"On air. On sea. On land. Still the Internet's greatest wargame simulation."
A Wolfpack Empire Publication
"All the news that fits, we print."
January, 2005
In This Edition
:*: Twisted Minds 2K4 - Blind Date Empire has ended, won by Enron
and Paranoia.:*: Petting Zoo III - Rock, Paper, Scissors has ended, won by
FarFarAway and Partimers.:*: Ron Koenderink announced the release of WinAce version 2.4.20.
Links/Resources/Getting Started
| Home of Wolfpack Empire : | http://www.wolfpackempire.com/ |
| FAQ : | http://www.wolfpackempire.com/faq.html |
| Usenet : | news:rec.games.empire |
| More : | http://www.wolfpackempire.com/links.html |
:*: Deities, advertise your games here. Email
empnews04@wolfpackempire.com with the details.**ANNOUNCING** International Trade Wars **ANNOUNCING**
Pat Loney has announced the next in the Twisted Minds Series, dubbed International Trade Wars.
Many of the modifications of TM-2K4 are again in effect. Perhaps the biggest twist in this game is the international and transcontinental maritime trade focus. Players win, not by grabbing the most land, civs, bars, etc, but by earning the requisite number of Victory Points first.
The game opens up on Friday, February 4 and the first update will be at noon, Monday, February 7.
Sign up by emailing Pat directly: overlord@multi.usr.ch
There are no current, long-term games.
:*: The Changeling Blitz
Restart Cycle: Every day at 7:00 pm US/Eastern (currently 23:00 UTC)
Updates: Enabled at 7:30 pm, 60 ETUs every 10 minutes
Host/Port: blitz.wolfpackempire.com / 6789
Website: http://www.wolfpackempire.com/default.htmNote that world size and some options change daily. It is up to players to figure that out each day, but typing `version' helps. Further surprises are possible, as Changeling runs snapshots from the latest Wolfpack server development.
:*: The Zebra Blitz
Restart Cycle: Every Sunday at 6:00 pm US/Eastern (currently 22:00
UTC)
Updates: Enabled at 6:30 pm, 48 ETUs every 60 minutes
Host/Port: blitz.wolfpackempire.com / 5678
Website: http://www.wolfpackempire.com/default.htm
:*: Twisted Minds 2K4 - Blind Date Empire
Deity: Pat Loney (a.k.a Overlord)
Start Date: October 1, 2004
Host/Port: multi.usr.ch / 6665
Official Deity Report:
http://groups.google.com.au/groups?selm=ckojfg%24olj%241%40multi.usr.chTwisted Minds 2K4, run by long-time player and deity Pat Loney ended recently. TM2K4 was won by Enron and Paranoia, who controlled almost half of the world by game's end.
As its name implies Twisted Minds was a tough game for tough players. In addition to twisted geography (as described to my by one of the players) it offered a number of cool source modifications, both major and minor. The most notable modification was a set of country attributes, ranging from Warrier to Tech Monger to Financier, with a good number in
between. See the October edition of empire news or any of Pat's postings.Hey Pat, where did you come out on all of the mods? Anything work well or not so well?
:*: Petting Zoo III - Rock, Paper, Scissors
Deity: Doug "collect-em-all" Bungholio
Website:
http://www.angelfire.com/empire2/bungholio/PettingZooThree_GameSettings.htmlPetting Zoo III has ended, won by FarFarAway and Partimers with
special mention for beep.Of the eighteen original countries, seven made it to the endgame.
Hegemon (RapedByFFA), Anguiron, Johnnyland and Tiki were conquered
in the first round of invasions, followed by wales and Raistmiche and the ever entertaining Empire King in the second. Dorsai! Sunnydale and Nova were the last ones to go. Leutonia and ULKH survived by staying relatively neutral.Bungholio put up an excellent game summary with static and animated maps and charts. Check it all out at
http://www.angelfire.com/empire2/bungholio/PettingZooThree_EndGameReport.htmlIf you only read one thing, read through the Blog account. Doug set up the Blog country to receive anonymous telegrams from players about their thoughts, strategies, or in some cases, random inklings. Grab a muffin and surf to
http://www.angelfire.com/empire2/bungholio/pz3_Blog.txt
The Dig
The Dig is compiled from Google's r.g.e. archive at
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.games.empire/about
:*: Empire News 1 Year Ago
December, 2004 was a bumper month for posts to r.g.e. at 329 (mostly genuine) posts - the highest number in the past four and a half years.
