I've tried the demo on archive.org on what I believe is the Empire Deluxe Internet Edition.

Interested in buying, and I have two questions on this:

1) Did the game maker fix this potentially game-breaking (at least it's "cheesy") exploit yet?

==> Exploit: sneak a Troop Transport right beside a Coastal City, unload/attack city with your troops.

~this BYPASSES all "defending" units located in the City, and the attacking troops directly attack the City to take it over.

~I repeat, all "defending" units cannot be used to defend the City against such a cheesy attack!

~To add insult to injury, once attacking troops take over the City, all "defending" units inside the City (which did nothing to defend by the way) are destroyed.

~***I repeat, this is potentially game-breaking, and even the computer AI had accidentally deployed this tactic against me!

2) When it's computer's turn to play, there is excessive scrolling around the map which is very very ssllooooooww scrolling.

==> Is there any way speed up this kind of scrolling, which is too time consuming IMHO?

For #1, this is how the game is played. You need air cover and naval units to prevent such scurrilous attacks.

For #2, I think that is a behavior of the older games. In this version the map can be dragged around and zoomed via mouse.

Wow, many thanks for your quick & detailed reply!