The Antarians suck. Turn them off. Right now. Hello persons of interest. While you were playing Civ V on your no-doubt somewhat modern-ish computer rigs, I was busy getting my 4X strategy from a different source, namely Master of Orion 2 (1996). Because my computer is from 2002. Which, in its own way is one of the reasons I play old games to begin with. But enough of my computer. I got this (as well as the first MOO, which while a nice little bonus, is fairly dull and simplistic by comparison) from GOG for $6, which is an entirely reasonable price. But that's all that. On to the game!
 
As I said before, MOO2 is a 4X game, specifically one in the "Space" sub-sub-genre, as opposed to the "World" sub-sub-genre that games like Civ inhabit. If you have any knowledge of this game whatsoever, you should be aware that a lot of people like it (which is why 2003's Master of Orion 3 is one of those sequels that people refuse to accept the general existence of, like the Holocaust. Of course, it helps that MOO3 is apparently garbage.) and that it is awesome. Much like XCOM, my general reaction to MOO2 is "Ohhhhh! So that's what all those crazy old people on the internets were talking about!" So it's pretty good.  The previous statement was an understatement.
 
Custom Race Screen, showing exactly how crazy this stuff goes So what does one have to do to become... A Master of Orion (tm)? If you haven't figured it out already, you research, build, diplomacize, and conquer shit all over the course of around 50 bajillion turns. It's one of those games. But in space. And not totally dry the way Sid Meier's games are for me.  In fact, I see a lot of this game's influence specifically in Stardock's Galactic Civilizations II (much like how Master of Magic, another game from the same team, is basically the inspiration for Stardock's Elemental: War of Magic). Let's go over each of the thingies in order, shall we? 
 

 
What? Survival Pods? Why the hell would you choose those over battle pods! Research
One of my favorite things about MOO 2 is that the research is compartmentalized (i.e. it's not all one big long tech tree), and that it's segmented. Usually, you have 2 or 3 choices in a specific field of research. So while I could go for an upgraded model of shield for my fleet, I could also get a device that jams missiles. Of course, you can still trade other races for the tech that you missed, and one of the racial bonuses lets you get all of the research in a field, so it's not entirely constrained. Like all games of it's type, success in MOO2 is most certainly connected to researching stuff faster than the other duders. 
 
Build
Yo. You colonize planets. Then you build buildings on them. Then you delegate colonists to specific jobs. Then you build space ships. And then you kill the other dudes. However, another thing that GalCiv seems to crib from this game is the ability to make your own custom spacecraft. Sure, you could set it so that the game does the designing for you, but what is the fun in that? Once again, fairly standard, and the game occasionally shows its age with all the micromanaging you have to do from time to time. Of course, now and then, the titular Antarians will come around and fuck shit up, hopefully in someone else's star system. Considering they will overpower you for around 90% of the game, they are a real problem. Which is why I turn them off, which also removes the 3rd victory condition (later on that)
 
Diplomacy, while nice and all, isn't entirely needed. Diplomacy
The enemy AI in MOO, isn't especially bright by today's standards. At least on normal, they won't recognize a building up of your forces, and will generally either be pissed at you because their AI behavior says they have to, you are spying on them and your spies aren't good enough to not get caught, or you invaded them first. Nonetheless, like any of these games, good diplomatic relations rely a lot on bribing and technology exchanges because you don't want them to crush you (that is, until you build a big enough fleet to crush them) The Silicoid, one of the premade races in the game, is totally incapable of diplomacy other than to declare war or ask for peace. Needless to say, they kind of suck. 
 
Conquer Tactical combat. Whoever uploaded these screens covered everything.
Conquering other guys involves building a big fleet with good ships and then moving it over to the other guy's planets. Sure, it's not especially hard to understand, but the hard part is figuring out when to invade and when to not. Being that fleets can drain your treasury incredibly fast unless you have a lot of star bases, the concept of defensive armies is a little harder to implement. However, another thing that makes MOO awesome (and different) is the inclusion of Tactical Combat rather than some nice animations while the computer rolls dice. Chances are, you would rather have that anyways. The tactical combat thankfully rewards tactical-ness. Enemy Star Base got you down? Why not send a boarding party of marines to disable their weapons or even capture the thing? Don't want someone to move? Tractor Beam. (which also allows you to board them). Ground Combat is, somewhat dully, done through the use of dice rolls. Tis a pity, but I guess they didn't want to over complicate things. 
 
In the end, winning will usually involve having more planets and better ships than the other guy. However, one of the faults of MOO is the general lack of victory conditions. While I'm sure you people over there in your ivory towers and your not-8-years-old computers are enjoying researching or culturalizing your way to victory, there are exactly 3 victory conditions in Master of Orion 2: Kill everyone, Get elected ruler of the universe, or Kill the Antarians. The first one is, by far, the single most viable almost every time. The second one only comes into play once most of the galaxy has been colonized, and even then you still have to have a 2/3 majority of votes. Unfortunately, conquering the Antarian Home World requires so much firepower that you could actually conquer the galaxy with that kind of fleet. So that basically means that, whatever else you may do, it's still probably a good idea to have a big fleet.
 
Nonetheless, if you haven't figured it out yet, Master of Orion 2 is pretty awesome. While it shows its age in some spots, in others it holds up incredibly well in others (such as having the tooltips for everything. Something all games should have). In fact, even though what it is made of is fairly standard for the genre as a whole, I would count it as one of my favorites. Hopefully you are still reading this. The end.
 
Next up: Will Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic show me exactly how to ruin my childhood? Or will I finally finish Baldur's Gate instead? Oh, and Icewind Dale is on GOG. Shit. That makes 4 with Planescape.