"On air. On sea. On land. Still the Internet's greatest wargame simulation."
"All the news that fits, we print."
November 24, 1994
In This Edition
o a new game Dwarven Chowder III has been announced (see New Games Announced).
o The name Xylum has been entered into the EMPIRE NEWS Hall of Fame as
the undisputed winner of Dwarven Chowder II (see Long Term Games).o The Puddle Planet tournament was aborted (see Long Term Games).
o A new game called "Dr. Pepper Weekend Madness" has started up
(see Long Term Games).o Pat Loney has released a beta version of an Empire client for MS
Windows 3.0 (see Clients).o Ashley A Thomas has released a beta version of an Empire client for
the Macintosh (see Clients).o Ken Stevens and Sam Tetherow have released version 1.5 of pei,
Empire's most popular client (see Clients).o Drake Diedrich has written a wonderful new Empire User's Guide in
hypertext (see Documentation).o The Server Team passed a milestone this week as the last two known
bugs in the threaded server were fixed. A beta release of the new
server should be released soon (see Server).o I have converted the EMPIRE NEWS and the EMPIRE FAQ in accordance
with RFC 1153 digest format. This is so that the sections will get
converted into hypertext nodes by WWW providers which automatically
process convert posts to news.answers into http format. To read the
EMPIRE NEWS using a World Wide Web browser, check out the URL:
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/games/empire/news/faq.html
Note that it usually takes about 24 hours from the time that the EMPIRE
NEWS is posted until this URL actually gets updated.
"Dwarven Chowder III: Armageddon"
Dwarven Chowder III will be a small world (48x96) with large (80
sector) start islands with two players apiece. These will be 20%
mountains so don't expect anything pretty. The start islands will
have 1 deity mil in each sector. Both starting land units will have 0
mobility. The world should be completely bridgable (with 2 spans)
although in no place are two start island bridgable. There will be 2
updates a day (32 ETUs apeice), one update at 11:00 EST and the other
at 23:00 EST.Note the following four non-standard modifications:
- damage incurred by shelling (and bombing) shall be twice as potent.
- interdiction against troop/commodity movement shall cause damage to the sector that the movement occured in.
- bridge tech is 20 (instead of 40)
- tech log base increased to 2.55 (easy tech)Game goes up: 27 Nov
First update: 28 Nov 11:00
Game down: 30 Nov 00:01 - 2 Dec 00:01
22 Dec 00:01 - 29 Dec 00:01If you are interested fill out and return the following form to
empire@woodbine.ewl.uky.edu
Country name:
Representative:
Email address:
Playing address (if different from above):
Number of games you have played before (approx.):
These are the long term games currently being run:
game name host port country password started ========================================================================== ARCTIC BLAST isumataq.eskimo.com 13715 Visitor visitor 12 Sep 94 Hidden III spoke.law.cornell.edu 1617 12 Sep 94 UAlberta Nuke brule.forsci.ualberta.ca 1617 Visitor Visitor 11 Oct 94 Dr. Pepper atlantis.edu 6666 19 Nov 94game name deity updates: frequency ETU's time ========================================================================== ARCTIC BLAST davef@eskimo.com 1/2 days 60 23:30 EST Hidden III waffen@spoke.law.cornell.edu 3/week 60 18:00 EST UAlberta Nuke empire@forsci.ualberta.ca 1/day 48 22:00 EST Dr. Pepper taylor@atlantis.edu see below 60 see below"Dwarven Chowder II"
has officially ended. Xylum (co-ruled by LV426 and Lothlorien) won a
landslide victory. Honourable mention goes to Xylum's ally and second
place holder on the final power chart: beep.The world was a 48X96, low ocean, lots of free land game with one 48
ETU update a day. There were 19 countries with 35 sector start
islands and approximately 20 sectors of free land apiece. The world was
completely bridgable, by a single span in most cases. The techbase was
2.55 yet the game lasted only a month. The following countries were
honoured at the end-of-game award ceremony:
Guppy Award: Shockwave (first ship)
First Blood Award: Fyrrum (attacking Raupo)
First Kill Award: beep (annexing Magar)
Monty Hall Award: Xylum (first trade ship scuttled (in beep's harbour))
Red Baron Award: Shockwave (first plane)Here's the top of the final power chart from Dwarven Chowder II:
sects eff civ mil shell gun pet iron dust oil pln ship unit money Xylum 568 89% 399K 11K 3.1K 283 2.3K 85K 6.2K 10K 41 426 83 75K 16968.94 beep 155 92% 116K 3.8K 1.1K 302 734 29K 312 6.9K 25 37 53 36K 4843.50 Park Plac 136 96% 103K 3.4K 913 188 253 29K 945 6.3K 0 9 19 35K 3790.10 Raupo 132 89% 89K 2.6K 1.1K 119 931 17K 293 3.8K 0 7 8 9.9K 3342.62"PuddlePlanet"
The demise of the PuddlePlanet tournament is a sad story. To briefly
sum up. Some Goof(tm) wanted to run a MUD on the same port, and when he got a socket conflict, complained to the sysadmin who promptly shut down the Empire game. After a determined, but unsuccessful effort to move PuddlePlanet to a new machine, the game was officially called off."ARCTIC BLAST"
Arctic Blast is being played on a 160x80 world, with 40 sectors start
islands and lots of sprinkle islands. Here are the top four
countries:sects eff civ mil shell gun pet iron dust oil pln ship unit money FortWhoop 280 97% 215K 7.8K 5.1K 495 2.5K 72K 12K 13K 20 70 30 185K BayNetwor 200 94% 137K 5.3K 4.0K 535 1.7K 46K 4.3K 9.3K 40 40 50 150K Arrakis 195 94% 143K 5.2K 4.0K 480 4.8K 28K 5.2K 5.1K 70 60 40 135K Kryptycth 165 90% 90K 5.2K 3.2K 270 1.8K 51K 2.2K 9.8K 40 40 20 10KHidden III
is played on 140x100 medium resources world with 26 sector start
islands. Other countries are "hidden" from you in the sense that:
Power: Will only display your country's power.
