"On air. On sea. On land. Still the Internet's greatest wargame simulation."
"All the news that fits, we print."
August 29, 1994
In This Edition
This is what's new since the last edition of EMPIRE NEWS:
Dave F. has announced the new game "ARCTIC BLAST" (see "New Games Announced").
Chad Zabel has announced a new game to test the new Server code (see
"New Games Announced").Jim Ortlieb's "PuddlePlanet" tournament has begun (see "Long Term Games").
Ken Stevens and Sam Tetherow have released pei.1.1.3, a new "smart"
Empire client (see "Clients").Markus Armbruster has released a new version of his GNU Emacs Empire
client (see "Clients").Don Harper has beta-released ve (see "Player Tools").
The server team is running a test game to test the new Server and will
be starting the WISH LIST if the new code survives its first big test.
(see "Server").
"ARCTIC BLAST"
One day after this game was announced, all 25 spots were filled, and a
significant waiting list to boot! For those of you who were quick
enough to get in this game, here are the details:
3.31 Chainsaw, SLOW_WAR, NEUTRON, log tech 2.05 (slow), 40 sector
start islands, lots of wilderness, 160x80 world-size. 60 ETU update
every other day at 23:30 EDT. Break sanctuary on 9 Sept, first update
on 12 Sept. Unbroken countries will be replaced after the second
update."Test"
Chad Zabel will be running a game starting on 29 August at 22:00 EDT.
10 countries will start at 40 tech on a 64x32 world, and try to break
the new server code. If you'd like to get in on the fun and help test
the new server, mail your country name and password to:
zabel@cs.und.nodak.edu"Hidden III"
Kevin Klemmick will announce Hidden III sometime within the next
couple of weeks. Be sure not to miss this remarkable variation of
Empire (personally, it's my favourite way to play Empire)."Paperboy"
Chad will be announcing a quick, 2 updates a day, game for 20
countries with small start islands, lots of free land on a 64x32
world."Promethius I"
Monte Freeman, the deity of the P.I.N.G. Test Game plans on running a
long term game some time soon. It will be open to all interested and
up 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Watch r.g.e. for details. The world
will be drawn by hand using xland.
These blitzes reset every day:Name host port coun pass updates resets --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Riverworld random.chem.psu.edu 1618 1-10 1-10 10 min 20:00 EDT Levante zwetsche.ethz.ch 3000 1-15 1-15 10 min 03:30 EDTThe Riverworld blitz has been very active of late with some excellent
players showing up fairly often. The first update is at 20:30 EDT.
To give late-starters a better chance, Drake has changed the start
configuration of this game somewhat--you begin with 30 sanctuaries,
each containing 550 civs. You can login to the Riverworld blitz as a
visitor using either "Visitor/Visitor" or "visitor/visitor". One neat
thing about the Riverworld blitz is that every night, the game gets
videotaped, and the next day you can download a video of the game (see "World Wide Web" for more details).The Levante blitz runs modified code which decays commodities every update.
If you want to receive mail regarding new blitzes starting up, send mail
to blitz-announce@engg.ksu.edu with the subject line "subscribe".
These are the long term games currently being run:
game name host port country password started ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Outremer essi2.essi.fr 1737 CIA FBI 28 Jun 94 EuroEmpire VI empire.engg.ksu.edu 6104 Visitor Visitor 19 Jul 94 UAlberta Open brule.forsci.ualberta.ca 1617 Visitor Visitor 7 Aug 94 PP Romulus gsbux1.uchicago.edu 1617 Visitor Visitor 16 Aug 94 PP Remus gsbux1.uchicago.edu 3000 Visitor Visitor 16 Aug 94game name deity updates: frequency ETU's time ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Outremer sp@essi.essi.fr 1/day 64 06:00 EDT EuroEmpire VI empire@engg.ksu.edu 1/day 48 every 28 hrs UAlberta Open empire@forsci.ualberta.ca 1/day 48 22:00 EDT PP Romulus ajortlie@gsbux1.uchicago.edu 1/3 days 60 00:00 EDT PP Remus ajortlie@gsbux1.uchicago.edu 1/3 days 60 00:00 EDTOutremer
is french for "Ultramarine". Partyland passed C.L.P.I.A. since the
