Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares/Hiring Leaders

From time to time, you'll get opportunities to hire Leaders who will enhance the performance of your economy or your military, or occasionally both. These characters are mercenaries - they work for anyone who will pay their fees, which come in 2 parts: a one-time hiring fee, usually quite large (rather like a transfer fee in football or a signing bonus in business); and a salary per turn.

The influence of Leaders gradually declines as your technologies improve in the relevant areas. This reduction is most significant for Creative empires, as they get all the techs at each level; for other empires, Leaders may fill some of the gaps in their range of techs. Most abilities level up as Leaders gain experience. Similar to ships, your leaders gain experience by sitting around, giving you an incentive to hire them early in some circumstances.

Some Leaders additionally offer one, two or even three particular technologies (which you may already have), but their hiring cost will be higher for it. Nevertheless, you may like to hire them for a short time, just to get these technologies.

Getting the right leaders in the early game can be major advantage, while hiring the wrong ones can simpy drain your finances. Usually the best leaders appear later in the game and are much more expensive.

Leaders have 3 types of ability, in various combinations:
 * Ship Leader abilities, most of which are only useful if the Leader is in command of a ship. These abilities benefit all your ships in the fleet.
 * Colony Leader abilities, most of which are only useful if the Leader is in command of a system. These abilities benefit all your colonies in the system.
 * "General" abilities, that can appear in both Ship Leaders and Colony Leaders.

Managing leaders
An empire can have at most 4 Colony Leaders and 4 Ship Leaders. If you don't hire a Leader when he/she first appears, he/she waits in your Officer Pool for 30 turns. If a leader appears that you don't want, dismiss him/her immediately because it will increase the chances of another leader appearing. This is even more important if you have 3 leaders of a type (Colony or Ship) and a 4th appears that you don't want, because no more Leaders of that type can appear while there are no free slots in your Pool. Once you dismiss a leader, that leader might still show up again later.

Note that in the 1.50 patch, there is an option that will remove the limit on the number of Leaders (a scroll bar will appear in the window if you exceed 4).

If a Leader offers technologies, you get them right after hiring him/her (if you didn't already had them). You don't have to assign them to a Colony or a Ship to get the technologies.

For governments other than Unification, the Officer Pool is effectively a lounge in the Capitol, which is initially on your homeworld. If a non-Unification empire loses its Capitol, either by sabotage or because the homeworld is invaded or destroyed, no new leaders will appear until you build a new Capitol; you should in any case do this as fast as possible because your whole empire will suffer a morale penalty for as long as there's no Capitol. A Unification empire has no Capitol, and the Officer Pool is initially somewhere on the homeworld. Unfortunately the manual does not say what happens to leaders in the Officer Pool if the Capitol is destroyed or a Unification empire's homeworld is destroyed or captured, nor does it say where the new Officer Pool is if a Unification empire's homeworld is destroyed or captured.

Colony Leaders who need to be assigned to a system are ineffective until they arrive at that system. A leader assigned to the system containing your Officer Pool "arrives" instantly; Colony leaders assigned to other systems take 5 turns to arrive. A system can have only one Colony Leader, so if you assign a new Colony Leader to a system that already has one, the incumbent has to return to the Officer Pool - and does so immediately, so the system is without a Leader for 5 turns.

Similar rules apply to Ship Leaders: if the ship is in the system containing your Officer Pool, he arrives instantly; otherwise he takes 5 turns. There's one other rule for Ship Leaders: when refitting a ship that has a leader, you are offered the choice of sending that leader back to the officer pool or making him inactive while the ship is being refit.

General abilities
These are the ones that both Colony and Ship Leaders may have.

Assassin
Has a chance of assassinating an enemy Spy every turn.

This ability works while the Leader is in the Officer Pool or traveling to his/her system/ship.

Commando
For a colony leader: Increases the combat bonus of defending ground troops. For a ship leader: Increases the combat bonuses of ship's marines. Invading troops get 2.5 times this bonus.

Diplomat
Increases diplomatic points for all diplomatic negotiations with other empires, making them more likely to agree to your proposals.

Useless to Repulsive empires.

Famous
Increases the chance to recruit other leaders and decreases the cost of hiring other officers. Also affects the remuneration of leaders you've already hired.

This ability works while the Leader is in the Officer Pool or traveling to his/her system/ship. But if you have several Famous leaders, only the most Famous affects the frequency and costs of new Leaders.

A useful ability, especially if your empire is Repulsive and therefore would otherwise have a poor choice of Leaders. However, it is much less useful if you have a full complement of leaders, and cannot hire new leaders. Consider firing a weak leader and hope that your Famous leader will draw in a new star leader.

Megawealth
Instead of requiring an upkeep cost, the leader contributes 10 BC per turn to your treasury.

This amount does not increase with experience.

This ability works while the Leader is in the Officer Pool or traveling to his/her system/ship. And if you have several Megawealth Leaders, each of them pays you 10 BC per turn.

