a52b14681c
a number of Subjects files to prevent name conflicts where the only the case is difference. Attack -> Attacking Moving -> Transportation Move -> Moving Market -> Commerce Nation -> Nations Production -> Producing Update -> Updating
3413 lines
161 KiB
Turing
3413 lines
161 KiB
Turing
.TH Introduction "User's Guide to Empire"
|
||
.NA Guide "User's Guide to Empire"
|
||
.LV Basic
|
||
.nf
|
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.tr \&
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| |
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| *** *** |
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| *** *** * |
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| *** *** ****** ****** ** **** * ****** |
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| *** *** ** ** ** **** ** * ** |
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| *** *** ***** ******* ** ***** |
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| *** *** ** ** ** ** |
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| *** *** ****** ****** ** ****** |
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| *** *** |
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| ********* ++++ + + +++++ ++++ +++++ +++++ +++ |
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| + + + + + + + + + + |
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| + ++ + + + + + +++ + + + |
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| ************ + + + + + + + + + + + |
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| *********** +++ +++ +++++ ++++ +++++ + +++ |
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| *** |
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| *** *** **** **** ******** ********* ******** ******* |
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| ******* ***** **** *** *** ** ***** *** *** *** *** |
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| *** **** ** ** *** ** *** *** *** ******** |
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| *** *** ** ** *** ** *** ******** *** |
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| *********** *** ** ** ******** ***** *** *** *** *** |
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||
| ************ *** ** ** *** ********* *** *** ******* |
|
||
| ** |
|
||
| By Geoff Cashman |
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 1
|
||
|
||
\& . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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\&. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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\&. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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||
\& . . . . ---------------------------------------------. . . . .
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||
\&. . . . .| | . . . .
|
||
\& . . . . | This work copyright 1991, Geoff Cashman |. . . . .
|
||
\&. . . . .| All rights reserved except you may copy | . . . .
|
||
\& . . . . | this work using electronic methods. Non |. . . . .
|
||
\&. . . . .| electronic copying, hard copies for the | . . . .
|
||
\& . . . . | purpose of distribution and/or selling, |. . . . .
|
||
\&. . . . .| is strictly prohibited without author's | . . . .
|
||
\& . . . . | express written consent. No changes may |. . . . .
|
||
\&. . . . .| be made to the content of this edition. | . . . .
|
||
\& . . . . | |. . . . .
|
||
\&. . . . .--------------------------------------------- . . . .
|
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\& . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
||
\&. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
||
\& . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
||
\&. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
||
\& . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 2
|
||
|
||
Preface
|
||
|
||
This guide's intended audience is the beginning player and those players
|
||
who have played a game or three and would like to have some insight on some
|
||
more subtle aspects of the game. Some experienced players may find some
|
||
benefit from reading this guide as well. While you may feel you are an
|
||
expert, it is always possible to learn. Nothing in this guide is intended
|
||
to be difficult to understand, and every effort has been made to make this
|
||
guide an easy learning tool.
|
||
|
||
This publication is current to Berkeley version 1.1 patch level 5
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 3
|
||
|
||
Foreward
|
||
|
||
It has been over a year now since I first sat down and thought in a serious
|
||
way about writing this guide. It has been a long trip with many interesting
|
||
turns and developments. When I first started, the version of Empire that
|
||
this guide has ultimately been written for had not yet been released. Now,
|
||
with this project nearing release I find that yet another new version of
|
||
Empire is coming out. I look on in near despair as I realize that this guide
|
||
may very well soon be outdated. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to release
|
||
this information in what might be considered a final form.
|
||
|
||
However, I hope that this is not the final form. With new versions of
|
||
Empire coming out in the very near future I hope that some other potential
|
||
author steps forward and takes up the banner of educating the new player.
|
||
I caution you though that such a work as this takes quite an effort.
|
||
|
||
To the reader and any critics or even cynics that might be reading, I say
|
||
that I am not writer. I never was, and I never intend to be. There are
|
||
certainly enough writers in the world to write almost everything the world
|
||
could want to know about in print. I was never skilled in the art of proper
|
||
style for any sort of writing. Please, be kind and keep this in mind.
|
||
|
||
I wrote this guide because I felt there was a great need for something of
|
||
this nature. I have watched so many players come to the network looking
|
||
for information on Empire, such as the rules, or information on how to play.
|
||
One can get information about the various commands available to oneself
|
||
within the game, but to understand how to use those commands effectively
|
||
and get skilled at running a country is a far greater task. Many new
|
||
players have despaired after playing their first game for lack of the
|
||
requisite knowledge to play effectively. Some come back fighting hard
|
||
in the next game, but many just disappear never to be heard from again.
|
||
This guide was written with the hope that if the new player is supplied
|
||
with the basics, they can advance in skill more quickly than previously
|
||
possible and not despair at their first defeat.
|
||
|
||
I am hoping that within the near future two other companion guides to
|
||
this one will be written and released to the net. These two guides will
|
||
be intended to make the average player a better player or even expert,
|
||
and to teach fledgling deities how to compile and establish a, solicit
|
||
entries for , and effectively run, a game. Some people have commented
|
||
to me that the time spent on these guides would be better spent if I
|
||
were to spend time programming for Empire instead. It is my belief that
|
||
in teaching players to be better players, and teaching deities how to be
|
||
a deity should that guide be released, the potential pool for
|
||
programmers of Empire will increase.
|
||
|
||
I can not take credit for the idea of this guide. The need for such
|
||
a guide I think was painfully obvious to a great many players. Some in
|
||
fact did engage in projects to fill that need. Every such attempt has
|
||
fallen short, in my humble opinion. Witness the large number of people
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 4
|
||
|
||
who still ask the network, "How do I play?" and even more importantly
|
||
the lack of sufficient answer to such people's questions. In my highest
|
||
hopes, I dream that someday soon that answer will be "Get a copy of the
|
||
User's Guide to Empire, which is available via FTP from xx.xx.xx".
|
||
|
||
This work was made possible by the contributions of several Empire players.
|
||
This work would not have been completed without the insights and assistance
|
||
of many Empire players and deities. To the Empire community as a whole,
|
||
I say thank you for your priceless contributions.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 5
|
||
|
||
*** Contents ***
|
||
|
||
Preface
|
||
Foreward
|
||
1. What is Empire? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
|
||
2. How to get into a game of Empire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
|
||
3. The primitive basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
|
||
4. Geography in Empire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
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||
5. The beginning phases of Empire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
|
||
6. Diplomacy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
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||
7. Setting up your defenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
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||
8. Nuclear warfare. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
|
||
9. Technology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
|
||
10. The economy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
|
||
11. War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
|
||
12. Other helpful or not so helpful hints. . . . . . . . . . . . 57
|
||
13. Some tricks and subtle tactics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
|
||
14. Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
|
||
|
||
Appendices
|
||
a) glossary
|
||
b) known bugs
|
||
c) ftp sites
|
||
|
||
|
||
Figures:
|
||
1. Sample of how to FTP and compile a client program
|
||
2. Killing a process on a remote Empire host
|
||
3. Example of an Empire map
|
||
4. Realistic version of an Empire map
|
||
5. Table of sector types and designations
|
||
6. Unexplored island prior to breaking sanctuary
|
||
7. Island showing exploration using theory 1
|
||
8. Island showing exploration using theory 2
|
||
9 Island showing exploration using theory 3
|
||
10. Results from 'show planes capability'
|
||
11. Results from a 'nation' report
|
||
12. Map of region hit by nuclear weapon
|
||
13. Table of types of commodities in Empire
|
||
14. Sample output of 'prod' command
|
||
15. Results of a 'census' command of a library
|
||
16. Map of area requiring some distribution
|
||
17. Results of a distribution command
|
||
18. Map of an area requiring delivery path
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 6
|
||
|
||
Chapter 1 :-: What is Empire?
|
||
|
||
Empire is a game in which you are pitted against several other
|
||
players in a country vs. country format. There are economies to
|
||
run, armies to support, policies to generate, and allies and
|
||
enemies to make. The game supports various features that make
|
||
certain aspects of the game seem to parallel the "realistic"
|
||
world. These include satellites, planes, banks, parks, etc.
|
||
|
||
Empire, in the version herein described, is a very complex
|
||
game. The closest game that most people will know that is
|
||
analogous to it is the game known as Risk. However, Empire is
|
||
more complex by a factor of at least one hundred. Nevertheless,
|
||
as a result of the computer aiding you every step of the way, the
|
||
game is not difficult to play, though it can be difficult to
|
||
learn. If you read this guide thoroughly, and use it as a
|
||
continuing resource, you can help make learning this game a lot
|
||
easier.
|
||
|
||
It should be noted that in learning to play this game, you
|
||
may become frustrated or feel daunted by its complexity.
|
||
Several players have noted that they almost gave up on Empire,
|
||
until one day when everything seemed to start to make sense.
|
||
I call it the "threshold level of understanding" after which
|
||
learning the art of Empire becomes several grades easier, and
|
||
players learn substantially faster. I urge you to stay with
|
||
it until you get to that level. It may take some time, but it
|
||
is well worth the effort. This guide is intended to get you
|
||
to that threshold level of understanding.
|
||
|
||
Games usually take two to three months depending on various factors
|
||
that are changeable by the person who runs the game prior to its
|
||
inception. Some games, known as blitz games, last a day or three
|
||
and will wear out your finger tips from typing too much, will cause
|
||
your family and loved ones to be tremendously upset with you for
|
||
missing breakfast, lunch and dinner for three days straight, will cause
|
||
your stomach to argue constantly with you about its right to
|
||
food, and are a tremendous amount of fun. Blitz games are not
|
||
for the light of heart nor are they meant for the beginner.
|
||
|
||
For more information concerning the basic scope of Empire,
|
||
refer to the game itself. Within the game, there are
|
||
various help entries accessible through the command 'info'.
|
||
This guide is intended to go well beyond the scope of help
|
||
available from 'info'.
|
||
|
||
Empire, the game, has evolved through many different forms
|
||
over the last decade. There are still numerous versions
|
||
for various computers around. The version herein discussed
|
||
is BSD Empire, written for the most part by Dave Pare along
|
||
with a lot of help from net people. As release time approaches
|
||
I am aware that Mr. Pare is working on BSD Empire V2.0.
|
||
This guide is only current to version V1.1.5 of BSD. I wish
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 7
|
||
|
||
the future author of the guide to V2.0, whomever that might be,
|
||
the best of luck and bequeath that person a family size bottle
|
||
of aspirin for personal use.
|
||
|
||
Summary: Empire is a very complex game that has a rather steep learning
|
||
curve. Most of the complexity of the game can be handled by
|
||
the commands available to you, the game server itself, or tools
|
||
that you use to better your country. Tools are described later
|
||
in this text.
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 8
|
||
|
||
Chapter 2 :-: How to get into a game of Empire.
|
||
|
||
The most common way of finding about about games that are about to
|
||
happen is by monitoring the newsgroup rec.games.empire on your local
|
||
news reading program. Other ways are via e-mail by getting to know
|
||
several players with whom you correspond over the network. Some
|
||
games are by invitation only but these are few and far between as
|
||
usually a game is better with more people in it. If you do not know
|
||
how to use your local news reading program, ask a local site consultant
|
||
or find a brochure about the news programs available. One of the most
|
||
common newsreaders can be reached by typing 'rn' from your unix
|
||
prompt. If you have VMS for an operating system this may not be true.
|
||
To go directly to the rec.games.empire newsgroup you could type in
|
||
'rn rec.games.empire'.
|
||
|
||
Before entering a game of Empire, consider the amount of time that
|
||
you have available to play the game. Two hours a day for a four
|
||
update per day game is usually the norm. If you are inexperienced,
|
||
and have not fought in wars before, that two hours will dramatically
|
||
increase should war break out between you and another country.
|
||
|
||
Note that it is easy to get addicted to the game. The player should
|
||
be aware of this prior to playing. Play in moderation. This is
|
||
obviously not meant to scare you off. It is merely a word of caution
|
||
to some people. Remember to play in moderation.
|
||
|
||
If you do decide to join in an upcoming game of Empire, then you will
|
||
have the pleasure of playing one of the best games around. Empire has
|
||
been described as being the most complicated game ever created.
|
||
Despite the fact that the game was created for computers and has
|
||
been in existence for several years, as yet no robot player has been
|
||
developed nor is it anticipated. It is possible to build such a
|
||
robot, but it would be a huge task. Do not be dismayed though.
|
||
Most of the complexity of Empire is handled by the server and client.
|
||
There is a fair amount of what is called "micro-managing" that may
|
||
need to be done to be a highly successful nation. However, it is
|
||
not a necessary thing to do. Furthermore, there are many tools
|
||
(described later) that can handle the micromanaging aspects to
|
||
a great degree.
|
||
|
||
After you find out about a game, and decide that you do want to
|
||
play in that upcoming game, you need to contact the "Deity". The
|
||
"Deity" is the person who runs the game. You should mail him/her
|
||
with information about yourself and your country. A customary
|
||
basic form for registering your country to play might contain
|
||
the following information:
|
||
|
||
Country name: (any name you like, from Brianville to USofA)
|
||
Rep: (this is your *password*)
|
||
Net address: (the address at which you can be contacted over the net)
|
||
Skill level: (1-10..10 being the best, 1 being beginner)
|
||
|
||
It might be necessary depending on the Deity to include all addresses
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 9
|
||
|
||
from which you might be playing. With the proliferation of suns as
|
||
general user machines this is becoming more and more a chore, and
|
||
few deities require it. It might suffice to say "mickey@*.buffalo.edu"
|
||
which might cover all machines you play from if you played from
|
||
SUNY-Buffalo. Mickey, of course, is just an arbitrary username chosen
|
||
for this example.
|
||
|
||
Empire players connect to games in progress through a program known
|
||
as a "client". This program handles communication between your
|
||
computer and the computer that the game is running on.
|
||
|
||
There are several versions of clients available. Some are more
|
||
"capable" than others in that they can make decisions easier for
|
||
you or make the decisions themselves. They are intended to reduce
|
||
the amount of work you have to do to maintain your country though
|
||
in some cases they actually increase the amount of work you have
|
||
to do. I have listed places from which you can get other types
|
||
of clients from in the FTP listings in appendix C.
|
||
|
||
Sources for basic client program is available by FTPing to
|
||
ucbvax.berkeley.edu. For the user's benefit, I have included
|
||
a copy of a session in which a user FTPs to ucbvax, retrieves the
|
||
source, compiles the source and establishes the appropriate
|
||
environment variables to connect to a game.
|
||
|
||
Note that the following example will work ONLY on a unix,
|
||
ultrix, or other flavor of unix operating system. This will
|
||
not work for the VMS client.
|
||
|
||
-----------------------------<begin sample>---------------------------------
|
||
|
||
(PLEASE NOTE: Walk through comments in this sample will be enclosed
|
||
in [** and **]. They are not part of what actually appeared on screen
|
||
in collecting this sample. They are meant only as guides.)
|
||
|
||
[** First, I create a directory to put the client in. I then cd into that
|
||
directory and then proceed with the ftp to ucbvax. **]
|
||
|
||
autarch{tmp}!>mkdir myclient
|
||
autarch{tmp}!>cd myclient
|
||
autarch{myclient}!>ftp ucbvax.berkeley.edu
|
||
Connected to ucbvax.berkeley.edu.
|
||
220 ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU FTP server (Version 5.30 Tue Mar 28 18:11:37 PST 1989) ready.
|
||
[** Type in anonymous for your name **]
|
||
Name (ucbvax.berkeley.edu:mickey): anonymous
|
||
[** Send your real identity for the password **]
|
||
331 Guest login ok, send ident as password.
|
||
Password:
|
||
230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
|
||
[** I am now logged in to ucbvax's public access FTP area. Now
|
||
I cd into the "pub" directory, then the "games" directory, and then
|
||
the "bsd-empire" directory where I know the Empire client source
|
||
resides. **]
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 10
|
||
|
||
ftp> cd pub
|
||
250 CWD command successful.
|
||
ftp> cd games
|
||
250 CWD command successful.
|
||
ftp> cd bsd-empire
|
||
250 CWD command successful.
|
||
[** Now, I set my file transfer mode to "binary" and set hash on so that
|
||
I can see transmit progress on screen (# = 1024 bytes.) **]
|
||
ftp> bin
|
||
200 Type set to I.
|
||
ftp> hash
|
||
Hash mark printing on (1024 bytes/hash mark).
|
||
[** Now, I view the directory listing to confirm the name of the client
|
||
source. **]
|
||
ftp> ls
|
||
200 PORT command successful.
|
||
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for ..
|
||
empire-1.1.tar.Z
|
||
empire-1.1.patch.5
|
||
empire-1.1.patch.4
|
||
empire-1.1.patch.3
|
||
contrib.tar.Z
|
||
client.tar.Z
|
||
empclient-1.1.tar.Z
|
||
[** ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ it's this one. **]
|
||
README
|
||
emptools.tar.Z
|
||
#
|
||
226 Transfer complete.
|
||
143 bytes received in 0.03 seconds (4.7 Kbytes/s)
|
||
[** Now, I "get" the file and the transmission to my directory begins. **]
|
||
ftp> get empclient-1.1.tar.Z
|
||
200 PORT command successful.
|
||
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for empclient-1.1.tar.Z (20859 bytes).
|
||
#########################################
|
||
226 Transfer complete.
|
||
local: empclient-1.1.tar.Z remote: empclient-1.1.tar.Z
|
||
20859 bytes received in 1.8 seconds (11 Kbytes/s)
|
||
[** The client source now resides in my directory, so I log out of Berkeley **]
|
||
ftp> quit
|
||
221 Goodbye.
|
||
[** I next confirm that the client is in my directory. **]
|
||
autarch{myclient}!>ls
|
||
empclient-1.1.tar.Z
|
||
[** Next, I have to uncompress the file (the Z postfix means it is in
|
||
compressed format). I again ls to confirm it's presence. **]
|
||
autarch{myclient}!>uncompress empclient-1.1.tar.Z
|
||
autarch{myclient}!>ls
|
||
empclient-1.1.tar
|
||
[** Next, I have to tar the file (tar postfix means it's in tar format).
|
||
Again, I ls to confirm operation completed. **]
|
||
autarch{myclient}!>tar -xf empclient-1.1.tar
|
||
autarch{myclient}!>ls
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 11
|
||
|
||
client/ empclient-1.1.tar
|
||
[** Ah, ok. I tar'ed the file and it created a directory for itself.
