A Wolfpack Empire Publication
"All the news that fits, we print."
May, 2004

In This Edition

• What's New?
• Links/Resources/Getting Started
• Games --
  • Upcoming
  • Current
  • Recently ended
• Clients and Player Tools
• Server and Deity Info
• From the Editor
• Hints of the Month
• Anno of the Month
  

What's New?

Ron Koenderink released WinACE 2.4.10, which brings you bug fixes and
easier origin change for corulers.

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Links/Resources/Getting Started

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New Games

Coming soon, Star Wars Empire --- New Byss Campaign

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Current Games

Retro Empire is running at retro.wolfpackempire.com, port 6665.
Deities are Mark Ballinger (Uesugi) and Geoff Cashman (Mithrilien). A
blitz with the same configuration (except food) is running at
blitz.wolfpackempire.com, port 6665.

Retro Empire is an attempt to emulate what could be called the
classical age of Empire: the early '90s. No infrastructure. No
missions. 24 ETUs per update. Fewer ship and plane types, and no
land units. Completing a ship or plane takes several updates. Start
islands are large, but resources are scarce.

Players are encouraged to telex to Diary, and some of them do. These
telexes will be published after the game ends. We can hope for unique
and interesting insights.

The peaceful citizens of beep led the tech race early on, but whether
they still do is somewhat unclear at this time.

Retro has no ships that can load many civilians, and players have been
struggling to populate their islands.

Major hostilities began around update 12, when Parpara and TZIA
attacked Savoia, whose ruler was on vacation. However, Vittorio
Emanuele came back just in time to save his country from immediate
disaster.

Not much later, Tormalin came under attack from UTOPIA, Aridon, and
later Kamoria. Tormalin is resisting the invasion fiercely, but his
enemies' superior and much more numerous planes rule the sky. The
battle now reached Tormalin's mainland.

The Indeterminist government abandoned their poor people to famine.
`Relief expeditions' from Pern, Parpara and Tormalin(!) eventually
arrived. However, the Indeterminist people revolted, and their new
government managed to repel the foreigners from their homeland for
now.

Manetherin attacked Azwhepay and apparently succeeded to take
everything but Azwhepay main.

KingJohan attacked Golgoth and already carried the battle to Golgoth's
homeland, catapulting himself to the top of the power chart.

Inconclusive battles were fought by Kamoria / KingJohan and Uruk /
Zapotek.

     - = [   Empire Power Report   ] = -
      as of Wed May  5 09:35:47 2004


         sects  eff civ  mil  shell gun pet  iron dust oil  food pln ship money
KingJohan 160   78% 107K 2.6K 825  110  1.8K 5.0K 300  350   11K  90   50   10K
  Draenor 155   69%  96K 850  1.3K 180  1.1K 4.8K 350  350   14K  40  110  1.2K
     Uruk 135   85% 101K 1.9K 1.3K 170  750  3.1K 1.4K 850  5.1K  60   60  1.9K
     TZIA 145   72%  95K 1.4K 1.6K 145  1.6K 3.9K 1.2K 350  8.5K 130   90   10K
  Zapotek 140   77%  94K 1.6K 1.1K 115  450  5.5K 450  400   16K  70   90  2.4K
     Pern 120   86%  92K 1.1K 800  115  700  8.3K 6.9K 1.8K 8.1K  30   40  856 
   Aridon 165   71%  94K 1.4K 975  190  1.3K 3.4K 1.8K 1.8K  14K  20   40  1.8K
   UTOPIA 145   76%  93K 2.1K 475  120  650  3.0K 1.1K 550   10K  70   50  925 
 BlackBox 120   92%  94K 1.5K 1.1K 180  900  3.0K 1.1K 450   11K  70   70  1.5K
  Kamoria 160   68%  93K 1.2K 700  115  250  3.5K 1.0K 450  8.7K  50   80  560 
     beep 165   64%  92K 2.6K 1.1K  70  600  3.8K 1.3K 200  9.5K  50   50  1.4K
  Parpara 140   73%  92K 1.4K 850  130  950  3.5K 550  550  4.8K 100   20  2.4K
DiudeLand 130   80%  91K 2.1K 825  130  1.4K 2.9K 3.1K 1.6K 5.5K  30   20  3.4K
Manetheri 145   71%  90K 1.8K 1.4K 215  550  3.0K 1.9K 350  2.7K  50   30  535 
U.S.Madis 100  100%  93K 2.1K 1.4K 135  1.6K 2.2K 500  750  9.3K  30   20  1.2K
 Tormalin 100   99%  90K 1.9K 300   85  450  3.1K 850  850  2.5K  10   30   25K
Land_Of_F 100   97%  78K 1.0K 1.1K 100  3.5K 4.8K 300  450   30K  30    7   10K
 Azwhepay 100   86%  76K 1.9K 425   80  350  2.9K 4.3K 1.4K 9.2K  50   20  486 
pandatrax 100   80%  60K 2.2K 325  150  1.4K 6.6K 150  150  6.7K  20   30   15K
  Golgoth  70   81%  51K 500  600  115    0  1.4K 3.5K 2.0K  12K   0   20   10K
   Savoia 100   67%  43K 750  300   85  1.0K 3.6K 1.4K 1.2K 9.8K  20    4   15K
Indetermi 100   72%  29K 850  375   50   16  2.0K 1.5K 550  3.6K   1   20  330 
          ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
worldwide 2.8K  78% 1.8M  35K  19K 2.8K  21K  83K  35K  17K 212K 990  940  115K

