This game is an IBM version of Space Empire Elite (S.E.E.), an Atari ST online game. Space Empire, S.E.E.'s ancestor, was written by Jon Radoff. Then S.E.E. was written by Jurgen Van Den Handle, and the newer versions of S.E.E. were updated and maintained by Carlis Darby and David Pence of HyperSpace Software. David Pence now supports S.E.E. for the Atari ST computers. Carlis Darby worked on an IBM version of S.E.E. SRE was originally a clone of S.E.E., written from scratch on the IBM without the source code to S.E.E., and from there it has evolved differently than S.E.E. Although S.E.E. is (and probably always will be) superior to SRE, we wrote SRE to give IBM users a chance to play this game.

SRE is a game in which players build an empire and at the same time build a military to defend against other empires. Up to 25 players can build empires in each Galaxy. The Galactic Coordinator (“It”), controlled by computer, is the ruler of the Galaxy. It offers protection for the empires to build up without fear of being destroyed by larger empires, and It sells soldiers, fighters, defense stations, heavy cruisers, carriers, generals, a command ship, planets, covert agents, lottery tickets, and food to each empire. In return, the Galactic Coordinator collects taxes from each empire; It uses most of the taxes to distribute Galactic funding daily so that each empire may have spending money outside of its own profits. Large empires usually make more money than the funding, but smaller empires make a significant amount of money from funding. Empires can attack each other to capture planets for themselves, or use covert operations to cause internal disorder in opponent empires. They can also attack 9 pirate teams, which are computer-controlled. There is also great potential in peaceful relations between empires: there are 6 treaty types to encourage either military or peaceful alliances. Also, empires can trade with each other if one empire wishes to rid himself of an item that another empire has.

In addition, SRE allows many different “flavors” to be used. Instead of a space game in the tradition of S.E.E., you can set up a post-nuclear-war game (like BRE), wild-west, medieval, Star Wars, Star Trek, Jurassic Park, army, Dungeons & Dragons, Dune, or make your own flavor. There are several flavors included with the game, and more are available on the Solar Realm.