Talk:Empire (1977 video game)

Rename/move article

I suggest renaming the article to Empire (video game), since "Classic" was only added by fans at a later point and is not official. SharkD (talk) 01:13, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me.  Xihr  04:09, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

More discussion has occured here. SharkD (talk) 01:39, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Six months on, the only parts of the discussion relevant to the suggested renaming of Empire from the discussion are these:

Here's a whole slew of articles I suggest renaming. SharkD (talk) 02:25, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

• [1] - Classic Empire (computer game) to Empire (video game)

...

"Sid Meier's" is shouldn't happen. Those with sub-subtiles probably should be renamed if that is what how they are usually dealt with. Classic Empire should be renamed if it that's the official title, unless it is communally referred to as Classic Empire by reliable sources. Rest are fine.じんない 02:31, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

The proposed renamings were generally argued against on a case by case basis, and of all 35 games proposed, only 2 were renamed (Master of Atlantis/Olympus) and those not to the titles originally put up in the "Slew".

To me it still seems this article should be renamed though - for one (video game) should be used in preference to (computer game), secondly Classic Empire as a term is rarely used (indeed, it has been sold under the title Empire Classic), thirdly the article is really on a series of connected games rather than a single one (sometimes called the "Empire Series" in "official" documentation), but with so many games (video and board) called Empire, Empires, etc. all the articles should be renamed together, bearing the combined ambiguity in mind.

The distinguishing naming features in this series over the others seem to be "Wargame of the Century" applied to a number of the early games, with "Classic Empire" and "the Empire Series" as two terms used for the games, while not being related to any one specific game in the group, and "Empire Deluxe" becoming a standard term for the relevant games / series later; some suggestions for the new article name are Empire (video game series, Empire series (video games) and Empire (Wargame of the Century).

I’ve raised this joint renaming back at WikiProject Video games, so please add your comments / thoughts / suggestions and join in the discussion there! --xensyria^T 15:36, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

External links

Link to http://www.strategicdomination.com/ removed; this is different game, though obviously influenced by Empire. Should the link be restored to the current publisher, http://killerbeesoftware.com/ ? Don (talk) 16:13, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the removal of Strategic Domination (it's been done a number of times here, and on Strategic Conquest) - the persistance makes it look like advertising, and as you say, while based on this game, it's its own game, not Empire. I also think that the Killer Bee link should be put back in the article. While I did put it there in the first place I've since tried to get in touch with the editor who removed it, so until he puts forward a good reason against it being there then it should be present - their games are the legal successors in the series which was started by Walter Bright, and as such it should be considered an official website along with Mr. Bright's www.classicempire.com in my opinion. --xensyria^T 15:25, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Person who just replaced Strategic Domination link does appear self-interested, based on repeated edits to add this link, remove the Killer Bee link, and truncate the description of the current Empire version, EDEE. There is an active hobbiest community centered on EDEE user-created extensions, and I think the article should at least hint at this. Have replaced Killer Bee link and expanded EDEE description. Will leave Strategic Domination link, but think further removals of Killer Bee link or unjustified edits of EDEE description should be watched-for and reversed.Don (talk) 17:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

It's strategicdomination is spam - it's been added to several pages by various SPA accounts and IP addresses. I've removed it. - MrOllie (talk) 17:11, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Not 4X

4X may look like a simple category to place Empire into, but it isn't 4X at all. Empire more or less invented the strategy genre that followed the Explore, Expand, Exterminate model, but the Exploit element is lacking in its classic form: no resources to gather, and (at least until Deluxe when production efficiency was introduced) no straightforward efficiency boosting. This is the new element that distinguished Master of Orion (and the others that followed it) from its contemporaries and led to the invention of the 4X name. Enhanced Edition has introduced resources, which arguably makes it an atypical 4X, but as the article is covering the series of games and the classic, most notable versions aren't 4X then calling it 4X is a mistake. In conclusion as the labelling of Empire as 4X seems to be from it having the hallmarks of pre-4X games that the classic 4X games drew on, the article should not refer to the series as a whole or any individual game except Enhanced Edition as 4X: I won't get into whether or not the article should be in the 4X category or not, but unless anyone has a valid reason to restore them I will continue to remove all inappropriate references to 4X. 194.80.178.253 (talk) 19:58, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Which Empire

This game inspired a great deal of the strategic gaming genre, most notably including Civilization and Xconq.

