Introduction#

Galactic Empires is a massive multi-player strategy game where the user doesn't need to be online constantly to be successful. Having advanced technology and a larger army is not the key to winning. Strategy and diplomacy will make the difference among large and small empires. Choose your friends carefully, you can join forces with them to achieve your goals.

Galactic Empires is different from other games because of its game-play format. It is not time consuming, you wont have to wait for something to be built or researched. You cannot optimize your production by staying connected all day long. You only need a little time each day to be successful.

Galactic Empires was designed to be easy to play and intuitive. Enjoy your life and enjoy Galactic Empires. Both things are possible!

First steps to play#

(A guide specifically designed for new players can be found  here . You'd be better of reading it.)

This is for the new players. These first steps will allow you to build your first fleet and army, all in the first day of play. It is even possible to conquer your first planet.

The first thing you need to do is build your army. Follow these steps:

• Go to "Research", and click on "Research new weapon", it is recommended that you first research the laser rifle with default properties.
• Go to "Research", and click on "Research new soldier unit", select the laser rifle as weapon and input "1" as the quantity.
• Go to "Colony" and click on the link of the new ground unit you have just researched. Build 300 units. They will automatically be compiled into an army.

Next you need to build a fleet to transport your army. Follow these steps:

• Go to "Research", and click on "Research new space unit", we'll start out by choosing the Small Transporter.
• Go to "Colony" and click on the link of the new space unit you have just researched. Build 3 of these Small Transporters.

Now lets capture your first planet. Follow these steps:

• Go to "Combat" and select "Show all fleets", select the fleet of small transporters you have just created.
• Select "Load fleets / armies", and now check the box next to the army you made earlier and load.

Your fleet is ready to capture it's first planet, lets find an easy one. Follow these steps:

• Go to your map and look for a planet that's type is: Very poor, or Poor. These are the easiest to capture.
• Go to "Combat" and select "Move fleets", check your fleet and enter the coordinates of the planet you have chosen. Now press "Move Fleets".

Your fleet is on its way to the planet you selected. The army will automatically deploy on the planet. When the fleet lands follow these steps:

• Go to "Combat" and select "Battle reports", these reports will keep track of the battle that ensues. The reports are updated every 15 minutes. The labels will let you know if you have won or lost the battle, so keep checking the reports while the battle is active.
• Now don't forget to build at least 100 exium mines to begin extracting exium in your main planet.

NOTES: Planets with small populations are cheaper to develop, but they have aliens that will defend it. The planet type and size determines the number of aliens on the planet. A very rich planet could have more than 500 aliens on it. Aliens are good for honing your battle skills.

Now that you have captured your planet this would be a good time to contact your neighbors. Present yourself and be polite, some of your neighbors are very powerful. You can ask to join their empire, this will allow you to grow and learn without the fear of being crushed. In the future, when you're ready to pursue your own empire you can abandon the empire you had previously joined.

In the beginning you have 90% protection, when only people within 10% of your score can attack you. After that, the percent will fall by 5% per day until it reaches 10% at which point you are only protected from empires at least 10 times the score of your own. Be aware that smaller empires may attack you to steal your resources and plunder your main planet, and you may not be able to attack them back - this is known as pirating.

My main planet has been captured!#

You did not have enough defenses in your main planet and it has been occupied by an enemy. Don't panic, it isn't the end for you. You still have control over the planet, but its buildings performance will be degraded through a 50% tax while the occupation goes on and it can't receive resource transfers. Anyway you have to free your planet, there are some things that you can do:

• Ask the other player to give back your planet. Probably, your enemy just has taken your planet to plunder it, many times you can recover it simply asking for it politely. The Galactic Empires player base is very nice.
• If that doesn't work, then you can offer to join your empire with the occupier. Don't waste the opportunity of learn playing with the other player.
• You may sometimes find players that are not so nice and refuse to return your planet. If this happens then you only can recover your planet by force, ask for help from other empires with the belief that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Eventually you will find someone nice who will assist you in liberating your planet.
• If it comes to fighting the occupation yourself, the secret is make the occupation cost the enemy. If the enemy losses more resources than he gets then he may finally leave your planet.
• Even if all these things don't work, you can begin playing as a pirate. You have nothing to loose, if you have some forces you can plunder other colonies to get resources or even sell your services to other players. You may then use the resources collected as pirate to build another home world, to buy a big fleet and army to recover your own main planet or even to grow as a pirate becoming a legend and a pain for others. Your enemies will regret the first attack.

