This game looks so awesome, why have few players ?

[FabioManoel1977]

sorry bad english

I am truly concerned about buying games now, since last steam sale I bought 10 games and liked only one (planetary Annihilation Titans) and spend more than 2 hours in each other game then cannot get refund.

Master of orion looks awesome, better than Sins of Solar Empire Rebelion and Stellaris.

master of Orion in youtube looks superior in all ways to Stellaris and Sins Solar Empire

But master of Orion have few people playing.

Is because master of Orion have few content ? have a short campaign ? is full of bugs ?
Someone can explain it for me ? Master of Orion is worth buy ? Can I spend more than 100 hours playing a single campaign like I did in planetary annihilation Titans ?

Stellaris, at least seeing youtube videos not looks better than Master of orion. Master of Orion looks much better. But I am afraid to buy master of Orion and regret it. maybe is better buy Stallaris instead ?

Stellaris have now 11,000 people playing
https://steamdb.info/app/281990/

Sins of Solar Empire Rebellion have now 811 people playing
https://steamdb.info/app/204880/

Master of Orion have now 497 people playing
https://steamdb.info/app/298050/

[Scourge012]

Master of Orion has the same problem that a taco product called "Big Mac II" has. In that it hoped to sell copies and maintain a playerbase using a particular brandname while doing fairly little to honor the substance of what its named after.

It's not that it's a buggy mess--though there are things that could be improved. It's not that the game is too short (I'm in a 500 turn game right now...I am still only 3/4 of the way through the tech tree and realistically, I couldn't have ended the game before now either...there's still content for me to explore even after that many turns in just one game).

The one thing the game is absolutely missing for me, and its a real shame, is that Real-Time battles are absent in multiplayer...you can still play a full multiplayer game and use the game's autoresolve function, but it really sucks the fun out of it for me, personally. So I play SP and just like any SP strategy game...once you figure out the AI's tricks, you can't really lose unless you are going to mod it or enable cheats for it or something.

Anyway, about purchasing the game:

If you are someone who has never played a Master of Orion game before, you are going to have a great time. Especially if you like or are interested in Stellaris and Sins of a Solar Empire. However, if you played Master of Orion (the original from the early days of computer gaming) or its actual sequel Master of Orion II, then you will probably hate this game. It's not turn-based like the originals, its combat, for better or worse is real-time and certain decisions about how to place your ships, for example, aren't as important as they used to be. The decisions you make in battle are really about which ship should fire at what enemy ship.

You still have enough influence to say, take a battle you were "supposed" to lose according to the little victory probability bar, and then through good management, win that battle. BUT it's not as significant as in previous Master of Orion titles. There are just some engagements you cannot win, and from what I remember about the originals that was rarely the case--you could win as an underdog, and even against the AI a technological advantage didn't guarantee victory. This made battles exciting, even against less developed AI empires. To a certain degree that's missing here in this title. Yes, you have influence over battles that you're commanding...no, you aren't going to defeat the Antarans with anything less than the end tier weapon and defense tech...there's just no way mathematically for your ships to do it.

Some people saw that as a major regression and not a real advantage of Real-Time battles and abandoned the title.

So in summary: Good game if you come from it with a clean slate. It has AAA graphics and voice acting, and despite a few examples is bug free and performs well on a technical level. The real time battles suffer from the same issues as Total War: you have influence over the outcome if you command them BUT there are just some units you can create (or face off against) that WILL beat you no matter what because of their stats. Even so, it's definitely a good game for 2016/2017 and has no major drawbacks that aren't drawbacks in any of the other Turn-Based/Real Time hybrid strategy games.

That said, it's a bad Master of Orion game, much like a taco is a bad hamburger. If you are buying it for nostalgic purposes, you are going to be disappointed. There are probably other games that are better spiritual successors, ironically enough.

[FabioManoel1977]

Thank you very much, Scourge012, I never played any Master of Orion Game.

[Scourge012]

Originally posted by FabioManoel1977:

Thank you very much, Scourge012, I never played any Master of Orion Game.

Then you will likely have a good time in this game. I only played the ill-fated Master of Orion 3 back in the day, so this was a great game to me.

[CaptainNebulous]

IMHO a lot (not all) of the former players have the same feeling as me. The developers nickel and dimed us, gave us overpriced DLC that had no beyond-modlike content, released the game from early accesshalf done, did almost nothing after, and then abandoned the game half done.

It is bitter sweet to me because all the game needed was another year worth of quality development to be epic. Instead it was abandoned as a high potential game that feels incomplete after a few hours. The mod creators are the only "developers" that deserve any credit what so ever. They extend the value of the game a bit, but they can only polish a turd so much.

I wasn't expecting Master of Orion 2, but I was expecting a complete and diverse 4X space strategy game with at least decent AI. Sadly 4X developers don't seem to care about AI in general anymore. Even the more praised games don't have acceptable AI.... just better or worse than others... but not GOOD.

[FabioManoel1977]

Then the game is abandoned ? I will remove them it from my wish list. Thank you very much, you saved my money. I will buy today other game.

