I believe that you can still pick up Master of Orion 2 from Microprose for about 5 to 10 bucks. It\'s from 95 - 96.. but still definately worth the money you pay for it. The only real negetive point I saw was that the starmap and battle grid was two dimensional and theirs not enough micromanagement to please some people. In Ascendancy, it was 3D and you could rotate & zoom in on specific planets or ships.
Personally, I don\'t like having to go to each of the 20 systems in my confenderation and set up building on each specific planet every turn. Thank god their\'s an autobuild option for the menial tasks.
If you want something a bit newer, MOO3 is in development and will be along shortly for the PC.. and hopefully the PS2. Online Real-Time battles against real life opponents??? I\'m there dude.