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

"All the news that fits, we print."
December, 1995
Vol. 2, No. 10

In This Edition

What's New

Long Term Games
Two new long term games started up this month.

Readline Asynchronous Client
Ken Stevens has written an asynchronous "C" client with readline!

Latency Free Client for Poor Links.
Drake Diedrich has released a beta of this new client.

Empire Toolkit 3.0.4 alpha is Available.
Kevin Morgan has uploaded a toolkit beta to empire.net.

Xemp is Undergoing Radical Fixing.
Julian Onions is incorporating CSYNC capability.

Client Capabilities Database.
PEA now has a table listing capabilities of empire clients.

"Benchmarks" by Ken Stevens
The server team reviews the past and looks to the future.

Empire Server 3 is Stable at 3.0.6.
New features have been added, along with the CSYNC messages.

British III
Was won by Thule.

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New games starting up

Hints at a British IV, but nobody is calling for registrations at this
time.

The back alleys echo with promises of a blitz played in teams. Does
anyone else miss being the last kid picked for a game during recess?

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Long Term Games

(http://www.empire.net/~children/pea_pages/games.html)

Two new long-term games began since the last Empire News: "Bug Hunt III", and "Newbie".

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Client

Asynchronous, Readline Client in "C"
Ken Stevens hopes to release his new client early this month. It will
include a macro language and will be fully portable. Once linked with the
Empire Toolkit, players will have access to the popular tools available in
pei.

Latency Free Empire Client for Poor Connections.
For those players connecting over a high-latency connection, Drake
Diedrich has released a client that allows commands and scripts to be
typed and submitted quickly. Several platforms are available on the PEA
(http://www.empire.net/~children/PEA/player/clients/lafe).

Empire Toolkit for Clients and the C_SYNC Protocol
All future client will link with the empire toolkit being coded by Kevin
Morgan. An alpha release, 3.0.4 can be downloaded from the PEA
(http://www.empire.net/~children/PEA/player/tools).

Xemp Is Going Through More Changes.
Julian Onions reports that he's doing "lots of major chopping on xemp." He hopes to come out with xm_emp and xaw_emp and then start incorporating CSYNC.

Client Compatibility list.
A table showing several popular clients and their capabilities is available on the PEA (http://www.empire.net/~children/PEA/player/docs).

Client Discussion Mailing List.
Subscribe to the discussion list focussing on client development by sending mail to empire-client-request@empire.net with "subscribe" in the message body. Approval for inclusion takes place before you receive any mail. Catch up on archived messages by visiting the Planet Empire Archives, under Client Discussion
(http://www.empire.net/~children/empire-client/).

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Featured Columns

"Benchmarks"
by Ken Stevens

Empire is now at a nexus. All of what Empire was and all of what Empire will be is now focussed on one very sharp point. This point is the EmpireToolkit. When the EmpireToolkit (and its successor the EmpireHub) are completed, Empire will undergo a radical metamorphosis. Empire as we know it today will slowly melt into the fond memories of the current generation of Empire players, and make way for a whole new generation of smart, asynchronous, graphical clients.

The new generation of Empire players, sporting the bright neon fashions of the day will be clicking their way around a colourful iconized map of the world, optimizing defense positions with the help of AI strategic analysis tools. They'll be playing over high bandwidth fibre-optic cable run straight to their home and listening to some band that we've never heard of. And there will be alot of them.

Meanwhile, we old timers will get together for a whisky from time to time in the dusty basement where the big old mainframes have been relegated to slowly rust away. Someone will crack a joke about pink bunny slippers and the rest of us unshaven ragsters will snort and chuckle and suggest, with a toothless smile, that perhaps Del has had the bottle a bit too long and that maybe it's our turn for a swig.

But don't panic. The ascii interface to Empire will always be there, and you
can be sure that ascii text is all that the best players are ever going to want to see. Empire will always be a game for people who like to think. Perhaps what we'll see in the coming years is a split in the Empire community. There will be the "recreational" players who play using the neato graphical clients, and then there will be the "serious" players who play using an ascii client. Whatever happens, there's no doubt in my mind that we're in for some big changes in the future. Say Del, where'd you put that bottle?

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"Thanks Are In Order"

The following people contributed to a fund set up for purchasing a 4 gig hard
drive for "empire.net".
Robert Giffords and Todd McDonald (Lothlorien)
Don Harper (duckland)
Don Sellers (El_Rancho)
Ken Stevens (children)
Dave Nye (EvilEmpire)
Eric Dorman
Damon A. Wilkinson (Mantarr)
George Fink
Sven Neuhaus (Lorphos)
Jason Duelge (Temekula)
Mark Goschie (Lorien)
Chuck McCormich (Metadza)

Many thanks to Dave Nye for establishing "empire.net".

A gasp in amazement and prying questions about time for sleep precede the huge
thanks to Ken Stevens for his time put in to the server development.

Server

The Empire2 Server
The empire server of choice. To try it out, grab the latest version from
the PEA (http://www.empire.net/~children/PEA/deity/server).

The Empire3 Server
If you'd like to try running the new server
(http://www.empire.net/~children/PEA/deity/server/experimental), it is
available on PEA. This is still in the experimental stage, so please stick
with Empire 2 for long term games.

The Empire Project Home Page (http://www.rr.ualberta.ca/~empire/)
For an up to date list of the changes in the new server, connect to the
Howitzer Blitz (http://www.empire.net/~children/pea_pages/blitzes.html) and type "info Empire3".

Empire Server Discussion Mailing List
(http://www.empire.net/~children/empire-list/)
The mailing list, a forum of discussion regarding changes to the server,
has been established. If you have time to help with the server project, or
would like to participate in the on-going plans, send mail to empire-server-request@empire.net with "subscribe" in the message body. There is an approval process, so any useful information about your interest in the discussion helps.

A more general mailing list is available to all coders, good players, and especially deities. Subscribe to this list to keep abreast of all coding changes by sending mail to empire-list-request@empire.net with "subscribe" in the message body.

To subscribe to a digest, send mail to majordomo@empire.net, and include in the body: "subscribe empire-list-digest".

How to Run a Game
(http://www.empire.net/~children/ftp/deity/docs/how_to_run_a_game.txt) Before making a game announcement to rec.games.empire, please read and heed this document.

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This month's winners

British Empire III
was won by Thule. The game started with four countries per island and
large militaries. A quick jump on his island co-inhabitants gave Thule an
early advantage. Ultimately, Thulian forces sacked half of the starting
countries' capitals.

         sects eff  civ  mil shell gun pet iron  dust oil  pl  sh un  money
    Thule 439 94% 217K  15K 9.8K 332 1.9K  65K  16K 3.8K 168 122 237   80K
 27932.22
 enophobi 143 99%  91K 3.1K 1.2K 116 1.5K  17K 3.7K 4.1K   7  14  47  6.8K
  4000.33
   Jungle  68 91%  50K 2.5K 838  155 571   11K 764  2.4K  13  19  20   14K
  3512.87
  Schytia  74 96%  45K 1.8K 248   82 615  7.6K 1.2K 921   11  10  26  1.1K
  2424.88

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This Newsletter

Mark Ballinger is responsible for the Empire News and the Empire FAQ. If you have suggestions, corrections or announcements, please email me at
uesugi@empire.net.

Mark Ballinger (Uesugi)

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