OVERVIEW

Pax Imperia is a classic turn-based science fiction space empire game, of the type often referred to as "4X" games (Xplore, Xpand, Xploit, and eventually Xterminate other galactic civilizations), that was unique for its time in its detail and complexity (and still has been outdone by few games since). It was only released for the Macintosh, and left many waiting for a promised sequel for five years until 1997, when Heliotrope Studios put out Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain (also known as Pax Imperia 2) for both the Mac and Windows platforms (published by THQ and Atari respectively).

Pax Imperia was particularly beloved for its detail and complexity, in ways reminiscent of Microprose's Master of Orion series, Mare Crisium's Stars!, and Koei's series of empire-building strategy games. It was also, sight virtually unseen in most such games, playable by up to sixteen human players.

GAMEPLAY

Noteworthy elements of gameplay aside from the usual fare for games of its ilk (i.e. starship combat and exploration, colony-building, economics, etc.) included:

Species customization with such features as specifiable atmosphere type (oxygen, nitrogen, carbon or hydrogen), temperature range and tolerance, and four percentile-rated attributes -- curiosity, efficiency, reproduction and aggression;

Detailed ship and ship systems design;

Detailed personnel management for your ministers/advisers (including selecting from a pool of candidates with varying attributes, attitudes and loyalty à la Koei's strategy games, such as the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series);

Separate development and management of up to nine distinct regions of each planet;

Planetary surface operations (primarily raids, assaults and even the landing of hostile colonists into specific planetary regions of enemy-controlled planets);

Migration between planetary regions (even by another player's colonists, leading to "Migration Wars"!);

Five different mineral resources grouped into scientifically-valid categories (Ferrites, Pyrrites, Silicates, Crystals and Radiants) to find, mine and trade with other space civilizations;

Starships organized into and moved as fleets, not individual ships;

Espionage options that include bribing or assassinating enemy ministers; and

Detailed, custom research ("Tech Design") in which individual attributes of developed ship systems can customized (including, for example, a dynamic range/accuracy graph for weapons).

Anyone who has played later science fiction "4X" games -- and particularly Quicksilver Software's ambitious (and bugridden) Master of Orion III -- is likely to see that many intriguing and complex aspects of gameplay, some of which may have seemed pioneering in a modern computer game industry environment in which simplicity is the order of the day, had already been seen years earlier in Pax Imperia.

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