After the first news that the rights to Master of Orion acquired Wargaming, many fans of the classic space strategy are seriously worried that their favorite series will be turned into another free-to-play action movie. The fears are quite justified: despite the fact that Belarusian developers also have strategies (very good ones, I must say), they are best at those same session “tanks”, and MoO still a completely different game.
However, very soon after the announcement of the new “Master of Orion” such doubts were dispelled by the promise Victor Kisly make exactly the classic 4X in the best traditions of the series (the head of the company himself, according to him, is a big fan of it). The work was entrusted to Argentine developers from NGD Studios, which has raised several other doubts about the future of the project – this studio has not yet shown anything impressive in the field of game development.
At the moment, a little more than six months after the announcement, Master of Orion is in Early Access, and now everyone can confirm all their fears and hopes on their own.
In the best traditions
Still at the initial stage of development Wargaming did not hide the fact that no one is going to make some kind of revolution in the genre – the game will be primarily for “continuers”. And so it happened – before us is the most classic space strategy in the 4X genre, one of the ancestors of which was Master of Orion.
Several races to choose from, each with their own pros and cons, thanks to which you can lead both a civilization of intellectual scientists and an empire of brave warriors who only know how to fight. Later it is planned to add the ability to create your own race, independently specifying the desired characteristics, which will significantly expand the scope of both role-playing (yes, yes, there is a place for this in 4X) and strategic possibilities. Another classic feature is the ship designer, in which you can temporarily exchange the imperial scepter for a compass and ruler, taking on the difficult work of a space shipyard engineer.
We send scouts to other star systems, colonize planets, research new technologies and, of course, fight and make friends with other civilizations. The gameplay is so standard for the genre that anyone familiar with at least one similar strategy will feel right at home. It’s impossible to say yet whether this is an advantage or a disadvantage: on the one hand, releasing a game without any significant innovations (except for the technical part) in 2016 is at least strange, but on the other hand, in this case there is an excellent chance to hone all the nuances to such a quality that it would not be a shame to show not at all innovative gameplay. More likely, NGD Studios is counting on the latter, so those who are preparing for the next revolution will have to curb their ardor.
Research Screen. Nothing remarkable – this is still not Sword of the Stars with its sophisticated scientific system.
"Houston, we have problems!»
However, it’s too early to talk about any high quality of the game. Computer opponents are not very smart, sometimes behaving completely inappropriately: they declare war when the defending side has a clear advantage, but they are so bad at fighting that almost any confrontation ends in the player’s favor. The diplomacy system, although it has enough opportunities for productive negotiations, does not yet bring any benefit – any computer diplomat prefers to make impossible demands for the most harmless requests.
But the biggest disappointment so far https://players-palace-casino.co.uk/login/ comes from the process of creating your ships and tactical battles. After simply gorgeous designers from StarDrive And Galactic Civilizations V MoO everything is standard to the point of disgrace: two appearance options for each case and a simple choice from several modules. No manual arrangement of compartments, guns and equipment on the ship’s frame, as in the same StarDrive, nor the richest customization of external design, as in G.C, — a classic is a classic, but I would like more elaboration of this particular part, which is important for many.
Battles, unlike the strategic sphere, where everything happens turn-based, take place in real time. Two fleets have met – you can either simulate their battle, or load onto the tactical map and directly control your ships. But there is absolutely no need to do this: in any case, “victory is on the side of large battalions,” and tactical possibilities are limited – hide behind asteroids from enemy missiles, bypass the enemy on the other side and concentrate fire on individual ships. Fortunately, an opponent who is not brilliant in his intelligence is not able to figure out such “tricks”. The ships have neither activated abilities nor any detailed damage model; the influence of design features on the outcome of the battle is not obvious, which negates any point in creating your own starship design.
The artists and animators responsible for the design of the alien races deserve special praise: they turned out to be memorable, but at the same time retained the spirit of the original.
The scourge of all global strategies has not gone away – plunging into the abyss of microcontrol while growing your own empire to a more or less significant size. Manually giving orders to all ships (except, perhaps, scouts, for which you can turn on automatic reconnaissance mode) and manually managing each colony (there is automatic construction of buildings, but it lacks flexible settings) is not the most pleasant activity. Add to this the unstable operation of the game, especially towards the end of the game, and a small but still noticeable number of minor bugs, such as inscriptions that do not fit on the screen. "Early Access" in all its "glory", sadly enough.
Light of distant planets
However, there is no point in drawing hasty conclusions just yet. The existing problems are not unsolvable (except perhaps for the ship designer – it needs to be rebuilt from scratch), and it’s quite possible to fix them in beta. Simple and familiar rules can also be beneficial: such strategies will be very convenient to play on the Internet, but thoughtful delving into the “single player” is better left to representatives of the genre who are more suited for this.
