The MOO2 Book

Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares, is a classic 4X strategy game released by Simtex software in 1996. While the company closed in 1997, the game continued to be played over the years and received multiple updates by fans. This book is an attempt to unify all knowledge on the subject from gameplay to strategies to history.

The game is a turn-based space empire simulator. The player expands by exploring star systems, colonizing planets, advancing technology and waging war on other players. The end goal is to eliminate other players and dominate the galaxy. The arsenal of tools includes espionage, sabotage, diplomacy, taxes, shuffling military and civilian leaders around, morale boosting technologies, advanced forms of governement, evolutionary mutations, androids, and of course a planet-busting plasma cannon.

In a typical Simtex fashion the interface is very intuitive, individual game mechanics are easy to observe and understand. Yet the sheer amount of detail makes mastering the game hard, the game is very skill intensive despite element of luck present. Fortunately the community has already spent years developing strategies so you can read about them in this book to get a head start.