Empire (territory)

An empire refers to the territory of a space-faring species in the Space Stage of Spore.

NPC empires are randomly generated in certain star systems, initially indicated by blue pulses when hovering the mouse over their star systems. They start with the homeworld, having a large number of cities on the planet. Their strongest star system, especially the aforementioned homeworld, is highlighted by the sphere instead of the ring shape that the rest of their colonies have unless it gets occupied which be assigned to another nearby colony. They are also assigned out of 8 random archetypes, giving them set dialogue, relationship bonus, behavior, etc. Their archetype can be determined by looking at the background behind the alien, listening to their voice, or clicking the "tell me about your philosophy" button in diplomacy.

Empires expand their territories by colonizing planets, claiming the whole star system to theirs with the Colony Incredi-Pak. Alternatively, empires can occupy other empires' colonies, either destructively by conquering or diplomatically after trading. The number of colonies affects the strength factor of the empire. If any empires have their last territory taken away, they are effectively destroyed, as indicated by the notification, from the rest of the game. The Sporepedia will mark them with the skull icon.

They have randomly set colors (red, dark red, orange, yellow, green, dark green, cyan, blue, purple, dark purple, pink, and brown). Meanwhile, the player's empire will usually have the same color as the creature's coat color, and the Grox Empire has violet color. All empires always have the 'Empire' title after their species name (e.g [Creature] Empire).

Strength factor[]

The strength factor is a number determined by the amount of planets a given empire possesses. It is shown in the window above a planet in the upper right corner. Only NPC empires have a strength factor. If a player visits an alternate save file, that empire's strength factor will not be displayed but the empire's NPC ships will be affected by the health boost.

Determining Strength Factor[]

The Strength factor of an NPC empire is determined by stars that NPC empire occupied except The Grox.

Level 1 empires - 1 to 3 stars
Level 2 empires - 4 to 5 stars
Level 3 empires - 6 to 8 stars
Level 4 empires - 9 to 12 stars
Level 5 empires - 13 or more stars

Effects of strength factor[]

Only civilizations with a strength factor of 4 or 5 can offer the player an archetype mission. The strength factor also increases the range of which they can send their ships with the ability to attack empires over 10 parsecs away at rank 5.

The health of the empire's ships and the damage they do are determined by strength factor.

1 - 300
2 - 450
3 - 750
4 - 1200
5 - 1800

Trivia[]

Empires that adhere to the Diplomat and Trader philosophies tend to have empires that expand into level 4 and 5 empires more quickly than others. However, other archetypes can get just as large if given enough time.
If an empire is defeated while attacking another empire, the warning will change to, " Empire is attacking (Empire)" and the ships change to pirates, and at the end, the message becomes "Conflict with Empire has subsided."
Large Diplomat empires colonize systems rapidly and can cover an extremely large area if there are plenty of unoccupied systems, but usually most of their colonies are on T0 planets, even if T1 or better planets are in the same system. What's even weirder is, even if the player terraforms their planets, they rarely add other buildings to fortify the colonies. Same applies to Trader empires.
Upon starting Spore, the Grox have the largest empire with 2,400 stars. However, they will not expand past this point and will simply destroy their enemies rather than occupying their system.
Upon reaching level 5, Scientist, Bard, Shaman, and Ecologist empires will soon terraform their T0 or T1 planets to T2. These archetypes are also fast colonizers (although still slower than Diplomats/Traders), and will frequently add more buildings to fortify their colonies if possible.
When an empire occupies another empire's homeworld, that world will be reduced to 3 colonies unless the player is present during the occupation.
Empires from other save files will use the same voice clips from Civilization Stage instead of the unique voice clips for each archetype.