Conquering the Stars Once More

Since the whole world is on lock down right now and I'm not rich, I've been going back to some older games in my library.  I've already mentioned Darkest Dungeon in a previous post...I also played some Darkwood and Mudruuner.  One other game I've gotten back into is Master of Orion: Conquer the Stars.  As far as 4X games go, I have to admit it does a admirable job of balancing complexity and accessibility.  Unlike Stellaris, which has become a gobbledygook of icons with a layer of bland presentation on top, the Master of Orion series (excluding the third entry) has done a commendable work when it comes to putting a micro-sized lens on the fun parts (like fleet combat and diplomacy), while simultaneously painting over the dull bits with a macro-sized brush.  That all said, Conquer the Stars isn't a flawless experience.

Part of the problem comes from the voice acting.  That's not to say it is bad...quite the contrary, the all-star voice cast do an excellent job in terms of quality.  The quantity (or more specifically variety) is where the trouble starts.  Hearing the same exact lines delivered the same exact way gets old pretty quick in any situation.  In the first and second Master of Orion games the lack of voice work was actually a feature, in that updates could been received at a quick glance, whereas in Conquer the Stars the player is obligated to sit and passively listen to the repetitive dialogue ad nausea.  Of course, the developers were kind enough to have options to silence advisers or disable GNN reports.  However, doing so feels like certain (rather expensive to develop) content became a liability when it should have been an asset.  Another nice part of using text is how easy it is to correct mistakes.  The "Elerian Fiefdoms" being called the "Elerian Dominion" by the gold GNN reporter robot is one such hard-to-correct error.  In other cases the onscreen text and voice don't match up or the responses used by characters is overly generic.  When choosing a leader for the galactic counsel each race only has three possible answers: abstain, vote for oneself, or a generic choose-another-response.  It's functional, but the third option could have been easily blown out into a unique line of dialogue for each of the thirteen opposing races in the game.  Obviously that would mean having to record over 150 more lines of dialogue, which is a lot of work.  In text form though, it would be pretty easy.  Heck, it wouldn't even be that hard to add variants in the form of a reluctant/coerced vote vs an enthusiastic one.

Other than that, I feel like some improvements could be made to ground combat.  In particular there needs to be more feedback in terms of the effectiveness of each fighting force.  Even if it comes down to watching sprites duke it out on either side of the screen, I'd like to see some indicators of the weapons being used and the K/D ratio.

One thing I really like from the original Master of Orion was the adviser role being split up into a soldier, spy and scientist.  Running an empire that only consists of a leader and their assistant comes across as a bit shallow.  Maybe some race appropriate splash screens showing large numbers of said species would help sell the vibe of the player being the ruler of a space-faring empire.  Overall, don't get me wrong though, I like how Master of Orion makes each race have a distinct identity.  There are the avian Alkari, the reptilian Sakkra, the aquatic Trilarian, the insect-like Klackon, the crystalline Silicoid, cybernetic Meklar, and even the arachnid Antaran.  Unfortunately, I think they go overboard when it comes to mammalian races since they make up the entire other half of the species in the game.  Still, the game does make great efforts trying distinguish each of these anthropomorphic animal species.

I could nit-pick a few other odds and ends in need of polish.  For the most part though, I have said my piece.  I can only hope that the developers come back to this game at some point to tie up the loose ends.  Alternatively, maybe some ambitious mod maker could finish applying that final layer of polish.