All the reviews don't really explain it.
I love the box art though!

What are you having problems with?

I've never played it

It's Civilization in space. :P

I suggest you play it a few times on the tutorial level. Simply, you build a civilization, production capabilities, research techmology, expand through the universe by settling new planets, build a war fleet and fight wars. You try to be the last one standing, or flying. While there is a lot of research available, I mostly learned by playing and moving up the levels.

This website can be a great help. Don't be afraid to ask questions.

Good luck

Are you talking about MoO3? (Master of Orion 3)

Oh, MoO 3, I forgot about that one. XD

I didn't like it because this game was very confusing, but it was a long time ago since I played it, maybe I would like it more today, maybe not.
I like MoO 1 best, because it's simple. :)

Part of it is the same old tale that the originals (MoO1 and MoO2) are classics of the genre and that the next in the series (MoO3) was just a huge disappointment relative to those when it was released - it was also released in a very buggy state. That the originals are so beloved makes MoO3 more hated.

But beyond that it has a very confusing interface where it is difficult to tell what the relevant information is and how you should act on it. The confusion extends to how much control you have over certain functions in your empire and the impact of your actions on certain types of events: research in particular seems to progress on its own and a lot of it is very unclear what benefit a particular research item gets you. People complained that the empire felt much like it was on auto-pilot all of the time and that auto-pilot is constantly trying to fly your empire into the ground - such that you spend more time fighting with the interface and the automatic decision making of the AI than making grand-impact decisions yourself. Also everything seemed to be in huge spreadsheets such that the game felt very dry and soulless. The game might have been not so bad in the former respect (fighting the automation) if the presentation of interacting with that automation was more interesting. But instead the game had menus, buried in menus, buried in menus.

I feel like it is trying to be MoO1 with control of the broad overview of the empire as opposed to MoO2 which has a greater emphasis on micromanaging the empire. But they just screwed up the implementation of their ideas and I find the game simply dull to play.

That said the game does have its proponents on GOG (you can see some of them in the forums here). Fan-patches have made the game a lot more playable and those that like the game contend that, once you get past the interface issues, there is a truly deep and nuanced 4X strategy game. I myself have been unwilling to find out. :)

That's really helpful, thanks a ton!

Sorry, I was talking about MoO2.