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Import of Empire 4.2.12

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.TH Introduction Basics
.NA Basics "The basic rules for playing Empire"
.LV Basic
.s1
First, there are no real rules to playing empire. What you do
is what you do. There are some general guidelines here, and some
deities may be more forgiving than others.
.s1
One player, one country.
You man NEVER use any country other than your own.
It is ok for two people to play one country
but it is NEVER ok for one person to play two countries.
If you are caught doing this, your countries will be removed
from the game.
In addition, your registrations for future games may be
declined.
DON'T DO IT.
.s1
Ok, but what do I do when I'm away?
.s1
.in +.5i
1) you may turn over your country to someone who has never
played anyone else's country in that game.
You MUST tell the deity if you do this
as he/she/it will be watching who is playing what.
.br
2) you may turn your country over to the deity.
.in -.5i
.s1
Bugs: if you find a bug,
you are REQUIRED to report it to the deity.
I will not let other people know about the bug
and in most cases, you may exploit it until it is fixed.
Punishment for use without telling: at least $50,000 or
getting your country removed from the game.
.s1
Denial-of-service attacks are forbidden. Any form of attack that
prevents a player from connecting to the server is against the rules.
This includes letter bombing.
.s1
.SA "Introduction"

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.TH Introduction "Empire4 Compatable Clients"
.NA Clients "Clients which communicate well with the Empire4 Server"
.LV Basic
.NF
What follows is a list of clients which support the new Empire4
protocol. All of these clients may be found on the Wolfpack Empire
Archives located at:
http://www.wolfpackempire.com
or
ftp://ftp.wolfpackempire.com/pub/empire/
empclient-2.8 - full support
If you are using one of these clients, then you should type
"toggle inform" once you have broken sanctuary. These clients
are fully asynchronous, which means that they are able to respond
immediately when an unexpected message arrives from the server. So,
for example, if someone sends you a "flash" message, then the message
will be printed on your screen immediately. Similarly, with "inform"
toggled on, you will be informed the moment a telegram arrives. Note,
the server remembers your toggle flags when you log out, so you do not
have to type "toggle inform" again the next time you connect.
other clients - no support
Most other clients should work fine with the Empire4 server, however
they may get confused if a flash message comes in. Users of other
clients should keep the "inform" flag toggled off, and ask a friend to
send them a "flash" message to see how the client handles it (note,
you must declare friendly relations towards them in order to receive
the flash message). If the flash message confuses your client, then I
recommend you type "toggle flash" to turn flash mode off.
.FI
.s1
In addition, there are a list of commands which have been added to the
server to help the development of clients. They are:
.NF
dump - Dump sector information
ldump - Dump land unit information
sdump - Dump ship information
pdump - Dump plane inforamation
ndump - Dump nuclear stockpile information
lost - Report lost items
.FI
.s1
See the various info pages on these for complete documentation on how they
work and how you can use them to help improve your clients.
.s1
In addition, there is a "timestamp" field on each object (sectors, ships,
land units, planes, nuclear stockpiles, lost items) that you can use to
compare against to keep data between clients and the database in sync with
each other. These timestamps are kept in systems seconds, so they should
be accurate down to 1 second. Every time an object is changed, it's
timestamp is updated.
.SA "toggle, dump, ldump, sdump, pdump, ndump, lost, Empire4, Communication, Introduction"

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.TH Introduction "Expert Advice"
.NA Expert "Advice to expert Empire players"
.LV Expert
.ce 3
\*(iFDefense Against Nuclear Attacks
Through the Denial of Information\*(pF
by Tom Tedrick
.s1
A very good defense against nukes is to make
it as difficult as possible for other players to find out
where your country is, and thus to make maps of it.
.s1
Here are some simple steps that you can follow:
.in +\w'MM)\0\0'u
.s1
.L 1)
Shoot down all planes that fly over your airspace.
It helps to have numerous airfields,
say one airfield for every 25 sectors or so.
Every airfield should be within interception distance
of several other airfields,
so that it is more difficult for an enemy to destroy or capture it.
If an airfield is detected and nuked,
you still have backup airfields.
Every important sector should be within interception distance
of several airfields.
.s1
.L 2)
Seal off all entrances to your inland seas by building
bridges and laying mines
(so no enemy ships can penetrate the area for mapping purposes).
.s1
.L 3)
Sink all surface vessels and submarines near your coastline.
Have large fleets of destroyers posted around exposed coastal areas
covering all sea sectors where enemy subs
might try to sneak in for mapping purposes.
Usually two fleets of 30 destroyers each are enough.
Navigate the whole fleet one sector, stop and look for subs,
navigate one more sector, stop and look for subs, and so on,
until the fleet has made a circle and is back in its starting position.
Sink any subs you find, of course.
.s1
There is a maximum number of around 30 ships that can be in a
fleet if you want to maneuver the whole fleet by fleet name
(see \*Qinfo fleetadd\*U).
.s1
.L 4)
Establish alliances under the condition that secrecy is maintained
with respect to map information.
Thus other allied countries can serve as
a buffer zone against enemy countries.
Many players are willing to be good allies.
.s1
.L 5)
Destroy or capture nearby radar stations.
.s1
.L 6)
Destroy or capture enemy air bases
within range of your country.
Until enemy technology gets high enough
to launch against any target world-wide,
they will often try to get someone to let them have an airbase
hidden near your country and launch nuclear strikes from there.
I've always been able to find these if I worked at it.
.s1
.L 7)
Use psychological warfare.
Nukers get tired of nuking you if it seems to have no effect.
For example, have numerous false capitals, so that when,
after great efforts, they manage to find
what they think is your capital, and nuke it, only to
discover that it was a fake, they will get discouraged.
These fake capitals are also very useful as backups in case your
real capital is discovered and destroyed.
.s1
When an enemy gets close to doing real harm,
a counterattack can often divert attention away from the current attack.
