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Deity.doc
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Being the Empire Deity
The Deity in Empire has considerable power. He (I'll use 'he' to avoid
having to type 'he/she' all the time) can examine and alter any country,
sector or ship, and can change dozens of parameters which affect the play
of the game. Ideally, the Deity would be the person on whose machine Empire
is running. He would use EmpCre to create the world, look it over to make
sure it doesn't have any problems, perhaps fix up some problems, or go with
an entirely new world, and then would supervise the running of the world,
being ready to fix up anything that might need it. In practice, everybody
wants to have a country, so no unbiased individual is available to be the
Deity. I've gone to some trouble to try to make EmpCre always create a
playable world, and hopefully Empire doesn't have any bugs that would
require fixup by the Deity, so most games can proceed without one. For your
first one or two Empire games, you can probably play without a Deity, so
you do not need to read this writeup.
The presence of an active Deity can change the nature of the game, so you
should be sure that all of the players want an active Deity before becoming
one. For example, the original Peter Langston documentation suggests that
prayers, in the form of telegrams to the Deity, can often result in sector
improvements, terrain rearrangement, etc. in return for offerings of gold,
ships, efficiency, etc. This sort of thing may be just what your group
wants (especially if you are becoming bored with "standard" Empire), but it
might ruin the game as far as others are concerned.
The Deity can also change many parameters which affect the progress of an
Empire game. For example, the production costs of shells, guns, planes,
bars of gold, and ships can all be changed. Doing so before the game gets
under way, with the full knowledge of the players, can result in a game
with a different flavour. Doing so without the knowledge of the players can
result in an adventure-like touch - the players will have to try various
things to see how they go. These changes can also be made during the course
of the game, (perhaps as a result of "inventions", "strikes", or whatever),
forcing the players to re-evaluate their strategies.
There are also some parameters that can be changed during the creation of a
world with EmpCre. These affect such things as terrain distribution, iron
and gold deposits, etc. These can, of course, only be done before the game
is underway.
Several Empire commands have special code to handle the Deity. The Deity
can see all ships and sectors (sunk ships show up with an asterisk). He can
also designate any sector (including mountains and sea) to be anything else
(including mountain and sea). More special case code could be added, but so
far there has been no need for it.
There are three Empire commands that are available only to the Deity. These
are: edit, examine, and translate. The dump command also produces slightly
more information when used by the Deity - see the command description for
more details. The three new commands are described in detail here:
translate <country> <sector>
translates a sector given in the coordinate scheme of <country> to
the universal coordinate scheme (which the Deity uses). This allows
the Deity to locate a sector described by another player.
examine
displays information about the requested item, usually in a not
very readable format. In particular, the various forms display:
examine country <country>
- origin (absolute coordinates of capital)
- technology and research levels
- sectors owned, money held, btu's left, last play time
- minutes left, country status, name, password
- value of all 4 realms
- telegram pointers
- relations to all other countries (Neutral/Allied/at War)
- fleet numbers of any active fleets
examine sector <sector>
- designation, row, column, last update time
- iron and gold deposits, checkpoint code, number of ships there
- production units, mobility, efficiency, plague stage and time
- defender code, contract price
- unscaled quantities, delivery direction and delivery thesholds
examine ship <ship>
- last update time, owner, price per ton if for sale
- which fleet it is in (relative to the country which owns it)
- its position in absolute coordinates
- efficiency, mobility, and the stuff it is carrying
examine fleet <fleet-number>
- shows the ships that are in the fleet
examine loan <loan>
- who it is from and who it is to
- date of last payment and the due date
- current amount, amount paid, duration (half hours), interest rate
- current state - offered, declined, outstanding, paid-up
examine world
- number of rows and columns in the world
- number of countries active and allowed in the world
- current maximum connect time in half-hours
- country creation password
- number of loans, treaties, offers and ships currently existing
- weather factors - speed, position and value of the high and low
edit
allows the Deity to change all sorts of things. Each thing will be
numeric, and will be displayed after a description of it, followed
by the description again as a prompt. If you just hit RETURN, the
value will be unchanged. If you enter something that is invalid or
out of range, the prompting will continue. Several random factors
in Empire are determined from two values. One is the base value,
which represents the minimum, the other is the random value, which
represents the maximum amount that will be added to the minimum.
I.e. they are used as value := random(rand) + base
The following descriptions will often have notes about the effect
of changing a given value:
edit country <country>
- status - country status. The assigned codes are:
0 - deity - this isn't tested anywhere - country number 0
is the test for deity status
1 - active - the normal status
2 - dead - no sectors left
3 - quit - the country has quit (not implemented)
4 - idle - no one has claimed the country yet. In a pinch you
can un-claim the last claimed country by setting its status
back to this, decrementing the number of active countries
(edit world), and undoing any changes that the player made.