last posting of the EMPIRE NEWS. Here's the top of the power chart:sects eff civ mil shell gun pet iron dust oil pln ship unit money Partyland 440 92% 320K 11K 5.7K 745 12K 38K 1.6K 8.6K 180 190 50 395K C.L.P.I.A 435 90% 351K 11K 7.8K 775 8.9K 35K 7.5K 15K 150 140 90 45K Ephtal 220 92% 165K 5.8K 4.1K 380 6.0K 16K 2.3K 3.9K 80 100 60 20K Kekkoslov 240 86% 146K 4.6K 5.1K 570 1.7K 25K 5.3K 5.5K 10 30 30 15KEuropean Empire VI
is Empire played on a map of Europe. There are some interesting
modifications to the code in this game to make trade and market more
fair. Updates are as follows: Sun 4:00, Mon 8:00, Tue noon, Wed
16:00, Thu 20:00, Fri midnight. All times are EDT. Arkhangel is so
clearly the winner of this game that I guess the game will be called
quite shortly.UAlberta Open
is being run by Bob Beck and Ken Huisman. This game looks quite
interesting. Here's the top four of the power chart:sects eff civ mil shell gun pet iron dust oil pln ship unit money Redline 185 74% 94K 3.5K 250 75 1.4K 9.5K 3.1K 33K 2.6K 3 10 35K Khazad'ur 100 79% 63K 2.8K 375 60 1.1K 10K 4.5K 17K 1.1K 2 10 30K Park Plac 130 71% 54K 3.0K 400 60 50 8.1K 2.2K 18K 2.5K 6 20 50K Raupo 90 78% 48K 2.1K 50 25 0 4.6K 1.0K 16K 2.8K 0 10 55K"PuddlePlanet"
Jim Ortlieb's PuddlePlanet Empire tournament has begun! There are two
128x128 worlds called "Romulus" and "Remus". Players began with small
start islands with limited resources. Apparently, there is alot of ocean between start islands. Updates of the two games are staggered. The games will run until 15 December at which time the top 20 countries (by power chart rating) taken from both games will be thrown into a new 128x128 world with larger start islands. The game is currently between update 3 and 4, so the power chart is only measuring dust--there has been no fighting yet.If you want to receive mail regarding new games starting up, send mail
to empire-announce@engg.ksu.edu with the subject line "subscribe".
These are the projects that Empire coders are currently working on:
project coder language status ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Users.Guide Demon E. Wilkinson 2 weeks pei.2.0 Ken & Sam perl 1 mo Win3 client Pat Loney C 2 mo WISH LIST Ken Stevens ongoingUsers.Guide:
Damon E. Wilkinson is revising the Users.Guide, adding documentation for
land units, missions, starv, budget, bestpath, and other features
which have been added in the Chainsaw code. He hopes to release the
second edition in two weeks.pei.2.0
Ken Stevens and Sam Tetherow are working together to improve pei.
They hope to add many new features which may be found in the
"WISH_LIST" file in the package. The most recent version of pei is
always available on euromath.dk in /pub/incoming.Win3 client:
Pat Loney is writing a Win3 client using winsock and tcpip. He is
currently looking for someone with win3 programming expertise to help him
finish the project.WISH LIST:
If you know of any bugs in Empire or if there are any features you'd
like added to Empire, then please mail them to Ken Stevens (see "Who's
Who?) with the word "wish" in the subject line. The criterea for
new features being added to the wish list are:
1) It shall improve the player's experience
2) It shall not be complex
3) It shall not change the game in any fundamental way
Clients are available via anonymous ftp to ftp.cis.ksu.edu in the
directory /pub/Games/Empire/clients.submitted name size author system lang works? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jun 23 1993 empclient-1.1.tar.Z 20 Dave Pare & company Unix C yes May 27 1994 eif1.0.2.tar.Z 160 Doug Hay Unix C yes Aug 13 1994 pei.1.1.1.sh.Z 102 Ken & Sam Unix perl yes (not on ksu) pei.1.1.3.sh.Z 110 Ken & Sam Unix perl yes May 12 1994 hpc.sh 56 Drake Diedrich Unix perl yes May 12 1994 pec.2.0.sh 14 Sam Tetherow & comp Unix perl yes Apr 19 1993 xemp5.0.02.tar.Z 1333 Etienne X-windows C yes (not on ksu) myxec-0.2.tar.gz 529 Ulrich Drepper X-Windows C yes (not on ksu) GENIE ??? Markus Armbruster Emacs elisp yes Apr 19 1993 emp_mux.tar.Z 12 Alan M. Levi Unix C ??? Apr 27 1993 VMS/* 93 Donald Harper VMS C yes Apr 19 1993 VM_CMS/* 55 Sam Tetherow VM/CMS REXX yes Apr 19 1993 client2.0.tar.Z 13 Dave Pare & company Unix C ??? Aug 16 1994 baseemp.tar.Z 7 Sam Tetherow IBM PC C noTo add your client to the archive, send email to Karl S. Hagen (see
