The Catalyst 3.8 and 3.9 Drivers break all 2D/3D transitions within Empires. All versions of the Empires are affected including the Multiplayer and Singleplayer demos and the retail version of the game. This a problem related to the drivers and not related to Empires.

Those who are having trouble with Empires and own a ATI Radeon are encouraged to upgrade to the latest Catalyst Drivers (3.10). Version 3.10 fixes many problems occurring in previous driver sets and may improve performance.

Find the latest drivers at ATI:
http://www.ati.com/support/driver.html