- sectorCount - the number of sectors that the country owns. This
is used to tell when a country has become dead. It is updated
whenever the country gains or loses a sector. In case I missed
one or two, it is also recomputed when the country does an
update without specifying a region (i.e. when update is asked
to recompute realm #0). Be sure to update these values if you
change the ownership of a sector. If for example, you decide to
build a river between an overzealous aggressor and a weak
neighbour, decrement the count of whoever used to own the
sectors (and change the owner field of the sectors).
- technology and research levels, money in the bank
- BTU's remaining - additional BTU's are probably the least radical
gift that can be given to a country in trouble. Don't try to go
over 96, however.
- timer - minutes of connect time left today. These are reset to
the maximum (see edit world) the first time the country logs in
after midnight. Gifts of additional time can also be useful for
countries with problems. NOTE: the 'bump' command, which can be
given at the local console, will add 1 minute of connect time
to the remote country logged in.
- coordinates of capital - you could change these to move a new
country that is in a poor position. Remember to change the
ownership, etc. of any relevant sectors.
edit sector <sector>
- owner - change the ownership of the sector - remember to change
the sectorCounts of the relevant countries.
- iron - iron ore deposit richness
- gold - gold ore deposit richness
- checkPoint - why would you want to change this?
- shipCount - each sector contains the count of how many ships
Empire thinks are there. This is used to speed up flying -
Empire doesn't have to check for anti-aircraft fire from sea
sectors that have no ships. Nothing TOO serious would go wrong
if this count was wrong, but you should fix them up when you
move ships around anyway. If you find a case where it gets
wrong, please let me know. Note that sunk ships don't count.
- production, mobility, efficiency - straightforward
- plague stage - see the pseudocode for sector updates in the
regular manual for details on the various stages
- plague time - time remaining in the current stage (half hours)
- contract price - in nickels - a nonzero here is how Empire knows
that the sector is contracted.
- item (commodity) quantities - these ARE scaled, so if you want to
put 1270 guns into a warehouse, enter 1270
edit ship <ship>
- owner - country number of the owner
- price - sale price per ton of the ship (0 => ship not for sale)
- efficiency
- mobility - can go negative for ships (see torpedo command)
- row, column - in absolute (Deity) coordinates. If you move the
ship, remember to change the shipCount of the relevant sectors.
- crew, shells, guns, planes, ore, bars - straightforward
edit world
- maximum number of users - you could decrement this to get rid of
a country that no-one has taken, to prevent anyone from taking
it. It is conceivable that you could create a new country, but
I haven't tried it - you would have to increment this number,
find a place for the sanctuaries, build them, change their
ownerships, totally initialize the new country, etc. "edit
country" does not let you edit all of the values in the
Country_t structure, but the full array of them is initialized
by EmpCre, so you'll probably be OK.
- current number of users - you could decrement this to wipe out
the last country created - see "edit country"
- maximum connect time in half-hours - range is 1 to 6. If you want
the change to immediately affect all of the countries, you'll
have to go edit them appropriately.
- next loan, treaty, offer, ship, fleet - changing these can undo a
slipup, but be careful, and backup before you do it.
edit weather
Empire weather is based on a pair of pressure centers - one high
and one low. The strength of the two centers, combined with the
distance of a sector from them, yields the weather in that sector.
The two centers move in a semi-random walk. The row and column
increments (range -4 to +4) are the speed in quarter sectors per
half hour that the centers move. The current positions (row and
columns) are also in quarter sectors, thus they range from 0 to the
size of the world * 4 - 1. The given pressure values should range
between the relevant minimum and maximum. Bad weather is the only
important kind. To make more bad weather, decrease the values of
loMin and loMax (and perhaps of hiMin and hiMax). You can move the
systems directly, but its more realistic to guide them to the
desired places over time.
- hiRowInc, hiColInc - speed of the hi pressure center
- loRowInc, loColInc - speed of the lo pressure center
- hiRow, hiCol - position of the hi pressure center
- loRow, loCol - position of the lo pressure center
- hiMin, hiMax - range of the hi pressure
- loMin, loMax - range of the lo pressure
- hiPressure, loPressure - values of the centers
edit production
Costs in production units of
- research (medical breakthroughs), technology (technological
advances)
- guns, shells, planes, gold bars
edit mobilities
Mobility costs of various actions/movements
- mountMob - basic cost of moving onto a mountain
- wildMob - basic cost of moving onto a wilderness
- defMob - basic cost of moving onto a "normal" sector
- civMob - cost of moving 5 civilians
- milMob - cost of moving 5 military
- shellMob - cost of moving 5 shells
- gunMob - cost of moving 1 gun
- planeMob - cost of moving 1 plane
- oreMob - cost of moving 5 tons of iron ore
- barMob - cost of moving 1 bar of gold
- attack costs - costs of attacking from various types of sectors
to various other types of sectors.
edit plague
Edit the various factors that influence plague.
- plagueKiller - this value scales the number of people who will
die when a sector is in the third plague stage. A larger value
will result in LESS people dieing.
- plagueBooster - this value adds to the probability of getting
plague, by increasing the plague factor. It is added to the top
line in the plague factor formula.
