Lord of Rigel

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (New take on Master of Orion 2, has potential but fails to deliver) ============ Review: I had high hopes for this game. I think it's attempting to be a modernized Master of Orion 2, one of my all time favorite games. But ultimately it fails to deliver. Now I like the revamped tech tree of the game - it actually makes more sense than the original, and doesn't have as many brutal choices - and it has some cool new stuff at the end. And the races are different enough to feel fresh when compared to the original. So yeah, I was carefully optimistic at first - maybe this would be the Master of Orion 2 modernization I've been waiting for. Yes, it does feel kind of like Master of Orion 2. It does have some streamlining (probably trying to reduce micromanagement), such as leaders not being tied to a single planet and instead giving bonuses to ALL planets once they're assigned. They also cut freighters from the game - now food is exported / imported automatically between planets. ================================= Sounds good so far? Well it's about to get worse. You no longer move your population around to different jobs, instead you just click a planetary focus. Again, an attempt to reduce micromanagement, but this is already one of the poorer things about the game. For me the drag and drop of population was fun in the original, even if I acknowledge it became tedious later. But even so, the focus system is like really half-assed - it doesn't calculate your food income into it. It keeps the same amount of farmers always, even if you have massive food surplus - so food techs actually aren't THAT important, they mainly increase your money income. It becomes especially apparent how half-assed the system is when you play a Lithovore (Silicoid) race. They don't need food at all, so you'd expect it puts ALL your population into the focused job? NOPE, even if you put "Research Focus" on a planet, they go like 70% Industry, 30% Research! Like.. WHY? Dude, if you're just making TRADE GOODS and trying to RESEARCH, why the hell does it go like this? ================================= Starting to have doubts about the game already? Well, there's more.. the game doesn't have turn-based combat anymore. It's kind of like Master of Orion 4, BUT it's like way, waaayyyy WORSE. The combat is extremely clunky, and the graphics are mediocre at best. (and that's putting it nicely) So most of the time I rather click autoresolve than watch the cringe battle. Then you add the extremely clunky UI to the mix (Both galaxy map and combat) and you have a recipe for disaster. So yeah, they may have reduced micromanagement slightly, but the UI itself is just so bad it doesn't REALLY even help. ================================= But there's other things that really annoyed me with the game. [strike]Cannot update Trade Treaties. Like if you're careful and choose a smaller treaty, you cannot go higher later without breaking the old treaty. (which angers the AI) And also the treaty amounts don't update over time, like they used to in Master of Orion 2. Like if you make a 2 BC Trade Treaty early game, 100 turns later it will be still 2 BC, even if both empires have expanded massively. Again.. WHY? The game lies to the player. It can say it takes 1 turn to complete a building, but it actually doesn't finish the building in 1 turn. It even prevents you from buying the building with money in such cases. The AI votes like a moron in the Galactic Council. You can have the final war happen in the early game - like when you're still fielding fusion weapons and such. In the originals it was just "Abstain, abstain, abstain" for a good reason, because races hadn't built relationships yet.[/strike] These things have been fixed with patches. There's more.. the game is riddled with bugs - and turn processing is quite slow even in smaller galaxies. Playing with 4-6 AI should be pretty fast turns, especially in the early game, but no. And yes my machine is a few years old already, but it runs other, better looking 4X games faster than this. ================================= Overall, I think Lord of Rigel is a mediocre game. Yes, it has potential but it needs ALOT of work to become a worthy successor of Master of Orion 2. Especially in the UI side of things, squishing those bugs, performance issues and other annoyances. But I'm still hoping the game will improve over time, it has potential to become good. Get it from a sale if you REALLY want another take on Master of Orion 2. ============ Summary: The Good 👍 + Improved Tech Tree + Races different enough + Slightly less micromanagement The Bad 👎 - Extremely clunky UI - Poor combat - Half-assed planetary focus - Tons of small things, bugs etc. - Turn processing

