As a player, you will develop both the population and technology levels of your local culture while at the same time trying to hinder the development of your neighboring cultures. Each culture holds a hand of five cards. Each turn a culture chooses to play one card, increasing its own population or technology, erecting a defense against attacks, attacking another culture's population or technology, or removing another culture's defenses.
Turns take place once per day.
The following figure shows a portion of typical culture report. The report begins with general information about your culture, including what defenses you currently have in play. In this case, the Azad culture has a defense against acts of terrorism. Next, there is a listing of the neighboring cultures. Although there may be many cultures in the game, the slow speed of inter-system travel limits each culture to seeing only its four closest neighbors.