Report: Will only report on contacted countries, and no status.
Relat: Will only display contacted countries.
News: Will only show news about contacted countries.
Accep: Will only display contacted countries.
Tele: Only allowed with contacted and deity countries.
Hidden III has the following "non-standard" parameters:
- Ships gain a max of 60% eff per update.
- Civs suffer higher damage from shelling, etc.
- Mob used in an attack is: 10 (normally 5)
- Research must be 50% of tech for nukes.
- Mob costs to place units on a mission is: 32
- Tech is lag base 2.55, with 1 easy tech.
- Tech bleed is higher than normal.
- War declaration costs: $100, not $1000. (sneak attacks are still $5000)"UAlberta NUKEFEST"
is being played on a 128x128 world. All countries began at tech 190 with
the first nuke available at tech 235 and the first "good" nuke at tech
300 (there will be some very large nukes in this game). Start islands
were 80 sectors (so you wouldn't get taken completely out by a single
100mt blast) using the Riverworld setup (see Blitzes). Every
country started with $100K. Continents are 6 sectors apart (i.e. not
bridgeable). The game is played with the MAD option (auto nuke
retaliation). Here are the top four countries on the power chart:sects eff civ mil shell gun pet iron dust food oil pln ship money Tallistan 200 91% 156K 6.1K 2.9K 400 3.8K 33K 3.7K 58K 8.4K 70 30 45K MILF 110 75% 59K 2.4K 750 125 500 6.7K 2.0K 19K 2.9K 5 10 1.2M Fyff 130 95% 85K 2.3K 4.7K 760 2.6K 29K 1.1K 60K 2.3K 50 6 135K Uesugi 185 86% 99K 1.8K 3.8K 100 1.1K 10K 1.7K 63K 3.4K 60 30 55K"Dr. Pepper Weekend Madness"
Updates 1 hour apart starting at 10am EST every Saturday and Sunday.
The game will run till there's a winner or Christmas, whatever comes
first. Updates at 10am, 11, 12, 1pm, 2, 3, 4 on Saturdays and Sundays
only. Chainsaw 3.3 code. 96x64 world with 40 sector start islands
and not so nice resources.If you want to receive mail regarding new games starting up, send mail
to empire-announce-request@engg.ksu.edu with the subject line "subscribe".
Here is a list of the players who have attained Empire Immortality
through winning a long term Empire game:Game Started Ended Winner(s) ========================================================================== UAlberta Invitat'l I ----fall 1992---- Graahoeje Vulgaria UAlberta Spring ---Spring 1993--- Revelstone Unnamed ---spring 1993--- Sioux UAlberta Invitat'l II ----Fall 1993---- Revelstone Hidden II Jan 94 30 May 94 Menace_2_Society (Lothlorien) Mr. X (Mantarr & duckland) children Kaos Junkiefest II Apr 94 30 May 94 BLT Found Apr 94 Jul 94 Rad_Zone Riverworld Nov 93 23 Jul 94 Mirkwood JunkieFest IV 17 Jun 94 8 Aug 94 Darkland Stalker Second_Foundation Dwarven Chowder I 17 Jun 94 8 Aug 94 LV426 Pepsi (Mithrilien & CrackHouse) Fodderland (Krikkit,Mantarr & duckland) Smorgasboard 22 May 94 8 Aug 94 LV426 Lothlorien European Empire VI 19 Jul 94 30 Aug 94 Arkhangel (Temekula) Paris (Lothlorien) UAlberta Open 7 Aug 94 22 Sep 94 Redline Dwarven Chowder II 4 Oct 94 4 Nov 94 Xylum (LV426 & Lothlorien) honourable mention: beep
Current ProjectsThese 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 EST Levante zwetsche.ethz.ch 3000 1-15 1-15 10 min 03:30 EST"Riverworld"
If you have trouble connecting to the Riverworld blitz, try
opus.chem.psu.edu instead (the "random" machine is being moved this
month). The first update is at 20:30 EST. 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). This game now has HUGE nuclear weapons with bleed to sanctuary nations enabled, so if you connect in the afternoon, you should be able to try out the big nuke toys.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-request@engg.ksu.edu with the subject line "subscribe".
