So I went camping as kind of a chaperone with a youth group and learned to play this game at a picnic table.  The occasional breeze made so many stacks of card perilous, but it would have been too warm in the tent.  I was enthralled: surveying planets that would be subdued either by force of amassed fleets of fighters or more subtle attrition with one colony at a time.  I was producing and trading resources for points, and researching new technologies that- as I think of it- seldom improved the quality of life for my empire- some of the most expensive ones are game changes though all this from the comfort of a picnic bench.