Empire is Written for the PLATO System

The first version, Empire I, was written by John Daleske as project coursework for an education class in the Spring of 1973. Silas Warner helped out by providing Daleske with disk space (known as "lesson space" in the PLATO environment). The first version of the game was a strategic turn-based game for eight players. Each had ships, industry, and budgets. Players had to keep the budget up to build more ships, maintain industry to help pay for it, provide raw materials to turn into goods, and trade. This was likely the earliest example of an online, multi-player, interterminal computer game. Games prior to this were two player or one player against a computer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_Empire_(comp...