Sounds a bit like House of the Dying Sun, but as far as I know, that game only has a Steam release.
I don't think you ever get to control "fleets" per se. You start out being able to zoom out and give commands to one or two wingmen before graduating to a couple capital ships(although you're always in a fighter).
The nature of House of the Dying Sun's mission structure is a bit weird. You always go in, do your objective, and then haul ass out of the system once the count down timer starts, indicating the arrival of the enemy's indestructible flagship, so I highly doubt you'll ever see these grand ship to ship battles ala Star Wars.

I like these kind of threads that whet my appetite for some games or game series I haven't yet played. This thread makes both the X games and Mount and Blade sound soooo interesting. Hopefully my expectations are not too high now.

I have all the games on both series that GOG is selling, but still haven't introduced myself to them. My only personal experience with them is that a looooong time ago I saw some very old trailer for the first X game (Beyond the Frontier?). The trailer was quite different than the other X trailers that are on e.g. Youtube as it seemed to have General MIDI music, and quite good too.

For the Mount and Blade series, I think I've once installed and shortly played one of them, not sure which one, but I couldn't really tell what I was supposed to be doing. I think I was some archer in the plains so I was wondering if it is some kind of archer first person shooter or something...

Yes X-BtF is the first game. But it has (IMO great) mp3 music, not General Midi.

In the first game you're stuck with a single ship. The only other ships you can buy are freighters and fighters for your factories. To really command a fleet you have to move on to at least X2 (The Threat), although, as others have said - it takes a long time to be able to afford a fleet.

With so many mods it is strange no one made a spacesim mod in M&B WB by now.

In that light I don't know of a game where you command a party/fleet of ships can fight in 1st or 3rd person and decide the fate of the realm.
Other than the already mentioned ones I want to add Parkan: The Imperial Chronicles, Nexus: The Jupiter Incident, WC: Armada, Star Control 2

Then there is also Star Crusader, which is a spacesim with some rpg elements.

And of course you can never go wrong with Freespace 2.

edit:
With the recent Epic Megagames releases, I'm anticipating Solar Winds 1 and 2 to appear here too.

What we are looking for here must be: Start in a single ship, gain a fleet and take over the world, either by joining a faction and help them or going solo. Light on strategy, heavy on tactics and combat skills. In many space sims with fleets you spend a lot of time ordering the fleets around but then you have an RTS and not the M&B feel. The very limited orders you can give your troops in M&B are occasionally annoying but also relaxing, not having to be a general but a captain. Unsure what grade that would be in a fleet. The only thing I know between a captain and an admiral is a commander so presumely that.


Forgot to say that in the X games you cannot eradicate or take over any faction, so not like in M&B.

Yeah I thought it doesn't have General MIDI music, but I think that particular trailer did. I think it must have been one of the very earliest trailers for the game, possibly even before it was released yet.

I am now not 100% certain if it was playing General MIDI music with your sound card, or was it recorded GM music (as a mp3 file or something), but it sounded very much like my Roland SCC-1. Also I think the trailer didn't have any voice or even sound effects, just graphics and the music. In fact it might be the graphics even was realtime 3D, not prerendered?

I haven't been able to find that trailer in e.g. youtube, it has all kinds of other trailers for BtF though, with streaming music and some voice telling a story. I might have that old trailer on some of my old CD or hard drive even...

EDIT: Found it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWfSsVe_FLQ

Illuminatus! How could I forget that game! I think it probably fits the OP's description quite well. The only problem was that it was an (quite successful) April's Fool joke by a Finnish gaming magazine, the magazine was even contacted from abroad by other gaming magazines who wanted to know more about the magical game...

https://skrolli.fi/2014/04/illuminatus-maailman-paras-peli-elaa-edelleen/

(100% of that Finnish article is bullshit, it is just continuing the same joke from the 1989, as if Illuminatus had been a real game, some kind of Elite+++++ on super-steroids. Not sure if the original Illuminatus article can be found somewhere...)

EDIT: Here is the original 1989 Illuminatus article in a text format:

http://archive.kaunis.to/archive/txt/illuminatus.txt

(sorry, only in Finnish)

You nailed it. That's the sort of experience I have been looking for.

There's like half a dozen X games, where would you even start? Just at the first one?

There's a star wars mod... horses are hoverbikes, you have lightsabers and guns... looks cool, haven't played it.

X3 Seems to be the best place to start since it seems the most fleshed out, X Reunion has some issues I've heard.

:-D The FreeIll game picture is from an early version of FreeOrion with slight changes. Fun stuff.

If you want to try out X, either go for X3:Terran War pack (Terran Conflict + its addon Albion Prelude) or X:Rebirth (that I hear should be in a playable state now) but these games only let you conquer the galaxy economically. You cannot truly change ownership of any places like stations or sectors.

I could list more space sims here but they do not play like M&B, not those I have played myself.

Yeah... unfortunately I am the kind of guy who quite often starts playing series from the start, just to see how the series evolved over time. Like how I started TES series from Arena, Civilization from the very first MS-DOS Civ game, etc. Sometimes I make exceptions, like starting the Might&Magic series from M&M6.

Anyway, maybe you were replying to the OP and not directly to me...

That was my intention but for the first paragraph and sentence being directed at you.