They were decent 4X space strategy games back in the day, but the likes of Space Empires have since FAR surpassed them in fun and playability...
This is a timeless genre and there isn't at all any sort of eye candy pressure, so we'll go on AI and scriptability in which case these classics are incredible losers v. more recent games unless you mean "Sword of the Stars" or the crappy Impulse game both of which are so dumbed down that it's not even funny.