"Who's Who?") and he'll tell you what to do.empclient-1.1 - Empire Client
This is the standard bare-bones Unix client.eif1.0.2 - Empire InterFace
has multiple-game support, command scripting, aliases, history
substitution, access to system files and programs. Recent bugfixes by
Jim Gillogly (fixed the "kill" command) and Ken Stevens (fixed
highlighting for the "sect" command) are included in version 1.0.2.pei.1.1.1 - Perl Empire Interface
is a port of eif to perl based on hpc. It was written by Ken Stevens
with many tools added by Sam Tetherow. Pei has all the functionality
of eif, plus it has built in auto-explore, civ-mover, auto-feed,
distribution, unit management, and mailer tools.pei.1.1.3 - Perl Empire Interface
is the most recent version of pei. It may be found on euromath.dk in
pub/incoming. Improvements over 1.1.1 include an improved mailer and
new "delta" tools. 1.1.4 is nearly ready and will be released any day
now.hpc - Harmless Perl Client
is a bare-bones perl client.pec.2.0 - Perl Empire Client
by Sean "Elven King" Eddy, Michael "the Elf" Feuell, and Sam
"Drazz'zt" Tetherow. It is a perl client with functionality somewhere
between hpc and pei.xemp5.0.02 - X Empire
is an X-Windows interface for playing Empire.myxec-0.2 - My X Empire Client
is a new colour X-Windows Empire client. It is not yet available on the ksu
archive, but you may ftp a copy from:
i44ftp.ira.uka.de:pub/misc/empire/myxec/myxec-0.2.tar.gz
He will put version 0.3 on the ksu archive when it is ready. Due to a
recent disk-failure, this could take longer than expected.GENIE
GNU Emacs client:
Markus Armbruster has released his GNU Emacs Empire client. It has the basic functionality of emp_client, plus it has some alias capability (but I think you have to program the alises yourself in elisp). Big plusses are that your input and output are separated, and live in emacs windows. There is also a map window. The most recent version is available at: i44ftp.ira.uka.de:pub/misc/empire/emacs/genie.*emp_mux.tar.Z
is a client "multiplexer" to allow two people to connect to the same
country at the same time.VMS client 4.0
is a client for VMS systems.VM/CMS empclient
is a client for VM/CMS systems.client2.0
is a modification of the standard client for "BSD Empire" (a version
of the server no longer supported).baseemp.tar.Z
is a bare-bones client for the IBM PC which coders can use as a base
for writing their own clients.
Empire documentation is available at ftp.cis.ksu.edu:
Empire FAQ:
/pub/Games/Empire/FAQ.*Empire Description:
/pub/Games/Empire/WhatIsEmpire-FAQ.txtChainsaw info pages:
/pub/Games/Empire/docs/chainsaw.3.0.info.tar.Z
The info pages are also available on WWW at:
http://opus.chem.psu.edu/~dld/info/Users Guide (presently being revised)
/pub/Games/Empire/docs/Users.Guide
If you want to run a game, you can get the source for the server from
ftp.cis.ksu.edu:
/pub/Games/Empire/source/chainsaw.3.31.tar.Z
If you do not have GNUmake or mkmf on your system, then you will also
need to get
/pub/Games/Empire/tools/Deity/emptools.tar.Z
so that you can compile the server.Please mail Ken Stevens for his "How to Run a Game" document before
making a game announcement to r.g.e (this document will be included in the next release of the Empire Server code.)Kevin Klemmick has modified the plane code to generate more readable air combat reports. Deities are encouraged to replace the aircombat.c and mission.c files in chainsaw.3.31.tar.Z with ones found in: pub/Games/Empire/source/newplanes.sh
Drake Diedrich has uploaded a diff file containing all the bug-fixes
to Chainsaw 3.31 used in the Riverworld games (mostly changes in the
info files and spelling corrections):
pub/Games/Empire/source/diff.cs.river.ZEmpire Server Team:
This is what the Empire Server Team has done so far:
1) Chad Zabel fixed a number of bugs in the server.
2) Chad Zabel added HIDDEN mods and new plane mods.
3) Ken Stevens and Chad Zabel worked together to clean up the Empire
options (cutting down the number of options from 75 to 28).
4) Dave Pare has merged the three Empire processes into one
"Monolith" server using a threading package.
