Master of Orion

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Master of Orion
Developer(s)	Simtex
Publisher(s)	MicroProse
Platform(s)	MS-DOS, Apple Macintosh
Release date	1993
Genre(s)	Turn-based strategy
Mode(s)	Single player

Master of Orion (MoO or MOO) is a turn-based, 4X science fiction computer strategy game released in 1993 by MicroProse on the MS-DOS and Mac OS operating systems. The purpose of the game is to lead one of ten races to dominate the galaxy through a combination of diplomacy and conquest while developing technology, exploring and colonizing star systems. The game uses a point-and-click interface as well as keyboard shortcuts to control the management of colonies, technology, ship construction, diplomacy and combat. The name is a reference to the Orion system, the conquerable homeworld of a mythical race that once controlled the galaxy.

Two sequels were created, (Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares in 1996 and Master of Orion III in 2003) as well as the open source freeware FreeOrion which is loosely based on the series. A prototype was developed under the name Star Lords though it was only released as freeware in 2001 as part of the promotion for MoO III.

Master of Orion was well received, and is a member of GameSpy's Hall of Fame and GameSpot Greatest Games of All Time.

[edit] Development

Master of Orion is a significantly expanded and refined version of the prototype/prequel program Star Lords. Steve Barcia's game development company Simtex demonstrated Star Lords to MicroProse and gaming journalist Alan Emrich who, along with Tom Hughes, assisted Barcia in refining the design to produce Master of Orion;^[1][2] in fact the game's manual thanks them for their contributions.^[3] Emrich and Hughes later wrote the strategy guide for the finished product. MicroProse published the final version of the game in 1993. Emrich coined the term "4X game" (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) to describe the game during a review,^[4] though Master of Orion was not the first in this genre - Civilization was published in 1991 and Reach for the Stars in the early 1980s.

[edit] Reception

Master of Orion was very well received upon its release, and is a member of both GameSpy's Hall of Fame^[5] and GameSpot's list of the Greatest Games of All Time.^[6]

[edit] System environment

Master of Orion does not offer a multi-player mode, only contests against AI opponents on the user's computer.

The game runs under MS-DOS or Mac OS. The MS-DOS version uses memory management techniques which are incompatible with Windows 95, Windows NT and their descendants including Windows XP and Windows Vista. The program can be run on these operating systems by altering some software configuration parameters to create a customized MS-DOS environment, but this presents some risks if done incorrectly.^[7] The game can also be run via the DOSBox emulator, which runs as a Windows application, avoiding the need to customize operating system parameters and allowing the use of normal Windows facilities such as ALT-TAB task switching. DOSBox uses significant amounts of RAM and CPU power to emulate MS-DOS and may be rather slow on older computers (built much before 2004).^[8] Linux users can also use DOSBox to run MS-DOS programs.^[9]

The game was distributed on 4 floppy disks and uses a 320x200 pixel, 256 color screen; sound is limited to weapons effects and a small number of MIDI tunes.

[edit] Gameplay

The main screen showing star names (color-coded by empire) and ship movement (red lines lines indicate enemy fleets, blue indicate friendly). Planetary management controls are displayed on the right.

Master of Orion is a turn-based game in which players alternate actions and decisions with computer-controlled opponents. Control is primarily point-and-click; the original version was exclusively mouse-drive but a patch later allowed the use of hot keys to access many functions.^[10] The main screen is a movable map of the galaxy; clicking on a planet displays its information to the right as well as controls to manage the planet in the form of lockable sliders allocating industrial output to ship construction, planetary defenses, factory construction, ecology or research (the technology screen uses a similar set of lockable sliders to allocate research spending between the 6 technology areas). Planets that have been explored but not colonized show the maximum planet population and controlling empire if colonized by another leader; unexplored planets display no information. Buttons lining the bottom of the screen access controls for other aspects of the game.

[edit] Overview

The game begins with a single colonized home world and two scout ships that can be used to explore nearby stars. As the game progresses, new worlds are discovered, other races encountered, worlds colonized and wars fought. Despite their different backgrounds and homeworlds, all races possess legends of the Orions, a master race that once controlled the galaxy, and their protected homeworld containing powerful secrets and technology. The homeworld is found in the Orion star system and is defended by a powerful robotic starship, the Guardian.

