Gateway to the Stars (Steven Bucey, November 1997)

Think Big. Think Really Big. W.W.II is small potatoes, as far as this
game is concerned. Gateway to the Stars from Twentieth Century
Renaissance is one of many games where the goal is control of not one
planet, but many planets, in several star systems. 

This game has a lot of similarities to Stellar Conquest (published first
by Metagamming, then by Avalon Hill), but without a lot of the book
keeping. It provides several scenarios, but the standard multi-player
version has from four to seven players start with a single star system
from which they send out ships to explore and colonize a local cluster
of stars (69 in all). 

Play is fast. It took about 20 minutes to teach the game, and then we
got 6 or 7 turns of a 9 turn game in less than 3 hours. 

Planets are represented by chits, randomly pulled upon exploration. They
are rated for habitability, meaning how easy it is to put or add a
colony to it. Colonies generate income, with which you build probes,
survey ships, cruisers, dreadnoughts, starbases, and colony expeditions
(to build new colonies). When you explore a system, you pull Survey
Cards which often give you advances towards new technologies and present
hazards which must be overcome; reading the card descriptions of the
hazards came be fun in of themselves. No, you don’t purposely do
research yourself. This is one of the games weak points with players, as
your technology advances are entirely out of your control. Other games
on the subject are much better, though the record keeping is greater in
such games. 

Combat is simple (to simple, in some gamers opinions). The game is not
sophisticated by any means. But, for a quick game with a lot of neat
chrome, this is a interesting and fun game.