Empire (1977 video game)

Last updated
Empire
EmpireDeluxe.png
Developer(s) Walter Bright
Mark Baldwin (1987–1990s)
Bob Rakosky (1990s)
Mark Kinkead (2001–present)
Publisher(s) Interstel (1987)
New World Computing (1993)
Killer Bee Software (2002, 2004)
Designer(s) Walter Bright/Mark Baldwin (Deluxe)
Mark Kinkead (Enhanced)
Platform(s) PDP-10 (1977), ~1987 (Atari ST, Amiga, Commodore 64, Apple II, Macintosh, MS-DOS), Windows (1993, 2002, 2004)
Release1977, 1987–1988, 1993, 2002, 2004
Genre(s) Strategy, wargame, 4x
Mode(s) Single-player or multiplayer

Empire is a 1977 turn-based wargame with simple rules. The game was conceived by Walter Bright starting in 1971, based on various war films and board games, notably Battle of Britain and Risk . The game was ported to many platforms in the 1970s and 1980s. Several commercial versions were also released such as Empire: Wargame of the Century , often adding basic graphics to the originally text-based user interface. The basic gameplay is strongly reminiscent of several later games, notably Civilization, which was partly inspired by Empire.

Contents

Gameplay

Screenshot of Empire for the Amiga EmpireOriginal.png
Screenshot of Empire for the Amiga

At the start of a new game, a random game map is generated on a square grid basis. The map normally consists of numerous islands, although a variety of algorithms were used in different versions of the game, producing different styles of maps. Randomly distributed on the land are a number of cities. The players start the game controlling one of these cities each. The area immediately around the city is visible, but the rest of the world map is blacked out in a fog of war.

The city can be set to build armies, aircraft, and various types of ships. Cities take a particular number of turns to produce the various units, with the armies typically being the most rapid. Players move these units on the map to explore the world, typically seeing the land within a one square radius around the unit. As they explore they will find other cities, initially independent, and can capture them with their armies. The captured cities are then set to produce new units as well.

As the player's collection of cities expands, they are able to set aside some to produce more time-consuming types, like battleships. Ultimately they have to use these forces to take all the cities on the map, including those of the other players, who are often run by the computer's game engine.

History and development

Walter Bright created Empire as a board wargame as a child, inspired by Risk , Stratego , and the film Battle of Britain . He found gameplay tedious, but later realized that a computer could handle the gameplay and serve as CPU opponent. [1] The initial version of computer Empire was written in BASIC, [2] before being re-written around 1977 in the FORTRAN programming language for the PDP-10 computer at Caltech. It was so compelling as to cause video game addiction; some students failed classes while playing. "One even threatened me because of this (incredible, hmm?)", Bright recalled. He ported Empire to assembly language on a Heathkit H11 ("If I'd had a brain, I'd have bought an Apple II") and made it available commercially in 1983. Bright sold only two copies and, discouraged, returned to a "real job". [3]

At some point, someone broke through the security systems at Caltech, and took a copy of the source code for the FORTRAN/PDP-10 version of the game. [4] This code was continually modified, being passed around from person to person. Eventually, it was found on a computer [5] in Massachusetts by Herb Jacobs and Dave Mitton. [6] They ported the code to the VAX/VMS operating system and, under the alias of "DeNobili and Paulson", submitted the program to DECUS. DEC technicians routinely installed Empire with VMS. In 1983 Bright contacted DECUS, who credited him in the catalog description of the program and source code. [3]

In 1984, Bob Norby from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, ported the DECUS version from the VAX to the PC as shareware. In 1987, Chuck Simmons re-implemented the game in C using the UNIX curses library in order to make use of its support for many different character-cell terminals. Eric S. Raymond maintains a copy of this version and shared some version with open-source projects. [7]

In 1996, Computer Gaming World declared the original Empire the 8th-best computer game ever released. [8] The magazine's wargame columnist Terry Coleman named it his pick for the second-best computer wargame released by late 1996, behind Panzer General . [9]