Map#

The map is located at the bottom of the screen. The map consists of three different levels:

• Sectors: A grid that shows the star systems.
• Star Systems: Displays the active star systems in a sector.
• Planets: Displays the planets in a star system.

Sectors could be empty because Star Systems are only created when a user registers. This means that near all stars have a user associated with them.

When clicking on any planet the planet's information will be displayed on the right hand side of the screen, and you will not lose your map location.

You can go back into the map with the path that you will find over the map. If you click on "Map", you will go to the sectors Map.

NOTES: All sectors, stars and planets that your empire influences (owns or occupies) are labeled with a green mark.

It is also possible to view the influence of another empire, at least, it is possible to view planets you have detected in the fog of war. This can be done by viewing the appropriate empire profile and clicking on the "Show influence" link. This will add a red mark to the map indicating the locations of that empire.

Planet#

The selected planet's characteristics will show on the right side of the screen. These characteristics are:

• SizeThe image of the planet shows the size of the planet. As does the maximum development.
• TypeThere are 4 kind of planets: Very rich, rich, poor and very poor. Size and type will determine the maximum buildings that the planet can support and will affect the aliens found on an unclaimed planet. Type and size are represented in the planet information screen.
• LocationThis is used as a unique identifier for each planet. This identifier is used to give a path to spacecraft. If you click on it, the location will be copied on the clipboard, or will be copied onto a text field if it is active. If you find (SG) on the location side then the planet has an stargate. See stargate section to learn about them.
• DevelopIf the planet has a colony you will see the total development and the maximum development that the planet can support, if not, you will see only the maximum development. The higher the development a planet can support, the more productive it will be.
• CreditsThis is only shown if the planet is owned by you. Credits are accumulated on the planet until you use them to build or research something. Credit production is proportional to the planet population. You will see the amount credits produced per tick (100 seconds)
• ExiumExium is the other resource needed to make production on your planet, but this resource is only available to extract on a few planets. It is very difficult to find it. Fortunately, you can transfer exium between planets, or load it in your cargo fleets to transport it. If the planet is owned by you, you will see the quantity of exium ready to use on the planet and the amount extracted per tick time, if not, you only will see the concentration of exium in the planet. Every home world has 10% concentration, but there will be planets with up to 30% concentration. The more exium concentration, the more exium will be extracted per tick with the same number of mines.
• OwnerHere you find the owner of the planet. This is shown only if the planet has a owner.
• EmpireHere you find the empire in control of the planet. This is shown only if the planet has a owner.
• OccupierIf a planet is under occupation, you will see this information. Occupier will be in green color if the planet is occupied by your forces and it will be in red if you are the owner of the planet and it is occupied by another player.
• Planet fleetsHere you find the available fleets of your empire on a planet.
• Planet armiesHere you find the available armies of your empire on a planet.

Resources#

There are only 2 resources that are accumulated in any planet. A planet need these resources in order to build or research something. Resources can be transferred between planets. If you have the resources to do it, your action will be made instantly, so, you don't need to wait to have it available and you don't need to be connected all day to wait to finish something and begin a new action to be productive. Stress is not good for humans, take your time and live your life.

Credits#

Credits are produced and accumulated by planets automatically. The production per game tick (100 secs) depends on the amount of housing on the planet. A planet can store a limited amount credits, and the planet will not produce more if the amount accumulated reaches that limit. So you have to use credits to maximize your production. But you will need several days to archive that quantity in a populated planet, so, you can forget a planet and use it when you need it or when you have the time to do it.

Exium#

Exium is a resource used to make production in your planet. All planets have exium, however exium can be found at different concentrations. You should have at least one planet with exium to have a chance playing against your enemies. If a planet has exium, it will be extracted automatically if you build mines. Everything has a exium cost. If none of your planets have high exium concentration you might want to trade for it or get a planet with a high concentration.

Research#

Galactic Empires hasn't a tech tree, you will create your own unique units and you will decide when to improve your technology to produce better units. Units have "build points" that depend on the size of the unit and the technology of your empire. The more tech level you have, the more build points you will have for the same unit size. You can research average units or specialized units to beat your enemy, it's up to you.

