Space Empires I

[h1]“So long, and thanks for all the fish.” ~[i]Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy[/i][/h1] 1993 was a very important year for 4X genre. Just because [b]SimTex[/b] released their first game that ended up blowing everybody's mind. I'm talking, of course, about legendary [b]Master of Orion[/b], which [b]Stephen Barcia[/b] and his team published under [b]Bill Stealey[/b] / [b]Sid Meier[/b]'s [b]MicroProse[/b]. And I'm not mentioning [b]MicroProse[/b] for nothing because for 4X games that take place in outer space, [b]MoO[/b] did exactly what [b]Civilization[/b] did for its own kind of games. Heck, the entire term “4X” began with [b]Master of Orion[/b]. With its preview from [b]Computer Gaming World[/b] magazine to be exact. Sure, [b]Roger Keating[/b] and [b]Ian Trout[/b] already established 4X genre ten years before [b]MoO[/b] in their game called [b]Reach for the Stars: The Conquest of the Galaxy[/b] (heavily inspired by a board game [b]Stellar Conquest[/b]), but you know what I'm talking about. Everybody knows [b]MoO[/b] nowadays, while [b]Reach for the Stars[/b] is long forgotten. Surprisingly, while [b]MoO[/b] was getting a lot of praise from both press and actu…

This is just a very simple prototype for the actual game which is Space Empires II. There's not really any reason to buy this other than curiosity about early stage game development & the dark ages of game design.

Space Empires I is an ancient, mostly text based 4X space empire building grand strategy game from 1995 that was distributed as Shareware. It's a whopping 28 years old at the time of this review. The game runs in text windows and lacks proper 4:3 aspect ratio and support for any modern gaming display resolutions, hasn't been modernised or updated to run smoothly on modern gaming PCs. There's also no working fullscreen mode due to the nature of the game running in Windows based dialog boxes. Despite this lack of modernisation, it carries a pretty high price tag for such an ancient game. This seems to have been put on Steam as a nostalgia gouge. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard in 2023. For gameplay purposes, because the user interface for this game is mostly just 2D static images... it might as well be a browser game. And we all know, Steam isn't here to compete with Chrome and Firefox. If the game can be done in a web browser, it's just not rich or compelling enough to appeal to serious gamers on PC. Despite having reasonable depth even for a game almost 3 decades old, the interface hasn'…

The Space Empires series is cool, and I searched long and hard for a copy of Space Empires I to see where the game got its origins. I failed, and I could never find it anywhere...I was very surprised to see it on Steam. Long live Space Empires. It should be known that this game has no AI, but you can set the total player count to 1 and just dominate all the neutral systems, so it's not unplayable.

Space Empires I is a turn-based science fiction strategy game developed by Malfador Machinations and published by Strategy First that laid the groundwork for a series that would eventually become well known among fans of large-scale space conquest games. Originally designed during an era when strategic depth carried more importance than presentation technology, the game focuses on empire expansion, technological advancement, colonization, diplomacy, and warfare across a galaxy filled with opportunity and danger. While modern strategy titles often emphasize visual spectacle and streamlined mechanics, Space Empires I reflects an earlier philosophy where patience, planning, and long-term decision-making formed the heart of the experience. The premise begins with a civilization standing at the edge of interstellar discovery. Players take control of a growing empire that has only recently gained access to travel beyond its home system through mysterious warp points connecting distant regions of space. From those early beginnings, the objective steadily grows larger. New worlds must be discovered. Colonies must be established. Fleets must be constructed. Rival empires compete for territ…

This FAKE GAME is not the original. This game does not even have computer players!