I can't recommend anybody paying for this; buy Interstellar Space: Genesis instead. My overall impression is that they got tired of working on it and decided to call it "done" instead of getting proper feedback from a beta program or an early access program. At root this is a serial-numbers-filed-off MoO2, which is a good thing since the original is buggy under DOSbox and hopeless otherwise. BUT, it has big problems. There are two bad design decisions. They made the map 3D which just makes it harder to see things like fuel radius and travel time. They also chose a terrible way to present it - you have to rotate your viewpoint to see elevations. They chose to make the combat realtime-with-pause which again removes most of the tactics and makes combats boring. And as I said, there are some real stupid UI problems that smell of lazy programming. For example, it's fine that all the ships in a fleet start selected when you select the fleet, but when you click one you are just deselecting it instead of properly selecting just that one then switching to toggling after that. There is no ability to abort a move order on the turn it's issued, which stacks with the bad selection mechanics to cause many reloads from autsaves. Oh, and an even worst UI blunder: Settings are not saved between games. I have to reset the graphics settings *every time I play*. Ugh.

Interesting that this game should be the first I have ever reviewed, but by the number of reviews, it seems like this game didn't sell well. And that's a real shame. In a nut shell, of all the games that have tried (a pretty much impossible task) to carry on the spirit of Master of Orion 2 (MoO2), this game comes by far the closest. And I have played a LOT of games (thousands) over the decades. Oh ya, and 4x games are among my favorite. If you like 4x space games, you will probably like this one. I hope you try this game. I know of only two that are absolutely better, and one of them is the original MoO2. What follows are more details for those of you that like that sort of thing... and for the developer, because there are some things that could be changed that would make this game quite a bit better in all honesty. Just be warned, some of them are kinda picky. laugh The Good - The game is fun. It plays quite a lot like the original MoO2, especially the research. And it has the added bonus of being able to see what comes next... kind of. For the most part is seems to play faster in some ways than the original also. I reached the end of the normal part of the tech tree by around turn 200. In the original that would never happen. Of course that was many more hours into the game than 200 turns would have been in the original too. In fact on a gigantic map (HUGE MISTAKE!!!!) I won the game by conquest (all races present include Regelan and Arcturan) on turn 254. The only way to win that fast in the original is by galactic vote. It really does play more like MoO2 than any of the others, and yes, I am familiar with most (if not all of them). One or two others come kinda close, but this feel more like the real deal to me than the others. The graphics are easy on the eyes. And let's face it, inferno planets look AWESOME! One little thing though. The graphic used for Gaia planets should replace that used for Terran, and be replaced with something a lot more green. (probably just my opinion...) The inclusion of advanced colonization! Yay! I don't think the original had it, but many have since. It is a great addition. However, it is so late in the tech tree that by then you are far more likely to be in conquest mode as opposed to expand as fast as possible mode. So please consider moving it up in the tree a bit. Tech for dealing with toxic planets!! Another yay for sure! In the original it was the only planet you couldn't improve, and it seemed sort of left out. But, once again... too late in the tech tree, or rather, too time consuming to be actually useful given how late in the tech tree it is. To build an advanced terraformer on a toxic planet takes 2000 industry. Even with all of the buildings in place (takes many turns) it could easily take another 10 - 20 turns to build. Then, after that, it takes 20 turns (no way to speed up either) to reach barren. Then the whole process of terraforming starts again. This tech is at the very end of the tech tree, so in terms of turns, almost the end of the game. The first toxic planet I dealt with had 1 turn to go to reach barren when the game ended. The not so good (maybe bad to some or neutral to others...) The music. It is not consistent at all. Some of it is OK, while some just ... isn't. And one particular phrase might just sit there and play over and over (and over and ...) It's nice that freighters are now auto built into the game, but it's a real shame that we can't move colonists around any more. That is really useful when you have older colonies at max population and new colonies that could really benefit from a couple more workers (double or triple industrial output at the beginning to speed up making basic buildings) Taking out neither the Regelens nor the Arcturans gives any real in game reward. In fact, I couldn't even see how to use their worlds after I took them. In auto, the computer will bomb them, which reduces them to an astroid. In manual combat, it just sits there after you destroy their fleet and base. If I can't use the planet, at least have some tech you get that's not part of the regular tech tree... some awesome unique weapon or similar. Think the Orion Special from MoO2. grin The AI is really bad. It expands well, but it doesn't build aggressively, nor does it make decent armadas. In my game the Terrans had several hundred ships... almost all frigates. And I know they could build bigger ships because they had some starbases built. I know that AI in a 4x is almost never that good, but my play through on medium (average is it? every game calls it something different) was far easier than some are even played on easy. The bad - The biggest disappointment is the real time combat. There isn't enough control to really take advantage of the fact that it is real time, and of course, this is also the biggest departure from the game it wants to be like. It also isn't that great when lots of ships are involved. It just creeps along. So I just used auto 99% of the time, which was mostly ok except... Unpredictable behavior with auto combat. Sometimes most of the enemy would escape (hint: yes! put warp inhibitors on your ships once you have them!), and worse, sometimes it would destroy colonies that had no defenses. Suggestion - never bomb a planet during the auto phase, always only bomb when asked after auto combat is over. The worst (I hope the developer sees this, and I know it has been mentioned before) Aside from the disappointing combat, by far my biggest gripe is the auto distribution of workers. Don't get me wrong, if you are a casual player I doubt you will notice. But if you play like I do, it will drive you crazy. The issue? No matter what setting you use, there will always be at least as many farmers as any other group. And that's with it set to either industry focus or research focus. I recall getting a tech that cuts in half the amount of food you need. An awesome tech to be sure. But it didn't cut the number of farmers in half, it doubled the excess food I sold every turn. That's silly. Yes it generates money, but putting the farmers to work in industry setting your colony to make trade goods will produce a lot more money. Not to mention how much research you miss out on. Please make some more adjustments. Wow, a few mouthfulls. Now just go buy it already! Or at least download the demo...