These are the projects that Empire coders are currently working on:
project author platform language last correspondence =========================================================================== MEC1.1 Client Ashley A Thomas Macintosh THINK Pascal 21 Nov 94 myxec-0.3 Ulrich Drepper X Windows C 21 Nov 94 Win3 client Pat Loney MS Windows C++ 21 Nov 94 pei 2.0 Ken & Sam UNIX perl 23 Nov 94 Users.Guide Geoff Cashman English 21 Nov 94 WISH LIST Ken Huisman 21 Nov 94"last correspondence" refers to the date that the EMPIRE NEWS last
received email from the author.Mac Client
Version 1.1 will port many of the features of pei to the macintosh
(history substitution, aliasing, functions, scripting, tools, etc.).
But the true intent of this development project is to eventually
create a client (VMEC) that takes advantage of the macintosh's
gaphical nature.myxec-0.3
Ulrich Drepper hopes to release version 0.3 of myxec sometime
"reasonably soon".Win3 client:
Development is on hold as Pat is preparing to deity a new long term game.pei 2.0
Ken Stevens and Sam Tetherow are working together to improve pei. Sam has been working on alot of extensions for deities recently which
should be available soon. They hope to add many new features which
may be found in the "WISH_LIST" file in the package. The big change
from the pei 1.* series to the pei 2.* series will be the way pei
communicates with the socket. The most recent version of pei is
always available on euromath.dk in /pub/incoming (see Clients).Users.Guide:
Geoff Cashman is revising the Empire Users Guide, adding documentation
for land units, missions, starv, budget, bestpath, and other features
which have been added in the Chainsaw code. His progress got
temporarily stalled about a month ago, for about three weeks. He just
got back to it last week and is making ok progress again. In fact,
there is a three week time period around Christmas when he will have a
great deal of time (potentially) to work on it. He hopes to have the
first release ready around February. He is always open to
suggestions, and anyone who wants to make comments about what might go into the guide or ideas about it etc is welcome to email him (see
Who's Who?).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 Huisman (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 of the game
2) It shall not be too complex (Empire is complex enough already!)
3) It shall not change the game in any fundamental way
If the client has an 'x' in the first column, then it is in:
ftp.cis.ksu.edu:/pub/Games/Empire/clients
Otherwise, read the description of the client to find out where you can get it.ksu submitted name size author system lang works? ============================================================================== x Jun 23 93 empclient-1.1.tar.Z 20 Dave Pare & company Unix C yes x May 27 94 eif1.0.2.tar.Z 160 Doug Hay Unix C yes Nov 12 94 pei.1.5.tar.Z 155 Ken & Sam Unix perl yes x Apr 19 93 xemp5.0.02.tar.Z 1333 Etienne X-windows C yes Jan 18 94 myxec-0.2.tar.gz 529 Ulrich Drepper X-Windows C yes Oct 21 94 genie-0.2.tar.gz 33 Markus Armbruster Emacs elisp yes x Apr 27 93 VMS/* 93 Donald Harper VMS C yes x Apr 19 93 VM_CMS/* 55 Sam Tetherow VM/CMS REXX yes x Nov 2 94 win3_b.zip 65 Pat Loney MS Win3 C++ yes x Nov 2 94 MEC_1.0.0.cpt.hqx 23 Ashley A Thomas Macintosh C yesempclient-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.pei.1.5 - Perl Empire Interface
is a powerful tool for playing Empire written by Ken Stevens and Sam
Tetherow. There are too many features to list here. Suffice it to
say that if you're an experienced Empire player, you'll appreciate all of
the sophisticated time-saving tools that are built into pei. Download
the latest version from euromath.dk in pub/incoming and never reach
for your calculator again.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.info.uni-karlsruhe.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, Emacs comint mode features
(like shell mode), plus a map window, variable and function
substitution. Function substitution remotely resembles shell
functions, but the functions are written in Emacs Lisp, of course.
