It’s kind of like Risk in real time*, with planets instead of provinces.
Kind of addictive.
It’s actually based on a really old text-graphics turn-based game by a similar name (Galactic Conquest or something like that, I haven’t played it in years). You have planets, each with a certain amount of ship production per time period, and you command ships from your planets to move to other planets, either to conquer or to reinforce them. That pretty much sums up the game!
This game kicks my butt. Games are fast and fun, it comes with about a dozen scenarios (and you can create your own), and it’s way simple to set up multiplayer. It’s well worth the shareware fee (what? like $20).
I loved the old Galactic Conquest game. It truly is one of the original computer games, a direct-line ancestor to dozens if not hundreds of modern titles. I keep threatening to do a wikipedia write-up, something more thorough than this, but I can’t get my hands on some of the original material, like a playable, downloadable DECWAR…