[h2]Hi Steam Community[/h2] [h3]I played the game since very early access for more than 250 h and gonna give you my humble option about it.[/h3] [u]What can you expect:[/u] [list] [*]wonderful 4X game, which orients to [b]Master of Orion II / MoO II[/b] [*]the game itself is no clone, but an interpretation of MoO II game mechanics in this day and age [*]mini dev team with great connection to the community and user feedback [*]several different races with varying ways to play them [*]custom races for players are supported [*]to some degree [i]customizable[/i] galaxy [*]bang for bucks overall [/list] [u]What could be done better:[/u] [list] [*]graphics (ingame events, portraits, the 3D graphics) [*]pc performance, especially with larger galaxy seeds [*]there are still bugs out there, but at least no game breaking bugs for my last plays [*]the ai and the diplomacy with them is still limited (like in the original ;) [*]only single player [*]no turn based combat like the original [/list] Cheers!

A lovely game in the spirit of Master of Orion. The game has been receiving regular updates and is clearly a work of passion. I am having an enjoyable and relaxing experience exploring the galaxy. One minus point for me is the standard tech tree. Otherwise a good and solid 4x game.

Lord of Rigel is a total frustration. Endless bugs. Horrible Design and hardly playable. All the hard work of testing, thinking and endless Bug-reporting is done by the paying customers instead by the Dev. And after sacrificing many hours to thoughtfully explane some of the bugs in detail, often the Dev twisted my words and made excuses instead of fixing the bugs. It also has countless Design choices not making sense and giving a complete frustration instead of happiness. The answer from the Dev was only a stubborn: ''We are not going to change this.'' allthough me and others asked him to put more meaning and commom sense to his game. Others and me had no other choice than uninstalling and forgetting this game after the frustration was not bearable any more. In my opinion is Lord of Rigel also not suitable for children because there is Transsexual perverted content hidden in the game. In the Diplomatic screen you have to suffer the view of a male man with male nose, male face but with boobs, hair and a boddyexpression of a woman. I personally and probably most other people feel disgusted about this. I wrote a comment and expressed my honest opinion in a factual reasonable and respectful way about this. I honestly expressed that I don't like a game being abused for pushing the perverted sexual Trans-Gender-Agenda in the mind of innocent children. It is my constitutional right to express my opinion about this. And this my opinion was regarding the content of this game, NOT something else. Yet the Dev did ban me permanently from the Lord of Rigel Discussions instead to answer and explane me in a reasonable way why they do this. In order to ban me, he hipocrital fabricated the excuse of so called ''hatespeech''. This was very unprofessional. Becaus it was a lie. To express my honest opinion about the content of his game is my right, and to express the fact that I don't like a particular content of his game, this is NOT hatespeech. He has no right to obligate me to like every aspect of his game. After I regretet to waste money and time for this game and the way I was treated from the Dev after investing dozens of hours to help him finding bugs and improving his game. For this game was a frustrating experience and I will ask a refund. PS: Ace, it is very pathetic and unprofessional that you publish here lies about me. I did NOT commit so called ''hatespeech.'' The real problem here is, you cannot handle constructive criticism. Instead to answer an honest opinion in a reasonable way you had choosen to ban me under the disguise of ''hatespeech''. Instead to engage in a reasonable respectful conversation you had choosen to ignore several of my bug reports or to make fun of them. Instead to take my honest opinion about particular content of your game to your heart and think about it, you had choosen to frame my constructive criticism