The game was developed in concert with David Weber and is considered "soft canon" to the universe. The game is described, in an in-universe introduction in the rules pamphlet, as an aid issued to Royal Manticoran Navy cadets at the RMN's Saganami Island Academy and used by cadets to prepare for the more complex and time-consuming computerized simulators, as well as by line officers on active-duty starships to war games, in the military sense, various scenarios before engaging in the process of programming the ship's simulator.