I woke up, yawned, and looked at my computer screen. The date flashing at the top of the screen informed me it was October 31, 3597. Great! It was Communication Day; the day that all my colonies would be reporting in to me about the past month’s happenings.
For the last few years I had been expanding the Human Empire and it looked as though things were about to pay off. I was expecting scouting reports from 3 new star systems; communiques from the Darloks, Meklars, and Elarians; and reports from my 7 colonies.
I walked into the Communications room and looked at the status board. As the countdown timer reached zero, information began flooding into the computers and up onto the screens. This months income from trade was up to 100 Billion Credits. My freighter fleets were plying open space delivering food to all my colonies. My researchers were about a month away from a scientific breakthrough, and to top it all off, my colony at Draconis III had just finished building a new Battleship.
Looks like this was going to be a good day
This good mood lasted for all of one minute. The Elarian ambassador linked up and informed me that her government had captured and executed one of my spies and our two races were now at war. My colony at Sigma 5 reported at a Space Eel just entered the star system and was giving birth to little baby eels. My scout to the Pealeon system reported finding a wrecked starship before being vaporized by a Space Hydra. To top it all off, my long range scanning station reported that a spatial rift had opened up and an Antaran Battlefleet was on it’s way toward my homeworld.
 
I should have stayed in bed
Master of Orion II is MacSoft's port of the wildly successful sequel to Microprose’s strategy game Master of Orion. MOO II is a more involved, graphically superior version of the original; but is there enough here to set this game apart from the other “Conquer the Universe” games around (most notably Pax Imperia)?
Countdown
Installing MOO II is a snap. Double click on the installer icon and pick which size installation you want; Minimum (5 MB), Standard (70 MB), or Full (a whopping 405 MB). With the full install, you do not need to put the CD in the drive to play. I picked the standard install and the game ran reasonably well. There were still some slowdowns (especially during the tactical battles) but it was not too distracting. The manual states that you should also leave five to ten MB free for temporary files and saved games.
How do you fly this thing?
The manual for MOO II is the size of a novella. Weighing in at 156 pages, this is no small read. The manual is easy and enjoyable and I advise taking the time to go through the book. It will be time well spent. The manual has plenty of illustrations and clear explanations, so players should have no problems playing the game.
Most of the information is easily remembered, but keep the manual nearby. When it comes time to research new advances, the manual comes in handy reminding you what each advance does for your race.
Blast-off
Start the game and you are treated to a beautifully rendered opening movie. After the movie ends, the player is presented with the main options screen where s/he can continue the last game played, open a saved game, start a new game, start or join a multi-player game, view the hall of fame, or quit.
Is anybody out there?
The multiplayer support is handled very well by the program. You can play over a network (either AppleTalk or TCP/IP protocols), play over a direct dial-up connection, or you can choose hot-seat play (a group playing at the same computer). MOO II uses Comm Toolbox and Net Sprocket features, so hooking up to a multi player game is simple.
Initialize systems
When you start a new game, you are presented with the Galaxy Configuration screen. From this screen the player can pick: the difficulty of the game; the size of the galaxy; the age of the galaxy; the tech level of your civilization; and number of players, from two to eight. Difficulties range from Tutor (Wimp!!) to Impossible (How many ships are attacking our colony?!?).The size of your galaxy can be between small (about 20 systems) and huge (I can’t count that high). The age of the galaxy ranges from young (rich planets but barely livable) to old (lots of habitable planets but rare mining possibilities) while tech level can be between pre-warp (It will take us how long to get there) and advanced (Warp drive?!? That’s old news).
There are also buttons that allow the player to toggle tactical combat, random events, and Antaran attacks.
 
The Tactical combat button allows you to switch between strategic and tactical combat modes. In strategic mode, the computer automatically fights the battles for you. There is no ship-to-ship combat, but rather the computer decides the outcomes of all the battles statistically. Also, the player has no control over ship design. This is the mode for the player who is more interested in the empire building side of the game. BEWARE: The computer is nowhere near as smart or as crafty as a human. I won quite a few battles by tricking the enemy fleets into ambush situations. Statistics don’t tell the whole story. If you choose tactical mode, be prepared for a bit of work. Not only do you have to control the ships in battle, but you must design and redesign your ships if you are to be successful.
The Antaran Attack button controls the existence of a super race who were banished to a pocket dimension. If this option is turned off, you can relax and play with few worries. With the button turned on, be prepared. The Antarans are tough, they are mean, and they do not like you. You and your opponents will have many colonies destroyed before you can launch a successful counter-attack.
The random events range from helpful (a hyperspace rift that catapults your ships across the galaxy in one turn) to not so helpful (one of your systems being used as a breeding ground by a monster). These events can really add some spice to the game.
After you choose your options it is time to pick your race.
...new life and new civilizations...
Picking a race is quite simple. All you have to do is balance the advantages with the disadvantages inherent with each race. Sure the Darlok spies are top notch, but because of their government, ALL Darlok colonies get a 20% moral deficit until a marine barrack is built. Each race has it’s own strengths and weaknesses.
If you don’t like the pre-made races, there is a button that allows you to design your own custom race. Again, Microprose went out of their way to make this process as painless as possible. You have ten picks to work with. Each advantage you choose costs a certain number of picks; each disadvantage you choose gives you a certain number of picks. You can use all 10 of your picks but if you have any left over your score will be adjusted; the more picks you leave, the higher your score multiplier will be. Advantages include extra income, better researchers, telepathy, and luck. Disadvantages include being repulsive, low-G world, and a feudal government.
Captain, please come to the bridge
Most of the game play takes place on The Galactic Command Interface. The main screen gives you an good overall view of what is going on in your section of the galaxy. On the screen you can quickly check fleet positions and ETA, food and fleet numbers, command points, research points, and monthly income. Along the bottom of the screen are buttons that allow you to access the various sub-menus controlling your colonies, your special leaders, your race relations, planet and fleet info, and an online help guide.
From the colony window you can move colonists between jobs (farming, production and research), move colonists between planets, and buy or change an item being produced. The planets screen allows the player to access information about all the planets s/he owns. The fleets screen lets the player examine or move his various fleets around the universe. The leaders screen allows you to examine and move your various leaders to different colonies or ships. The race screen allows you to spy on or communicate with any other races you have made contact with. Communication can include making alliances, exchanging technologies, giving or demanding resources,surrendering, and, of course, declaring war.
 