Research tasks can be made in your planets individually. If you have the appropriate resources to make a research task, then you will be able to finish it and the new design or tech improvement will be available instantly.

Improve tech level#

Here you can increment your tech level. Each point has a price, and that price grows as your tech level increases. You should think before making tech increments, because they could be a little expensive and you have to research new units in order to enjoy your new technology level - your old units will not automatically be updated.

Research new weapon#

Weapon capabilities are not affected by tech level, but you will be able to fit more weapon's on a ship at a higher tech level.When you increase tech level it is sometimes necessary to research a new weapon to maximize the power of your new unit. The best way to learn how they will perform is by research new weapons and probing them in a battle, so don't be afraid to waste some credits. A new weapon may not prove to be very effective but it will give to you the experience that you will need in the future to beat an enemy with very different weapons. Weapons have these design items:

• NameTo identify your weapon
• PowerThe capacity to destroy unit shields. It has a big impact on final damage. If the weapon power is lower than the shield, the unit WILL NOT RECEIVE ANY DAMAGE. If power is greater than enemy shield, the total damage will be proportional to the difference and the weapon damage.
• DamageThe capacity to destroy unit hulls. Final damage also depends on the power.
• AccuracyThe reliability of the weapon. The more accuracy, the more hits it could achieve. It is given as a percentage. Sometimes you will need snipers to beat some units difficult to hit because they are small or they have a great maneuverability.
• RangeThe scope of the weapon. The more range, the more chance to target and shot an enemy as they are targeted from further back. Weapons with bigger range will shot first in a battle causing damage before other units can shot. It has a big impact on the final weapon size. Short range has some benefit on final accuracy. Sometimes you will need your sniper can beat its enemies shooting very far from them or even you can design a very powerful weapon for a soldier, but it has to be very near to shot it. Very useful for asymmetric warfare. Use always medium-high range for low maneuverability units or they can't target enemies because they will be always out of range. If you load a low range weapon on a high maneuverability unit, then the unit will be able to close down units and attack them.
• RateThe number of shots in a battle. A high rate will improve the chance of hitting any enemy, especially hard to hit enemies.

Possibilities are infinite, only you can imagine how to use this to beat your enemies. Once you have researched a weapon, it will be available for use in your unit designs.

Research new space units#

Space units are the first defense against an enemy attack, and you need them to bring your armies to enemy planets. An Army is very vulnerable in space, because its carriers can be destroyed before they deploy armies onto the planet, so, you should secure space before invading the planet or risk loosing all of your army.

While a fleet is attacking a planet, that planet will be blockaded and unable to receive and send resource transfers, so you can use them to stop your enemy economy and prevent the building of new forces at that planet.

Space units could be destroyers, corvettes, fighters, bombers, turrets... Only your imagination is the limit.

Space units have these design components:

• NameTo identify your space unit design
• HullThe size of your unit. Hull will be the damage points that your unit can support. Notice that the "points" marker will change with this. Its value will determine the maximum points that you can allocate in this design, in relation to your tech level. You could categorize units with this scale: 100 - 150 fighter, 150 - 300 heavy fighter, 300 - 1000 corvette, 1000 - 3000 freighter, 30000 - 10000 destroyer, 10000 - 20000 cruiser, 20000 - 50000 battleship, 50000+ battlestar/drednaught... your mind is the limit.
• ShieldIt protects units against enemy weapons. The total damage received have a definitive dependence on this. If the weapon power is lower than the shield, the unit will not receive any damage. If power is greater than shield, the total damage will be proportional to the difference and the weapon damage. If final damage is less than unit hull then damage will have a penalty. With a damage penalty, if there are many units, then they may protect themselves and the penalty will be greater.
• EngineThe engines of your spacecraft that are used in normal space. It determines the maneuverability of the unit and the capacity to close down and intercept other units. Its rating is shown by the "combat" (maneuverability) stat. It has a big impact on the total shots and hits obtained and total shots evaded. If your unit is big it will need more engines to have a good maneuverability. So, some big spacecraft will not have high maneuverability. You can also design units without engines to act as space turrets and use the points that would be spent on engines to carry more powerful weapons or stronger shields.
• CommandThis is the computer system that synchronizes units in combat. It helps to target enemies and to evade attacks. Command could be decisive in a battle, don't underestimate it. Not every ship should carry command though because command is shared by units with it, to units without.

