Gameplay (based On Empire Deluxe)
Units have very different capabilities, as well as different strengths and weaknesses. Destroyers move fast and are great for exploring, while battleships are very resilient and can also attack land units. The central unit of conquest is transports, which can carry two troop types. Only Infantry and Armor can capture a city, and these two units must cross water in transports. The central unit of conquest has weak defences, so Empire strategy involves exploration in the context of providing safe passage for transports.
Eventually, players expand their known worlds until the players find each other and fight until only one is left. This moment of discovery can happen quickly or not, especially when one allows the game to generate a randomly-populated world made of islands with cities, surrounded by a connected body of water. Units in Empire are aware of enemy who occupy grid squares around them only to a particular distance, and cities also are aware of enemy units adjacent to them. Otherwise, enemy units are not visible unless one moves close enough with one unit to see an enemy.
Units battle by trying to take the grid location occupied by the enemy unit. In most cases, this is a fight to the death, and the winner moves in to occupy the grid square after the combat. This combat is based on percentages rating one unit type against the others, so this is calculated, and an animated battle sequence is seen before the losing unit is removed. The combat animation is minimal, and allows one to focus on the strategic consequences of the combat.
Many interesting starts get interrupted when one discovers enemy units next to cities which lack defenses. A city loses a percentage of its production capacity when it is captured, and it also loses any units it contains, as well losing the unit under construction. Cities are sometimes fought over repeatedly, until the city itself has little production capacity, and is used simply as a base for aircraft and as a point to fight over. Cities that are not producing anything help a player's production value, and allow other, more efficient cities to produce units. Cities that are not producing will see their production efficiency increase as turns go by. The ability to remain unseen, even in adjacent grid squares, for example, submarines are not visible to battleships aircraft and transports, allows players to scout enemy areas.
Mottled, computer-generated island-worlds are typical, but Empire also has a world-generator, and comes with pre-designed worlds such as Europe and North America. When one plays on the random worlds, the players are placed randomly in one city. There can be very different outcomes when one discovers an enemy city or unit very early compared with later. One is creating an empire, and the existing units in an army cost the player a percentage of overall production capacity. This means large armies (including ships, planes, and land units) can prevent a player from efficiently creating further troops types. Since the game is turn based, players experience this production capacity as a percentage. Units take a given number of turns depending on this percentage, and a low percentage can make certain units practically impossible to order. This is most important in the first part of the game, when one only has a small number of cities.
Read more about this topic: Classic Empire (video Game)