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Version 1.0 of Empire by Chris Gray Version 1.3w by David Wright Starting your own game of Empire This manual is in 2 sections. The first describes the EmpCre program, which is used to generate a world for Empire. The other section is about being the Deity in a game. It is suggested you read BOTH sections before actually using EmpCre (knowing what you can do as the deity may influence how you want to set up the world). NOTE: Version 1.1w now require 3 separate volumes: EmpMisc:, EmpHelp:, and EmpSect:. This allows someone with only floppy drives to run a full-featured 64x64 or 128x128 game. It is best not to set EmpHelp: and EmpMisc: to the same directory, as this will save on access time. EmpMisc:telegrams news files *Empire.hangMess <- Displayed after a "correct" hangup *Empire.logMess <- Displayed when logon successful *Empire.conMess <- Displayed when carrier detected *Empire.access <- States your rules for access (how to join) *Empire.bulletin <- Displayed in newspaper EmpHelp:All help files EmpSect:Empire.sectors * = System owner must create this file Using EmpCre EmpCre is the program which creates new worlds for use with Empire. It gives some flexibility in the general characteristics of the world generated, but it does not allow for the modification of the many parameters that are used during Empire play. Those parameters can be modified by the Deity using Empire itself. If you are just beginning to play Empire, you should probably not read this file unless you are having difficulty getting EmpCre to work. You should build your world using one of the default parameter files, most likely par32, or, if you want a game with just two people, par16. The information given here will not be too meaningful until you have played Empire a while. When EmpCre is run, it checks to see if its standard input is interactive or not. If it is not, it is assumed to be a script file containing correct values, one per line, for the parameters it requires. Invalid or illegal values will illicit an error message and EmpCre will abort. If it is running interactively, EmpCre prompts for each required value and will loop requesting new values until a valid one is entered. The prompt for the values will contain a brief description, the maximum and minimum values, and the default value, which will be used if you just hit RETURN. Page 1 Version 1.0 of Empire by Chris Gray Version 1.3w by David Wright Settings affecting land masses The algorithm used by EmpCre to create the terrain is a variant of Chris Gray's terrain generator, which appeared on Fish Disk #61. As a result, the size of the world must be a power of two and the world must be square. The various 'Range' values are set to produce interesting worlds, but they can be modified in the source if desired. Once the terrain has been created, the next step is to add gold and iron deposits to the world. This is done by using yet another variant of the same algorithm, this time tuned to produce very small clusters of deposits, with half of the allocated deposits spread randomly, just for good measure. The parameters associated with these activities are: Power of two size of world - this must be one of 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 to specify a world size of 16x16, 32x32, 64x64, 128x128, or 256x256. A 16x16 world is generally big enough for two players, and is a quick way for two beginners to get into the game. A 32x32 world is the most likely to be appropriate. It can be used for 3 to 6 players (you are unlikely to be able to place 7 sanctuaries on a 32x32 world, but if you change some of the later parameters, it may be possible). A 64x64 world is good for at least 15 players and possibly for up to 17 or more, depending on how persistent you are in running EmpCre. A 128x128 world can fit about 45 if you set the values right and are patient. A size 8 world also allows only 45 players, but has 4 times the land mass, making the countries more spread out. The default world size is 32x32 (a value of 5 for this parameter). Percent mountain - this is the percent of the sectors in the world that should be mountain sectors. Allowed values are from 0 to 50, with a default of 5 percent. Smaller values can result in dull worlds, larger values could prevent successful sanctuary placement. Percent wilderness - this is the percent of the sectors in the world that should be wilderness sectors. All sectors that aren't mountain or wilderness will be water. Using a larger value here would result in a smaller proportion of water, perhaps allowing more sanctuaries to be placed in a smaller world. A smaller value in a small world could be used to make the game more naval. Allowed values are from 25 to 75 with a default of 38 percent. Percent x 10 good iron - this tells EmpCre what proportion of _r_i_c_h iron deposits you want. It is scaled by 10 to provide more accuracy. Values range from 0 to 30 with a default of 5. Note that the amount of iron ore available in the world has a significant affect on the play of the game. An iron-poor world will have little production, poor technology and few ships. Wars can be fought over a few good iron mines. Over-abundant iron deposits can result in explosive growth (provided the funds are available), hundreds of ships and a very high technology level. This parameter interacts closely with the levels chosen for iron ore deposits. Page 2 Version 1.0 of Empire by Chris Gray Version 1.3w by David Wright Percent x 10 good gold - this parameter is completely analagous to the previous one, except that it controls the proportion of gold ore deposits instead of iron ore deposits. In a gold poor world, banks will be critical targets, and growth can be curtailed. In a gold rich world, money soon becomes irrelevant (which may be precisely what you want). Settings affecting country placement After the terrain is created, EmpCre attempts to place the required number of sanctuaries. There are several heuristics used in trying to come up with a good sanctuary placement. The overall goal is to avoid situations