User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon Aug 21, 2017 8:21 pm

As is my nature, I'm always on the hunt for games created pre-1992 and typically (but not always) those aimed at the North American Amiga market as it guarantees a seamless NTSC experience. In the past few weeks many of the games that have intrigued me are oddly of a war-themed nature. I'm not a huge war gamer in general, but these games all sounded really good.

The first one was Silent Service by Sid Meier, which I'm still in the middle of learning and playing. So far I like it very much.

But my latest acquisition is called Empire. It was originally created as a computer game in 1977 in FORTRAN for Caltech's computers (originally conceived as a game as early as 1971!) by the very talented and renowned programmer named Walter Bright.

Empire was the grandaddy of turn-based war games and its game play is considered to have inspired later games like Civilization.

Originally the game was a text-based experience. By the time it was ported to the Amiga in 1987 it was given a fully realized mouse-driven graphical user experience with pull-down menus and huge maps. It makes me wonder if Empire was the first game to implement a "fog of war" concept.

In any case I've only just barely touched the surface of this very innovative and oft-imitated game and plan to give it the time it deserves later this year.

My copy is in pristine condition, has everything it came with back in 1987, and works! I've installed it to the hard drive (no copy protection). I've contacted Mr. Bright via email to see if he'll grant me permission to host an ADF of the original game here on Amiga Love.
empire_boxcover.JPG
Box cover of Empire. Art by the renowned Star Wars (among many other franchises) artist Dave Dorman.

empire_boxContents.jpg
Empire for Amiga fits on a single disk. There is no copy protection and it can be installed to a hard drive.

empire_keyboard commands.jpg
Inside the box is also a reference card for keyboard commands. Don't worry, though - the Amiga provides a lot of functionality via pull-down menus.

empire_manual.jpg
Empire's manual looks pretty intimidating at first. The truth is the first half is mostly about just setting up the game and getting started, so it's not a scary as it looks.

empire_warning.jpg
Better take this warning seriously and think twice before playing!

empire_intro.JPG
Intro graphics for Empire, based on the box cover art.

empire_production.jpg
You first need to set your initial "production" meaning forces for land, air or water that your cities will crank out. You can always change what a city produces later and each thing (aircraft, battleship, etc.) has a certain time-based cost.

empire_fogOfWar.JPG
The map of cities you need to conquer is incredibly massive. Note the horizontal and vertical scrollbars. You can only see a small portion of it and this is complicated with a "fog of war" concept.


User avatar
ptyerman
Worksop/ UK

Posted Mon Aug 21, 2017 9:18 pm

I spent many hours even days playing this on my A500 back around 1989/90, it was very addictive. And you can really see where the Civilization games gained their inspiration from, Empire truly was a game before its time.

User avatar
Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Sat Aug 26, 2017 12:29 pm

Empire was one of my favorite games. Actually there were 2 games named Empire that I liked a lot in those days. One was this one and the other was a BBS game written as a Module for Color64 BBS called Empire and later an expanded version called Colony. I still have them with my BBS system, circa 1989 that we ran for a number of years. Great fun.

As for Empire, Wargame of the Century I have the C64 version now not the Amiga as I didn't get my first Amiga until 1988 which I sold in 1988 and bought again in 1990 when my friends finally were all upgrading their C64s... (yeah I'm a nut)

The Amiga version is superior but both are still fun. Good stuff.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Sat Aug 26, 2017 12:44 pm

Well you can get the Amiga version now - clean as a whistle. I posted the downloadable ADF to the Game ReviewI posted last night, and the current license holder granted me the kind permission to do so here. I think AmigaLove.com is the first and only place to have been given this permission for the Amiga version anywhere online, which is just beyond awesome. Very cool dude indeed - Mark Kinkead (aka Mok)!

User avatar
Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Wed Sep 13, 2017 7:35 am

That's awesome! Thanks for doing that. My house has been in a shambles lately trying to organize my Commodore/Amiga/Mac and DOS systems. What a pain. I plan on getting my Amiga's setup again soon so I can play this and other games I have in the queue.

User avatar
McTrinsic

Posted Sat Jan 27, 2018 3:54 pm

I also played this a lot. It was one of the first computer games I'd play against another human. The very first was M.U.L.E., though.
Empire was such a challenge that it kept a friend of mine and me from other games to play 'together'.

User avatar
kargy

Posted Tue Nov 05, 2019 6:46 pm

Hi,

So grateful to have the Amiga version posted. One problem is the copy protection- "Please enter the first word of line 3 on page 20..." I can't find the Amiga version of the manual and the DOS version of the manual doesn't seem to work correctly. This is an older post but I'm hoping to find some answer or a scan of the manual to play this awesome game. I used to play for hours and days on the dos version back when. Thanks!

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Tue Nov 05, 2019 7:31 pm

Hi kargy.

The "official" review of the game is here. I have a boxed copy of the original game, but you're right - the manual I link to over there actually is the PC version. I didn't realize there was a difference. That sucks!

If I can't find the Amiga version, I could either locate a crack for you or scan my manual (like, take pictures of it and send you a packet of image files).

User avatar
kargy

Posted Wed Nov 06, 2019 3:15 pm

Thanks. I surfed around to see if there was a pdf or pic file of the Amiga manual but I didn't look to see if there was a crack or workaround. I'll have to try that. I may try to contact killerbee in Tx but even as the owner I'm guessing the odds of them having a Amiga manual for sale are slim.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Wed Nov 06, 2019 3:42 pm

I'm guessing the odds of them having a Amiga manual for sale are slim.
Extremely slim, yeah. They bought the PC rights to the game at some stage, but I don't think any other platforms were really on their radar. When I contacted them about posting the game in Amiga format here, they didn't even have it themselves.





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