- plagueOneBase, plagueOneRand - determine length of stage one
- plagueTwoBase, plagueTwoRand - determine length of stage two
- plagueThreeBase, plagueThreeRand - determine length of stage three
edit costs
Edit various monetary costs.
- efficCost - cost of each increase in sector efficiency
- milSuppliesCost - affects the cost of military supplies. A larger
value means LESS cost.
- utilityRate - cost per half hour of utilities in a sector
- interestRate - interest rate per bar per half hour in percent
- bridgeCost - cost in dollars of a bridge span
- shipCostMult - cost in dollars per production unit for ships
edit scales
Edit various work scale factors. All of these are multiplicative
factors with 100 being the neutral position. Increasing them will
increase the production rate as appropriate.
- resScale - production in reasearch institutes
- techScale - in technology centers
- defenseScale - defense planes
- shellScale - shell industries
- airportScale - airports
- harborScale - harbors
- bridgeScale - bridge heads
- goldScale - gold mines
- ironScale - iron mines
- shipWorkScale - improvements in ships
edit updates
Edit factors affecting sector updates.
- efficScale - scale efficiency increases - 100 is neutral
- mobilScale - scale mobility increases - 100 is neutral
- urbanGrowthFactor - larger value slows down civilian growth in
urban centers
- bridgeDieFactor - larger value slows down civilian deaths on a
bridge span
- highGrowthFactor - larger value slows down civilian growth in
non-urban center sectors with 32 - 96 civilians
- lowGrowthFactor - larger value slows down civilian growth in
non-urban center sectors with < 32 or > 96 civilians
- BTUDivisor - larger value will slow down the production of BTU's
in country's capitals
- resDecreaser - larger value will speed up the decrease in
research level over time (due to obsolescence, etc.)
- techDecreaser - larger value will speed up the decrease in
technology level over time.
- hurricaneLandBase, hurricaneLandRand - yield the percent of
damage done to land sectors by hurricanes
- hurricaneSeaBase, hurricaneSeaRand - yield the percent of damage
done to ships by hurricanes
edit fighting
Edit various factors that affect fighting of various kinds.
- assFortAdv - the defensive advantage of forts being assaulted
- assCapAdv - the defensive advantage of capitals being assaulted
- assBankAdv - the defensive advantage of banks being assaulted
- attFortAdv - the defensive advantage of forts being attacked
- attCapAdv - the defensive advantage of capitals being attacked
- attBankAdv - the defensive advantage of banks being attacked
- assAdv - the defensive advantage of any sector being assaulted.
This one is a scale factor with 100 being neutral.
- fortAdv - attack advantage of forts at 100% efficiency
- boardAdv - the defensive advantage of defenders during a board
attempt. A scale factor with 100 being neutral.
edit sea
Edit various factors relevant to sea conflict.
- torpCost - number of shells needed for one torpedo
- torpMobCost - mobility lost when fire a torpedo - note that the
first shot sets mobility to 0. If this is 0, then there is no
cost at all.
- torpRange - maximum range of torpedos
- torpAcc0 - percent hit for torpedo at range 0
- torpAcc1 - percent hit for torpedo at range 1 (orthogonal)
- torpAcc2 - percent hit for torpedo at range 2 (diagonal)
- torpAcc3 - percent hit for torpedo at greater ranges
- torpBase, torpRand - determine torpedo damage (which will be
scaled by the damage factor of the target ship)
- chargeCost - cost in shells for one depth charge
- chargeMobCost - mobility cost, similar to torpedos
- chargeBase, chargeRand - depth charge damage (times sub factor)
- mineBase, mineRand - damage done by a mine (times ship factor)
edit air
Edit some factors affecting airplanes.
- fuelTankSize - amount of fuel a plane can carry
- fuelRichneess - multiplier for mobility -> plane fuel
- flakFactor - larger value decreases hits by flak
- landScale - scale chances of landing - 100 is neutral
- bombBase, bombRand - damage done by a bomb
- planeBase, planeRand - damage done by a crashing plane
edit miscellaneous
Edit a few miscellaneous factors.
- contractScale - scale the value of contracts offered
- deathFactor - cost in 100ths of a BTU per death of an attacker in
an attack, assault or board
- gunMax - maximum guns usable by a sector (normally 7)
- rangeDivisor - larger values decrease gun range
- gunScale - scale damage by guns (100 is neutral)
- lookShipFact - smaller value means ships can be visually seen
further away
- collectScale - scales the value of a sector which someone is
trying to sieze when collecting a loan - 100 is neutral.
- radarFactor - larger values increase the range of land-based
radar
- spyFactor - smaller value makes it more likely that a spy will be
detected
edit naval cost
Edit the costs in production units of the various ship types
edit naval size
Edit the size (likelihood of being seen) of the ships
edit naval lrange
Edit the lookout ranges of ships
edit naval shrange
Edit the firing ranges of ships
edit naval capacity
Edit the capacities of ships (including guns, shells, etc.)
edit naval speed
Edit the mobility requirements of ships
edit naval damage
Edit the damage multiplier of the ship types