4. Clever Tricks

Discover clever tricks and exploits in Master of Orion, including ship redirection, intelligence gathering, research allocation, trade manipulation, and future ship building strategies.

This section details several clever tricks and exploits for Master of Orion, designed to give players an edge in various aspects of the game.

4.A Ship Redirection Cheat

In versions 1.2 and higher, you can click on a retreating fleet to redirect it. This allows for a tactic where a ship with missiles or bombs can attack a planet, retreat, and then re-attack the next turn with its ordnance restored.

4.B Intelligence Trick

To gather intelligence on an enemy race's planets (population, missile bases, factories), perform sabotage. When prompted to choose an action for a planet, you can select each of their planets to reveal this information.

4.C Research Allocation Trick

Taxing planets or putting money into industry on maxed-out factories incurs a 50% penalty. However, rich planets provide a double bonus for industry expenditures directed into the reserve, allowing for a potential 150% return. This can be used to rapidly colonize by transferring colonists from newly colonized planets. For ultra-rich planets, reinvesting production back into the planet effectively increases the amount going into the reserve by a third. It is beneficial to feed planetary reserve into artifact planets, doubling their production, which can then be used for research. The recommended order for feeding the reserve is: Orion, ultra-rich planets, artifact planets, new planets, and rich planets producing ships.

4.D Excess Trade Trick

The maximum trade with another race is 25% of the lesser race's total production. To maximize trade revenue, artificially inflate your production for one turn by distributing reserve funds to your planets. Then, renegotiate trade agreements to the maximum allowed. Avoid frequent small increments in trade amounts; instead, make large, infrequent increases, ideally doubling the previous trade amount.

4.E Future Ship Building Trick

Design a large, expensive ship and dedicate production to it on specific planets. This ship will take a long time to build. When you need a powerful fleet, change the ship type being produced, instantly creating an advanced invasion force. This is particularly effective around the Zortium Armor technology level.