Please see  Command  for more information.

• HangarCapacity of the unit to carry other space or ground units. The amount of space occupied by a unit is the same as its hull size.
• HyperunitThis decides if the space unit has the ability to travel between planets, stars and sectors. The cost of this feature is always the same so, big units will load easily a hyperunit, but you should think if your fighters should have it, because is expensive for mass production and also increases their size, limiting their maneuverability.
• WeaponsYou can have 4 different weapons and any quantity that you want for them. You could design units without weapons.
• Defensive weaponsYou have a check for every weapon to mark it as defensive. If your weapon has a sorter range than enemy range, then your unit have to advance to the enemy giving to him the chance of fire more shots to your unit. So defensive units are not used for attack, they have a penalty in this role, but they are useful because your unit will not advance if the range is short, your units will wait for enemy units with sorter range. It is useful in example for destroyers to combine the main cannon with a medium-large range and a short range and low power/damage cannon marked as defensive to shot enemy fighters armed with bombs with short range. The destroyer will maintain a distance from the enemies of the main weapon getting less shots and defending efficiently from the fighters.

Research new ground units#

A planet is not conquered until it not has defending troops inside. So ground units are a vital barrier against your enemies, and are needed to take a planet. Ground units are tanks, turrets, droids...

Ground units have these design items:

• NameTo identify your ground unit design
• HullThe size of your unit. Hull will be the damage points that your unit can support. Notice that the "points" marker will change with this. Its value will determine the maximum points that you can allocate in this design. It depends on tech level. Maximum value in ground is 300. You can categorize units with this scale: 10 - 25 droid, 25 - 50 heavy droid, 50 - 100 light tank, 100 - 200 medium tank, 200 - 300 heavy tank.
• ArmorIt protects units against enemy weapons. The total damage received have a definitive dependence on this. If the weapon power is lower than the shield, the unit will not receive any damage. If power is greater than shield, the total damage will be proportional to the difference and the weapon damage. If final damage is less than unit hull then damage will have a penalty. With a damage penalty, if there are many units, then they may protect themselves and the penalty will be greater.
• EngineEngines of your ground machines. It determines the maneuverability of the unit. If your unit is big it will need more engines to have a good maneuverability. So, some big units will not have engines and could be considered as turrets.
• CommandThat is the computer system that synchronize units in combat. It helps to target enemies and to evade attacks. Command could be decisive in a battle, don't underestimate it.
• WeaponsYou can have 4 different weapons and the quantity you want for them. You could design units without weapons.
• Defensive weaponsYou have a check for every weapon to mark it as defensive. If your weapon has a sorter range than enemy range, then your unit have to advance to the enemy giving to him the chance of fire more shots to your unit. So defensive units are not used for attack, they have a penalty in this role, but they are useful because your unit will not advance if the range is short, your units will wait for enemy units with sorter range. It is useful in example for tanks to combine the main cannon with a medium-large range and a short range and low power/damage gun marked as defensive to shot enemy soldiers armed with bazookas with short range. The tank will maintain a distance from the enemies of the main weapon getting less shots and defending efficiently from the fighters.

Research new soldier units#

A planet is not conquered until it not has defending troops inside. Soldiers are cheap to produce and are very important to defend planets and asymmetric warfare.

Soldier units have these design items:

• NameTo identify your soldier unit design
• HullThe size of your unit. Hull will be the damage points that your unit can support. For a soldier is always 10. Notice that the "points" marker are always 50. Combat is always the same too, 90%
• ArmorIt protects units against enemy weapons. The total damage received have a definitive dependence on this. If the weapon power is lower than the shield, the unit will not receive any damage. If power is greater than shield, the total damage will be proportional to the difference and the weapon damage. If final damage is less than unit hull then damage will have a penalty. With a damage penalty, if there are many units, then they may protect themselves and the penalty will be greater.
• WeaponsSoldiers can carry only 2 different weapons.
• Defensive weaponsYou have a check for every weapon to mark it as defensive. If your weapon has a sorter range than enemy range, then your unit have to advance to the enemy giving to him the chance of fire more shots to your unit. So defensive units are not used for attack, they have a penalty in this role, but they are useful because your unit will not advance if the range is short, your units will wait for enemy units with sorter range. It is useful in example soldiers with a short range weapon to kill efficiently other short range enemy units.

