22 Best Empire Management Games on Steam

Imagine Earth is a great City Building, Management, MMO and Real-Time Strategy video game that takes you to an amazingly Interactive and Futuristic game world and allows you to be a manager of a Colony, Explore habitable near and distant stars and planets, built settlements on them, start trading and eventually grow to all the surrounding world without destroying your home.

Imagine Earth lets you enjoy playing this brilliant game by simply converting whole planets into your playgrounds, enjoy every bit of your time by simply engaging in fantastic puzzle solving, building, and developing routines. The unique strategic element allows you to use your best skills in building, democracy, trade, and defense and enjoy ruling over a world of possibilities.

With a challenging game-play, threats like meteor impacts, huge wildfires, enemy intrusions and interaction with the alien civilizations, trade with multiple types of individuals, mining and exploration, and a leading spot in technologically enhanced and advanced nations, Imagine Earth is a mix-up of wonderfully engaging and quite immersive aesthetics.

Eve Online, developed by CCP Games is a fantastic MMORPG video game set in a Persistent World. With a Sci-Fi background and theme, the game lets you be a pilot who can fly a customizable spaceship in a galaxy that is home to almost 7800 star systems in which the stars are connected by portals named as Stargates. You can also choose any of the given professions and be a manufacturer, Miner, Trader, Explorer or a Warrior and take part in both PvP and PvE combat events. With responsibilities like Exploration, Resource Collecting, Building, Leading Massive Armies etc. this game tasks you to be an ultimate conqueror and a savior to the entire galaxy. Eve online was released back in 2006 but because of worldwide fame and a huge user base, this game is still rocking on the internet. With all the fantastic Visuals, engaging and quite addictive gameplay, Eve Online is a brilliant Space Exploration video game to play and enjoy.

Star Conflict or also known as Star Conflict: Dogs of War is a an immense Action and Thrill-packed MMO, Exploration video game that sets you up into the character of a pilot and allows you to be part of massive leagues and engage yourself into epic interplanetary Skirmishes against the equally equipped and tactically advanced enemies. This epic space simulation allows you to go against the enemies in an amazing new fashion and engage yourself into PvP battles and PvE missions, go on some amazing quests in order to hunt down your enemies, choose best ever and advanced ships, explore a number of different places, earn experience points and collect upgrades by simply eliminating your enemies, produce massive battle ships and be a commander of whole fleets. Star Conflict offers an amazing battle oriented environment where you as the commander can choose your own path, survive as long as possible in the outer space and enjoy some of the best and longest campaigns ever. With a super engaging game-play, enhanced and state of the art graphics and amazing story-line Star Conflict is a great game to play.

FTL: Faster than Light, developed by Subset games is a Rouguelike Real-time Strategy (RTS) and Shooting Simulation by Subset Games. The game provides with Permadeath Mechanics and allows you to engage yourself in an amazing space themed environment. According to the story, you control a crew and an FTL (Faster Than Light) capable spaceship (Owned by the Galactic Federation) that is tasked to deliver critical information to an allied fleet of spaceships eight sectors away and is also being chased by a huge rebel spaceship fleet. Your task is to guide your ship safely all the way to your allied fleet and deliver the information by dodging and saving your ship from the rebel ship attacks. “FTL: Faster than Light” lets you defeat your enemies by directly getting into the permadeath styled combats, in a roguelike fashion. The Galactic Federation is on the verger of a drastic and mega devastation after they lost the great war against the Rebels. You must capture and contain the data packets, captured from Rebel ship communication intercept and deliver it to the Federation. The Federation will then use the information to attack and defeat the Rebel Factions and save the world. With a very well-written and quite involving storyline, beautifully created Ultra-HD graphics and a totally very addictive gameplay, FTL: Faster than Light is one amazing Space Exploration and RTS video game to play and enjoy.