|
||
So, I cd into that directory and ls it. **]
|
||
autarch{myclient}!>cd client
|
||
autarch{client}!>ls
|
||
Makefile empire.6 host.c main.c saveargv.c
|
||
README expect.c hpux.c misc.h servercmd.c
|
||
bit.c fnlist.h ioqueue.c proto.h serverio.c
|
||
bit.h globals.c ioqueue.h queue.c termio.c
|
||
dtable.c handle.c login.c queue.h termlib.c
|
||
[** There's the README file up there. That will tell me what to do next. **]
|
||
autarch{client}!>more README
|
||
|
||
BSD Empire 1.1
|
||
|
||
|
||
This is the empire client for BSD Empire.
|
||
|
||
To make the program, edit globals.c and change localhost to
|
||
point at the machine where the game is running.
|
||
|
||
Type "make".
|
||
|
||
You can change hosts on-the-fly by using environment variables -- see
|
||
the man page for details.
|
||
|
||
[** Simple enough. I don't bother modifying globals.c since I can modify
|
||
the environment variables using the unix command 'setenv'. So now,
|
||
I just type 'make' and hope everything goes ok. NOTE: This was done
|
||
on a sun4. Your results may vary slightly. **]
|
||
autarch{client}!>make
|
||
[** Now, it does the compilation automatically without me having to
|
||
do it by hand, I just typed the make and it does it by itself. **]
|
||
cc -g -sun4 -c bit.c
|
||
cc -g -sun4 -c dtable.c
|
||
cc -g -sun4 -c expect.c
|
||
cc -g -sun4 -c globals.c
|
||
cc -g -sun4 -c handle.c
|
||
cc -g -sun4 -c host.c
|
||
cc -g -sun4 -c hpux.c
|
||
cc -g -sun4 -c ioqueue.c
|
||
cc -g -sun4 -c login.c
|
||
cc -g -sun4 -c main.c
|
||
cc -g -sun4 -c queue.c
|
||
cc -g -sun4 -c saveargv.c
|
||
cc -g -sun4 -c servercmd.c
|
||
cc -g -sun4 -c serverio.c
|
||
cc -g -sun4 -c termio.c
|
||
cc -g -sun4 -c termlib.c
|
||
cc -g -o empire bit.o dtable.o expect.o globals.o handle.o host.o hpux.o
|
||
ioqueue.o login.o main.o queue.o saveargv.o servercmd.o serverio.o termio.o
|
||
termlib.o -ltermlib
|
||
autarch{client}!>ls
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 12
|
||
|
||
Makefile expect.c hpux.c misc.h serverio.c
|
||
README expect.o hpux.o proto.h serverio.o
|
||
bit.c fnlist.h ioqueue.c queue.c termio.c
|
||
bit.h globals.c ioqueue.h queue.h termio.o
|
||
bit.o globals.o ioqueue.o queue.o termlib.c
|
||
dtable.c handle.c login.c saveargv.c termlib.o
|
||
dtable.o handle.o login.o saveargv.o
|
||
empire* host.c main.c servercmd.c
|
||
empire.6 host.o main.o servercmd.o
|
||
[** Walla, it compiled, and now there is a file in the directory called
|
||
'empire' with a * next to it (meaning it's an executable. Not all
|
||
ls's will do this, see 'man ls' for further info on parameters for ls).
|
||
That file is the client. I could delete all of the '.c', '.h', and
|
||
'.o' files right now to clean things up, but I am anxious to get into
|
||
the Empire game that is already in progress. So, I next setup my
|
||
environment variables so my client knows which computer to call and
|
||
which port to use on that computer. **]
|
||
autarch{client}!>setenv EMPIREHOST oleander.cs.odu.edu
|
||
autarch{client}!>setenv EMPIREPORT 1617
|
||
[** EMPIREHOST and EMPIREPORT variables will have been given to you by
|
||
the deity running the game.
|
||
With that done, I can now run my client and connect to the game. **]
|
||
autarch{client}!>empire
|
||
Country name? [** I type in my country name **]
|
||
Your name? [** And my password, NOT my real name. **]
|
||
|
||
-=0=-
|
||
|
||
You have six new telegrams waiting...
|
||
|
||
[0:255] Command:
|
||
[** And you are now connected to the game and are ready to play dictator **]
|
||
|
||
|
||
Figure 1
|
||
Sample of how to FTP and compile a client program
|
||
|
||
-------------------------------<end sample>-----------------------------------
|
||
|
||
|
||
Since you are playing across a network of computers, it is possible
|
||
that there will be problems along the way in connecting to the server
|
||
from the computer you play on. What follows are some common connection
|
||
errors.
|
||
|
||
Problem 1:
|
||
autarch{client}!>empire
|
||
connect: Connection refused
|
||
|
||
Problem This generally means that you have either set your environment
|
||
variables wrong (see 'setenv' from earlier in this chapter), or
|
||
the server at the host site is not currently running.
|
||
Solution (1) Check your environment variables by issuing a 'setenv' command.
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 13
|
||
|
||
(2) Wait for the server to come up.
|
||
|
||
Problem 2:
|
||
autarch{client}!>empire
|
||
connect: Connection timed out
|
||
|
||
Problem This generally means that there is a network outage somewhere
|
||
along the network.
|
||
Solution (1) You can monitor the network by using two unix commands located in
|
||
/usr/etc on most unix systems. These are 'ping' and 'traceroute'.
|
||
/usr/etc/ping 128.205.7.3 for instance will send a ping at the
|
||
host with ip address 128.205.7.3. If that machine can be reached
|
||
from your machine across the network it will return:
|
||
128.205.7.3 is alive
|
||
traceroute 128.205.7.3 will request responses from each site along
|
||
the way. This is useful for seeing which site along the way is
|
||
causing the outage.
|
||
(2) This solution is easier, but more frustrating. Wait.
|
||
|
||
Problem 3:
|
||
autarch{client}!>empire
|
||
Country name? <your country name>
|
||
Your name? <your password>
|
||
|
||
-=O=-
|
||
3 country in use by mickey@lictor.acsu.buffalo.edu (pid=5797)
|
||
|
||
Problem This one is potentially nasty. It means that another process is
|
||
logged into your country. This could be from multiple sources.
|
||
1: Your friend who is playing your country as well.
|
||
2: A process of yours that got accidentally hung.
|
||
3: The network hung your remote process even though your local
|
||
process is now terminated.
|
||
Solution (1) Go kick your friend in the head :-)
|
||
(2) Kill your process 'nicely'. To find the process execute a
|
||
'ps -x' command and find the appropriate process number:
|
||
autarch{client}ps -x
|
||
PID TT STAT TIME COMMAND
|
||
3555 t1 S 0:00 -usr/new/csh (csh)
|
||
3575 t1 R 0:00 ps -x
|
||
3559 ? S 0:00 -usr/new/csh (csh)
|
||
3560 ? S 0:00 (empire)
|
||
The offending process number in this list is 3560. To kill it,
|
||
simply type the command 'kill 3560'. After that, all should be
|
||
well. Try entering the game again.
|
||
(3) If your process is hung on the server machine, you can
|
||
do one of two things. First, you can mail the Deity with the
|
||
"pid", or process identification number. This number is listed
|
||
in the original error message and in our case is 5797. Secondly,
|
||
you can log in to the remote site and kill the process yourself
|
||
via the process illustrated below. Note that in the first line
|
||
of the illustrated process that the name storm.tamu.edu is the
|
||
host site for the particular game I am using for this example.
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 14
|
||
|
||
Also, 1617 is the port on that machine that Empire is being run
|
||
through. Commands that you should type in are indicated
|
||
by a "<----" at the end of the line.
|
||
|
||
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
% telnet storm.tamu.edu 1617 <----
|
||
Trying 128.194.15.98 ...
|
||
Connected to storm.tamu.edu.
|
||
Escape character is '^]'.
|
||
2 Empire server ready <---- [** your country name in quotes **]
|
||
coun "Terminus"
|
||
0 country name Terminus
|
||
pass "busyemperor" <---- [** your password in quotes **]
|
||
0 password ok
|
||
kill <---- [** this terminates the hung process **]
|
||
3 process 1056 (from mickey@autarch.acsu.buffalo.edu) terminated
|
||
[** next type in 'ctrl-]' and then type 'close' **]
|
||
^]
|
||
telnet> c
|
||
Connection closed.
|
||
%
|
||
|
||
Figure 2
|
||
Killing a process on a remote Empire host
|
||
|
||
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Your process is now unhung, and your country should be ready to play
|
||
once again.
|
||
|
||
Problem 4:
|
||
autarch{myclient}empire
|
||
Country name? <your country name>
|
||
Your name? <your password>
|
||
|
||
Bad password
|
||
|
||
Problem The server does not accept the password you typed as being correct.
|
||
Solution Try typing it again. Try using capital letters at the beginning of
|
||
the password as well, or the entire password in caps. If this does
|
||
not work, mail the Deity and inform him or her of the problem
|
||
and what the password should be.
|
||
|
||
Problem 5:
|
||
autarch{myclient}empire
|
||
Alarm clock
|
||
|
||
Problem Your connection to the server is not responding.
|
||
Solution The delay time for waiting for a response that is built into
|
||
the client is not exceedingly long. The theory behind this being
|
||
that if it is taking you that long to get a response from the
|
||
Empire server then it is not worth playing, since response times
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 15
|
||
|
||
for information from the game are going to be pretty unbearable.
|
||
Keep trying is probably the best solution.
|
||
|
||
|
||
These are most of the problems that you will encounter in connecting to
|
||
the game server. There are some more problems that you might
|
||
encounter, but generally they are not common. If you can not reach
|
||
your game server for more than a day, contact your deity and let
|
||
him/her know that you can not connect.
|
||
|
||
Summary: Getting into a game of Empire is not terribly difficult. Setting up
|
||
a client program should be a fairly painless task. If it is not,
|
||
do not be dismayed. Get help from a consultant or another player
|
||
if you can. Some problems with the network may temporarily prevent
|
||
you from playing. Be patient, the network is a horse that should
|
||
be shot, but generally it comes around after a while.
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 16
|
||
|
||
Chapter 3 :-: The primitive basics.
|
||
|
||
|
||
There are a few basic commands and ideas that will help you get
|
||
acquainted with Empire. These are here summarized.
|
||
|
||
Concept: Sanctuary.
|
||
All players begin a game of Empire in what is known as a sanctuary.
|
||
While you are in a sanctuary state you can not be attacked, overrun, or
|
||
otherwise hurt. However, while you are in sanctuary you can not do
|
||
very many things. In order to really begin playing the game you need
|
||
to do what is known as "break sanctuary". You can do this using the
|
||
\&'break' command. When you do this, your two sanctuary sectors (which
|
||
everyone starts with) will become capital sectors. You are no longer
|
||
protected from attacks from enemy countries.
|
||
|
||
Concept: Movement in Empire.
|
||
Paths of movement are indicated by several keys. Path indicators
|
||
exist in a hex shape around the letter H on your keyboard. Thus, y means
|
||
travel North-West, u for North-East, j for East, n for South-East, b for
|
||
South-West, and g for West. Also, h means "stop" which terminates movement
|
||
of whatever you are moving. There is one other key, v which "views" the
|
||
sector you are currently moving through. Thus if I gave a movement path
|
||
of gggvgh the game would move whatever I am moving three sectors West, view
|
||
the sector at three sectors west of my starting point, then move one more
|
||
sector west and then stop.
|
||
|
||
Concept: Updates
|
||
Empire games have "turns" known as updates. When an update occurs,
|
||
your country goes through economic growth or decline, interests are paid
|
||
on gold bars, military costs are paid for, mobility increases in your
|
||
sectors, etc. You can do a great many things between updates, an update
|
||
merely does book keeping more or less, at a predetermined time. To find
|
||
out when the next update is going to happen, you can type 'update' as
|
||
a command.
|
||
|
||
Command: map -10:10,-7:7
|
||
This command will give you a map of the area immediately surrounding
|
||
your beginning two sectors. Specifically, it will give you a map from ten
|
||
sectors West of your 0,0 to ten sectors East and from seven sectors North to
|
||
seven sectors South of your 0,0.
|
||
|
||
Command: explore civ 0,0 1
|
||
This command allows you to move one civilian from your 0,0 and
|
||
"explore" into wilderness and mountain sectors.
|
||
|
||
Command: info commands
|
||
This command will list the various commands available in Empire.
|
||
It is a very good idea to go through the information on each command
|
||
by typing 'info <name of command>'. This will help you get more acquainted
|
||
with the game. Though this guide shows many commands and how to use them,
|
||
it is no substitute for the game's help itself.
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 17
|
||
|
||
Command: designate 1,1 +
|
||
This command will enable you to designate a sector you own into
|
||
whatever you desire. Usually, in the beginning of the game you will designate
|
||
sectors that you will not be using actively for a while into highways.
|
||
The above shown example of the command will designate your 1,1 sector into
|
||
a highway.
|
||
|
||
Command: telegram <country name>
|
||
Countries in Empire communicate with each other via telegrams.
|
||
These are private letters sent just like a telegram would be. They have
|
||
a size limit, but there is usually more than enough room to say what you
|
||
want to say. There is no limit to the number of telegrams you may send.
|
||
|
||
Command: announce
|
||
Countries broadcast to the world via the command 'announce'. These
|
||
announcements are similar to telegrams except instead of one country reading
|
||
the telegram the entire world can read it.
|
||
|
||
Command: read
|
||
This command allows you to read any incoming telegrams or
|
||
announcements. Empire will notify you when you have new incoming traffic.
|
||
|
||
Command: news {x number of days}
|
||
This command will allow you to peruse the Empire newspaper. It does
|
||
not make for great reading. However, it is useful for intelligence gathering.
|
||
If you just enter 'news' as a command, it will print all the news since you
|
||
last read the news. Entering 'news 3' will give you the news for the last
|
||
three days. In big games, the news file gets quite large.
|
||
|
||
Summary: These are the basic ideas and commands of Empire. Empire has a great
|
||
many commands however, and the player should endeavor to learn them.
|
||
Empire can be played with only a few commands but the additional
|
||
commands are there for your best interests. If you do not understand
|
||
a command shown here, simply type 'info <command>' while in the
|
||
game itself.
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 18
|
||
|
||
Chapter 4 :-: Geography in Empire.
|
||
|
||
Maps in Empire are based on a simple hex design. For example:
|
||
|
||
.eo
|
||
---------------------------------- There are three basic sector types in
|
||
Empire (note: "type" is different than
|
||
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ "designation". Designation refers to what
|
||
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ that sector has on it, a factory or school
|
||
-4 | . | ^ | - | ^ | . | for example. Type refers to what it is
|
||
\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / built on). There are:
|
||
\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / seas : .
|
||
-3 | - | - | . | . | mountains : ^
|
||
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ wilderness : -
|
||
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ When using the Empire map, you use an "X,Y"
|
||
-2 | . | - | - | - | . | system. The X coordinate refers to how far
|
||
\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / along the horizontal you are, the Y referring
|
||
\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / to the vertical. Thus, there are seas on
|
||
-1 | - | - | . | . | example map at 5,-1 7,-1 0,-2 8,-2
|
||
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ 5,-3 7,-3 0,-4 and 8,-4. Negative X is
|
||
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ to the left (to the East) of 0,0 just as
|
||
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 in your high school math courses. However,
|
||
negative Y is above (to the North of) 0,0.
|
||
Figure 3 This is different from high school math.
|
||
Example of an Empire map Why the maps have coordinates in this way
|
||
is one of the great mysteries of Empire.
|
||
----------------------------------
|
||
.ec
|
||
|
||
Figure 4 below is a real map of Empire, in its real size and form.
|
||
Figure 3 is "zoomed in". Note that the '?' marks on the right part of
|
||
the map belong to a neighboring country. In this figure all wilderness
|
||
type sectors have been designated into something other than a
|
||
wilderness There are several mountains, and a lot of ocean visible as
|
||
well.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 19
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
[309:112] Command : map #1
|
||
33333322222222221111111111---------00000000001111111111222222
|
||
5432109876543210987654321098765432101234567890123456789012345
|
||
-3 + + + + + . . . . . . . . + . . . . . . . -3
|
||
-2 a ^ + m ^ + . . . . o . + . . . . . . . . -2
|
||
-1 + + + + + + + + . . . a o a . + + + . . . . -1
|
||
0 + + + + + + + g o o o + + + . + o c m . . . 0
|
||
1 + + ^ o + a j m g w g ^ ^ m + j j + . + . . . 1
|
||
2 + + a + + + + + + + + . b j + m + w + . . . . . . 2
|
||
3 + a . a a + b + m o j + t + + + + + + . + . + + + . . ? ? ? 3
|
||
4 . . . . . a g + ^ + m + + l ^ ^ ^ + o + + + + + + + + ? + ? 4
|
||
5 + . . + + + + + ^ + ^ m + j ^ ^ c + m + + + + + + + ^ + + + ^ 5
|
||
6 . . . + + ^ + + + + m + + o o + k + + + + + + ^ ^ + + + + 6
|
||
7 . + + + + + + + + o m + a o + e + + + ^ ^ a + + + + + ? 7
|
||
8 . + + + + a + ^ + g d m + w m + m + + + + + ^ + + + + ? 8
|
||
9 . + + + + + + + + + + + k + g t + + + + + + + + ? ? ? ? 9
|
||
10 . . + + + + ^ + ^ ^ g + + + p g + i g + + + + ? 10
|
||
11 . + + + + + ^ + + + ^ + + m + g o + g + + + + + ? ? ? ? 11
|
||
12 . + + + + + + + + + + + g g + + + + g + + + + + + + + ? 12
|
||
13 . + + + + + + + + + + + + + g + g m + w + + + + + + + + ? 13
|
||
14 . . . + + + + + + + + + + + g + + m + + + + + + + + + + 14
|
||
15 . + + + + + + a + + + + + + + + m + + + + + + + a + + + + 15
|
||
33333322222222221111111111---------00000000001111111111222222
|
||
5432109876543210987654321098765432101234567890123456789012345
|
||
|
||
Figure 4
|
||
Realistic version of an Empire map
|
||
|
||
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
The following listing is taken directly from the command
|
||
'info sector-types' in the game. There is a lengthy description of
|
||
each sector type also in this command, but I have omitted it here
|
||
for brevity.
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 20
|
||
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
|
||
BASICS INDUSTRIES MILITARY / SCIENTIFIC
|
||
. sea d defense plant t technical center
|
||
^ mountain i shell industry f fortress
|
||
s sanctuary m mine r research lab
|
||
/ wasteland g gold mine n nuclear plant
|
||
- wilderness h harbor l library/school
|
||
c capital w warehouse e enlistment center
|
||
p park u uranium mine
|
||
COMMUNICATIONS * airfield FINANCIAL
|
||
+ highway a agribusiness b bank
|
||
) radar installation o oil field
|
||
j light manufacturing
|
||
# bridge head k heavy manufacturing
|
||
= bridge span % refinery
|
||
|
||
Figure 5
|
||
Table of sector types and designations
|
||
|
||
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
As you can see, there are a wide variety of sector types in Empire.
|
||
However, until your country becomes populated the most useful sector
|
||
is the highway ('+'), for it allows you to move things around easier,
|
||
even if the highway has only begun being constructed
|
||
(ie, 0% efficient).
|
||
|
||
Summary: Empire maps are based on a simple hex design, with the movement
|
||
keys based similarly around the letter h on standard keyboards.
|
||
These movement keys are a basic tool in Empire and must be learned.
