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Game

Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares

Released: Nov 22, 1996

Series:

Master of Orion

Genres:

Base Building Squad Management Strategy Turn-based Turn-based strategy (TBS)

Themes:

4X (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate) Science fiction

Perspectives:

Bird view / Isometric

Game Modes:

Multiplayer Single player

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Overview

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Description from IGDB IGDB

Master of Orion 2 also known as MOO2 is considered the classic 4x turn based strategy game set in space. The game has a kind of cult status and even by to days standards is still only matched in game play by very few of its competitors.

Storyline IGDB

Long before the time in which the game is set, two extremely powerful races, the Orions and the Antarans, fought a war that devastated most of the galaxy. The victorious Orions, rather than exterminate the Antarans, imprisoned them in a pocket dimension before departing the galaxy, leaving behind a very powerful robotic warship, the Guardian, to protect their homeworld. Some time after the game starts, the Antarans, having broken out of their prison dimension, begin to send increasingly powerful fleets against the players' colonies, to destroy them rather than to invade. The only way they can be stopped is to carry the battle to their home universe through a Dimensional Portal.

Wikipedia Description WIKIPEDIA

Master of Orion II is more complex than Master of Orion, incorporating game mechanics from Master of Magic as well as new gameplay options. Three new alien races have been added, and the option for players to design their own custom race. Instead of the one planet per star system found in Master of Orion there are now multiplanet star systems that can be shared with opponents. Food, and the need to balance it, is introduced into the economy. In tactical combat, spaceships can now turn direction and marines can board enemy ships. With the right technology, players can now destroy planets outright. Multiplayer mode includes one-on-one matches and games with up to eight players. Victory can be gained by military or diplomatic means. There are three routes to victory: conquer all opponents; be elected as the supreme leader of the galaxy; or make a successful assault against the Antaran homeworld. To be elected, a player needs two-thirds of the total votes, and each empire's votes are based on the population under its control. To seek out and defeat the Antarans, a player needs to carry the battle to the Antaran homeworld through a Dimensional Portal. Conquering the Orion star system does not automatically win the game, although doing so provides the powerful Avenger starship and several non-researchable Antaran technologies that make winning much easier. Master of Orion II provides 13 pre-defined playable races, three of which are additions to those available in Master of Orion. The game also allows players to create custom races, and a group of enthusiasts regard race design as a crucial element of strategy. Each player starts with ten "picks" (race design points). Choosing advantageous traits reduces the number of picks available, while choosing disadvantages increases them, but players cannot choose more than ten picks' worth of disadvantages. Most of the options are major or minor advantages and minor disadvantages in farming, industry, research, population growth, money, space combat, espionage and ground combat. The race design system also offers "special abilities" that have various effects on various aspects of their effectiveness. The player chooses the empire's form of government, which has almost as much influence on how it performs as the choices described above, but the "best" governments cost a lot of picks. Dictatorships are the most common governments for the pre-defined races, costing no picks while providing appropriately minor bonuses and penalties. Democracy provides major advantages in research and wealth generation, but is the most vulnerable to spying and sabotage. Democracies also cannot annihilate conquered aliens, but do have the fastest assimilation rate. Unification governments provide advantages in farming and industrial output and defense against espionage, but do not benefit from morale and assimilate conquered aliens at the slowest rate. Feudalism provides a large reduction in spaceship construction costs, but suffers from very slow research. The Race Customization screen treats Feudalism as a significant disadvantage. Each government can be upgraded once by research. Star systems have up to five colonizable planets, and a few have none. Players can colonize all solid planet types, while gas giants and asteroids can be made habitable with the planet construction technology. Colonizable planets vary in several ways, making some more desirable than others. The most desirable systems are usually guarded by space monsters, much less powerful than Orion's Guardian but still a challenge in the early game, when fleets are small and of low technology. Each player can change each of its colonies' outputs by moving colonists between farming, industry and research. Without food, a colony will starve to death. If an empire has an overall food surplus, it can prevent localized starvation by sending food in freighters, which are produced in groups of five and require a small amount of upkeep when in use. However, a single hostile warship of any size can blockade an entire system, preventing the delivery of food and halving the colonies' outputs of farming and industry. All colonists pay a standard tax to the imperial treasury, and an additional imperial tax may be set on production causing a corresponding reduction of industrial output on all colonies. Players can use surplus money to accelerate industrial production at specified colonies, but not to increase agricultural or research output. The maintenance of buildings costs money, as does maintaining an excessively large fleet. Ships of different sizes