Stellar Empires is turn based strategy for 1 to 4 players (2 or more player games can be any mix of human or computer controlled players) where one tries to take over the galaxy. The maps are randomly generated each game, and can even vary how many star systems are in it. The player(s) get to choose at the beginning how many turns long the game will be; it may end up being shorter if a player manages to take over the entire galaxy. The game is menu driven with 9 options. If playing with multiple human players, the game assumes the honour system and that during each human player's turn, the other players will leave the room and not cheat. computer players will play silently until their turns are done.
Each turn, the players collect money from the planets that they own (there are 4 classes of planets, explained above in the intro screenshots), and build starships for their fleet based on that money. It should be noted that only a player's home planet can manufacture starships, although all planets owned can generate revenue. Class 3 planets are basically interplanetary level civilizations and are capable of defending themselves against players, but they can't attack other star systems. Class 4 planets are owned by the other main players (human or computer); if a player manages to conquer one of these, that player is not longer capable of manufacturing starships. However, if that player has other starships deployed in other star systems, and time their flights right (using the distance between stars command) so that their remaining fleets from other star systems all arrive at the their homeworld at the exact same time, they may be able to take it back over and start manufacturing again.
At the beginning, players only know the first letter of the name of each star system; they do not know the class or who owns it. Players can send single scout ships to attack, which will reveal this information and give them an idea of how many ships will be needed to take it over. If one is into turn based strategy games, this one is a lot of fun. I even made a modified version (stripping the graphics characters) and had it running as one of the online games on my BBS in the 1980's, and it was the most popular game on my system (ahead of several original adventure games). It should be noted that this game originally came out from the CLOAD tape magazine (written by Graham Wilson); this was the sister tape magazine to Chromasette ran by the same company that ran 80 Micro magazine. Both of these were based on an even earlier game called Galactic Empires by Tom Cleaver, originally written in 1979 and re-released as Galaxy by Avalon Hill in 1981.
Title: Stellar Empires
Author: Original TRS-80 Model 1/3 version by Graham Wilson, Coco Extended BASIC version by Ted & Drew Shorter
Publisher: Chromasette
Released: February 1983
Requires: Color Computer 1,2 or 3, Extended BASIC, 16K RAM (cassette) or 32K RAM (disk)