Master of Orion 2

   Master of Orion 2 (MOO2) is a game that I enjoy quite a bit. It does require DOSBox to play on newer computers but that is easy enough to fix and seeing as it is so popular a quick Google search will find what you need for you specific computer to get it working.
   The game play is fun and a number of things are present that you just don't see in modern games. One of the interesting mechanics is that you get to put your planets workers where you want them between the three jobs. Now this may not sound like much and seem quite simple as well as used in modern games of similar type but not in the way MOO2 does it. In current games you get sliders to adjust how much of you population works at whatever. With the system in MOO2 you actually have little graphics of the people that you drag to where you want them and each race has its own image which allows things like mixed population planets.
   I could go on about a number of other things but I found something better. While searching recently for a decent tutorial for it I found a series of movies on YouTube that went through a "Lets Play" of it. This was an amazing find as it was more of a Lets Learn and in fact was title that. It is by Quill18 and the series goes through an entire game of MOO2 but most important the first few are all basically a decently in depth tutorial on whats what in the game. Here is the first part and the rest can be easily found from there. Be warned, he does use foul language from time to time so if you care about that kind of thing just letting you know.
   I had played the game before but because a lot of it was a little obscure at points I never did quite good enough and the videos explained a good number of things. I am currently working my way from the lowest difficulty up with a game once a day till I either win them all or find my level of skill.
   If you like Civ-like games you will probably like this one. I know I did and I would definitely advise people to give it a try if they get a chance.


   Also of note is that Quill18 has done a large number of other "Lets Play" videos for many different games. I have so far watched some of the Civ4 and 5 videos as well as the Master of Magic and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and they are all of good quality and fun to watch though once again, warning, foul language is occasionally used.