The game explained

Since the first 2 posts, I've had a couple of emails from people with questions regarding the game play so I thought I'd use this post to briefly outline the game.

So the basic game is to expand your territory and capture half of the stars in the galaxy. For this game, that's a total of 111 stars needed. At the beginning of the game, we started with 6. To capture stars, you create a fleet carrier for $25, load up with ships and travel to another star. If it is unoccupied, you automatically claim it, but if there are enemy ships present, there is a battle (with very simple battle calculations) and the person with ships remaining at the end of the battle claims the star.

You get income at the same time every day depending on your economy and you get a certain number of ships every day depending on your industry. Your money goes towards increasing your economy, buying industry or buying research facilities all of which are specific to a particular star. Some stars are easier to build on than others and therefore more valuable.

There are 4 different types of techs available;

• Speed - increases how fast your ships take to get from one star to another
  
• Weapons - increases your fleets weapon strength
  
• Range- increases how far your fleets can jump between stars
  
• Scanning - how far you can see away from your stars (to spy on enemies)
  

The game is one of the most simple games I've ever played. Everything is done is extremely simple calculations eg. 1 economy = $10 per 24 hours, 1 industry = 2 ships per 24 hours etc.

As the official website's help section details, there are only 4 things you need to do:

• Move your Fleets
  
• Upgrade your Stars
  
• Choose your Technology
  
• Talk to the other Players
  

What makes this game so interesting is the diplomacy between your rivals. Brute force isn't going to win the game for you. As you can see from the first map, there are 10 people competing over 222 stars and everyone needs half of them. Along the way, you're going to be making and breaking numerous alliances so you're forced to communicate with your neighbours.

What also makes this game very interesting is that you know precisely how strong each of the other players is. It details everyones fleets, income and techs - just not where their fleets might be located. This means if you suddenly see someone you're fighting with jump from 3 weapon strength to 6 as you're on your way to attack, you know they've struck some sort of deal with someone to trade techs as there's no way you can get techs that quick. You'd better watch your back because it was in someone else's interest to have you weakened or eliminated!

If you want more information on the game, please check out the official website.

If you have any other questions for me, please feel free to use the comments section and I'll address them in future posts.