Master of Orion – Which Settings to Choose for the Game

What Settings Should I Play On?

I recommend using medium pop growth on 5X if you were on fast for 5X lite. Medium on 5X sits between where medium and fast were before. The default game speed option is now medium pop growth speed anyway.

Silicoids are difficult to get right. You really have to take a particular expansion strategy to play them effectively. Consider trying another race first (the Darloks are also quite hard to do well).

I found very hard difficulty to be about right for me in vanilla, and I’ve continued to mostly play very hard ever since then throughout the development of 5X, meaning that difficulty has the most ideal balance.

Personally I usually play on a medium or large galaxy, and I vary the types I choose, but Circle is my “default.”

Note: One tip that I think helped with Silicoid was that after I built a colony ship I also then built a Transport ship so the new colony would start with two pops instead of one. Seemed to make the pop grow a bit faster.