The steam servers are under maintenance. Only a couple server show up for ever game. Everyone's hoping this means the summer sale.
Based off of the opinions of the North American community towards the EPIC server and the European community towards the VIPER server, Empires is dead because of the EPIC server and the VIPER server. The only solution therefore, is to remove both servers, saving Empires.
Put the servers in your favourites next time - problem solved. in the mean time I have this listed: Vipers: 99.198.97.162:27105 Epic: 46.105.98.107:27050