Each turn is divided into two sections – a development phase, and a movement phase.
#Reach for the stars game upgrade#
On the other hand, this can lead to a loss if the player’s opponents upgrade first and attack with superior ships. Building a lot of ships early can win a player the game, if the player finds his enemies’ home planets before they manage to upgrade their military technology. This is a mixed blessing though, because if the population grows beyond the maximum allowed for that planet, the costs to feed the population skyrocket. Upgrading a world’s planetary environment, for example, means that its population grows more quickly, thus improving production. When you start the game, you have limited funds, and you have to decide where to invest the funds (technology upgrades, ships,or environmental upgrades). Warships – these are incapable of carrying colonists, but can fight. Transports – these are incapable of fighting, but can carry colonists.ģ. These can be used as a low-cost, low-risk means to learn the composition of unknown star systems, or the locations and makeup of enemy fleets.Ģ. Scouts – these are very inexpensive, and are incapable of fighting or carrying colonists. In Versions 1 to 3 of the game, the player starts off with one planet that has Level 1 technology and a middle level environment. It is not uncommon for a “Reach for the Stars” game to take over twelve hours to complete in single-player mode and 24 hours with multiple players. The software’s AI also offers a challenging opponent in single-player games. “Reach for the Stars” graphics are minimal, yet the tactical and strategic elements provide countless rich combinations for colony development and interstellar warfare. But not wishing to burden themselves with having negotiate with a third party SSG decided to go their own way with the design rather than make a version of “Stellar Conquest”. “Reach for the Stars” was strongly influenced by the board game “Stellar Conquest” published by Avalon Hill. You start by commanding a home star in the galaxy, and you then extend to forming an interstellar empire, by colonizing far-off worlds, building powerful starships, and researching new technologies. You can choose to play the game on the basic level (default) or the advanced level, which adds complexity and expands your options for research (which is quite limited), random events, and more. So, late in the game, you have to command vast space fleets while keeping your rapidly growing population from consuming all production.
The game’s universe is quite large, and in every star system there can be several planets. The game was created and distributed by SSG Strategic Studies Group Pty Ltd. It is regarded as one of the first and best 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) games. “Reach for the Stars: The Conquest of the Galaxy” is a turn-based, strategy / war simulation game. Apple II, Apple IIqs, Commodore 64, DOS, Macintosh