I have a friend who writes decent poetry. I asked him how he learned it. He laughed, and said he started by just copying existing poems to send to his girlfriend. Then he began modifying and customizing the poems. Then he just wrote his own.

And so it goes, for most any skill.

Yes you can :-)

I spent a lot of time extending the Hammurabi program. My version of it is lost to history like a lot of my early stuff. I also wrote a lunar lander game, and an orbit game.

Empire was first written in Basic.