Psychologically, attackers seem to underestimate the harm
they are doing to you if you don't give out any information about how
you are being affected,
and they seem to overestimate the danger to themselves
from your counterattack.
.in
.s1
.ce 3
\*(iFShip Networks and the Art of
Transferring Supplies\*(pF
by Tom Tedrick
.s1
Build large quantities of ships.
When they're 100% efficient,
load them with military and food (and civilians) if possible.
Load guns and shells if you have them,
but since they tend to be scarce, only a few ships will have them.
Navigate them one by one as far as they will go.
Leave only one ship in each sector
(this makes it difficult for an enemy to sink very many of them,
due to mobility restrictions
and the problem of locating and identifying them one by one).
On your maps, mark the ship number in the appropriate sector.
Each sea sector thus has at most one ship number.
.s1
Unless there is something in particular you want to do with
a particular ship, leave it sitting in its sector indefinitely.
.s1
As you build more and more ships,
move them out one by one.
If you leave ship \*(iFX\*(pF
in a sector that already contains ship \*(iFY\*(pF,
ship \*(iFY\*(pF should have full mobility by then.
Navigate ship \*(iFY\*(pF as far as it will go,
then leave it sitting until a new ship comes along.
.s1
Every ship in the network is now likely to be within range of
some other ships in the network.
If a ship requires any supplies,
you can load them on a ship in a harbor,
navigate it out, transfer the cargo via tend,
navigate the tended ship,
transfer its cargo, and so on,
until you reach the any ship in the network.
If you need military for assaulting or boarding,
guns and shells for firing, torpedoing or laying mines,
or if you simply want to move stuff into a distant harbor,
you can do it using several tend and navigate operations.
.s1
This has been particularly useful for sinking subs.
I don't have enough guns and shells
to keep all of my 100 or more destroyers fully armed,
but when one of the unarmed destroyers spots a sub,
I can arrange to transfer guns and shells to it from a loaded
ship (or from a harbor).
.s1
It's a very simple system from the player's standpoint,
because all the player has to do is build the ship,
navigate it, mark its number on the map,
and forget about it until a use for it arises.
As more ships are built,
the network automatically expands without requiring any planning.
You don't have to keep anything in memory,
except the ship number on your map.
If any enemy surface ship gets trapped in the network,
it's quite likely you can capture it,
even if all you have is cargo ships
(battleships, landing craft, and carriers could take some work though).
If an enemy sub is spotted by your destroyers,
you can almost always sink it.
If a convenient target for an assault appears,
you can get the necessary military there.
.s1
.ce 3
\*(iFSome Tricks to Use When Fighting\*(pF
by Various People
(Mostly by Tom)
.s1
The trick for boarding destroyers:
you need a bunch of cargo ships,
both to make several boarding attempts and to tend military.
When you try to board a ship, both the attacker and defender
lose the same amount of mobility.
First you have to get the destroyer's mobility to be negative.
Then you just keep trying to board it from one ship after
another until you win.
That's where my ship network method comes in handy.
I usually have swarms of ships I can surround enemy ships with.
.s1
If I have planes, my normal method is to take a sector I can see,
put enough military to hold it,
designate it \*Qe\*U if it has lots of food,
or maybe something else if there is a reason.
Then get information about the adjacent sectors
and take the most promising one.
Without planes it's more of a struggle.
Anyway, I kind of zig-zag into the country taking the most
interesting sectors, ignoring the others.
This really seems to freak people out,
when an enemy takes a path right through the heartland.
.s1
I would use planes (so having numerous airports
each with a fair supply of fighters, spread around
your country, would be the best countermeasure),
ships (having forts loaded with guns and shells
covering all coastlines helps a lot;
also having destroyers and subs spread around your coastal
waters in order to spot and counterattack enemy
ships, also have bombers to bomb enemy ships, and
radar stations to spot them is useful).
.s1
I would invade by land, firing from forts,
(mainly you need to counterattack actively when the enemy takes any
sectors in your area, also forts with guns and shells help a lot).
I would capture islands and build bridges to get into your country
(so watch all offshore islands with bridge span range).
.s1
Have a lot of shells in warehouses ready to be moved to
the front (you can move four for no mobility cost).
.s1
Bombing enemy ships spotted by radar seems to work pretty
well for the most part.
If he has an aircraft carrier you can torpedo it.
.s1
You never know exactly what may happen,
sometimes you get lucky when you think it's hopeless.
Even if a plan has only a small chance of working,
sometimes it's worth a try,
especially if the enemy has to actively do something to stop it.
.in 0
.s1
You should always have at least two capitals sectors, in case you
lose one.
.s1
Just a tip on empire tactics: mobility is the key
to dealing with many empire problems. Its often the
bottleneck which interferes with various things, and
the decisive advantage that gives victory to the attacker.
.s1
.s1
.SA "Overview, Novice, Hints, Introduction"

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.TH Introduction Hints
.NA Hints "Hints to help you play Empire better"
.LV Expert
.s1
Military and the Demobilization of Same
.in +0.3i
.s1
It's generally a good idea to put
demobilized military on active reserve.
You should also consider whether you need an enlistment center
to generate more military.
You can't enlist more military than you have military reserves.
The \*Qnation\*U command will tell you how many military you have.
Be careful, as many players have lost their countries
through carelessness with their military
at the start of the game.
.s1
Actually, the enlist command cannot activate more military than
you have on reserve.
Even then they have to be in sectors
with an efficiency of 60% or greater.
Enlistment sectors can produce as many military as they are capable of,
but will never produce more than one-half
of the civilian populace there.
So you need to keep moving them out, or demobilizing them, etc.
Also, the more military you have in an enlistment center,
the more military get trained per update.
.s1
Any civilian may be enlisted
(no restriction on the efficiency of the sector).
No more may be enlisted than the number of reserves.
Enlistment costs mobility whereas
while demobilization costs cash.
Military can only be demobilized in sectors
with a 60% efficiency or greater.