as so called ''hatespeech'' in order to fabricate an excuse to ban me. Instead to fix many of the bugs you had choosen to close the thread where I had invested countless hours to report your endless bugs. Ace honestly, your paying customers really don't deserve a treatment like this. Constructive criticism is a positive gift meant to help you to improve your game. But simply calling criticism ''hatespeech'' and to issue a lifelong ban for daring to dislike a particulare design of your game, this doesn't work. And even here you don't stop to bully me by spreading lies about me and twisting the facts. In hipocrital manner you stated here: ''Reporting bugs or having issues with design decisions will not result in a ban'' This is another lie. Because this is exactly what I did: I reportet bugs and tried to communicate my issues with your design and some in my opinion ''perverted'' art in your game. I communicated my issues with your game in a very careful, respectful and honest way. But whatever opinion you don't like, you simnply call it ''hatespeech'' and shut the person up instead to give a reasonable answer to the topic.

Master of Orion has a new successor. Fans of the classic space 4X games will enjoy the legendary game system and the breath of fresh air it brings to the series. It's a bargain at the price of just a single DLC for a major 4X game. Updates are still being made, and I am sure this game will grow up to be a great successor. The developer is full of energy and motivation!

This is a modern remake of Master of Orion II, with real time combat instead of turn-based combat as the major difference. There are other small differences in the tech tree, weapon balance, and various other small things. But the big picture is 90% MOO2, from the mechanics to the technology names and descriptions to the interface. I loved MOO2 when I was younger and still go back to from time to time today. This game is a wonderful homage (although it's too bad they aren't more upfront about their inspiration). But I'm not sure I'd choose it over the original. The main reason for this is the UI. Master of Orion 2 was cartoony and pixelated, sure, but it also had a wonderfully clean interface. This game is very cluttered. It loves to take up the left-hand quarter of the screen with a list of your planets and fleets, even though you can access that information on dedicated colony and fleet tabs with a single click. Then the right-hand quarter of the screen is taken up by a barrage of notifications, most of which are unnecessary and distracting from the ones that matter. The way planets in a system are presented makes it tough to quickly distinguish useless gas giants from useful planets that you want to colonize. QOL and UI issues are everywhere, sadly. I also have some more minor gripes, like the removal of boarding as a mechanic, and the fact that while the 3D graphics are nice, turns and actions take a long time to process as well, due to the superior graphics. Don't get me wrong, there are some very nice changes: - Many tech tree tweaks are interesting and the balance looks better than in the past, where some tech levels had obvious choices. - The quotes associated with each technology are neat, although they are sadly not as memorable as the ones from Alpha Centaurai. - The changes to how outposts function are a cool touch. - Making early game space monsters more defeatable for early game starships was a good move. - I like the new pollution mechanic. - The game wisely keeps the MOO2 decision to make terran and other habitable worlds rare on the galactic map, which makes those worlds fun to fight over. - The tweaks to the species creation system are very interesting. - Having fuel range and sensor overlays for the galactic map was a great QOL move. But honestly I have to recommend the original to those who haven't tried it. If you can get over the dated graphics and the turn-based battles (which are slower but far more strategic), it is the superior product. On the other hand, if real-time battles or 3D graphics are a must, then this game is probably most faithful successor to the MOO2 legacy.

