Old gem
Played this way back as a teen. Rose tinted glasses (somehow) on now.
Excellent empire building, great campaigns with sort of variable story (really!), awesome videos (back then) and great combat. Although most techs are shared, there are a few disabled for various races or some that are only available for select few.
Espionage worked tremendously, flipping enemy, killing leaders, taking planets or just stealing that OP Krahen weapon tech that you cannot have... Counter-espionage highly useful and recommended, not many games bother this much.
2nd market for ships and land vehicles (yes, land combat is there too, defend plants, conquer, both land, space and land to space weaponry even, able to influence ship combat with planet based cannons). Buy bulk and old on the cheap!
All in all, very good game back in the day, shame it was not widely known. Something like this but modern would glue people to the screen for sure.






