Gameplay Tutorial

After the opening screen you'll see some early 90's graphics (Esc or mouse click to skip this part)

You'll come to the Main Screen:

The round visual area (top left) doesn't do much at first. Later, it'll show an overall visual of your colonized planets, the enemies colonized planets, and the relative danger - represented by a big ugly face in the screen - your in. The ball with the down arrow on the bottom corner left will bring your view back to your main, or starbase.

Moving to the right you see gold up and down arrows, then a skinny reddish thingy. The arrows click through the planets. Click on the thingy to scroll through same.

Next is a visual of the selected planet. In this example it's your main planet, or Starbase.

The open hand on the right will pause the game.
Click on the ear to silence the lame sound effects.

Below the planet visual is the message screen. You'll be getting transmissions on a bunch of stuff, including ditties from the enemy.

Below the round screen is a set of eight icons. You'll see these on most of the screens.

brings you to the overall stats screen. (This, and most screens will be covered later)

brings you to where you buy stuff: ships, food & mineral processors, etc.

shows the status of all your units. This is where you launch, travel and land your ships.

is used to operate your terraformer.

goes to the Army's "recruiting and training"

takes you to the Loading Dock.

is to the selected planet's surface. Here's where you put your food and mining units.

if it's your planet, your trained and equipped platoons are listed, ready to be put aboard the battle cruisers. If it's on the enemies planet, it's where the battle takes place

is where you contact your spies. For a price, you'll get info on the bad guy.

to save/load a savedgame or to start a new game.

Next:

2: Getting Started