Empire I

a.k.a. PLATO Empire

created and published by University of Illinois in 1973-05-01, running on PLATO

type: simulation, flight, manag./econ., strategy
genre: Science Fiction
perspective: other
player options: single player, Internet

languages: eng

Official description

The object of the game is to conquer the galaxy. This galaxy contains 25 planets and 4 races. The races were the Federation, Romulans, Orions, and (originally) Klingons. The fourth race was changed to Kazari, just prior to publication because the game authors were worried about copyright infringement. In 1991, the fourth race name was changed back to Klingon on the NovaNET system, but remained Kazari on the CDC systems.

Each team is given three adjacent planets as their home system. Each home system is located towards one corner of the map, which was many screens in size, and thus has two other teams relatively nearby. There are two neutral worlds between each team and its two neighbors, and five more neutral worlds in the middle of the galaxy. Each planet given to a team contains 50 armies at the start of the game, while the neutral planets start off with 25 self-ruled armies.