Master of Orion

The term “4X” did not exist before Master of Orion. Alan Emrich coined it in a September 1993 preview for Computer Gaming World, using it to describe a game that had not yet reached the public. The four Xs stood for eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate, and Emrich used them to summarise what Steve Barcia and his small Austin studio Simtex had been building for the better part of five years. The name stuck, and a genre had a label.

Simtex was founded in 1988 by Barcia, an electrical engineer, alongside his wife Marcia and collaborator Ken Burd. The name combined SIMulation and TEXas. For five years the team worked on a prototype called Star Lords, a fully playable galactic conquest game that was submitted unsolicited to MicroProse in early 1993. The executives passed it to Emrich and fellow journalist Tom Hughes for evaluation. Their feedback shaped the design substantially, and both were thanked in the finished game’s manual; they later wrote its official strategy guide. The result, released on 6 September 1993 for MS-DOS and published by MicroProse, was Master of Orion.

The game placed the player in command of one of ten distinct alien races competing for control of a procedurally generated galaxy. Each race carried different strengths: the Humans were the most capable diplomats and traders, the Bulrathi dominated ground combat, the Silicoids could colonise otherwise hostile worlds by ignoring pollution, and the Psilons led the technology race by default. These asymmetries were not cosmetic. Choosing a race determined strategic options for the entire game, and the AI opponents operated with their own rolled personalities and objectives rather than following a fixed script. The galaxy itself was populated with star systems of varying size and habitability, each containing at most one colonisable planet, forcing constant decisions about where to commit limited resources.

The technology system was the spine of the game. Research was divided into six parallel fields, and players could not master all of them in a single playthrough. Each field offered competing options at various levels, meaning two different campaigns with the same race would produce different technological profiles. The randomised tree was Barcia’s design, and it ensured that adaptation mattered more than memorised optimal paths. Ship design built directly on the technology system: players specified hull sizes, weapon loadouts, defensive systems, and special equipment for their fleets, producing configurations that varied dramatically in purpose and effectiveness. A player who invested heavily in beam weapons and miniaturisation built very different ships from one who prioritised missiles and armour, and fleet compositions that worked against one opponent could fail against another.

Combat resolved in tactical turn-based battles where those design choices were tested directly. Planetary invasion required troop transports and orbital bombardment, and the capture of well-developed colonies could shift the economic balance of the galaxy faster than any military campaign. Economy was managed through slider-based allocation across production, research, and farming at the colony level, with terraforming available to expand a planet’s population cap over time. Overextension was a genuine risk. An empire that expanded faster than its infrastructure could support would face internal strain, and rivals watching for weakness would press the advantage.

Diplomacy added a layer of uncertainty throughout. Each AI race had built-in attitudes toward others that influenced how negotiations played out, and alliances struck early in the game could collapse under pressure. The game did not reward passive play. Empires that delayed conflict too long found rivals had pulled ahead technologically or territorially, and catching up was rarely possible once the gap opened. The single galaxy map, with every civilisation visible once explored, meant that every decision had visible consequences.

The reviews were stark in their praise. Computer Gaming World’s full December 1993 assessment declared that finding something inadequate about the design required deliberate effort, and called it “a definite Game of the Year candidate as well as Exhibit A in many divorce cases.” The magazine awarded it Strategy Game of the Year in June 1994, describing it as “Civilization in Space.” Computer Games Strategy Plus named it the best strategy game of 1993. In 1996, Computer Gaming World placed it 33rd on its list of the greatest games ever made.

Simtex followed with Master of Magic in 1994, applying the same framework to a fantasy setting, and Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares in 1996, expanding the formula with custom race creation and multiplayer support. The studio closed in 1997 after MicroProse, then in financial difficulty, shut it down. The IP passed through several owners before a fourth game appeared in 2016. None of the successors resolved the argument about whether anything had improved on the original. The genre Emrich named in that 1993 preview has never quite stopped trying.