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 21
|
||
|
||
Chapter 5 :-: The beginning phases of Empire.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Typically a game starts with a `speed' phase. If it does not, then
|
||
initial play can get boring quickly. A `speed' opening also demands
|
||
more time for the period when the updates are frequent, but hopefully,
|
||
that will be balanced by your efficient country and the less time
|
||
spent running it when your classes/real life demand more time.
|
||
|
||
There are several opening strategies for Empire players. I am going
|
||
to go through a few of them here. If you feel you can make a better
|
||
strategy feel free to do so.
|
||
|
||
Basically, all strategies for the opening phases revolve around a
|
||
few basic ideas. First, you want to secure as much land for yourself
|
||
as possible. Secondly, if you share an island with some other person,
|
||
you want to leave yourself in a strategically advantageous position
|
||
against your opponent, optimally to surround him/her before s/he breaks
|
||
sanctuary. These two ideas are the most important things to consider
|
||
prior to the first update. There are other things to consider, which
|
||
will be reviewed later.
|
||
|
||
It is highly important for you, the player, to begin playing the game
|
||
as soon as the game begins. If you do not, you risk being surrounded
|
||
before the first update. Furthermore, not breaking sanctuary prior to
|
||
the first update can cost you a great deal in terms of population
|
||
growth and the establishment of your economy.
|
||
|
||
Some players will use tools, which are reviewed in chapter 14, to
|
||
break sanctuary and occupy land from the beginning. There are other
|
||
means to aid your land occupation as well. If you have a programmable
|
||
terminal, or terminal program, you can program a key to contain a
|
||
particular command such as "explore civ 0,0 1 jjjujuuu". This could
|
||
be a path along a line of land that you have already occupied, and
|
||
wish to expand beyond. If you had to repeatedly type in that command
|
||
and path you would take a much greater amount of time to occupy land.
|
||
This can also be done through X windows, using the mouse and cut/paste
|
||
capabilities.
|
||
|
||
There are a few different theories on how to explore out from your
|
||
sanctuaries to claim as much land as possible for yourself.
|
||
|
||
In the following maps, the square island shown is entirely wilderness
|
||
except for the two sanctuaries in the middle. It is important to note
|
||
that prior to exploring the entire island, the only thing you would
|
||
be able to see on your map would be this:
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 22
|
||
|
||
|
||
- - - - -
|
||
- - - - - -
|
||
- - - - - - -
|
||
- - - s s - - -
|
||
- - - - - - -
|
||
- - - - - -
|
||
- - - - -
|
||
|
||
It is your job to explore the island, while occupying, or securing for
|
||
yourself, as much land as possible. Note that for the sake of
|
||
simplicity I have not placed another country on this example island.
|
||
If a sector is a "+","c", or "s" it is an occupied (by you) sector.
|
||
If it's a "-" it's a wilderness sector, and if you can move into it,
|
||
it is unoccupied. This is an important piece of information. If you
|
||
can note move into a wilderness sector it means that it is occupied by
|
||
another country. Note that "." are seas, as indicated in chapter 5.
|
||
The basic commands to complete this exploration are 'explore' and
|
||
'designate'. Learn about those commands either from chapter 4 or
|
||
the game before attempting these theories.
|
||
|
||
First, I show the entire island prior to your breaking sanctuary and
|
||
exploring:
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - s s - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
||
|
||
Figure 6
|
||
Unexplored island prior to breaking sanctuary
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Next, I show theory 1, occupying in a concentric circle.
|
||
Note that once you have broken sanctuary (using the 'break'
|
||
command) that your two sanctuary sectors immediately become
|
||
capitals, with your real capital at 0,0.
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 23
|
||
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - + + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - + + + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - + + + + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - + + + + + c c + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - + + + + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - + + + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - + + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
||
|
||
Figure 7
|
||
Island showing exploration using theory 1
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
So far, 84 sectors have been occupied. Now I show theory 2,
|
||
occupying in spokes with concentric hexes spaced every few sectors
|
||
apart:
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - + + - - - - - + + - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - + - + - - - - + - + - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - + - - + + + + + - - + - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - + - - + + - - + + - - + - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - + - - + - + + + - + - - + - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - + + + + + + c c + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - + - - + - + + + - + - - + - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - + - - + + - - + + - - + - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - + - - + + + + + - - + - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - + - + - - - - + - + - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - + + - - - - - + + - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
||
|
||
Figure 8
|
||
Island showing exploration using theory 2
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 24
|
||
|
||
Now, 84 sectors have once again been occupied. However, an additional
|
||
56 sectors are now within the borders of your country. Thus, securing
|
||
a total of 140 sectors for yourself. The disadvantage? You have three
|
||
lines of occupation ( the "+" sectors) between the center of your
|
||
country and unsecured wilderness. In theory 1, the same number of
|
||
sectors provides for 4 lines for most of the country. Another
|
||
disadvantage is that it costs more mobility to use theory 2. The more
|
||
lines of occupation you have between the central areas of your
|
||
country and the unexplored wilderness or an enemy the easier it is
|
||
to defend your country.
|
||
|
||
A third theory is the idea of coastal occupation as a means of securing
|
||
a large island. The idea being to secure the land immediately around
|
||
you and then explore in one direction until you find seas, and then
|
||
proceed to occupy the coast:
|
||
|
||
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
||
. + + + + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. + - - - - - - - - - + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. + - - - - - - - - - - + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. + - - - - - - - - - - + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. + - - - - - - - - - - - + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. + - - - - - - - - - - + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. + - - - - - - - - - - + + c c + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. + - - - - - - - - - - + + + + + - - - - - + - - - - - - - - .
|
||
. + - - - - - - - - - - - + + + + - - - - - - + - - - - - - - .
|
||
. + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - + - - - - - - - .
|
||
. + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - + - - - - - - .
|
||
. + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - + - - - - - - .
|
||
. + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - + - - - - - .
|
||
. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + - - - - - .
|
||
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
||
|
||
Figure 9
|
||
Island showing exploration using theory 3
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Here, once again, 84 sectors have been occupied. In addition, 179
|
||
sectors of wilderness have been secured, ie cut off from another
|
||
country. This brings a total of 263 sectors occupied or secured.
|
||
This is obviously impressive. However, it has its drawbacks as well.
|
||
If there was a country bordering this country, that country would
|
||
need only to attack and occupy one of your sectors and then they
|
||
could explore into all of the "secured" sectors. In addition, there
|
||
are only 2-3 lines of occupied sectors between the borders and the
|
||
center of the country. This also costs more in terms of mobility than
|
||
either theory 1 or 2.
|
||
|
||
The next section contains a strategy submitted by Scott Yelich. Scott
|
||
adheres in this summary to theory 1 as his method of exploration:
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 25
|
||
|
||
|
||
"Designate one of the two initial [sanctuary] capital sectors to
|
||
an agricultural center. Then move a civ out from either sector to
|
||
either 1,-1 or 1,1 and designate it a +. Then, I continue to move out
|
||
one civilian at a time from both of my initial sectors. Only move
|
||
the civ one spot into the wilderness and then I designate that sector
|
||
as a highway (+). Then, do a map to see if there is anything
|
||
especially interesting... such as, a mountain, more land or ANOTHER
|
||
PLAYER. Of course, Only do that map at certain times... it's not
|
||
necessary to do a map after EVERY explore since explore will show you
|
||
a one sector radius!
|
||
|
||
[Editor's note: exploring with one civilian across a wilderness sector
|
||
takes .8 mobility. Across a highway, even a 0% highway, it will cost
|
||
only .2 mobility. Thus, the reason for designating new land as soon
|
||
as you occupy it. You will conserve mobility if you only explore into
|
||
lands bordering your new highways.]
|
||
|
||
"Here is where quick action comes into play. If you spot any controlled
|
||
sectors (?) or a (-) that can't be entered (if you can note move into the
|
||
sector it is occupied by someone else! hurry!), try to make a boarder as
|
||
quick as possible by following the pattern above... move one civ, look,
|
||
repeat. If you don't find any controlled sectors, simply [try] to
|
||
AVOID MOUNTAINS at ALL costs... especially during the first couple of
|
||
updates. Typically, from 30 to 70 sectors can be grabbed this way
|
||
within the first minute or two.
|
||
|
||
"To sum up, the strategy for this is: 1) You want to see who is out there,
|
||
2) You want to see what land is out there, 3) when you take more sectors
|
||
during the initial updates, you will get more mobility each update
|
||
(typically 8, 'version' will tell...). Anyway, the more sectors you grab
|
||
with the first update, the more you can grab the second. It's like an
|
||
exponential function."
|
||
|
||
|
||
This next section is a strategy submitted by Geoff Cashman. Geoff
|
||
adheres in this summary to theory 2 as his method for exploration:
|
||
|
||
"The basic strategy of moving one sector into the wilderness and then
|
||
designate them with a command such as this: designate #1 ?des=- + which will
|
||
designate all sectors in realm #1 that are wilderness into highways, is a
|
||
common one. Using it wisely is not always done. My personal method is to
|
||
expand only in a few directions, ie 3-6 different directions from your 0,0 2,0
|
||
area. The idea here being to make "spokes" of exploration radiating out from
|
||
your 0,0 and 2,0 area. Using this method, you can use less mobility and see
|
||
more land though not actually own more land until after the first update.
|
||
Another advantage is you might reach an opponent before s/he reaches you. A
|
||
weakness is that an opponent can explore inbetween your spokes. If I feel
|
||
this is possible inbetween two spokes then I connect the spokes via concentric
|
||
(on 2,0 0,0 ) arc several sectors out from the 0,0. If you do not use this
|
||
method, then you would use up all of your mobility to achieve the same number
|
||
of sectors by the second update.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 26
|
||
|
||
"Why save mobility? Mobility in the 0,0 sector is especially critical.
|
||
The reason is because the 0,0 starts out with 999 civs. If a sector has
|
||
999 or more civs it will not give birth to more civilians. Half of the
|
||
battle in winning Empire is population explosion at the beginning of the
|
||
game...ESPECIALLY if you get involved in a low tech war with a neighbor
|
||
early on. More population means more resources mined, more supportable
|
||
military, and more taxpayers. If you are going to be a tech producer then
|
||
it may be desireable to limit population, but early on I do not recommend
|
||
it. So, with 999 civs in your 0,0 sector you need to be able to move out
|
||
many civs (depends on the number of ETUs per update (see the version command)
|
||
as to how many you should move out, see number of births per 1,000 civs per
|
||
etu in the version command). Thus, my strategy is slightly different.
|
||
I concentrate on getting a 100% highway built at 1,-1 or 1,1. Why those
|
||
sectors? because I can then use the mobility in 1,-1 or 1,1 to move civs
|
||
or products into 2,0."
|
||
|
||
|
||
The use of the third theory requires a player with some experience
|
||
to deal with its shortcomings. For the beginner, I do not recommend
|
||
it.
|
||
|
||
The following was submitted by another player to point out their means
|
||
of establishing their production and the beginning stages of their
|
||
economy:
|
||
|
||
"Setting up a distribution network, even with inefficient warehouses, is
|
||
fairly critical early on. If you starve civilians in the beginning of the
|
||
game, you will fall behind in production. It is not uncommon to lose
|
||
contact with the game for a day or more due to net failures. Do not
|
||
depend on your capability to connect to the game to feed your civilians.
|
||
|
||
"Some people never leave their 0,0 or 2,0 designated as a capital during the
|
||
beginning of the game. They check the resources in 0,0 and then determine if
|
||
it's suitable for being a mine or a gold mine. If neither, then they designate
|
||
2,0 into a mine. If mine, then 2,0 becomes a gold mine. Using this method
|
||
they can get maximum production from their civilians that are essentially
|
||
trapped for the time being in their 0,0 and 2,0 sectors due to lack of
|
||
mobility. Note that in doing this that you must conserve BTUs. Having
|
||
a 0% efficient capital somewhere else will cause a lack of production of
|
||
BTUs. You must be careful not to run out of BTUs completely, or it could
|
||
cause you a great deal of grief.
|
||
|
||
|
||
"NOTE: IT IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO LEAVE A CAPITAL ON THE COAST AFTER
|
||
ANYONE PRODUCES A BOAT. Until that time, a capital on the coast is
|
||
an advantage in some ways. It is easier to defend (less places that
|
||
it can be attacked from). You MUST get some civilians into the capital
|
||
at -2,0 (about 50) before the first update along with some food.
|
||
In general, your capital will not produce BTUs for a while, but neither
|
||
do you need them for a while. However, leave your 0,0 sector as your
|
||
capital until JUST prior (like 2-4 minutes, make it 10 to be safe) to
|
||
the update. Does this all sound complicated? Yep. But it works.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 27
|
||
|
||
|
||
"After the first or second update I will occupy the remaining wilderness
|
||
that I can see, using the mobility from the sectors that I explored into
|
||
in the previous update. I will then continue to move civs out of 0,0 and
|
||
into 1,-1 or 1,1 (the highway that I am trying to make 100%) and move from
|
||
there. If I am not going for tech production then I don't need the library
|
||
or parks (you can still make education, it helps in some regards, but for
|
||
the most part you don't need it if you are not going the way of tech.
|
||
|
||
You can then pretty much do as you please and work towards the goals you
|
||
think are reasonable for your country. "
|
||
|
||
One matter that can not be overlooked by any player is the simple
|
||
fact that people need food to survive. If a sector has less than
|
||
60 people in it total, including civs, soldiers, and uws, then it
|
||
will not starve. But if after the update it has more than 60 total
|
||
people will starve. Make sure to feed your people!
|
||
|
||
Ultimately, you want to take over every sector on your island.
|
||
If you have neighbors on your island, you will probably have to share.
|
||
Just try to get a bigger portion of it than your neighbors do.
|
||
|
||
Summary: There are several basic ideas expressed in this chapter:
|
||
1) Break sanctuary as soon as the game begins.
|
||
2) Secure as much land for yourself as possible.
|
||
3) Use your civilians efficiently.
|
||
4) Do not allow your 0,0 sector to have a lot of civs in it.
|
||
5) Get a distribution system set up early (explained later).
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 28
|
||
|
||
Chapter 6 :-: Diplomacy.
|
||
|
||
It's your own ruin or success. One of the best players of the game
|
||
(who shall go un-named) has had severe problems due to lack of skill
|
||
in diplomacy. Remember, there is another person on the other end of
|
||
that telegram. They are human like you are, and like to be treated
|
||
like it for the most part. There are jerks, and there are non-jerks.
|
||
Determine for yourself and go along with what you think is best, but
|
||
remember, it is ok to lose a few battles so long as you win the war.
|
||
A diplomatic loss can be an overall victory.
|
||
|
||
One of the most powerful weapons in the game is information.
|
||
What types of information can you use to your benefit? Information on;
|
||
the locality of other countries, the plans of opponents, the trading
|
||
going on between certain countries, etc. There is also a very powerful
|
||
tool right here in this document: how to play the game well. There
|
||
was a classic case of a country (myself) who accidentally announced
|
||
his attention to attack a bordering country. The bordering country
|
||
happened to be on, an began an attack. The attack stalemated for the
|
||
most part because of the obvious inexperience of the person running
|
||
that country. I offered information to him on how to play the game
|
||
better in exchange for his surrender and some other terms of agreement.
|
||
I turned a horrendous diplomatic mistake into a diplomatic success
|
||
within two hours. This is obviously the rare case (surprised me too),
|
||
but is a good example of the power of information.
|
||
|
||
Another aspect of diplomacy is style. You project a style in your
|
||
telegrams and announcements whether it is intentional or not. If
|
||
people like you they tend to side with you more than the next guy.
|
||
Of course, if you are a jerk but a powerful one people tend to
|
||
reluctantly side with you. Then again, they are more likely to
|
||
backstab you.
|
||
|
||
While I am on that subject: Backstabbing is a bad idea in general.
|
||
It leads to distrust of many players with regards to yourself and tends
|
||
to give yourself backstabbist's wrist if you do it too much. Even if
|
||
you change your country name from game to game people tend to pick
|
||
out who the major jerks are and their previous names or even net
|
||
addresses. Trust is important. If you have allies you can trust
|
||
implicitly you will sleep a lot better at night and also have people
|
||
who you can trust to run your country for you while you are away for a
|
||
few days pursuing real world goals. If you are going to backstab
|
||
someone crush them while you can and make sure their allies can not
|
||
get at you. Furthermore, make the world see that the person was a
|
||
fool for trusting you in the first place (like, due to previous war
|
||
or some such). Sometimes, that extra attack you get without
|
||
interference from automatic defenses due to a declaration of alliance
|
||
with your opponent can be critical. You can also map an opponent
|
||
country if you are allied with them and they will never know it.
|
||
Thus another good reason why you should be trustable and can trust
|
||
other close allies. Having allies is important, especially
|
||
in the current market games.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 29
|
||
|
||
A) What is diplomacy?
|
||
The dictionary defines diplomacy as "1: The art and practice of
|
||
conducting negotiations between nations. 2: Skill in handling
|
||
affairs without arousing hostility." The second definition may
|
||
not be entirely accurate in that in Empire, diplomacy can sometimes
|
||
be used to cause battles, rather than avoid them, to gain a particular
|
||
end. I will go into this later.
|
||
|
||
B) What purpose, diplomacy?
|
||
Since Empire is a multi-user game the diplomacy side of the game
|
||
is one of the main factors inherent to its playing. Being able
|
||
to interact with other players, make bargains, treaties, alliances,
|
||
sales, war, etc. leads to an incredibly variety of possible
|
||
scenarios among various countries. In asking, what purpose is
|
||
there to diplomacy, it must first be realized that diplomacy in
|
||
the game of Empire is virtually unavoidable. To what degree
|
||
you involve yourself in diplomacy is the true measure.
|
||
|
||
Diplomacy can be utterly disastrous for you. It can also be
|
||
very beneficial. It can also be a mediocre tool that goes mostly
|
||
unused. If you master the techniques of diplomacy you will find
|
||
yourself with a very valuable and powerful tool. If you fail
|
||
at grasping the basic concepts of diplomacy, then you may find
|
||
yourself the quick victim of a diplomatic trick.
|
||
|
||
C) General types of relations amongst nations in Empire
|
||
1) No contact. The two countries have never been in contact.
