High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Empire (or Classic Empire) is a turn-based wargame with simple rules, conceived by Walter Bright in 1971 (released as a computer game in 1977) based on various war movies and board games, notably Battle of Britain and Risk. In the game, each player starts with one city in an unexplored world, and uses the city to build armies, aircraft, and various types of ships. Cities take a particular number of turns to produce the various units. As players expand from the first city, they use their units to find and capture additional cities and become able to produce a greater number of unit types. Players explore the world, capturing cities as they are found and using them to build more military units. Early versions were text-based, while later versions of the game added graphics.