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"On air. On sea. On land. Still the Internet's greatest wargame simulation."

"All the news that fits, we print."
August, 2000

In This Edition


What's New

WOLFPACK HAS A NEW LEADER!
Steve McClure has recently stepped down as the leader of Wolfpack. For four years, Steve lead Empire into a new era. Unfortunately, all things must end sometime. Steve will remain part of the Wolfpack team.

Jim Simons (coruler of Escher) has graciously agreed to take over as lead for the Wolfpack Empire project. Jim brings many assets to the table, and we look forward to his leadership.

WinACE 2.0 IS NOW AVAILABLE! See Clients and Players tools.

NEW EMPIRE WEB SITE ONLINE!
Located at gaming site, The Wargamer, and hosted by by Bob
Dalton. Includes a windows server. http://www.wargamer.com/empire

Roman Parparov has a new Empire site coming online shortly. It is an updated version of his Empire Invitational series web sites. This new site will be called Mausoleum Empire Entertainments.

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Links/Resources/Getting Started

Home of Wolfpack Empire: http://www.empire.cx
Bob Dalton's site : http://www.wargamer.com/empire
Empire Hall of Fame : http://web.mit.edu/madpit/www/empire/
Help for Newbies : http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Hangar/6344/all.html

Check into the player's section on the Wolfpack Empire site for information on clients, upcoming games, and blitzes. The Help for Newbies site is an excellent resource to get you started.

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New Games

Twisted Mind 2000, first update August 16th. Deity Pat Loney.
Details: (from Pat Loney)

           Code:         4.2.7 with some custom programming.
           Updates:      48 etus per day.  Updates will roll
                         throughout the week.
           Weekend:      No updates on the weekends.
           Co-rulers:    Allowed, encouraged.
           Options:      No food, no iron, no trade ships, no easy
                         bridges
           Land Setup:   Mostly continental.  A fair amount of room
                         per player.
           # of Players: As many as can play.
           Arrakis:      He is allowed to play, but I bet he doesn't
                         remember how.
           Militia:      signifacant reduction in maintainence cost.

Pat Loney is accepting registrations for this game. Send
e-mail to rqloney@strategiccastle.com. Apparently, this is
not working for some people. Alternatively,
rqloney@www.strategiccastle.com does appear to work for them.
All skill levels welcome. Send the following information:
country name:
password:
preferred e-mail address
e-mail of any co-rulers.
Chocolate or vanilla:
Estimated skill level (1-10):

Sycamore Blitz I, a two week long blitz.

           Code:          4.2.7
           Updates:       60 etus/update, updates every 45 minutes.
           Weekend:       Updates are enabled for weekend play.
           Co-rulers:     No word
           Options:       Blitz, No Food, Bridge Towers, Mob_Access
                          Easy Bridges, Market
           Land Setup:    10 continents/islands
           # of players:  10
           Starts:        1st and 14th of each month 0600 GMT
           Signup:        Countries 1-10, passwords 1-10
           visitor account: visitor/visitor at x10.indstate.edu/6665

This new blitz has been established by John Davies
(virtuamem@my-deja.com).

Sycamore Blitz II, a month long blitz.
Details:

           Code:          4.2.7
           Updates:       60 etus per update, 2 updates per day.
                          Updates at 8am and 8pm EDT.
           Weekend:       Updates are enabled for weekend play.
           Co-rulers:     No word
           Options:       Blitz, No Food, Big City, Bridge Towers,
                          Easy Bridges, Go Renew, Market
           Land Setup:    Modified fair land. ~75 sector start isles.
           # of players:  12 currently
           Starts:        First of each month, first update at 7pm EDT
           visitor:       visitor/visitor at x10.indstate.edu/5678

This new blitz has been established by John Davies
(virtuamem@my-deja.com). SIGNUP IS REQUIRED. This is not a
typical blitz, and blurs the lines between blitz and long
term games. For registration, see the game's website at:
http://books.indstate.edu/empire/

Rabid Castle Bltiz

           Code:          4.2.7
           Updates:       30 etus/update, updates every 5 minutes
           Weekend:       Updates are enabled for weekend play.
           Co-rulers:     No word
           Options:       Blitz, No Food, Big City, Bridge Towers,
                          Easy Bridges, Go Renew, Market, Mob_Access
           Land Setup:    Modified fair land. More mountains.
           # of players:  12
           Starts:        First of each month, first update at 7pm EDT
           visitor:       visitor/visitor at x10.indstate.edu/5678
           Signup:        Countries 1-12, passwords 1-12

This new blitz is great for testing, as you develop quickly.

