ABSTRACT
Like many other computer games, the history of Empire begins in the analog world of tabletop gaming. Peter S. Langston and friends were playing an abstract war game at Reed College in the early ‘70s. Langston wondered about using a computer to run the game and simulate the “fog of war” effect, which would prevent players from seeing the whole battlefield-something very difficult to accomplish with tabletop games. Langston’s Empire, begun in 1971, was a text-only multiplayer game. The world was updated once per day (usually at midnight). However, attacks were handled instantaneously, which led to some interesting ploys by avid players.