What there are no problems with at all is the graphics and sound. The picture turned out to be quite nice, there is no eye-catching interface, no obvious savings on the technical component, which is often the problem with 4X strategies. Representatives of various alien races turned out especially well – each drawn and voiced in its own unique style. And if in the Russian localization there is nothing special to say about the voicing of characters, then in the English version they recruited a whole galaxy of Hollywood stars for dubbing, led by Mark Hamill (Mark Hamill). Perhaps not the most important point for a global strategy, but the attention of the developers to such details is, of course, impressive.
In general, the screen is pleasant to look at while playing, and in this regard Master of Orion looks quite finished now, which can’t be said about the rest. Time at NGD Studios there’s still some, but it won’t hurt to hurry either – there’s a way out Endless Space 2 And Stellaris is just around the corner, and it is already clear that it will be very difficult to compete with them.
Tactical battles so far cannot boast of anything remarkable. It’s a shame, deeper and more complex gameplay would have been nice here.
It’s not always possible to draw far-reaching conclusions after playing in “early access”. Master of Orion applies precisely to such cases: the strategy has both its strengths, such as ease of learning and good prospects as multiplayer entertainment, and its disadvantages, such as slow-thinking AI and uncomplicated gameplay. It’s most likely no longer worth focusing on the single-player campaign – in comparison with current and future competitors (more precisely, with what their developers promise us), “Orion Master” now looks rather pale. But if NGD Studios will direct all efforts to improve the multiplayer, we will at least get an excellent strategy.
Master of Orion: Conquer the Stars
Best comments
In its current state it is of no interest other than artistic. It’s extremely simple, and I’m not talking about AI.
The only thing the new MOO has inspired me to do so far is to install and enjoy playing the old MOO2 made in 1996. Oddly enough, the graphics there, although dense, are not alienating – and the gameplay is much more varied and deeper. Alien rulers behave cunningly, but relatively logically. If you are weak, you are humiliated and put under pressure. But if you are strong and powerful, they fawn and persuade.
In the new MOO – you are surrounded by suicidal races. The Alkari vegetated quietly in their system. I didn’t approach them, offered to trade, once gave them something – but the birds became more and more unfriendly. Literally out of the blue. And finally, they presented: pay tribute, and also give up four planets. Despite the fact that my army is at least 10 times larger and more powerful. And after a polite refusal, they declared war;) Naturally, after a couple of moves I casually bombarded their capital with bombs. Bulrati with whom there was friendship – asked for some small technology,
were offended by the refusal – declared war! But, damn it, they never reached me in the end)) They, as the weakest at that time, were suddenly killed by completely peaceful Psilons)))
In general, one of the main features of the MOO – diplomacy – is weak and pathetic here. Of course, we can assume that these are early access flaws. I hope so. But it seems to me that the authors were in a hurry with it. Why was it so necessary to spoil the first feeling of a potentially cool game based on the famous franchise? I personally don’t understand.
As I once wrote, I would like “international relations” to finally move from primitive scripts to something more complex. Closer to reality. So that the dialogue between the Lord of the Alkari Pack and their ambassador could look like this:
— Tick-tweet, Mr. Ambassador! I heard that you demanded tribute from the Republic of people, and even called their leader a “vulture”?
– Tick-tweet, oh well!
– Do you really think so??
– Oh then! Vulture, known!
– That’s how it is, just understand… Look, a map of the galaxy. See? People are right next to our borders… And Sirius has already been taken away.
– From a scoundrel.
— Podlyuki. Calm down, Mr. Ambassador, let’s think. This means that people are vultures, and strong and aggressive ones at that?
– Well, that’s how it is.
— They have thermonuclear bombs, unlike us.
– Yeah..
— Their battleships are again more powerful, there are a lot of landing ships, the army is 5 times larger than ours. So?
– Well?
— Wildebeest, tailed hen. Keep your filthy tongue in your beak, otherwise you will fly out of my nest in 24 hours.
Game for children. Everything is straightforward and simply impossible. No strategic choice. We are all waiting for Stellaris.
None. Early access is, of course, a powerful protective spell allowing for speculation about the final product. But now the only point is to gawk at the pretty Empress Mrrshanov.
I played a little in the new MoO, got bogged down in micromanagement soon after the start of the game – well, screw it, I’ll continue to wait for Stellaris with its administrative sectors (and a bunch of other revolutionary features).
From what I have clarified for myself, the new master of Orion is a very simplified and disabled Endless Space. If the developers want to bring it to a high level, then apparently they have two more cars and a trolley to work on.
I think the AI was deliberately simplified so that you could review all stages of the game in a short time.
As practice shows, game balancing continues after release, so.To. the authors physically cannot check as many combinations and combinations as thousands of gamers.
