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That could be a winning strategy. Just that you might need to substitute the Psilon with someone else - computer-controlled Psilons never make it far in the game in my experience. It really is strange how AI and human players seem to be able to be able to use very different traits to their advantage.

I think you guys are missing one important factor with the Darloks. They may have no outright advantage, but as stated earlier, you pretty much get any tech you want. Also, once you are close on tech, change to sabotage. You can dedtroy missle bases making landing parties easier. if you have the tech and they do not have the defense, you WILL overtake the planet. Want to play Darlok and not piss everyone off? Focus only on the Psilon and whatever race you plan to attack. Take the races out one by one and steal the tech of the Psilons. If you are really good, you even get to blame it on other races.

But may be able to bring more resources into production permanently instead of research in opposite to all other races.

It may be difficult, but the more I think about it, the better the Darloks may get in the hands of a very experienced and self-controlled player. Strategy may be, learn all other races early, build up strong defences early to afraid possible foes. Stay out of trouble for long.

That's true, but remember that after a while, everybody will hate you. Sure, a technologically very advanced race can fight everyone else at the same time, but the Darloks can't be more advanced than the other races by definition (since they get their technology from their enemies).

Are Darloks really that bad? For a combat-oriented game, they can get you some nice tech from other races, even when your relationship with the owner is less-than-cordial.

Let me sum up the race bonuses:

Alkari & Mrrshan: better ship defense / attack; both are virtually useless a couple of turns into the game as technology and pure quantity decides battles.

Bulrathi: ground battle bonus; might be good for 'rush' attacks early in the game, but also gets fairly useless later on.

Darloks: spy bonus; hard to get much out of it, diplomatic backlash likely.

Humans: diplomacy advantage; reasonably good when attempting a diplomatic victory, because it helps to keep peace.

Klackons & Meklars: production bonus; can be very useful.

Psilons: research bonus; as established, by far the best bonus.

Sakkra: enhanced population growth; nice to have, but advantage stops being useful in later game.

Silicoids: can colonise any system; very useful in the early game (can land on planets others can't), but later cancelled out by technology; heavy penalties for that advantage (slow growth, no environment bonuses).


So on the whole, I think apart from the Psilons, only the Klackons and Meklar bonuses are really useful. Maybe humans, but that's not much. Winning as the Darloks sounds hardest to me, because their 'natural strategy' will inevitably lead to a huge scale war without allies on their side.

The Sakkra, Bulrathi, Silicoids, Alkari and Mrrshan can only really use their small advantages by rushing the enemy. This is not a style I've ever seriously tried. As a human player, it's even very unlikely due to the bonuses AI players get on higher difficulty levels, giving them much stronger military early on. Of course, the same facts combined can make those races all the more dangerous when controlled by the AI.

It's also interesting to see how the AI controlled races fare. I don't think I've seen a noteworthy Human empire in the game very often. In most games, they're just a minor footnote in history, a tiny civilisation being conquered by someone else quickly. Similarly the Darloks who are more of an annoyance than a real danger (their real danger is stealing advanced technology from you which then other enemy races might get from the Darloks).

Yeah, best race doesn't always mean best race to win, but may involve the coolest race to win.

So, we all are clear about the fact, Psilons are lame. Sakkra are the race to rush. Silicoids are simply dumb. Winning a game with Bulrathis less, but strong ground forces could be cool. Or using Alkaris advanced piloting skills. Did even ever one try Mrrshan?

Mh, I think that's one big design issue with MOO. Several strengths of races can easily be countered by technology. Technology is even multiple times better than the natural strength of some races.

While this may seem realistic (a strong dog loses always to the minigun), it shows of the laziness in developing more sophisticated races. Not only making out of animals and human stereotypes some uninspired alien races.

Hmmm... someone must have argued against the Psilons ten years ago, otherwise, the discussion wouldn't have spanned fourty posts or so

I loved MoO, though I stank at it
Generally I did best with psilons though, so my vote goes to them for best race ^^

In the second part, that is definitely the case, yes, but is it also in the first part?

Edit: Had a look at the manual. I quote:


In that light, I think the Sakkra only have an increase growth rate which I think is not such a great advantage.

I recall there was a subterranean species, probably it was the Sakkras. The bonus was having higher population (1.5 the planet max I think).

I always found the whole espionage part to be too fussy, so I never played the Darloks seriously. About the Sakkras, I have to look this up again, but maybe someone knows from the top of his head: Do they just have faster population growth (not worth it, in my opinion) or also higher population limits per planet. The latter would a great advantage.

Psilons. It was my favorite one, but I also like Darloks (even if spying can be quite useless due to randomness, but with lots of spies you get most of the technology you want), and Meklars (because they are cyborgs mostly). Klackon and their working force is great too.

I don't remember who argued for which race, but some arguments were this:
- Psilons: as you said
- Sakkra: "population boom = everything boom"
- Bulrathis: can use their ground bonus to overrun other races early in the game (obviously, this argument only holds in small galaxies; later in the game, that bonus is fairly useless)

I prefer the Psilons myself, because they don't need to expand as badly as the other races. This makes it easier to build up decent defenses on their planets and since expansion is usually interpreted as aggression by the AI, it also helps keeping peace.

The most dangerous enemies, in my opinion, are the Silicoids. They can colonize many planets very quickly and thus often get very powerful early on, before the human players can even build up any military forces.

I just read ... again and at one point there is written:

Honestly, I can't remember our results. Does someone?

Out of the stomach, without having playing MOO long time, I would say Psilon. Research-Benefits are extreme on the long run. If no other player is able to start a quick rush the Psilons become unbeatable on the long term. Maybe only really contested in small galaxies where their planets may be reached by others races early.

This game is old but I still play it regularly. That's how great MOO is. I'm not the best player, though.

Feel free to share anything about Master of Orion (1993) here!