Anyone here play Masters of Orion 2?

[IainMcNeil]

I've loaded it up this week and been playing it constantly. I love it, but hate the way the AI cheats and was wondering what it would be like against a human opponent or two. I've never played multiplayer, but woudl like to give it a try. Anyone interested?

[honvedseg]

I played Orion 2 for a while, but was annoyed at how the "random" map generator would dump you in a corner with no usable planets anywhere within range of your scouts for at least a couple of upgrades. Meanwhile, some other civilization would be sitting right next to a garden of Eden. Truly random is NOT the way to go, and skewing it against the player is even worse. Play balance may not be entirely historical, but anything else makes no sense for a strategy game.

[anguille]

Yes...it's a great game...unfortunatly i can't install it currently on my computer. I need to make a complete reinstall of my system. The best could be to check the official boards:

http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/fo ... orumid=276

[stalins_organ]

I've still got it somewhere - IIRC it was better than MOO 1, and vastly superior to MOO3.

[malthaussen]

I prefer Space Empires IV. Superior in every way, IMO.

At least, until Slitherine makes their own space 4x game.

-- Mal

[anguille]

Well MOO 1 is still my fav...played at least 3 campaigns last week.

[IainMcNeil]

I dont have MOO1 anymore, but would give it a try if I could find it somewhere

Played some more MOO2 last night and it is a bit hit and miss thinking about it. I either end up walking over the AI or they walk over me. Its rare to have a good to and fro struggle. It might be better against a human player. I think ship ranges are too long, so once you have the better fleet, its too easy to chase away or destroy the enemy fleet and them hop from one planet to the next and exterminate someone.

Ship design seems less important in MOO2. I remember some fun designs in MOO1 where you could use have ships so fast missles couldn't catch them or combinations of ruplusor beams and long range weapons to stop anyone getting close enough to use their short range ones.

[anguille]

MOO1 on Abandonia

There should be a list of the ships name (password) on their forums. I'll see if i can find it.

Found it:

ships name

I find MOO to be better balanced. As you said, in MOO2, either you win or you lose quickly. Also the games are shorter. Also, there's no way (gifts or else) to convince an alien to sign a peace treaty. Imho, Diplomacy in MOO is one of the best. Same for the Spy missions, best in any 4x games. (at par with the one in Spartan)

[honvedseg]

Iain, the problem with the rapid and decisive win or lose outcome of the game is closely linked to the totally random placement of starting positions, wormholes, and resources. Either you end up next to a relative "gold mine", or you don't. With a good place to expand to right from the start, you have to be fairly inept to lose. Without that, and against an empire that has it, you are in trouble from turn one, especially if you get dumped right between two other military expansionist empires, while another rival gets placed with half the galaxy all to themselves. The "difficulty" setting is actually relatively trivial compared to those "random" effects.

Let that be a lesson to you in developing a game, random generators need to be limited in how random they can get, so there is some minimum and maximum access to basic resources and acceptable starting conditions.

[efthimios]

Never liked this game. Still have it somewhere back in Greece I think. It is a good game though not for me.

[IainMcNeil]

I couldnt get MOO to even install Oh well.

[anguille]

That's bad ....

It really depends on the machine. Did you try with Dosbox?

[IainMcNeil]

I'll have another go if I get the time. Not sure how dosbox works so will have to check it out.

[ste]

have you tried switching compatibility to Win95?

[Redpossum]

I never played MOO2

I played MOO1, that was a great game for sure. I loved the different races in MOO1. They were so wonderfully balanced, you always got something but lost something, whichever race you chose. But the Mrrshan, the cat people, were always my favorites.

I also played and loved even more MOM, Masters of Magic, by the same design team, Steven Barcia, et al. Now that was a truly innovative game. You could even design and create your own magic items, with a truly huge range of design factors to choose from. I still play this game sometimes, even all these years later.

[therlun]

moo1 is the best game ever created until this day!

no other game managed to pack complexety AND simplicity in the same piece of software.
its beatifully balance of action, strategy and tactics is unreached.
its race artwork is superior to any renderings seen today.

and the most bright, the most rememberable is the technology system.
a system that combines randomness with decisionmaking, and integrates that into a living game by spionage and conquering.
no perfect research path, no stupid "working down the [tech]-tree".
a tech system that directly influences the game, and is different every time!

MoO is a great game, that has to suffer from the surprising popularity of its weak, micro-hell successor...

have fun ,
Therlun

[Redpossum]

I agree with Therlun. MOO1 was simply awesome in many, many ways.