Research new nuke units#

Nukes allow you to bomb enemy planets and kill up to 50% enemy ground units and up to 50% buildings per battle turn. Nuke effect is calculated before the ground battle and after the space battle, so you need the sky safe to send nukes because they are pretty expensive.

Nukes may be used for some tasks like destroy a massive ground army without space protection, as a way to destroy your enemy buildings to damage his economy in one sector, as a fear factor, or as a way to destroy housing to conquer developed enemy planets. They are a tactic weapon for advanced rounds, and it may be definitive to win or loose a war. Higher nukes will be more cost effective.

Nukes are not available until your empire reach 2,000 tech level.

Build#

Build tasks can be made in your planets individually. If you have the appropriate amount of resources, the task will be finished instantly and you will have your build available.

Build panel is not only used to build your researched units or buildings, it could be used to manage planet resources, that is mine exium (if it is available), transfer resources to any other planet (owned by you or not, as a payment or a tribute) and even donate the whole planet to other user. Transferring resources have a cost that depends on the amount transferred and how far is the target planet.

Buildings#

At the beginning you only can build housing in your planet. Housing will increase the population of your planet and the planet will get more credits per turn to build whatever you want.

If you reach 500 development level (that is, you build 500 housing), then your planet will be able to build new buildings that will help to your planet to be more productive. The development level on each kind of building will reduce some task credit cost. There are no limit to the maximum development level of these buildings, they are only limited by the size of the planet.

• Laboratories: reduce the cost of researching
• Barracks: reduce the cost of building soldiers
• Factories: reduce the cost of building ground units
• Orbital facilities: reduce the cost of building space units
• Exium mines: Increase the exium extraction per tick time
• Silos: Increase the planet capacity to store resources
• Command centers: Needed to expand your empire
• Scanners : Increase the scan range of your colonies
• Nuke factories: reduce the cost of building nukes

Notice that sometimes you could not develop all this features totally on a planet, so you have to choose what you want to build on each planet.

Types of players#

When you create your account you have 3 options to choose the type of player you will be:

• MinerThis kind of player is the recommended for every new player. You will have a x3 in the exium mines extraction what will give to you the ability to get exium cheaper and will boost your economy. If you build many mines you may trade with it with your neighbors and will get an extra income.
• TechnologistThis kind of player is recommended for advanced players. You will have a x3 bonus in the labs bonus building laboratories what will give to you the ability to improve your tech level and research good units. You can sell advanced units or even sell your designs to other empires to get extra income. If you play well your options you can make lots of credits or exium and you will build a huge and powerful empire, based on technology.
• ExpansionistThis kind of player is recommended for medium players with lots of time, very organized and if they want to build a very powerful empire that everyone will fear. You will have an incremental bonus when you build command centers. Expansionist duty is rule the galaxy, your economy will be very strong and you should buy exium and units to the other 2 kind of players.

Combat#

In the combat panel you can control all your empire fleets and armies, fleets and armies in action, that is attacking or defending planets, traveling, etc, and enemy fleets and armies used to attack your empire. In this panel you can find the wars in what your empire is involved and battle reports for each planet to see how well your designs perform against your enemies.

How battle reports work#

Battle reports are executed each 15 minutes. Between battle reports you can send reinforcements to the battlefield. In a battle report there are 2 battles, space and ground . It is important to know that space battle is executed before ground battle, so your ground units carried in your fleets could be destroyed in space and never will be in action.

You will conquer a planet when there are no enemy ground units deployed on it. So ground battles are decisive but they need space support to land in the planet relatively safe.

