September will be all about intergalactic empire building with the release of Space Empires V. If you are the type of person who is in the market for highly detailed turned based strategy games, where the user needs to build a fleet of ships from the ground up, then look no further. This is a game that looks like it has everything you could possibly want and a little more as you develop an alien civilization that spans the universe.

Initially, the amount of hands-on management it takes to develop a single solar system can seem a bit overwhelming. To start a game, you'll need to design a civilization from scratch. This looks like it'll be the kind of game where it will be very helpful to crack open the manual every once in a while. Luckily, there are a couple of useful tools that make handling a large empire a little easier to manage. These include setting up turning on a computer controlled minister to handle some of your colonies and a centralized build queue to order all your planets to simultaneously work on the same project, which cuts down on a lot of clicking. Solar systems are interconnected through

While all the different menu systems may come off a bit intimidating for casual players, there are some tools to simplify the gameplay. For example, there is an auto-design tool that pulls from a template to automatically put together basic ship types for your fleet. So, you won't have to waste time putting together a colony ship or scout. The ship design engine is highly detailed, taking into account multiple ship levels and the maximum weight a chosen ship design can hold. Furthermore, you can even test out how your designs will perform inside a simulator, which allows players to insert known ships from rival factions.

Solar systems are connected through warp points, and the main screen gives a close up view of each solar system, which makes exploring a large galaxy challenging and a little bit dangerous, because you don't really know what might be lurking on the other side of a warp. However, this also clues the player in to what the scope of this game will be like. Even medium sized galaxies are quite extensive and provide great challenges.

Researching technologies is a great departure from many similar games. Instead of picking single technologies off a research tree, you can individually allocate research points to specific projects, allowing for multiple technologies to be researched simultaneously.

Space Empires V looks like it's going to be the ultimate space conquest game, which throws in the kitchen sink and the neighbor's kitchen too. If you're interested in the power to rule over the galaxy, and have the mind for high detail, then this will be a game to keep an eye out for.