The Deluxe versions of the early to mid 1990s were a strange trend. Essentially, those games were remakes with very light extensions of the originals' gameplay. Deluxe M.U.L.E. never made it to completion, but among others, Railroad Tycoon, Pirates! and Warlords II got such a treatement. And, of course, Empire. For this game, it was hardly the first remake. Best known for the 1987 version subtitled Wargame of the Century, its history actually reaches back to the mainframes of the 70s, obviously fully character based at the time, before being ported to the then current home computers of the 80s, with a graphical facelift in order to enable commercial exploitation of the by then fully matured game.