Empire: Wargame of the Century

Tributes

Entry posted by Guest August 4, 2005

1,820 views

Of all the game machines and computers I've owned, the Atari ST - by far - has been the computer I've spent the most time playing video games. Of all the games I've played on the ST (including Oids, Star Raiders and Joust), what was the game I spent the most time on? Empire: Wargame of the Century:Click here to see imageYou start out the game in possession of a single city . This city will produce the pieces you need to continue the game including armies, Destroyers, Battleships and other pieces (troop transports, fighter jets, aircraft carriers and others). The ships, of course, you can only prduce if your city is next to a body of water. otherwise you can only produce armies and fighters.Once your city produces a piece, you can use that piece to explore the surrounding territory. Territory is unexplored until you move a piece next to it. Here's what the world map looks like when you first start the game:Click here to see World MapPretty boring huh? After a while, once you conquer more cities and explore more territory, your world map will look more like this:Click here to see World MapWhen you first start exploring you will encounter a neutral city . You attempt to capture the city by moving your army piece into the city. If you succeed, the city is yours and you can produce more pieces with that city. If you fail, you lose that army piece. Only an army piece can capture a city.Eventually you'll encounter enemy pieces and enemy cities . To win the game you have to destroy the enemies pieces and take their cities until you either crush them utterly or force them to resign (I usually refuse the offer of surrender by the computer and proceed to crush him :evil: ).The game has a lot of cool reports. You've already seen the world map. Another cool report is the War Report which give you stats on your progress in the game:Click here to see reportOther reports include an inventory of your ships and a replay of enemy attacks on your pieces in the last melee.As you become more experienced in the game, you can adjust your production and combat settings to make the game more difficult. The default setting gives you 50% combat efficiency and 50% production efficiency. You can adjust the efficiency of the other players. Changing the settings will also change your ranking. The more difficult the settings, the higher the ranking.You can play against up to two other players. They can either be human or computer players. Playing with other people is more fun than playing with the computer but it is much more time consuming (the computer can complete a turn very quickly). I've been to and hosted many Empire parties and it's quite fun (especially when you hear your opponent shout in surprise "You sank my ship!" LOL).You can also play by mail. Just dial up to a BBS and upload your game. Your opponent will then download the game, play it and then upload the game once he is finished. Later versions of the game allowed you to play over the internet. One cool feature is a map editor that allows you to creat your own map. I've also been able to download maps created by other players. The Suzy B CD for the Atari ST has many Empire maps too. Some of the maps are cool. One is of Manhatten and Long Island and another is of SE Asia. Some are bizarre and difficult to play. One, called seven seas, requires that you build seven separate navies before you can win the game.The game allows you to program your pieces to do stuff automatically thus saving you a lot of gameplay time. You can program a piece to patrol an area, escort another piece or, when a fighter is created, start flying to another city. These commands are very helpful especially when you have a lot of pieces. Otherwise the game becomes a logistical nightmare.The patrol feature is particularly helpful as you can use it to make sure the enemy doesn't infiltrate your lines and capture your cities. It's very upsetting to find an enemy transport show up next to a city of yours that is way behind the lines and, supposedly, safe from the enemy.One feature I wish the game had was a movie showing my progress throughout the game. Now, with the magic of Atari ST emulators, screen capture and Photoshop, I've been able to make a movie of my progress. Here's a movie I mad eary this year of a game in progress.Click here to see GIF movieWhat you are seeing is about 20 or 30 game turns. The white dots are my pieces. The enemy pieces are black and so they are hard to see next to the unexplored territory.The most pleasant sight of the game, of course, is this:It's not quick and easy to finish the game, however. A typical game will take at least three hundred moves and that's the equivalent of about 60 to 100 hours of game time. I've played at least one hundred games of Empire in the past eighteen years and so that should give you an idea of how much time I've spent on this game. @_@ Empire is available not only on the Atari ST but also for DOS, Windows, PDP-11 and even for VAX/VMS! (There are probably other systems that Empire runs on, but those are the only ones I know about.)You can get the DOS version for free simply by downloading it at http://www.classicempire.com/. Although the graphics are different than what you've seen on this blog, they're pretty close and gameplay is pretty much the same.A new version of Empire, called Empire Deluxe, came out in the early ninties. It has a lot more features than the original including a bigger map, zoom modes, additional pieces and scenario maps. The scenario maps allow you to replay historic battles and wars. My favorite is the 1941 scenario which sets up WWII just before the Pearl harbor attack. Additional pieces include bombers which give you a bigger range for exploration and allows you to bomb cities (kill pieces in the city or reduce production).Despite the cool new features of Empire Deluxe, I still like the classic. Fortunately, Empire Deluxe allows you to play the classic game if you want. It also can play miniature games (much smaller maps) that allows you to finish a game quickly in only a few hours.As you can tell, I like this game alot. Here are some useful links for Empire:http://www.classicempire.com/http://www.killerbeesoftware.com/kbsgames/...ireseries.shtml http://www.givoni.com/empire/