Predefined functions include one to define ordinary aliases.
The most recent version is available at:
i44ftp.info.uni-karlsruhe.de:pub/misc/empire/emacs/
(This description was written by Markus)VMS client 4.0
is a client for VMS systems.VM/CMS empclient
is a client for VM/CMS systems.Win3 Empire Client
is the beta release of a client for MS Windows 3.0 which uses winsock
and tcpip.MEC_1.0.0.cpt.hqx - Mac Empire Client
MEC (Macintosh Empire Client) is a communications tool which
provides an interface between the macintosh user and an empire server.
Version 1.0 is a port of the unix program 'empclient-1.1'. It
requires System 7.0 and MacTCP.To add your client to the KSU archive, send email to Karl S. Hagen
(see Who's Who?) and he'll tell you what to do.
By far the best introduction to Empire may be found on the World Wide Web at: http://random.chem.psu.edu/empire/guide.html
The Empire FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) is available at:
rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.answers/games/empire/faq
and in hypertext format: http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/games/empire/faq/faq.htmlAnother description of what empire is may be found in:
ftp.cis.ksu.edu:/pub/Games/Empire/WhatIsEmpire-FAQ.txtChainsaw info pages:
ftp.cis.ksu.edu:/pub/Games/Empire/docs/chainsaw.3.0.info.tar.Z
The info pages are also available on WWW at:
http://random.chem.psu.edu/empire/info/Users Guide (presently being revised)
ftp.cis.ksu.edu:/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.shDrake 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.ZServer Project
A team of coders has been working on improving the Empire Server.
Dave Pare merged the three main server programs into one monolith
server.There are now no known bugs in the new server. Ken Huismann is
presently applying the Linux patches to it. Once he is done, he will
make available a beta test version of the new server. In the mean
time, he will RCSify the source. Once this is done, he will post the
WISH LIST to the Server Team, and the coders on the team will each
take a copy of the new server and begin coding the items on the WISH
LIST. They will send patches to Ken Husmann and he will apply them to
the new server using RCS. The server will be tested via an
auto-resetting blitz which will always use the most recent version of
the code. If all goes well, most of the important items on the WISH
LIST will be addressed within a year and we will have a vastly
improved Empire 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 month). 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
Drake Diedrich maintains an Empire WWW page at:
http://random.chem.psu.edu/empire/
which includes the "harmless guide to empire", 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.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.What's the World Wide Web? See for yourself. To quote Drake
Diedrich, "It is way cool."You can find the World Wide Web FAQ in:
rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/faq
It is posted frequently to the newsgroup comp.infosystems.www.users,
and may be found on the Web at:
http://sunsite.unc.edu/boutell/faq/www_faq.htmlYou can obtain Lynx, the standard vt100 WWW client, via anonymous ftp to: ftp2.cc.ukans.edu:/pub/lynx/lynx2-3.tar.Z
In alphabetical order, here is a list of Empire deities and coders:Name Country Deity of email
==============================================================================
Markus Armbruster armbru@pond.sub.org
Dan Bennett (retired) Eurasia (Kent State)
Geoff Cashman Mithrilien cashman@silver.ucs.indiana.ed
Drake Diedrich harmless Riverworld dld@random.chem.psu.edu
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)
David Fish Imzadi ARCTIC BLAST davef@eskimo.com
Monte Freeman Fizban (P.I.N.G) empire@empire.ping.com
Jim Gillogly Banzai, POE
Dustin L Graham Dwarven dusty@mik.uky.edu
Karl S. Hagen Greyhelm greyhelm@engg.ksu.edu
Don Harper Duckland harper_d@uhdux2.dt.uh.edu
Stefan Hauser Rohan etienne@imp.ch
Doug Hay (retired) Aliens dhay@thinknet.thinknet.com
Ken Huisman UAlberta ken@forsci.ualberta.ca
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 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 simons@plains.nodak.edu
Ken Stevens children (Kaiserdome) stevens@math.toronto.edu
Ken Taylor Hades Dr. Pepper taylor@atlantis.edu
Sam Tetherow(Drazz'zt) Khazad'ur Dwarven tetherow@cse.unl.edu
Ashley A Thomas ase@cyberspace.org
Keith Thompson Gunjin (Merc) keith@altum.com
Rob Watkins (retired) Lersing (Merc) robertw@calvin.usc.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 with "EMPIRE NEWS" in the subject line.
Ken Stevens a.k.a. Buster, ruler of children
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = The Empire News is a publication of Wolfpack Empire, bringing = = you the best in Empire since 1996. If you would like to add = = content (new games, games ending, new web sites, hints, = = Anno of the Month submissions, etc. to the next edition of = = the Empire News, please contact the editor at = = empnews@wolfpackempire.com = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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