Stars!

Stars! is a 4X turn-based strategy game for PC and Windows. It was produced in 1995 by Jeff McBride and Jeff Johnson. It was first marketed in Germany as shareware from STC computer service, then later bought by Empire Interactive and put on the market.

Up to 16 players are participating, including computer players. Each player can put together to measure one race. Each player starts with a home planet and must build spaceships, explore the galaxy, colonize other planets, promote raw materials, industry build etc. The victory conditions can be chosen from different criteria before beginning. The evaluation of the trains is performed by a " host ". In single-player mode, this is your own PC, with the PC multiplayer the game leader. The host takes the moves of the player opposite, evaluates them, and created for each player a new game.

The game was was disbanded in ownership of the company, Empire Interactive, the beginning of May 2009.

Local Networks and the Internet had not yet spread. Stars! Multiplayer games were therefore conducted primarily as a play-by- email, ie the files with train data and Score were transmitted by e -mail, for example, within the FidoNet network. This of course had to be agreed fixed train handover dates.

The special attraction of Stars! was ( is still ) in

• Very good game balance
• Very variable breeds
• Useful mechanisms for automating the micromanagement
• "fair" computer opponents with decent skill level