How to Play

For peo­ple who want to play the game, either by print­ing stuff out, or using vir­tu­al com­po­nents for play-by-email (PBEM).

One lim­i­ta­tion is that we don’t (yet) have any print­able or vir­tu­al pieces. These are under devel­op­ment: prob­a­bly some­thing use­ful and rea­son­ably com­plete will be post­ed in late 2011.

Other than that, what you should do depends a bit on which cat­e­go­ry you fall into:

Classic Game

For peo­ple who played Empire in the 1960s or 1970s, and want to recre­ate that expe­ri­ence, you can print out some things to help your­self do that.

• Rules: Try the 1976-era rule­book PDF from the Rules page.
  • Empire Rules 3rd ed (4 MB)
• Mapboard: Take your pick of clas­sics from the Maps page. If in doubt, try the pop­u­lar Ackerman II. To print out a map­board, sub­mit the dig­i­tal file to your local dig­i­tal out­put shop. In ear­ly 2011 we got quotes for a sin­gle 42″ x 72″ map­board in Portland, on a vari­ety of media (mat­te paper, glossy plas­tic non-tear­able paper, or even foam­core mount­ed), from Moso Graphics ($60–75), AlphaGraphics ($160–190), and FedEx Office ($150–170).
• Pieces: We don’t have any­thing to help you yet. Empire has some­times been played in the past with­out phys­i­cal pieces, rely­ing pri­mar­i­ly on the records, plus mark­ing immo­bile objects on the board. A com­mon approach has been to lay a sheet of clear plas­tic, mylar or glass over the board, and then write on that with some­thing like wash­able (non-per­ma­nent) over­head pro­jec­tor mark­ers. Such mark­ers are avail­able in a wide range of col­ors, and with a vari­ety of thick­ness­es, includ­ing fine-tipped. These can be used to mark immo­bile objects at least, and option­al­ly mov­able and self-mobile objects as well.

New Players

For peo­ple who are play­ing for the first time, and/​or don’t have access to Empire rules experts, and want to play a game with phys­i­cal pieces:

• Rules: Perhaps the lat­est rules from the Logistics branch (4th Edition), as being more acces­si­ble to folks who haven’t played before. See the Rules page.
• Mapboard: See above. You can use a clas­sic map­board with the now-option­al sub-square rules. Once they are avail­able, you may opt for either a clas­sic board or a Logistics-style board so as to avoid the sub-square rules. The lat­ter option means a less beau­ti­ful board because the maps are a lit­tle less free-form, but it sim­pli­fies the board han­dling and record-keep­ing.
• Pieces: You face the same issues as above. Sorry!

Virtual Play

For peo­ple who want a vir­tu­al game (play-by-email), you should prob­a­bly use the sec­ond set of options above, includ­ing going with a new Logistics-type map­board so as to avoid the sub-square rules (and hav­ing to han­dle them on screen). You also will need vir­tu­al pieces etcetera.

Although port­ing Empire to Cyberboard or Vassal seems like a fine idea, nobody has yet vol­un­teered to do it. Plus it might help if some pieces were designed, first.