I grew up on Masters of Orion II and was bitterly disappointed with Masters of Orion III. It totally missed the point that the game was meant to be fun and filled with big strategic decisions. Instead it was mired down in tiresome micro-management and replaced fun with realism.

 I remember reading somewhere that Stardock wanted the rights for the MOO series but did not get them. Shame, they could have done a great sequel. Anyway this got be thinking about what I would have done for a sequel and also wondering that if Stardock wanted to produce a similar game how many next generation ideas would they need for the game to be more than just a clone, but a new game in its own right? Naturally the game would expand on existing elements such as more planet types, more player races, more technologies, more monsters etc. But the game would have to introduce some new elements to justify it as more than just an expansion. Here are some of my ideas.

INITIATIVE- Tactical combat was great fun in MOOII but the most annoying thing was that two relatively evenly matched fleets met the outcome would be decided by who went first. What if we introduced something called initiative and let ships with the highest initiative scores go first? In the event of ships having the same initiative the ship to move first could then be decided at random. Base initiative could vary for ship size, be affected by race picks, leaders and research-able technologies that could either effect crews instantly or be added to the ship design (eg computers that will increase initiative by 1 for each computer added).

CHANGABLE TECH TREES- Having played MOOII a lot it did not take long before you worked out exactly what technologies you wanted and which order to research them. Once these decisions were made and you had success with them you tended to repeat them every game. Introducing too much change into the tech trees would cause too much chaos, but what if every technology had a 5% chance of altering? They could alter in that they moved one up the tech tree or one down so that they were up against different technologies to select or they could disappear altogether, or perhaps be more powerful/beneficial than normal (where possible). This would not alter players overall strategy but would force them to make some different and important decision every game when it came to selecting technology.

GALACTIC AUCTIONS- In MOOII colony leaders and ship leaders offered there services to Empires for a price. What if this was taken much further? Imagine a galactic auction where leaders appeared for a certain period of time and players bid on them if they wanted them. At the end they went to the highest bidder. This could be done for technologies (both research-able ones and unique alien ones), alien artifacts that will confer a specific bonus upon a colony and even mercenary ships that will join your fleet if you are the highest bidder. This will have a big bearing on strategy. Do you spend your money on building or save for the auctions. How much are your rivals going to bid? Should you spend all your money on the good leader that came up, or save it in case a better one comes along? Should you even turn some colonies over to trade goods instead of research to ensure you are not short of money when you need it? This would add a whole new fun dimension to the game (or any space/fantasy strategy game).