Kotas Reviews Master of Orion Conquer the Stars

Finally, a review that isn't about food! I'm a video gamer, though I wasn't a PC gamer until college due to, well, not really have a PC, but ultimately these days I vastly prefer PC gaming over console gaming, mostly because there are genres there I really enjoy that you really can't do well on a console. One of my old favorites is the 4X game: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and everyone's favorite eXterminate. This is the category of Civilization, Master of Magic, and that old favorite Master of Orion. It's experiencing a bit of a resurgence as of late, and that's why we're here today. Let's take a look at the revival of an old franchise, Master of Orion: Conquer the Stars

A game on every PC, and a subtitle on every game!

Master of Orion is one of the more popular franchises from the 1990s in the 4X space (ha!), especially the legendary Master of Orion 2. My college PC gaming circle loved 4X games, and this, along with my personal favorite Master of Magic, were the space bee's knees. I'm told, however, that the third entry in the series was terrible, and the 4X genre faded quietly into niche status, with the dominance of Real Time Strategy absorbing a lot of its fanbase and development dollars. Still, we're not here to talk about that, we're hear to talk about the new one! Well, some things have changed...

Mrrshan have changed a lot since the old days. Me-ow!

Developed by WG Labs, a sub studio of Wargaming.net, purveyors of games like World of Tanks and World of Warships, the latest installment of the venerable series is a classic 4X game, with a lot of modern polish. It seems like a labor of love in a lot of ways, since they purchased the rights to this franchise from the ashes of Atari (Microprose having long since died miserably) and frankly, no one was exactly clamoring for a new edition. For those of you who haven't ever played a 4X, the concept is one of empire building, technological progress, colonization, and strategic military management. It differs from Grand Campaign style games like Europa Universalis in terms of scope in that you manage colonies and fleets much more directly than abstractly. You are at the solar system level rather than the sector level. Each colony has a population you can direct into Research, Food, or Production. Food keeps your colony from starving and with a surplus, encouraged population growth. Production helps you, well, produce things, from local buildings (which boost Food, Research, Production, or other things) to star bases and space ships. Research advances your technological progress, opening up new tech and new avenues of research. It's a lot like Civilization in general.

There's a lot of polish here, with lovely graphics (though not pushing any envelopes) and, in my favorite part, lots and lots of voice acting! Most of it is good (John De Lancie! Micheal Dorn! Mark Hamil!), but there are a few rough spots (Tutorial Lady! Human Researcher Lady!) that can be annoying. Thankfully, most of the voice acting is skippable if it isn't your thing. The races are all visually distinct and interesting, Personal favorites include the Meklar (Think Cylons crossed with the robots from the Matrix), the Psilons (because they have FLYING SAUCERS FOR SHIPS!) and of course, the Mrrshan (cat people with an Egyptian theme...and clothing tape, apparently). Each race has its pros and cons: The Silicoid rock people are crude, but they don't need food at all and can live on planets that suck for most races. The Sakkra aren't so good with tech, but they sure do grow fast. The Humans are friendly with everyone, and the Evil Humans, er, Terrans (the Collector's Edition race that I don't actually have) are good at building warships, but not so much at being nice.

One thing that is pretty cool is that you are given a number of slots for blueprints for your war ships. You start with the humble frigate, but you soon unlock destroyers, cruisers, battleships, and even titan class warships. Of course, the pinnacle of space death is the mighty Death Doom Star, of which you can only have one. Each ship has slots for engines, shields, targeting computers, various add ons such as Battle Pods or Displacement Devices, and of course, weapon slots! From lasers to phasors, nukes to torpedoes, you can slot and mount a bunch of different options onto a ship. However, not much about the ship building is explained very well (or at all, really), so usually I just mount the best weapons I can along with some point defense, and just go for it. There may be a lot here, but as much as I liked tinkering with it, I didn't see a huge amount of difference in my fleet's performance in most cases. Shields vs. no shields however, my fleets just murdered the enemy. 

The fleet combat has two modes: Tactical, where you can command your ships directly (with or without AI assistance) or Auto Resolve, which is more like classic Civilization and just does all the calculations for you. Before you actually engage, the game gives you its best estimate as to your chances, and those estimates are usually pretty good, so that's helpful. I often auto-resolve battles when I can easily crush the enemy, such as when my Alkari bombed the Mrrshan into extinction.

This was known amongst the Bird People as a "dick move".

Ground combat is...boring as hell. You have bombs and troops, you send them in, you either kill the opposition or conquer them in a button click, or you don't. *yawn*. I generally just send in bombers to wipe out opposing colonies, but it takes a loooong time (dozen turns or so) for more heavily fortified colonies. I could build troop transports...or I could just send in more bombs. It's certainly not the tactical combat from Master of Magic, but it works, so whatever. Occasionally you will encounter Space Monsters which can wreck your fleets, but they tend to stick to a single star system and don't seek you out. Every so often a "GNN" news report will flash up, and a couple of goofy robots will tell you about a random event, or give you an overall status update on some aspect of the game. Winning can be done a number of ways: Economic Victory, where you have all the monies and control a majority of Space Wall Street. Diplomatic Victory, where everyone votes you Ruler of the Galaxy. Military Victory, where you crush everyone under your booted heel, and of course the Research Victory, where you complete the final technologies and ascend out of meatspace. There's also a "point" victory, when your game ends after a number of turns with the highest score being the victor.

There's an espionage system, but it plays like a mobile game where you wait for a spy, send the spy to a colony, and then select a mission for the spy, which can succeed or fail for a result (intel on a colony all the way up to putting it in revolt). It's not very deep, and kind of becomes an annoyance later on. Diplomacy works a lot like Civilization, where you offer things to your opponents in trade, declare things, and otherwise choose from a small set of options. It's not bad, and the voice acting here really makes this feel a lot deeper than it probably actually is. This is not nearly as deep a game as Stellaris, but it hits all the right notes and most of the various systems are good, if not spectacular. Mostly it feels like a good game to explore the 4X genre if you have never played it, or if you (like me) don't have time to really dig into a much deeper, more complex and nuanced game but still wanna enjoy a good experience.

On the FACE Rating System, this gets 2 smiley faces. If you've never played a 4X game before, this is a solid modern entry into the genre that builds a solid, if not amazing, foundation for building up a good play experience. For real enthusiasts of these games, this is a bit of lighter fare with pretty scenery and enjoyable polish. For the time squeezed, this is a great way to scratch that conquest itch. For $30 (more if you by the Collector's Edition, which comes with all three previous games), it's a good romp. There is even multiplayer, though at the time of this review, I haven't tried it. See you in the space ways!