The Shape of the Game
- 44Turns Total
- 10Production Turns
- 32×20Hex Board
- 4Entry Corners
The game runs for a fixed 44 turns, with a production turn inserted after every fourth turn. Movement, exploration, and combat turns are sequential, one player at a time; production turns are simultaneous and resolved in secret.
Victory is pure territory scoring — no diplomacy track, no tech race win. At turn 44, every player scores 3 points per Terran planet and 1 point per Sub-Terran planet they control. Barren and Minimal-Terran planets are livable but worthless for scoring.
The board is a 32×20 hex grid with 54 stars and 7 gas/dust clouds that slow movement. Each player enters from one of four corner hexes, so the map starts symmetric and everyone crawls inward.
What's Distinctive vs. Modern 4X
Population is your industry, 1:1. Each million colonists produces 1 IP — there's no separate production resource layer. Colony transports carry exactly one million colonists each and are consumed on landing, so moving population is its own logistics puzzle.
Use it or lose it. IPs can't be banked between production turns. No stockpiling toward a big purchase — every four-turn cycle you spend everything or waste it.
Exploration has real teeth. The first time a lone scout or transport enters an unexplored star, roll a die — a "1" destroys it. Escort with a warship and the risk disappears.
Fog of war was physical, not systemic. Face-down counters and private record sheets, on the honor system. The web version enforces this server-side instead.
Star color is a hint, not a guarantee. Yellow stars skew toward Terran planets, blue stars skew mineral-rich (2× industry) — but you only find out by physically exploring.
Two "freedom" techs gate your early game. Ships can't move more than 8 hexes from a Command Post until you research Unlimited Ship Range, and can't route freely between hexes until Unlimited Ship Communications.
Combat is a mutual-target standoff, not auto-resolve. Both sides secretly pick targets and fire simultaneously per round. After each round, the attacker chooses to press on or withdraw — then the defender gets the same choice.
Conquest is deliberately harsh. A captured colony produces nothing for one full turn, conquered population never grows, and warships can execute conquered population outright to deny the planet rather than hold it.
A small, fast tech tree. Just three tracks — Ship Speed, Weapons, and Pure Technology — with prerequisite discounts on the next tier. A fraction of a modern 4X tech web, which keeps games moving.
Stellar Conquest is 4X stripped to its 1974 skeleton — where your colonists are your economy, exploring is a genuine gamble, and holding a conquered world is a strategic choice, not a free reward.
See some example star cards — one from each star-color deck, showing the planets a first exploration can reveal.