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Master of Orion
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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 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.

Contents 1 Development 1.1 Reception 2 System requirements 3 Gameplay 3.1 Victory conditions 3.1.1 The Orions 3.2 Planets 3.3 Economy 3.4 Technology 3.5 Spaceship design 3.6 Space combat 3.7 Ground combat 3.8 Races 3.8.1 Racial characteristics 3.8.2 Diplomacy 3.9 Random events 4 Prequel 5 Sequels 6 References 7 External links

[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] 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, 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.^[3]

[edit] Reception

Master of Orion was very well received upon its release, far more so than its two sequels. It is a member of both GameSpy's Hall of Fame^[4] and GameSpot's list of the Greatest Games of All Time.^[5]

[edit] System requirements

MoO runs under MS-DOS or Mac OS operating systems. The MS-DOS version uses memory management techniques which are incompatible with Windows NT-based operating systems and their descendants, but it can run under Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows ME through modification of the CONFIG.SYS file (which can be harmful if performed incorrectly)^[6] or through the use of a DOS emulator such as DOSBox. Game screens are 320x200 pixels in 256 colors and sound effects are limited to MIDI tunes. There is no multi-player mode; the player's opponents are controlled by an artificial intelligence (AI) generated by the program. The game was originally released on four floppy disks.

[edit] Gameplay

200px|thumb|right|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.^[6] 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] Victory conditions

Victory is determined by either elimination of all opponents, or being elected supreme leader of the galaxy by the High Council. Election requires the support of two-thirds the population of the galaxy, with abstentions counting as a vote against all candidates. Elections are held after two-thirds of the planets in the galaxy have been colonized on years ending in 00, 25, 50 and 75. Supporting votes can be attained through political alliances or by controlling at least two-thirds the population through conquest or expansion. Once a High Master is declared the other races can accept the nomination or challenge it; the latter results in war between the High Master and their allies and challenging races.^[7]

Despite the game's name, conquest of the Orion star system does not automatically win the game but does provide significant advantages.

[edit] The Orions

Despite their different backgrounds and homeworlds, all races possess legends of a master race that once controlled the galaxy, the Orions, as well as a 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, that must be destroyed before the planet can be colonized. Though the races have legends that "he who masters Orion masters the universe"^[8] and conquering Orion presents several advantages, it is not necessary to conquer the planet to win the game. Orion is extremely large and fertile (allowing both a large population base and rapid growth) and is by far the most productive planet in the galaxy in terms of research, quadrupling the results of any research investment made on the planet. The first leader to destroy the Guardian and reach the planet's surface discovers several valuable artifacts left by its former inhabitants that provide advanced military technologies, some of which can not be discovered through normal research. In addition, members of the High Council tend to vote in favor of whoever controls the Orion system.

[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:

1. Mineral wealth, which influences its industrial productivity.
2. Planet size, which determines the planet's population capacity. Initially this is based on habitability but terraforming increases the number of colonists able to live on the planet.^[7]
3. Artifact worlds containing technology left by a now-vanished advanced civilization, which doubles 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.
4. Habitability, which influences population growth rates. Fertile planets increase growth rates by 50% and Gaia by 100% while "hostile" planets halve them. There are twelve types of planets, six of which are hostile and require increasingly advanced technology to colonize (though the Silicoids ignore planet habitability and start the game able to colonize any planet type). In order from most habitable to most hostile, the planet types are:^[7]

1. Terran (Earth-like) and able to support the greatest number of colonists
2. Jungle planets with a young environment akin to the Earth's dinosaur age
3. Oceanic, nearly completely covered in water with little visible land
4. Arid planets with only 25% of the surface covered in water
5. Steppe planets with rugged terrain
6. Desert planets with minimal water and violent dust storms
7. Minimal, barely capable of supporting life due to with low oxygen and water (hostile)
8. Barren, with little to no atmosphere or surface water (hostile)
9. Tundra planets that are perpetually frozen (hostile)
10. Dead planets completely lacking water and an atmosphere (hostile)
11. Inferno planets with hot, Venus-like conditions (hostile)
12. Toxic planets with a corrosive atmosphere (hostile)
13. Radiated planets that are constantly bombarded with solar radiation (hostile)

The research cost for the technology to colonize radiated planets is 37 times more expensive than the cost of the technology to research minimal planets, and has the effect of extending the exploration and colonization phases of MoO for much longer than in most 4X games.^[9] Despite being difficult to colonize, hostile planets also tend to be richer in minerals with greater industrial production potential.^[7] Ultimately all planets can be upgraded to Gaia class with the appropriate technology, increasing their population capacity and ultimately productivity.