RymdResa is a non-violent Rogue-like Space Exploration video game by Morgondag. The game features a procedurally generated world in which it allows the players to explore various planets, collect epic loots and enjoy the game. RymdResa offers Survival and RPG elements as well and lets the players decide what type of Spaceship they want to use. Once the ship is selected, RymdResa lets the players customize it by the utilization of all available options, start exploring and survive in a retro-styled universe. The core objective of the game is to find a new Home after the destruction of your former home by an asteroid. To find the new home, you must get out in the open space and follow the coordinates to many random locations. The game features a procedurally generated game world, random loot, loads of cool customization options, three different chapters with entirely different stories and gameplay, beautiful art style and original background music. It offers beautiful graphics, addictive gameplay, and loads of things to discover. Do try it out for an amazing Space Exploration experience.

Subnautica is a brand new Open World, Adventure and Survival video game set in the underwater world of an alien planet. Subnautica is set in a futuristic Era of the 22nd century, and it offers a futuristic experience. It refers to a period when Humanity started exploring and inhibiting the alien planets. To colonize the planets, various advanced vessels were sent on Exploration Missions. One of the Vessels named as Aurora was also forwarded to an exploration and terraforming mission to an alien water world known as 4546B. The vessel was on its way to a station on the planet when an unknown energy source disabled it. With a hull badly damaged, and all the systems failed, the vessel crash landed into the water and sank to the ocean floor. This is where the player character gets into the play. After getting out of the life pod, the palyer must explore the world, find means of survival (Food, Drinking Water, Oxygen to breath, etc.) in an alien world, defeat all the underwater alien life forms and survive by evolving in the environment. Resource collection has its own importance in the game because without resources there is no survival. Subnautica offers various game modes such as Freedom Mode, Hardcore Mode, Creative Mode as well as unique Crafting abilities, great upgrades, beautiful graphics and addictive gameplay.

Master of Orion by Simtex is an all-time hit video game that offers a fantastic amalgamation of Sci-Fi and Turn-based 4X Strategy elements. Master of Orion is the first game in series, and it is available to play on MS-DOS and Apple Macintosh platforms. Released back in 1993, Master of Orion allows the players to dominate the Galaxy by building Democratic and Trade relations with other settlements. Building technology, Conquests, Exploration, and Colonization are the most prominent and necessary elements of the game. So if anybody wants to enjoy the game fully, they must be good at all of the said skills. Master of Orion features ten playable races for characters, and each of them has their own unique skills and abilities. As the game is based on Space Exploration elements, Master of Orion allows the players to explore seven ordinary and six profoundly hostile planets. While on Hostile planets, fight off the enemies if there is an encounter and keep on discovering. Researching for and building new technologies, Trade, and Diplomatic relations are the most prominent features of the game. Furthermore, Master of Orion offers clean 3D graphics, great game mechanics and addictive gameplay to enjoy.

Kerbal Space Program or also known as KSP is a Single-player Space Flight, Building and Construction and Simulation video game by Squad. The game is built using the updated Unity Engine and offers playability on Multiple Platforms including Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Wii. The game allows the players to control a whole Space Mission Program named as Kerbal Space Program, Have a Crew of Humanoid Aliens known as Kerbals and enjoy Exploring the Space. Game’s Complex and realistic Orbital Physics helps players learn about the Hohmann Transfer Orbits (Start from a Lower Orbit and end up in a Higher Orbit) maneuvers and enjoy piloting the ship. According to the gameplay and game story, the game tasks the players to head a Nascent Space Program, Control the Kerbals (Intelligent Humanoid Aliens from an Earth-like planet Kerbin) and enjoy learning to maneuver into Space. Kerbal Space Program gameplay is divided into two main parts such as Construction and Flight, and it allows the players to construct various types of Rockets, Aircraft, Rovers, etc. Once the ships are created, the players can simply launch them into Space from in-game launch Pad, explore the Space and complete various objectives of the game. The game offers various types of mission such as Reaching to a Certain Height, Escape the Atmosphere, Reach Stable Orbit, Capture Asteroids, Create Space Stations, Visit different Planets and collect information about them, etc. With all the Space Exploration fun, Unique game Physics and mechanics, and interesting gameplay, Kerbal Space Program is a fun Space Simulation to enjoy.