Empire: Wargame of the Century

Bright recoded the game in C on an IBM PC. With low commercial expectations, he submitted an announcement to January 1984 BYTE Magazine 's "Software Received" section, and received a flood of orders. After writing to many software companies (including Brøderbund, Sirius Software, Simon & Schuster, subLOGIC, Epyx and MicroProse), he licensed the game to a small software company named Interstel. Mark Baldwin was brought in to coauthor the game redesigning it for the commercial market. Starting around 1987, Empire: Wargame of the Century on the Atari ST, Amiga, Commodore 64, Apple II, Macintosh and DOS was produced.[ citation needed ]

Empire Deluxe

In the early 1990s, Mark Baldwin and Bob Rakowsky rewrote the game, calling it Empire Deluxe [10] for DOS, Mac OS, and Windows, released in 1993 with New World Computing as the publisher. Empire Deluxe sustained the old game play of Interstel's version in a standard game, while adding a basic version for beginners, and advanced game with new units such as the Bomber and Armor and map sizes up to 200×200.[ citation needed ]

An expansion pack, Empire Deluxe Scenarios, was produced later in 1993, including a map and scenario statistics tool, a map randomiser tool (as random maps were present in the Interstel version, but lacking from Empire Deluxe), upgrade patches for both DOS and Windows versions and a collection of 37 scenarios (with accompanying maps) from "celebrity" designers, many of them famous in the games industry including Will Wright, Jerry Pournelle, Jim Dunnigan, Johnny Wilson ( Computer Gaming World editor), Gordon Walton, Don Gilman (Harpoon series architect), Trevor Sorensen (Star Fleet series designer), and the game's authors Mark Baldwin and Bob Rakosky. [11]

Computer Gaming World in 1993 called Empire Deluxe "a welcome addiction (sic) to the library of every serious strategy gamer". [12] A 1993 survey in the magazine of wargames gave the game four stars out of five, noting flaws but stating that "Yet, I keep on playing". [13] It enjoyed great success, and was noted as one of Gamespy's Greatest Games of All Time. [14] Empire Deluxe was reviewed in 1993 in Dragon #195 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 4 out of 5 stars. [15] In 1994, PC Gamer US named Empire Deluxe the 35th best computer game ever. The editors called it and "elegant" and "adaptable" game system that allowed "almost endless" replayability. [16]

Computer Gaming World in 1993 stated that Empire Deluxe Scenarios offered "a lot of value" to the game's fans. [11]

Killer Bee Software

In the Winter of 2002, Mark Kinkead of Killer Bee Software purchased the rights for Empire Deluxe from Mark Baldwin and Bob Rakowsky, and in 2003 produced a new version called Empire Deluxe Internet Edition (EDIE) for Windows. This was essentially a port of the code Baldwin and Rakowsky produced in 1993, with few changes, such as a slightly increased map size (255×255), but did not add any new rules. A year later, Kinkead would create an "Enhanced" version with new units and rules, including artillery, engineers and orbital units. The company produced several other editions for Windows, Android, and iOS. [17]

Sequel

In 1995, New World Computing published a sequel named Empire II: The Art of War . While the original had been a turn-based strategy, Empire II was shifted towards turn-based tactics: there was no more empire-building and production of units, but the complexity and realism of battles were enhanced with features such as morale rules and various degrees of damage. The playable campaigns consisted of a collection of diverse historical or fictional battles. The game editor feature was enhanced by allowing the user to design not only new maps and campaigns, but also new units with new graphics and sounds.

Legacy

There are ports and source code for modern PC operating systems available for free download at Walter Bright's Classic Empire webpage. [18]

Sid Meier has stated that Empire inspired his Civilization series. [19]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OpenVMS</span> Computer operating system

OpenVMS, often referred to as just VMS, is a multi-user, multiprocessing and virtual memory-based operating system. It is designed to support time-sharing, batch processing, transaction processing and workstation applications. Customers using OpenVMS include banks and financial services, hospitals and healthcare, telecommunications operators, network information services, and industrial manufacturers. During the 1990s and 2000s, there were approximately half a million VMS systems in operation worldwide.

