SternenreichOne move per hour.
One round over weeks.
You start with a single home world and build an empire from it: settle planets, put up buildings, raise fleets, hold your ground — against other people who intend the same. No constant clicking, no energy bar, no buy buttons. Just one shared clock that runs at the same speed for everyone.
- 1 h
- per move
- 2,160
- moves per round
- 90
- days per round
- 0
- buy buttons
Fast rounds start and end by themselves: weekend round Saturday 09:00 to Sunday 21:00 with one move per minute, two-week round every other Monday 09:00 with ten minutes per move. Join at any time, no push notifications.
What it is about
The tick
All players tick together, as a rule once an hour. On each tick, production, build jobs, flights and battles advance by one step. You do not have to be there — but anyone who sees a fleet inbound should have done something about it before it arrives.
The universe
49 galaxies, arranged in rings. The richest planets and the most dangerous neighbours are on the inside; the outside is poor and quiet. At the start only the centre is open; with every player who joins, more galaxies open up — about ten planets per head. Every planet has its own deposits of metal, mineral, food and energy — worth a look before you settle.
The home world
It cannot be conquered — nobody throws you off it. Lose every colony and you are still not out: you start again from your home world. A round runs to the end for everyone.
Join at any time
You do not have to wait for a new round to begin. In the list of open rounds you can also join one that has been running for weeks. You then start from nothing, like everyone did on the first tick — and that is the whole point: practising an opening against a living world instead of an empty sky.
Alliances
You can team up, share what you see and coordinate attacks — or break the pact at the right moment. That is part of the game, and the reason rounds become worth telling stories about.
How a tick runs
Once an hour the server computes for everyone at the same time, in a fixed order. Shooting comes first, counting comes last — anyone who sees a fleet inbound has until the full hour.
- CombatFleets in the same orbit fire. Every ship counts.
- InvasionSoldiers land, planets change hands.
- ColonisationOutpost ships settle in.
- FlightsDepartures, arrivals, trade routes.
- RadarComms satellites report what is closing in.
- ConstructionQueues advance, ship yards deliver.
- YieldsMetal, mineral, food, energy — by abundance.
- Research & scorePoints are booked, the ranking moves.
What it looks like
Four screens from the Android app. The browser version at /spiel has the same pages — with the same tab bar at the bottom on a phone.
How a round runs
A round is a self-contained game with a beginning and an end. Afterwards everything is reset and everyone starts from nothing again — losing is cheap. That is exactly what makes it easy to start: there is no three-year head start you can never catch up with.
| Kind of round | Pace | Length | What for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Long round | 1 hour per tick | Weeks to months | The real form of the game: plan for the long run, forge alliances. |
| Fast round | 1 minute per tick | One weekend | The same game in fast forward, for anyone who does not want to wait. |
| Practice round | You press the button | As long as you like | Alone against computer opponents, no clock — for learning. |
Twenty minutes a day
Give orders, walk away, check back later. The tick waits for nobody — and needs nobody either.
From your phone
The app wakes you when a fleet is inbound or a build is done. The browser does the same, nothing to install.
Every battle has a receipt
Ship by ship, side by side: what was there, what was lost, what remained. To read back and build better.
Join in
It is running. The first long round has started — one move per hour, for three months — and you can join right now, mid-flight. All it takes is a Google account to sign in; there is nothing to install.
Coming to Steam — 30 November
The Windows version is built: the same empire, the same round as in the browser and on your phone — with a wide layout, mouse and keyboard. The Steam page is up; add the game to your wishlist and Steam will let you know the moment it launches.
Joining late gets you the same hard start as everyone else — no head start. That is deliberate: you practise an opening against a living world instead of an empty sky. The Android app is on Google Play. Questions to amonandi@hotmail.com.
Radio
The public channel: what commanders and the server reported last — joins, conquests, alliance foundings, declarations of war in full. Anyone can read, anyone signed in can write — to the radio in the game or in the app under “Radio”.
- Checking …
Operations
The game server runs on its own machine in a data centre in Finland and computes the ticks of the running rounds. This display only asks for its operating state — no game data, no names.
Where this comes from
From 2001 to 2008 there was a browser game called DarkGalaxy, with over 20,000 players at its peak. It was a desert of tables without graphics, and it was magnificent: because a round lasted three months, because you knew the neighbour whose colony you took, and because alliances built websites of their own. In 2025 the last instance shut down for good.
Sternenreich is not a clone and not a sequel, but a game of its own in the same tradition: its own name, its own graphics, its own text, its own numbers. What is carried over are playing principles — the hourly tick, the ring-shaped universe, the home world that cannot be taken. What the original could only do on the side, because players cobbled their own calculators into the browser window, belongs built in here.
No buy button, no advertising, no usage tracking. A private project.