[edit] Economy

All planetary outputs are based on industrial production, including research, and all citizens contribute towards productivity. Contributions are enhanced through the use of factories, though there is a limit on the number of factories a unit of population (one million citizens) can operate, which can be increased by researching and building upgrades. Players can allocate a planet's industrial output to building or upgrading factories, building or upgrading planetary defenses (shields and missile bases), research, spaceship construction or ecology (pollution control, terraforming and increasing population growth). Pollution is a serious constraint on economic growth in the early game, but technological advances significantly reduce the cost of mitigating its effects.

A planet's output can also be directed to the planetary reserve which can be used to boost the output of other planets at a 50% penalty. Maintenance of ships, missile bases and spies is treated as a tax on the production of all colonies, and can not be adjusted to affect specific planets.

[edit] Technology

Technology can be acquired through research, trading, spying or conquest. There are six technology streams that can be researched to produce new advances:^[7]

1. Computers, which improves starship combat systems, factory controls and scanning equipment and a weapon that can destroy other ships' computer systems
2. Construction, which reduces pollution, the cost of factories, ships and missile bases, improves armor and self-repair systems for starships
3. Force fields, which allows building and improvements of protective shields on ships, planets and ground troops, a cloaking device and produces certain unique energy weapons
4. Planetology, which improves pollution control, population growth, allows terraforming that expands the maximum population of a planet, allows colonization of hostile planets and the creation and improved efficacy of biological weapons, as well as improving the happiness and productivity of citizens
5. Propulsion, which increases the range and speed of starships and allows special weapons and combat systems; propulsion is particularly important in the beginning of the game^[10]
6. Weapons, which creates new types of, and improves the damage and range of ship-, planet- and troop-based weapons

Players can research several technologies simultaneously, controlling the allocation of industrial production allocated to research by means of lockable sliders on the Technology screen. Generally more advances will be made for a given cost if resources are spread between several streams rather than concentrated on a single technology (though in the early game, because of limited resources an equal distribution of resources results in very slow advancement). Each technology area is divided into fifty levels though not all levels contain a new advance (research past level fifty refine and miniaturize existing technology). The cost of developing a technology is based on its level squared, multiplied by a factor determined by the game's difficulty level. Research investment also acquires interest, so resources invested previous years produces gains in subsequent years, and dramatic increases in funding is less efficient than a constant investment. New technology becomes usable when scientists achieve a breakthrough, which can only occur after the base cost has been met. After the base funding has been paid, the chance of a breakthrough increases proportionate to one half the amount of funding beyond the base cost; if a technology's base cost is 100, once 150 research points have been invested the chance of a breakthrough is 25%.^[11] In each game players can only see a random subset of the technologies at each level, though there are often alternative technologies that provide similar benefits to the missing advances. The random removal of advances prevents the use of a fixed pattern of research for every game and forces adaptation over multiple games.^[9]

[edit] Spaceship design

320px|thumb|right|The ship design screen showing the selection of hull sizes and components. The game begins with five basic designs, of which only two are available (scout and colony ships). Players are allowed to have a maximum of six ship designs at a time and must scrap all ships of a specific design before being able to create a new one. Technologies that increase travel and scanning ranges are automatically upgraded upon discovery, all other advances must be manually incorporated.

There are four hull sizes; smaller sizes are harder to hit while larger ships can sustain 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 they are to hit; maximum maneuverability is determined by the engine used
3. Electronic countermeasures reduce the risk of being hit by missiles
4. Shields reduce the damage done by opponent's weapons, particularly energy beams
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 weapon hitting and damaging a target
7. Weapons, comprised of missile, beams, planetary bombs and biological weapons
8. Special systems which have varying effects - improve a ship's range or maneuvering, improve weapon accuracy or damage and provide defensive, offensive, repair or sensing advantages; colony bases are also considered special systems

Ships can be used to colonize planets, transport ground combat troops, attack other races' ships and planets and defend against attacks from other races.

[edit] Space combat

320px|thumb|right|Space combat screen. The numbers beside the ship icons show how many ships are in each stack.

Space ships are integral to the game, being the only way to attack opponents' colonies and capture their planets. Ships can travel to any star system within the limits of their engines and combat occurs in orbit over a planet. All ships of a single class are combined into 'stacks' that move and fire as a unit, controlled by the players or AI, and stacks can not be split.

The attacker uses all of their ships within the system they are attacking, while the defender has all their ships in the system, as well as any missile or beam weapon bases located on the planet. If the attacking player is victorious, they may bombard the planet or proceed to ground combat.

