Basic Information Game Title Master of Orion version 1 3 1993 Company and Author Company Microprose bought by Hasbro in 1998 Designer Stephen Barcia Producer Jeff Johanningan Programmers Stephen Barcia Maria Barcia and Ken Burd Type of Game Turn based Space Strategy Price 20 when I bought the game in 1996 Probably can get in a bargain bin for 5 or 10 if you can find it at all Minimum Stated Hardware Requirements MS DOS 5 0 or higher IBM PC with a 16 MHz 386 processor 14 MB of hard drive space 4 MB Ram VGA graphics card and monitor Microsoft compatible mouse Sound Blaster Ad Lib or Roland MT 32 compatible sound card Actual Hardware Required The game runs a little slow on the minimum hardware required The game runs fine on my Pentium 133 with 16 MB of RAM Game Summary Quick Review In Master of Orion your basic goal is to conquer the galaxy You can conquer the galaxy by eliminating all of the other races in the game or by being voted Emperor of the Galaxy 2 3 vote needed There are elements of resource management exploration diplomacy trade espionage sabotage ground warfare limited space combat researching new technologies and designing new space ships Story Line if any By the beginning of the 23rd century ten races had emerged with the technology necessary to colonize deep space For nearly a century population growth on all of planets had outstripped planetary resources and soon all races were forced to expand and discover new worlds to colonize As history has proven time and time again unrestrained expansion inevitably leads to war Players Role Ruler of one of the intergalactic races Installation This is an MS DOS only game The game will not run in Windows 95 or in a DOS window in Windows 95 The game can be installed directly from the CD using the supplied installation program A setup program must be run prior to starting the game to set up the sound card drivers User Interface The user interface is very clean and simple to use The majority of the user input required is via a mouse The user can change certain game setting by using the mouse to adjust slider bars Very little keyboard input is required There are 18 predefined hotkeys that the user can activate but they are not required to play a game Game Play You start the game picking which race you are going to be what ship icon style you will have and the name of your ruler and home planet You start with one planet arbitrarily located in the galaxy two scout ships and a colony ship You use the scout ships to discover habitable planets in the galaxy It takes one colony ship per planet to colonize a habitable planet The main menu on the main display allows you to access game options save quit etc design new ships view your space fleet view the entire galactic map view other races and your ranking among them view your planetary colony statistics view the technologies you are currently researching and have already discovered and the Next Turn button You manage the total amount of planetary resources allocated to each of the following resources on each colony ship production defense industry economy and technology You can adjust how much of the total available technology resources are allocated to researching the following technologies computers construction force fields planetology propulsion and weapons With each technological discovery your race gains certain benefits Eventually your race will discover other races in the galaxy You have several diplomatic options available to you including attacking the race encountered offering trade agreements offering treaties exchange technologies bestow gifts spying espionage and sabotage If you decide to attack an enemy race you encounter then a space combat display will come up with several options You can win the battle lose the battle or attempt to retreat from the battle You can take an other races colony by first destroying their colony then establishing a new colony using a colony ship or you can land ground troops on the colony and take it by force Of course the other races in the game can also take your colonies in the same manner and they will The game ends when all of your colonies are eliminated you lose you eliminate all of the other races colonies you win or you are voted Emperor of the Galaxy by a 2 3 majority of all the colonies in the game you win If another race is voted in as Emperor of the Galaxy you can accept the ruling you loose or not accept the ruling in which case all other races attack you as one race until you are eliminated or you eliminate them Scoring No scoring Artwork Archaic DOS renderings Sound and Music Archaic DOS renderings Special Features Random planetary disasters earthquake radiation spill etc Random planetary benefits resources discovered etc Random powerful enemy life forms entering the galaxy space amoebae space crystal Random discovery of ancient space derelicts containing lost technology Conquering the Guardian of Orion bestows powerful technological advances to your race Extensive technology tree Fully customizable space ships Random galaxy creation for unlimited game play Manual if any A fully illustrated and informative manual accompanies the game CD Bugs The AI of other races in the game is somewhat suspect when a race occasionally goes from a worship type of alliance to a hate war relationship with your race instantly for no apparent reason This is rare and it seems to occur near the end of a game Game Review What is Good Fun about Game The game can be extremely challenging at the higher difficulty levels and yet the game difficulty levels seem fair Playing as each of the different races available ten total makes for a unique gaming experience each game There is satisfaction each time your race makes a new technological discovery The technology tree itself has a lot of variety creativity and it is fairly large The space combat itself is unique and fun each time because of the different weapon and defense technologies each ship can possibly have You feel a real since of victory when you take an enemy colony and a real sense of loss if you loose your colony or if it is destroyed The game has unlimited replay value because it randomly generates the game universe and you can pick the game difficulty simple to impossible the galaxy size small to huge and the number of opposing races 1 to 5 there will be in each game What is Bad not Fun about the Game Why At the end of a game in a huge galaxy game you can have up to 100 colonies It is a little
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