No more than one-half the number of civilians in a sector
may be enlisted in one \*Qenlist\*U command,
but if it is issued many times,
virtually all civilians in a sector may be enlisted.
.s1
One thousand reserves is enough for now,
although I figure I always put them on reserve when I demobilize,
at least up to 10,000.
.s1
So you don't need to push for more reserves now,
but might as well put all demobilized military on reserve.
.s1
You make back the cost of demobilizing military in just
two or three days I think,
so I generally demobilize the military I don't have any use for,
and put them on reserve.
.s1
Depends on how you want to use them, I guess.
I figure with 200 jet transports at 127 mobility,
I can land 20,000 military in an enemy country in one night,
so I'd say 20,000 is a safe upper limit for reserves.
I've never needed more than that.
.in
.s1
Distribution Hints
.in +0.3i
.s1
When distributing stuff to a warehouse,
set the thresholds in the sector that is sending to or receiving
from the warehouse to the amount that you want left in that sector.
Don't set thresholds for the warehouse itself
(unless its also distributing to another warehouse)
.s1
The minimum threshold for distribution is one.
A threshold of 0 means no distribution of that commodity
will take place.
.in
.s1
Something to Remember about Technology
.in +0.3i
.s1
An education level of five is required to build technology.
After "easy tech", the tech you build is put through a
logorithm with "tech log base" (see version).
.in
.s1
War Zones
.in +0.3i
.s1
It makes it much easier if the player doesn't
have to do anything to keep his country running,
but can instead do the things that are of interest.
There's also the problem of what to do in an invasion.
I guess if invaded I just accept the damage,
and don't try to fix it until the war ends.
.s1
In a war zone I generally follow one of two basic plans.
If I'm the invader, I either leave the sectors as they are
and let the country being invaded fall apart,
or if I can do something to make it worse for the enemy,
I sometimes do that.
I sometimes designate conquered sectors to agribusinesses
if they need food, banks to reduce shelling damage,
enlistment centers for military,
forts for firing and attacking, harbors to get ships in,
warehouses to collect, move, and distribute supplies,
airbases for planes and bridge heads for easy movement.
.s1
When being invaded, I also generally postpone any
long term development and just concentrate on the
basic sectors types for combat (a,b,c,e,f,h,w,#,*)
.s1
I've found it's a mistake to worry about long term
development in a war zone, until the battle is over.
I will let a war zone be completely wrecked in order to achieve victory.
So you need to keep your home area away from any war zones.
.s1
So far the method of treating war zones and
peaceful zones differently and keeping them separated
has worked pretty well.
The mistake I made in the past was to try to develop a war zone
before the fight was over.
Now I'm willing to completely wreck the area to win,
and in fact you pretty much have to.
The guerrillas take several days to get rid of even when
the war is over.
.s1
I mostly turn the sectors in the front lines into forts, enlistment
centers, banks, and bridgeheads.
Then maybe some warehouses, airports, and harbors
within range of the front lines.
And maybe some radar stations.
.in
.s1
Work Percentages are Important!
.in +0.3i
.s1
I've found it good policy to produce a large surplus
of food and aim to have at least 100 food in each sector,
when I have enough. Actually I now put 990 food in each
sector, except for aggies (100) and warehouses (9990).
.s1
Before moving civilians,
check the work in the sector the civilians are in.
If it's less than 100%, DON'T move any of them out.
The reason: work in the destination sector will drop to
the same level as the starting sector.
.s1
It's a good idea to check after every update,
to see if any sectors have work less than 100%.
\*Qcen\ #0\ ?work<100\*U is what I use.
If work is less than 100%, workers won't work at full efficiency,
and if it gets very low,
the civilians may revolt and you'll lose the sector.
Build lots of happiness, and keep extra mil in sectors with
work less than 100%.
That seems to help.
.in
.s1
Definitions and a Good Thing to Remember
.in +0.3i
.s1
\*QWorld tech\*U and \*Qworld research\*U refers
to the technology and research made by other countries
which will automatically leak to the less developed countries.
.s1
If you let education get higher than happiness,
then find work going to 0% in your sectors,
don't say you weren't warned....
.in
.s1
On Nuclear Devices
.in +0.3i
.s1
Just a note on nukes: in this version, there is
a nice balance between nukes and economics.
A player can do a lot of damage with nukes, but it costs a LOT.
So it's rare that a country is completely annihilated
by a nuclear attack,
as used to be the case in PSL Empire.
.in
.SA "Overview, Introduction"

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.TH Introduction Kill
.NA Kill "How to kill your process on the server"
.LV Basic
.s1
At some point you may lose your connection to the game.
When this happens its possible that the game will not
log your country off and you will get a message saying that
you are still playing the game. This can be easily fixed by the player
if you type in the following.
.s1
.nf
.in +1i
telnet your.local.empire.machine 6666
coun <NAME>
pass <PASSWORD>
kill
quit
.in -1i
.fi
.s1
What happens is that you are connecting directly to the Empire Server.
From there you enter your country name and password.
You can then kill the job that's running and then quit so you can
login again using the client.
.s1
This little trick will work on just about any Empire game.
Of course you need to telnet to that game and
and enter the correct country and password.
.s1
Its a good idea to write this down somewhere and DON'T LOSE it cause
chances are that you will have to use it at sometime.
.s1
Note that many clients offer a "kill" command which does this.
.s1
.SA "Introduction"

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INFOSRCS=Basics.t Clients.t Expert.t Guide.t Hints.t Kill.t Novice.t Overview.t Suggestions.t

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#
# Empire - A multi-player, client/server Internet based war game.
# Copyright (C) 1986-2000, Dave Pare, Jeff Bailey, Thomas Ruschak,
# Ken Stevens, Steve McClure
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
# Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
#
# ---
#
# See the "LEGAL", "LICENSE", "CREDITS" and "README" files for all the
# related information and legal notices. It is expected that any future
# projects/authors will amend these files as needed.
#
SRCDIR = ../..
