't appear to care much about them or anything.
Talking about the Antarans…
In the second game, they were quite cool, coming out of nowhere to attack everybody, reinforced by the unique visual, music and even presentation, they sort jump scare you.
You might think of their attacks as annoying, but no, they do get strong as time passes, but never too much, enough to give a scare, but not enough to feel frustrating, you can even beat off these attacks without much trouble. Also, they attack everybody, not just focusing only on the player, in fact there is a special trait, Luck, which can help to make sure they won't bother you much as everybody else.
The deal is that the Orions, in the past, battled the Antarans, until they decided to throw them off in a pocket dimension away from everyone. This worked, until the Antaran managed to not only get out, but use the said dimension as a fortress, which they could hide… While they were defeated in the second game, the third game retcons this, by saying it was a different Antaran fleet, and later another fleet would show up later and basically defeat everyone with ease, also they were suddenly responsible for creating several new species.
Once they beat everybody however, a mysterious event happens that causes their population suddenly vanish, leaving the few of them to retreat back to Orion and remake the Orion Senate to avoid being overrun by all the people they have beaten, leaving the sector in a tense situation, with the Antarans clinging to their power while everybody else is sharping their knifes.
Despite all of this backstory, they somehow lost what actually made they mysterious (now the motivations are very human like, their visual got a downgrade) while also they don't do anything in game. Seriously, they just sit in the Orion system and do nothing, they don't interact with other factions, they don't react to anything. Even in the Senate mechanics, their behavior is hyper inconstant, they will most time vote no to everything. Sometimes a member of the Senate will declare war on them, and they still won't react at all.
Meaning, that whole tense scenario I mentioned above? Never really happens, because, the Antaran could not care less (or react), you could be bringing several of their (or maybe not actually theirs, more of this later) artifacts, and they still don't react to almost anything. They don't even appear to care or react if someone else gains the Senate presidency.
This is extra weird, when you take in account games, which feature a computer controlled faction like that, I mean, in 2004 you had Total War: Medieval I, which feature a Papal faction, which interact with the player and other factions (like asking factions to stop fighting), Ceasar II (95) had a whole mechanic for the Emperor making demands. Because it feels like the Antarans should interact and be much more dynamic, liking keeping an eye on each Senate member, asking what the hell are you doing with their artifacts, and maybe making their mind about the Itkhul, and so on, but instead they just sit and do nothing.
Victory Conditions
The game features three of them, Conquest, which is self-explanatory, Senate, which is a trick and can cause a sudden game over and the Antaran X.
I already talked about the Senate above, but let’s recap, for this victory condition, you need to become the Senate president, defeating the New Orions and their comical voting advantage. For this you need tons of population (meaning planets) and maybe the other factions vote for you (I think).
If you are in the Senate, this is easy to keep in check, but if you are outside, this can cause a game over to jump scare you unless you are constantly checking the Victory Tab screen, but even doing this, there isn’t much you can do, maybe defeat everyone. Or maybe just turn off this Victory condition on the game start, specially if you aim to play as Ithukul (which can never start at the Senate).
Also, due to the way it works, you might find necessary to get rid of potential rivals, specially those with ability to grow larger populations, which render this victory condition, not so much different of the conquest one.
Antaran X
I swear, I have no way to prove this, but this feel like it changed during development, I read the manual several times, and this part feel like there is something off about it, it does not look right, it feels like two different ideas mashed together.
So what is the deal? There is a unique victory condition, which you need to recover the five Antaran Xs, each X is a unique tech that can give you a ton of bonuses.
So how you do this? There are two ways, maybe more, but the first is the use of Expeditions, where you can send fleet, which are auto-build from your reserve to find them (strangely, here are the rules for fleet formations don’t appear, so you can send whatever combination of ships the AI will randomly select)…
Problem is, once you do send them, the UI mark as Outbond, and for a very long time you will have no feedback, no report nothing. For a while I thought this feature was broken.
But it turns out it works, it just takes forever to change between several statuses, where you can lose ships in the expedition, once all is done, you then got a cutscene (that likely jump scare you) and have more several more steps, such as the fleet returning, and you need to research the tech (which happen automatic), once this is done, congratulations, the tech and it bonus are yours… Now just repeat this five more times… Or do several expeditions all at once…
So far, nothing out of the ordinary, just another feature, which is quite developed, but just remain a bit unclear.
If you read the manual, you might remember the whole plot point about the majority New Orions vanishing from the sector, so you can imagine, maybe is just stuff they left behind once the majority of them disappear, but why they don’t go back to pick it up? Or why they don’t react when you just pick up one? Still, at least, vaguely make sense…
… But like I said above, there are other ways and one of them is where thing get weird, is by defeating the Guardians, what are them? Well, the manual and it backstory never mention them, but for some reason, when the Antarans defeated the factions from the previous game and destroyed their home world, they left these ships there for some reason… Because, for some even strange reasons, maybe one of the Antaran X might be there…
Why?Why an Antaran artifact would be doing there? And why they left there? I suspect, that at some point it was meant to be an Artifact belonging to the Old Orions, which would make way more sense, since even the manual, suggest that that was the reason Antaran attacked, because they are looking for them, but the manual in later pages and claim to be actually Antaran artifact, which open the question, why they just left the thing there?
Now I said, that there are more ways, at least the manual suggest… you can get them by conquest (which I can’t prove, nor I know how the player is meant to know when a faction got one, and I never see the AI doing expeditions), the second is with maybe the espionage systems, as Scientist Spy can steal the tech… but remember, you have no control of which mission the spy perform and how you are meant to know if another faction even got an artifact?
Still, it happens to me, I got the tech and a handful of turns later it was stolen, but the UI show of I still having it, so who knows? Do to how unreliable espionage feels, I don’t know how the player is meant to pull off this.
Conclusion.
Separate from the initial expectations, hype and its release state, right now Master of Orion 3 (even with minimal patches), might not appear so much as the “worst strategy game”, but that does not mean that is a good game, but you can see it idea, like I said way above, it have it fans.
I feel that right now, it is even stranger, in the surface everything appear to “work”, but it is a game very prone to mislead you to think you are playing well when in reality that could be far from the truth, due to the lack of feedback in several systems, poorly designed UI and other issues, often leading you to doomed scenarios, which lead to repeated play through ts that show how limited or repetitive some aspect of the game are. When it works, it might feel like too easy or playing by itself, but I found that rare.
On the aspect of it own faction design, original concepts and lore is even stranger, you likely know how it sorts “butchered” the original concepts to introduce it own, only to make nothing out of it. Sure you might now know about this, since I just told you about, but if you just boot up the game, you might simply guess they changed some of the factions, since all the talk end going hidden in the manual and some part of the UI.
But still, much like that RPS article linked earlier, Master of Orion 3, still an important game, as it is the franchise as a whole, you still can see it spiritual successors and to a certain degree, even the ideas and ambition of this game would find home (and a much better on) in another game, Distant World, which take the whole idea of game AI control several aspects of it, but executes it very well and in even greater depth.
Log in to comment