Armada

Set in the year 2525, your race has just passed the threshold of space exploration and colonization, and now it's time to fight over the galaxy. As in all 4X games the objective is to explore to find suitable worlds, expand your territory by colonizing worlds, exploiting the resources of those worlds, then exterminating the opposition. Balancing the needs of expansion, industry, research, and defense is the main challenge of the game, if you focus too much on any one aspect the other players will certainly take you out.

In this ancestor of the space 4X dynasties, the galaxy map is always the same, but the planet available for colonization at each star is random. Any two groups of ships that meet at the same star always begin a combat, so care must be taken in where one sends ships to avoid starting wars unintentionally.
The tactical combat in this game is one of it's major strengths, although it is simple I feel it is still superior to many modern 4X games. At the beginning of ship to ship combat, the players are given a chance to deploy their ships on their side of the screen and to give each orders to hide, defend, attack or penetrate. The battle begins, ships advancing or holding back based on their orders and firing their weapons. The players are given the option about every ten seconds or so to give the order to continue attack, all out attack, or retreat. Ship to ground combat is even more simple, any attacking ships with ground attack capability line up and descend on the planet, firing at the planetary defenses.
The attacking player is given the option to retreat every so often. If the attacking player wins, he will be given the option to enslave the planet or attack the population each turn until the planet is enslaved or all of the population is destroyed. Research and technology in the game is fairly simple, one builds research centers and at the end of the production phase allocates them to one of eight areas of research. On the galaxy map there are several neutron stars, appearing either as a green star or an empty space surrounded by the background, depending on the graphics settings. Once one has colonized a planet at one of these stars research centers built there will build toward neutronium technology, allowing that player to build enhanced ships at neutron stars.
The multiplayer aspect of this early game made it an instant hit among my friends, and in fact caused it's developers to change the rules regarding when employees had to leave the building. Apparently workers were arriving in the morning to find groups of two to six of their co-workers still playing a game they started the night before.