The Emperor looked deep into his space-phone's screen. The display was as black as space itself, the ships of his fleet shone as tiny, lit-up silhouettes almost lost among the diamond speckles of the stars. Hushed voices came from beyond the throne in the darkened room. The Emperor hunched himself closer to the screen, his fingernail slowly traced the outline of one ship on the glass screen. The conversation behind him peaked louder for a moment, then ceased. The Emperor waited. Soon enough, a polite cough told him they had delegated a spokesman.

He tore his attention away from the screen, from the pending fleet-to-fleet battle, to receive this new item of news. The planets in Sector K had, he learned, reported turning back the enemy's latest raiding parties. But the effort had cost them in both ships and supplies. Two of the most important industrialized worlds in K Sector along with a few farming worlds were in the grips of economic collapse. Without those planets at full efficiency, the entire industrial output of Sector K could fall off and without Sector K.

The gamer can be an Emperor and have all this power and more - thanks to The Cosmic Balance, a tactical space-combat game, and the new Cosmic Balance II, a strategic and economic module. While either game can be played on its own, put the both together for a simulation of running a Galactic Empire that verges on the unbelievably realistic. And, with the two together, you also have the first computer rendition of what boardgamers refer to fondly as a "monster" game. Such a game as this cannot be played in one sitting, nor even a week of normal play.

The overall design of Cosmic Balance II is to place the players (it is either two-player or solitaire against a computer-run opponent) in the position of controlling the strategy of an expanding galactic empire. Attention must be paid to economic considerations as well as to military objectives - indeed military maneuvers are indulged in for the sake of economics with territorial gain being seen as a secondary point among all the vast worlds available in space.

The area of the galaxy that the action takes place in has been divided into 16 sectors. The sectors are shaped, on the two-dimensional sector display, rather randomly. Their borders are drawn so that each one contains 40 inhabitable planets. Colonizing these planets, raising their economic levels high enough so that they can all trade within groups called "commerce nets" and so develop into a healthy empire is each player's long-term goal. It won't be easy, especially if the two opponents wage interstellar battle as they almost always must.

A typical turn in Cosmic Balance II begins with the Production Phase, which is subdivided into a Ship Supply Segment and a Construction Segment. During the Ship Supply Segment, the player will have access to a number of displays which detail all the ships and planets within his Empire. Once the player decides to give orders he will first see how many Industrial Output points (IO's) the planets in his empire are supplying this turn. With them he will first supply his existing starships. Then he can build new starships. There are 15 varieties of ships which may be built, divided among five size classifications of (from smallest to largest) corvette, frigate, destroyer, cruiser and dreadnought. The ships further differ in their cargo carrying capacities, their range of operations, their attack and defense strengths, their armor, and of course how much each type costs to build and maintain.

For instance, a trader ship is the same size as an escort ship (both size four or at the cruiser level). But the trader has a hold of size five (it can carry 5 x 250 = 1,250 supply points from star to star) as opposed to no room at all for cargo in the escort. But the militarily-oriented escort has an attack value of eight (meaning it mounts the equivalent of eight "seige phasors") as opposed to the trader's one. While both ships have a defensive capability of 12, the trader has very little armor while the escort is heavily armored. Most of the ships available have a range of one. This allows such a ship to move to or from a friendly sector each turn. But only the few ships with range of two can move once more during a second movement phase. All of these factors contribute to making every ship-buying spree a juggling act of decisions and worry.

Following the Construction Segment is the First Movement Phase. Here, orders are given to each individual ship as to possible missions within the Empire or against the enemy in enemy-held sectors. There are eight missions which may be assigned: garrision, commerce, supply, patrol, invasion, commerce raid, planetary raid and scouting.

The supply mission will, later in the game turn, allow the player to use ships with cargo capacities to supply worlds which are not yet viable enough to be self-sufficient. Commerce missions, on the other hand, assign ships to worlds that have formed into commerce nets and which can be self-sustaining and very profitable - if given a small number of ships to maintain the commercial lines. A planetary raid mission sends the ships involved on attack and run missions against enemy planets in the hopes of ruining them economically. An invasion mission will send cargo ships carrying seasoned space veterans along on a raid in the hopes of occupying an enemy planet, garrisoning and conquering it for the home Empire. Patrol missions attempt to intercept enemy raids and/or invasions throughout friendly space while ships on garrison protect their one planet. Meanwhile, ships on scout missions continue to find new planets to colonize and bring into the fold.

Following this movement phase is the execution phase. At this point the ships try to complete their missions. Depending on the enemy's own ships, they may run into combat situations. A force of a half-dozen Attack-class ships on a planetary raid, for example, may find itself facing a heavily garrisoned world (with maybe five Watcher-class ships) or perhaps will run into a fleet of ten Lancer-class patrol vessels.

At this point the computer will decide the results of each combat - or the players can play out every tactical decision of the more interesting combats using The Cosmic Balance, the first game in the series. At this point the proceedings of Cosmic Balance II are saved to disk and the other game is played. But, before examining, briefly, the first game - let's finish looking at Cosmic Balance II.

Following the First Movement Phase is the Colony Supply Phase. During this phase all existing colonies that have not progressed far enough (10 levels) to form commerce nets must be supplied. Colonies which are not supplied will likely fall a level or more in their progress.

After the Colony Supply Phase there is a Second Movement Phase during which ships with ranges of two may move again.

The Cosmic Balance uses much of the same gaming background as the newer, strategic module. But in this game the wargamer becomes the Captain and designer of a starship and is more concerned with ship-to-ship tactics than the big picture among the stars.

In The Cosmic Balance, the player first designs the ship. If you are coming to fight a battle from Cosmic Balance II, its rules book details the style of ship to design to best simulate the battle being fought. This is done on the design display. On this display are listed most of the variables that go into ship design and, when changes are made, the effects on the rest of the ship's design are instantly shown.

In the Design Phase the gamer must determine, how many engines (range) a ship has, the efficiency of the crew, and among other things, the overall size of the ship. Then, getting down to details, the computerist can specify the number of mobile one-man fighters onboard, "light seeker" missiles (electromagnetic guided warheads), "heavy seekers" (more destructive versions), phasors (and where they are positioned on the hull), plasma torpedos and belts (which are small satellites each with a single phasor that orbit a large ship) that are onboard, as well as what type of armor and the strength of the shields each ship has.

Once a ship has been designed it can be saved as a set of specifications to disk. Then it is very quick to put together a fleet of these previously designed starships.

Once the ships are ready and designed, they are shown on the stellar map and orders can be given. Orders are given during each second, or time-point, of a sixteen-second turn. The player can change course and speed, adjust shields and charge or fire weaponry as well as engage in electronic countermeasures (ECM) or electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM) and even get transporters ready to beam a party of space marines aboard an enemy vessel.

Once orders have been given, the main map will show a time-point by time-point animation, a computer "movie" of the programmed action. Damage is calculated and applied to the various ships.

If the gamer is playing the solitaire version, he can battle through one of six on-disk scenarios which range from a dreadnought raiding a planet to squadrons of fighters in celestial dogfight. Each of the scenarios is easily adapted, however, to fight battles begun in Cosmic Balance II.

The Cosmic Balance is a complex but easily learned tactical game. If you have ever wanted to command a starship, this is one good way to go about it.

But when you put these two games together, you have an entire sub-creation, a fantasy world that has been so well simulated that it takes on a life of its own. The universe of The Cosmic Balance, both I and II, is so well-designed that it seems to exist.