Stars!

Review originally written June 1995 (approximate)

• Galactic conquest game - strategic
• Requires PC running Windows 3.1 or later (256 color recommended)
• Fully functional shareware game available
• Registered version contains more technology advancements and more game features

Have you been looking for a strategic galactic conquest game that doesn't require the latest computer hardware, yet is still visually appealing and challenging? How about a game that you can play with multiple computer and/or human opponents via modem, BBS, or the Internet? Well, look no further! Stars! is your game!

In Stars!, you start with a single planet with a small population, some resources, and some basic ship types. From there, you explore nearby planets and colonize ones suitable for your race. As your population grows, you can gather more materials, begin research into better technology for your ships and colonies, and begin to take over the galaxy.

Your initial peace is soon shattered when ships from other players encounter yours and combat begins. Your research includes weapons of war and defensive items like shields and armor to help you here. Starbases at your planets give you more places to build your ships. Bombing equipment soon follows so you can attack other colonies and take them for your own.

As the game continues, new problems occur. Each race has its own unique advantages and disadvantages, and you must learn how to make them work for you. You can make alliances with other players to help out your position, but so can others (including computer opponents, if you let them!). Mysterious travellers cruise the cosmos, offering strange technologies and other benefits to those who can catch them. Wormholes come and go, offering long-distance travel to those who dare enter them.

There is a lot to this game, but it's not hard to learn. The game itself is very customizable. To begin, you can play easy computer opponents in a tiny universe with unlimited resources until you understand the basics. A walkthrough-type tutorial makes learning the game mechanics easy. Once you get better, you can start customizing advanced features such as your race's advantages and disadvantages, type of universe, level of difficulty, and victory conditions.

The popularity of this game is obvious. At any given time, there are plenty of games at all skill levels in progress on the Internet. Generally, they require you to execute a turn's worth of actions and email the results to a server. The server collects all the player's actions, generates the next turn, and sends the results to each player. The cycle then repeats until a winner is declared.

For more information about this game, check out the Stars! home page. For information about running or participating in multi-player games, strategy, hacking, or whatever, be sure to check out the official Stars! website list.

Another multiplayer option can be found at the Stars! AutoHost.