NROFF = nroff
TROFF = troff
INFOSRCS = empty
INFOOBJS = $(INFOSRCS:.t=)
HTMLOBJS = $(INFOSRCS:.t=.)
include MakeSrcs
.SUFFIXES: .t
all:
@echo INFOSRCS=`echo *.t` > MakeSrcs
@make nroffs
@echo Done.
html:
@echo INFOSRCS=`echo *.t` > MakeSrcs
@make htmlfiles
@echo Done.
htmlfiles: $(HTMLOBJS)
nroffs: $(INFOOBJS)
$(INFOOBJS):
@$(NROFF) $(SRCDIR)/info/CRT.MAC $@.t | awk -f $(SRCDIR)/info/Blank.awk > $(SRCDIR)/info.nr/$@
@echo Created $(SRCDIR)/info.nr/$@
$(HTMLOBJS):
@perl $(SRCDIR)/info/emp2html.pl $@t > $(SRCDIR)/info.html/$@html
@echo Created $(SRCDIR)/info.html/$@html

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.TH Introduction "Advice for Novices"
.NA Novice "Advice for Novices"
.LV Basic
.ce 3
.s1
\*(iFA Preface\*(pF
by Ken Stevens
.s1
While most of this document applies to the game of Empire in its
current form, it is important to keep in mind that the sections which
follow this preface were written long before missions or land units
were introduced into the game. The main impact that missions and land
units have had on the game is that they greatly strengthened the
defense. Here are "ten easy steps" for setting up a strong defense in
the new server:
.NF
(1) Build 100% forts and put 10 guns and at least 100 shells in them.
(2) Put at least 5 mil in all of your coastal sectors.
(3) Build infantry units, put them in the forts, "fortify" them, and
put them on "reserve" mission (info mission).
(4) Build battleships and artillery and put them on "interdiction"
mission. Put the artillery in forts and fortify them.
(5) Put infantry units in your banks and capitals, fortify them, and set their
reaction radius to 0 (info lrange).
---later in the game---
(6) Put lots of land mines in your ground (info lmine).
(7) Build fighter planes.
(8) Always guard your ships with destroyers (or other kinds of ASW ships).
(9) Build some ASW planes and put them on interdiction mission.
(10) Build lots of sam's and abm's.
.FI
.s1
\*(iFA Treatise of Advice on War and Peace
for Budding Empire Players\*(pF
by Dave Pare
.s1
This article contains advice for beginning players.
It deals mainly with staying alive and not economic development,
because staying alive is tougher for beginners
than is playing with the various Sector-types.
.s1
The most important thing I can say is that beginners should remember
that Empire is not realistic.
There are dozens of \*Qtricks\*U to learn;
until you master them, you will lose because of small oversights
Beware of patterning your Empire actions after real-world strategies;
they may not work as expected.
.s1
When you start, grab as much land as possible.
Locate and identify other players,
and get an idea of the size of your land mass.
Send them all telegrams.
Everybody likes to get telegrams;
the telegram facility gives you the chance to make friends,
influence people, and have fun role-playing your country.
If you get to know somebody,
you may not be attacked because you come across as a nice guy.
Of course, if you sound like a bozo, you may get stepped on.
.s1
Establish a definite border with your neighbors by inhabiting
sectors with one civilian.
This establishes your claim
to the land behind these outposts,
even though you don't actually occupy it yet.
It also prevents your neighbor from discovering where YOUR capital is.
In Empire, it's very important to protect the location of your capital;
likewise, it's quite nice to know the location
of the neighboring capitals \*Qjust in case\*U!
.s1
If any of your neighbors attacks your outposts,
that gives you a valuable clue to their intentions,
while not costing you much in the way of resources.
Also, an attack on a remote outpost may give you enough time
to prepare your country for the possible invasion to follow.
You may not want to claim too much land though,
or the outposts will get overrun by people
who are fed up with your obvious land-grabbing.
.s1
Basically, try and be fair about land distribution,
but make sure you get a good deal for yourself.
.s1
Empire players go to war for many reasons.
One is lack of resources;
you have land, and they want it.
Another is safety;
your troops or ships are perceived as menacing,
so they are destroyed by your adversary.
Another is because the attacking player
really enjoys attacking people!
Still another is boredom and/or curiosity --
\*QJust how do nukes work anyway?
Hey, I know, I'll try them out on Freedonia!\*U
.s1
In Empire, wars are generally won by people who attack first.
Because mobility can be saved up
your attacks can proceed while the hapless enemy is asleep.
Many Empire attacks have happened over the weekend,
or at 2:00 in the morning.
It is quite difficult to defend your country when you're not logged in.
The auto-defense features of the game are minimal at best.
.s1
The whole philosophy of \*QFirst Strike\*U holds true from early land
warfare, to naval warfare, to the philosophy of Mutual Assured
Destruction.
If you strike first and your attack is well-planned,
any retributive strike of the enemy's will be ragged at best.
If it's a land war,
all of the fighting will be on the enemy's territory,
not on yours.
Your industries will be fine, and the battleground will be the enemy's.
.s1
Having mentioned the advantages of pre-emptive strikes,
I must caution against spur-of-the-moment attacks.
I've noticed that many wars tend to occur because
some country sinks your battleship;
you get mad and decide to attack.
I'm just as guilty of this as anyone.
Spending a few days marshaling your forces
can mean the difference between a long, drawn-out slugfest,
and an overwhelming 2:00 blitzkrieg
that blows away half the enemy's army and navy
within the first few hours.
While it's nice to have instant gratification
(seeing enemy troops die right after you read the telegram
describing the destruction of your poor, defenseless battleship
feels SO good),
a hasty counterattack will alert your enemy
who will mobilize forces and retaliate accordingly.
Things will escalate, and you'll be in a full-scale shooting war
before you can say \*QGulf of Tonkin Resolution!\*U
And you will have lost the advantage.
.s1
Going first only counts if you have marshaled your forces.