in which one country is at a disadvantage due to starting up later than some neighbor, or simply due to which sanctuary he/she gets. Also, since the person who runs EmpCre may want to play in the game, it should not be necessary for anyone to check over the world for reasonableness. The parameters requested are: Maximum number of countries (including Deity) - this is the number of countries that are allowed in the game. Country #0 is always reserved as the Deity. All countries except the Deity will be given sanctuaries placed on the world according to the heuristics described here. Minimum sanctuary spacing - this is the minimum distance that must separate any pair of sanctuaries if the placement is to be valid. It is allowed to be from 3 to 100, but the default of 10 is probably close to optimal. Minimum wilderness adjacent to sanctuary - this value specifies how many wildernesses must be directly adjacent (orthogonally or diagonally) to either of the two sanctuaries before the placement will be accepted. The intent here is that sanctuaries that are stuck out on a peninsula are at somewhat of a disadvantage. The range is from 0 to 10 with a default of 4. Minimum unclaimed reachable sectors - as part of the world generation process, EmpCre "allocates" wildernesses to each of the sanctuaries that it is trying to place. There must be at least this many available to each sanctuary in order for the placement to be accepted. The range is from the chosen value for the previous parameter up to 200, with a default of 40. Maximum distance for those sectors - this is the maximum range that the above count of wildernesses can be from the sanctuaries. Allowing too large a value can result in sanctuaries whose accessible sectors are a long way away, often connected only by a thin, very vulnerable strip. Specifying too small a value can result in an impossible placement (i.e. if a circle that size doesn't have enough sectors to satisfy the previous requirement), or can result in placements that are uninteresting (everybody is in the middle of large open regions). Allowed values are from 4 to 100, with a default value of 15. Page 3 Version 1.0 of Empire by Chris Gray Version 1.3w by David Wright Maximum spread of rich iron counts - when EmpCre is counting the number of unclaimed wildernesses "associated" with each sanctuary, it also counts the number of rich iron and gold deposits in those sets. This parameter controls the maximum difference in those counts that is allowed between different sanctuaries. Again, this is an attempt at "fairness". If you allow this count to be large, you can produce a world in which some countries MUST attack their neighbors in order to find adequate resources. This is not recommended for beginning players. Values can range from 0 to 1000 (infinity) with a default of 4. Maximum spread of rich gold counts - this is entirely analagous to the previous parameter, but controls the range of gold deposit counts instead of iron deposit counts. Settings affecting ore placement Once the physical arrangement of the world is determined, EmpCre must choose gold and mineral deposits for each of the wilderness sectors. Each sector can be either rich or poor in terms of iron ore deposits and either rich or poor in terms of gold ore deposits. Each classification uses a two-part calculation to determine the deposit. First, a random value in a parameterized range is generated, and then a fixed value is added to it. If the random range is 1, then all deposits will be the same, as determined by the fixed value. If the fixed value is 0, then the deposits will be completely random within the random range specified. Some middle ground is probably more reasonable. The values required are: Base level for good iron - this is the fixed part for iron ore deposits in sectors which are intended to be rich in iron. It can be from 0 to 127 and defaults to 32. Maximum random addition for good iron - this is the range of the random value which is added to the above base value. It can be from 1 to 128 and defaults to 96. Note that it is possible to have deposits over 127, even though that is "nonstandard". Base level for normal iron - this is the fixed part for iron ore deposits which are not intended to be rich in iron. It can be from 0 to 127 and defaults to 0. Maximum random addition for normal iron - this is the range of the random value which is added to the above base value. It can be from 1 to 128 and defaults to 96. With all default values, good iron will range from 32 to 127 and normal iron will range from 0 to 95. If you want to have a more significant difference between good deposits and normal deposits, it is advisable to also have a smaller value for "Maximum spread for rich iron counts" so as to keep the game reasonably fair. Page 4 Version 1.0 of Empire by Chris Gray Version 1.3w by David Wright Base level for good gold Maximum random addition for good gold Base level for normal gold Maximum random addition for normal gold - these values are for gold deposits as the previous four are for iron deposits. Misc. settings Maximum connect time per day in half hours - this is the maximum time that each country will be allowed to play Empire each day. It is counted in half hours (as are most time measurements in Empire), but is displayed on the Empire prompt in minutes. Accepted values are from 1 (30 minutes) to 6 (3 hours) with a default of 2 (one hour). On the current version of Empire, supporting more than a dozen players if more than 30 minutes per day are allowed, could result in some scheduling problems. Initial amount of money per country - this is the amount of money that each country will have in the bank at the start of the game. Making this value too small will simply frustrate the players. Making it too large will delay the point where money becomes important (if it ever does - see the above discussion of gold deposits). Winner of the last game - This is a text field that may be left blank, but should at least say "GOD". This field may be 80 characters long, and is displayed with the country command. Do you wish to allow