The First Interstellar Empires

The First Interstellar Empires is a game of space exploration, colonization, and conflict. It is set in the first decades of humanity reaching out to the stars. The game board is an accurate map of the space around our own solar system, a cube 25 light years on each side with our Sun at the center.

Each player takes the roll of a nation on Earth (or Mars or the asteroid belt) that will be active in exploring the stars. In his turn a player takes actions such as: Explore a star system, that is, determine if it has useful planets and how difficult they will be to colonize. Build a colony. Invest in a colony, that is, increase its production. Form an alliance with an independent colony, or try to break up an alliance between another player and an independent colony. Research to improve your technology. And of course, invade another player's colony and attempt to conquer it.

Each nation has a "competence" in each of four areas: military, economy, diplomacy, and science. These determine your efficiency in each area. For example, if your science is poor, you may devote huge resources to research and still not get anywhere.

Each turn a player draws an "event" card. These can be good, bad, or depend on circumstances. Events include things like leaders who improve your competence and corruption that reduces it, economic problems, attrition in colonies with harsh environments, rebellions and civil wars. But you don't have to play a card right away. You can hold on to good cards to use them at just the right moment -- like play a "great military leader" just when another player attacks you and turn the tables on him. You can hold on to a bad card in the hopes of preparing to cope with it ... or at least, kicking the can down the road.

Players can advance their technology in four areas: Starships, which increases the range at which you can operate; Colonization, which determines how difficult it is to establish colonies, build new "starbases", and such; Terraforming, which lets you make harsh planets more suitable for human life; and Weapons, which increase your capabilities in war.

Winner is the player who has the greatest production at the end of the game. This can be achieved by building many colonies, by growing your economy and making your colonies rich, or by conquering other players. Or by destroying other players' colonies: you might still be poor but they'll be poorer.

—description from the designer