''Star General'' is a

computer wargame A computer wargame is a wargame played on a digital device. Descended from board wargaming, it simulates military conflict at the tactical, operational or strategic level. Computer wargames are both sold commercially for recreational use ...

, last in SSI's series of hexagonal-movement games popularized by ''

Panzer General ''Panzer General'' is a 1994 computer wargame developed and published by Strategic Simulations Inc. (SSI). It simulates conflict during World War II. The designers of ''Panzer General'' were heavily influenced by the Japanese wargame series '' ...

''. ''Star General'' bases its story setting on ''The Fleet'', a series of books written by

David Drake David A. Drake (September 24, 1945 – December 10, 2023) was an American author of science fiction and fantasy literature. A Vietnam War veteran, he worked as a lawyer before becoming a writer in the military science fiction genre. Biography ...

and Bill Fawcett. The game was developed by Catware and SSI in 1996.

Gameplay

''Star General'' pits up to seven alien races against one another in a galactic battle of conquest. The seven races include the deceitful Cephalians, the reptilian Dragonians, the feline Hressa, the Humans, the barbarian Khalians, the insectoid Xritra, and

fascist Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural soci ...

human separatists who belong to the Schleinel Hegemony. There are 90 different types of units, from ground forces to spaceships. Among the space vessels there are a wide variety of specializations—including mine countermeasure vessels, assault vessels,

troop transport Troop transport may be: * Troopship * Military Railway Service (United States) * Military transport aircraft A military transport aircraft, military cargo aircraft or airlifter is a military aircraft, military-owned transport aircraft used ...

reconnaissance In military operations, military reconnaissance () or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, the terrain, and civil activities in the area of operations. In military jargon, reconnai ...

battleship A battleship is a large, heavily naval armour, armored warship with a main battery consisting of large naval gun, guns, designed to serve as a capital ship. From their advent in the late 1880s, battleships were among the largest and most form ...

missile boat A missile boat or missile cutter is a small, fast warship armed with anti-ship missiles. Being smaller than other warships such as destroyers and frigates, missile boats are popular with nations interested in forming a navy at lower cost. They ...

s, carriers and

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...

s. There is also some use of older terms of reference for classifying

warships A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is used for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the navy branch of the armed forces of a nation, though they have also been operated by individuals, cooperatives and corporations. As well as ...

—terms of reference that are not used in the navies of today. One example is that the term

monitor Monitor or monitor may refer to: Places * Monitor, Alberta * Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States * Monitor, Kentucky * Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States * Monitor, Washington * Monitor, Logan County, Wes ...

is used to specify a kind of space warship. The general disposition of ship types is an approximation of navies in the era between the two world wars, before carriers became a major part of naval forces. On the planetary surface, there are

space dock A space dock is a hypothesised type of space station that is able to repair or build spacecraft similar to maritime shipyards on Earth. They remove the need for new spacecraft to perform a space launch to reach space and existing spacecraft to ...

s for launching ships,

mines Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging *Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging *Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun Mi ...

to produce monetary units, factories to manufacture ships, and industrial plants and biodomes to support population, as well as a range of ground forces, again roughly equivalent to military forces in mid to late 1930s to perhaps early WW2.

Reception

''Star General'' sold at least 50,000 units by September 1997 and over 120,000 units by May 1999. ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American Video game journalism, computer game magazine that was published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 199 ...

''s Tim Carter panned the game as "all the flash and little of the gameplay" of what made the original a classic, but praised the clean interface, simple learning curve, and some fun moments in space fleet actions. ''Star General'' was named the 85th best computer game ever by ''PC Gamer UK'' in 1997.

References

External links

''Star General''
at

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controlle ...

{{Panzer General series 1996 video games Computer wargames DOS games Science fiction video games Single-player video games Strategic Simulations games Turn-based strategy video games Video games based on novels Video games developed in the United States Windows games