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Malfador Machinations / Oct 8, 2020 / Strategy
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CompareSpace Empires I is the first chapter of the Space Empires series. A classic galactic conquest and turn-based strategy video game where you are the leader of a race of intelligent beings building large spaceships for interplanetary and interstellar travel through warp points between star systems.
| Part | Your PC | MinimumNot sure | RecommendedNot sure |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Not set | 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster Can't tell | 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster Can't tell |
| GPU | Not set | Video card with 64MB RAM Can't tell | Video card with 128 MB RAM Can't tell |
| RAM | Not set | 1024 MB RAM Can't tell | 2048 MB RAM Can't tell |
Mixed
45% positive, 11 reviews
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...
0 found this helpful, 2026-05-25
I had no idea Steam was carrying the Space Empires Series, and was incredibly shocked to see SE I and not SE II on the store list. So a little bit of history here. Aaron Hall back in 1993 was working on his personal project Space Empires and formed this game as a prototype for something bigger and in 1995. We got Space Empires II. Space Empires II was technically the first product released to the public and I...
57 found this helpful, 2020-10-13
“So long, and thanks for all the fish.” ~Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 1993 was a very important year for 4X genre. Just because SimTex released their first game that ended up blowing everybody's mind. I'm talking, of course, about legendary Master of Orion, which Stephen Barcia and his team published under Bill Stealey / Sid Meier's MicroProse. And I'm not mentioning MicroProse for nothing...
15 found this helpful, 2022-07-12
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.
10 found this helpful, 2024-06-05
I remember playing Space Empires way back ages ago, so I was pretty excited to pick the series on steam again and replay them. Sadly, Space Empires I is NOT FUNCTIONAL on windows 10 at this time. It cannot process a single turn, crashing to desktop when 'end turn' is pressed. game load and save functions also do not work either. This should have been tested more before release.
9 found this helpful, 2020-12-17
Rip off. No manual, no tutorial, none of the controls seem to do anything. Oh, and there is no AI to play against, so hot seat with your peeps or masturbate. Correcting any one of these things might make it playable but probably need all of them fixed to make it worth buying, even at $1.50.
17 found this helpful, 2020-10-11
This FAKE GAME is not the original. This game does not even have computer players!
0 found this helpful, 2025-06-21
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.
1 found this helpful, 2022-10-14
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...
4 found this helpful, 2023-02-19
Very old-school text-box style game. A bit simple at times. Recommend.
3 found this helpful, 2021-09-23