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. Further surprises are possible, as Changeling runs snapshots
from the latest Wolfpack server development.

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

No games known to the Empire News ended in the previous month.

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Clients and Player Tools

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 2.4.2. Read the announcement at
http://groups.google.de/groups?selm=ae2bf018.0402270727.3aa11fa%40posting.google.com
and download 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.

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Server and Deity Information

The current Empire server is 4.2.13. Download it from
http://www.wolfpackempire.com/server.html or
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=24031

`payoff' is broken in 4.2.13. See
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=898130&group_id=24031&atid=380347

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From the Editor

This issue completes `my' first volume of the Empire News. Time
flies. What a nice start for an editorial. Except it's not true. I
just discovered that the first issue edited by me was 2003/05, so this
issue is already volume 2. Which shows that I can't even reliably
count to twelve.

It's been fun, but it's now time for me to pass on the baton. Jeff
Cotter agreed to serve as the new editor. Thanks, Jeff, and all the
best for your stint as editor!

Thanks to Geoff Cashman for talking me into doing it, and for
reviewing drafts. Thanks to the people who contributed stuff. I hope
you enjoyed the Empire News, and I hope you'll keep enjoying it.

Markus, a.k.a. Dorwinion

[Wolfpack note: A hearty THANK YOU to Markus for being editor of Empire News for the last year]

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Hint of the Month

This month's hint is on defense and proper placement of fortresses.

A fortress is both an asset and a liability. The former is obvious:
it fires at your enemies. If the latter isn't obvious to you, well,
it'll be obvious to your conqueror: it allows your enemies to fire at
you. Naturally, they have to capture the fortress first.

You need to defend your fortresses. Put military there, bury
land mines, dig in infantry. Sounds obvious, uh? But that's not
nearly enough. Pinpoint bombing can reduce defenders without
incapacitating the fortress. You need air cover. Throw in some
reacting units, and don't forget to limit their reaction range.

But that's still not enough. If you lose it, and the enemy opens up
on you, your return fire must be crippling. Every fortress should be
in the firing field of several more. Interlocking fields of fire.

Hide your fortresses. Don't allow anybody to map them cheaply with
radar, planes, spies, whatever, if you can help it.

The more fortresses you have, the harder it gets to triangulate them.
Triangulate? Read March's hint of the month!

Coastal fortresses are particularly risky. Not only are they rather
easy to spot, they're also vulnerable to assault. A landing ship
packs quite a punch! At the very least, mine the approach.

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Anno of the Month

I'm interpreting `month' a bit loosely this time. So sue me :)

From Retro Empire:

> Announcement from UTOPIA, (#4)  dated Fri Mar 26 14:33:22 2004
Picture the scene.

An ash strewn landscape with various objects littering the view.

slowly a small piece of soil seems to move upwards and then sideways.

A door swings up from the ground and a head peers across the burnt landscape and says "last bloody time we buy a nuclear proof door from Mith"

"Thirteen years of eating bloody luncheon meat!"

"Hang on what's happened here!"

Slowly the man pulls himself to the surface and picks up a few items

"We'll need to take these to Number 1"

Later in the vast under ground hall

"Number 1 sir, we have managed to open the door at last"

"IS THE SENATE BUILDING STILL THE SAME?"

"Err no"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN"

"Well the good news is the nuclear shelter worked, but the bad news is so did the bombs!"

"WHAT ITEMS ARE YOU CARRYING THERE?"

"Well we found these on the surface, some fluffy slippers"

"FLUFFY SLIPPERS?"

"Well, err... bunny slippers"

"WHAT ELSE?"

"A book about using Sinergy - how it will improve team working"

"ANYTHING ELSE?"

"Err yes"

"WHAT?"

"The user manual for the door - Door user guide by Mith"

"AND WHAT DOES IT SAY?"

"Err - READ THIS FIRST"

"OH WELL!"

Number 1 rises to his feet

"IT IS TIME FOR UTOPIA TO HELP THE WORLD REMEMBER THAT WHICH IS PERFECT"

"Err I think he needs his pills again!"

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