|
||
2) Allies. Several types:
|
||
a) Old friends, or local site friends.
|
||
b) People whom you trust more than other people
|
||
in the game, but are not entirely comfortable with.
|
||
Nevertheless, you ally with them for lack of allies.
|
||
c) Enemy allies. People whom you ally with whom you
|
||
intend to attack.
|
||
d) Undeclared allies. You conduct a lot of business with
|
||
the country, but you do not officially declare your
|
||
alliance.
|
||
3) Hostile. Generally speaking, any country who is unfriendly
|
||
towards you. May not necessarily be declared hostile.
|
||
4) At war. If you have not figured out what this means, stop
|
||
reading, never play Empire, and go back to elementary school :-)
|
||
5) Neutral. The broadest category. You've dealt with this person
|
||
but have not decided one way or another your relations. It might
|
||
be a person from a previous game or a total unknown.
|
||
|
||
d) Types of diplomacy
|
||
1) Active diplomacy
|
||
You interact with the country on a very high level. Whatever
|
||
their relations with you, a lot of correspondence is going on.
|
||
This is probably the easiest form of diplomacy to invoke.
|
||
2) Passive diplomacy
|
||
Low level contact only. In essence, you do not work with
|
||
this country. Some goals served by this: Country in question
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 30
|
||
|
||
learns little about you; Country in question may give you more
|
||
info than you give him or her; etc..
|
||
3) Indirect diplomacy
|
||
Diplomacy through a middle country to another country. This
|
||
is most often seen in situations where a known friend is an
|
||
ally of a country you want to be allied with. You attempt
|
||
to use your friend to convince the prospective ally to ally
|
||
with you.
|
||
4) Median diplomacy
|
||
Being the middle person in a triad or more of allies that
|
||
may not be already allied. This can be a VERY dangerous
|
||
position to be in. The other sides of the triad or more
|
||
may have certain expectations of you, which go against what
|
||
another country may want from you. This is essentially
|
||
sitting on a fence.
|
||
|
||
E) Some goals that can be achieved through diplomacy:
|
||
1) Getting another country to ally with you so that you can
|
||
overfly his country at will without planes scrambling.
|
||
2) Getting two countries whom you dislike to go to war against
|
||
each other.
|
||
3) Getting another country to perform an act that is beneficial
|
||
to you or your allies.
|
||
4) Getting a reduction in price of certain commodities or articles
|
||
from another country.
|
||
5) Gaining an ally.
|
||
6) Assisting in destroying an enemy.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
One of the most dangerous means by which diplomacy can be used was
|
||
written about in the book "Red Storm Rising" by Tom Clancy. If you
|
||
have not already read this book and you are an Empire buff, it is
|
||
strongly recommended reading. This method is referred to as "The
|
||
Maskirovka" or "Masquerade". It is often referred to as the "big lie"
|
||
by the victims of this trick. Essentially it works as follows:
|
||
|
||
a) You wish to attack another country, but would like to have things
|
||
sightly different before the attack begins.
|
||
o You may want that person to be your ally before the attack
|
||
so you can overfly him/her without being shot down.
|
||
o You might want to get him/her to give you a loan prior to
|
||
your attack.
|
||
o You might want them to move their fleet off in another
|
||
direction or in closer to your forts.
|
||
o You might want them to give you certain materials of war
|
||
that you can use in your attack against them.
|
||
All of these things and much more can be accomplished with
|
||
the concept of maskirovka. Decide what you want to achieve.
|
||
b) You set out to give the impression to the target country that you
|
||
are in a particular state of matters. This can be accomplished
|
||
in various ways depending on what you are trying to achieve.
|
||
You can have another country attack you for instance to make it
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 31
|
||
|
||
appear that you need military arms or supplies to hold them off.
|
||
This is one small example of what can be done. Ensure that the
|
||
image you are presenting can ultimately lead to getting what you
|
||
want to achieve accomplished.
|
||
c) You must be convincing in your impression. Use all means reasonable
|
||
to ensure the target country is getting the right image. Using
|
||
e-mail with collaborating countries to coordinate such matters
|
||
is often best.
|
||
d) As you begin feeling that you have achieved the correct image,
|
||
begin asking the target country for whatever it is you are trying
|
||
to achieve. Do not come right out and say it. That may cause
|
||
the whole trick to collapse on you. Approach it sideways so to
|
||
speak, and try to get the target country to offer whatever it is
|
||
without you directly asking for it.
|
||
e) If the country agrees to the transaction of events you are seeking,
|
||
all is well and good. You have achieved your goal. Keep in mind
|
||
that if you have played the maskirovka well, you have not yet
|
||
committed yourself in any particular direction with any sense of
|
||
strong commitment. At this point, you can always back down from
|
||
your further goals for which the maskirovka was designed to help.
|
||
The maskirovka at this point will have given you a more favorable
|
||
situation without having committed yourself. It may also have
|
||
enabled you to see more into the mind of your opponent, often
|
||
a valuable commodity.
|
||
f) If you have failed in your maskirovka, you may still have made
|
||
some gains. You again might know more about your opponent than
|
||
before. You might have reached some of your goals that the
|
||
maskirovka set out to accomplish. Lastly, you have not committed
|
||
yourself in any particular direction, yet you have tried to
|
||
enhance your position. Not a bad proposition.
|
||
|
||
There are many variations to maskirovkas. The guides listed above are
|
||
very general at best, and are meant more to give you an idea of how to
|
||
build a plan for maskirovka than anything else.
|
||
|
||
Chess players who have ever played in matches or tournaments will
|
||
probably feel right at home in scheming a maskirovka. You must try to
|
||
get into the mind of your opponent, understand what s/he sees from
|
||
his/her vantage point and get a feel for how you think s/he will
|
||
respond. You must think as if you were your opponent. Understand
|
||
their vantage point as best as you can. Do not think of what you
|
||
would do in a given situation, think what they would do. Think
|
||
consequences to every action you can take.
|
||
|
||
This usage of diplomacy is "active diplomacy", sometimes mixed with
|
||
"indirect diplomacy".
|
||
|
||
Another oft seen ploy of sorts is one in which you befriend a dying
|
||
rich country. They may be on there way out, and there may not be a
|
||
whole hell of a lot you can do for them. However, befriending them
|
||
towards the end may bring you gifts of money or lower market prices
|
||
from them when they dissolve. Show sympathy for their situation.
|
||
You can be sincere, or you may chose not to be. Sometimes a dying
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 32
|
||
|
||
country has no friends to whom they will leave their money. If your
|
||
the first to show sympathy, they may be willing to give you much in
|
||
return. This is an active form of diplomacy, but is rarely seen
|
||
except after a long period of passiveness relative to that country.
|
||
|
||
Posturing. Probably the most common form of diplomacy. This basically
|
||
means presenting an image to a possible attacker that you are more
|
||
capable than you appear. In general, people tend to believe it.
|
||
Consider the simple fact that generally speaking a good Empire player
|
||
spends a lot of time working on his or her country. Then, let them
|
||
believe through posturing that they are at a greater risk than
|
||
they actually are. They may tend to get possessive about their
|
||
country and not want to risk its destruction and the eventual loss
|
||
of so many sleepless nights and hours building the country in the
|
||
first place.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Summary: Diplomacy is a powerful tool. Some players consider it the
|
||
most powerful aspect of the game. In many ways that can be shown
|
||
to be true. However, do not let other facets of your country
|
||
decline and spend a huge amount of time building an excellent
|
||
diplomatic situation. The success or failure of diplomacy depends a
|
||
great deal on the other players perception of your words. If your
|
||
diplomacy fails, you may find that you will be forced to back up what
|
||
you say with military force.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 33
|
||
|
||
Chapter 7 :-: Setting up your defenses.
|
||
|
||
There are various means of "automatic" defense that Empire employs
|
||
against enemy invaders. These can be outlined in three major areas:
|
||
|
||
1: Home air defenses
|
||
|
||
Empire has numerous planes and plane capabilities. The higher
|
||
your tech level, the better the planes you can build. For
|
||
automatic defenses you are concerned with planes that have the
|
||
"intercept" capability listed next to them in the command,
|
||
'show planes c'.
|
||
|
||
Generally speaking, as some games diverge from this list, the
|
||
planes that have intercept capability are:
|
||
a: Fighter 1 (also has VTOL capability)
|
||
b: Fighter 2
|
||
c: Escort 2 (in SOME games)
|
||
d: Jet fighter
|
||
e: Jet fighter 2 (also has VTOL capability)
|
||
|
||
These planes are based out of airbases (except for the VTOL
|
||
planes which can scramble from airbases and non-airbase
|
||
sectors) and will automatically intercept incoming enemy
|
||
planes.
|
||
|
||
notes: 1: Planes will only scramble if there is petrol in
|
||
the sector they are scrambling from.
|
||
2: Airbases must be at 60% or better efficiency to
|
||
scramble. This does not apply to other sectors
|
||
from which VTOL planes are scrambling, nor does it
|
||
apply to VTOL planes in airports.
|
||
|
||
In this version of Empire it is VERY important to have a good
|
||
home air defense network. Having a great many planes with
|
||
intercept capability without proper planning is not a good
|
||
defense. You must learn to use the planes wisely.
|
||
|
||
Hints for good home air defense:
|
||
1: Have airports within intercept range of each other.
|
||
A plane's intercept range is 1/2 of its range indicated
|
||
in the command 'show planes c'. For example:
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 34
|
||
|
||
|
||
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
[513:36] Command : show planes c
|
||
acc load att def ran fuel abilities
|
||
Sopwith Camel, fight 30 1 3 2 6 1 tactical intercept VTOL light
|
||
TBD-1 Devastator, lt 30 2 1 2 8 1 bomber tactical VTOL light
|
||
C-56 Lodestar, trans 0 7 0 1 15 2 cargo
|
||
B-26B Marauder, hvy 85 6 2 3 15 2 bomber
|
||
|
||
Figure 10
|
||
Results from 'show planes capability'
|
||
|
||
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
In this list of planes, only the Sopwith Camel plane is
|
||
capable of interception. It has a range of 6, and thus
|
||
it can intercept enemy planes up to 3 sectors away from
|
||
the sector it is based in. Have your planes based in
|
||
sectors that are three sectors away from each other.
|
||
2: Always have a substantial number of military in your
|
||
airports. It is all too easy for an enemy to track
|
||
down your airport and capture it, thus possibly destroying
|
||
all your planes, and in the very least taking them
|
||
from you.
|
||
3: Ensure that all sectors that you have planes based in
|
||
have a sufficient amount of petrol for them. Note that in
|
||
the above figure, the Sopwith Camel uses 1 fuel per
|
||
mission. Thus, having 10 or more petrol per Sopwith
|
||
would be sufficient.
|
||
4: Do not base your entire defense on non-VTOL capable
|
||
interceptors. If you do, then your enemy can remove
|
||
your air defenses just by taking out your airports.
|
||
Sopwith Camels (Fighter 1s) and Jet Fighter 2s are
|
||
the VTOL intercept capable planes. Sopwith Camels
|
||
generally become useless for intercept duty as the
|
||
game wears on. After all, a paper airplane can not
|
||
put up with cannon fire from an F-15 for very long!
|
||
5: It is a good idea to have each sector in your country
|
||
covered by at least two airbases (or non airbases from
|
||
which your are basing VTOL planes). This makes it more
|
||
difficult for your enemy to locate where your airbases are.
|
||
|
||
2: Forts and guns
|
||
|
||
Forts will automatically fire on any enemy army units that
|
||
attack land of the defending nation, assuming that the guns
|
||
in the fort have the range to reach the aggressor. This
|
||
also assumes that the fort has shells and military.
|
||
|
||
Fort gun range is determined by multiplying the number of guns
|
||
in the fort by the technology factor of the nation. This
|
||
number can be found in the nation report [see command: nation].
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 35
|
||
|
||
Here's an example of calculating your gun range:
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
[77:144] Command : nation
|
||
|
||
Terminus Nation Report Sun Oct 20 18:27:08 1991
|
||
Nation status is ACTIVE Bureaucratic Time Units: 144
|
||
100% eff capital at -3,5 has 999 civilians & 0 military
|
||
# 0 -70:-40,-30:-16 # 1 -35:25,-3:15 # 2 -30:15,-4:7
|
||
# 3 -45:5,7:22 # 4 -45:5,7:17 # 5 -65:-20,-31:0
|
||
# 6 -65:-20,-12:0 # 7 -80:-30,-5:10 # 8 -8:10,-5:5
|
||
# 9 -32:32,11:22 #10 -50:18,-12:10 #11 -40:-10,-5:5
|
||
#12 -38:29,-3:23 #13 -65:30,-18:6 #14 -20:20,16:22
|
||
#15 -30:30,-3:23 #16 -40:20,7:25 #17 -80:30,-30:23
|
||
The treasury has $57485.00 Military reserves: 1676
|
||
Education.......... 17.78 Happiness....... 13.42
|
||
Technology......... 52.78 Research........ 1.44
|
||
Technology factor : 40.66% Plague factor : 1.51%
|
||
|
||
Figure 11
|
||
Results from a 'nation' report
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
To calculate the gun range, multiply the number of guns in
|
||
the fort (up to a maximum of seven) by the number listed in
|
||
"Technology factor" which is shown in this figure as 40.66.
|
||
Then, divide the resulting number by one hundred and that
|
||
is the number of sectors away the gun can fire at. In this
|
||
case, if you have seven guns the resulting range is 2.85
|
||
sectors. Effectively, the fort can fire just short of three
|
||
sectors away.
|
||
|
||
There is an additional aspect of forts which make them
|
||
useful as defensive sectors. Military forces inside of
|
||
a fort have four times the defensive factor of military in
|
||
most other sectors. Ie, 100 soldiers in a fort is equal to
|
||
400 regular troops if they are defending the fort.
|
||
|
||
Also note that forts can not be taken by paratroops dropped
|
||
from planes. They can only be taken via amphibious assault
|
||
and overland attack.
|
||
|
||
Forts are generally useful along your border sectors early
|
||
in the game and later on in the game throughout your country.
|
||
Ensure that they each have sufficient (seven or more) guns
|
||
and shells each, when you are able to devote that many guns
|
||
and shells to them. Forts are sometimes very critical when
|
||
your country is being over run.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 36
|
||
|
||
3: Naval support
|
||
|
||
Your navy will defend itself if it has the capability to do
|
||
so. Ships do not automatically come with guns when they are
|
||
built; they must be provided with guns and shells by loading
|
||
them onto the respective ship. Most ships have the capability
|
||
to fire guns. Should a ship of your nation be attacked, it
|
||
will defend itself if it can. In addition, ships within range
|
||
will also retaliate. Note that submarines will *not* fire
|
||
no matter how often they are fired at.
|
||
|
||
Ships will not defend your land sectors.
|
||
|
||
If ships are attacked from the air, they will fire their
|
||
anti-aircraft guns (which are the same as your regular guns,
|
||
and again are not automatically installed upon their
|
||
construction). Anti-aircraft guns on ships are pretty much
|
||
worthless on defense. Additionally, if enemy planes fly
|
||
over your ships but do not attack those ships, your ships
|
||
will not fire on them. Thus having a line of ships as
|
||
radar pickets will not work.
|
||
|
||
In addition to these three major modes of automatic defense, there
|
||
are a few more minor ones.
|
||
|
||
Any gun in any sector of yours that is overflown by enemy planes
|
||
will fire on those planes if it has shells, guns, and military
|
||
available.
|
||
|
||
Military in any sector of yours that is attacked will automatically
|
||
fight back to the best of its ability. There is no such thing as
|
||
retreat in automatic military fighting. In addition, there are three
|
||
sectors which multiply the effectiveness of military within them.
|
||
We have already mentioned forts in this capacity, in that they
|
||
multiply the effectiveness of troops within them by four. Capitals
|
||
and Banks multiply troops effectiveness by two, when on the defensive.
|
||
|
||
Also note that Capitals and Forts, as previously mentioned, can not
|
||
be taken by airborne paratroopers. Neither can mountains.
|
||
|
||
Lastly, should sectors of yours be taken, the enemy will have to deal
|
||
with your patriotic guerillas. Guerillas will attempt to retake
|
||
sectors from the enemy every update until they are defeated (which
|
||
takes some time). They are large in numbers, but have been known to
|
||
reach strengths of a hundred or more soldiers, though this is rare.
|
||
If they can not hope to retake the sector they may try to blow things
|
||
up in the sector the enemy has conquered. This results in loss of
|
||
efficiency to the sector as well as reduction in the work capability
|
||
of the sector.
|
||
|
||
You have *no* control over your guerillas whatsoever. They are
|
||
completely automatic. Should guerillas win a sector back from your
|
||
enemy then the surviving guerillas become members of your regular
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 37
|
||
|
||
military, and you can use them as such.
|
||
|
||
If your guerillas manage to take a sector back behind enemy lines
|
||
it is possible for you to enlist reservists in that sector. In
|
||
so doing, you may throw a major thorn into the side of your attacker.
|
||
This is a major reason for maintaining a large amount of reserves.
|
||
|
||
Summary: Automatic defenses in Empire are a critical part of every country.
|
||
If your country can not defend itself then you can expect to be
|
||
quickly over run. Use the automatic defenses described in this
|
||
chapter, and you will become a more difficult opponent. Remember
|
||
the three basic areas of automatic defense. In addition, keep in
|
||
mind that your airforce is probably the most important component of
|
||
your automatic defenses.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 38
|
||
|
||
Chapter 8 :-: Nuclear warfare.
|
||
|
||
Nuclear war in Empire is not currently the dreaded end of the world
|
||
doomsday machine it is in the real world. Nuclear weapons in the
|
||
standard release of Empire have no fallout, no radiation, no dust
|
||
clouds, etc. Nuclear weapons in Empire are essentially big
|
||
conventional bombs. They are "clean" weapons in that the only
|
||
difference between them and conventional bombs is that they are
|
||
bigger and create nuclear wasteland.
|
||
|
||
As such, a nuclear war is much more survivable.
|
||
|
||
There are several things that you need in order to wage nuclear
|
||
war against an enemy. First, you need the nuclear warheads themselves.
|
||
You will also need a missile or plane of sufficient type and range to
|
||
launch the warheads on. Lastly, you need to have target information,
|
||
ie where to land the nuclear warhead to cause the damage you want it
|
||
to cause.
|
||
|
||
Next, you need to decide if it is worth the cost to wage a nuclear
|
||
war. Should the enemy country know where you are, and have the means
|
||
to retaliate in kind, s/he will most likely do so. This can cause
|
||
grave damage to your own country, and eliminate any gains you may have
|
||
achieved by beginning a nuclear war.
|
||
|
||
There is also the large chance of great diplomatic cost. Most
|
||
countries do not tend to favor countries that rely on nuclear weapons
|
||
for victory, since it is the "easy" way out.