public messages - If you answer yes then all users will be able to send public messages by using a * as the country to send to. This will take a while for the system to do, and will also use quite a bit of disk space if users do not read or delete their mail often. You should consider how much disk space will be available, and how fast your drives are before answering yes. If you answer no, then only the deity will be able to send public messages (useful for sending announcements). Allow players to change countries - If you answer yes then players may change countries without hanging up. If you answer no, then players must hang up and call back to log in as another country, unless they are changing to or from the Deity. This gives other players a chance to connect to a busy system, and helps to prevent system hogging by people "just taking care of a friends country". After the initial terrain and deposit setup has been created, EmpCre will ask if you want to have the resulting terrain displayed. If you answer yes, then a map will be shown. On this map, water, wilderness, mountain and sanctuary sectors are shown as normal. Sectors shown as 'I' have good iron deposits; sectors shown as 'G' have good gold deposits; and sectors shown as 'X' have both good iron and good gold deposits. NOTE: Because size 7 and 8 worlds are too big to fit on an 80 column screen, they are written into a file called EmpMap, which is created in the directory you run EmpCre from. A size 8 (256x256) world will generate a file larger than 64k, so be sure to answer 'no' if you do not have enough room on Page 5 Version 1.0 of Empire by Chris Gray Version 1.3w by David Wright that disk. After a successful world build, EmpCre will ask if you want to write the world data files. Be careful not to answer incorrectly here. If you answer yes, then the various Empire data files are destroyed, then recreated with the new world in them. If you answer no, the just-created world is discarded and EmpCre exits. If the world files are to be written, EmpCre will ask for two needed passwords: Enter god password - this password is the initial password for the Deity - try not to forget it. The five script files specify a god password of 'godpassword'. Enter creation password - this password will be needed once by each player in order that they be allowed to create a new country. After all countries have started up, you can safely forget it. The five script files specify a creation password of 'creationpassword'. NOTE: Be aware of the large size of the sector file. For a size 8 world, the sectors _a_l_o_n_e are over 2.8 _M_E_G ! Each size down gets 4 times smaller, so a size 7 world is about 700k. Make sure you assign EmpSect: to a device that has enough space to hold the world you wish to generate. It is suggested that you make a copy of the parameter file for the size you want, edit the values, and use that each time you run EmpCre. To use the parameter files use AmigaDOS file redirection, like this (using par32 as an example): 1> EmpCre <par32 If you are creating a new world in the same directory as the old world, be sure to delete all the old news files (Delete EmpMisc:news#?). Page 6 Version 1.0 of Empire by Chris Gray Version 1.3w by David Wright Being the Empire Deity What the Deity does 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. Chris Gray went 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 flavor. 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). The power command has 2 additional options for the deity. 'check' allows him to check the countries _a_c_t_u_a_l sector count against what the country _t_h_i_n_k_s it owns. Because power reports cover the entire planet, they can be assumed to be correct at the time they were generated. If the 2 counts differ, GOD can edit the countries sector count to match the count given in power. The other option 'force' allows GOD to generate the power report right away. You should use this first if Page 7 Version 1.0 of Empire by Chris Gray Version 1.3w by David Wright you are going to edit a countries sector count, since they may have gained/lost a sector since the last power report. GOD can declare alliances or war with other countries, and this will affect what those countries see with the map command. If GOD declares an alliance with them, they will see all of GOD's sectors, even those that are not near them. If GOD declares war, all of GOD's sectors will show up as 'W'. Dump also produces slightly more information: oossttuuuuuuuu where oo - owner of the sector ss - plague stage tt - plague time uuuuuuuu - last update time Additionally, the telegram command will let the deity send a file as a message by typing TEL <country> <filename>. Note that if the country name has spaces in it you must use the number, and to send a file there should be no spaces between the country number and the file name. Special deity commands There are three Empire commands that are available only to the Deity. These are: edit, examine, and translate. The three 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 5 realms - telegram pointers - relations to all other countries (Neutral/Allied/at War) - fleet numbers of any active fleets examine sector <sector> - owner - 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 thresholds Page 8 Version 1.0 of Empire by Chris Gray Version 1.3w by David Wright 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 - technology level and when it was built 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 - whether public messages are allowed - whether players can change countries - 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. Most things 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 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. 5 - Visitor- This is not really supported, but you could make a country called Page 9 Version 1.0 of Empire by Chris Gray Version 1.3w by David Wright "guest", and set the status to "visitor" and they would be restricted from certain commands. - 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 Empire missed one or two, it is also recomputed when the country does an update specifying option 'ALL'. 