Stellar Empires

Stellar Empires is a shareware, space based, strategy wargame for two to twelve human/AI players in any combination.

In this game the player takes the role of a race pretty much like our own, as at 2017, in that they have explored their local space but no further because they have not discovered how to travel faster than light. Then some alien traders pass by and, for a hefty fee, they pass on the secret of the gravimetric drive, this allows you to travel from one star to another using areas of space where gravity is weakened by the star's gravity. Now you can explore space beyond your home system, however the traders made the same deal with all other species in your galaxy prompting a race for habitable systems with a jump point. This leads to local disputes and eventually to war as the only way to be guaranteed that you'll be left in peace is to be the last race standing.

The player starts the game with a single star and expands their galaxy by exploring the stars, colonizing unoccupied stars and building fleets and garrisons to protect them. When occupied systems are encountered there's the chance to fight or retreat.

The game area is randomly generated when the game starts, among the many game configuration options is one that sets the size of the galaxy thus making for a short, medium or long game and the tactics of the AI players can be defined to make the game tougher or easier. The game has a lengthy tutorial which takes the player through around a dozen moves of a game against three AI opponents.