'Master of Orion', created by Simtex Software, released in 1993, is my chosen game that definitely deserves to be put in the spotlight as one of my favorite (and obviously fun) games to play. Despite the game being almost as old as I am, and lots of other brand new and shiny video games out there today, this game still finds its way to my computer screen every once in a while. Something magical about it just keeps me coming back, and I have a creeping suspicion that this happened entirely by accident, as I am usually not a huge fan of slower paced strategy games or older strategy games in general.
The graphics aren't great, but still pretty impressive for 1993.
To give a brief description of the game, it is a 4x (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) turn-based strategy game that is set amongst the stars. The game starts by letting the player choose what size of galaxy he/she wishes to play in, the difficulty, and number of opponents then picking a race to play with (each with their own game play bonuses). In the first turn, the player is given a half-developed home planet, and a colony ship to boot. The goal of the game is to ultimately be the 'master of Orion', or for a better choice of words, master of the galaxy. How you achieve that goal is up to you, as there are lots of different ways to achieve victory.
The reason why I like this game is almost entirely because of the game play mechanics it employs. The game play offers a very good balance between structure and randomness, and does not let micromanagement get in the way of making important and often game-progressing decisions. The design hits that sweet spot where there is just enough elements for the player to manage that he/she does not feel overwhelmed by all of the game's elements at once. A lot of older (and even newer) 'civilization/sim' games are guilty of violating this, where a new player is apparently supposed to have taken an entire course on just how to navigate the UI.
Providing Structure
At the start of each game, Master of Orion gives a player a crash-course in its UI system. Simple text boxes explain what each of the menu options do, what buttons do what, where to find certain menus, and most importantly, why certain numbers appear where they do, and what they mean. The buttons are also laid out in a way that the most important button (Next Turn) is at an intersection of two different 'strips' of information. The vertical being planet info, and horizontal being game play feature info. The eye can easily glance up or to the side after clicking the next turn button to start planning what to do for the current turn. I feel that even simple things like this can go a long way to help ease in players into your involved and complex strategy game. After all, you can't use a feature if you don't even know it exists.
Higher difficulties do not bother with displaying this info to you however.
After the player has learned his/her way around the UI, the fun begins. The key here is that this game allows you to manage multiple star systems very easily by means of different 'ratio sliders'. Most other strategy games have players running chores, making them navigate from town to town to make sure everything is going the way they want to. This game on the other hand abstracts this out into something very simple. Just set a few progress bars to tell the planet what needs to be done, and then go on your way. Even new colonies will automatically flourish into useful assets to the empire without the player's intervention. However this does come with a trade off, while letting systems automatically develop is nice, the player can usually bring the colony up to full speed much more efficiently. For example, a player should often send colony transports to new found colonies to help them develop faster. Non-tended to colonies will get basic industry up and running, and having the population to man it. After that is done, they will default into producing research points for your empire. The player has to specifically tell planets to produce ships, or develop defenses. If you want the colony to develop defenses, or build factories, or produce your starships, all you need to do is set a slider.
Easy and simple, this allows the player to focus on developing higher level strategies without too much micromanagement in the way.
With the town management neatly abstracted, it is time to focus on how your towns play into the big picture. Each planet has a production level, which it can use to either help research, or build ships/defenses. Now, research is structured in a similar way to planet management. There are 6 sliders that represent 6 different areas of study. The total amount of research points from all of your planets are divided depending on the sliders. If you are falling behind in a certain field of study, or simply need a technology from a field of study, just increase the slider. Only 1 slider can ever get 100% of the research points, so it is up to the player to decide which technologies they want the most.
This screen also provides information on the various technologies you have researched, the last entry is one that is currently being developed.
Here I have accumulated enough research points to discover this technology, and this message pops up in game play automatically.
After a discovery, the player tells the scientists what to focus on next. Notice how at the end of the description the research points required are shown. Simple and easy, no need to worry about micromanagement.
When the player is happy with their tech level, they usually start designing ships to defend their planets and invade the AI opponents. There are no pre-set units in this game. Every star ship is designed by you. This aspect of the game is my favorite. Here is where your effort and research becomes something tangible. The player puts personal investment into the designs, and thus feels more involved in the game world.
Here is a design for one of my ships. The design menu is intuitive, and the design options are extensive. You can even give a custom name for this ship class.
Now the player needs an enemy to fight (or befriend, it's really your choice). The computer AI manages to effectively be good competition to the player. It makes all the same choices you do, and even makes it's own designs of ships to counter yours. A neat touch is that every race has it's own happy/neutral sound theme and an angry theme, depending on what you were discussing with them.
The races screen, a quick look at what your relations are to other AI players. Me and my opponent do not see eye to eye at the moment...
Adding Randomness
What separates this game from the others for me, is the way it adds a certain randomness to the game play that is worth playing over and over again. Every time you start a new game world, every planet location and type is generated randomly, so exploring never feels old. Some planets offer bonuses, like being rich in minerals to mine to boost production, others offer special artifacts that benefit your research. Other planets may not be so desirable. Some are hostile and you need to develop special technologies to land on them. And one star in particular is in every map, and hold lots of technological secrets should you ever land there, but is guarded by a powerful and ancient machine that you fleet needs to defeat first.
Another aspect of randomness being added into this game is the type of enemy you will encounter every time you play. The computer only has 8 or so races to choose from, and on top of that, they can have different personality types that influence the way the progress though the game. Militants often build large fleets, and research weapon technologies, Diplomats usually trade with other species and are more inclined to enter non-aggression pacts with you. Each personality type can also have a suffix, such as 'pacifistic' or 'xenophobic' that adds further depth to the AI players. This also defines how aggressive they are, or whether they are wary of other alien species etc.
My opponent happens to be a 'xenophobic diplomat'. I guess that explains why he hates me.
Sometimes, random events happen in the game, which either help you or an AI player, hinder your progress or add an interesting touch on game play. For example a single extra-galactic life form can come into your galaxy at any moment, and they are usually bad news, that is unless they happen to spawn in your opponent's corner of the map. They are powerful 'ship' that can wipe out entire fleets and level colonies in a blink of an eye. Or a wealthy merchant can donate to either yours or an AI opponent's cause. These events are designed to keep you on your toes, and always be thinking of the strategy you are employing.
I got lucky here! Yes, that is a news robot.
Little bits of ingenuity like this is what makes me come back to this game. Master of Orion doesn't necessarily contain the traditional type of narrative that is found in today's games. Rather, the player forges his/her own story in the process of playing the game. Each event that happens is what happens in your narrative. There are small explanations of back story in the technology descriptions that help your mind fill in the gaps.
This kind of simple and easy to use design, coupled with a very unpredictable world is what keeps me coming back to this game. No 2 games unfold quite the same way, and there is always a unique story to tell after you have won or lost a game. This is why this game is still on my computer even after almost 17 years after release.
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