|
||
|
||
However, the scenario that the beginner needs to be most concerned
|
||
about is being the victim of a nuclear attack. Most beginners never
|
||
come close to achieving enough strength to have an effective nuclear
|
||
force. It may take several games before you become practiced enough
|
||
to maintain an economy and military that is capable of having the
|
||
resources, etc. necessary for such a force. Nuclear weapons can be
|
||
bought from larger powers, however the beginner still rarely tends
|
||
to have these.
|
||
|
||
In the event that you are attacked with nuclear weapons you need
|
||
to take immediate steps in order to ensure your survival. You must
|
||
first decide if it is in fact worth it for you to continue. Most
|
||
nuclear attacks are survivable. In many cases, you may be hit by
|
||
only one warhead. Depending on the size of your country, a small
|
||
number of warheads hitting you is survivable. This all assumes the
|
||
warheads are of the 5mt variety. 5mt warheads create a wasteland
|
||
that is 5 sectors long from left to right. 3mt warheads create
|
||
wasteland that is 3 sectors from left to right. Diameter in both
|
||
cases is the same north-south as east-west. These are the only
|
||
nuclear weapons that can really create serious problems for you.
|
||
Other nuclear weapons cause problems, but are essentially nuisances
|
||
that can be easily overcome.
|
||
|
||
The following is a map of your -20:0,-10:3 region. You have been
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 39
|
||
|
||
hit with a 3mt nuclear warhead at your sector -12,-6. It wastelanded
|
||
7 of your sectors and damaged nearly the entire area.
|
||
|
||
.eo
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
21111111111----------
|
||
098765432109876543210
|
||
10 . . . . . . . . . . . 10
|
||
9 . . ) . . h f . . . 9
|
||
8 . . a m g o + m . . . 8
|
||
7 . a + \ \ + * m . . 7
|
||
6 = # + \ \ \ w b ) . . 6
|
||
5 . . h \ \ + e f . . 5
|
||
4 . . f + + c f l . . . 4
|
||
3 . . k j + f m m . . 3
|
||
211111111119876543210
|
||
09876543210----------
|
||
|
||
Figure 12
|
||
Map of area hit by 3mt nuclear warhead
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
.ec
|
||
|
||
Here is a basic outline of what you will need to do should you be hit
|
||
with one or more 3mt or greater warheads:
|
||
|
||
1: Get food to the people in areas that need food. Especially areas
|
||
that are partially or totally cut off from the rest of your country.
|
||
ON THE MAP ABOVE: This would probably be necessary for all sectors
|
||
east of -12 and/or north of -4.
|
||
|
||
2: Distribution routes *will* be cut off by a nuclear hit. Redo your
|
||
distribution routes around the nuclear wasteland areas. Make sure
|
||
that your new distribution center has enough food to feed the people
|
||
you are trying to support with it.
|
||
ON THE MAP ABOVE: This would probably be necessary for all sectors
|
||
in the region.
|
||
3: Move people into the area affected by the blast. Get highways in
|
||
the area back up to efficiency as soon as possible. This will
|
||
allow for increased movement in the immediate area of the blast
|
||
which could be critical to the survival of the people in that area
|
||
as well as defense of the area.
|
||
ON THE MAP ABOVE: You will probably need to restructure your
|
||
highway system in the region. Move people in
|
||
from the south-east (off the map).
|
||
4: Lastly, try to get production back online in the area. This is
|
||
not as critical as the first three things.
|
||
|
||
Those are the essentials for recovering from a nuclear blast. The
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 40
|
||
|
||
first three items should be done as soon as possible top to bottom,
|
||
ie number one is priority one.
|
||
|
||
There are also defense considerations after you have been hit by
|
||
a nuclear blast. Your air defenses in the area might be wiped out
|
||
which would allow your opponent to take over your land in that area.
|
||
There are also steps you can use to shore up your defenses in the
|
||
area while you are getting the area back on its feet:
|
||
|
||
1: Enlist military in the region. Looking at the map in figure 12,
|
||
You might do something like:
|
||
|
||
[23:210] Command: enlist -20:0,-10:3 -25
|
||
|
||
That would enlist military in the region so that every sector had
|
||
at least 25 military in it. Note that you can only enlist half of
|
||
the population in a sector at one time, but you can enlist in the
|
||
same sector over and over again.
|
||
|
||
Doing this would hamper an enemy's progress should they attempt a
|
||
paradrop assault in the region.
|
||
|
||
2: Move undamaged or nearly undamaged VTOL fighter planes from the
|
||
south-east (off the map) into the area. Do not put them on
|
||
the airbase. Provide them with petrol as well. This will
|
||
shore up your air defenses which were damaged by the blast. It
|
||
will also make it much more difficult for an enemy power to attack
|
||
by air in the region.
|
||
|
||
3: Move guns and shells into the forts on the map if they are not
|
||
already there. Make sure there is at least 7 guns and a lot of
|
||
shells in each fort. Also make sure there are substantial military
|
||
forces in each. This will help prevent extended military action
|
||
on land by an enemy.
|
||
|
||
4: Move naval forces into the region if possible. This will help
|
||
to prevent amphibious assaults.
|
||
|
||
If you do all of these things, recovery from the blast will not
|
||
take long at all. These things will minimize the effect of the
|
||
blast and get the area back on its feet again.
|
||
|
||
Do not be dismayed by loss of resources etc. You *can* recover.
|
||
I have been a victim of nuclear war probably half a dozen times,
|
||
and so far have found only one case in which I was crippled by
|
||
the effects. My entire homeland (of ~100 sectors) was
|
||
wastelanded except for less than 10 sectors. No, I could no
|
||
longer hope to win the game, but I did hang on long enough to
|
||
purchase a nuclear warhead and missile and attack the person
|
||
who nuked me. Doing something like this will make the player
|
||
who nuked you respect you more in future games, and consider
|
||
the consequences before pushing that button.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 41
|
||
|
||
It has become fairly routine lately for games to end with a world
|
||
wide nuke-off. Generally speaking, nations having nuclear weapons
|
||
threaten the world with destruction if they are not acknowledged
|
||
as victors. Other people protest of course, and nuclear war happens.
|
||
A game that has taken eight weeks to evolve to that point can be
|
||
destroyed in less than an hour in the hottest nuclear wars. This
|
||
of course does not lead to any clear cut winner, and is rather
|
||
pointless but people do it anyway. It is after all, a game, and
|
||
people want to have fun. Nuclear war, to many people in Empire,
|
||
is fun.
|
||
|
||
Summary: Do not be demoralized by a nuclear attack. Powers using nuclear
|
||
weapons expect their opponents to get demoralized. Recovery from a
|
||
nuclear attack of larger degree is possible as well. It takes
|
||
perseverance and sometimes hard work. Don't be dismayed by mass
|
||
starvations. Populations can recover if you work at it. Your
|
||
reputation may be greatly improved if you do recover from a nuclear
|
||
blast.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 42
|
||
|
||
Chapter 9 :-: Technology.
|
||
|
||
By most people's definitions technology or the means to purchase
|
||
technological weapons from another country is one of the most
|
||
critical elements in doing well in Empire.
|
||
|
||
Having technology allows you to:
|
||
1. Have increased ranges on your land based radar.
|
||
2. Build higher capability planes.
|
||
3. Build more advanced types of planes.
|
||
4. Build higher capability ships (not as great an effect as in planes)
|
||
5. Build more advanced types of ships.
|
||
6. Build bridges.
|
||
7. Build nuclear weapons.
|
||
8. Have increased ranges on your guns in forts.
|
||
|
||
Thus, having a high technology country is a very useful thing.
|
||
However, attaining a high technology level is very difficult for
|
||
the beginner. Running a country that has an economy balanced well
|
||
enough to produce technology at a rate sufficient to stay in the
|
||
technology race is a very difficult task, even for players who are
|
||
more experienced and/or have a lot of allies supporting their
|
||
economies as well.
|
||
|
||
Producing tech is expensive. It costs a lot in terms of money
|
||
and materials. Not only do you have to produce tech, but you
|
||
have to educate your people to a high enough degree that tech
|
||
production can be done efficiently. Doing this takes a great
|
||
many light construction materials (lcms) for education, and a
|
||
large amount of oil, gold dust and lcms for tech production.
|
||
|
||
It is not uncommon for tech nations to be one of the smallest
|
||
and poorest nations around. Most of their time and resources
|
||
have to be devoted to tech production rather than ships for
|
||
exploration and military to defend outlying colonies.
|
||
|
||
Do not fantasize. If you are a beginner, forget about producing
|
||
tech no matter how good you think you are. You will be wasting
|
||
your resources in doing so and crippling your economy while other
|
||
countries will run far far ahead of you in production.
|
||
|
||
In general, until you have played a few games it is far better to
|
||
purchase high technology items from other players. Diplomacy,
|
||
discussed at length in chapter 7, is an effective tool for
|
||
purchasing technologically superior items.
|
||
|
||
Should you decide to run tech, there are several things you should
|
||
know. If you are able to take these into account, and balance these
|
||
factors against each other you may be able to produce tech at a
|
||
sufficient rate to stay with the leaders.
|
||
|
||
Education is important to produce tech. You have to have an
|
||
education level of at least five before you can produce any. However,
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 43
|
||
|
||
an education level of five will produce tech only in an inefficient
|
||
manner. The higher your education level, the more efficiently tech
|
||
will be produced. This means that a single tech center can produce
|
||
more tech per update, and cost you less in raw materials, though it
|
||
will cost the same per unit of tech produced. The savings in raw
|
||
materials is critical.
|
||
|
||
Some countries feel it is better to keep your population low when
|
||
they are planning on having a high education level. The reasoning
|
||
behind this is that it takes less effort to educate a small number
|
||
of people and costs less money as well. There is a bad side to this
|
||
plan though. With a small population it is hard to produce things
|
||
in large quantities, and exploring into and occupying new lands is
|
||
very difficult.
|
||
|
||
Technology production demands a large amount of resources. Especially
|
||
oil. However, the higher tech you are the more oil you are able to
|
||
refine per amount of crude oil in the ground. Thus, it is better to
|
||
only take out of the ground what oil you need to keep your country
|
||
running, and leave the rest for later on when you have higher tech,
|
||
and get more per barrel of crude. Thus, if you were to do the
|
||
following:
|
||
|
||
[23:512] Command: resource 4,0
|
||
|
||
You might see that your 4,0 sector has 100 units of oil in the ground.
|
||
At tech 0 you'll be lucky if you get 500 barrels of oil out of that.
|
||
However, at tech 100 you will probably get somewhere around 700-750.
|
||
That's a big difference. So, only take approximately what oil you will
|
||
need for each update out of the ground, and leave the rest for later.
|
||
|
||
Tech production also requires gold dust. Gold dust mining is not
|
||
affected by tech like oil wells are. Thus, mining the gold dust
|
||
right away or saving it later has no impact on how much is produced
|
||
per unit of gold dust in the ground. There are other considerations
|
||
though. If you have a lot of gold dust sitting around in your
|
||
warehouse or other storage place, other countries will see via the
|
||
power report that you have a lot of dust. If they are low on dust they
|
||
just might look at you as a possible target. So, if you are going to
|
||
mine a lot of your dust right away you might want to consider putting
|
||
a good portion of it into banks where the dust gets converted into
|
||
bars, which will give you more money per update. This especially
|
||
applies to the Kent State version of Empire, where you can grind up
|
||
your gold bars into gold dust at a loss of 20% of the original amount
|
||
of dust put into the bars.
|
||
|
||
Uncompensated workers are also useful for tech production, as well
|
||
as many other things. However, it has been noticed that a tech
|
||
center with 999 uws will produce tech less efficiently than one with
|
||
500 uws. The loss in efficiency is greater than what is expected
|
||
from the tech limitation function, which is a non-linear function
|
||
designed to limit fast tech production. Most players do not feel that
|
||
the loss in efficiency is worth it for the greater amount of tech
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 44
|
||
|
||
production, especially in small countries where having two or even
|
||
three tech centers is unrealistic due to the small amount of land
|
||
available.
|
||
|
||
As your technology increases, the possibility of there being an
|
||
outbreak of plague in your country increases. This is not of great
|
||
concern until such time as your plague factor (found by the command
|
||
"nation") increases above a factor of 3.0 or more. Even if plague
|
||
does break out in your country, if the plague factor is less than
|
||
3.0 or so, the plague will have minimal effect on your country.
|
||
During your first outbreaks of plague, you will lose some civilians
|
||
but the birth rate of the civilians will be greater than the death
|
||
rate. Thus, increasing your research level (by opening and operating
|
||
a research center, which requires the same materials as a tech center)
|
||
prior to your plague factor reaching 3.0 is actually a waste of
|
||
resources, time, money and effort. This fact has been lost on a
|
||
great many people and it is not uncommon to find many players
|
||
boasting of a high research level long before you would have a
|
||
plague factor of 3.0 without any research production. While we
|
||
have emphasised "3.0" as a point at which things start getting
|
||
bad with plague, that is a vague figure. Things start getting
|
||
bad before that point, and get worse afterwards. Its a matter of
|
||
how much you want to put up with civilians dying off.
|
||
|
||
There is a command called "report" which will list other countries,
|
||
their status, and their levels of tech, research, and education
|
||
relative to you. If your tech is significantly higher than
|
||
say a country called 'Canada' then report will indicate that
|
||
Canada's technological level is 'backward' relative to you.
|
||
If Canada's technological level is significantly higher, than
|
||
report will indicate 'advanced', meaning Canada is advanced
|
||
relative to you. If its roughly the same, 'similar' will be
|
||
shown. There are two other possibilities, 'primitive' and
|
||
'superior' which are used for extreme differences in levels.
|
||
It should be noted that report is inaccurate at best, and only
|
||
gives a very vague idea of levels.
|
||
|
||
Summary: Technology is one of the basic aspects of having a country that
|
||
lasts to the end of the game. Generally, the higher tech you are
|
||
the greater chance of your survival. However, if you have a high
|
||
technology friend, you chances of survival are still increased
|
||
greatly. Empire is a classic case of cold war as far as
|
||
technological development is concerned. As a beginner, you are
|
||
probably better off not producing a great deal of tech until you
|
||
become well versed in how to run a strong economy.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 45
|
||
|
||
Chapter 10 :-: The economy.
|
||
|
||
There are several products produced in Empire economies.
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Group 1 Group 2
|
||
1. Gold dust 8. Light Construction Materials (LCM) (3)
|
||
2. Oil 9. Heavy Construction Materials (HCM) (3)
|
||
3. Iron 10. Gold bars (1)
|
||
4. Rads 11. Petrol (2)
|
||
5. Food 12. Soldiers (6)
|
||
6. Civilians
|
||
7. Uncompensated workers
|
||
|
||
Group 3 Group 4
|
||
13. Education (8) 17. Ships (8,9)
|
||
14. Research (1,2,8,13) 18. Planes (8,9)
|
||
15. Technology (1,2,8,13) 19. Bridges (9)
|
||
16. Money (6 or 7 or 10) 20. Nuclear weapons (2,4,8,9) ????
|
||
|
||
Special items: Beaurocratic Time Units (BTUs), Available work (Avail)
|
||
|
||
|
||
Figure 13
|
||
Table of types of commodities in Empire
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Beaurocratic Time Units (BTUs) are used when executing a command, such
|
||
as "build" for example. They are also used to shuffle paperwork
|
||
around, say for soldiers killed in combat.
|
||
|
||
Available Work (Avail) is used up by producing sectors and those
|
||
sectors in which you build things (planes, for example). It is an
|
||
indices of the amount of labor hours available for work.
|
||
|
||
Running your economy efficiently as possible is one of the keys to
|
||
being a good Empire player. Without a good economy it is impossible
|
||
to wage a long lasting war, especially an offensive one. It is
|
||
possible to last a long time defensively even with a weak economy
|
||
but your chances are greatly increased if you have a strong economy.
|
||
|
||
So, what defines an efficient and strong economy? An efficient
|
||
economy is one in which the amount of a product being produced in a
|
||
sector is nearly equal to the amount that the civilians can produce in
|
||
one turn. For example, if a light construction materials (LCM) plant
|
||
can produce two hundred LCMs an update, but is only producing one
|
||
hundred, then fifty percent of the people in that plant are basically
|
||
doing nothing. They could be used elsewhere on something that needs
|
||
more civilians or you could put more iron into the LCM plant to allow
|
||
the civilians to make more LCMs.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 46
|
||
|
||
A strong economy is an economy that produces a lot of materials,
|
||
resources, etc relative to the size of the country. If your country
|
||
has only say ten thousand civilians but is producing a large amount
|
||
of materials per update then your country may in fact be a strong
|
||
country. This is a very unlikely scenario, but it is a good example.
|
||
A strong economy is usually the result of an efficient economy,
|
||
though there are other factors, those mainly referring to population
|
||
growth. To find out how much work your civilians are going to perform
|
||
at an update you can issue the "prod" command to get a production
|
||
simulation. Using this you can see if all the civilians in a given
|
||
sector will be making something or if some will be sitting around and
|
||
doing nothing. Here is a sample output from a prod command:
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
[138:250] Command: prod #1
|
||
Mon Sep 30 20:18:37 1991
|
||
PRODUCTION SIMULATION
|
||
sect des eff wkfc will make- p.e. cost use1 use2 use3 max1 max2 max3 max
|
||
-2,0 o 39% 422 39 oil 0.50 $0 39
|
||
2,0 m 100% 807 387 iron 1.00 $0 387
|
||
-10,2 b 100% 653 36 bars 1.00 $360 180d 310d 62
|
||
-8,2 j 100% 576 138 lcm 0.50 $0 276i 276i 138
|
||
-4,2 g 27% 615 79 dust 1.00 $0 79
|
||
-11,3 t 100% 620 0.00 tech 0.00 $0 0d 0o 0l 0d 0o 0l 0.00
|
||
-8,4 l 100% 499 40 edu 1.00 $360 40l 239l 239
|
||
7 sectors
|
||
|
||
Figure 14
|
||
Sample output of the 'prod' command
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
The important columns to note here are the "will" and "max" columns.
|
||
If the number indicated in the "will" column is less than the "max"
|
||
column by more than 1, then you have civilians who are sitting around
|
||
doing nothing. The way you calculate the number of civilians you have
|
||
sitting around is fairly simple. First, it is important to note that
|
||
the number indicated in the "wkfc" column is the number of civilians
|
||
and uncompensated workers (UWs) you will have in the sector *after* the
|
||
next update. You need to reduce the number of civs and/or UWs in the
|
||
sector to optimum *before* the next update.
|
||
|
||
For this example, and for sake of ease, I am going to assume that
|
||
there are no UWs or soldiers in this sector, which both produce work.
