It takes away the formula and micromanagement and gives you flexibility and variety. Master of Orion is galactic conquest at its best. Combat with a planet occurs from the planet’s orbit and can be controlled manually or set to auto.

Use a technology tree to determine what research will be funded. Research and the technology it yields is your best asset when expanding your empire. On each colony you decide what the focus will be among choices like ship building, factories, research, etc. The size of a colonized planet determines just how useful it can be. You can also colonize the galaxy with a combination of the two approaches. Orion is protected by a warship that you must either become strong enough to destroy or impress with your diplomatic skills. Beginning on your homeworld, you must spread your influence through either diplomacy or conquest in order to get a chance to go to planet Orion, the throne-world of the Ancients. You choose your difficulty, size of your galaxy, and number of enemies, but the map is randomly generated at the start of the game.

Taking place in space, you have your choice of 10 playable alien races, each with their own special advantage.

It is said to be the inspiration for later games like Ascendancy. It is the refined version of a prototype game created by SimTex, but never released to the public, called Star Lords. This title pretty much invented 4X (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) as a genre. Master of Orion is a 4X science fiction turn-based strategy game developed by SimTex and published by MicroProse in 1993 for Dos and Mac.

Master of orion mods