[edit] Victory conditions

Victory is gained either by eliminating all opponents or by being elected supreme leader of the galaxy at a meeting of the High Council. Election requires the support of two-thirds of the population of the galaxy, with abstentions counting as a vote against all candidates. Elections are held every 25 turns after two-thirds of the planets in the galaxy have been colonized. Supporting votes can be gained through political alliances or by controlling at least two-thirds of the galaxy's population through conquest or expansion. Once a High Master is elected the other races can accept the result or challenge it; the latter results in a "Final War" that is fought to the death between the High Master's supporters and the dissidents.^[3]

Despite the game's name, it is not necessary to conquering the Orion star system to win the game. The planet in the Orion system is extremely valuable since artifacts left by its former inhabitants provide some very advanced military technologies, one of which players cannot research for themselves. Orion is also both large and fertile, and research is four times more productive there than on most other planets. Other races are also more likely to support the empire that holds Orion during High Council elections. In order to colonize Orion or capture its technology the robotic Guardian warship, far more powerful than any that can be built by the player, must be destroyed.^[3][11]

[edit] Economics

All of a colony's outputs are based based on its industrial production, including research. All citizens are capable of industrial production, but are significantly more productive when assisted by factories.^[12] There is a limit on the number of factories a unit of population (notionally 1M individuals) can operate, but players can increase this by researching and building upgrades. The cost of upgrades rises rapidly unless the player first researches technologies that reduce factory costs.^[3]

Players can allocate a planet's industrial output for several purposes - building or upgrading factories, building or upgrading a planet's shields and missile bases, research, spaceship construction and ecology (pollution control, terraforming, increasing population growth). A planet's output can also be directed to the planetary reserve (treasury), which with a 50% penalty can be used to boost the output of other planets.^[3]

Production also creates pollution, which must be cleaned up by diverting resources from other purposes and acts as a serious constraint on economic growth in the early game. Certain technologies reduce the cost of clean up to the point that pollution may not a significant factor in later stages. Players must also pay maintenance costs for ships, missile bases and spies, which is a percentage tax that is distributed to all colonies in the form of a production penalty; players cannot control how this burden is allocated between colonies.^[3]

[edit] Planets

The software generates a map randomly at the start of each game; the player's only influence over the map generator is the ability to choose the size of the galaxy and the number of AI opponents. Star systems have at most one colonizable planet and a few have none. Planets vary in four ways:

• Mineral wealth, which influences its industrial productivity when building or upgrading factories, building or upgrading defenses and building ships; mineral wealth has no impact on the productivity of research nor of ecological improvements (pollution control, terraforming, etc.). The impact of mineral wealth on factory, defense and ship construction is dramatic.^[3]
• Planet size, which determines the planet's population capacity. This can be at least doubled by various kinds of terraforming.^[13][3]
• There are a few Artifact worlds containing technology left by a now-vanished advanced civilization. These relics double research productivity and usually provide a free technology advance to the first empire to discover the planet. On Orion the conquering race receives four advances and research productivity is quadrupled.
• Habitability, which influences population growth rates. Fertile planets increase growth rates by 50% and Gaia planets by 100%, while "hostile" planets halve them. There are 13 types of planet, of which 7 can be colonized with the starting technologies while 6 are "hostile" and require increasingly advanced technology to colonize (the research cost for the technology to colonize Radiated planets is 37 times greater than that of the technology to colonize Barren planets).^[3] This has the effect of extending the exploration and colonization phases of MoO for much longer than in most 4X games.^[14]
  There is a relationship between planet type and initial population capacity, but it is not universal and merely affects the probability that a planet will be of a particular size - for example on average "Terran" planets are, for the most part, larger than "Ocean" planets, but exceptions occur. In similar fashion hostile planets are on average richer in minerals, but this is by no means universal. Ultimately all planets can be upgraded to Gaia class with the appropriate technologies, increasing their population capacity and therefore their industrial potential.^[3][13]

[edit] Technology

Technology can be acquired through research, trading, spying or conquest. There are six technology areas that can be researched to produce new advances:^[3]

1. Computers: spaceship systems that improve combat effectiveness; factory controls that increase the number of factories each colonist can operate; scanners that monitor the movements of other empires' ships and eventually can even "explore" planets remotely; and a weapon that can destroy other ships' computer systems. Computer technology advances also improve the effectiveness of spies in both offensive and defensive operations.
2. Construction: reductions in the cost of building and upgrading factories; reductions in pollution; improved spaceship armor; and self-repair systems for ships.
3. Force fields: protective shields for ships, planets and ground troops; devices that make it harder to hit the players' ships; and some special weapons.
4. Planetology: reductions in the cost of pollution control; colonization of hostile planets; terraforming, which increases the maximum population of a planet; the ability to increase populations more efficiently; biological weapons and defenses against such weapons.
5. Propulsion: increases in the range and speed of starships; some special weapons and combat systems. Range increases are particularly important in the beginning of the game^[15]
6. Weapons for uses by ships, missile bases and ground troops.