|
||
We will assume that there are only civilians, and happy, content ones
|
||
at that. Civilians that are starved, or recently starved do not work
|
||
as hard.
|
||
|
||
In the above shown production simulation there are two sectors which
|
||
have civilians sitting around idle. These two sectors are the bank
|
||
('b') at -10,2, and the library ('l') at -8,4. We will use the library
|
||
for our example.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 47
|
||
|
||
The library is going to produce 40 education, but it is capable of
|
||
producing 239. It doesn't have enough lcms (the only material needed
|
||
to produce education) to produce 239 education. Thus, only the civs
|
||
necessary to produce 40 education are actually working. The remaining
|
||
number of civilians, as a percentage, is calculated by this simple
|
||
formula:
|
||
|
||
((# in max column) - (# in 'will' column)) / (# in max column)
|
||
|
||
Thus, the percentage of civilians in the library not actually doing
|
||
work is (239 - 40) / 239, or 83.26%. That's a large percentage! Now,
|
||
to calculate how many civilians you can move out of the sector without
|
||
reducing your production beneath 40 education in that sector, multiply
|
||
.8326 * the number of civilians currently in that sector. So, you need
|
||
to do a census command:
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
[162:166] Command : cen -8,4
|
||
Mon Sep 30 20:19:07 1991
|
||
CENSUS del dst
|
||
sect eff mob uf uf * civ mil uw food work avail ter fallout
|
||
-8,4 l 100% 127 .. .0 403 0 0 49 100% 54 0 0
|
||
|
||
Figure 15
|
||
Results of a 'census' command of a library
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
There are 403 civilians listed in the 'civ' column for the library at
|
||
sector -8,4. Thus, you multiply 403 by .8326 and you find that you can
|
||
safely remove 355 civilians from that sector and still be producing
|
||
40 education. That's 355 civilians that can be doing valuable work
|
||
elsewhere instead of sitting around doing nothing!
|
||
|
||
The other alternative to get the sector producing efficiently
|
||
is to move lcms into the library up to the number that the library can
|
||
possibly process with the current number of civilians. Once again, we
|
||
refer to the production report and note the 'use1' and 'max1' columns.
|
||
The library will use 40l (40 lcms) at the next update unless you put
|
||
more lcms into the library. It can use up to 239 (239l in 'max1')
|
||
lcms. Thus, it can process an additional 199 lcms. So, you find lcms
|
||
somewhere else in your country and move the 199 lcms into the library.
|
||
At the next update your library will produce 239 education. Once
|
||
again, all of the civilians in the sector are now doing something.
|
||
|
||
Of course, you can also use a combination of these two methods to
|
||
achieve an equitable balance.
|
||
|
||
There are other aspects to running an efficient economy as well.
|
||
Ideally, you do not want to have an abundance of raw materials lying
|
||
around especially in the early stages of the game. The best situation
|
||
is to have your economy using the same amount of resources per update
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 48
|
||
|
||
as it is making, thus having a zero delta situation with respect to
|
||
all materials in your economy, you neither gain nor lose surplus of
|
||
materials. Keep in mind however that it is important to create and
|
||
maintain a surplus of materials from which to draw on in times of war,
|
||
especially later on in the game. Without spare materials, you can not
|
||
wage war very effectively. In doing this you are getting the best
|
||
balance of production, and are producing finished items at a faster
|
||
pace then if you spent more work producing raw materials. If you
|
||
spent more work producing finished materials, you would run out of
|
||
raw materials, and find that you have to move your civilians around
|
||
to produce more raw materials or have them sitting idle doing nothing
|
||
while your other civilians produce sufficient raw materials for them
|
||
to do work. The benefits of a balanced economy are obvious.
|
||
|
||
There are additional tasks that are somewhat rewarding in running an
|
||
efficient economy, but they become increasingly technical in nature
|
||
and their impact as a whole against your economy is significantly less.
|
||
|
||
As you become more experienced you will no doubt discover these thing
|
||
yourself, or hear about them in a game or on the network. These basic
|
||
elements are more than enough for you to run smooth production if you
|
||
adhere to them.
|
||
|
||
There are still more elements of an economy which, while very useful,
|
||
are not exactly related to the strength or efficiency with which your
|
||
economy is running. Your country, should it live for some time and
|
||
develop a well balanced economy, will produce a huge amount of
|
||
materials. It is impossible for you to keep track of everything in
|
||
each and every sector of your country. Of course, the Empire creators
|
||
realized this and have developed some critical commands for reducing
|
||
by a very large amount the quantity of time you need to spend adjusting
|
||
your economy. These are the 'distribute' and 'deliver' commands.
|
||
|
||
'Distribute' and 'deliver' are commands in Empire which allow
|
||
you to set up your economy to run automatically, with little
|
||
intervention from yourself. Distribution is the most commonly used
|
||
command in doing this. However, deliver has certain features which
|
||
are useful as well.
|
||
|
||
Distribute is based on the central warehouse scheme of production
|
||
and consumption of materials. An iron mine produces iron, which it
|
||
ships off to the central warehouse. A light construction materials
|
||
plant needs iron to make lcms, and thus requests iron to be sent to it
|
||
from the warehouse. The lcm factory produces lcms, and sends them
|
||
off to the warehouse. A library plant needs lcms to produce
|
||
education, and requests lcms from the warehouse to do so. The
|
||
warehouse handles regional traffic for your economy. Some smaller
|
||
countries only have one warehouse.
|
||
|
||
Deliver is based on the local delivery truck idea. A nearby farm
|
||
produces a certain amount of food per update, and sends it directly to
|
||
the neighboring sector. You know that the neighboring sector can
|
||
consume more food per update than that farm can produce (this is very
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 49
|
||
|
||
rarely true, this is just an example). So, the farm sends all the
|
||
food it produces to the neighboring sector. The neighboring sector
|
||
notes how much food has been delivered from the farm, and then requests
|
||
from the warehouse enough food to feed the rest of the civilians in
|
||
the sector. In so doing things in this manner, you are possibly saving
|
||
mobility by not having the food automatically move to the warehouse
|
||
from the neighboring farm and then to the neighboring sector. The same
|
||
result would be achieved however, though as stated at a possible
|
||
greater loss of mobility. Nevertheless, most people prefer to depend
|
||
entirely on 'distribute' to handle automatic distribution of materials
|
||
around their country.
|
||
|
||
To set up a distribution system, or network, you have to set a
|
||
distribution 'path' *from* every sector *to* the warehouse. I
|
||
emphasize the direction that the path is moving in because all
|
||
distribution paths go *to* the warehouse, not from the warehouse
|
||
to the sector, though materials can and will go from the warehouse
|
||
to the sector along that same path. The idea here is say a farm
|
||
outside of St. Louis about 50 miles produces 500 units of food, the
|
||
farm needs to know the route by which it should send its trucks to get
|
||
to a warehouse in St. Louis before it can send the food to that
|
||
warehouse (this of course being a real life scenario). The best path
|
||
to choose is across highways. A 100% highway requires no mobility to
|
||
move anything in to it. Obviously you don't want to travel the 50
|
||
miles to St. Louis across dirt roads. You would prefer an interstate
|
||
if you were a truck. In Empire, a 100% highway is essentially an
|
||
interstate. Your goal is to have a distribution path from each sector
|
||
to the warehouse travel the route over the least mobility cost path.
|
||
The greater the percentage of that path that is 100% highways the
|
||
better. It is important to note that distribution paths have a maximum
|
||
length of 10 sectors. For example:
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 50
|
||
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
[529:32] Command : map -20:10,-3:6
|
||
21111111111---------00000000001
|
||
0987654321098765432101234567890
|
||
-3 . . . . . ) . . . . . . . -3
|
||
-2 . . . f . o . . . . . . . . -2
|
||
-1 . . . a k a . a a h . . . . -1
|
||
0 k l k a + + + . + + c m . . . 0
|
||
1 m w o ^ ^ m + j j + . + . . . 1
|
||
2 + + + + . b j + m + w + . . . . 2
|
||
3 m j j + t + + + + + + . ) . + 3
|
||
4 + ^ j m + + l ^ ^ ^ + * a a o m 4
|
||
5 ^ + ^ m + j ^ ^ c + m m + + + 5
|
||
6 + + + g m + + m b + k o + j w g 6
|
||
21111111111---------00000000001
|
||
0987654321098765432101234567890
|
||
|
||
[529:32] Command :
|
||
|
||
Figure 16
|
||
Map of area requiring some distribution
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Let's say that in the previous figure you wanted to set up a
|
||
distribution path from the oil well at -15,1 (the 'o' sector left of
|
||
the middle of the map) to the warehouse at 0,2 (the 'w' sector right
|
||
of the middle of the map). The command to set up the distribution
|
||
path from that oil well to the warehouse would be:
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
[529:32] Command : distribute -15,1 nnnjujjjuj
|
||
oil field at -15,1 has no distribution path.
|
||
<10: 0,2>h
|
||
New path distributes to 0,2
|
||
|
||
[534:31] Command :
|
||
|
||
Figure 17
|
||
Results of a distribution command
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Now there is a path along highways from the oil well to the warehouse.
|
||
If you do not understand the nnnjujjjuj command above, refer to chapter
|
||
3 and the section under "movement in Empire".
|
||
|
||
Next, you need to set thresholds for the sector. This sector is an
|
||
oil well, and it produces, you guessed it, oil. So, you want the oil
|
||
that is produced to be shipped to the warehouse. You have to tell the
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 51
|
||
|
||
people in the oil well that all oil over 1 unit is to be shipped.
|
||
This is called a "threshold", a level at which any quantity of that
|
||
unit over that amount if shipped to the warehouse. Note that the
|
||
lowest threshold you can have and still have the item shipped is 1.
|
||
If the threshold is 0, then it will not be shipped. The command to set
|
||
the threshold in the sector -15,1 for oil is:
|
||
|
||
[534:31] Command : threshold oil -15,1 1
|
||
|
||
Next, you want to make sure that food gets out to the oil well. The
|
||
other aspect of thresholds is that if there is less than the threshold
|
||
of a commodity, then the warehouse will send out enough of that
|
||
commodity to equal the threshold, assuming it has such commodities in
|
||
the warehouse. The command to set the threshold for for in the sector
|
||
so that food will go to the sector from the warehouse could be this:
|
||
|
||
[534:30] Command: threshold food -15,1 50
|
||
|
||
Which means at each update, the warehouse will attempt to ensure
|
||
that there is 50 food in the oil well at -15,1 by sending enough
|
||
food, if it can, to raise the stockpile of food in that sector to
|
||
50 units.
|
||
|
||
Again, distribution paths must be set up for every sector that you
|
||
intend on doing anything with. Essentially, as the game progresses,
|
||
this means all of your sectors. You must also set appropriate
|
||
thresholds as well. Some sectors need iron from the warehouse to
|
||
produce, and thus a threshold will be required for iron. Some need
|
||
more than one commodity, so thresholds must be set for each of those
|
||
commodities. EVERY sector should have a threshold value set for food.
|
||
You do not want to starve your civilians! To find out what
|
||
commodities a sector needs to produce an item, use the 'production'
|
||
command discussed earlier in this chapter.
|
||
|
||
Some things to note about distribute:
|
||
|
||
1) No distribution path may be longer than 10 sectors.
|
||
2) A distribution path must go through sectors controlled by you.
|
||
3) Sometimes it may seem that the warehouse is not getting the commodities
|
||
to the sectors requesting it. Empire updates sectors one at a time, and
|
||
as such the warehouse may actually run out of a commodity, receive the
|
||
request for that commodity, be unable to fill it and move on the the
|
||
sectors it updates after that sector. Those sectors in turn may send
|
||
commodities to the warehouse, thus giving it enough to fill the previous
|
||
request. However, since it has already updated that sector, it will not
|
||
fulfill the backlogged request. Empire updates the world left to right
|
||
and top to bottom. Thus in a map of your country the most north-west
|
||
sector gets updated first and the most south-east sector gets updated last.
|
||
4) The warehouse has to spend mobility to send commodities to the requesting
|
||
sectors. Warehouses do this at a great reduction in the cost to the
|
||
normal mobility. However, if the warehouse runs out of mobility it
|
||
will NOT distribute any more commodities for that update.
|
||
5) Do NOT set thresholds for all commodities in a sector. Only set the
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 52
|
||
|
||
thresholds for the commodities you KNOW that sector will need. Distribute
|
||
will not distribute commodities to sectors with the thresholds set for
|
||
every commodity.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Deliver is much more basic. As a result however, it is much less
|
||
powerful, though it is useful. Deliver works as explained earlier in
|
||
that it does local deliveries of a specified commodity. Deliver is
|
||
capable of delivering an item to only neighboring sectors. During the
|
||
update, deliver is done before distribute. It is important to note
|
||
that. Let's say that a farm has a lot of food to send to the
|
||
warehouse. It may not have the mobility to send it all to the
|
||
warehouse, and thus you get a large surplus left over in the farm.
|
||
Eventually, the farm will not have room to store the surplus anymore.
|
||
This is of course bad, since the farm will no longer produce very much
|
||
food. It will produce only enough food to replace what was taken from
|
||
the storage at the farm.
|
||
|
||
The solution to this is to have the farm sends its surplus to a
|
||
neighboring 100% efficient highway. This will cost the farm no
|
||
mobility and will open up its storage areas for new production at the
|
||
farm. The highway can then spend mobility sending the food to the
|
||
warehouse. Once again, we use the map:
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
[529:32] Command : map -20:10,-3:6
|
||
21111111111---------00000000001
|
||
0987654321098765432101234567890
|
||
-3 . . . . . ) . . . . . . . -3
|
||
-2 . . . f . o . . . . . . . . -2
|
||
-1 . . . a k a . a a h . . . . -1
|
||
0 k l k a + + + . + + c m . . . 0
|
||
1 m w o ^ ^ m + j j + . + . . . 1
|
||
2 + + + + . b j + m + w + . . . . 2
|
||
3 m j j + t + + + + + + . ) . + 3
|
||
4 + ^ j m + + l ^ ^ ^ + * a a o m 4
|
||
5 ^ + ^ m + j ^ ^ c + m m + + + 5
|
||
6 + + + g m + + m b + k o + j w g 6
|
||
21111111111---------00000000001
|
||
0987654321098765432101234567890
|
||
|
||
Figure 18
|
||
Map of an area requiring delivery path
|
||
|
||
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Let's say the farm at -5,-1 (just north of the middle) has a huge
|
||
surplus of food. You can send that surplus to the highway at -4,0 by
|
||
issuing this command:
|
||
|
||
[566:115] Command : deliver food -5,-1 n (50)
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 53
|
||
|
||
Which means, deliver all food in the sector at -5,-1 in excess of 50
|
||
units in the 'n' direction. Note the deliver threshold in parentheses
|
||
must be in parentheses and that deliver thresholds are different than
|
||
distribute thresholds.
|
||
|
||
While I have described how to use the basics of deliver, I do not
|
||
recommend it for the beginner. Using a distribution network is quite
|
||
sufficient for the beginning player, and you will not notice any great
|
||
difficulty in running your economy without using the deliver command.
|
||
In fact, some of the best players in Empire do not use deliver at all.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Summary: The things discussed in this chapter may seem time consuming, and
|
||
may seem to require a lot of detail. However, these things are
|
||
important to you as an Empire player to learn and understand. They
|
||
become easy to use after only a short while. Having a strong
|
||
economy is the basic element in having a strong country. If you
|
||
have not understood this chapter, read it again. Better yet, read
|
||
it while experimenting with a couple of your own sectors in a game.
|
||
While understanding 'deliver' is not very important, understanding
|
||
'distribute' is.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 54
|
||
|
||
Chapter 11 :-: War
|
||
|
||
The art of waging war is certainly beyond the scope of this guide.
|
||
There are a great number of books written on the history of man's wish
|
||
to destroy themselves. In this chapter, I only intend to give the
|
||
player some rudimentary basics for waging Empire style wars. Even more
|
||
pertinent in the case of the beginner, how to defend against or
|
||
hopefully repulse an invader.
|
||
|
||
Keep in mind that as a beginner, you stand a very good chance of losing
|
||
your first war. Consider it a learning experience. The person who
|
||
defeated you is better than you are in most circumstances, and just by
|
||
their actions you can learn how best to wage an offensive or defensive
|
||
war.
|
||
|
||
There are several things that you can do to defend your country
|
||
in the event of an attack. However, it is always best to be prepared
|
||
for an attack before it happens. There are some basics already
|
||
discussed in this guide on these preparations. Refer to chapter 8
|
||
for information on automatic defenses, and how they can help your
|
||
country. I will review the essentials here.
|
||
|
||
1) Have a strong airforce with many fighter planes with the intercept
|
||
capability. Make sure they are used as indicated in chapter 8.
|
||
2) Have forts with overlapping fields of fire.
|
||
3) Have a large number of reserves (typically 1/10 of your population).
|
||
4) Have at least two enlistment centers ready to produce more fresh
|
||
recruits. Ie, at 100%. You can "shut off" enlistment centers, that
|
||
is stop them from producing recruits, by leaving 1 civ in them
|
||
or having a military population in the sector equal to one half
|
||
of the civilian population. To turn them on, put in more civs or
|
||
reduce the number of military.
|
||
5) Have a strong navy to guard your coast.
|
||
6) Mine your own coast. This prevents many amphibious assaults.
|
||
It also helps to prevent people from mapping your coastline.
|
||
7) Have a good highway network. This allows you to move materials
|
||
and armies around your country quickly and with ease.
|
||
8) Have more than one capital. If your real one is taken, you will
|
||
need a back up immediately.
|
||
9) Have a lot of food in all of your sectors if possible. This allows
|
||
sectors that are cut off from your warehouse to be self sufficient
|
||
at least with respects to feeding the people with food for a few
|
||
updates until you can open up a path to them.
|
||
|
||
These are just *basic* hints. Some more hints are given later in this
|
||
guide. These are meant to get you started.
|
||
|
||
Of course, it is better to not be attacked at all. But, how do you
|
||
avoid being attacked? This is not simple, but there are some things
|
||
that you can do to make yourself less of a target.
|
||
|
||
One, do NOT allow people to map your coast using their ships,
|
||
especially patrol boats. Maps of your coastline are deadly.
