Oh yeah! A couple of years ago wargaming.net (makers of World of Tanks and World of Warships) bought the rights to Master of Orion. To nobody’s surprise they’re releasing Master of Orion. For 4X gamers this is potentially very exciting news. I have very fond memories of Master of Orion 1 & 2.
Yeah, saw that on IGN earlier today. Not a lot of details. What I HOPE is for something like Star Drive 2 wrt tactical combat and building your ships with new tech and Galactic Civ III wrt tech tree and planetary development…perhaps with Sins of a Solar Empire wrt strategic movement between planets, defensive and other orbital installations within a planetary sphere and just the coolness factor.
I don’t want much. 
I’d settle for just a re-skin and graphics update of the original game, though, since it was one of my favorites.
I bought both on GOG…which is better and is there a strategy guide or any advice on how to play?
They are both really good, although I would say that MOO2 is ever so slightly better.
I’m sure there must be some strategy guides online somewhere. I would say one of the best ways to start off is to focus on production heavy races without sacrificing tech. Being able to outproduce the AIs is very effective. However, there are many paths to victory.
I hope they don’t get carried away like MOO3. Keep it simple. Basically everything you said. Don’t try to get into this crazy automation and such, do a great job on the core of what is 4X (tactical combat, designing ships, researching techs, building up your planets). 4X games are, in my one of the hardest games to make because they are only as good as their worst system and very AI heavy. The AI needs to be to handle multiple systems both independently well, and it has to bring them all together too. That’s why I avoid them like mad from indie developers, they usually don’t have the experience and resources to do them well. I definitely refuse to buy them in early access for the same reason.
Thank you. 
Intriguing! I’ve spent many an enjoyable hour playing MoO II. Here’s hoping this latest incarnation turns out well.
I refuse to acknowledge the existence of any such game!
Seriously, I followed the development of MOO3 on the official and unofficial boards (a first for me) and I really, really wanted to play the game that was initially promised. Not only did they disappoint with all the features that didn’t make it to release, the game was unplayably horrible.
I have bought MOO2 multiple times (the last time on GOG) and still break it out every now and then. A pure reskin would be just fine in my opinion.
As a beginner, it depends a bit on the game. MOO2 has the restriction that you can only research one tech in a category unless you’re playing a Creative race (the Psilons or a customized race.) While production is important, I’d take the Creative perk over just about anything else. It removes the need to worry as much about spying and diplomacy.
Yeah, Creative is an amazingly good trait. I also like the Subterranean trait.
I’ve found that it generally works well to spam colony ships fairly early on. The auto-build feature is surprisingly good, considering how old the game is. Just found a colony, queue up production buildings, switch on auto-build, and forget about it for a while.
One game feature that isn’t readily apparent is miniaturization. When you develop a technology in a category, many ship systems from earlier tiers in that category become cheaper and/or smaller. For example, developing Graviton Beam will let you fit more Neutron Blasters on a ship. This means that you won’t necessarily want to use the most cutting edge weaponry, and that developing non-military technology may improve your military equipment.
Another tip for MOO II beginners – really good planets are often guarded by space monsters. It’s MUCH easier to defeat space monsters with early missile tech than early beam tech. Load a few medium-to-small ships with missiles…using the “only two shots” setting, which will give you the most initial damage (and get the missiles into play before the ships are destroyed). This requires effort to do early, but early acquisition of a great planet will give you a huge edge.
Most monsters, I agree. It can also work very early against the Antarans. But don’t try it against the Guardian or later invasion fleets.
Also, turn on tactical combat. It’s slower, but I’ve had technologically advanced smaller fleets get wiped out in the quick combat method that stomped the floor with the enemy in tactical mode.
Space eels also have lightning fields, making missiles much less effective against them. If you opt for beam weapons, you can start faring well against space monsters once you have neutron blasters; you can even take on the Guardian with them, if you have a big enough fleet. Actually, you can take on the Guardian with mass drivers, but you need a lot of them.
Oh, and once you have assault shuttles, you can use them to capture Antaran ships without too much trouble. The bigger ones have quantum detonators, so they often self-destruct when captured, but it’s worth trying. Captured Antaran ships can be scrapped to reverse-engineer technologies that you can’t research yourself. Xentronium armor and damper field are outstanding.
Getting back to the new MOO, so what.
Really, MOO has been redone again and again - Galactic Civilizations, for example, isn’t that much different from MOO2 than MOO2 is from MOO1. The 4X space extravaganza has been done and redone, and having the MOO brand isn’t really evidence of quality; Galactic Civ wasn’t too bad, while MOO3 was one of the worst designed games I’ve ever seen.
The new MOO is just another 4x game, and it’ll stink or swim in his own merits.
If it was going to be judged on its own merits, it wouldn’t be a Master of Orion game. It’s a very powerful name amongst those who remember it; you don’t want to let those people down (seriously, you don’t. We’re scary when we get angry). Those who don’t remember it are unaffected by the title; you’d only use it if it were a selling point.
And the thing is, MOO hasn’t been done and redone- we had two great games and one that was truly awful. Yes, there have been others in the genre, using largely the same mechanics, but by that logic, they should stop making first-person shooters. I can find far more difference between Master of Orion and Galactic Civilizations than you could between whatever the latest Call of Duty is and Wolfenstein 3D.
More to the point, while there’ve been several pretenders to the throne, none have equaled, let alone exceeded, MOO2. The fans are right to be excited- and right to be apprehensive. Time will tell.
For anyone that has played both, how does MOO2 compare to Space Empires IV (with AI mods)?