Master Of Orion 3 Review

Overall Rating

Good packaging
Makes time fly

Apparently unfinished.

This was a game I waited for for a LONG time.
I enjoyed the first two in the series and played them to death.
A glaring example of my "unfinished" comment is in the Status reports at the end of the turn.
When letting the AI control the planet economies I want to be able to turn off reports of the "Planetary Queue" and only have reports of the "Military Queue" when at war with an enemy.
I can't do this. Instead I have to wade through loads of reports about stuff I don't need to know to locate the Military reports.
This takes up a lot of time and makes the game boring. Turns take longer and longer the more planets I own. I end up spending more time looking for reports than moving fleets.

As there are two queues wouldn't it make sense to be able to control one and let the AI control the other? I hate that the AI churns out troops and transports without need or warning.. or needless system defence ships.

While "Watching" a battle it would be obvious to have a "retreat" function or even to take over the battle from the computer. But all of this is absent.

I should be able to build up a planet by diverting resources to it or spending money on it directly.. can't do that either. I seem to be only able to use what the planet has available plus a grant which is given to all planets and no control is given for how-much, goes to which planet.

I can't transfer colonists from one world to another. Instead I have to depend on immigration to VERY-SLOWLY increase a planets population.

I can change a region's type when I first start to build it but I can't change it after it is built. I have to destroy it and then next turn, remember which world I altered, and add the region type I want there.

The manual has no details about the specials that can be found on worlds. So you can't decide that you shouldn't have it.. until you have it.

There are loads of other bits that show that the game was a rushed process. Such as designing a ship.. naming it.. and then changing one small part of the design and having to name the ship again because it reverts back to the name the computer thought it should have had in the first place.

I can't rename planets.. or ships.. or anything.

The planet info screen should have what it is building at a glance with out having to go down another level to find out.

I tried to make alternative offers during a trade of research but none of my research projects would show up... including the ones that they are trying to trade for initially.

There are a lot of other glaring shortcomings.. and it's a shame.. because this is a game that I could have wasted many hours of my life playing.
Instead I have reached the point after just two weeks of owning the game that I can't be bothered to go through all those reports.
Makes the game too much like a job.

I'm giving it a bigger overall rating than it really deserves because it could have been SO good.. and still could be.. if they sort out these problems.