A scattered, ill-planned attack will net you nothing
but a little instant gratification,
at the cost of a long drawn-out war in which
your neighbors who aren't fighting are the only winners.
Once two countries are at war,
it's much harder to win \*Qovernight\*U.
Vietnam is a good example of what you shouldn't do.
Gradual escalation just gives the enemy time to prepare.
A sudden, overwhelming attack is far better
and will achieve your goals much more cheaply.
.s1
Knowing where the enemy is located is absolutely critical
to the planning of a successful attack.
.s1
War takes up a lot of resources;
your personal time is the most precious resource of all.
In a war, your time, energy, and creativity will be devoted
towards destroying your adversary.
This leaves little time for economic development.
In war, the home front stagnates, or goes to seed.
Only the bare necessities are produced for the civilians at home,
technological innovation and new land development ceases,
and your country will generally fall behind in the global race
for technology.
.s1
Therefore, if you decide to go to war,
you'd better win quickly
or else it will take a lot of time,
and your country will go downhill fast.
If you're just punishing someone for doing something \*Qnasty\*U,
offer \*Qnice\*U peace terms after you've meted out
appropriate punishment.
If you aren't attacking because you're bored,
other players are likely to agree to peace
because losing a war is unpleasant.
I've turned enemies into allies often enough;
they are happy to survive,
and if your attack was relatively justified,
they are happy to have you as a friend.
.s1
You'll notice I didn't give any advice to responding to an attack.
I think being attacked is generally a losing proposition
because in Empire the attacker generally has the advantage
unless fighting with greatly lower tech equipment.
.s1
As soon as ships start appearing on the power chart,
make sure each sector bordering water
has at least five to ten military.
When more ships come around, beef up the coastline defenses even more.
Put tons of military in your capital.
.s1
To summarize,
if you go to war, strike the first blow -- preferably at 0200.
.s1
Remember the cost in your own personal time investment.
Once the ball starts rolling,
you won't be able to call it all off and go for a vacation.
Your enemy will want to kill you,
so you'd better be prepared to spend plenty of time in solid play.
.s1
.ce 3
\*(iFHumble Additions to the
Treatise of Advice\*(pF
by Tom Tedrick
.s1
In addition, keep mobility in mind.
In many of my low-tech wars, superior mobility was decisive.
.s1
Combining these ideas gives you my basic opening strategy:
take as many sectors as is possible, as quickly as possible
(I will take 300 sectors the first day if I can),
and designate them highways, leaving one civilian in each sector.
(You may need to leave one food in sectors with zero fertility.)
.s1
When my country first reaches 100% efficiency,
roughly two-thirds of my sectors will be 100% efficient highways.
This allows me to shift my forces all the way
from one border to another in a single move.
I once had great fun smashing three countries
that attacked me simultaneously from three sides
by shifting all my forces from border to border to border,
achieving local superiority in each case,
and annihilating the enemy forces in turn at updates
(this is related to the theory of the
advantages of interior lines worked out by the Germans).
.s1
If the enemy runs out of mobility you can sometimes catch
the main invasion force helplessly immobilized on the front lines
and annihilate it.
.s1
.ce 2
\*(iFHints to the Wise\*(pF
by Shelley Louie
.s1
Since this is an advice note,
I'll refrain from being too specific about tactics.
You'll just have to learn them yourself.
.s1
Building the Perfect Beast: (Country Construction)
.in +0.3i
.s1
The first thing you want is land.
Lots of land.
A whole hell of a lot of land.
You should try to expand your country from the very beginning.
From there, you'll meet your neighbors who are doubtlessly
doing the same thing you're doing.
Expanding wildly.
Now comes the first of a series of decisions you have to make.
Do you want to become a raging power-mad warmonger?
If you do, be sure to have built your army beyond the basic 100 troops.
The earlier in the game you find someone,
the easier it is to crush them into oblivion.
If you feel peaceful, see the diplomatic section of the text.
.s1
Another difficult decision is designating your sectors.
A good beginning mix is two mines per light construction and
heavy construction factory,
about 20% agribusinesses
(later dropping to 10%, 5%, or even none at all!),
and a few schools, research, parks, etc.
to fill up some of the other space.
The most important thing to have is a good transportation system
in the form of your highways.
Anywhere from 20-40% of your country should be highways.
You'll find them infinitely useful
in moving food to a starving sector,
taking people to a new settlement,
or transporting troops to a local revolution, highways are vital!
.s1
Another important consideration is \*Qdo you want really want to win?\*U
This implies the idea of competing
in terms of building technology and research,
and being able to get supplies to continue to produce
both of these vital products plus happiness,
a high (greater than 10) education, maintaining a military force, etc.
Winning means succeeding on all fronts.
I play to win, but find that I can't devote the time or effort
to winning, so I usually end up playing for the pure enjoyment
of the game.
Ask Tom [Tedrick] how many hours he puts into playing,
and you can figure that is what you're going to have to do to win.
A final warning, if you play seriously, your grades will drop.
No if's, and's, or but's about this.
You can't just throw three to five hours a day away
and not have your schoolwork suffer.
.in
.s1
Happiness is a Warm Gun: (The Art of Diplomacy)
.in +0.3i
.s1
No one trusts anybody in this game unless you know them personally
outside of the limited scope of Empire.
Of course, this limits you a lot,
so you break the rules and make alliances
with people who you have no relation to.
And they in turn backstab you and devastate the country
you so meticulously built for the last few weeks.
Oh well, that's what you deserve...
.s1
Just kidding.
Most of the people you will play with are rather trustworthy souls.
At least they are until it becomes burdensome to them.
A good relationship (as all those sex manuals will tell you)
is based on trust and respect for the other person.
What does this mean to you?
Build enough military to be a pain to invade.
Military power insures respect.
Trust is up to the two people involved.
.in
.s1
Night Moves: (The Art of Empire)
.in +0.3i
.s1
Empire is a skill.
Never forget that.
