by chrisdk

So ... the gamefound campaign is still ongoing and I am trying to figure out if this one is for me.
Me and my usual suspects of avid 4X players put in quite a bit of effort to prepare and have a small LAN Party at my place to try it out on TTS.

Please take everything I am about to say with large helpings of salt since a) it is based on the TTS prototype version available throughout the campaign, which is likely to receive changes and improvements before physical release and b) it is just a first impression after an incomplete test game attempt with everyone new to the game.

Those caveats out of the way, some information on who I am.

I am a very big fan of 4X in general and Master of Orion has a very sweet spot for me, since I absolutely played those games to death back in the nineties. They are what originally got me hooked on the genre of space 4X and I have been a sucker for it ever since.

This has led to me being a huge fan of Eclipse with about 200 games now played across both editions and a number of strategy articles written on BGG for the game. I have also introduced TI4 to my convention groups a few years back and am into the double digits of full games played of that.
I love both games for very different reasons.

So, how do I feel about Master of Orion so far?

I am not sure yet.

The Good
I absolutely love just how much I recognize in it of the Master of Orion experience. There is meaningful exploration in the game. I really appreciate the clever population type mechanics that they have implemented. I am really quite fond of the "Developing Action Cards" mechanic they use for research and it is probably what gets me the most hooked about the game.
Once you get a grasp of the basic Action structure of "Pick an Action and where to use it, pay extra to use it in more than one place, then do what the Action does" each action becomes quite nicely atomic and easy to grasp. So I think it will lend itself to a fairly quick pace of executing actions after a game or two.


The Time Commitment
I am not sure how it could ever live up to the proclaimed expectation of "1 hour per player".
For reference, my usual playgroup plays Eclipse in about 1 hour per player and Twilight Imperium in about 2 hours per player for a 10 VP game and 2,5-3 hours per player for a 14 VP game.
For Master of Orion I now expect us to need about 2 hours per player for a 6 Round game with the current version as it is with an extra 30 minutes per new player needed in a teaching game.

To give more explanation for that perception:
The game goes over 6 rounds. You are likely to do at least 6 Actions per Round. That's 36 Actions per player. That's less than 2 minutes per player Action.
When these Actions are movements into undiscovered systems or Explorations of anomaly tokens, they come with one or more "Draw two and pick one" decisions, which might take a moment to consider. When these Actions are combats, they may lead to multiple rounds of dice rolling and making decisions about how to make the most out of a role and when to best apply certain once per Round abilities.
And on top of that you need to resolve the draft of tech cards for the round, which gives you three instances of reading and considering the implications of 3 to 5 tech cards in your hand. So you do that 18 times over the course of the game.
And then you need to do the management phase 6 times in the game when you pass.
And that is before you account for negotiating at least one trade per round, because you probably want to get some use out of your diplomats. That leaves you less than a minute on average to do what you need to do whenever it is your turn to do something if it is supposed to be an hour per player.

I our test game today we played for about 5 hours and we got nearly to the end of Round 2.
One of those hours was easily caused by having to walk everyone through their actions and rules during the first round despite everyone having prepped with the RTFM video and available rulebook. Maybe take of another half an hour extra to account for the hassle of having to do everything through TTS.
But even considering this if players are familiar with that I don't see how a table of four can get a round done in less than 60-80 minutes. This would get us to 6-8 hours for a six round game at four players.

And this is just the four player base game. The Expansions are going to bring in extra mechanisms like edicts and envoys which I expect to introduce an extra factor of things to be negotiated if not even a full extra phase like the Agenda Phase of Twilight Imperium. And so far I feel like it will only truly shine if you get it to hit the table with 6 players.

Inevitable comparison to Eclipse and Twilight Imperium
The big question for me is: Do I need this game if I already have Eclipse and Twilight Imperium? Could it replace one of these or is it a solid addition beyond the two?

Right now it is a big "Maybe" for me.
I am not holding my many rules questions before and during the game against the game, since I consider the current version of card texts and the rulebook very much "beta versions" still up for editing and improvements (but there is some work left to do)
But in summary I don't see it replacing either of the two titles. It is distinctly different from them and brings its own thing to the table.

Let's compare it to Eclipse for a moment:
If you dislike Eclipse because of the imbalance that the randomness of exploration can bring to the game, then you are going to dislike MoO even more. Where Eclipse can make a reasonable argument that whatever you explore can be turned into a winning score, MoO's exploration Mechanic can supply you with planets adjacent to your home that are just plain useless for your species. The discoveries are also widely variable in how strong their effects are and the anomaly cards range from "borderline useless" to "extremely potent" and unlike in Eclipse there is no "hey, if that discovery doesn't fit your plans, have meaningful VP instead" to mitigate that.
If you dislike Eclipse because combat is dice based and too swingy, then you are going to dislike MoO even more. You have WAY less control over your odds of winning a fight and in particular you have very little control over how likely you are to incurr losses in combat.
If you dislike Eclipse because there is no meaningfull trading and diplomacy in the game, then you are going to like MoO a LOT better. There is actual trading of resources and the Diplomats and Spies introduce mechanisms for engaging in table talk shenanigans. Personally I am not sure that the "take that for trusting my word" backstabbyness of promising someone a helpful diplomat only to hand them a hurtful spy instead is fun for everyone, but it sure gives a lot of rooms for discussions about honesty, reputation and meta gaming those.
If you like Eclipse for the Ship Design factor, then you are not going to find that in MoO at all. There is some of that due to developed technology, but it does not really compare. That is more along the lines of "buying yourselfs general species advantages" than actually upgrading and designing ships.
If you like Eclipse because it puts a full 4X experience (minus Drama and Dealmaking) into a "short" one hour per player time frame, then I don't see you having a good time with MoO, because I am sure it plays WAY longer than Eclipse.

So let's compare it to Twilight Imperium:
If you like TI for it's constant across the table deal making throughout the whole game with deals and promissory notes going this way and that, then you are unlikely to enjoy MoO as much. It does have diplomacy, but nowhere as constantly present as TI does. Where in TI trade goods are a fairly low effort and value currency to sweeten deals with, the resources in MoO feel a lot more tight and even sparing one for a bribe or to sweeten a deal feels like a big investment.
If you like TI for the evocative, thematic and diverse factions and well integrated faction abilities in the research trees, then you will find MoO to bring a lot of that to the table as well.
If you ever felt that TI lacked some "planetary management" to feel like a true 4X for you, then MoO is likely an extremely good fit for you.
If you like TI for its Action cards and the epic moments they can generate, then you will find only a very limited version of that in the Anomaly cards in MoO, which you might end up never getting if your discoveries don't pan out that way.
If you don't mind the playtime of TI, then MoO is likely to be a good fit for you, since I would expect to see comparable playtimes between the two.
And if you felt that TI was way too complex, then I would especially recommend MoO to you, because the rules themselves feel a lot easier to teach with a lot fewer weird edge cases and specifics.

TLDR:
I feel that MoO is a lot closer to TI than to Eclipse. If you are a fan of either one you are likely going to have a good time with MoO if you don't mind the long play time.

I hope I can get an actual full game in before the campaign ends so that I can update this first impression article.

Until then ... Hope this was helpful for you!

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