The game is set in a Galaxy filled with many planets. Each nation starts with one populated planet. The other planets are empty. The goal of the game is to conquer the whole Galaxy by colonising the empty planets and killing the other nations. A game runs several turns a week.
Players send in orders before each turn.
These orders tell what the player wants his nation to do, and after each turn runs each player receives a report that states what happened that turn. There are many programs that allow you to graphically browse these turn reports. They show a map of the galaxy, the position all ships, and all kind of other statistics, and allow you to create orders. When you play a nations you can do many things. You can design your own ships.