Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!unisoft!hoptoad!xanth!kent
From: kent@xanth.cs.odu.edu (Kent Paul Dolan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: "Empire" game reviewed
Keywords: game review conquest wargame
Message-ID: <5828@xanth.cs.odu.edu>
Date: 12 Jul 88 06:02:48 GMT
Reply-To: kent@cs.odu.edu (Kent Paul Dolan)
Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk Va.
Lines: 105


My news reading has been a bit spotty recently, so forgive me if a
review has already been published for Empire.  Anyway, here goes mine.

"A STAR FLEET Planetary Campaign" EMPIRE "Wargame of the Century",
Amiga version 2.03, published by by interstel (tm), written by Walter
Bright and Mark Baldwin.  Includes game disk, quick command reference
card, and 70 page manual.  "Word in manual" copy protection.

First, for those who have played the Unix(tm) version, this is the
same game, but considerably simpler, since only cities do production,
and the only production is combat units.

Second, this is a _long_ game, just like the original.  One person can
take out two computer opponents in about 26 hour of play.  Human
against human is much slower.  There is a "play by mail" version,
which I haven't had a chance to test yet.  A "typical" game lasts around
150 to 300 moves.

Empire is a game of "world" conquest, played on a rectangular map 60
cells high by 100 cells wide.  The game supports two or three players,
of whom all or none may be computer players, so that possible play
modes are human against computer, human against two computer players,
human against human, human against human against computer, human
against human against human, or computer against computer or computer
against computer against computer.

There is a demo mode, a two or three way computer only game, that can
be got to without the copy protection check, which is a nice
advertising feature.  I turned it on, and *** eight hours later *** a
two player game was still underway, when I had to shut it down for a
thunderstorm.

The game has an excellent "Amiga feel", with requestors, gadgets,
menus, lots of mousing around, graphics and sound used (neither
spectacular), excellent windowing, multiple screens (two, workbench
plus game), multitasks OK, and so on.  Playing this game will make you
very appreciative of the Amiga software design.

Besides play mode, there are lots of other nifty features, like
"design your own world", that let you play with the game.  Normal play
is with a subset of the world on the screen, but there is a "world
map" that shows you (what you know about) the whole world that can be
called up in addition.

Attention to detail is very nice in terms of playability; when a turn
ends, a full screen requestor is put up for the next player, the map
sliders go back to zero so you don't know where the other player was
working.  If you spot an enemy or neutral unit, and leave without
combat, that unit is carried on your map in the position and status
you last saw; this may well _not_ be the position and status when you
send a unit back in that neighborhood, but it is a good reminder of
"things to check up on" for later.

Each player has a private map of the world, and starts with a single
city somewhere.  From that small start, the player goes on to conquer
first neutral territories, then, after more of the world is known, to
fight enemy units.  Conflict is accomplished by trying to move a unit
onto an opposing unit.

Cities are the primary targets, because each city is a production
entity, capable of working on just one product at a time, but can be
changed with a small time penalty (and loss of any partially completed
unit) to work on another item.  Landlocked cities can only produce
armies and planes.  Armies are produced quickly, large ships slowly,
and other units somewhere between.  Cities are named after real cities
famous in the history of warfare (Marathon) or current military might
(Hampton Roads).  I can't tell you how delighted I was to conquer the
latter (the larger Norfolk vicinity, where I live, is known as Hampton
Roads.)

Combat units are armies (the only unit that can conquer a city)
fighter planes, and ships: troop transports, submarines, destroyers,
carriers, battleships, and aircraft carriers.  A unit either wins a
battle, or is destroyed, winning (naval) units can sustain damage, and
can return to a friendly port for repairs.  Since only armies can
conquer cities, and since the world usually has a couple of dozen
major land masses, and five or six dozen cities, troop transports are
necessary to win.

The game is a study in managing complexity, and provides many aids to
the player.  Even in the midst of world wide conflict, an experienced
player can accomplish a move in about 15 minutes, one eighth the time
for the (admittedly more complex) Unix version.  Units can be set to
patrol certain pathways, aircraft can be automatically routed from
production areas to the battlefront, units can be put on sentry, and
many other options.

Hmm.  I guess I could go on until I'd rewritten the manual. ;-) Enough
to say that this is an excellent game for the war game enthusiast or
for someone who has worn out the thrill of arcade games on the Amiga.

The only design bug I've found so far is that I can't find a way to
get non-army units out of a city if they have been put on sentry duty
there, and that is a minor problem at best.  The sellers could have
completely left out the attempt to tie the game into the Star Fleet I
and II series, for my taste, but that's a quibble. Lots of fun.

Oh, yes, the game keeps a combat ranking for commanders, and can be
(the manual says "do") freely copied from the original for a playing
copy, or run from hard disk.

Enjoy!  Really worth the ~$40 price.

Kent, the man from xanth.