Back in 1988 or so, I played a really addictive turn based space game on a local BBS(Bulletin Board System) called TradeWars2002. My brother and a few other friends had an in game Corporation.  We had a great time till one of our "friends" backstabbed us and revealed the location of our hidden base, drained out back account and stole all of our fighters.  

In the game, you started out in a basic trading ship and got a certain amount of turns each day to fight, build wealth by trading, and colonize planets.  You also had to look out for dangerous npc Ferrengi ships and/or Federation ships if you were a bad guy.  

As time went on and your cash flow got higher, you could by better ships, weapons and arm your planet with a Quasar cannon and shields.  You also had the ability to change your alignment by robbing star ports, or by killing off evil characters.  The bad guys became Pirates and and the good guys could eventually join the Federation.  Once you joined the Federation you could get the best ship in the game.

I'd looked a few years ago to see if the game existed anywhere and didn't see anything.  I looked again about 27 days ago and found;

http://www.tradewarsrising.com/


I have been hooked on it since I found it.  The guys at Sylien Games did a great job at capturing the spirit of the old text based version, but updated it to take advantage of graphics, maps and other things to make the game easier to play-in the old days, we ended up drawing maps out on paper to figure out where we were going.

There are a few other ports and remakes of the game out there, but this seems to be the best one so far.  They are constantly upgrading the game to improve functionality and fix any problems.  I'd say that if you have about 15 minutes to kill each day, this game is a great diversion and if you are an old nerd like me, it will take you back 20 years!