You will learn as you play that you may have to stay up
for that 3:00 AM update to completely surprise your unknowing victim
or even just to maximize your country's potential.
Also never forget that someone may be up at that time
waiting to pounce all over you too.
Pleasant dreams.
.in
.s1
Running on Empty: (Losing and still having fun)
.in +0.3i
.s1
Okay, you've tried to keep up with Tom [Tedrick], Chris [Guthrie],
and all those other experienced people,
but it just isn't going to happen.
You are not going to win the big win (i.e., become world dictator).
What do you do?
Give up and watch your country go to pot?
Give all your stuff away to another country and resign?
.s1
No!
You can have fun even after you can't win.
Make small wars with other small countries.
Try to get a hold of nukes to devastate them.
Form a cartel with other small nations
and try to run over a big country.
As in real life, the possibilities are endless!
Look at the Middle East, they're having fun, right?
.s1
This is just a game, and from this point on,
you don't have to worry about watching over your nation too closely.
Play for the enjoyment of playing.
.s1
Which, of course, is the intention of Empire in the first place.
.in
.s1
.ce 2
\*(iFOn the Distribution of All Things\*(pF
by David Bleckmann
.s1
The reader here is assumed to have read the information pages
on distribute, threshold, and level.
.s1
To use distribute, it is a good idea to have a warehouse.
You don't have to, but this is how the command usually works.
If for some odd reason you don't use a warehouse,
you will have to use some other sector as your
\*Qdestination sector\*U, as mentioned in \*Qinfo level\*U.
For novices, just build a warehouse.
I will refer to warehouse instead of distribution sector
for the rest of this text.
.s1
You should place your warehouse in a spot
that can be reached by all your sectors via a low mobility path.
That is, for each sector you own,
there should be a path along which you could move goods
at very little mobility cost.
Since 100% efficient highways don't cost any mobility to move across,
roads that come close to each of your sectors
and lead to your warehouse are a good idea.
.s1
Now for each of your sectors you must set up a distribution path.
Use the distribute command.
This is a path from each of your sectors to your warehouse,
along a low mobility path as described above.
For example, if you have a nation that looks like this:
.NF
j j m + c
m + g * +
h + w + k
m + + g
.FI
And you wanted to set up a path from your capital,
you would give the command
.EX dist 0,0 bbg
.s1
Note: the path can only be so long,
and as your country gets larger you will
need more than one warehouse.
.s1
Once you have done this for all of your sectors,
you are ready to start distributing.
.s1
Now you will probably want to have food on all your sectors,
and if one sector has a lot of people on it,
you may want to have a bit more on it.
You will not want to have to monitor the food levels
for all of your sectors.
This is the process that is automated by distribute.
.s1
Using food as an example,
you can go through all of your sectors and issue a threshold command,
such as:
.EX thresh f 0,0 40
.s1
This will set the threshold for food at your capital at 40.
You can do this for all of your sectors using a command like
.EX thresh f #
.s1
And give a threshold for each of your sectors as prompted.
.s1
Now at each update,
Empire will move food to and from your warehouse
in an attempt to satisfy all your threshold requirements.
If for example a certain sector
has more than its allotted threshold of a certain product
(e.g., an agribusiness producing food),
food will be moved off it to the warehouse.
If a sector has less than its threshold,
and the warehouse has any of that commodity,
the product will be moved from the warehouse
to the needy sector in an attempt to satisfy its threshold.
If a certain sector has a threshold of 0 for a certain product,
no distribution takes place.
.s1
Therefore if you wished to move as much iron as possible
from an iron mine every update,
you would set its threshold for iron to one.
If somewhere else you had a lcm factory that can use 45 iron a turn
(found out through the prod command)
you would set its threshold for iron to 45 (or greater)
and its threshold for lcm's to one.
Then, on each update,
Empire would move all iron off your iron mine (except for one unit),
try to put 45 iron on your lcm factory and take all lcm's
(except for one)
off your lcm plant
(possibly to be used somewhere else).
.s1
Note: the order in which this happens is predictable,
but not always desirable.
Thus, if you have no iron on your warehouse to start with
and your lcm factory gets updated first,
it won't get any iron even though there will be some in the warehouse
in a few seconds.
It is always a good idea to keep surplus goods in your warehouse.
.s1
The end result is that you can set up your country to move your products
around without you logging in.
It also doesn't cost as many mobility points
to move things as distribute, and it costs no BTU's!
.s1
.ce 3
\*(iFSome Further Clarifications
on Distribution versus Delivery\*(pF
by David Muir Sharnoff
.s1
.in +0.3i
\*(iFSecondly, I am still a little confused
about distribution and delivery.
When I designate a distribution route,
does that mean that things will be delivered
from the point of distribution to the warehouse?
Or do I also have add the delivery route
on top of the distribution route in order to get things moving?
And how do I get the visual route of the distribution route?
I can get delivery routes by doing the route command.
Thanks.\*(pF
.in
.s1
The two methods of moving commodities
(distribute/threshold/level and deliver/cutoff/route)
are completely independent.
.s1
Delivery is most useful for short, one-sector, movement of commodities.
Distribute can be used in conjunction with highways and distribution
sectors to provide low-cost, long-range movement of commodities.
There is no analog to the route command in the distribute paradigm.
.s1
Here are some examples of commands:
.s1
.EX distribute -2,0 jjjh
This command sets up a distribution path from the distribution sector
in -2,0 to sector 4,0.
.s1
.EX thresh food 4,0 400
This command sets the threshold on sector 4,0.
Sector -2,0 (the distribution sector for 4,0)
will attempt to keep 400 units of food in 4,0
by importing or exporting as necessary.
.s1
.EX thresh oil 4,0 100
This command is the same as above,
but will instead attempt to keep 100 units of oil.
.s1
.EX level -2,0
This command will report the distribution routes
and thresholds for sector -2,0.
.s1
.EX deliver food -2,0 (384) y
This command will deliver all food from -2,0
in excess of 384 units to -3,-1.