I have often wondered what happened to the Barcias, Steven and, uhhh, Gretchen? Grendel maybe? A woman's name, no idea if they are man & wife or brother & sister. Somebody told me they had fallen so low as to design CONSOLE games, if you can imagine such degradation. Couldn't they find some more respectable way to earn a living, like say playing piano in a whorehouse?

I own legit boxed copies of both MOO1 and MoM, (which was equally brilliant, Therlun, you must try it if you have not), but the floppies have gone bad with the passage of time. So I felt not at all bad about D/L'ing them both off abandonware sites. No, that's not piracy. I own a legitimate license to the software, I was just replacing damaged storage media.

One could argue whether abandonware constitutes software piracy anyhow. The industry doesn't seem to think so. To the best of my knowledge, they have never prosecuted anyone over abandonware. They don't even make any effort to shut down the sites.

At any rate, I have strongly negative feelings about software prracy. I hate it. The SPA could examine my machine thoroughly, and they'd find nothing to object to. I just don't play like that

[therlun]

i also like mom. (i bought originals of both games ages ago too... . did never spend 30 deutschmarks better...).

but the one thing that makes moo1 better is IMO the colony/city managment.
sliders in moo1 are great. simple, fast, clear and versatile.
the civ-like "building one house after another" is IMO a true pain.

also i missed the "ahh klackons again! damn you!" feeling.
the wizards in mom were more different every game due to the pick system, and thus less stringent overall.
i never thought " oh oberon again. now i have to watch my weak cities". if you know what i mean.

myrror was nice, but as mom overall it could be a bit unbalancing.
the preset units were unbalanced too IMO.
the gnolls best units was weak compared to even medium troops of other races. and boy i really hate the strong paladins! (as enemies at least... ).

what i really liked was streetbuilding. the one game were streets have a true strategic value, and are not mass-ware like the "plant a street and railroad on every field" of civ.

i also LOVED that retreat was a true option (sometimes).
not like in HOMM for example where you either win, or loose your whole army (i never got why they made that so in every part of the series...).



concerning abondonware.
i wonder why seemingly nobody puts its "ancient" games for free download.
i think atari owns all the microprose rights (except civ, which they sold). if they would make all the old mircoprose titles avaiable it wouldnt harm them in any way, but could offer to be a potential information or even innovation source...

[Redpossum]

concerning abondonware.
i wonder why seemingly nobody puts its "ancient" games for free download.
i think atari owns all the microprose rights (except civ, which they sold). if they would make all the old mircoprose titles avaiable it wouldnt harm them in any way, but could offer to be a potential information or even innovation source...

It's the corporate mentality. People who run those huge corporations all suffer from a severe case of cranio-rectal insertion

They always think about money, they always listen to the lawyers, but they never consider the value of goodwill, or even of reputation, except in the most shallow sense of the word.

Look at id software for an interesting exception. Id was smart and lucky. They got in early, before the industry was hijacked by the corporates, made BIG money on DOOM and Quake1, and then managed that money carefully. As a consequence, id software is still independent, still run by some of the original founders, and enjoys a stirling reputation among gamers.

Id has never lied to their customers, never released a game before it was truly ready, and never sold anybody an unplayable POS. Why don't they do the stupid stuff corporations do? Because they're not controlled by a corporation.

But the real future of computer games lies with the small, independent companies like Slitherine and Shrapnel Games. While the corporate giants continue to churn out sad re-hashes of old news, (Command & Conquer XVII, anyone?), doing the same old tired shit because, by god, it sold last time! While the giants do that, it's the small companies that are daring to innovate, to do something new, to think outside the box, to actually take a chance, even though they stand to lose far more from one failure than do their giant competitors.

I've been a gamer since 1971, back before videogames existed, even before Pong, back when arcade games meant pinball and foosball. Back then we used little cardboard counters on hex-grid maps, and the damn cat always walked across the map at the worst time...

Gaming has come a long way. I can't wait to see where we go next

[Redpossum]

Oh, and the name I was looking for was Grissel Barcia. Isn't that a woman's name?

Anyhow, Grissel is listed in the MoM credits as both Programmer and Artist, how's that for versatile?

Steve Barcia is listed as Game Designer and Programmer.

hehehe, I've actually been playing MoM last night and this morning. Talking about it stimulated my interest again.

I love the way that game is always different...every time you play.