How to play Empire on Mac

Game summary

Empire is a 4X wargame created in 1971 by Peter Langston, taking its name from the Reed College board game of the same name. In 1973, Empire resurfaced under the name Civilization on an HP2000 minicomputer at Evergreen State College. The game was written in interpreted BASIC and utilized extensions to the operating system. When the host computer was retired, the source code to Civilization was lost. Subsequently, two other authors each independently wrote a new version of the game, both named Empire. The game is turn-based, with players giving orders at their convenience, and in some versions then executed simultaneously by the game server at set intervals ranging from a few hours to once per day. The game world consists of "sectors", which may be designated as agricultural, industrial, etc. There are dozens of unit types requiring a variety of raw and manufactured materials for their creation. "Blitz" games may last a few hours, typical games a few months, and some larger games up to a year.
First released: Dec 1971

Play Empire on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)

The easiest way to play Empire on a Mac is through Parallels, which allows you to virtualize a Windows machine on Macs. The setup is very easy and it works for Apple Silicon Macs as well as for older Intel-based Macs.

Parallels supports the latest version of DirectX and OpenGL, allowing you to play the latest PC games on any Mac. The latest version of DirectX is up to 20% faster.

Our favorite feature of Parallels Desktop is that when you turn off your virtual machine, all the unused disk space gets returned to your main OS, thus minimizing resource waste (which used to be a problem with virtualization).

Empire installation steps for Mac

Step 1
Go to Parallels.com and download the latest version of the software.
Step 2
Follow the installation process and make sure you allow Parallels in your Mac’s security preferences (it will prompt you to do so).
Step 3
When prompted, download and install Windows 10. The download is around 5.7GB. Make sure you give it all the permissions that it asks for.
Step 4
Once Windows is done installing, you are ready to go. All that’s left to do is install Empire like you would on any PC.
Did it work?
Help us improve our guide by letting us know if it worked for you.
👎👍