Empire

1987 retro games Amiga games Atari ST games PC games Apple games Commodore 64 games

A lost gem of strategy games - in a reality of World War 2 you build your empire by conquering the opponents.

First look at Empire could be a bit shocking - the graphics can be called very basic (at best), there are hardly any sounds, there is not much of menu either. But if you take a hard look behind the not so great exteriors you can find a real gem - strategy game on a level comparable with such classics as Panzer General.

So what is Empire? It is a 4X strategy game, set in a reality of World War 2, where there is just one rule - grow your own forces to overpower the competitors. There are no technology trees, there are no resources you need to gather or diplomacy you can use to avoid conflict, it is all down to the fight until only one empire survives.

So what is so great about it? You are right, it all sounds very basic, mostly because it was very basic game. After all, it was made for hardware that would struggle to handle some of our kitchen equipment right now. But the pure genius of Empire is in the details that a lot of modern games lack - units management. There are cities around the world, once conquered they can produce one unit at a time. It could be a tank (ground unit), airplanes (fighters) and one of few classes of ships (transports, submarines, destroyers, cruisers, battleships and aircraft carriers). Not impressed yet? I’m not surprised, I haven’t got to the best bit yet.

That best bit is that you could link those cities and create routes for newly produced unites to be moved to a different city once they are available. This way you do not have to deal with dozens of cities each time they build a new tank, it will be automatically taken to a new destination. With the burden of simple logistics out of the way, you could concentrate more on your fleet that will be vital in your future progress. First of all you can plot them patrol routes, meaning they could detect any enemies approaching your territory. Another nice touch was that you could set them to escort other units, f.e. cruisers and destroyers to escort your battleship. Then, by moving the battleship, you move the whole formation.

Of course, there were some shortcomings of the game, f.e. you could build only one form of land forces (tank), which means that fights on land were mostly randomly decided (because all units had the same characteristics). But overall the game was a masterpiece of early video games - a game, in which you do not have to feel lost with increasing number of your units and cities.

Our rating
★★★★★

Video
★☆☆☆☆

Audio
★☆☆☆☆

Playability
★★★★☆