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

(first ever edition by Mark Ballinger)

"All the news that fits, we print."
October, 1995
Vol. 2, No. 8

In This Edition

What's New

The Editor
of the EMPIRE NEWS is now Mark Ballinger (who usually plays the country
Uesugi). Ken Stevens has given up this position due to time limitations.

Windows client development team
Tero Pananaan is heading up the project.

Bayou Blast
Dave Fish has announced a new long term game.

Bug Hunt III
Bug Hunt III will begin in early November. Registration is not yet open.

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

Empire2.3 is out of beta
Yet more improvements to the new server were coded this month. See New Server below for more details.

Sam Tetherow has taken over responsibility for pei. pei 2.3p is a beta release

BugHunt I
Was won by CCCP.

Arctic Blast II
Was won by Zzang and Blighty.

Thematic I
Was won by Barsoom.

BTBT Finals
Finished with no winner. LV426, Barsoom and Lothlorien led at the end.

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New games starting up

Bayou Blast
This new long term game will be hosted by Dave Fish, the deity of Arctic Blast and World War II. Dave promises heavy violence, with 24 countries squeezed into a tiny map and no free islands. Bayou Blast will run on the new server, thanks to suggestions from players. The game opens on October 21, with the first update on Tuesday, October 24. Updates will be every three days. Those interested should send the following information to davef@eskimo.com:
Your real name:
Country:
Password:
Your Email address:
Experience level:
Dave requests that co-rulers be identified, "... if'n ya gots (one)."

Bug Hunt III
Registration is not open yet, so please hold back until a posting is made to rec.games.empire. Bug Hunt III will start in early November, with shared start islands, scant resources, and the options SLOW_WAR and HIDDEN.

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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: "BugHunt II", and "British III". "Insanity II" is still going.

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Client

Tero Pananaan heads up Windows client development team As part of a CS program, four coders under the direction of Tero Pananaan will be writing a Windows Empire client. This is their main project for the year.

X Windows Empire Client
Julian Onions has release a version of the Xemp client compatible with the
new Empire 2 server.

pei2.3p beta
Sam Tetherow is now responsible for the "perl empire interface". You can
find it on the PEA in player/clients/ (http://www.empire.net/~children/PEA/player/clients/).

Empire Toolkit for Clients is in the works
All future client will link with the empire toolkit being coded by Kevin Morgan. The toolkit with synchronize client data with the server, using the C_SYNC protocol. See below under "New Server" for more information.

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New Server

The New Empire2 Server
If you'd like to try running the new server (http://www.empire.net/~children/PEA/deity/server), it is available on PEA. Many platforms have been tested with the server, and a new configuration process helps get things going.

Beginning this month, there will be a split in server development. Empire2 will continue to be supported, and around the end of the year Empire3 is due for release. Empire3 includes the C_SYNC protocol, which allows the client to keep information about the player's and enemies' countries. The
latest draft of the C_SYNC RFC (http://www.empire.net/~children/PEA/deity/docs) can be downloaded from the PEA.

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 Empire2".

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 (with current traffic about 150 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@empire.net with the body content: subscribe

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Old Server

The Chainsaw Server
(http://www.empire.net/~children/ftp/deity/server/chainsaw.3.32.tar.gz)
This is the server that most people are using to run their games. Note
that the Chainsaw server now works under Linux!

Empire Tools (http://www.empire.net/~children/ftp/deity/tools/emptools.tar.gz)
If you do not have GNUmake or mkmf on your system, then you will also need to get this so that you can compile the server.

Linux mkmf (http://www.empire.net/~children/ftp/deity/tools/mkmf.linux.tar.gz)
Linux users will need to get this version of mkmf.

Deity Handbook
(ftp://ftp.Empire.Net/pub/empire/deity/docs/Deity.handbook.v1.tar.gz)
Chad Zabel has written a guide to help Deities compile and run the Empire
Server. Here is the table of contents:
1 Getting the source code and compiling the game.
2 Making modifications to the existing code.
3 Seting up a game: world generation, resources, adding countries.
4 Running a game: Deity commands and scripts.
5 Where to Get Help: fixing, debuging, and updating the source code.

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 r.g.e, please read and heed this
document.

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This month's winners

BugHunt I
was won by CCCP. The game had two goals, the traditional power winner and the most prolific debugger. Found bugs yielded cash awards the the first reporting country. CCCP took top honors in both categories.

        sects  eff civ  mil  shell gun pet  iron dust oil  pln ship unit money
    CCCP 635   97% 696K  15K  27K 2.3K  30K 336K 5.5K  29K 920    3  180  205K
 TheBorg 270   97% 315K 6.0K 3.6K 500   10K  94K 1.8K 9.6K  40   30   40  105K
 Krikkit  70   98% 120K 1.1K 3.6K 375  1.2K  11K 250  4.3K  90    0   20  510K
 Lorphos 155   99% 145K 5.4K 6.9K 240  2.7K  70K 1.8K 5.3K  40    0   30  280K

- = [ BugHunt I Chief Buggers ] = -

             Country    Bug money
                CCCP         8700
             TheBorg         8050
           Khazad'ur         7950
             Lorphos         4670

Arctic Blast II
was won by Zzang and Blighty. At the start, each of 10 islands had three
countries, with fighting beginning right after the second update. The top
two finishers were pretty much unstoppable by any players, and it took a
vicious hacker attack on the Arctic host to hold them down. Fortunately,
the game survived.

         sects  eff civ  mil  shell gun pet  iron dust oil  pln ship unit money
    Zzang 552   93% 371K  16K  12K 934  5.1K 142K 7.4K  16K 179  133  168   56K
 42345.29
  Blighty 544   92% 432K 9.7K 8.7K 883  6.0K  84K  14K  15K 208   71  115   99K
 39113.23
     Dora 292   95% 241K  11K 7.7K 722  4.4K  53K 8.2K 3.0K 149   73   64   52K
 23013.21
   Poland 179   99% 148K 5.1K 5.0K 311  1.7K  47K 3.7K 4.6K  92   39   78   20K
 16167.66

Thematic I
was won by Barsoom. The only free land available was a huge wilderness
continent. Barsoom and Cathouse formed an alliance after discovery, and
they and ST:TEG held the only viable colonies.

         sects  eff civ  mil  shell gun pet  iron dust oil  pln ship unit money
  Barsoom 455   94% 319K  15K 6.3K 755  9.0K  82K  10K  19K 280  110  230  110K
  Solvind 220   95% 156K 6.2K 5.5K 765  4.5K  60K 3.0K  11K  60  130   80   30K
   ST:TEG 200   95% 158K 7.0K 2.9K 440  2.8K  53K 900   11K  30  110   70  255K
 Cathouse 200   92% 146K  13K 3.5K 645  1.9K  22K 9.1K 3.0K  80  110  130   35K

BTBT Final
ended without any clear winner, the only outcome deity Pat Loney would
allow. LV426, Barsoom and Lothlorien led when the game went down.

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This Newsletter

With this issue, Mark Ballinger will be 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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