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 55
|
||
|
||
The opposing country knows where your country lies, and can furthermore
|
||
send that information on to another player who might be interested
|
||
in attacking you in exchange for some commodity or assistance.
|
||
Maps are a critical piece of intelligence gathering. Some of the
|
||
best players in the game sink ships on sight without warning. If you
|
||
warn a ship off it might be able to use some of its mobility to
|
||
make a final swing along your coast before going away, and seemingly
|
||
out of your hair without having caused further trouble. Every piece
|
||
of information about your coast is valuable military intelligence.
|
||
Additionally, it is a good idea to try to map other people. Do not
|
||
get upset when your ships get sunk. They will get sunk. Just consider
|
||
them expendable commodities that are doing a temporary job with
|
||
permanent results.
|
||
|
||
Two, if you appear tough people generally will not attack you.
|
||
Posturing can be an effective tool. Furthermore, if you have a large
|
||
airforce and/or army, people tend to avoid you. It does not matter if
|
||
your airforce only has wimpy planes in it, your opponent can only
|
||
tell the quantity of planes that you have, not the quality. They
|
||
might have a general idea of the quality of your airforce, but a large
|
||
airforce is still an intimidating presence.
|
||
|
||
Three, do not make yourself a target by having a lot of valuable
|
||
commodities showing up on your power report. Having lots of money
|
||
in a money poor game for example makes you a juicy target. The same
|
||
holds true with gold dust or oil. You need not worry about iron and
|
||
food, since those are renewable resources. Try to use gold dust and
|
||
oil as you make it. Having some surplus around is fine, but the more
|
||
you have sitting around the more of a target you become.
|
||
|
||
If you are attacked, it is always best if you are logged on to the game
|
||
so that you can actively defend your country rather than relying
|
||
entirely on automatic defenses. However, as can obviously be seen, you
|
||
probably will not know that your enemy is going to attack you. Neither
|
||
will s/he broadcast that they are going to attack unless they are very
|
||
foolish or extremely confident.
|
||
|
||
In light of this, your opponent will try to attack you at a time when
|
||
they know you are not logged on. Thus, a great many Empire wars begin
|
||
in the wee hours of the morning, when most people are asleep. What can
|
||
you do to overcome this shortcoming? Have allies for one. If one of
|
||
your allies is going to be up most of the night you can have them
|
||
telephone you if you are being attacked. Of course, this is for the
|
||
more diehard types :-)
|
||
|
||
There are many tactics that an enemy will use against you. Again,
|
||
these tactics are beyond the scope of this guide, but there are some
|
||
general tactics that you should be aware of. An opponent may try one
|
||
or more (usually more) of the following tactics:
|
||
|
||
1) Remove your airforce as an effective retaliatory force.
|
||
2) Remove your airforce as an effective defensive force.
|
||
3) Take your capital (you lose half your money).
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 56
|
||
|
||
4) Take your banks (you could lose all your gold bars, very valuable!).
|
||
5) Destroy your highway system.
|
||
6) Take your warehouses (lose your stored commodities. OUCH!).
|
||
7) Bomb your enlistment centers.
|
||
8) Take your radar stations.
|
||
|
||
|
||
In addition, your opponent may try to destroy your distribution and/or
|
||
delivery system (if you so opt to use deliver). After you take a
|
||
sector back from your enemy check the thresholds and distribution path
|
||
in the sector. Sometimes if you take a great deal of sectors back it
|
||
is best to just use the 'wipe' command and start from scratch.
|
||
Remember to check your delivery thresholds as well, by issuing a
|
||
'level' command. Your opponent will probably also redesignate the
|
||
sector to something useless or even detrimental to you.
|
||
|
||
It is important to be on around update times when you are at war,
|
||
either defensively or offensively. Things can go very quickly right
|
||
before and after an update.
|
||
|
||
One of the best ways of being a good military tactician is to be
|
||
imaginative. Think of ways to do things that might surprise your
|
||
opponent. Think of ways to do things that will cost you less lives,
|
||
or less resources than your original way.
|
||
|
||
There is a saying that sometimes the best defense is a good offense.
|
||
This can be very true in Empire. If you are attacked it might be a
|
||
good idea to launch a counter attack against your opponent's homeland
|
||
if you are able to. This will certainly surprise them, and may lead
|
||
them to think you are stronger than you actually are. This can be a
|
||
very powerful tool.
|
||
|
||
If you want to win the war, be resilient and tenacious. Fight as hard
|
||
as you can with every last soldier and resource. If you make your
|
||
enemy pay a heavy price they may withdraw. Sometimes breaking an
|
||
opponent's will to fight is the most important factor in winning a
|
||
tactical or strategic situation. Even if they do not withdraw, or you
|
||
do not win, you may at least be helping to defend the future of your
|
||
allies. That in itself is an honorable achievement. There is also the
|
||
point that if you are a tenacious fighter your opponent will respect
|
||
you more in future games than if you just roll over and play dead while
|
||
his/her armies pillage your country. Reputation does count for a lot in
|
||
Empire. You may lose now, but your defiance in losing can help you a
|
||
great deal in future games. Some countries simply will not attack
|
||
another country because they know that country's reputation as a good
|
||
player. Alternatively, some countries have a poor reputation and
|
||
are attacked in every game they play in!
|
||
|
||
|
||
Summary: The art of Empire war is one that is different from the real life
|
||
world that we live in. However, many tactics from the real world
|
||
can be applied to Empire. Remember to be imaginative, learn from
|
||
your mistakes. Learn from your allies and your opponents. Fight
|
||
as if it was a real world nation, and you are the leader.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 57
|
||
|
||
Chapter 12 :-: Other helpful or not so helpful hints:
|
||
|
||
|
||
Here are some hints on how you might be better able to run
|
||
your country. Note that a lot of these hints were garnered through
|
||
many player years of play. You are free to disagree with them, and
|
||
are certainly encouraged to come up with your own ideas. However,
|
||
keep in mind these recommendations.
|
||
|
||
- Build your military reserves to a reasonably high level
|
||
(I try to aim for 5-10% of my total population). Reserves are
|
||
not expensive to maintain, and it is a commodity that can not
|
||
be destroyed by any military action.
|
||
- As soon as someone starts building ships guard your coastal
|
||
sectors with at least 1 military in each. This prevents an
|
||
opponent from making landings in mass quantity on your homeland
|
||
with measly cargo ships. If you have military in a coastal sector
|
||
then opponent ships really need the "land" capability (see
|
||
show ship capability command for further insight) in order to be
|
||
truly effective. Guard harbors with more military, say 50 or
|
||
so. Else an opponent can assault a harbor, move his or her invasion
|
||
fleet in, unload the ships and walla several hundred foreign military
|
||
are sitting in your former harbor.
|
||
- As soon as planes start being built, try to get at least 10 military
|
||
into every sector. This makes it more difficult for a country to
|
||
wipe you out quickly. In this manner they usually need 2 or more
|
||
transports to take a single sector. This makes it costly in air
|
||
mobility for them and softens the blow of their attack. In addition
|
||
reinforce capitals with a lot of military. Same with banks, airbases,
|
||
and warehouses.
|
||
- Do not base your entire air defenses on non-VTOL (vertical take off
|
||
and landing) planes. Base your VTOL planes in non airport sectors.
|
||
In doing this, you prevent your enemy from knocking out your airbases
|
||
through any number of means and then flying at liberty over your
|
||
country. There are two VTOL fighters. Fighter 1s, which are
|
||
essentially biplanes with very brave souls in them and Jet Fighter 2s
|
||
which are akin to the British Harrier jet. Fighter 1s are not
|
||
necessarily a bad plane. Against low tech transports they do not
|
||
fair too badly. There are two other means of air defense if your
|
||
airbases are knocked out. Anti-aircraft guns exist in any sector
|
||
that has guns and shells. They will fire if the sector in question
|
||
is at war with the planes in question. They are mostly worthless.
|
||
The other method is SAMs (surface to air missiles). These can be
|
||
quite effective but are shoot once only weapons.
|
||
- Forts are an integral part of any home auto-defense scheme. They
|
||
will fire on any enemy aggressors that are within range whenever
|
||
any sector of yours within range is attacked.
|
||
- Naval units become essentially useless later on in the game except
|
||
for some actions. Nevertheless, be careful to have naval units in
|
||
appropriate places around your coast for coastal defense. Especially
|
||
until you have planes that can pinpoint bomb well (jet lt bombers,
|
||
jet f/bs, helicopters).
|
||
- Always have several fake capitals in reserve.
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 58
|
||
|
||
- If you are not using planes that are 100% and are not planes used
|
||
in air defense, get them off your airports. Otherwise they become
|
||
easy targets for air assault and bombs.
|
||
- Bridge span sectors are effective means of food production and
|
||
are especially useful in that role in countries with few sectors
|
||
or countries with limited fertility. They are usually somewhat
|
||
expensive to build, but pay for themselves quickly.
|
||
- Keep in mind that allies are important. You might want to go it
|
||
alone, but at some point along the way you will need an ally or
|
||
three. Allies can do many things for you, not the least of which
|
||
is call you over the phone when you are under attack at four in the
|
||
morning. Its nice to know that even though your country is not
|
||
being played, someone is watching it from a distance and seeing
|
||
whether it gets attacked or not. You sleep easier :-)
|
||
- If you are positive there is no one else on your island with you
|
||
at the beginning of the game then demobilise your military and
|
||
put them on reserve. This will save you a lot of money, and help
|
||
in population growth.
|
||
- Never put airports, banks, or capitals on your coast. They are
|
||
easy targets for your enemies if you do. Sometimes it is necessary
|
||
to place an airport on your coast to get that extra one sector
|
||
of range for your planes in an attack. If you do that, don't leave
|
||
your planes in that sector for very long. You might be surprised.
|
||
|
||
Summary: Many of these ideas can only be gained through experience. Do not
|
||
be come distraught for lack of knowledge. Experience is a wonderful
|
||
teacher. These hints cover some of the major pitfalls of beginners,
|
||
and that is all. There are far more things to be learned that can
|
||
only be taught through experience.
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 59
|
||
|
||
Chapter 13 :-: Some tricks and subtle tactics
|
||
|
||
I have listed here some of the tricks used by the more advanced
|
||
players in victimizing the beginning players. I divulge this hard won
|
||
information because I feel it will make for a better Empire game for
|
||
everyone. In reading these, I hope that you will be encouraged to
|
||
develop tactics of your own. It is not hard to be imaginative.
|
||
|
||
Note that not all tricks and subtle tactics will work as advertised.
|
||
Some games have slightly different implementations that have a
|
||
negative effect on these hints.
|
||
|
||
- Sacking a warehouse. This is an old tactic that is useful
|
||
only in those games that have a market. Essentially the trick is to
|
||
take an opponent's warehouses or distribution points and sell off
|
||
everything that is in the sector to the market. You don't need a
|
||
buyer immediately, just sell everything off. If you want the items
|
||
for yourself, sell them to the market at an exhorbinately high price
|
||
and wait for a friend to buy them and sell them back.
|
||
- Tracking an airbase. This is a less known trick. Non-VTOL planes
|
||
intercept from airbases. They also intercept from airbases in a hex
|
||
pattern. Ie, if the plane has a six sector intercept range it will
|
||
intercept up to six sectors west, six sectors north-west, etc in all
|
||
the six directions. If you can find two corners of that plane's
|
||
interception hex you can triangulate to find the sector from which it
|
||
is intercepting. This does work for VTOL planes as well, but isn't
|
||
as useful since airbases usually have far more planes in them to be
|
||
dealt with. Once you have tracked the originating sector of the
|
||
intercepting planes, what you do to that sector is your option. Most
|
||
often, a concerted effort will be made to crack the defensive fighter
|
||
cover and blast the airbase. Sometimes countries will use their
|
||
surface to surface missiles (which do not get intercepted) to take
|
||
out the airbase. For non-VTOL planes taking out an airbase just
|
||
means getting it below 60% efficiency.
|
||
- Fort "walking". If you have a land border with a country, you can
|
||
use your forts to demolish a bordering sector with that country.
|
||
By demolishing it, your are completely destroying every living
|
||
civilian and soldier in that sector. When that is accomplished you
|
||
can explore into that sector as if it were wilderness. You can then
|
||
designate that sector into a 0% fort, which it will become
|
||
immediately, and then move guns and shells into that sector.
|
||
Then, you can do the same thing to a sector bordering your new
|
||
sector. In this manner you can slowly invade another country
|
||
beyond a one sector advance in one update without the use of
|
||
planes or ships. This costs A LOT of BTUs and shells, but in
|
||
critical situations is very useful.
|
||
- Fire base. This tactic has some relation to the tactic used in
|
||
the Vietnam conflict by U.S. Forces. The idea is to take an enemy
|
||
sector in an area that you want to wreak havoc on. Next, use your
|
||
pinpoint bombing capable planes to bomb your own position's sector
|
||
efficiency. You will have some collateral damage on your troops,
|
||
but it is well worth it. When the efficiency drops below 5% you can
|
||
then designate the sector into a 0% fort, place guns and shells
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 60
|
||
|
||
in it using air transports, and then have a base from which to
|
||
blast away at your enemy without the use of much airpower. It is
|
||
possible to use the fort walking tactic from this position.
|
||
- Messing up a country's distribution paths and or thresholds.
|
||
This is most often an "annoyance" tactic. Most players know about it
|
||
and check the distribution paths and thresholds of sectors they take
|
||
back from an invading country. The idea is to set the thresholds so
|
||
that a lot of commodities will be distributed to the sector from the
|
||
warehouse of your opponent after your opponent takes the sector
|
||
back. Then you can take the sector again and get the commodities
|
||
if s/he has not noticed they are there. Even if s/he notices it is
|
||
a pain getting the commodities back to the warehouse.
|
||
Alternatively, you can screw up the distribution path to run through
|
||
a mountain and then to his warehouse, and also set the thresholds
|
||
of the commodities quite high. This will cause mobility in her/his
|
||
warehouse to be used in great quantities to get the commodities to
|
||
the recaptured sector. Either of these ideas can get particularly
|
||
nasty. Say you conquer a sector, and set the thresholds on food to
|
||
9000 units. Your opponent takes back the sector, and neglects to
|
||
reset the threshold. At the next update the warehouse moves 9000
|
||
food (or at least as much as it can) into the sector. This might
|
||
leave your warehouse without food to deliver to the rest of the
|
||
country. Food stocks begin to drop, with obvious repercussions.
|
||
- Messing up a country's delivery routes and thresholds.
|
||
Same as above except using deliver. Many countries do not use
|
||
deliver at all, and as a result are susceptible to this tactic.
|
||
You can cause mass starvation in a country that you attacked, but
|
||
no longer control without the leader ever knowing how.
|
||
- Destroyer trap. Move a submarine near a destroyer, say one sector
|
||
away. Lay some mines from the submarine, and then send out an active
|
||
sonar ping using the "sonar" command. Enemy destroyer rushes over to
|
||
see what it is and KAWHOMP! hits a mine. You can leave a sector that
|
||
has mines in it safely but can not necessarily enter safely. Every
|
||
mine laid in a sector increases the chance of a ship hitting a mine
|
||
while entering that sector by five percent.
|
||
- Determining if someone is on. You can get an idea of when someone
|
||
is usually logged on by doing something like this:
|
||
|
||
[65:255] Command : news 10 | grep <name of country you want to learn about>
|
||
|
||
This will scan the news file from the server for the last ten days
|
||
(or however many days up to ten are being preserved in the news).
|
||
You can then get an idea of when your opponent is logged on.
|
||
There are tools that can do this for you, but so far none has
|
||
reached public distribution.
|
||
- Attacking any sector with one soldier repeatedly. Within the code
|
||
there is a small chance that against incredible odds a small
|
||
collection of soldiers might win. Taken to the extreme, there is
|
||
a chance for one soldier to win, even against 400 soldiers, or so
|
||
says the game. Thus a player who wants a particular sector bad
|
||
enough, may spend thirty minutes attacking a sector of yours
|
||
over and over again with one military. They might win eventually,
|
||
and if it is important enough then they have gained a major sector.
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 61
|
||
|
||
- A player might offer to sell you a type of commodity in several
|
||
batches. Or, you might just start buying batches of a commodity
|
||
from any given commodity. If the player you are buying from is on,
|
||
they might change the price on you between batches that you are
|
||
purchasing. For example, DoDo starts buying food in batches of
|
||
9000 from WabbleHead at 10 cents per food. This costs DoDo $900
|
||
per batch of food. Suddenly between DoDo's 2nd and 3rd purchase
|
||
of 9000 food, WabbleHead changes the price on the food from 10 cents
|
||
to 10 dollars per unit. DoDo never realizes it and pays $90,000
|
||
for the 3rd batch of food. Moral: Don't purchase anything without
|
||
checking the price first, and never buy in several batches at once.
|
||
This applies to market and trade.
|
||
- It is possible to move small quantities of a commodity across any
|
||
sector in your country and not have it cost mobility. To do this,
|
||
you have to have the commodity moving from a warehouse to whatever
|
||
sector you want to move it to. The basic trick, is to move the
|
||
commodity in batches of 5 or less. Note this does not work for
|
||
bars, and some other commodities. It does work for food, shells,
|
||
etc; items that do not take a great deal of mobility to move to
|
||
begin with. This trick is very effective for getting supplies
|
||
to a region cut off from your main area without highway access
|
||
and possibly even a mountain range separating you from it.
|
||
- Mine your coast. This prevents your opponents from effectively
|
||
mapping your coast, and you can catch their ships in the act since
|
||
a damaged ship moves a lot slower than a 100% ship. Some people
|
||
might even scuttle the ship in question to avoid detection.
|
||
- Be aware that submarines will try to map your coast. Use your
|
||
submarines and destroyers to find them. Use minefields as a
|
||
preventative measure.
|
||
- Do not give out your net address to anyone except the Deity unless
|
||
people offsite can not finger you, or you have an account on
|
||
another machine, and can regularly play from it. People can finger
|
||
you over the net to see if you are logged in or not. If you're not,
|
||
it's a good time to attack probably.
|
||
- Beware of people offering you loans. Make sure you know the terms
|
||
of the loan. Someone might offer you a loan that looks nice, say
|
||
for $30,000. But, the loan might expire in one day and have an
|
||
interest rate of 127%. The lending country can collect sectors
|
||
directly from you without your permission if you are in arrears
|
||
on the loan.
|
||
- Defend your radar stations. Always have at least 20 military in
|
||
each of your radar stations, especially ones that are on the coast.
|
||
Otherwise a passing ship might decide to capture it and take a
|
||
snapshot of your country.
|
||
- If a sub attacks one of your ships, it is possible to wander around
|
||
the area with a ship that is not capable of sonar or depth charging,
|
||
and still find that sub. How? Try boarding the sub by its hull
|
||
number. If a sub attacks you, you will get a message saying that
|
||
sub number so and so did such and such to your ship. Use a ship
|
||
in the area to wander from sector to sector trying to board the
|
||
sub. If you find it, you will get a message saying that you can not
|
||
board a sub. Walla, you have found the sub without sonar, which
|
||
other ships can hear anyways. This is a nice quiet form of anti-
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 62
|
||
|
||
submarine warfare.