Combat is strategic rather than tactical and outcomes rely on weight of numbers, technological advantage and starship design. Only in combats between technologically and numerically matched fleets will the random elements of targetting and damage be a factor. In specific combats and over the long term, the defender has an advantage during as planetary defences can be upgraded with new discoveries, while attacking fleets must have the obselete vessels scrapped and new designs manually upgraded as better weapons, defences and systems become available.^[9]

[edit] Ground combat

Ground combat follows any space combat if attacking ships are present in the defending system. The attacking player draws invasion troops from their own planets (up to half the total population of the planet), reducing their populations by the size of the invading force. If the invading player has not destroyed all defending ships and missile bases before landing troops the remaining defences will attack and destroy a portion of the invading force during their descent. Ground combat is controlled exclusively by the AI with results depending on the size of the armies, how advanced each side's ground combat technologies are, and the presence of Bulrathi troops (the Bulrathi race receives a bonus during ground combat). Displays visible during combat list the technology available to each side and the size of each player's army, which changes in real-time as casualties occur. The winning player controls of the planet, its population and any remaining industry; if it is the invading player they may also acquire technologies possessed by their opponent depending on how many factories are undestroyed. Conquering a planet also expands the area controlled by the player and depending on the range of their ships, may allow access to new star systems. Invasions are expensive, but can provide otherwise unattainable planets, technologies and industrial capacity.

Players can not invade hostile planets unless they have developed the corresponding level of technology to allow them to colonize the same type of planet.

[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%.^[12]

Race	Species type	Advantage	Technological advantage	Technological disadvantage	Diplomatic tendency
Klackon	Insectoid	Superior worker production	Construction (excellent)	Propulsion (poor)	Xenophobic industrialists
Meklar	Mechanoid	Superior factory production	Computers (excellent)	Planetology (poor)	Erratic industrialists
Sakkra	Saurian	High population growth	Planetology (excellent)	None	Aggressive expansionists
Psilon	Humanoid	Superior research techniques	All (good)	None	Pacifistic technologists
Mrrshans	Feline	Hit/damage bonus in space combat	Weapons (excellent)	Construction (poor)	Ruthless militarists
Alkari	Avian	Superior space pilots	Propulsion (excellent)	Force fields (poor)	Honorable militarists
Bulrathi	Ursoid	Superior ground combat	Construction (good), weapons (good)	Computers (poor)	Aggressive ecologists
Humans	Human	Superior diplomats and traders	Force fields (excellent), planetology (good), propulsion (good)	None	Honorable diplomacy
Silicoid	Geodic	Ignore pollution and planet type*	Computers (good)	All other areas (poor)	Xenophobic expansionists
Darlock	Humanoid	Superior spies and saboteurs	Computers (good)	None	Aggressive diplomats

* 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.^[13] Relationships change based on interactions, but will drift back to their initial settings without ongoing efforts to maintain them.

Race	Alkari	Mrrshan	Human	Klackon	Melkar	Psilon	Darlok	Sakkra	Silicoid	Bulrathi
Alkari	-	Restless	Relaxed	Unease	Neutral	Neutral	Unease	Unease	Neutral	Neutral
Mrrshan	Restless	-	Relaxed	Unease	Neutral	Neutral	Unease	Wary	Neutral	Unease
Human	Relaxed	Relaxed	-	Relaxed	Relaxed	Relaxed	Relaxed	Relaxed	Relaxed	Relaxed
Klackon	Unease	Unease	Relaxed	-	Neutral	Neutral	Unease	Unease	Unease	Neutral
Melkar	Neutral	Neutral	Relaxed	Neutral	-	Neutral	Unease	Unease	Relaxed	Neutral
Psilon	Neutral	Neutral	Relaxed	Neutral	Neutral	-	Unease	Neutral	Neutral	Neutral
Darlok	Unease	Unease	Relaxed	Unease	Unease	Unease	-	Unease	Unease	Unease
Sakkra	Unease	Wary	Relaxed	Unease	Unease	Neutral	Unease	-	Neutral	Neutral
Silicoid	Neutral	Neutral	Relaxed	Relaxed	Relaxed	Neutral	Unease	Neutral	-	Neutral
Bulrathi	Neutral	Unease	Relaxed	Neutral	Neutral	Neutral	Unease	Neutral	Neutral	-

[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.^[6]

[edit] Prequel

Master of Orion is based on its prequel game Star Lords, often called Master of Orion 0 by fans.^[14] 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.^[14] 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^[15] and the home page for Master of Orion III.^[14]

[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.^[16][6] 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)

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