One year ago, or so, the dust was settling after LOTR II and diplomacy was the hot topic of discussion on r.g.e. especially the topic of so-called diplomacy "clumps".
Mr. Ed started a healthy discussion of a wide variety of empire issues and features spanning the "anti" command, unit stacking limits, defensive return fire range bonuses and rotating updates. Mark Stokje posted a list of "Top 10 Really Stupid Lessons I've Learned in my First Game", which should probably be read by all new players. He also posted a short article on avail, how it's produced at the update and how it's used for building
units.Bob Marchese announced the start of Havok II, Designing Nations Players were allowed to custom design their starting islands.
In December, 1994 Pat Loney started up the Nomad game. This fairly standard game had at least 23 players and included the likes of CCCP, Uesugi and Ionica. Damon E. Willikson declared the game "sadistic" for being "more resource poor than Riverworld". To Pat's defence, Nomad had at least 78 sectors with 100 fertility, and some countries even had two of them.
Dwarven Chowder III and Hidden Empre were underway.
There was an interesting discussion about slowing the progression of tech with a series of discrete tech stages. Basically, players would remain at a given stage until some preordained event raised the tech stage for everyone. For example, the invention of jet-propulsion technology would spread fast and raise the tech stage into the jet-propulsion age (and allow everyone with a high enough tech level to build jet aircraft).
Jim Ortlieb posted a neat tip on how to raise the work level of a sector that has depressed work due to starvation:
"Find a harbor which isn't producing ships anytime soon and move plenty of fishing boats and cargo ships in there. Then, load all the unhappy civs onto the ships and send them off. Their journey at sea will make them forget all about their grievances with you and when unloaded they will work happily again (note, the ships don't even have to go anywhere just sit in the harbor)."
Not sure if it still works today. Can anyone clarify?
The basic Empire client can be found at
http://www.wolfpackempire.com/clients.html and
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=24031
source as well as binaries for many platforms.The latest version of WinACE is 2.4.20. Download it from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/winace/
The latest version of PTkEI is 1.18.1. See the PTkEI home page at
http://www.lfmm.org/ptkei/The latest version of eif is 1.3.4. See the eif home page at
http://www.stack.nl/~marcolz/empire/The latest version of LAFE is 1.0. Get it from
http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/e/empire-lafe/
or any other Debian mirror.The latest version of pei is 3.0.1. See the pei home page at
http://empire.tau.ac.il/~romm/emp/
The current Empire server is 4.2.19. Download it from
http://www.wolfpackempire.com/server.html or
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=24031
Before I start my usual ranting, I offer my apologies for not publishing this newsletter for almost 3 months. I have an excuse that, if it doesn't work here, it won't ever work anywhere :-) I was deeply absorbed in a game of empire - PZ III to be precise. Now, onto chewy bits.
These months' kudos go to Wahbit for assembling and posting his empire ranking system for active players. Digging back through the power report records and compiling the results takes quite a bit of time and effort, and braving r.g.e. with any kind of ranking system is adventurous as well. Well done, mate.
Most players recognise that no practical ranking system can perfectly represent the relative skill levels of players. On a wider scale, no ranking system is really perfect anyway, and this goes for national elections, squash club ladders and everything in between. MLB baseball and NBA basketball maybe come close, and that ever popular television phenomenon "<Insert your country name here> Idol", well, errrrr, never mind.
Short of playing 7-game series, we're pretty much stuck with ranking schemas that are only approximate. But that's not the point anyway.
IMHO, the ranking system has a number of other, more important benefits. To name a few, it's a census of the current active players and it serves as small incentive to play the next game. It's also a pretty good indicator of skill and experience level for (of) players. Keep up the good work, Wahbit.