use different numbers of "command points". These are provided by orbital bases and communications technology. This limits the size of empires' fleets in the early game, where one can add only one frigate (smallest type of ship) per additional starbase or one battleship (largest type of ship in the early game) per four new starbases without causing the "command rating" to go negative, which is very expensive. Research, usually followed by construction of appropriate buildings, can improve all aspects of economy and warfare. Falling behind in technology is likely to be fatal. There are eight research areas divided into several levels, each of which contains one to four technologies. To research a higher-level technology, players must first have researched the previous level. Players can also acquire technologies by exchange or diplomatic threats, spying, hiring colonial leaders or ship commanders with knowledge of certain technologies, planetary conquest, dismantling captured enemy ships, random events, or by stumbling upon it in a derelict craft orbiting a newly discovered planet. All weapons and most other combat-related components benefit from miniaturization, in which further advances in the technology area that provides them will reduce the size and production cost of those components. Technological advancements also make available modifications for most weapons, which usually entail a significant increase in their cost and size but can greatly improve their effectiveness in the right situations. Master of Orion II provides a wide range of diplomatic negotiations: gifts of money or technology or even all the colonies in a star system; opportunities to demand such concessions from other players; technology trades; trade, non-aggression and alliance treaties. The Race Relations screen, accessed by the "Races" button from the Main screen, also enables the player to allocate spies between defensive duties and spying or sabotage against other empires, and to check opponents' technological progress and diplomatic relationships. Players can design warships, provided they choose the "tactical combat" option in game set-up. There are five ship design slots, but an indefinite number of designs may be in operation. The designs of colony ships, outpost ships and troop transports are fixed. These three ship types can be destroyed instantly by even the weakest combat ship if they travel unescorted. Colony ships, outpost ships, troop transports and warships may benefit from technological advances that increase the range and speed of all of an empire's ships free of charge. Warships can be refitted for a cost to take advantage of technological improvements not available through free upgrades. Ships can travel to any star system within their range, unlike games such as Space Empires or Master of Orion III, in which interstellar travel is possible only or mainly via "wormholes" and it is possible to set up easily defended choke points. In Master of Orion II, space combat occurs only within star systems, either over a planet one side is attacking or on the outskirts of a system, if one side is driving away the other's blockaders or trying to prevent an enemy build-up. If the defending side has warships and several colonies in a system, they automatically scramble to defend whichever colony is attacked. In general, enemy colonies can be taken over only after all orbital and planet-based defenses have been destroyed and all defending ships have been destroyed or forced to retreat. A fleet of a Telepathic race can mind-control the colony, unless the defenders also include telepaths. In other cases the only way to seize control of an enemy colony is by invading. In order to do this, the attacking fleet must include some troop transports, which will be lost if the invasion fails, and at least 1 transport will be permanently deployed on the planet if the invasion succeeds. A player cannot control ground combat: the result depends on numbers, ground combat technologies, racial ground combat bonuses, and Leaders with the Commando skill if present. The game displays the progress of the combat and details the ground combat bonuses of each side. Colonies conquered by Telepathic races, either by Mind Control or ground invasion, are instantly loyal to their new owners. Recently occupied colonies by non-Telepaths on the other hand are disaffected, have poor productivity, and may rebel and rejoin the empire which founded them. Productivity slowly improves and the risk of rebellion slowly recedes, and there is a way to speed up these improvements. Instead of invading, a victorious attacker may destroy an enemy colony by various means. From time to time players are presented with the opportunity to hire leaders, for a hiring fee and usually an annual salary. Colony leaders improve the farming and/or industrial and/or research and/or financial productivity of all colonies in the system to which they are assigned, and some improve the efficiency of defensive or offensive spies. Ship leaders improve the combat effectiveness of their fleet and some improve the fleets' travel speed. A few leaders of both types also improve the performance of ground troops under their command, or contribute directly to a player's finances, or attract other leaders for a reduced hiring fee. From time to time there are lucky breaks, disasters or emergencies which are not caused by any player's actions. These random events can be disabled in the Game Setup screen. Players can manage their economies almost entirely from the Colonies screen. The Colonies screen allows the player to access any colony's Build screen, and to change a colony's output by moving colonists between Farmers, Workers and Scientists. The Build screen allows the player to queue up to seven items for construction at a colony, to refit ships in that colony's system and to design ships that may then be built at any colony. At the start of each turn, Master of Orion II shows a report in which items related to a colony link to the appropriate colony's Build screen, usually when a construction project has been completed.

About Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares

Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares is a Base Building, Squad Management, Strategy, Turn-based, Turn-based strategy (TBS) game released in 1996 developed by Simtex that offers Multiplayer, Single player gameplay from a bird view / isometric perspective playable on DOS, Mac, PC (Microsoft Windows) with 69 user ratings averaging 92.0/100. The game explores themes like 4X (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate), Science fiction. If you enjoy Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares, you might also like similar games in our database of 45,000+ titles.

Basic Info

Release Date: November 22, 1996

IGDB Rating: 92.0/100 (69)

Rating Count: 69

IGDB ID: 68

Details

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Additional Information

IGDB Rating: 92.0/100 (69 votes)

Release Date: November 22, 1996

IGDB ID: 68

Series: Master of Orion

Платформы 3

DOS

Mac

PC

Genres 5

Base Building Squad Management Strategy Turn-based Turn-based strategy (TBS)

Themes 2

4X (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate) Science fiction

Player Perspectives 1

Bird view / Isometric

Game Modes 2

Multiplayer Single player

Companies

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Developers

Simtex

No description available

Publishers

MacSoft Games

No description available

MicroProse Software, Inc.

No description available

Wargaming.net

No description available

Keywords

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game 38048 play 21097 player 17513 new 16891 base 15453 use 15100 make 14384 take 14371 time 14243 action 13662 battle 13420 find 12717 enemy 12654 fight 12555 set 12525 own 11404 system 10915 power 10813 way 10761 different 10679 create 10589 combat 10402 include 10330 build 9952 skill 9888 turn 9475 level 9243 know 8866 weapon 8610 choose 8556 challenge 8526 control 8462 follow 8376 ability 8197 item 8079 go 7710 monster 7516 powerful 7251 discover 7020 attack 6701 defeat 6547 various 6407 change 6378 element 6328 start 6004 begin 5973 magic 5965 choice 5875 strategy 5823 upgrade 5814 allow 5778 day 5439 design 5376 mode 5317 force 5284 long 5276 main 5210 free 5186 craft 5161 large 5148 war 5113 high 5081 event 5044 Master 5026 try 4901 order 4874 special 4776 move 4755 lose 4740 point 4738 leave 4474 gain 4471 best 4424 classic 4400 offer 4231 type 4175 add 4173 home 4136 side 4092 mechanic 4047 available 4020 area 4006 travel 3992 progress 3887 form 3853 single 3841 hand 3789 multiplayer 3665 search 3645 effect 3604 tactic 3575 fast 3536 drive 3489 group 3460 small 3459 fall 3450 death 3432 increase 3426 right 3405 destroy 3359 early 3299 option 3294 provide 3276 tactical 3273 space 3185 break 3132 advance 3104 manage 3090 several 3090 access 3054 industry 3053 treasure 2954 number 2947 improve 2938 limit 2924 range 2888 star 2849 mean 2833 show 2829 require 2775 win 2774 stop 2755 universe 2677 easy 2662 contain 2660 certain 2555 command 2550 seek 2501 additional 2497 race 2422 trade 2411 present 2369 conquer 2315 protect 2311 possible 2308 produce 2275 lot 2213 playable 2204 kind 2191 depend 2190 away 2187 match 2154 pick 2153 send 2134 share 2133 detail 2132 cause 2114 defend 2040 occur 2035 technology 2030 planet 2018 defense 