.s1
.EX deliver lcm -2,0 b
This command will deliver all lcm's from -2,0 to -3,1.
.s1
.EX deliver lcm -2,0 +30
This command will deliver lcm's in excess of 24
(deliver uses multiples of eight).
.s1
.EX cutoff -2,0
This command will report what commodities are being delivered
from -2,0 and what their cutoffs are.
.s1
.EX route food -20:20,-10:10
This command will graphically report the food delivery paths
in the sectors from -20:20 to -10:10.
.s1
.ce 2
\*(iFSome More Hints for the Novice\*(pF
by Jeff Trim
.s1
Tech levels are very important in this game.
You cannot produce uranium, guns or shells
until you achieve a tech level of 40.
.s1
Choose your friends carefully.
I was talking to Lewis from Cornell College
and his comment was the best I'd heard in a while:
\*QNever ally with someone that doesn't have a definite
interest in seeing you survive.\*U
Don't be deceived by the treaty command;
treaty violations will show up in the news,
but that is not going to stop the aggressor from wiping you out,
no matter how bad it looks in the news.
.s1
Nuclear attacks can cause a lot of damage,
but no one has ever been taken out of the game by a nuclear attack.
The damage from a purely nuclear attack is recoverable.
It takes conventional forces combined with nukes to really do damage.
(Of course I won't fool you either;
it doesn't hurt to have a few nukes either.)
.s1
Beware of running low on BTU's.
I will recount one story of a player on this site
that was running low on BTU's.
His enemies launched a nuclear attack and hit his capital!
Unfortunately, he didn't have enough BTU's
to redesignate a new capital.
The moral of the story is that you should
plan an alternate capital at some point in the game.
These are generally not needed at the beginning of the game,
because you need to effectively deploy your sectors in the early going.
But later, it wouldn't hurt to have one or more alternate capitals.
.s1
Empire is a game of perception.
If your adversaries think you're tough,
they're probably going to pass you and head for easier prey.
But the reverse is also true;
if you look weak they might try a few tactics on you --
and depending upon your response,
they'll either back down or fight it out.
Bargain from a position of strength.
You could be the weakest country on the planet but still look
so tough that no one would bother you.
It's all perception.
.s1
Weak countries have an added advantage: gun running!
If a country is heading out with his fleet
to attack another country and you happen to be along the way,
you could cut a deal with him and
you could make a deal and allow that country to attack a coastal
sector and turn it into a harbor.
You've now placed an obligation on that country,
who will be very careful to keep you happy so you won't
grant similar privileges to that country's enemy.
Weak nations can be quite powerful if you handle the diplomacy right.
The tough players like blowing away their tough adversaries
and as long as you stand idly by
and watch those two countries blow each other to little pieces,
you'll be left intact and growing richer off their little war.
.s1
.ce
.s1
.SA "Overview, Hints, Expert, Introduction"

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.TH Introduction "An Overview of Empire"
.NA Overview "An Overview of the Game"
.LV Basic
What is Empire?
.in +0.3i
.s1
Empire is an military/economic simulation of make-believe
countries in a make-believe world.
The military part is emphasized.
The economic part is still there,
but as a prerequisite to a working military.
.in
.s1
What part do I play?
.in +0.3i
.s1
Each player is the ruler of a country.
As leader of your country,
you give commands that affect your country
(e.g., move people around,
re-designate sectors, etc).
You also handle all of your country's foreign policy.
.s1
Empire lets you get reports on the status of your country
(``info census'' and others),
find out what's going on in other parts of the world
(``info news''),
and communicate with other countries
(``info telegram'').
.s1
Although no goal is explicitly stated,
most players rapidly derive their own,
ranging from the mundane desire to be the biggest,
strongest country in the game,
to the more refined goals of
having the most efficient land use possible,
or having the lowest ratio of military to civilians while
still surviving.
.in
.s1
The World of Empire
.in +0.3i
.s1
Empire is played on a hexagonal map
partitioned into a rectangular grid of \*(iFM\*(pF\ \(mu\ \*(iFN\*(pF
sectors (where \*(iFM\*(pF and \*(iFN\*(pF are typically,
but not necessarily,
powers of two, usually 64, 128, or 256).
The world is made up of approximately
50% sea, 45% habitable land and 5% uninhabitable mountains.
.s1
Sectors can be assigned a specific sector type.
These types range from banks to nuclear fuel processing plants.
See ``info Sector-types'' for more detail.
.s1
Your personal coordinate system is based on your capital,
which is a type of sector.
Your capital is generally marked by the coordinates 0,\ 0.
.in
.s1
The Empire Time Scale
.in +0.3i
.s1
The Empire world both does and does not match the real-time world.
To better explain this, let us examine the concept of an update.
.s1
At regular intervals (usually once per day),
the entire Empire world is updated.
When the world updates, new population is added,
ores are dug up and added to stockpiles,
food and other commodities are distributed to sectors,
the educational and technological levels are updated,
and so on.
It can be thought of as the minimum quantum for growth.
.s1
On this time scale, an update could be considered
to be approximately one generation.
Thus the difference from the time scale of the real world.
.s1
However, certain commands are issued in real-time,
such as attacks.
These commands have instantaneous effects on the state of your country.
Dedicated (or merely experienced) Empire players will often
log on to monitor their country.
And most attackers will wait until the small hours of the morning
to carry out their attacks, for obvious reasons.
.s1
If you do not log in to Empire,
any automatic policies you have set up will be carried out.
However, Empire will not try to fix any mistakes you have made;
unless you are very careful,
it's probably not a good idea to rely on these automatics.
.in
.s1
Bureaucratic Time Units (BTU's)
.in +0.3i
.s1
To prevent the more fanatical Empire players
from staying logged on all the time,
Empire places a limit on the amount of time you may be logged in
per day.
This limit is settable by the deity, usually 1000 minutes.
If you run out of time, too bad!