I have one suggestion, if I may. Let's add some navy ratings to the chart. Something like this:
1. The top entry is the Fleet Admiral.
2. The top 5% band are Admirals.
3. The next 10% band are Rear Admirals
4. The next 15% band are Captains
5. The next 20% band are Commanders
6. The next 25% band are Lieutenants
7. The last 25% band are Ensigns.So, that gives us
Fleet Admiral Thistle
Admirals Bungholio, Pern, and Ice
Rear Admirals Ski, Wahbit, Rook, Shakespeare and Mongrol_Horde
and so on...Jeff, a.k.a. "Captain" Dexter
:*: Loyalty and your Economy
When you're invading your newbie neighbour, keep in mind the loyalty
factor of the captured sectors. That is, all sectors have a
"disloyalty attribute" that simulates the sentiment of the populace.When you first occupy a sector, it's not loyal to you. If you play
with WinACE, you will see "Not Yours" when you click on a sector.
Some say that the sector is not "oldowned" by you (because it's old
owner is somebody else). In this case, the sector's disloyalty is
high, and you pay a premium for maintaining control. This is
'inconvenient' for several reasons:- You need to keep a military force equal to 10% of the civilian
population in that sector in order to move any captured commodities
*out* of that sector. This costs you money and ties up your forces.
- This applies to updates, and your stuff will not get delivered or
distributed.
- The captured (ie. disloyal) population pays less taxes.These things mean you have to spend more of your time micromanaging
your country and you get less in return for it.Sector disloyalty is typically 0 for peaceful, happy sectors.
When you invade, that disloyalty number goes up for the sectors
you capture. If you do mean, ugly things to the populace, like
shell it or bomb it, the disloyalty number goes up more. If your
opponent's population is happier than yours, disloyalty goes up
even more. So, when the dust settles and after you've anti'd all
of the Che Guevara wannabe's, you're left with the disloyalty
number for that sector.Now, each update, the disloyalty number goes back down a little
bit, assuming you don't torture, shoot, bomb, or force them to
hold Democratic elections. When it gets to zero, the sector "is
completely yours". At this point, you get full taxes and your
economy infrastructure starts working correctly again. This is
a good thing.So, conserve loyalty as much as possible. The sooner your captured
sectors convert over, the more powerful your country will become.:*: Quiz question:
:*: Last Month's Question: Uw's grow so slowly. Name some schemes
to get more of them.Of course, you can always capture an enemy sector and use the
convert command, but this often has some unwanted side effects,
such as retaliation.There are a number of cooperative schemes. In one scheme, you
allow an ally or friend to assault and occupy one of your sectors
in which you have left a small number of civilians (around 150-200).
After an update, use the mobility to convert them and also assault
an adjacent sector. Repeat using the same two sectors. Advantages -
continuous supply. Disadvantages - requires two sectors.In a second scheme, you allow a friend or ally to assault a harbour
you built up to 100% and then evacuated. He assaults with a cs full
of civs, navigates in, collects mil and deposits civs. You attack
this sector, which will still be loyal to him. You convert the civs
at your leisure.:*: This Month's Question: You're in mid invasion and in a real
bind for a few extra mil. How can mil be moved across oceans without
a ship or plane or land unit?
Deities, send nominations for Anno of the Month to
empnews04@wolfpackempire.com:*: This month's award goes to EmpireKing, playing in Petting Zoo III.
EmpireKing entertained PZIII players regularly with his boisterous
annos.
>Announcement from EmpireKing, (#13) dated Wed Nov 24 01:28:25 2004
ATTETION ALL COUTRYS::
IT HAS COME TO MY ATTETION THAT MY NATION IS NOW REGARD AS
SO-CALL "IRON KING" DUE TO FACT THAT I REACH 10K IRON FIRST!
THIS SHALL BE A WRANING TO ALL COUNTRY SUPPOSED TO ATTACK.
HEAVY IRONS ONLY RESUL IN YOU SHIP SINKS< AND MANY CRIES
FOR YOU SO_CALL "ELITE PREMIUM" LANDING UNITS!!
AS OZZY OZ BURN SAID:
"I - AM - IRON KING
SHOOT ALL INTERUDERS - WITH MY SHELLS
RUNNING - AS FAST AS THEY CAN
ALL OTHER COUNTRY ARE SO SCARED."
YOU HAVE BEEN WRANED!!!!'
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