<i>Colossal Cave Adventure</i> 1976 video game

Colossal Cave Adventure is a text-based adventure game, released in 1976 by developer Will Crowther for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. It was expanded upon in 1977 by Don Woods. In the game, the player explores a cave system rumored to be filled with treasure and gold. The game is composed of dozens of locations, and the player moves between these locations and interacts with objects in them by typing one- or two-word commands which are interpreted by the game's natural language input system. The program acts as a narrator, describing the player's location and the results of the player's attempted actions. It is the first well-known example of interactive fiction, as well as the first well-known adventure game, for which it was also the namesake.

<i>Master of Orion</i> 1993 video game

Master of Orion is a turn-based, 4X science fiction strategy game in which the player leads one of ten races to dominate the galaxy through a combination of diplomacy and conquest while developing technology, exploring and colonizing star systems.

<i>Panzer General</i> 1994 video game

Panzer General is a 1994 computer wargame developed and published by Strategic Simulations Inc. (SSI). It simulates conflict during World War II. The designers of Panzer General were heavily influenced by the Japanese wargame series Daisenryaku.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Bright</span> American computer programmer

Walter G. Bright is an American computer programmer who created the D programming language, the Zortech C++ compiler, and the Empire computer game.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">README</span> Software information file

In software distribution and software development, a README file contains information about the other files in a directory or archive of computer software. A form of documentation, it is usually a simple plain text file called README, Read Me, READ.ME, README.txt, or README.md

<i>Star Trek</i> (1971 video game) 1971 video game

Star Trek is a text-based strategy video game based on the Star Trek television series (1966–69) and originally released in 1971. In the game, the player commands the USS Enterprise on a mission to hunt down and destroy an invading fleet of Klingon warships. The player travels through the 64 quadrants of the galaxy to attack enemy ships with phasers and photon torpedoes in turn-based battles and refuel at starbases. The goal is to eliminate all enemies within a random time limit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DECUS</span> Independent computer user group related to Digital Equipment Corporation

The Digital Equipment Computer Users' Society (DECUS) was an independent computer user group related to Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). The Connect User Group Community, formed from the consolidation in May, 2008 of DECUS, Encompass, HP-Interex, and ITUG is the Hewlett-Packard’s largest user community, representing more than 50,000 participants.

<i>Strategic Conquest</i> 1984 video game

Strategic Conquest is a turn-based strategy game based on the wargame Empire. It was written by Peter Merrill for the Apple Macintosh and released in 1984 by PBI Software, and later ported to the Apple II in 1986. Delta Tao Software took over distribution for later Classic Mac OS releases. It is sometimes shortened to Stratcon.

The Star Fleet computer games are starship tactical combat simulations originally created by Dr. Trevor Sorensen in the late 1970s.

<i>Fantasy General</i> 1996 video game

Fantasy General is a fantasy computer wargame published by Strategic Simulations in 1996. Its structure was taken from the game Panzer General with some modifications to the base system. It was the third in the Five Star General series. It allows gaming against other human players by email. It was published on GOG.com in May 2015 with support for Windows, macOS, and Linux after GOG Ltd acquired the copyright to the title.

Empire is a 4X computer wargame created in 1972 by Peter Langston, taking its name from a Reed College board game of the same name. It was initially created by Langston in BASIC on an HP2000 minicomputer at Evergreen State College. When the host computer was retired, the source code to the game was lost. Subsequently, two other authors each independently wrote a new version of the game, both named Empire. In the decades since, numerous other versions of Empire have been developed for a wide variety of platforms.

V for Victory, or V4V for short, is a series of turn-based strategy games set during World War II. They were the first releases for Atomic Games who went on to have a long career in the wargame industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Computer wargame</span> Wargame played on a computer or other digital device

A computer wargame is a wargame played on a digital device. Descended from board wargaming, it simulates military conflict at the tactical, operational or strategic level. Computer wargames are both sold commercially for recreational use and, in some cases, used for military purposes.

<i>Warlords II</i> 1993 video game

Warlords II is computer wargame released in 1993, and the second release in the Warlords video game series.

