So I used to live in Canada for a short while.
While there, a friend of the family I was living with brought over a game that was entertaining to play.
Normally I don’t like space games, but this was interesting.
Okay.. I’ll try to share as many details as I can remember, please help me out if you can…
I lived in Canada in 2002, so it had to be a came that came out that year or before.
I remember it seemed to be mostly in black and white or dark colors.
In it, there were a lot of little planets and you’d take them over by landing on them…
…but there were other alien races in the game too, doing the same thing. These races were kind and even diplomatic at first…
…but after awhile, once you (or another race) got to be having the MAJORITY of the planets claimed as your own…a cut scene would automatically happen where TWO (sometimes you and another alien race, but sometimes two alien races) of the races with the MOST TAKEN OVER SPACE would hold a conference of sorts (there’s even a shot of both of the races at the table—either you and the other race vying for “most space taken over” or the two alien races who took over the most) to vote on whether to make someone leader… or…combine forces… or… something…and you had the choice to agree or disagree.
If you agreed, well, great…but then if/when they have a problem with another race, you’re expected to IMMEDIATELY go to war with that third race.
And if you disagree, at the conference, usually that mean IMMEDIATE war with the ones you just disagreed with…
So then the war phase would start and you could send ships to other (now enemy) planets and take them over (if you win) … or they will send ships to your planets trying to take them over.
Annnnd…that seemed to be the point of the whole game. Take over all the planets.
It was fun for what it was, though…but my remembering of the name of it was lost long ago.
Anyone think it sounds familiar/
Genre? I thought space was its genre.
The whole game was just about getting the most planets and then either trying to side with or fight against the two other alien races who got the most planets aside you. They were controlled by the AI, not other humans.
You are very lucky and have great timing…I found it myself, and was coming back here to say “nevermind, I found it…”
It WAS, indeed, MASTER OF ORION 2…thank you much. Had I not found it, you would have answered my question.
I KNEW it shouldn’t have been hard as I could have sword it was a fairly popular game (like, one of the ALL TIME GREAT CLASSICS) but didn’t want to swear to it.
I don’t know. You have to remember it was 2002 and not my computer. I was 22 then, I didn’t know much about computers even, heh. I had only started using computers in 2001.
But we figured out what it was.
MoO is a 4X. Those are pretty different than sim games, which is the other common genre for space-themed games – stuff like Wing Commander, Freespace 2, or the dreaded Battlecruiser 3000.
I dunno; the description seemed pretty clearly 4X to me (claiming planets before others do, and then going to war over claimed planets).
If you’re wondering, “4X” stands for “Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate”. Find lands, get their resources, and use them to wipe out enemies. It’s also the genre of, for instance, the Civilization line.
Space 4X games seem to greatly outnumber other types. MoO was the first to call itself a 4X game but it was by no means the first. Wikipedia lists Empire as the first.
I was about 90% sure the OP was referring to MoO2 as it was a very popular game that fit the criteria. Alas, others answered first.
There’s still an active modding community for it too, with a fan-made patch updated in Dec 2024: https://moo2mod.com/ It has multiplayer, improved AI, and a bunch of features & fixes.
The space-themed 4X genre is also alive and well, with many series now, like:
I was too young to remember much of MoO (think I only saw a friend playing it for a few minutes), but these later games are all decent enough in their own right. Worth a shot if you remember MoO fondly!