… that my father and brothers and I used to play.
On my dads Commedore 64.
It was called, if memory serves, Galactic Empire.
It was composed of a grid, with letters of the alphabet being planets. You would get a planet, with a unique color. Each planet created ships, and you could send your ships to other planets to take them over.
Does this ring a bell with anyone?
This sounds very familar to a PC game I used to have back on my 286. I remember there being news (for in game) and funny messages scrolling on the bottom of the screen? Does that sound familar? I probably have the game on a 5.25 floppy in my garage, but I don’t have a 5.25 floppy drive anymore 
If you find the game let me know, I might be intreasted.
Look anything like this ?
Sadly, no. The game that I remember is incredibly simplistic.
No graphics, nothing so fancy as that.
It was literally just a graph on one half, with a listing of “planets” (just a list of letters, with the ship production that would happen each turn.
If you Google Galactic Empire, all you get is Star Wars stuff, dang it.
Looks like Arnold has it but you’ll need a C64 emulator.