<i>Empire: Wargame of the Century</i> 1987 video game

Empire: Wargame of the Century is a video game based on Empire developed by Walter Bright and published by Interstel Corporation in 1987.

<i>Conquered Kingdoms</i> 1992 video game

Conquered Kingdoms is a fantasy strategy computer game developed by Quantum Quality Productions for PC DOS/MS-DOS in 1992.

<i>The Universal Military Simulator</i> 1987 video game

The Universal Military Simulator is a computer game developed by Rainbird Software in 1987 for the Macintosh, Tandy 4000, and IBM PC compatibles. In 1988, both Atari ST, Amiga versions were released. The game was created by Ezra Sidran. The PC and Amiga versions were ported by Ed Isenberg. The game spawned two sequels: UMS II: Nations at War and The War College: Universal Military Simulator 3.

<i>V for Victory: D-Day Utah Beach</i> 1991 video game

V for Victory: D-Day Utah Beach is a 1991 computer wargame developed by Atomic Games and published by Three-Sixty Pacific. It was widely lauded and repeatedly reviewed as the best wargame of its era. Its success led to three further games in the V for Victory series, and then the similar World at War series published by Avalon Hill.

Panzer Campaigns is a series of operational level wargames originally developed by John Tiller Software, and currently by Wargame Design Studio. The games were originally published until 2010 by HPS Simulations, then self published by John Tiller Software until being bought out by Wargame Design Studio in 2021, after Tiller's death. There are currently 29 titles in the series, spanning the various fronts of World War II.

References

  1. ↑ Bright, Walter (2021-10-20). "A Talk With Computer Gaming Pioneer Walter Bright About Empire" (Interview). Interviewed by Mad Ned.
  2. ↑ Bright, Walter. "The Fortran I used for Empire was FORTRAN-10". Hacker News. Y Combinator. Retrieved 29 February 2020.
  3. 1 2 Bright, Walter (2000). "A Brief History of Empire". Walter Bright's Classic Empire. Retrieved 2024-08-17.
  4. ↑ Empire-for-PDP-10 on github
  5. ↑ Actually, the main TOPS-10 operating system developers' machine in Marlboro, MA. Programmer Dave Lyons had downloaded it there from Caltech.
  6. ↑ Bright, Walter (1987-11-03). "Empire on comp.sys.atari.st".
  7. ↑ "VMS-empire 1.10 released – Armed and Dangerous". 23 August 2013.
  8. ↑ Staff (November 1996). "150 Best (and 50 Worst) Games of All Time". Computer Gaming World . No. 148. pp. 63–65, 68, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 84, 88, 90, 94, 98.
  9. ↑ Coleman, Terry (November 1996). "Command Decisions". Computer Gaming World . No. 148. pp. 277, 280.
  10. ↑ Empire Deluxe manual. Hollywood, California: New World Computing. 1993. pp. 158–162.
  11. 1 2 Carroll, Mark; Emrich, Alan (November 1993). "A 3.1-Run Homer". Computer Gaming World. p. 178. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
  12. ↑ Jeffers, Sean (June 1993). "Megalomaniacs Succumb To Empire Deluxe Epidemic". Computer Gaming World. p. 144. Retrieved 7 July 2014.
  13. ↑ Brooks, M. Evan (November 1991). "Computer Strategy and Wargames: The 1900–1950 Epoch / Part I (A–L) of an Annotated Paiktography". Computer Gaming World. p. 138. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
  14. ↑ "GameSpy's Top 50 Games of All Time". GameSpy. July 2001. Archived from the original on 2007-01-08. Retrieved 2009-04-04.
  15. ↑ Lesser, Hartley; Lesser, Patricia; Lesser, Kirk (July 1993). "The Role of Computers". Dragon (195): 57–64.
  16. ↑ "PC Gamer Top 40: The Best Games of All Time". PC Gamer US . No. 3. August 1994. pp. 32–42.
  17. ↑ "Empire Deluxe Enhanced Edition".
  18. ↑ Walter Bright's Classic Empire
  19. ↑ Edwards, Benj (July 18, 2007). "The History of Civilization". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on 2023-06-03. Retrieved September 16, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.