Simply the best ♪♫♩.... but 3000 cycles is too slow,this file stored in the game dir.-dosboxMOO1.conf- open it with notepad , change cycles=auto on cycles=12000 and conquer the universe.

Master of Orion 1 is a masterpiece.

The MoO 1 design philosophy is to focus on higher level strategic decisions, rather than the minutiae. Unfortunately, the genre as a whole has decided to go down the opposite path.

That's not to say that empire management is less deep. It's actually kind of the opposite -- instead of min-maxing which buildings to place where (which is a math problem, not a strategic one) you control everything with broader strokes. Colonies are managed directly from the game map, which speeds turns up tremendously.

Tactical combat, while nothing to write home about in and of itself, strikes a good balance between depth and pacing. Some 4X games have very complex combat that becomes completely unwieldy later in the game when battles grow past a certain size (MoO 2), while other 4X games avoid tactical combat entirely to avoid that issue (Galciv). MoO is one of the few games that has found a reasonable middle ground. Combat is decently enjoyable, and is set up in a way where a late game encounter plays very similar to an early game one.

Master of Orion has probably the best tech tree ever devised. It's semi-random, which helps to make each playthrough feel unique and limits the strength of memorization. Unlike some other games with semi-random trees a missing tech never ends up feeling like a punishing dead end.

And to add to it all, the various factions ooze with atmosphere despite the retro graphics.

Even if you dislike 4X games, heck, especially if you dislike 4X games you should give MoO a shot. The majority of 4X games today are not really about strategy -- they're about math, memorization, and repititive busywork that masquerades as depth. Master of Orion 1 is one of few example out there of the way 4X games should be, but unfortunately rarely are, designed.

The fact is, I never liked Master of Orion 2. This game is the supreme leader of the MOO games.

What's the difference?

In MOO2, they went complete CIV direction. You have population units and can micromanage every thing they do. You have freighters and trade. You had to balance food and production and upkeep.

With the original Master of Orion, it was so much simpler. There was no penalty for each colony. Mass expansion was the way to go. The only thing you had to balance was opportunity cost.

You don't worry about every single population unit in MOO. You just allot how much infrastructure you want to build on your colony, how much research, how many bases, how much population growth, and how much to ship building.

You even allot to research. I hate that I lose access to some techs in MOO2. Want more construction tech? put some more BC's to it. Want more weapons? Allotcate some more BC's to it.

The AI respond wells to your actions. Expanding endlessly? Prepare to be at war before you can get your infrastructure up. Placing ships along borders? They also reinforce their borders. They steal from you and plot against you. All this for a game that requires 2mb of RAM.

There is nothing else like watching your empire expand and conquering with a variety of different paths to destroying your enemy. The magic that MOO captured was the simplicity in your options, while keeping all the strategic and tactical depth of a micromanagement game. There is no other game I've ever played that was like the original MOO.

I played this game in 1995.

Today, I downloaded it again. A few turns into it, the copy protection kicked in, and asked me to identify the name of a ship displayed in the game's manual. This digital download brings a pdf version of the manual, which was my first impulse. However, before i double clicked the link that would display it, i stopped myself, extended my left hand to my bookcase and took my original manual which i got back in 95'.

I've moved many times in all those years, yet that manual has been in my bookcase with me every step of the way. Let us just say I am a bit biased torwards this game.

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This is the quintesential space empire strategy game.

You will start with your single planet, build up your colony ships, and go on to explore the galaxy. Only one planet per star, but the map can still be quite huge. Manage your research, divided among many different areas. Build up your industry one factory at a time. Your population in this game, is a resource too, and you'll need to transport your citizens to always be where they are required, be it building factories, research, terraforming planets, invading enemy worlds, or multipying itself to get you some nice votes for that council seat.

Credits are not as important in this game since there is no autobuy feature. THat's not to say they aren't powerful, you can form a credit reserve and transfer it to planets of your choice to make it a powerhouse doubling it's production values while the money lasts.

Ship combat stays relevant from begining to end, by using ship stacks. You will never need to use auto during battles, it doesn't matter if you have two ships or two thousands. Only exceptions ocurr when you have fleets that for some reason can only do meaningless damage to each other.

