I had picked up MOO1 another place then got MOO1/MOO2 here, and with the DOSBOX settings that came with MOO1 here, well, I did the settings myself for the MOO1 I got another place and, they are much better (IMO) than the ones that comes with MOO1 here.

Specifically, use:

fullscreen=false
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=1920x1080
windowresolution=1248x936
output=overlay

(This for 1366x768 resulution... might need something else for other resolutions.)

With the settings from GOG on this one, the game comes up in fullscreen with the bottom part of the screen blank and the game squished from side to side, and the window not very big. With the settings above, the fullscreen has some black space at either side (but, not that much), but the game is not squished and in the right proportion, and the window (hit Alt-Enter to switch) is almost as big as the fullscreen. I played mucho MOO1 before I got MOO2, and played most of it with the full-sized window from the settings above.

The MOO2 settings are fine on my system.

Good.

Unless you're using an old CRT monitor therer's supposed to be black borders, since MoO was not made for widescreen monitors. The alternative is a stretched image which really looks ugly.

Hi, I started with WaltKunz' settings (thank you Waltkunz!) and found these settings to work for full screen 1920x1080.

fullscreen=true
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=1920x1080
windowresolution=1920x1080
output=overlay

I also kick my cycles setting way up. I think DosBox "auto" runs at like 3000

cycles=20000

5-6000 cycles are enough. A very high setting is not good if your processor is on the weak side. More than sufficient, with perhaps a bit of a margin, does nothing for the game as it is turn based.

Hey Folks!

I like to provide some knowledge.
The default settings for the DosBox are absolutely insufficient for this game! As you might've realized already, since you looked for help here in the forums...
What other people provided was also NOT optimal. So I'll help out...

What you ACTUALLY need to do:

You open the CONF-File (.conf) named "dosboxMOO1"
Find "fullresolution=original"
Change "original" to what ever your screen resolution might be. Like "1920x1080"
Then find "aspect=false"
Change "false" to "true"
Now close the file and make sure you SAVE the changes you made!

Congratulations! Now your Master of Orion looks like it's supposed to!

And about the cycles...

With "Alt+Enter" you can change between full resolution and window mode. In window mode you can see the "cycles"
You can increase them with "Ctrl+F12" and decrease with "Ctrl+F11".

3000 is indeed insufficient as well. Personally I play with 8000 cycles. You can try it out for yourself, but I wouldn't go with less than 6000. Unless you REALLY like the loading lags...

Cheers!

Note: The above configuration settings may be absolutely moot if you're using Dosbox Staging 81-RC or above.