[miket51]

Hello All ... I played the oriinal MofO when it first came out but remember so little from those days ... long time ago. I have very much enjoyed this version. I agree taking the tactical combat into real time did not accomplish much for me and I use the auto resolve function. Too bad that there is not a campaign game of some sort ... at least I have not found it. I have also played most other 4x space related games although not Sins of a Solar Empire so I will have to take a look at that one. I have not had an opportunity to play MoO multiplayer though I would. If anyone wishes to give it a try please send me an email at [e-mail] and we can set up a date and time to play.

[Stelar Seven]

I haven't played the original in a long time. Somewhere back in the 90's. However I have played moo2 from the 90s through the recent years. I was involved heavily in this game's EA period as well. I also play a lot of Stellaris.

This game is quite faithful to moo2. The game world is turn based, the combat realtime. It is also better balanced. Moo 1 and moo2 both had "I win " buttons. With the original it was the sub space teleporter. With moo2 it was combining the phase cloak with the time manipulation thing. Your ships were literally invulernable.

Both games were buggy, and cheated shamelessly. The original magiced up 32,000 ship fleets when it was losing.

This game is fantastic. The star lanes add more strategic depth than the old rang based system. The AI can put up a fight, especially at the high difficulty levels. The game has politics, espionage, war and empire building. Stellaris fails at most of those.

If you want a solid 4x game this is a good buy. I play it still and will continue to love it.

No MOO game has had dev support after launch, just dedicated modded communities and loyal fans.

Moo2 is available at a very reasonable price on GOG. Folks complaining should go back and have their nostalgia glasses adjusted. It's still a good old game, but it's not as good as this new MOO.

Graphics and voice acting are a real plus to good gameplay.

[Zhivago]

I agree with @Apostate. While their are bugs, the only real failing I see is the lack of player controlled multiplayer battles. Other than that, the bugs are tolerable, or fixed with player mods.

[miket51]

So let's have a multiplayer game. Steam shows that there are over 600 Steam players in the game at this moment in time. How do we communicate in real time or almost real time with each other in order to arange a game. Every time I start playing I check the multiplayer screen with nothing showing up. Once I saw a game there and well, you know, almost made a mess, but it dissappeared before I was able to do anything. [e-mail]

[numbnumbnewbie]

Originally posted by miket51:

So let's have a multiplayer game. Steam shows that there are over 600 Steam players in the game at this moment in time. How do we communicate in real time or almost real time with each other in order to arange a game. Every time I start playing I check the multiplayer screen with nothing showing up. Once I saw a game there and well, you know, almost made a mess, but it dissappeared before I was able to do anything. [e-mail]

At this time, you have 680 hours miket51, seems like you're worthy to have a multiplayer challenge with me,
30 second turn timer multiplayer game?

[miket51]

Test

[miket51]

I tried to post earlier and it blocked me for some reason. I signed out and back in and thus the reason for "test". Newbielicious, I can only assume that the name means that you love to clobber newbies, correct? If we do get to have a game I imagine that I will be your next conquest since it will be my first multiplayer game. I am in the North American Eastern Time Zone ... not sure where you hail from. I am available most evenings and weekends. Hopefully we do not have much of a time difference to work with. Please let me know a date/time that you would like to get together and if you can, please email me with that info. I haven't come into Steam all that much although I am trying to do so more often now that I am looking to pick up a multiplayer game. Any rules you put in place will be fine. My expectations of a win are very low.

[numbnumbnewbie]

Originally posted by miket51:

I tried to post earlier and it blocked me for some reason. I signed out and back in and thus the reason for "test". Newbielicious, I can only assume that the name means that you love to clobber newbies, correct? If we do get to have a game I imagine that I will be your next conquest since it will be my first multiplayer game. I am in the North American Eastern Time Zone ... not sure where you hail from. I am available most evenings and weekends. Hopefully we do not have much of a time difference to work with. Please let me know a date/time that you would like to get together and if you can, please email me with that info. I haven't come into Steam all that much although I am trying to do so more often now that I am looking to pick up a multiplayer game. Any rules you put in place will be fine. My expectations of a win are very low.

To boost up your expectations of winning, go practice a few games by timing each turn to a max of 45 seconds.
I highly recommend that you also play a few games against extreme AI using auto combat.
Auto combat resolution changes the dynamics of multiplayer.

[miket51]

Thanks Girl Power. I've been playing only "Extreme" for the past month or so. I no longer play first person shooter games since they are live and I don't care for the pressure. I was under the impression that since multiplayer is also turn based that you could take as much time as you like but when the first person who is finished starts the process of advancing the turn the other players each had some additional time to finish up quickly ... is that the 30 seconds that you were talking about? When you suggest that I try a game limiting my time per turn to 45 seconds are you suggesting that others in the game might take only 15 seconds with their turn and then start the turn advance process giving me an additional 30 seconds for a total of 45 seconds? Or does the game run along advancing turns automatically after only 30 seconds. If the latter, then I don't think that I want that stress. I enjoy reviewing what is going on, taking my time, refining and then hitting advance turn. I also always use the auto combat resolution for the same reason. I just can't take the pressure. With that being said I am willing to live with it at least to try it out. Are we in the same time zone, or close?

[Stelar Seven]

Taking time on turns is a great way to ruin a multiplayer game. It's a very different feel to have to make quick decisions but quite fun.