Dry dock
One of the most enjoyable parts of playing a game with the tactical combat turned on is designing your own ship classes. There are only five slots for ships so you must take this into account when designing your fleets. If you have played the original MOO, there have been no changes to the ship design process. You pick the size of the hull then add weapons and special equipment. Weapons run the gamut from lasers (accurate but do little damage) to the Stellar Converter (a plasma cannon that can destroy a planet from orbit-think of the Death Star); from anti-missile rockets (great for taking out enemy missiles) to Plasma Torpedoes (120 points damage in one shot). Specials range from extra fuel tanks to advanced targeting computers.
There is only so much room on a ship’s hull, so you had better decide what the ship will be used for before you build it. If it is going to be a scout vessel, you don’t need a Rangemaster targeting unit, but an extra fuel tank might be helpful. The best idea is to design each class of ship for a specific purpose; one as a scout, one as a missile boat, one as a battleship. If you try to design a multi-purpose ship, you will probably end up with a ship that does a lot of things, but none of them really well.
How your ship can move is based on it’s size, it’s mass, certain special devices installed, and what kind of engines the ship has. This will effect how far the ship can move and how tight it can turn. This movement will become important when you are trying to turn your failed shields away from an attacking enemy.
Red Alert
Well, this is what galactic conquest is all about; two fleets facing off across the void. MOO II handles tactical combat as a turn-based affair. One side moves all it ships, then the other side reacts.
Weapons are fired by clicking the targeting cursor on the enemy ship. Any weapons that can fire, will fire. Lasers reach the target immediately while missiles take time to cover the distance. One thing to keep in mind is that the weapons fire in the order they were installed on the ship. This can come in handy during the design phase. Placing a Mauler device (a great anti-sheild weapon) right in front of an armor-piercing laser cannon is a devastating one-two punch that can quickly reduce a ship to a large glowing ball of expanding gasses.
This may be useful captain
Without your crack team of Research & Development people, your empire would never grow beyond it’s own star system. R&D is as easy as assigning people to research and picking an application to research. When your scientists achieve a breakthrough, you will be notified and asked to pick an new line of research.
There are eight different categories to research and each category has anywhere from 8 to 14 fields. Each field has up to three applications to research. There are over 200 technologies that can be researched. You must be VERY careful what application you pick to research. After you research an application, you no longer have access to that field anymore. The only way to acquire the technology is to trade for it, or steal it. This means you must sit with the manual next to you and decide, VERY CAREFULLY, what topic to research next.
Sound and vision
The graphics and sound of MOO II are a quantum leap over the original Master of Orion. The characters are clean, the colors are bright, and the battles look tremendous. The programmers did a wonderful job on the planetscapes. As you build various structures for the colonies, the buildings show up in the colony view and the view looks splendid. Each planet type has it’s own look; barren planets looking like Mercury while Terran planets look like Earth on a star lit night. My one gripe about the graphics is that the various races look a bit too cartoonish for my taste.
The music is quite good, with each race having it’s own theme, that plays during the communications. The sound effects are great with explosions having a deep bass rumble while the lasers have a crisp high pitched quality to them. The effects sound like they came off a movie soundtrack.
We’ve got a problem here, sir.
I only have three major complaints about MOO II. The first one may seem petty but it is quite important. The problem is simple; It’s been done before. This is not the first “conquer the galaxy” game and it is certainly not going to be the last. The dilemma is that MOO II does not add anything new to the genre. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it is a very good game, but it is like a faithful friend; you enjoy spending time with him, but there are no big surprises.
The second complaint is that turning on the Antaran Attack makes the game almost impossible to win. I had 80% of my empire reduced to radioactive ruins inside a 25 minute time span. There is no defense against the marauders for quite some time, making the game a bit frustrating at times.
My third complaint is about the diplomacy model. The other races seem a bit too inconsistent. They can go from loving you in one turn to declaring war on you the next. I am not saying I didn’t deserve a political slap (I did just steal a major technology from the Elarians), but going from an alliance to war without some form of warning is a bit extreme.
I also have two minor grievances with the game. On my Mac 7100, the game ran slowly. The requirements state that the game will run on a 68040 but I shudder to think about what it runs like on a non-Power Mac. I also ran into some kind of error that crashed the game occasionally, but when I downloaded the updated version of the game from Macsoft, the game ran flawlessly.
Debriefing
Is MOO II worth getting? Yes. It is graphically superior to all empire builders out on the market now. MOO II’s biggest competitor is going to be Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain when it comes out (check the game listing at the end of the magazine for the latest update on release dates). For now, it is the best strategic sci-fi game around with a solid tactical battle component and a decent story line. If you are looking for a great leap ahead in game play, MOO II is not the place to find it. If you are looking for some hours of engrossing game play and a great deal of fun, MOO II will satisfy your needs.
