Introduction:

Master of Orion is more than a decade old. In video game standards, that means ancient. The graphics are low resolution. The music is simple when available at all. The tactical combat model is abstract and simple. The economy is abstract and simple. There are only four map sizes, only ten factions to play. Why bother with this game at all?
Video games are enhanced by graphics and sound, but the essence of any game boils down to the actions taken by the player. As hardware and software advances have increased options available to programmers, game designers have been lured down the path of increased detail: to flesh out their games, to focus the player's attention onto an ever smaller scale. This is what gamers have clamored for, "cool features", "more realism". However, strategy gaming is about the big picture. The more that player's attention is drawn to the small scale, the more impact the small scale choices have on the outcome, the less impact is had by making big picture decisions. The big picture decisions end up being dictated by the events taking place at the local level, rather than the other way around, turning games into puzzles where the player spends all his time piecing together the minutiae. Thus, strategy game designers have abandoned the concept of strategy.

We look back to Master of Orion not out of nostalgia, but with longing for strategy games that place the strategy above all else. Whether you have played and loved this classic for more than a decade or have never heard of it before, or anywhere between, we invite you to journey with us. Great games are a timeless commodity. Master of Orion is a rare gem worthy of continued devotion.



Overview

For each event, all participants will use the same map, pursue the same scenario objectives, and observe the same rules. After the game is closed, players will post reports of their games and compare notes. The catch? Absolutely NO spoilers, or any sort of discussion about the game (even by email) while it's in progress.



The Imperium Formula

Each game will have a Sponsor. Any player may sponsor an idea, and will be in charge of the particulars for a game: map size, settings, opponents, victory conditions, type of scoring, difficulty level, any variant rules or map customization, and length of time for the contest to remain open.

If the designer has foreknowledge of the map (because it's been customized) they must recuse from the competition. However, if they play cold from the start on a random map, they wouldn't necessarily have to take the first random start to come along. The sponsor may play far enough in to see that the starting neighborhood meets with their vision, just so long as they don't restart on same map or in any way offer spoilers to the field of players.

Because of the length of time required for playing, reporting on, and discussing each game, we anticipate that there will be more good ideas than available time to implement them. Therefore, each game would be subject to the approval of the Organizers, in order to garner an official place on the schedule. Organizers must approve the rules, any customizations (mods, etc), and will fit the game in with others, with an eye toward the integrity and balance of the series as a whole.

Games will be announced by an Organizer on the Master of Orion forum. Games may also be posted to our events calendar, and information will be available on the website. Once a game is announced, players will have until the closing date to complete the game and write their game report. Do not post any information about the game before the closing date. At the end of the closing date, each player will have 24 hours to post their report (hopefully this should be no problem, because the report will already have been written). Then, finally, it will be time for the discussion (and, depending upon the game, the scoring)! The discussion will be open to everyone who would like to contribute.

While we encourage players to post complete reports for Imperia, we understand that this is not always possible. In this case, players may post a brief summary of their achievements, including any information vital to the scoring, as well as data such as finish date, win/loss, and whatever details they can include in the available time. If the game itself is incomplete, the player should save their game no later than the game's closing date, and post a summary of the game by the end of the reporting period. These games will be included in the official results as "retired" games, and will be eligible for scoring based upon the status of the game at the end of the closing date. Completed games are eligible for full scoring so long as a sufficient summary is posted. Full reports can be added later, if the player elects to complete a detailed report. The community will be interested in full reports even if they are late, but both playing activity and game summaries need to be completed on time. Players are also welcome to complete their "retired" games after the closing date and write about the "overtime" results, but can only be scored through the portion completed before the play deadline.

Also, players who will be unavailable to post their reports or summaries in the reporting window may have someone else do it for them. One way is to email the game sponsor and/or RBO staff and ask them to hold the report to be posted on Closing Day.

* * * * *

As promised, we are reviving the Imperia and planning to open a new Master of Orion game starting next week. Some of our longtimers will remember the drill from back in 2004. For everyone else, the Imperia work in essentially the same fashion as the RBCiv Epics/Adventures. The game opens on a Monday, runs for several weeks (no spoilers!), and then closes on a report day, after which each person posts a summary of their game for discussion and commentary. As far as more specific details:

- We will be using the latest (heh) version of Master of Orion, v1.3; for information on acquiring and running Master of Orion, please check Sirian's website and Jon Sullivan's resources page. MOO is officially abandonware at this point, so I wouldn't feel bad about downloading a copy.

- The Imperia will launch one at a time and run for four weeks; think of them as monthly games. (We could go faster, but participation will likely be pretty thin as is.) You are always welcome to play solo games or start a succession game if you have the urge to play more MOO.

- There are a wealth of resources giving instructions on how to play MOO. The best is Sirian's Tutorial, which covers all the basics in great detail. From there, you can look at many of the fine AAR game descriptions on various websites (check out the Results page at RBOrion for some links) or archived in this very forum (go back to 2004 and you'll find them), or look at some of the Orion Succession Games (OSG) played over at CivFanatics in their MOO forum. I will also mention that there is some content on my website as well...

