Stellar Conquest is a board game

Board game

A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...

 designed by Howard Thompson that has achieved minor cult status since its initial release in 1974. This science fiction game, originally rejected by the Avalon Hill

Avalon Hill

Avalon Hill was a game company that specialized in wargames and strategic board games. Its logo contained its initials "AH", and it was often referred to by this abbreviation. It also published the occasional miniature wargaming rules, role-playing game, and had a popular line of sports simulations...

 Company in 1973, and published the following year as the first title from Metagaming Concepts

Metagaming Concepts

Metagaming Concepts was a publisher of board games from 1975 to 1983 owned by Howard Thompson. Metagaming created and popularized the microgame format. It specialized in science fiction wargames; titles included Ogre, G.E.V., Godsfire, Stellar Conquest and WarpWar...

, was eventually published by Avalon Hill in 1984. It is an archetype for the 4X strategy game genre, with counters

Counter (board wargames)

Boardgame counters are usually small cardboard squares moved around on the map of a wargame to represent armies, military units or individual military personnel. The first modern mass-market wargame, based on cardboard counters and hex-board maps, was Tactics, invented by Charles S. Roberts in 1952...

 that represent various interstellar ship types to move populations around the universe, populate planets, and ultimately defeat your opponents by slowly increasing your technological, movement and offensive capabilities.

The board

The board is a hex grid map, with certain hexes containing stars of varying colors, which may have planets that are fit for population. Also, star nurseries or stars undergoing accretion are featured in blue, which impedes movement through those hexes.

Basic rules

Players each start in a corner of the board with a number of ships that differ in type. A military unit is one that may attack. These include Escorts, Attacks and Dreadnoughts. Attacks and Dreadnoughts must be researched to be purchased. A military unit, as well as CT's (population carrying spacecraft), may not move more than 8 hexes away from a populated planet of its owner, though certain research negates this limitation. When the game first begins, the corner square counts as a populated planet for the first four turns. All units may move two spaces, and may purchase movement upgrades. Units must follow the quickest path to a nominated destination and may not change this destination unless they have stopped on a star. A non-military unit unaccompanied by a military unit landing in a star must roll a d6 (standard six-sided die), and is destroyed on a roll of one.

When a player's piece lands on a star, the star's ability to sustain life is randomly determined, the chances of which depend upon the colour of the star. Certain upgrades may improve the planet's ability to sustain life.

Every four turns a 'production phase' occurs in which planets have their populations increase (by the current population over five), one may move populations of planets into CTs, and earn Industrial Unit Output(IUO), the currency with which players purchase upgrades, extra ships and the like.

The number of ships a player begins with depends upon the number of players, the scenario, and the preferences of the players.

Alternate building options

In addition to offensive spacecrafts used offworld, players can opt to build stationary Missile Bases (MBs) and Advanced Missile Bases (AMBs). Essentially acting in the same manner as a grounded starship (that is, with particular combat statistics) it is immobile, and remains on the planet it was built on. Since Missile Bases are inexpensive compared to the equivalent starship, they may provide an economical way to defend a player's planets.

Impact

The game is credited with influence on early computer 4X games such as Reach for the Stars and Master of Orion

Master of Orion

Master of Orion is a turn-based, 4X science fiction computer strategy game released in 1993 by MicroProse on the MS-DOS and Mac OS operating systems. The purpose of the game is to lead one of ten races to dominate the galaxy through a combination of diplomacy and conquest while developing...

. Stellar Conquest was ported into a computer game itself as Armada 2525.