How can we know from these sources alone that this is the Empire being referenced when there were other games by the same name? czar 15:51, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Knowing the games, it's clear that these two are both referring to Walter Bright's Empire (unlike, say rec.games.empire which is about the Peter Langston game). I would argue that, as long as they are WP:RS, then it doesn't constitute WP:OR to cite them, despite their ambiguity. Still, if we can find better sources which are less ambiguous, then let's replace them. Unless you object I will restore the influenced games, as an important part of the reception history of Empire. ‑‑Yodin^T 12:49, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Can we try to find better sources first? We can restore as a last option. What tips you off that it's Bright's Empire? czar 14:59, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Sure, no worries. The gameplay of Civ is almost identical to Bright's Empire, just with technology and city building added, while it shares very little with Langston's complex resource based gameplay. Xconq similarly (but with hexes instead, and gradually more unit types and customisability). One other reason I literally just came across: this tweet by Bright! Even so, the "Timeline of Civilization" at the end of the Gamasutra article shows how widespread the confusion between the games is: they document the Langston version instead "ca. 1973". ‑‑Yodin^T 15:13, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

As a side note, I wouldn't count that tweet for anything. Creators of old software tend to be the main archivists documenting the "impact" of their work, which is an obvious conflict of interest. Bright doesn't have any benefit from fact-checking Gamasutra in this case. Anyway, let's see if another source says it better. Perhaps a book? czar 15:25, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, though unless Gamasutra just made up the interview with Bruce Shelley, it's pretty solid evidence. For a start, this article in Kinephanos online journal, by a UCSC academic, lists Civilisation (from the Gamasutra interview) and the modifiability of Civ II (based on this) as influenced by this and the Langston versions. Here's a book published by Rutledge which describes this version of Empire as complex and influential, and though it doesn't give specific examples of which games it influenced, it could be added to demonstrate its general influence on the genre. Then there's this one which gives this version of Empire as an early example of the use of Fog of War and exploration. What're your thoughts? ‑‑Yodin^T 16:25, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Jeez, it would be so much easier if they just specified which Empire. I followed the Reynolds mention in the first source to [2] but that didn't specify either. The first source actually shows how the Langston and Bright versions are intertwined... perhaps it's worth merging both into the same article? My main issue is that I don't know how we can be sure the sources mean one version of Empire over the other, and if the two are melded together in the minds of the authors, then shouldn't our article reflect the same (cover them in the same article)? Egenfeldt-Nielsen is good for history, but I don't see it doing much work to connect a lineage of influence. I can't access the last one—can you pull the quote? Also might be worth contacting Langston and Bright themselves—I'm sure they've been collecting review coverage and whatnot over the years. czar 16:48, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, tell me about it! To be honest I think the authors of these secondary sources don't generally, know as you say, and even the people who were inspired probably wouldn't know offhand if it was a "Langston" or "Bright" Empire... but it is bound to be either one or the other that they played and were inspired by. So though it would be a lot simpler just to merge, they are ultimately completely different games, and each one has enough reliable sources that state they're just about the Langston or Bright version that we should be able to ignore the rest (at least for describing most aspects of the game): the only really difficult part is when it comes to tracing influence, where no-one's quite 100% sure which one it was. As you say, contacting Bright, Langston sounds a good plan (and even Meier, Shelley and Reynolds to produce primary sources that could be used in the long run once they're used by reliable secondary authors, though of course not included until then!).

I've found another source, which at first I thought was not reliable (printed by Lulu), but it turns out to be by Erik Champion of Curtin University, and actually published by ETC Press (an academic press which is partnered with Lulu just to print the books), and so would even pass WP:UGC. It directly attributes Civ II modding to Walter Bright's Empire, but I'm not 100% convinced yet.

Here are the other Google books sources: One is Computer Gaming world, and only vaguely helpful; the second is the quote from Champion, mentioned above; the last one is the Fog of War one you asked for: it's lightweight in itself, but I think enough if we use it in conjunction with more sources from pure Google Book "Walter Bright" empire searches. There's also this article from TUGboat, which cites Walter Bright's Empire among a few others as "among the earliest computer games" being one of the "many important developments" introduced by PDP-10s (which also shows that it's talking about the right Empire!): slight hyperbole, but essentially true, so perhaps good enough for another small sentence about its influence. ‑‑Yodin^T 12:10, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Source

• https://archive.org/details/Game_Players_PC_Entertainment_Volume_6_Issue_3_May_1993/page/n49/mode/2up

A different Mac version?

In the late 1980s I played a version of this game on the Mac, which I'm pretty sure was Empire Deluxe. However, the maps looked very much different; the "continents" were built from overlapping ovals, in contrast to the screen shots here which look like they were generated by a diffusion algo.

The version I played was the subject of an extensive review in either MacWorld or MacUser, but I cannot find it today.

Does anyone recall this version? Neither the original nor Deluxe appear to be the one I played, although I'm 90% certain it was from New World. Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:49, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Ahhh, mystery solved. The version in question is Strategic Conquest Plus. Maury Markowitz (talk) 17:06, 2 March 2021 (UTC)