Starfire is a board wargame (a "4X", eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate) simulating space warfare and empire building in the 23rd century, created by Stephen V. Cole in 1979.
The original Starfire consisted of 10 two-player combat scenarios – designed to be played sequentially[1] that involved maneuvering fleets of spaceships with different technologies, one of them human and the other "Khanate".
[1] The game also could be adapted for three players so that the humans and the Khanate encounter a third mysterious and even more technologically advanced race, the Ophiuchi.
SDS also released Interstellar War #4: Arachnids (ISW-4) (electronic only), which was written by David Weber and sold to SDS in a preliminary form by TFG; Insurrection (electronic only) is based on the book of the same name by David Weber and Steve White; and Shipyard is a computer program to speed the designing of ships.
It automated most of the record-keeping of the campaign game, leaving only actual combat needing maps and counters.
This edition combines all the rules (Tactical and Strategic) back into a single rulebook, and replaces the earlier system of Technology Levels with Tech Trees.
Some elements of the game are similar to that of Star Fleet Battles, which was also created by Task Force Games in 1979, including the impulse based movement system and a ship sheet with shields, armor and weapons that are destroyed in a specific order.
It also lacks the concept of defining speeds over shorter intervals than one turn, and this eases the elimination of advance plotting of movement.
Between 1990 and 2002, David Weber and Steve White co-authored a tetralogy of science fiction novels set in the game universe.
The latest novels, Extremis and Imperative, were co-written by Steven White and Charles E. Gannon and published in May 2011 and March 2016.
[5] In the September 1979 edition of Dragon, Tim Kask found the original Starfire "a lot of fun to play.
30), Steve Winter commented on the simplicity of the original Starfire, saying, "If you're looking for detail and realism, you won't find it here.
If you enjoy maneuvering massive fleets into high-technology slaughter and don't mind an extremely simplistic treatment of space combat, you'll like Starfire.".
The only fault Goldberg found was the scale of the combat, which was a half a light-second per hex, making the weapons "unbelievably effective."
Goldberg commented that the game mechanics "seemed more suited to sea-going than space-faring ships, and the putative scale is ludicrous."
However, Goldberg concluded with a strong recommendation for both games, saying, "a nice, fast, playable and non-taxing recreation at a low price.
He thought the game overall was excellent, noting that "Players have numerous decisions to make, and even more if allowed to design their own ships."
"[10] Jason Fryer reviewed Starfire in White Wolf #40 (1994), rating it a 4.5 out of 5 and stated that "To my mind, this is an excellent simulation system.
"[11] Aurora, described as a "4X Sci-Fi Dwarf Fortress in space", was originally based on an assistant program for Starfire.