Empire Deluxe Download (1993 Strategy Game)

An updated version of White Wolf's earlier Empire game, which was based on a wargame dating back to early mainframe days. One to six players (human or computer with three levels of intelligence) compete to conquer the world using their ground, air, and sea units.

There are three versions of the game available: basic, standard, and advanced. The basic game provides the minimal types of units, a completely viewable map, and basic production rules. The standard game adds some new units, forces you to explore the map to view it, and slightly modifies the production rules. Finally, the advanced game (for the true wargamer) adds even more types of units, terrain effects on movement and sighting, and slightly more complicated production rules.

In addition to playing one or more people around the same computer, you could play via mail (by posting disks back and forth), e-mail, modem, network, or direct serial link.

The game also came with some preset scenarios and maps for players to use. Additionally, there was an editor that let players create their own maps and scenarios.

White Wolf and New World Computing also released a scenario disk for the game and later released the Windows version with the extra scenarios on CD-ROM.

Empire Deluxe is a turn-based strategy game in which the object is to seize all of the cities on a randomly generated map using air, land, and sea forces, while protecting your cities from your enemies. Every map has a number of neutral cities, and you and each of your enemies begin with one. Units are built in cities over a number of turns depending on the value of that unit. Each city produces one unit at a time.

The most basic unit is the army, which is used to capture enemy and neutral cities by landing from a transport or attacking over land. Armies are transported over water by transports, which are vital to conquering cities overseas. Destroyers, cruisers, and battleships patrol the seas and protect and intercept transports. In some modes of gameplay, submarines, aircraft, and carriers are available and add to the strategy of the game.

The game is rather simple to learn and play, yet affords many different playing styles for the discriminating strategist. Empire Deluxe's manual contains a comprehensive tutorial to accompany a scenario made specifically for learning the game, which is worth a read when learning the game, especially since the manual contains no less than 150 pages. The computer AI is formidable, but one often wonders about the fairness of the AI when one's mighty battleship is sunk by one of the computer's lowly transports. Empire Deluxe does not have fog of war, so you and the computer are able to see the complete battlefield and enemy troop movements throughout the game.

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

People who downloaded Empire Deluxe have also downloaded:
Empire II: The Art of War, Empire: Wargame of the Century, Civilization 2, Empire Earth, Empire, East Front 2, Empire Earth II, Gary Grigsby's Pacific War (2000)