Preview: Master of Orion

PAX AUS provided the opportunity to sit down with Master of Orion (MoO) Executive Producer Randy King and delve into the progression of its development. We first had some hands-off time with the title a few months back at E3, so King was happy to show Stevivor what’s changed since then.

New (slash old) races are now in the alpha build. King took me through the additions; the Darloks are shapeshifter spies, the Bulrathi are warriors, the Meklar are a hive-mind race, the Psilons are a science-focused and finally, the Sakkra are a tribal race. Obviously, each race has strengths and weaknesses – the tribal race is awful at espionage, but can populate a planet as if they were rabbits. The Psilon don’t have don’t have any natural enemies, so that will clearly affect how their initial game begins… and how you can use that to your advantage to secure a win down the track.

The Orion are in the game now, of a sort; they’re a dead race, long-gone from the galaxy of MOO, but one of their Guardian ships still stands watch over the planet they used to inhabit. King, giving me tips on how to win, advised that I should build up as much technology to attack as possible, eventually making a move on that Guardian ship and the Orion planet beneath it. That move isn’t going to be easy, though; King said that in-game spies will be ready and waiting to steal the amazing Orion technology I potentially had spent so much time to procure. And that’s if you can even beat the Guardian.

For those that are used to Master of Orion, resource management is old hat. For newcomers – admittedly, like me – new controls make it easy to manage assets at various levels. You can control automatic production of various items like food, technology and more at a planet level or at an empire level, simply with the click of a button. The management screens are simple to follow, so it seems quite likely that players will eventually decide to take the reigns and micromanage after they get more comfortable with the game as a whole.

Morale has also been added to MoO’s alpha build. It’s affected by many things in the game – each planet will have its own morale meter. It’s quite important to the game as a whole, because if morale is low, workers on the planet will begin to strike. If the planet wholly goes on strike, it will revolt, removing itself from your empire. No planets mean no control… and that means a potential loss. You can build spiritual, pleasure and entertainment buildings on your planet to help appease your citizens.

Tax also plays a part in morale, King explained; too much taxes mean unhappy workers. It’s up to the player to find the right balance, taxing heavily in war when more ships are needed and pulling those taxes down when cash flow is good.

King, a long-time player of the franchise, explained how he used to keep physical spreadsheets to keep track of turns and stats. The game now does this electronically, putting a variety of data at the player’s fingertips. New to the game is the ability to wind back turns, letting the player essentially figure out where he or she went wrong in their game and reverting back to that instance in order to try again.

A turn cap has also been added to the game, allowing for controlled game instances. When starting up a new game, the cap can be turned on and off, limiting that instance to 500 turns is desired. King said the 500 turn cap itself it still being debated internally – the cap might be set to a different amount of turns, or might even be left to the player to decide just how many total turns he or she would like to set.

From what was shown at PAX AUS, it’d be hard not to be excited for Master of Orion. A Wargaming title that’s very far removed from the normal titles offered by the publisher, western audiences in Australia, either new or returning, should find something to enjoy.