5) The Server team has discussed the Wish List and made some preliminary prioritizations of the wish list items.Chad is now running a test game to try to find bugs in the new server.
If it seems to be relatively bugless, then the code will be moved to a
location with RCS or SCCS, and the Server Team will split up the
coding work for implementing the changes on the Wish List. It is
expected, that the first version (Empire 2.0.1) will be released by
the end of September. From then on, new versions will probably be
released monthly until the Team wraps up it's job at Christmas with
Empire 2.1.0.Once the high priority bug-fixes and new features have been added,
the source will then make its way over to Karl S. Hagen who will clean
up the code and add a "smart client" protocol mode which will be
cryptic but carry more information in less space. The idea with a
smart client is that it will take care of most sub-prompting, and it
will maintain an internal database of sectors and units which is
updated asynchroniously by the server.Server Mailing List:
The mailing list, a forum of discussion regarding changes to the
server, has been established (with current traffic about 2 mail
messages per day). If, and ONLY IF you are very familiar with the
Empire source code, have experience modifying the Empire source, and
have time to help with the Server project, send mail to
empire-list-request@engg.ksu.edu with the body content: subscribe
Player tools are available via anonymous ftp to ftp.cis.ksu.edu in the
directory /pub/Games/Empire/tools/Player:submitted name author language works? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sep 2 1992 EddyTools.tar.Z Sean Eddy C no Sep 2 1992 GEET-2d.tar.Z Lynn Slater elisp no May 12 1994 autofeed Jim Gillogly perl yes May 12 1994 chitools.sh Ken Stevens C,awk,perl yes Sep 2 1992 cmc-tools.tar.Z Cowboy Bob/King Craig C no Dec 18 1991 ewall.tar.Z ??? ??? no Sep 2 1992 hex.ps.Z Scott D. Yelich postscript yes Sep 2 1992 news_power.sh Jim Gillogly perl yes Dec 18 1991 rdist.tar.Z ??? C no May 12 1994 simu Drake Diedrich awk yes Apr 9 1993 ve.tar.Z see below C ??? (not on ksu) ve.tar.Z Donald Harper C yes?To add your tools to the archive, send email to Karl S. Hagen (see
"Who's Who?") and he'll tell you what to do.Here is a summary of the tools that work:
autofeed moves food from sectors with too much to those with too
little. (It uses "dump" rather than "starv" so it is a little slow).chitools.sh contains 7 tools including a civ mover, production delta
program, autofeed script, spy info database, and a mail-like interface
for reading telegrams.hex.ps.Z prints hex paper.
news_power.sh parses the news into a more concise form and produces a summary report at the end.
simu is an update simulator, showing you what your country will look
like after the next update.ve.tar.Z "visual empire" is a cursers interface for viewing your
country. It was written by Matthew Diaz, Michael Baldwin,
Bill Jones, Jim Knutson, Ken Montgomery, Dan Reynolds, Jeff Wallace,
and Julian Onions (*whew!*).ve.tar.Z has been fixed to work with the Chainsaw code by Donald
Harper. His code is available on euromath.dk in /pub/incoming.These are the tools that either do not work, or are obsolete:
EddyTools.tar.Z contains 3 tools. "distributer" and "civmover" are
out of date and do not work, but "accountant" (calculates production
deltas) still works.GEET-2d.tar.Z is an emacs "robot" client that doesn't work.
cmc-tools.tar.Z was a fantastic civ-moving tool and I wish someone
would fix it. What was so great about it was the way you could set
civ-moving prioritites in a configuration file. It has 4 tools,
"pmvr", "mmvr", "umvr" (for moving civs, mil, and uw's) and a "dist"
tool for setting dist paths (now obsolete).ewall.tar.Z is a tool for sending telegrams to multiple recipients
(now obsolete).rdist.tar.Z What the heck is this? There's no documentation.
submitted name author language works?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Feb 13 1992 DuckScripts.tar.Z Don Harper mixed yes
Feb 13 1992 EvilDeityScripts.tar.Z Dave Nye sh yes
Oct 11 1991 emptools.tar.Z Peter J. Nicklin C yes
Jul 12 1993 fairland.1.6.2.tar.Z Ken Stevens C yes
May 13 1994 RiverworldTools.tar.Z Drake Diedrich mixed yes
Nov 6 1992 transferkit.tar.Z Thomas Ruschak C yes?
