/vr/ - Retro Games

>>1920174
This version is just single-player vs. the computer. There may be other versions from the same original source that added multiplayer though. The history of this game seems as long and convoluted as Colossal Cave Adventure:
http://www.classicempire.com/history.html

There's even another, unrelated game called Empire that's just about as old:
http://www.wolfpackempire.com/history.html
That one *is* networked and can allegedly accommodate large numbers of simultaneous players, over plain telnet connection or various GUI clients. And the game itself seems a lot more intricate than the so-called Classic Empire.

Xconq also started out as multiplayer and could accomodate several players on early networked Unix/X displays. But it's a much broader game, because the game rules and related things (like map graphics and icons) can be changed to simulate many different types of scenarios, be they Empire-like abstract, historical, fantasy (see pic), or anything else...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xconq

All that said, Interstel's commercial ports of Classic Empire are apparently not the earliest for the 4X strategy genre. SSG had already published Reach for the Stars in 1983:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reach_for_the_Stars_%28video_game%29