You can't log in again until the counter resets itself
(usually at midnight).
.s1
The other control on the number of commands that you may issue
are called ``Bureaucratic Time Units'' or BTU's.
A BTU is an arbitrary amount of bureaucratic bookkeeping that
your government must spend to perform a certain function.
Most commands that are not merely informative cost BTU's.
.s1
BTU's are generated by your country's capital.
The more efficient your capital, the more BTU's that are generated.
The number of BTU's also depend on the game's settings.. See the
output of the 'version' command for an estimate of BTU generation speeds.
However, you may have a maximum of 512 BTU's at any one time.
And once your BTU's reach zero, you may not issue any commands
that use BTU's.
.s1
Three things to note about BTU's:
.in +\w'00)\0\0'u
.s1
.L 1)
Since commands use up BTU's,
this limits the number of commands
that a player may issue over a particular time period.
This has the effect of preventing the Empire fanatic
from overruning other players with less free time to log on.
.s1
.L 2)
The build-up of BTU's is constant and does not depend on being
logged in.
This allows players to participate when it is convenient rather
than at some fixed time
(such as most board games, or the stock market).
.s1
.L 3)
The BTU concept helps compensate for the fact that,
in concept, the governments of each country are always
``playing'' although the player representing that country
may only log in periodically.
.in -\w'00)\0\0'u
.in 0
.s1
How long will a game take?
.in +0.3i
.s1
Probably from one to four months.
You should expect to spend one to four hours a day playing.
Also expect that if you do spend this amount of time playing,
your grades or work will suffer.
You just can't spend that much time playing and either
study or be productive.
.in
.s1
What should I do now?
.in +0.3i
.s1
When a new country enters the game,
it starts out with an amount of money and two sectors.
These sectors are sanctuaries
and have an initial amount of people and commodities.
Until you \*Qbreak sanctuary\*U,
your country is effectively in stasis.
Nothing will change until you actually log in and
force a change
(such as designating a capital to begin accumulating BTU's).
.s1
The absolutely minimal set of information pages you should read are:
break, map, ann, wire, tel, read, expl, move, res, cen, dist, thresh, lev,
com, prod, budget, Sector-types.
.in
.s1
A Comment from Peter S. Langston (the author of the original Empire game)
.in +0.3i
.s1
It should be remembered that Empire is merely an interesting pastime;
in the vernacular, \*Qit's just a game\*U.
There are many amusing stories of people
that took the game too seriously;
one tells of a corporate Vice President
who walked into the computer room and flipped the main
circuit breaker in order to stop an attack on his country;
another tells of the Harvard student
that refused to go to bed until everyone logged out of Empire
and of the other players who took turns staying up late....
.s1
While many players take Empire very seriously,
an equal number of players use it as a safe environment
in which they can act out their fantasies.
On occasion the fantasies involved are remarkably aggressive or hostile.
It has been my experience that the people with the most belligerent
countries are often the people with the kindest hearts;
anti-social game play doesn't necessarily reflect the \*Qtrue\*U
being underneath
(or else I have some VERY weird friends).
.in
.s1
A Brief History
.in +0.3i
.s1
The game \*QEmpire\*U is the most recent in a series
of territorial conquest, political/economic simulation games
initially inspired by a board game of the same name
played at Reed College (Portland, Oregon).
Earlier versions were written at Reed by Peter Langston
and at The Evergreen State College (Olympia, Washington)
by Chas Douglas, Peter Langston, Ben Norton, Mike Rainwater and others;
of particular note are the games \*QGalaxy\*U (Langston)
and \*QCivil\*U (Norton).
The previous version was written in 1985 partly on the HRSTS Unix system at
the Harvard Science Center, (Cambridge, Mass.),
partly on the Unix system at Commercial Union
Leasing Corporation, (New York, N.\ Y.)
and partly on the Unix system at Davis Polk & Wardwell,
(New York, N.\ Y.)
by Peter Langston with invaluable goading from
Joe Stetson, Robert Bradbury, Nat Howard, Brian Redman, Adam Buchsbaum,
and a myriad of others.
Since Langston never released source code for his version,
Dave Pare and friends de-compiled it in that same year and have
created this version
which is very different. Since then many re-writes and fixes have been
put in and none of the original code exists anymore.
Many people have enhanced the
code, most notably, Dave Pare added plane units in 1986, Jeff Bailey
added many configurable options in the KSU distribution, Thomas
Ruschak added land units and missions in 1992-1993 and released the
"Chainsaw" server, and Ken Stevens rewrote much of the server code in
1995 and released the "Empire2" server, and Steve McClure and the Wolfpack
made lots
of other changes and released the "Empire4" server in August of 1996.
.in
.s1
.SA "Novice, Expert, Introduction"

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.TH Introduction SUGGESTIONS
.NA Suggestions "Suggestions for enhancements to the game"
.LV Expert
.nf
Whenever I think about new things for empire, I evaluate them in this
order:
1) Is it fun?
This is subjective, of course. The real question should be "Will the
majority of Empire players find this enjoyable?"
2) Is is complicated?
What sorts of new commands are needed? How will the player use the new
feature? Do new commands need to be added? How much will this change impact
the user?
3) Is is code-able?
How difficult is it to do? Does it involve minor changes, or a major
re-write? Many ideas have merit, but are prohibitively difficult to implement.
4) Is it realistic?
In general, realism is good, in that it makes the game more intuitive,
and easier for new players to learn.
5) Is it play-balanced?
It is important that the delicate balance between offense and
defense not be tipped one way or the other. For example, a stacking
limit for land units would tip the balance too far in favour of the
defender. Or, allowing more than one ship to assault at a time would
tip the balance in favour of the attacker.
6) Is it important?
If the change involves adding detail to the game, is the detail
important enough? Does the change go beyond the general level of Empire
abstraction? For example, a change to allow you to name each of your mil
would obviously be beyond Empire's general detail level. A command to name
ships is stretching it.
.fi
.SA "Introduction"