You ever get one of those emails saying this empire has invited you to join? Or wonder why players announce their affiliation with a flashy signature line? Or maybe you just like being part of something bigger. No matter the reason that you have looked into, wondered about, or talked about joining an empire in the past, we will look at the misconceptions, the benefits, and the actions of being in a Metaverse Empire.

Well, to start we need to define what a Metaverse Empire is. An empire is a group of players, whether it be one or a thousand, that have chosen a particular affiliation, whose scores are added together to calculate a total score on the ranking board. Any player may create or join an empire. An empire with more players has a stronger ability of posting more scores to the Metaverse and thus, more quickly ascend the ranking board.

So the biggest empire is always the highest on the board then? No, that is a misconception. The Metaverse Ranking Board calculates the total scores of all the members of an empire to give them their position. While the largest empire has the ability to post more scores, a smaller empire with a few individuals that post very high scores frequently can actually be the leader on the ranking board. Note that key words here are Ability and Score. A thousand players in the same empire but only having one person submit a game to the Metaverse is not using its full potential of its Ability. Likewise, if everyone in the empire submitted one game, they will rise faster due to the additive effects of their score over a smaller empire.

Let’s take a look at a sample of selected empires. The largest empire by members, the Kzinti Empire, as of today has 239 members with a score 6,667,282. But even with the most members, they rank #4 on the MV Board. The smallest empire in the Top 10 is the Gerontocracy with 24 members but with a score of 1,560,739. My own empire only has three active players and has a ranking of #19.

Many empires are built around a particular fandom or issue. The Gerontocracy reaches out specifically to older players of Galactic Civilizations. The Tyranny of Evil celebrates the playing as Evil (or as evilly good) in one’s game. The Galactic Diplomats, arguably the most influential of all Metaverse Empires, have many members that have taken the time to really break down the game mechanics for players. The Kzinti Empire is based upon a race from a series of novels, comics, and television shows such as Star Trek: The Animated Series. The MV League Empire is made up of players that play games solely for the Metaverse League competition.

These differences in the core setup allows for a wide variety of empires for a player to look and choose from. Not all empires however are open to all players. An empire can be open (anyone can join), closed (no one can join), moderated (anyone can join but must be approved by the emperor or a senator), or by invite only.

Each empire is operated and handled differently depending on its core members, its emperor (the originator of the empire), and its goals. Some empires make every member that joins a Senator. A Senator is a position that can be given to a member of an empire that allows that player to accept players on the behalf of a moderated empire or send out invites to other players to join. The Senator position also receives a prominent spot on the empire profile page showing their character, games played, and score. Other empires, like mine, only give out Senatorial positions to those that have achieved certain criteria.

So why do people join an empire? The most common reason is the camaraderie gained by being able to talk to a group of individuals about the game, life, and even other various non-game related topics. Many empires have their own threads and a few even have their own private forums for discussion, game help, quizzes, and other miscellanea. Another prominent reason is the pleasure that is gotten from being on top of the ranking board.

The best reason to give to a player that wants to join an empire is that the player will get so much more out of his/her game when they have a fellow player to show it off to. We are social creatures and while Galactic Civilizations II is not a multiplayer game, empires give us a chance to compete, socialize, and learn in ways that we couldn’t do on our own in this game.

For those that may wish to check out some empires, I have included at the bottom of the page links to each of the Top 10 empires thread, if they have one. In all fairness I must state that some of the empires listed below are considered to be ‘inactive’ empires.

First Place Kzinti Empire

Second Place Tyranny of Evil

Third Place The Galactic Diplomats

Fourth Plac Galactic Stargate Command

Fifth Place High Command Hegemony

Sixth Place B.C. Space Orcas

Seventh Place The Gerontocracy

Eighth Place The Olympian Gods

Ninth Place The Overmind

Tenth Place The Browncaots

Silverbeacher is the Emperor of the Olympian Gods and a Metaverse League Member.