Homeworld is an amazing Real-Time Strategy and Tactics Space Simulation by Relic Entertainment. It originally released back in 1999 and was the first fully 3D RTS ever. With a number of sequels (Homeworld: Cataclysm, Homeworld 2, Homeworld: Remastered), this game is still famous among all the hardcore RTS and Tactics enthusiasts. According to the storyline, Homeworld is set in Outer Space where Gravity is much less and all the ships can travel into Three Dimensional directions filled with a number of different obstacles such as Radiation, Dust Clouds and Asteroids etc. The game allows you to either play in Multiplayer Online mode or you can also play the game as Single player, control the character after selecting the Race (Kushan, Taiidan, Bentusi, Kadeshi, Turanic Raiders and Galactic Council etc.), lead your own fleet of ships, and go hunt down the enemies. Homeworld offers loads of resource types that you can collect, store them on your mothership and use them as per requirements. With a minimalist user interface, amazing space-based environment, epic encounters with the equally equipped enemies and loads of other cool things that Homeworld offers, this game is one of the best RTS games to play and enjoy.

X3: Reunion focuses on Space Trading, Exploration, and Combat. It is the third entry in the series of X Universe Adventure and the direct sequel to X2: The Threat. It supports single-player mode and plays from the first-person perspective. It takes place in the massive space environment and lets the player get into the role of the protagonist who is a space explorer. There are different types of spaceship such as a powerful battleship, freighters, small ship, fast, massive carriers, scouting ships and more. Select one of them and dive into the game world where you can explore the game world freely without any task or could complete a series of challenging missions to earn experience points and trade with NPCs. The story of the game starts where the X2 left off. The game takes place in the fictional Universe called X. According to the story, the Kha’ak are destroying all the popular areas of the Universe and the father of Julian named Kyle is still in a coma. Assume the role of the protagonist, customize your starship and pilot it. Collect rare artifact and use them to unlock further content and enhance your abilities. You can use special gem to open a portal to Earth and can fight against a mysteries alien alliances. Save the world from devastation and complete all objectives. X3 Reunion offers core features, addictive gameplay, and the best mechanics. Try it out.

X3: Terran Conflict mixes different genres such as Trading, Combat, Exploration, and Space Simulation. It is developed by Egosoft and published by Deep Silver. The game takes place in the massive space environments and lets the player explore the game world from first-person perspective. To get into the game world, the player must create and customize his/her starship with different items. There are different races such as Xenon, Terran, Split and more and the player can select one of them and start his journey to navigate ship around different sectors. The game world comprises thousands of stations and ships and the player can create his colony, gather resources, and trade with NPCs to earn money. He has to fight against rival alien races to protect his colony and defeat them to earn amazing rewards. The Ship can be upgraded by using experience points that the player earned by complete objectives. X3: Terran Conflict includes key features such as New Factions, Largest X Universe, over 100 Spaceship, Management Tools and more. Try it out.

X Rebirth is an addictive Space Simulation by Egosoft and offers the similar gameplay like Sins of a Solar Empire. It is an Action-Adventure, Combat, Trading, Sandbox, Sci-fi, and Single-player game. The game takes place in the X-Universe near the future. In the game, the player can assume the role of the protagonist and the game revolves around combat, piracy, trade, and others. The primary goal of the player is to gain wealth and build his own space station and control fleet of starships and expand it. It sets the player on an epic adventure where he must collect items and fight against aliens and other factions with the use of various weapons, and must defeat them to save his space station and earn a lot of money. The game offers the open-ended game world and allows the player immersive himself in action-packed space combat experience. In the game, the player can build his own empire, trade with large factories, and crush his enemies. X Rebirth includes core features such as Trade, Build, Customization, Fight, Upgrades, Unique Weapons System, Economy System, and others. With the exciting gameplay, brilliant mechanics, superb visuals, and smooth controls, X Rebirth is the excellent game to play and enjoy.

