aster of Orion 3 is a turn-based empire management game that is the heir apparent to two of the best games in the genre. Like its predecessors, Master of Orion 3 places the player in charge of a fledgling stellar empire whose primary goal is to win control of the galaxy, by either military force or diplomatic guile. The game begins in a single star system that may have one or more habitable planets, a colony ship and two scouts. Stars are connected via hyperspace "star lanes," and players move their ships along them looking for new worlds to settle ... or conquer.
There are several different aspects to empire management. At the most basic level, there are the "Dominant Economic Zones," of which each planet has two. These zones control what sort of work the planet is dedicated to, such as food production, industry or research. The planets and their respective zones are the economic heart of any empire, and make ship production, planetary improvements and technology research possible. These zones are customizable, but are typically handled by the game's AI.
As in most 4X (explore/expand/exploit/exterminate) games, technology is one of the keys to advancement and victory in Master of Orion 3. The game's tech is divided into six broad categories: economics, energy, social sciences, biology sciences, mathematics and physical sciences. Each field offers improvements benefiting both the military and domestic aspects of empire management, including better engines and weapons for starships and improved terraforming techniques and specialized production facilities planetside. Players can choose which technological path they'd like to pursue by allocating research points, but typically this is left to the AI.
In orbit, players are able to craft space fleets of impressive complexity. The game's fleet management window allows players to specify a kind of mission—for example, long-range attack, colonization or planetary bombardment—and then build fleets ranging in size from three-ship scouting flotillas to massive armadas. As with previous iterations of the game, players are also able to create custom ships of their own, integrating newly discovered technologies, or targeting a specific kind of mission, such as smashing planetary defenses.
Rounding out the game are diplomatic options. Players can negotiate research, trade and defense treaties with neighbors, as well as declare war. They can also be elected to the "Galactic Senate," where they can vote on laws affecting all empires and—if they can secure enough votes—win the game strictly through diplomatic means by ascending to the Galactic Presidency.
Not at all the Master of its domain
In theory, Master of Orion 3 should be a great game—it offers all of the same empire-management choices as its predecessors while offering improvements such as spiral- and sphere-shaped three-dimensional galaxies and expanded fleet and ground-combat options. But in truth it's not, and the reason why can be attributed to the "George Jetson" effect, which reduces the player's game role to hitting the "next" turn button. It's not quite George's "big red button," but it's close.
At every turn, the game offers some incredibly complex systems for running the empire—and then provides an AI that does it better (or at least quicker) than a human could. Take planetary management, for example—each planet has multiple industrial zones, and a proper empire has dozens of planets. No one would want to manage that many resources, so the task gets handed off to the computer. In the previous games, players chose individual technologies to research. This time, they can only choose to allocate between the six types of technology, and the computer does the rest. On any given turn, the player is bombarded with messages about three or four new technologies that have been discovered, but the messages can be ignored, because the computer will automatically begin building new planetary improvements based on the new tech.
Starship design used to be a crucial part of the earlier games, but once again, the level of complexity—multiple ship sizes, multiple mission types and a gaggle of technological advances—insures that players will once again leave everything up to the computer. The same goes for fleet design—it's just easier to hit the "assemble" fleet button than to build out the fleet manually.
Even when humans are needed, the game's nice-looking and otherwise friendly interface complicates matters needlessly. Changing a planet's military or economic build queues—something frequently done in the game—requires four clicks from the start screen.
The game offers a handful of notable improvements. The star field can be rotated through all three axes, which is handy for figuring out what stars are close together, and looks cool to boot. Another nice touch is the in-game clock that lets players set alarms to remind themselves when to eat/sleep/shower—features that anyone who's ever lost track of time while playing a strategy game will appreciate. The space and ground combat section offers a fair amount of tactical input from players, allowing them to issue commands to different fleets/group troops, but in order to get a true admiral's-eye view of the engagement, players have to pull back to the point where all of the units are reduced to the size of ants.
Ultimately, the game's a disappointment on almost every front. It looks like a Master of Orion game, and it has all the makings of one, but its disappointing execution makes it a sequel unworthy of its name.
Master of Orion 3 wouldn't be nearly so disappointing if it weren't for the successes of the earlier games. Bad is always bad, but bad after experiencing something so good is far worse.
— Ken
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