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

A Wolfpack Empire Publication
"All the news that fits, we print."
June, 2003

In This Edition

What's New?

Wolfpack Empire web site (http://www.wolfpackempire.com/) relaunched! New looks, new features, new contents, loads faster and it is actually maintained again. Enjoy!

Marc Olzheim (the other 1/2 of Myseria) took over eif maintenance from
Doug Hay some time ago. There's a new release to check out: eif 1.3.0. Noteworthy changes: IPv6 capability, a manual page, comes with some handy eif scripts ready for use, `\' escapes, and a few bug fixes. See `Clients and Player tools' for where to get it.

Bob Dalton has kept his Empire site alive at
http://www.digitallogistics.com/private/empire/empindex.htm
Good stuff, much of it quite accessible to neophytes.

Here's some news for the oppressed masses without real Internet access: Daniel Tryba is running an Empire proxy at http://www.canopus.nl/empire.servlets/emproxy/index.jsp
So far, this precision-guided corporate Firewall penetrator is about as comfy as telnet, but beggars can't be choosers. If you get fired for playing Empire at work, don't blame Daniel or the Empire News.

httptunnel (http://www.nocrew.org/software/httptunnel.html) should be
usable for similar purposes as well. Please report success or failure to rec.games.empire or the Empire News.

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Links/Resources/Getting Started

Home of Wolfpack Empire : http://www.wolfpackempire.com/
FAQ : FAQ
Usenet : news:rec.games.empire
More : http://www.wolfpackempire.com/links.html

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New Games

Lanny Andelin announced Newbie III, the next in his series of games
designed for relative newcomers. To sign up, send your country name
and representative to andelin@xmission.com.

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Current Games

Mid-Shipman's Empire, deitied by Mark Ballinger, is running at
mid.wolfpackempire.com, port 6789. It is a game for non-newbies who
are also not vastly experienced. Twenty players signed up, and all
are active.


The Changeling Blitz is running at blitz.wolfpackempire.com, port
6789. This blitz resets at 7:00pm US/Eastern (currently 23:00 UTC)
every day. Updates are enabled at 7:30pm. There is a 60 ETU update
every 10 minutes. Note that world size and some options change daily.
It is up to players to figure that out each day, but typing "version"
helps.


The Zebra Blitz is running at blitz.wolfpackempire.com, port 5678.
This blitz resets at 6:00pm US/Eastern (currently 22:00 UTC) every
Sunday. Updates are enabled at 6:30pm. There is a 48 ETU update
every hour on the hour.

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Recently Ended Games

Newbie II, run by Lanny Andelin, was won by Pax and Armengar. More
information may be posted to rec.games.empire shortly.

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Clients and Player Tools

The basic Empire client can be found at
http://www.wolfpackempire.com/clients.html, source as well as binaries
for many platforms.

The latest version of WinACE is 2.2.11. Read the announcement at
and download from http://sourceforge.net/projects/winace/

The latest version of PTkEI is 1.18.0. See the PTkEI home page at
http://www.lfmm.org/ptkei/

The latest version of eif is 1.3.0. See the eif home page at
http://www.stack.nl/~marcolz/empire/

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Server and Deity Information

The current Empire server is 4.2.11. Download it from
http://www.wolfpackempire.com/server.html

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From the Editor

I got a few submissions of newsworthy items in the last month. Not only did they help me to create a better issue, they also made my job more pleasant. Thank you!

If you see something fit for the Empire News, send it to me. In particular, I easily miss announcements in games I don't play. If someone posts something uncommonly funny, or remarkably well written, submit it! Even if you wrote it yourself --- I won't spill your secret ;->

Markus, a.k.a. Dorwinion

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Hint of the Month

Fractional firing ranges: Imagine your bb is going to slug it out with another bb. You estimate the enemy's firing range to be roughly equal
to yours. Consider firing range 2.50. If you're engaging at range two or less, each volley hits the target, in either direction. So your bb eats return fire every time. If you're engaging at range three, your probability to hit is the fractional part of your range, i.e. 50%. Isn't that just a waste of shells? Well, defenders fire back only when you hit, and their hit probability is only 50%. So you only get half as much return fire. This is particularly nice if a lucky first salvo cripples the defender.

The lower the fractional range, the better it gets, at the price of increased shell expenditure.

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Anno of the Month

No suitable announcements were observed by the Empire News in the past
month. Here's a slightly older piece, from Ice World V:

> Announcement from Ragnarook, (#14) dated Mon Mar 17 04:30:52 2003

In the headquarters of $COUNTRY:

"Gentlemen, we have now conquered all areas that were under control
of the natives. Still, our country looks miserably small. We have
to expand and get more land."

   "Sir, 'Moreland' has not been contacted yet."

BLAM

"I thought about taking additional sectors.

   "we haven't heard of a country named 'AdditionalSectors'."

Blam-Blam-Blam.

"Let's stop this idiocy. All I want is that we start moving and grab
new land."

   "Errr, Sir..... There is 'Newland' in the $DIRECTION of us."

"Very well. Let's do what we have to do."

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