If a ship uses a component from a particular technology area, further advances in that area reduce the costs and size of the component; this effect is called "miniaturization". When one has researched all of the technologies in an area of the tech tree, further research can discover "advanced technologies" in that area, which do not provide specific new capabilites but increase the miniaturization of ship components.^[3]

Players can research several technologies at the same time, controlling the allocation of research resources by means of lockable sliders on the Technology screen. One will generally obtain more advances for a given expenditure by researching a few technologies at the same time than by spending all available resources on one technology at a time; except that in the very early stages splitting one's limited resources in this way would make achieving the first few advances a very slow process. There is a small random element in the number of turns required to achieve an advance; it may take one or two more or less than one would predict on the basis of simple arithmetic.^[3]

In each game each player is allowed to see a different random subset of the technologies at each level.^[3] On the other hand there are often alternative technologies that provide similar benefits. These features are meant to force players to adapt rather than follow the same favorite research strategy in each game.^[14] One can also make up for any important gaps by spying, technology trading or conquest.^[3]

[edit] Spaceship design

The ship design screen showing the selection of hull sizes and components.

Ships can be used to colonize planets, scout for planets worth colonizing, attack other races' ships and planets and defend against attacks from other races.

Players are allowed to have a maximum of 6 classes of ship active. Beyond that limit a player who wishes to create another class must first scrap a class and all ships of that class. Each player starts the game with 5 pre-defined designs, all at the most basic level of technology; but has actual ships of only 2 classes, Colony ship (for non-hostile planets) and Scout.

Ships cannot be re-fitted (upgraded). The only free upgrades are increases in the travel range and scanning range of ships; to take advantage of other new technologies players have to design a new class.

There are four hull sizes; smaller sizes are harder to hit while larger ships can survive more damage and hold more components. There are eight types of components each with different effects:

1. Engines power on-board systems, determine the speed of interstellar travel and the ship's maximum maneuverability during combat
2. Combat maneuverability determines how fast a ship can move during battle and how hard it is to hit; maximum maneuverability is determined by the engine type used
3. Electronic countermeasures reduce the risk of being hit by missiles
4. Shields reduce the damage done by opponents' weapons
5. Armor determines the amount of damage a ship of a given hull size can withstand before being destroyed
6. Battle computers increase the chance of a "beam" weapon hitting and damaging a target
7. Weapons, comprised of missiles, "beams", bombs and biological weapons
8. Special systems which have varying effects: improve a ship's range or maneuverability; improve weapon accuracy or range; provide defensive, offensive, repair or sensing advantages; colony bases are also considered special systems

[edit] Space combat and invasions

Space combat screen. The numbers beside the ship icons show how many ships are in each stack.

Ships can travel to any star system within their range, unlike games such as Space Empires or Ascendancy where interstellar travel is possible only via "wormholes".^[16]

Space combat always occurs in orbit over a planet - it is impossible to intercept enemy ships in deep space. All ships of the same class form a single stack, moving and firing as a single unit (unlike Heroes of Might and Magic, Master of Orion does not allow multiple stacks of similar units). Players can control ship-to-ship combat manually or can at any time allow the the program's AI to take over by clicking on the AUTO button at the bottom of the combat screen.^[3] Space battles are almost always decided by numbers and technology rather than by clever tactics.^[14]

If the attacking player wins the space combat, the attacker may bomb the colony or, if invasion ships are present, invade it. It also possible to attempt invasions without destroying all defending ships and missile bases, but some or all of the invading ground forces will be destroyed before planetfall if defending ships or missile bases are present. Players cannot invade "hostile" planets (i.e. Barren, ..., Radiated) unless they have the level of technology that allows them to colonize the same type of planet.^[3]

There are no specialist invasion ships (like Stars!; unlike Master of Orion II, Space Empires or Ascendancy^[16]); instead players simply send up to half the population of one or more colonies, which reduces the population of the planet(s) from which they are sent.^[3]

Players cannot control ground combat; the result depends on numbers, ground combat technologies and (if one of the races involved is Bulrathi) racial ground combat bonus. But the game displays a screen which shows the number of units (which decreases as casualties occur) and the ground combat technologies used by each side.^[3]

Invasion is expensive, but usually provides worthwhile advantages if successful: if there are a lot of factories left on the planet, one can steal some of the technologies left behind by the previous owner as well as getting ready-made industrial capacity; controlling a new system extends the range of the invader's ships. A successful invasion exterminates the previous inhabitants and the surviving troops form the planet's new population.^[3]

[edit] Races

Master of Orion has ten playable, pre-defined races that can not be customized (a feature available in sequels). Players interact with the race's leader, who has a set personality that determines and modifies interactions during diplomatic situations. Personality types include ruthless (will attack with little provocation and sacrifice ships to accomplish objectives), aggressive (attack whenever circumstances are favorable), xenophobic (halves effects of any positive diplomatic actions and doubles the effects of negative), honorable (will not attack friendly races but will over-react to attacks and sabotage), pacifistic (will attempt to maintain peaceful relations even after being attacked) and erratic (no set pattern of interaction). Leaders will also have objectives which influence the allocation of resources and technological interests:

• Diplomats focus on trade and espionage and balance military strength with ecological and research
• Militarists focus on weapons technology and build large fleets of ships
• Technologists focus on new technology without specialization on one area
• Ecologists will focus on building and maintaining star systems they control to maximize population growth, focusing mostly on planetology and construction technologies
• Industrialists focus on industrial technology and maximizing the number of factories built
• Expansionists focus on propulsion and planetology, colonization and expanding the territory of their empire

Though each race tends towards a specific personality type and objective, the specifics of races in each game will vary and will rarely be diametrically opposed to their 'natural' diplomatic tendency.