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Current Games

Trafalgar, 1st in the BLOCKADE series of games. Deity "Savoia"

           Began:         June, 2000
           Code:          4.2.5
           Updates:       60 etus/update, updates every 36 hours
           Weekend:       No weekend updates.
           Co-rulers:     Allowed.
           Options:       Go Renew, No Fort Fire, Tech held at 40,
                          Res Pop, Super Bars, Tradeships
           Land Setup:    20 start islands, 20-25 sectors each. 40
                          free islands 1-3 sectors each.
           visitor:       visitor/visitor at calt.insead.fr/6665
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Recently Ended Games

Empire Invitational I, deitied by Roman Parparov
<romm@kaplun103-2.tau.ac.il> ended on January 28th. NATO (Escher
& Mithrilien) was the winner. Final power:

as of Fri Jan 28 14:45:25 2000
         sects  eff civ  mil  shell gun pet  iron dust oil  pln ship unit money
     NATO 436  100% 417K  11K  18K 3.2K  22K  74K 692  5.9K 521  132  107  36K
      AUJ 210  100% 191K 2.9K  12K 1.6K  21K  46K   8   10K 290  120  100  50K
Pervo_Per 265   88% 199K 4.7K 5.8K 540  8.7K  50K 250  7.5K  90   80   50  15K
     beep 110   99% 106K 4.6K  13K 680   15K  12K 500  5.7K 160   40   50  15K
      Ski 140   92% 115K 4.3K 5.6K 870  5.8K  30K 600  4.6K 110   70   50  4.0K
Catallica  85  100%  83K 4.2K 8.3K 1.3K 7.2K  15K 400  2.4K 110   50   30  10K
      ^^^  85  100%  88K 3.9K  10K 2.0K  18K  20K 150  6.0K 150   90   70  5.0K
Kraftwerk 120   96% 113K 3.7K 5.8K 650   11K  50K 450  2.9K 140   50   30  30K
Plundaria  90  100%  92K 4.0K 5.5K 440  2.5K  25K 300  9.1K 100   60   60  5.0K
   Banzai  80  100%  83K 4.2K 5.4K 650  8.4K  30K 400  2.6K 110   30   50  2.2K
Pendookul  95   89%  85K 3.2K 4.4K 440  7.7K  24K 100  1.4K 110   30   40  10K
  Arrakis  10   81%  12K 300  875   65  300  1.9K 150  2.9K   0   20    8  1.9K
  Mysidia   0    0%   0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0  1.8K
Old_Farts   0    0%   0   13    7    4    0    0    0    0    0    2    0 -293
          ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
worldwide 1.7K  96% 1.6M  51K  95K  13K 127K 378K 4.0K  61K 1.9K 780  630  145K

This game was an invitation only game. Only experienced players
entered this game. Complete posting on the game may be found at:

http://x71.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=578761206&CONTEXT=965230858.871104538&hitnum=7


Empire Invitational II, deitied by Roman Parparov
<romm@kaplun103-2.tau.ac.il>, ended with a server crash and a cancellation. This game discovered the 4.2.7 corruption bug.


South Pacific 2000, deitied by Pat Loney ended on 6/9/2000. Escher,
Luxuria, and Bikini were the winners. Pong got honorable mention.
Final power:

         sects eff  civ  mil  shell gun pet  iron dust oil  pln ship unit money
   Escher 730  96%  528K  18K  31K 5.6K  46K   0  1.6K  46K 780  1.8K 170 685K
  Luxuria 680  97%  432K  16K  20K 3.0K  39K   0  2.1K  36K 620  2.0K 250 720K
   Bikini 630  98%  390K  13K  24K 3.0K  82K   0  1.4K  33K 500  960  170 515K
     Pong 580  96%  411K  15K  18K 2.3K  32K   0  2.5K  33K 740  1.4K 160 440K
      Ski 350  99%  264K  12K  17K 1.9K  52K   0   600  14K 160  750  110 80K
   Pendor 325  95%  234K 8.7K 9.6K 1.5K  55K   0  1.3K  12K 260  710   70 155K
Mongol_Ho 345  96%  169K 8.7K  15K 1.8K  18K   0  1.1K  17K 290  280   40 20K
     Fish 200  96%  129K 8.1K  13K 1.5K  23K   0   500  18K 170  350   50 10K
     Rook 165  98%  105K 7.6K 6.8K 1.1K  35K   0   650  14K 150  270   20 10K
     beep 175  99%  106K 5.2K 8.9K 1.1K  19K   0   350  10K 170  510   80 10K
      Zem 190  99%   95K 6.0K  14K 1.5K  38K   0   400  10K 200  190   30 10K
  Dynonia 150  98%   68K 8.6K 6.7K 1.2K  23K   0   550  12K 120  130   30 5.0K
   Savoia 175  94%   68K 4.3K 7.3K 1.4K  28K   0   250 4.0K 130  130   60 35K
    Kamor 115  97%   78K 6.3K 5.4K  845 6.9K   0   250 8.8K 100  210   20 10K
     Pern  95  98%   51K 4.0K 8.7K  660  22K   0   250 7.5K  70   80   60 2.7K
   Quartz  95  97%   68K 6.2K 6.2K  780 3.3K   0   150 4.3K  40  170   20 15K
 Valhalla 115  99%   55K 4.0K 4.2K  385 6.5K   0   250 8.1K  60  110   30 5.0K
    wacko 125  93%   72K 2.7K 4.2K 1.0K  11K   0   500 4.7K  60  100   20 3.8K
  Shagger 258 100%     0 6.5K 6.2K  630 1.4K   0     0    0 969    0    0 150K
  Talonia  40  91%   28K 3.0K 2.4K  200 7.8K   0   100 3.9K  20   20   10 2.2K
LastOutpo  15  92%   14K 1.1K  250   75 6.2K   0    50  150  10    0    9 -3.4K
 Endymion  25 100%   19K 1.9K  450  175 5.2K   0   150 2.2K   0    2    0 1.6K
nomiguchi  30  97%   20K 1.4K 1.9K  390 4.2K   0     0 2.2K  30   50   10 4.3K

Tradeships at tech 155, base 150 tech with very high tech decay. All land consisted of 19 sector islands, surrounded by 11 sector islands that were defended by "Shagger" (deity established, and replenished) forces. Fishing boats dominated the game. Top countries had literally hundreds of them.