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 neighbor, 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 for this country 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 5 minutes 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 0 - No plague 1 - Incubation period 2 - Contagious stage 3 - Deadly stage - plague time - time remaining in the current stage (in 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 Page 10 Version 1.0 of Empire by Chris Gray Version 1.3w by David Wright 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) - tech level - 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 Countryt 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. - whether public messages are allowed - whether players can change countries - next loan, treaty, offer, ship, fleet - changing these can undo a slipup, but be careful, and make a 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 Page 11 Version 1.0 of Empire by Chris Gray Version 1.3w by David Wright 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 research institutes - techScale - in technology centers - defenseScale - defense planes - shellScale - shell industries - airportScale - airports - harborScale - harbors - bridgeScale - bridge heads - goldScale - gold mines - ironScale - iron mines Page 12 Version 1.0 of Empire by Chris Gray Version 1.3w by David Wright - 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 dfnsv advntg of forts being assltd - assCapAdv - the dfnsv advntg of capitals being assltd - assBankAdv - the dfnsv advntg of banks being assltd - attFortAdv - the dfnsv advntg of forts being atckd - attCapAdv - the dfnsv advntg of capitals being atckd - attBankAdv - the dfnsv advntg of banks being atckd - 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 firing 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 torpedoes - 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 torpedoes - chargeBase, chargeRand - depth charge damage (times sub factor) Page 13 Version 1.0 of Empire by Chris Gray Version 1.3w by David Wright - 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 converting mobility to 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 12) - 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 seize 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 edit password Edit the creation password Online GOD commands When a player is using Empire over the modem the system owner has several commands that he may enter: MESSAGE - Allows the system owner to send a one-line message to the remote user. It may not be sent for a while. BUMP - Adds 5 minutes to the user's temporary timer. GRAB - Takes 5 minutes from the user's temporary timer. WARN - Sends a warning message to the user to hang up ASAP. PLAY - After the current user hangs up you will enter the game locally. Page 14 Version 1.0 of Empire by Chris Gray Version 1.3w by David Wright DUMP - Hangs up the current user as if they typed 'BYE' as soon as they type one more command. QUIT - Warns the user to hang up and will exit Empire when they do. CHAT - Enters a simple chat mode. Only what the system owner types will show up, unless he enters a ',' on a line by itself. This will prompt the remote user for a single line of text, and then write it to the local screen. To exit chat mode, the system owner must type "!exit!" on a line by itself. Deity utility programs and tips The PowerGen program that comes with version 1.1w of Empire is used to generate power reports from outside Empire, while Empire is running. If any command line options are given to PowerGen, a power report will be displayed on the local console when it is through. PowerGen was created because on a 256x256 world power reports can take upwards of 10 minutes to complete, and it is unfair to take up so much of a user's time. The deity can use the 'force' option of power from within Empire, or run the PowerGen program every time he wants to update the report, but the best idea is to use a program like AmiCron to run PowerGen in the background every 8-12 hours. Be sure to set it to a lower priority than Empire! Version 1.1w now has another option for recovering unused country slots. If a country enters the game (creates a country), but never does anything, and other countries are created after that country (so you can't use the method discussed earlier), all is not lost. Just edit that countries status and set it to idle. Then when all of the country slots are full Empire will automatically use countries marked idle for new countries. Version 1.2w now comes with a utility called WorldInfo. This will read your sectors file and automatically write in the "World" help file any changes to the world defaults you might have made as the Deity. You do not have to use this if you want your players to discover the changes you have made on their own. There is now a utility called EmpStat which will read in your empire.log file and display charts on system usage by baud rate, by hour, by day of the week, etc. This will be included on the 1.4w release disk, and is available now upon request. Page 15 Table of Contents Starting your own game of Empire............................... 1 Using EmpCre................................................ 1 Settings affecting land masses........................... 2 Settings affecting country placement..................... 3 Settings affecting ore placement......................... 4 Misc. settings........................................... 5 Being the Empire Deity...................................... 7 What the Deity does...................................... 7 Special deity commands................................... 8 Online GOD commands...................................... 14 Deity utility programs and tips.......................... 15 For the latest version of Empire write to the following address: David Wright 4262 Bennington Brunswick, OH 44212 davewt@NCoast.ORG -I- Owner/Operator's manual For Empire Version 1.3w by David Wright July 13, 1989 Amiga Empire by Chris Gray