Universe Sandbox is an Action, Education, Physics-based, Space, Adventure and Single-player Simulation developed and published by Giant Army. The game takes on a massive space environment where you can build, and destroy anything that you imagine. It focuses on real-time gravity, collision, climate, space exploration, and material interaction. Your ultimate task is to navigate the environment, interact with objects and NPCs and reveal the secrets behind the scenes. There are tons of stars, planets, and galaxies are available to manipulate. In the game, you can encounter various alien species and can combat against them to score the points. Unlock other items using your points and dominate the galaxy. Learn about space, planets, black hole, and the atmosphere of space, etc. in this game and show off your skills and abilities by creating different things like planet, stars, etc. Universe Sandbox includes core features such as Simple Introduction, Fun-filled Activities, Physical Quantities in units (seconds, meters, and kilograms, etc.), 3D Mode, Two Collision modes (Combine and Bounce), and more. Try it out, and you’ll love it.

Universe Sandbox 2 is an Education, Interactive Space and Gravity Simulation developed by Dan Dixon and available to play on Microsoft Windows platform. The game takes place in the massive space environment full of galaxies, planets, moons and asteroids. By playing the game, the players can see the gravity’s effects on different objects in the massive universe and can run scale simulations of the solar system, while interacting and controlling time, gravity, other objects like moon, black holes, planets and more. The game comprises many realistic and fictional simulations. It is the sequel to Universe Sandbox and introduces new features such as atmosphere, randomly generated textures on gas giants, realistic collision system, Chart mode, visualization of black holes, and more. It has two different collision modes such as combine and bounce. Using the game, players can create their own universe by placing multiple planets, moons and asteroids. Universe Sandbox 2 offers core features such as Multiple Color Modes, Control (Speed, Gravity and Time), Two Collision Modes, Particle Grid, Ring Systems, and more. Check out the game and have fun.

Master of Orion: Conquer the Stars is a Turn-based, 4X, Single-player and Multiplayer Sci-fi themed video game developed by NGD Studios and published by Wargaming. It is the 4th title in the series of Master of Orion and serves as a reboot of the series, released by Argentina-based NGD Studios. There are up to ten playable races each with its unique set of objectives and characters. In the beginning, the player can control one of ten different races to galactic supremacy through the colonization and exploration of the massive star systems while utilizing conquest, diplomacy and technological developments. The main gameplay focuses on the Turn-based component, enabling the player to control a race who can compete against AI-controlled opponents around the galaxies. During the gameplay, the player deals with ship design, colony management, manage the empire, combat, inter-species diplomacy, and more. The player starts the game with a colonized homeworld in his solar system. 75 Researchable Technologies, Huge Galaxies, Customization, etc. are prominent features in the game.

Tropico 4, developed by Haemimont Games and Feral Interactive is an Open Ended City-Building, management and MMO-RTS Simulation video game. The game allows you design, build and manage the Cities as the President of Tropical Islands (Banana Republic). You must govern over Banana Republic and build buildings and structures on any island by choosing one from the map or you can just randomly select an island and start building. The game lets you be part of the game world by selecting and customizing an online avatar for yourself and after you have completed the initial steps you can start working on your cities. Tropico 4 allow you to play game in Campaign and provides with 20 levels of addictive and engaging game-play in which you get a chance to attack your enemies and conquer their lands and loot their resources. You must use best Turn Based Strategies to eliminate your enemies and any threat that diverts your attention from building your cities. Tropico 4 is an amazingly cool MMO-RTS, City Building and Management video game to play and enjoy. Do try it out.

Sid Meier’s Civilization V or shortly named as Civilization V is a wonderful 4X Turn-based MMO-RTS video game by Firaxis Games. The game is based on the player who leads a civilization from Primordial times to the future on a methodologically created map. The game lets you use your skills and experiences for the Research, Exploration, Diplomacy, Expansion of the lands, Economic and technological development, Governmental and Military Conquests etc. Civilization V inherits a lot of characteristics and mechanics from Civilization IV but a slight change is the absence of a lot of expansion packs. Unlike the previous versions of the game, Battle and combat characteristics are quite changed, Cities can now defend themselves by devastating the enemies situated nearby, and a lot of military restrictions are gone. Sid Meier’s Civilization V resembles Age of Mythologies a lot, story-line and game-play is quite overhauled and the game provides with Single and Multiplayer Campaigns so you can enjoy it more. Graphics are greatly enhanced as compared to the older versions of the game. With 2 expansion packs Civilization V: Gods and Kings and Civilization V: Brave New World, this game offers wonderful visuals, a brilliant game-play etc.

Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth by Firaxis Games is another cool video that offers a gameplay slightly similar to the popular StartCraft series games. The game provides with an amazing Turn-based Strategy and 4X game-play in which you with all the human populace are destined to travel through space and find a suitable new habitat. The event of The Great Mistake left no choice but to leave Earth and that resulted in a years long exploration, wars between countless alien races and a lot of amazing stuff. Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth lets you experience and amazing Strategy and combat filled game-play with a unique and wonderfully written story, great visuals and lots and lots of other cool things.

Civilization VI combines the elements of Turn-based Strategy, Historical, Single and Multiplayer 4X video game created by Firaxis Games and published by 2K Games. It is the sixth marvelous entry in the series of Civilization and offers enhanced gameplay, mechanics, and features. The game takes place in the historical-themed world and allows the player to lead his civilization from an early settlements and become a super power using one of different condition such as technology superiority, military power, and diplomacy leadership. In the beginning, you can start from a small tribe and your task is to explore the world, find new cities, build shelters, buildings, recruit your army, research new technologies, gather resources and train your force to defend your empire. Control the entire planet by defeat other players or AI-controlled Characters across different periods of development. Gather resources to survive longer, and conquer the land of other players to loot their resources. Civilization VI includes core features such as Expansive Empires, Active Research, Dynamic Diplomacy, Combined Arms, Enhance Multiplayer, and more. Try it out, and you’ll love it.

Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth: Rising Tide is a Downloadable Content Pack for the Turn-based Strategy and 4X video game Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth. The expansion pack introduces new features such as water gameplay, revamped diplomacy system, hybrid affinities, and exploration system. It supports both Single and Multiplayer modes developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K Games. The game features several dimensions to aquatic gameplay. Unlike previous titles, aquatic-based cities can be moved. The player can take on the role of the protagonist and the primary task is to create units to defend his empire and make strategies to take down enemies. The player can explore the environment from isometric view and can create his army to face off enemies. In the beginning, the player needs to colonize the ocean by creating floating settlements and harvesting resources. Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth: Rising Tide offers prominent features such as Colonize the Ocean, Dynamic Leader Traits, Four new Factions, New Artifact System and more. Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth: Rising Tide is the brilliant game to play and enjoy.

Civilization 4: Colonization is a remake of the Turn-based Strategy video game Colonization developed in 1994. The game introduces four playable European Nations such as Netherlands, France, England, and Spain and it enables the player to select his favourite one and jump into the battle where the player must effort to dominate the new world in the period 1492-1792. The ultimate task of the player is to create his colony and recruit an army, then announce independence from his mother country and battle against military forces that the mighty king sends to take down the rebellion. To establish and expand the city, the player must balance negotiations with multiple groups such as colonist from the home country, natives of the Americas, other Colonist from across the land. During the plot, the player can assemble his army and command on the battlefield to take down enemies to score the points, loot resources and claim their lands to expand his colony or city. The game introduces the trade and economic system when the player makes finished sells and goods in Europe. Civilization 4 Colonization Improved Diplomacy, Conquer Homeland and Establish a New Nation, Endless Replay, and more. Try it out, and you’ll like it.

Astro Lords or Astro Lords: Oort Cloud takes you to an amazing Universe Exploration and Combat journey and allows you to engage yourself into epic enemy encounters, trade and management simulation. This brilliant 3D MMO offers real-time battles and combats against the enemies, tons of space exploration and adventures and lets you be in charge of your own Asteroid. Your task is to simply defend your asteroid against the enemy attacks, collect resources to build structures on your asteroid, create various types of spaceships to explore the universe, build a huge base and militarize your every move against the enemies to stay always ahead of their plans. With a brilliantly designed core game-play, MMORTS aesthetics, PvP and PvE combats, and the ability to capture and conquer other Asteroids floating around the Oort Cloud nebula, defeating the enemies in epic encounters, game’s own economy system, unique trading capabilities and a unique Combat system, Astro Lords lets you enjoy experience of a life time. Astro Lords offers wonderful visuals, an immersive game-play and a lot of fantastic things to discover and enjoy beyond limits.