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Clients and Player Tools

WinACE 2.0 has been made available. Download is available at http://www.empire.cx/clients.html. WinACE is a GUI based Empire client for Windows with substantial capabilities. This version fixed 16 bugs. Improved/added:
o Map scrolling
o Map drawing (refresh rates vastly improved)
o Tightened error handling
o Nuke support
o Sector damage analysis
o Updated build projection tool
o Plane combat parsing and report
o Production summary report
o Logic for calculating firing ranges.
o Logic for parsing version options
o Additional telegram support
o Updated command line support

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Server and Deity Information

A new server is available, 4.2.7, which fixed a few things.
Download is available at http://www.empire.cx/server.html

UNFORTUNATELY, 4.2.7 (and backwards to 4.2.5) introduced an
extremely obscured data corruption bug which crashed the Empire
Invitational II game. So far, the most stable release is 4.2.4
which is quite less powerful and balanced than 4.2.7. Wolfpack
is working to eliminate this bug as soon as possible.

 

Bob Dalton has graciously put together a Win95/Win98/NT/2000
server package based on the 4.2.4 code. This is available at
http://www.wargamer.com/empire/, click on the "Empire File
Downloads" area on the right.

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From the Editor

Change is in the wind! Wolfpack has now passed the leadership baton to Jim Simons. I personally know Jim, and feel strongly that he will be an excellent project leader.

So what comes next? On rec.games.empire, we have recently seen several discussions regarding the current status of Empire. There have been discussions about how to improve the game, especially with regards to micromanagement and helping beginners. Most prevalent though is the perception that Empire is a dying game. Is it?

I keep statistics on games and their results. Over the last five years we have seen a more or less steady flow of games each year with 1998 being an exceptional year. The number of games averages 6 per year. Where do we stand now? If we count EI-I as a 2000 game, then we are currently at 3 games for the year, with a 4th about to begin. That's about the right pace, since we are just past the halfway point for 2000. There's a fifth game, EI-II, but it crashed.

Still, over the last five years the Internet as a whole has seen a massive increase in the number of users going online. For Empire, this massive influx has been entirely missed. The user base for Empire remains more or less as it was five years ago. In that sense, you could say Empire is at least static, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it is dying. Rather, it's at a
crossroads.

Recently, we have seen increased activity on the web in support of Empire. Roman Parparov started a new site for his series of games. Bob Dalton's started a very information general Empire website. There are other sites as well. Several new blitzes have come online, and a blitz subculture seems to be developing in Empire.

Is it enough? Probably not. Empire needs to be brought to the masses. That doesn't mean it needs to be dumbed down. What we have now is (minus the 4.2.7 bug) a very stable server that is ready for the numbers of people we could potentially draw.

If we don't take advantage of the opportunity presented to us, Empire will not die. Rather, 10 years from now the community will most likely be much as it is now. But, to not take this chance that is before us could be nearly as harmful as death.

Empire depends on innovation, programmers, volunteers, and deities. Without them, we would not be here now. The larger our community is, the larger the pool of prospective helpers. If we do not seek out this larger pool, we could find ourselves with too few deities, and too few helpers.

The time is now for us to take advantage of the power the Internet now has.

- Empire News Editor

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Hints of the Month

Oil is a precious resource in many games. Early on, you do not need a great amount of oil. As your tech increases, you become more efficient at drawing oil out of the ground. Each point of oil content in the ground generates more oil on the surface at higher tech. Hold off on building oil wells on those high oil content sectors until your tech gets a fair bit higher. Use up lower oil content sectors first.

Some planes can lay sea mines. This is a powerful ability when you want to lay mines off your neighbor's coast who has not yet gone to hostile relations with you. anti-sub planes (as) and naval planes (np) have this ability. Use the drop command to drop shells, which become mines as soon as you drop them in water. (Look ma! Instant mines! Just add water!)

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Anno of the Month

From the archives:

> Announcement from Mirkwood, (#10)  dated Sat Feb 10 16:35:39 1990
In an action of unparalleled insanity, the Elven-King
today ordered the continent of Fleer to withdraw from
Elven territorial waters immediately.
After waiting the customary forty-two seconds and seeing
that the continent had defied the High King's decree,
naval action was of course ordered.
The continent, of very solid construction, withstood
multiple torpedoings and bombings. Reportedly, marines
are having better success at boarding. Marine officers
expect to scuttle the continent later tonight.

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   = The Empire News is a publication of Wolfpack Empire, bringing =
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