Each unit will divide its shots among all enemy units giving preference to those units that will get more damage with the weapon. Final hits and damage will depend on both designs. Take a look to weapon and unit design section to know how they could work in a battle in attack and defense. You have to take a look carefully to all battle reports to know how your units perform against enemies, and if you need to research new units to defeat them. In battle reports you will see the space and ground battles. The information you could find in them is the following:

• Att. unitNumber and design of attacking units. You will see a symbol to show the size relation between the attacking and defending unit. (=) Size more or less equal, (>) attacker up to 3X size of defender, (>>) attacker up to 10X size of defender, (>>>) attacker more than 10X size of defender. The same with symbol '<' will be shown when the attacker size will be less that defender size.
• Def. unitNumber and design of defending units attacked.
• Weapon (shot order)Weapon and number of them carried by each unit used in this attack. You will see under this property between parenthesis the shot order of all weapons on a battle. The order depends on the range of the weapon. Notice that if your units don't shot the first they can suffer casualties before the shot, so you will see in "Att. unit" only the total units available to shot.
• ShotsTotal shots fired by the attacking units.
• HitsTotal hits obtained.
• KillsTotal units destroyed in this attack based on hits, power, damage and shield/armor.

After space and ground reports you will find a resume of the units destroyed in this battle and the number of units left that could fight in the next battle.

Stargates#

Stargates link 2 planets in a range of 30 parsecs in 30 minutes. Both planets must belong to you or your allies to apply the stargate. There are few of them, you will see which planet has a stargate in the map because they will have the mark "(Stargate)" or in the planet frame because they have the mark "(SG)" on the location side. On the planets list all Stargate locations are followed by an asterisk e.g [115,43,2*]

They are a very strategic thing to control because fleets can travel between all stargates within range in just 30 minutes giving you the possibility to send forces and resources in less time. The resource cost of sending between Stargate planets is the same as if they were in the same system at a distance of 0 parsecs. This means that with the appropiate network of stargates you can transfer resources from any place of the galaxy to your main planet instantly at very low cost.

Maximum number of owned planets (Build cost penalty)#

You can own an unlimited number of planets but you will loose production performance in all your planets for each additional planet you own. This can be avoided building  Command Centers . Command centers will become more expensive, so, once you have a good amount of owned planets it is better to occupy instead conquer planets to become stronger. Only own new planets for strategy needs, you will be able to disband any colony at any time once you don't need it.

Owned and Occupied planets#

Depending on the planet where you send an attack you will conquer or occupy a planet:

• If the planet is empty or its housing level is less than 1000 then you will conquer the planet and it will be owned by you.
• If the planet has a colony and its housing level is greater than 1000 then you will occupy the planet. This means that you will not own the planet (it will be managed by its owner) but you will tax the 50% of its credits, 50% of the exium produced there and you may collect them to your own planets. The buildings of the planet will work only at 50% for the owner and he only will collect 50% credits.

Plundering planets#

Once you have conquered a planet or have occupied it you have 24 hours to plunder it. When you plunder a planet you get an extra amount of credits end exium. You destroy all buildings if the planet is conquered (less than 1000 housing) or you will destroy 20% housing if the planet is occupied and you will maintain it occupied. You may have many reasons to plunder a planet, may be to get some resources faster, or if you don't want to maintain it under your control, or to raze the enemy economy. Is up to you.

Plundering planets can be a very profitable task if any empire is developing planets near your borders and are not well defended.

Trading#

Trade is not a must in this game, you can play without trading at all, but if you trade you may get many benefits. Any colony can transfer credits and exium to another colony. You can send transports loaded with credits, exium and units to other allied planets. And you can donate fleets or armies to any ally.

With all these tools you can make exchanges of credits/exium/units and trade with them. Possibilities are infinite, you can sell your old units to other less advanced empires, or in the other hand, buy advanced units to help yourself in a war with an enemy. Even you can build many buildings to reduce costs and sell your exium, units at reduced costs to anyone to make extra credits. Or may be you can buy some mercenaries to harass enemy planets and don't get involved in a war.