- The RBOrion website will have all the current info on new games. We'll also announce things in the forums, but that's where to go for all of the pertinent information.

The next post in this thread covers the official rules for the Imperia.

In the Dev updates section of the official wiki, you can read about some upcoming changes to the Hall of Monuments, link here.

The basics of the update are:
- Tormented Weapons added.
- Option to view either account or character accomplishments.
- Only 1 character needs to unlock/activate/whatever each accomplishment for it to be accessible to the entire GW2 account (guess this means you don't need to max every title on every character, aww...).

Hi Everybody!

So my first reporting experience is really quite poor. I had hoped to jump into the RB scene with a big splash but instead I introduce myself in miserable failings. Oh well I'm a noob!

OK so my civ background lies in civ 4. I had never heard of the game until then but friends got it and I loved it so I got it as well. Eventually searched for some sort of community and found civ fanatics and sulla's website. I loved reading reports but never found a link over here until a few months ago which was like being a fat kid and finding a slice of cake just for you (no offense to anybody who likes cake!)

Anyways I've only ever won once (a diplo victory on noble) as I don't seem to have the patience to go further into games. I nearly won a space race on prince but couldn't be bothered with the final 20 turns or so. That being said I had wanted to compete in both epic 19 and adventure 30 so bad that I gave them both a shot.

Epic 19 went like this:

I founded on the main dot, bought some visibility and then founded my 2nd city to include the cows and the wheat. Bought mysticism as I planned on getting stonehenge. I bought improvements for the mine and the elephant as I heard maintenance costs were much more on emperor and planned to work the mine to make up for it. I increased the pop in my cap to 3 and my 2nd city to 2 and bought a scout and maybe a warrior. Can't remember if I had enough money. Anyways I was playing on my desktop with a (knowingly) faulty motherboard and I hadn't yet figured out how to set the autosave to 1 turn so after founding a 3rd city to get bronze and chopping out stonehenge my pc crashed and that was the end of epic 19. I do want to go back and do it at some point but right now I just don't have the time. This was shortly after epic 19 was released so I eagerly awaited my chance at adventure 30 as I had figured out how to set the autosave to 1 turn.

Well I attacked adventure 30 with a menace but upon meeting tokugawa and monty early on I was pretty unhappy to see that. I was able to steal 2 workers from tokugawa which I was thrilled about but I lost my 2nd city site to monty so sent the settler to my next preferred spot and lost out to tokugawa. I then razed monty's city and founded where I wanted but soon after that the my power socket went on my laptop and damn future shop's repair facility decided they needed to format to fix it and hence I was no longer involved in adventure 30. I was due to give up on this one anyways as I was already very frustrated with how it was working out. I liked the unique advantage the AI had though.

Anyways thanks for reading and hopefully I'll do better with epic 30 though I'm not promising anything as my 2nd child will be here in 2 & 1/2 days time !

Wanted to say a big thank you to RB for the help in doing Gate of Maddness
in HM. Really appreciate it. Rhiannon, my Ritualist, was able to get Guardian
of Elona! Yay!

You guys are terrific and I wish I could find the time to do more with ya.

Good luck in all your events!

The title pretty much says it all. zeka is the only one who has provided even partial information, and he's still missing the number of buildings in the final tally. Could I please have the final score for each player who wants to be included in the results posted here? There's not much point in typing up results that say "incomplete info" for each player. Thanks.

I have just pushed both AliceBrock and 10FeetTallAlice to lvl 30, now in the middle of Liverpool Street quests. In going through the Cannon Street Rail/Exodus quest again I thought I would share a couple of little tricks, while it's still fresh in my mind, I use to make things easier.

- This trick can be used anywhere such as the Mind of 314 or anywhere they expect you to backtrack to the entrance again. In the case of 314, one can simply create a party (if not already in a party) and type /leave. That would work for 314 since your intention is to go to town anyway. I usually like to use /stuck instead of being rude and leave a party.
/Stuck works great for Cannon Street Rail after you pick up a part, teleporting you back to the entrance and Techsmith.

- This one is a real time saver. You can still kill all monsters for loot and exp without the need to go back and forth to the Techsmith. The trick is NOT to talk to the Techsmith at all and proceed to clear the level. Just pick up a part when you are done clearing and type /stuck. Turning in just one part and talking to the Techsmith for the first time will activate and finish the quest.
BTW, you don't have to clear the level or find all parts for this to work

KoP

After finding no metal that hadn't already been claimed by AIs, I decided to beeline calendar and literature. I forgot which opponents I was playing with, didn't get any relevant defensive techs and promptly got attacked by Toku/Monty with only a couple of junk chariots to hold off axe/spear/jaguars, so I retired. Embarrassing.

well i've already wrote the report and have the images prepared but i'm having problems on the userfiles account. I can log in but when i click any button it logs out so i cant upload and link the images. Can anyone help me?

Patch is out I will get a change list asap for RB

Anyone here gone over to the console darkside and picked up CivRev?

Got myself a PS3 when picking up an HD TV so decided to get the new Civ as well. While some of it is very familiar there is a lot new to learn - no workers for a start! Haven't completed a game yet so still feeling my way round. Initial view is a good addition to the Civ stable though.