[edit] Racial characteristics

Each race has a unique game advantage. Klackons and Meklar have advantages in industrial production, Sakkra populations grow very quickly, Psilons excel at research, Mrrshans and Alkari have advantages in space combat, Bulrathi are superior in ground combat, Humans have advantages in trade and diplomacy, Darloks excel at spying and sabotage and the Silicoids can colonize hostile planets without any research as well as ignoring the impact of pollution but are poor at research and slow population growth. The races also excel at least one area of technology that they are good or excellent at; some also have one or more areas of research where they are poor. A rating of good or excellent reduce the cost required to develop a prototype within a research field by 20 and 40% respectively, while a rating of poor increases the same cost by 25%.^[17]

* Silicoids population growth is 50% slower than most races and 25% that of the Sakkra.

[edit] Diplomacy

Master of Orion provides a wide range of diplomatic negotiations including monetary or technological gifts, trading of technology, alliances and non-aggression pacts. Non-player diplomats are animated, with facial expressions that reflect their mood, and by referring to past interactions with the player. Leaders and their races interact with the player negatively and positively. Negative interactions include espionage, sabotage, military build-up along borders, attacking other races, owning too many planets, breaking treaties, killing the populations on invaded planets, not voting for another leader in an election, genocide and the use of biological warfare. The latter two actions also worsen interactions with all other races. Positive reactions include tribute, trade, war against a common enemy, voting for a leader in an election and military alliances; the latter improves relations gradually, with greater effect the longer they are active. Trade treaties also improve relations to a lesser extent, and initally result in a loss as they draw 30% of their worth from the player's treasury (this also happens immediately after a trade treaty is broken). Over subsequent turns the worth of the treaty increases by 0 and 5% per turn and after ten to twelve turns begins producing income, eventually reaching 100% of the treaty's originally-decided value. Proceeds of trade are distributed to individual planets according to their production.

Leaders remember the actions of other players, and actions like consistently breaking treaties applies a permanent penalty to future interactions, resulting in fewer positive interactions and only agreeing to treaties that benefit the other leader more than the player. A game can include up to six other races and each race's behavior can vary according to the personality of the leader; as a result, gameplay can very from peaceful to an unending series of wars. AI races will go to war if it believes it has a significant advantage.

Races also have a pre-defined relationship with each other at the start of the game, ranging from relaxed to uneasy, which influences diplomatic interactions throughout the game.^[18] Relationships change based on interactions, but will drift back to their initial settings without ongoing efforts to maintain them.

[edit] Random events

Master of Orion will sometimes produce random events which can be harmful or advantageous. Random events include discovery of ancient ships and technology, changes to planetary conditions that alter the planet's population or mineral richness, diplomatic blunders, changes to research, industry or treasury production, planetary rebellion, space piracy and attacks by space monsters that can destroy colonies. Random events can be disabled by means of a cheat code.^[7]

[edit] Prequel

Master of Orion is based on its prequel game Star Lords, often called Master of Orion 0 by fans.^[19] Star Lords was a prototype and never commercially released (its intro opens with "SimTex Software and Your Company present"). The crude but fully-playable prototype was made available as freeware in 2001, stripped of all documentation and copy protection, in anticipation of the launch of Master of Orion 3.^[19] Major differences between Star Lords and Master of Orion I include inferior graphics and interface, simpler trade and diplomacy, undirected research, a lack of safeguards to prevent players from building more factories than are usable and the use of transports rather than colony ships to colonize new planets. One feature of Star Lords that Master of Orion lacks is a table of relations between the computer-controlled races. The game is available for download on FilePlanet^[20] and the home page for Master of Orion III.^[19]

[edit] Sequels

Two commercial sequels to Master of Orion have been released, Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares and Master of Orion III. The sequels are significantly more advanced in graphics and sound but feature large differences in gameplay, with some players claiming the original game remains the best version of the three.^[21][7] FreeOrion is an open source, freeware game inspired by Master of Orion that has numerous similarities to games in the Master of Orion series.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Master of Orion series at MobyGames
• Sirian's Master of Orion Page includes resources and full game narrations for the first Master of Orion
• Jon Sullivan's MOO I Resources page hosts information and downloads for this game including the game manualPDF (962 KB)