I Don't Like Starch in my Pajamas

Dammit. One of the greats departs…

"Ares" was a magazine put out between 1977-1984 by SPI that specialized in military wargames with a fantasy or science fiction bent. It was put out by SPI, who mainly made military wargaming guides of the usual type, e.g. recreating Caesar vs. the Gauls or World War Ii, but they noticed the incredibly popular rise of strategic scifi starship board games like Phil Pritchard's Lensman in 1969, and Starforce: Interstellar Conflict in the 25th Century in 1974.

The key trait of Ares is that each issue came with a strategy game inside of it, with an expandable fold out map you get by lifting the staples, and with small unit counters on cardboard placed inside you punch out. So for example, the issue of Albion would fold out into this:

There used to be a lot of interstellar space strategy board games that in terms of complexity, had borders blurred with tabletop RPGs; even Star Trek got one under FASA. The main reason these kinds of games went away is that they never had a huge audience due to their simulative complexity. Their audience was a sort of hodgepodge of Gifted Kids and ex-military veterans, and that audience fractured. Gifted Kids went on to tabletop RPGs and video games, particularly when, in the late 80s, home computers became able to do the kind of complex number heavy games of this nature.