|
||
- You can load a missile cruiser full of anti-shipping missiles, and
|
||
then create a script file with firing commands for every ship in
|
||
existence. Remove your own ships of course. Then execute the
|
||
script, and the missile cruiser will fire at only those ships
|
||
that are in range, regardless of whether the ships are in radar
|
||
range of the cruiser or not. They need only be in range of the
|
||
anti-shipping missiles. This is an effective, if blundering, way
|
||
of removing approaching fleets before you see them on your radars.
|
||
Note: anti-shipping missiles are not available in standard BSD code,
|
||
but are available in some other versions, namely the Kent State
|
||
code.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Summary: Be sneaky. Be imaginative. Think of tricks you can pull on your
|
||
opponent. Quite often, they will in fact work. Most players of this
|
||
game are not Rommels, Pattons, or Montgomerys. Many can be duped
|
||
by very simple tricks.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 63
|
||
|
||
Chapter 14 :-: Tools
|
||
|
||
Tools are programs used by players on their local machines to
|
||
assist them in developing their country, analyzing another country,
|
||
conducting war on another country, etc. Tools are very powerful
|
||
devices at times. As such, many players have tools that they consider
|
||
to be military secrets and they do not release copies of them. As a
|
||
result, many programs doing basically identical tasks have been
|
||
written. I encourage those players that are reading this that have
|
||
such secret tools to release them to an anonymous FTP site with a
|
||
directory for Empire. Not only does this make the game better for the
|
||
beginners, but it also helps to keep the experts on their toes, and
|
||
give a challenge to those of us who have been playing for quite some
|
||
time.
|
||
|
||
Some players feel that playing with tools takes something away from
|
||
the playing aspect of the game, and feel that in so doing they are not
|
||
really playing the game anymore. This has lately turned into a
|
||
religious war of sorts in the Empire community, with many people taking
|
||
both sides of the coin.
|
||
|
||
You do not need tools other than your client to play Empire.
|
||
Empire is designed such that any player can play the game without
|
||
hindrance without the use of a tool other than the basic client itself.
|
||
|
||
What follows is a list of tools that are most commonly found
|
||
among players of the game. Most of these are publically available at
|
||
an FTP site listed in Appendix C.
|
||
|
||
Tool Purpose
|
||
autodist Automatically sets distribution paths for an entire
|
||
country or realm within the country.
|
||
autofeed automatically feeds the people in your country.
|
||
pmvr,civmvr Automatically redistributes your population so that sectors
|
||
will be able to have population growth rather than maxing
|
||
out at the limit of 999 civilians.
|
||
econ Provides an analysis of your country's economic progress
|
||
at the next update.
|
||
GEET Gnu-Emacs Empire Tool. An emacs interface for Empire that
|
||
has a great many capabilities and functions. Provides for
|
||
better automatic defenses as well.
|
||
EIF A more advanced client than the basic client. Allows
|
||
for aliasing commands, command editing, etc.
|
||
XEMP Empire client for X windows. Provides many nice features
|
||
including an on screen map constantly displayed. A very
|
||
nice interface that unfortunately still has several bugs.
|
||
|
||
These are just a few of the Empire tools out there. There are still
|
||
many more programs not listed. Some cover news analyses, country
|
||
analyses over several updates, etc.
|
||
|
||
Most tools come with documentation on how to use them, and it is
|
||
beyond the scope of this guide to illustrate how each one of them
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 64
|
||
|
||
is used.
|
||
|
||
There are other aids that are often called tools which are called
|
||
scripts. Scripts can do a great many things for you. The most common
|
||
of these applications are simply files containing a list of commands
|
||
that you want to execute in Empire.
|
||
|
||
For example, let's say that at each update you wanted to dump the
|
||
current news into a file in your local directory, get a new power
|
||
report and dump that into another file, and dump all current telegrams
|
||
into yet another file. This would be three commands that you could
|
||
consolidate into one command by doing this:
|
||
|
||
Construct a file in your local directory that has the appropriate
|
||
commands in it. In this case you could write a file with three lines:
|
||
|
||
news >>news.file
|
||
power new >>powerfile
|
||
read >>old.tele
|
||
|
||
You could call this file update.do
|
||
|
||
While in Empire you could then request the Empire client to access
|
||
that file and execute those commands by using the exec command followed
|
||
by the file name. Thus:
|
||
|
||
[102:253] Command: exec update.do
|
||
|
||
Building such a simple script is useful for doing a set of commands
|
||
over and over again without typing it in each and every time.
|
||
|
||
Lastly, remember to exercise wisdom in the use of tools. It is
|
||
possible that the execution of a simple tool can damage your country
|
||
irrepairably. Use tools, especially those written by others, with
|
||
caution. Try them out on small sections of your country first. Look
|
||
at the source code prior to running it if you have access to the
|
||
source code. It is theoretically possible for someone to write
|
||
a tool that will scan the list of countries in a game, and if the
|
||
author's country name is in that list, send valuable information
|
||
about your country to him or her. Yes, it is true, some people
|
||
have no morals believe it or not.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Summary: Tools are very powerful items if used wisely. It is not necessary
|
||
to have tools to play Empire effectively. Some experts of the game
|
||
refuse to use tools of any type, and they remain among the best
|
||
players. Tools are no replacement for skill. Be careful when using
|
||
tools, they can ruin your country.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 65
|
||
|
||
******************************* Appendices ************************************
|
||
|
||
|
||
Appendix A :-: Glossary of terms, names, and etc.
|
||
|
||
Amphibious assault - Attacking a sector using ships, usually landing ships.
|
||
Avail - A unit of measuring available labor hours in a sector.
|
||
Backstab - To harm another country with whom you had prior treaties
|
||
and or alliances that were in effect at the time of your
|
||
harmful action. Usually a severe action.
|
||
Blitz game - An implementation of an Empire game that is very fast paced.
|
||
Usually these games last no more than two days.
|
||
BSD - Berkeley Standard Distribution. A term borrowed from Unix.
|
||
It indicates that the version is a release version from Berkeley,
|
||
ie Dave Pare.
|
||
BTU - Beaurocratic Time Unit. A unit of government activity. Used
|
||
by various commands as cost for executing that command.
|
||
Capital - The government center of a country. BTUs are produced by
|
||
only one capital in a country, regardless of how many are
|
||
designated. Only the actual capital of the country produces.
|
||
Client - A program that allows you to connect to the Empire server.
|
||
Commodity - Just as in the real world; any of a plethora of raw and refined
|
||
materials that can be traded, stolen, etc.
|
||
Dave Pare - Not the original author of Empire, but the person who has
|
||
made it possible for it to be what it is. THE major author
|
||
of Empire. Also known as Mr. Frog.
|
||
Deity - Person (yes, a real life human) who runs/referees a game.
|
||
Deliver - A means of managing economic resource allocation via orders
|
||
from neighboring sectors.
|
||
Designation - What the sector has been ordered to be, ie a highway for example.
|
||
Distribution- A means of managing economic resource allocation via a central
|
||
warehouse scheme. Often referred to as a "distribution
|
||
network"
|
||
Education - Activity on the part of a country to raise the overall
|
||
intelligence level of a country, to promote research and
|
||
technological development.
|
||
Eif - "Empire Interface". A version of the client with certain
|
||
enhancements.
|
||
Empire host - The computer the server is running on.
|
||
ETU - Empire Time Unit - A subdivision of an update. An update's
|
||
value is measured in terms of ETUs.
|
||
FTP - "File Transfer Program". This is a means of transferring
|
||
files over the computer networks. Most computers are capable
|
||
of using FTP. For more information you may refer to your
|
||
host computer's help. For example, "man ftp" or "help ftp".
|
||
GEET - Gnu-Emacs Empire Tool. An emacs based client, also known
|
||
(to the chagrin of the author of GEET) as GEEK.
|
||
Geurilla - A patriot behind enemy lines. They will attempt to do damage
|
||
to the enemy's military or the sector the enemy is occupying.
|
||
You can not control guerilla actions.
|
||
HCM - Heavy construction material. A unit of material used in
|
||
Empire economies for bridges, planes, etc.
|
||
KSU, Kent State code - refers to the version of Empire based on the Berkeley
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 66
|
||
|
||
release. There are several enhancements in this version, and
|
||
many think it is better than the Berkeley release.
|
||
LCM - Light construction material. A unit of material used in
|
||
Empire economies for education, technology, research, planes,
|
||
boats, etc.
|
||
Megatons - A unit of measure of nuclear warhead yield. One megaton
|
||
equals one million tons of TNT explosive power. Often
|
||
represented as 'mt' as in '5mt'.
|
||
Mobility - A number indices indicating the available amount of moving
|
||
capability in a sector, for a plane, or for a ship.
|
||
Plague - An all encompassing term representing disease in the Empire
|
||
world. Can be kept in check by the country doing research.
|
||
Representative,Rep - Your password for your country in the game. NOT your
|
||
real name.
|
||
Research - Activity on the part of a country that keeps plague in check.
|
||
Reserves - Civilian soldier. A soldier not on active duty who is paid
|
||
a small sum to retain training in case of times of need.
|
||
Sanctuary - Your starting area in any game. Usually comprised of two
|
||
sectors. Can not be attacked, or otherwise affected by
|
||
any opponent.
|
||
Script - A file containing several Empire commands that can be
|
||
automatically run or run manually from the client.
|
||
Sector - A unit of geography, comprising an area represented by a
|
||
single character on maps.
|
||
Server - The program (running usually at a remote site) that handles
|
||
the functioning of the game. In essence, the game itself.
|
||
Spy - A member of your military forces sent across neighboring
|
||
country borders to gather information.
|
||
Technology - The scientific development of a country. Relates most directly
|
||
to a country's capability to create better weapons. Also known
|
||
as 'tech'.
|
||
Threshold - A break off point for the 'deliver' and 'distribute' commands
|
||
that indicates a quantity beyond which every unit of a
|
||
specific commodity is moved automatically at an update.
|
||
Tool - A program used on a player's local machine to aid in there
|
||
goals in Empire.
|
||
Update - A 'turn' in Empire. Mobility is increased in sectors,
|
||
civilians multiply and eat food, military is paid for, etc.
|
||
UW - Uncompensated worker. A nicer name for slave.
|
||
VTOL - Vertical Take Off and Landing capability for planes. Requires
|
||
no runways or other developed airport like structures.
|
||
Wasteland - A permanent sector designation caused by a nuclear blast of
|
||
one megaton or larger. Can not be traveled across by land,
|
||
but can be flown over.
|
||
Warehouse - A central collection and distribution point for products
|
||
of an economy.
|
||
Wilderness - Undesignated areas other than mountains and ocean. Represented
|
||
by a '-' character on maps.
|
||
XEMP - An X windows based client.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 67
|
||
|
||
Appendix B :-: Known exploitable bugs
|
||
|
||
As a result of Empire having several thousand lines of code, there
|
||
are numerous bugs. Some are simply annoying, others you never notice. Some,
|
||
like the following, are bugs that you can be used against you.
|
||
|
||
a) "Intercept" bug - Non-VTOL planes can and will rise and intercept
|
||
hostile planes from any sector as long as there is petrol in the
|
||
sector, the plane has the intercept capability (see show plane c),
|
||
it is at least 40% efficient, and it has mobility.
|
||
|
||
b) "Escort" bug - Planes that are capable of escort duty can escort
|
||
themselves on various missions, as long as they are capable of
|
||
the mission in question (such as a bombing raid). Say for example
|
||
that you want to fly a reconnaissance mission over enemy territory,
|
||
but you know that enemy planes are going to intercept you.
|
||
When the game asks you for the plane that will be doing the recon,
|
||
you can give it plane 345 for example, which for the sake of
|
||
this guide is a jet fighter. When it asks you for the planes
|
||
that are going to escort it, you can say 345 again. The game will
|
||
respond as if two planes are flying the mission when in fact only
|
||
one is. Enemy planes will think there are two planes. Enemy planes
|
||
will first do battle with the escort. Let's say they did 16% damage
|
||
to the escort, and the escort did 14% damage to one of the enemy
|
||
interceptors. Next, the enemy interceptor attacks the recon plane,
|
||
which is the same plane, and inflicts 21% damage. The recon plane
|
||
inflicts 13% damage on the interceptor, and the recon plane aborts
|
||
the mission. It looks like you lost the dogfight. In actuality,
|
||
you did not. The intercepting plane suffered a total of 27% damage.
|
||
It looks like you suffered 37% damage. However, you actually only
|
||
suffered the *last* damage inflicted, which was to the recon plane.
|
||
Thus, you only suffered 21% damage and you won the dogfight.
|
||
|
||
c) "Flying Bridge" bug - Say for example you have a 100% bridgehead
|
||
sector with enough HCMs, workers, and avail to build a bridge.
|
||
Normally, you would say "build bridge x,y" and then it would ask
|
||
you for a direction to build the bridge. If after you built the
|
||
bridge you were to redesignate the bridgehead, the bridge would
|
||
collapse. However, if you redesignate the bridgehead sector
|
||
before you build the bridge, the bridge will be built and will
|
||
not collapse. At the next update, the bridgehead will become
|
||
the sector you redesignated it to (say, a highway) and the bridge
|
||
will still be there. Note: It is believed that most current
|
||
games of Empire have a new patch that prevents this bug.
|
||
|
||
d) "Resource sucker" bug - Let's say you have a sector with 23 gold
|
||
content left, and it is a gold mine. Normally it might produce
|
||
say, 111 gold dust at the next update. If you were to put 9000
|
||
civilians into that sector, it would produce over 900 dust at
|
||
the next update. The sector's resource content of gold will go
|
||
to 0, but instead of getting a roughly 115 dust from the sector
|
||
with the remaining content, you have gotten over 900 dust.
|
||
Civilians reproduce quickly enough that losing 8000 civs this way
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 68
|
||
|
||
is really of no concern especially when you consider what you
|
||
have gained. This bug works also for oil wells and uranium
|
||
mines.
|
||
|
||
I have listed the bugs here because it is important that players
|
||
know about these bugs in case they are used against them. I do not
|
||
condone the use of these bugs, nor do many players of the game.
|
||
Many deities (the people who run the game) take action against
|
||
players using these bugs, such as taking away your technology or
|
||
your money. Do not use them. Simply be aware that others may use
|
||
them and come up with ways to counter their use. If you are aware
|
||
that another player is using one of these bugs, report it to the
|
||
deity of the game. S/he might give you a reward of some sort.
|
||
|
||
Also note that since these bugs have been published> here, it is likely
|
||
that some programmer has written bug fixes for these. Most, and
|
||
possible all of these bugs might not work in a game you are
|
||
participating in.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 69
|
||
|
||
Appendix C :-: FTP sites and other sources for Empire related items
|
||
|
||
Herein listed are the net address of computers that have files
|
||
related to Empire in there anonymous FTP directories. An example of
|
||
anonymous FTP is found in chapter 2 of this guide, and that method
|
||
with appropriate substitutions for file names can be used to retrieve
|
||
files off of these FTP sites. If you have trouble using anonymous FTP
|
||
seek out your local site consultant for more information.
|
||
|
||
Host Directory Files available
|
||
ucbvax.berkeley.edu - pub/games/empire/bsd Empire client, server,
|
||
various tools, this guide.
|
||
empire.bbn.com - pub/Emp Various tools, VMS client,
|
||
this guide.
|
||
star.cs.vu.nl - xemp Xemp
|
||
hylka.helsinki.fi - public/vax/games-etc/empireclient.dir
|
||
VMS client
|
||
uunet.uu.net - games Tools, server.
|
||
alcazar.cd.chalmers.se - pub/emp Various tools, patches, eif
|
||
eddie, this guide.
|
||
|
||
|
||
User's Guide to Empire 70
|
||
|
||
Index
|
||
|
||
Agriculture centers 25,49,51 Naval operations
|
||
Announcements 17 Defensive 36,54,57
|
||
Avail 45 In mapping 55,61
|
||
Backstabbing 28 Anti-submarine 61
|
||
Banks 56 Amphibious 35,40,54,57
|
||
Bridges 42,45,58,67 Mining 54,60,61
|
||
BTUs 26,45 Nuclear weapons
|
||
Capitals 16,26,36,54,55,57 Damage from 38
|
||
Clients 9 Ending games 41
|
||
Basic client 9 Getting 38,42
|
||
Compiling 9-12 Recovering from 39
|
||
Deliver 48,52-53,56,60 Defense of areas hit by 40
|
||
Designate 17,21,25 Oil 42,43,45,50,54,55,67
|
||
Diplomacy 28-32 Paratroops
|
||
Distribution network 27,48-52,56,60 In nuclear war 40
|
||
Education 42-43,44,45,47,48 Against capitals 36
|
||
Empire Against forts 35,36
|
||
Addictive 8 Against defended sectors 57
|
||
Blitz games 6 Plague 44
|
||
Compared to Risk 6 Planes
|
||
Description 6 In defense 33-34,54,57
|
||
Game length 6 In mapping 28
|
||
Time needed to play 6 VTOL 33,34,40
|
||
Enlistment 40,54 Out of airbases 33,34,59
|
||
ETU, Empire Time Units 26 In nuclear war 38,40
|
||
Exploring 16,21-25 Defending from 57
|
||
Food in sectors 27,54 In escort 67
|
||
Forts 30,34-35,40,54,57,59-60 Population 26,43
|
||
FTP 9,63 Posturing 32
|
||
Gold dust 26,42,43,45,54,55,67 Registering
|
||
Guerillas 36-37 Hearing of games 8
|
||
Guns 34-35,36,40 Standard registration 8-9
|
||
HCMs 45,67 Rec.games.empire 8
|
||
Help 16,17 "Red Storm Rising" 30
|
||
Kent State Empire 43, 62 Research 44,45
|
||
LCMs 42,45,47,48 Reserves 37,54,57
|
||
Loans 30,61 Sanctuary 16,21,22,25,27
|
||
Mapping 28,54,55,61 Scripts 64
|
||
Maps 16,18-20 Sectors 20
|
||
Maskirovka 30-31 Server, connecting problems 12-15,26
|
||
Missiles Starvation 26,46,51,54
|
||
In nuclear war 38 Technology 26,27,33,34,42-44
|
||
Against planes 57 Telegrams 17
|
||
Against airbases 59 Thresholds 50-53,56,60
|
||
Against ships 62 Tools 7,8,21,63-64
|
||
Mobility 24,25,26,49,51,61 Uncompensated workers 43,46
|
||
Mountains 25,36 Updates 16,21,25,26,27,36,46,51,56
|
||
Movement 16,20 Warehouse 26,43,48,49-51,56,59,60,61
|
||
Wilderness 20,21,22,23,24,25
|
||
|
||
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
|
||
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|
||
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
|
||
.fi
|
||
.SA "Introduction"
|