Empire is a world exploration and conquest game which is played
over a period of time by several people. The computer maintains
all of the information about the players (nations) and the world.
Nations must learn where the islands are and what they look like
by exploration. Additional land is obtained by spreading on the
nation's home island and by sailing to other islands. Unowned
land can be occupied, owned land must be taken by force.
Movement, industrial growth and conquest are limited by the amount
of time units a nation has. Time units are displayed as a part
of the main prompt. There are two types of land time, movement
time and update time (or time on the left, time on the right).
These two values are displayed as 99/255 in the prompt where
99 is movement, and 255 is update. Your time for an island is
stored in your capitol. This means if your capitol is lost,
you lose all of your time (disaster). Protect your capitol at all
costs and if lost, designate another capitol at once.
Additional time units accumulate with the passing of real time.
Time units are consumed by movement and industrial updates.