This ability makes sense only from the beginning to the early mid game. You will likely get offers from Leaders with much better abilities and don't want to block that precious leader slot.

Researcher
Makes a flat-rate contribution to your research.

This ability works while the Leader is in the Officer Pool or traveling to his/her system/ship. And if you have several Researcher Leaders, each of them boosts your research.

Especially useful early in the game.

Spymaster
Increases the effectiveness of all your spies operating in alien empires, i.e. on espionage and sabotage, but not on defense.

This ability works while the Leader is in the Officer Pool or traveling to his/her system/ship.

Tech knowledge
Gives 1 to 3 free techs when you hire the Leader. This is a one-time benefit. Increases the hiring cost of a leader.

Telepath
Increases the effectiveness of all your defensive agents against enemy spies. Protects all colonies in a system against Mind Control.

The spying boost works while the Leader is in the Officer Pool or traveling to his/her system/ship.

Trader
Increases the cash income from Trade Treaties.

This ability works while the Leader is in the Officer Pool or traveling to his/her system/ship.

Useless to Repulsive empires.

Colony Leader abilities
All of these abilities work only while the Leader is working in a system, not while in the Officer Pool or traveling to a system.

Environmentalist
Reduces industrial pollution of all colonies in a system and so boosts your effective industrial production.

Useless for colonies whose populations are entirely Tolerant.

Farming
Boosts farming productivity of all colonies in a system, including Natives and Android Farmers. Does not affect flat bonuses from Hydroponic or Subterranean Farms.

Useless for colonies whose populations are entirely Lithovore or Android, or where farming is impossible.

Financial
Increases the base tax income of all colonies in a system. It does not include gold deposits, gem deposits, Trade Treaties, Trade Goods, global tax rate (which acts as trade goods) or sales of surplus food.

Instructor
Increases experience points per turn for ALL ship crews in your empire. Only the BEST bonus of all instructors is used. Does NOT affect leaders. Works when the Instructor is in the Officer Pool.

Labor
Increases the production of workers in a system. This does not apply to flat bonuses from buildings like the +10 PP from Robotic Factories.

Medicine
Increases the population growth rate of all colonies in a system.

Science
Increases the productivity of all scientists in a system.

Spiritual
Increases the morale in a system. This can be surprisingly powerful; see Strength through Joy for explanation and examples.

Useless for Unification empires.

Tactics
Unfortunately this skill does not work in game.

Ship Leader Abilities
All of these abilities affect all ships in a fleet, but only while the Leader is present on a ship of a fleet, not while he/she is in the Officer Pool or traveling to a fleet.

Engineer
Repairs ships during combat, restoring a percentage of damage to each ship in the fleet. In addition, the engineer repairs all damage after combat; this is no advantage if you have the Automated Damage Control technology.

Fighter Pilot
Increases the offense and defense of all fighters in the fleet.

Galactic Lore
Relays instant knowledge of planet and star information, including actual population and any fixed defenses. Does not show space monsters, but you can assume that any really desirable unoccupied planet is guarded by a monster, and if the system's name is "Orion" you know the Guardian is there. In addition, Galactic Lore increases the attack bonus of all ships in the fleet when battling space monsters and the Guardian. (The Guardian is a Monster in terms of the way the game works.)

Helmsman
Increases the beam defense of all ships in the fleet and missile evasion by half the bonus amount.

Note that in the 1.50 patch, Helmsman bonus applies to fighters (all types: beams and bombs). In classic, fighters do not benefit from Helmsman.

Navigator
Increases the fleet's speed, and enables the fleet to ignore the movement restrictions caused by:
 * nebulae. Passing though these normally slows ships to a snail's pace no matter how fast your drives are.
 * black holes. Normally it's impossible to travel on a route that passes through a black hole, and traveling on a route that passes close to  a black hole creates a risk that some ships will be sucked in and lost.

This ability remains useful even at high tech levels, if the map has a lot of nebulae and/or black holes in places where they would seriously obstruct your movements. This is something you can work out fairly easily from the Galaxy map.

Operations
Provides extra Command Points for your empire.

Ordnance
Increases the maximum damage potential of all ships in the fleet. The bonus is a percent of base weapon damage without modifications (i.e. if a normal beam of certain type gains 10 damage, Heavy Mount/Point Defense versions will also gain 10 and not 15/5). Ordnance works best for (regular) ship beams, since they benefit from rounding up, so a 10% Ordnance bonus for a 5 damage ship beam will mean +1, while for a 5-9 damage missile it will be +0.

Note that in the 1.50 patch, Ordnance bonus applies to fighters (all types: beams and bombs). In classic, fighters are the only weapons not to benefit from Ordnance (even Energy Absorber fire benefits from it).

Security
Increases the combat strength of a ship's marines when boarded by enemy marines, similar to Security Stations.

Weaponry
Increases the beam attack of all ships and fighters in the fleet.