Phases of the game#

While you play, you will live different phases in the game:

• Starting grow upThis phase is very important in the game. You need to conquer your own planets to get a decent economy. You will need planets with exium, and you need it as soon as possible and near your planets. Once you have a good amount of planets (20 more or less if you are not a expander) you will find expensive to continue the expansion, so it is interesting to choose carefully which planets will you conquer. By the way, you will be able to disband any colony in the future. So don't worry if you find better planets you may conquer them and disband other worse colonies.When you start the game, it is important to be accepted in a big empire. Older players will help you, will give to you protection and will give to you technology. You will have to pay a tax in exchange to the emperor but it worth it. You can start solo but it will be harder.
• Occupying and plunder planetsOnce you have a decent economy it's time to start to occupy and plunder other planets. That will give to you extra resources to grow, it is the only way to become stronger. You can occupy as many planets as you can, you only need to control them. It could not be an easy task because its owners will want to free them.
• Create your own empireIf you decided to play in a bigger empire, once you have a good knowledge about the game and you are strong enough you can abandon the empire and create your own empire, inviting to other new players to join to it or make them surrender under your force and offering them join to your empire. This is the final step to grow, the more players will play in your empire, the more taxes you will collect and the more stronger and respected player you will be.
• Control the galaxyOnce you have a strong empire with strong players you will be able to control the galaxy and be the most powerful player. Politics will be very important here, you will need to make alliances with other empires, you will be able to hire players of other empires offering them better deals and even you can destroy/occupy other rival empires to enhance your power, influence and domination. Create your own legend.

Pirates#

You have a pirate soul and you don't like empires. You just want to spend your life plundering planets in order to buy that system you always liked the look off. Or you simply have a few minutes every day to play. Perhaps your main planet has been occupied and you can't recover it. Or you are too near to big empires and they have taken all empty planets around you but because you are too small,they can't attack you because you are under protection. There is an alternative life in this game for people like you, beyond belonging to huge empires and managing lots of planets. You can play as a pirate.

There are many things that make life easier and funny to little players:

• Fog of war hide your base colonies. You can travel to far regions and look for poor defended colonies, conquering and plundering them and coming back very fast bringing a good loot. Your enemy won't respond to your attack because your planets will be out of range of his scanners.
• Small players have points protection, they can attack big empires, but they can't respond other than to defend. So if a big empire has poorly defended colonies you can plunder them without any fear. Be warned that if you declare war on the empire, you loose the points protection.
• Trade allows you to buy advanced units from other big empires, meaning that you can focus upon plunder. Big empires usually can even hire you to harass another big empire.

Mail#

This tool is useful to contact with other players in game. Mail also will notify to the emperor important events like war declarations or it will be used to confirm peace treaties or pacific empire annexations.

News#

In the daily universe you will follow the important events that happen in the universe. It shown a rank with the top 100 empires. You even can write your own articles (about empire propaganda, alliance announcements, etc.)

Bookmarks#

You can create bookmarks for any planet to locate it in 2 clicks. With the "Marks" button you can manage them.

Planet list#

The planet list button gives to you access to all your planets in one click.

Empire management#

The empire profile is very important to locate other empire planets. There is a very useful option "Show influence" that will show in the map the influence of an empire with red marks. Also in this profile you will find the planet list, the players that are playing in the empire, the total points of the empire, rank, etc.

Notice that an empire can have an emperor, senators, governors and prisoners.

• EmperorHas all privileges in the empire even deciding who prisoner can be freed or executed or who is senator or governor. There are options only available for emperors, like change empire profile (avatar and description) and war declarations, peace treaties, taxes management and collection, join petitions to other empires or promote prisoners, execute them or kick users from the empire and promote governors to senators or demote senators to governors. Emperor is very important because he is who manage all this tools. How an empire works internally is your way, but you should vote all actions with the emperor. If an emperor is not active enough or despotism is his policy, you should abandon the empire and look for better friends.
• SenatorsAre very near the emperor, they have full access to technology and they can manage the technology library. If a senator abandon an empire he will get all the empire technology with him. You should trust very much a player to promote him to senator. Emperor and senators have private threads in the empire forum where governors can't access.
• GovernorsHave limited access to technology. They can build all units available, but they can't manage the empire technology library. If a governor abandon an empire he will not get all the technology.

Alliances#

Empires could make alliances to give support on attack or defense tasks, trade and share technology. Allied forces can fly freely among allied planets. An alliance is owned by the founder player and he has the power to accept or not join petitions of other empires to the alliance. Only emperors can create alliances or ask for join to other alliances, and any empire can only be linked with one alliance.

Allied empires can share designs with other alliance members.

User profile#

Here you will see the avatar, description, position, rank, points, etc... of a player. In your profile you can change your avatar, description and password.