Nov 6 1992 xland-2.0.tar.Z Dan Bennett C no
Apr 9 1993 xland-chain3.0.tar.Z Dan Bennett & Tom C yes?Here is a description of the various deity tools:
DuckScripts.tar.Z contains 35 perl, awk, and csh scripts which parse
the output of various empire report commands (power, plane, prod, etc.)
and generate summaries of the data.EvilDeityScripts.tar.Z contains the shell scripts "saveass" and
"watchdog". "saveass" saves a copy of the empire data files just
before an update so that you can restore from backups if something
goes wrong. "watchdog" checks to see if either emp_tm or emp_login
has crashed, and if they have, restarts them. A sample crontab is
included.emptools.tar.Z contains the source for GNUmake version 3.56 (probably
quite an old version) and mkmf ("make makefile"), two unix utilities
used to compile the server.fairland.1.6.2.tar.Z is a land generator program (now a part of
chainsaw.3.31.tar.Z I believe), which creates a world with a specified
number of continents of a specified size with equal resources.RiverworldTools.tar.Z contains a number of scripts for running a game. It
includes modifications of Dave Nye's "watchdog" and "saveass" scripts,
as well as scripts for auto-resetting a blitz, a script for checking
login irregularities, and a cool program which draws colour maps
of the game as it progresses and converts them into a mpeg movie.transferkit.tar.Z is a program for transfering a game from one machine
to another.xland-chain3.0.tar.Z replaces xland-2.0.tar.Z. It is an X-windows
program used by deities to "draw" land for an empire game using a mouse.
Karl S. Hagen maintains an Empire WWW page at:
http://www.engg.ksu.edu/empire/ which includes the Empire FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions), back issues of this newsletter, and a WWW interface to the KSU Empire software archives.Drake Diedrich maintains an Empire WWW page at:
http://random.chem.psu.edu/empire/
which includes the up-or-down status of currently running games, the
Chainsaw 3.31 info pages (in hypertext format), and reports and mpeg
videos of recent Riverworld blitzes.What's the World Wide Web? See for yourself. To quote Drake
Diedrich, "It is way cool." If you have emacs, then you can connect
to the World Wide Web using "w3". Just ftp the following two elisp
packages and install them:diredall.tar.Z available at ftp.thp.Uni-Koeln.DE /pub/gnu/emacs
w3.tar.gz available at cs.indiana.edu /pub/elisp/w3There are also more graphical WWW clients available (e.g. X-windows),
but I don't know where they are--once you get into WWW with the emacs client, you should be able to find them.
In alphabetical order, here is a list of Deities and Empire coders:Name Country Deity of email
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Markus Armbruster armbru@pond.sub.org
Dan Bennett (retired) Eurasia (Kent State)
Drake Diedrich harmless Riverworld dld@random.chem.psu.edu
Stefan Hauser Rohan etienne@imp.ch
Ulrich Drepper drepper@ira.uka.de
Sean Eddy (retired) Mirkwood sre@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk
Chris Farrel Geravik cfarrell@yar.cs.wisc.edu
Michael Feuell Krikkit (Carnage)
Monte Freeman Fizban (P.I.N.G) empire@empire.ping.com
Jim Gillogly Banzai, POE
Andy Green (Paperboy) green@ids.net
Karl S. Hagen Greyhelm greyhelm@engg.ksu.edu
Don Harper Duckland harper_d@uhdux2.dt.uh.edu
Doug Hay (retired) Aliens
Kevin Klemmick Waffen (Hidden) kklem@netcom.com
Andrew Lasda (Flatland) alasda@nyx.cs.du.edu
Pat Loney Overlord European loney@kaos.lerc.nasa.gov
Dave Nye (retired) EvilEmpire (BBN) david_nye@wellfleet.com
Jim Ortlieb CrackHouse PuddlePlanet ajortlie@gsbux1.uchicago.edu
Dave "H.D." Pare mr-frog@xcf.Berkeley.EDU
Stephane Perennes Outremer sp@essi.essi.fr
Thomas Ruschak The_Scum (Chainsaw) ts@ecn.purdue.edu
Chuck Simons (retired) Metzada c/o Chad Zabel
Ken Stevens children (Kaiserdome) stevens@math.toronto.edu
Sam Tetherow(Drazz'zt) Khazad'ur (Dwarven) tetherow@cse.unl.edu
Damon E. Wilkinson Mantarr st1dg@jetson.uh.edu
Scott Yelich AO (Santa Fe) scott@santafe.edu
Chad Zabel Rad_Zone (BloodBowl) zabel@cs.und.nodak.edu
If you have any additions/corrections/changes/feedback to the information in this post, please email me at stevens@math.toronto.edu.
Ken Stevens a.k.a. Buster, ruler of children
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