A poorly performing unimaginative copy of the Master of Orion games or games of that genre. Buy only at a massive discount, this game is not worth more than maybe 4€. AI is terrible in pretty much ALL aspects of the game for example: - trading late game tech for fusion missiles - constantly attacking in a single frigate and retreating over and over again - sending outpost and colony ships across the galaxy across my territory to build outposts and colonies and two turns later I take them over, thanks for a free colony ship Diplomacy is shallow and makes no sense at times for example I request a treaty and the AI denies. Next turn the AI proposes same treaty. Treaties are also like 5%, 10% etc. bonus to credits or research and it just feels piss poor and is shallow. Ship building is basically a carbon copy from the Master of Orion games as are all the tech and races. Although they have somehow managed to make refitting ships a lot worse and unintuitive. The whole "sensor range" mechanic is useless and adds zero sense or depth to the game since the AI doesn't care about it at all. Territory mechanics are also useless since the AI will colonize in your systems and if you ask them to stop they'll just say "nuh-uh" hence going back to the piss poor and shallow diplomacy implementation. Turns will start to take stupidly long really fast especially in that "processing sensor detection" or what now phase later in the game. The game will literally block for like 60 seconds at worst cases in that. This goes back to the absolutely ♥♥♥♥ performance of the game. Everything starts to feel yanky and laggy real fast in the UI when switching between the views and screens. If you can't make a 3D game then just made a 2D one. That would probably been better in every aspect. Space combat is a ripoff form Master of Orion 3 or the Master of Orion remake but boring. You don't really control anything in any meaningful way. The AI is so ♥♥♥♥♥ that you just click your fleet towards the enemy and that's it. It's even more boring than in the Endless Space games. Orbital bombardment is also ripped off from the Master of Orion games and invasion is laughable sadly made. You watch from a far these things pewpew bolts of lasers at each other. Boring to look at and you can't actually see what's going on since you're so far away. Galactic Council is also completely ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. I was playing as a human and my "opponent" for the ruler was the bird people Dominus who were LAST in every metric in that game. They held maybe 2-3 systems. The rock people and the mantises were like 3-5 more powerful than the bird people... yet that's my opponent in the council? The cutscene female voice actor sounds like AI voice. Also there are cutscenes everywhere and because of how the turns are implemented you're very likely to click ANY button to dismiss a sudden zero warning cutscene. Also why the ♥♥♥♥ do I get a cutscene on the 20th subspace conduit or whatnot build completion? Overall it's not worth your time without a massive discount. There is nothing special or good in this game compared to the Master of Orion games or other games in this genre.

It's much more stable than wargames MOO remake. The slower pacing is not so bad.. once you have around a dozen colonys the temptation to go wild is strong..... Resist the urge or you will regret it. The two elder races will use you for lube if your not ready for 'em. Remember their tech may be maxed. I haven't found out myself for certain but I'm in no rush. Slower paced that MOO but thats not a bad thing!