Star General bases its story setting on The Fleet, a series of books written by David Drake and Bill Fawcett.

Star General pits up to seven alien races against one another in a galactic battle of conquest.

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 docks for launching ships, mines 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.

[6] Computer Gaming World'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.