2017 victory 2015 balance 2005 growth 1957 wide 1946 previous 1932 addition 1906 carry 1865 threat 1848 opponent 1847 entire 1824 screen 1823 bonus 1810 introduce 1798 random 1777 grind 1770 acquire 1761 empire 1757 influence 1756 money 1707 ship 1703 capture 1658 speed 1651 food 1650 relationship 1622 mine 1609 opportunity 1600 result 1599 perform 1595 advantage 1541 major 1525 alien 1514 generation 1514 situation 1509 instead 1461 vary 1454 farm 1409 complex 1398 leader 1394 production 1386 pay 1366 total 1365 research 1313 low 1312 amount 1298 giant 1275 devastate 1255 board 1250 cost 1245 custom 1237 slow 1210 divide 1205 guard 1203 knowledge 1186 risk 1149 unlike 1143 display 1138 charge 1130 hostile 1102 define 1084 military 1081 rather 1063 alliance 1058 button 1050 case 1048 check 1039 relate 1024 consider 977 operation 970 galaxy 969 fail 961 size 950 common 938 aspect 932 direction 931 prevent 926 link 925 general 905 maintain 900 hire 882 invade 879 assign 857 fix 852 guardian 852 trait 852 least 840 invasion 828 standard 805 automatically 799 enable 794 status 771 demand 751 significant 746 gift 729 portal 718 scientist 707 dimension 704 reduce 686 successful 686 troop 686 increasingly 678 iii 668 transport 661 improvement 652 wealth 652 easily 645 commander 643 describe 643 succeed 638 rat 633 assault 630 economy 629 weak 629 suffer 621 incorporate 603 exchange 597 overall 594 benefit 592 construction 588 newly 588 slot 574 cult 572 rout 562 prison 560 worth 554 government 552 defensive 546 owner 542 duty 525 seize 504 colony 503 extremely 501 dimensional 497 crucial 494 loyal 488 spaceship 482 attract 479 population 475 deploy 465 component 458 warfare 458 build up 440 fleet 430 localize 424 treat 414 rebel 412 regard 388 imperial 384 recently 381 permanently 377 poor 364 technological 363 conquest 359 greatly 359 rate 354 mainly 345 spy 343 pocket 342 rebellion 342 communication 340 instantly 339 minor 314 stumble 312 correspond 308 occupy 298 industrial 280 imprison 276 morale 276 solid 275 victorious 275 farmer 270 negative 264 advancement 261 outpost 260 disable 254 modification 243 retreat 240 defender 236 interstellar 231 likely 231 appropriate 226 financial 226 asteroid 224 setup 224 supreme 221 delivery 215 annihilate 214 vulnerable 212 effectiveness 205 colonize 194 vote 194 sabotage 189 fatal 187 tax 187 allocate 186 gas 186 marine 186 relation 183 starship 181 robotic 178 output 168 planetary 167 enthusiast 165 penalty 154 orbit 148 attacker 143 depart 137 outskirt 135 diplomatic 129 exterminate 122 finance 121 expensive 119 derelict 114 starve 112 colonist 109 dismantle 103 disadvantage 100 negotiation 99 warship 98 space combat 97 specify 97 accelerate 95 maintenance 95 aggression 93 competitor 92 espionage 86 battleship 82 orbital 80 commando 78 starvation 77 avenger 71 racial 71 turn based strategy 65 elect 64 scramble 63 habitable 60 colonial 59 wormhole 59 freighter 54 choke 50 outright 48 productivity 48 frigate 43 treasury 42 entail 41 mind control 41 treaty 41 democracy 40 agricultural 37 advantageous 36 reduction 36 assimilate 32 blockade 32 halve 31 orion 31 appropriately 30 desirable 28 dictatorship 26 unification 26 surplus 22 indefinite 21 upkeep 21 rejoin 20 recede 16 assimilation 14 telepathic 14 excessively 8 feudalism 8 refit 8 concession 6 even 0