Espionage can really cripple the enemy. Drive half it's empire to revolt, blow up all of his factories to bring them back to the stone age, or perhaps you just want to steal those juicy tech schematics. If you promote enough revolts, you can even depose that xenophobic militaristic dictator and spin the wheel of luck for a chance of a pacifist diplomat taking power.

Colony management is simple, a few slider bars, but a ton of implications. Dont invest enough into pollution cleanup and you'll have a neat industrial ghost town. Want some defenses ? Get a planetary shield and 500 missile bases see the enemy mothership get a proper welcome. Population's productivty gets multiplied by building factories. Develop enough automatation, and less people can manage more things, allowing even more factories per population point. There is no limit to the amount of ships you can build, so you could just as easily produce 100 tiny ships every turn, not being forced by the absurd standar of 1 per turn.

Invasions are very simple: Click planet, choose transport option, choose other planet (Your own, or an enemy's) then stipulate the amount of troops/colonists, and click ok. A transport sets out, and they either get a new home or pack their rifles to go annihilate the alien scum on their target planet. It's just an animation, but it's an effective one at that.

The ship designer allows for some very good ideas. You could build a repulsor ship, with heavy beam weapons so you can hit them at range and repulse them when they get too close, negating their short range weapons. Missiles or torpedoes are the norm most of the time. Or you could add a high energy focus and oracle device to your ship, allowing fully focused long range beam weapons to strike a single point in the enemy ships, crippling shields.

The game is amazing. Play it. There are many contenders, but none stand up to it. An argument could be said in favor of it's succesor Moo2, but that, is a matter of taste.

I remember getting my face burnt from the computer monitor from sitting too long playing this game two days in a row. Can be quite addictive in other words.

That said, do note that three of the screenshots are from MOO2, not this one (the Klackon Ambassador, Yota hire scren and subsequent star map).

A classic.

The first game with tactical combats and ship construction. UI looks a bit clumsy and default speed is REALLY slow, but there may be a few features that people would prefer over MOO2. Yet, i would rather play MOO2.

I am so happy to see this game on steam.
I used to play this game day and night back in the nineties and was so upset that I lost my CD on one of my moves.

Although this game has no shiny graphics, especially measured by todays standards, it has depth and a lot of it.
unlinke MoO2, in MoO1 you usually don't get clogged up in micromanagement and the turnbased tactical battles are somewhat simplified but still fun to play.
I like managing my starempire in braod strokes, ordering planetary spending directly on the main starmap with just a few sliders per planet/solarsystem.

The tech-'tree' is really well done and although you heve some random tech every game that is just unavailible to your reasearch, you never feel like you are missing out on something (at least I never did).

Although I got this with the collectors Edition for the new Master of Orion, I actually first had a go with this classic again, before I even installed the new rendition :D

If you like 4x games, but not so much micormanaging every building on every planet, MoO1 is for you.

Got this as part of the 4-game package including the "new MoO" (the reason I purchased it). Fired this up just as an excercise in nostalgia. Wasn't expecting to play but one session of it before moving on the the main attraction. Hmmm....65 hours later...

I had forgotten how much of a time-sink this game was. Oh sure, the graphics and sound are dated - insert standard whine here --> <-- but some of the atmosphere touches were inspired. E.G. the "theme songs" for the programmed opponents in the diplomacy screen. The impending comet doom. A plague! Oh no!

This game really was one of the purest early examples of the 'one more turn' addiction. There was always *something* that just _had_ to be finished, before logging off for the night. Except there was this thing that needed to be done. Oh, and that one other thing... What is that noise? Eh, just my alarm going off. I thnk I need to call in sick today (cough!).

Great trip down memory lane for this old MoO-aholic. But I think the damn thing still stands up pretty well, even 20+ years after release.

Recommended.

(Unless you require sleep. Regular meals. The love of family and friends. Gainful employment.)

Controvercial as this opinion may be, I think I prefer this game to all its sequels, despite the fact that Master of Orion 2 is so often immitated because it's so great.

Ahh one of two of my all time old school favorites, not very difficult a learning curve even if a bit dated graphically. Still fun to be had in larger maps.