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Amiga Empire by Chris Gray - Introduction (Edited by D.W.)
Amiga Empire is a multi-player game of exploration, economics and warfare.
It can be played by a single player, but most of the fun will be absent.
People who have never played before can set up a small game for
experimentation, however. Amiga Empire does not use any graphics or sound -
it uses a simple command oriented text interface. This is because most
players will be connecting to the game over a modem, and many of them will
not even be playing on Amigas. Thus, a consistent interface which uses
sound, graphics, menus, or the mouse, is simply not possible. Other
programmers, notably "Håkan Thörngren", have written graphical interfaces
to Amiga Empire. These tools can given a significant advantage to those who
use them.
The basic structure of an Empire "world" is that of a square array of
sectors. Each sector will be a sea sector, a mountain, or a regular land
sector. Regular land sectors are the only ones which players can own and
build on. Moving people and things across mountain sectors is very
expensive in terms of mobility, so they can be thought of as natural
barriers. Sea sectors cannot be moved into at all, but there are several
types of ships that can be built to move things and engage in naval
warfare. Also, bridges can be built over gaps of sea sectors. The world is
"torroidal" in that it wraps around on all edges.
An efficient government (I haven't seen one of those for a long time!)
doesn't waste time or effort. To encourage this, Empire has the concept of
Bureaucracy Time Units (BTU's) which are required to execute many commands.
The game prompt consists of '[', followed by the number of remaining BTUs,
a ':', the number of remaining minutes of time for the day, ']' and the
prompt " Command: ". As you play, keep an eye on the two numbers, and make
sure you get the important things done. BTUs are created by your active
capital in accordance with the number of civilians there and the efficiency
of the capital. Connect time is reset at or after midnight.
Money is needed to build ships and bridge spans, for upkeep of various
types of sectors, for military supplies, etc. It can be earned as interest
on gold bars at banks, by contracting production of appropriate sectors, by
selling things to other players, or by making loans to other players.
Technology level controls your technology factor, which affects the range
of guns, airplanes, ships, etc. Technology level is increased by the
efforts of technology center sectors.
Research level, in combination with technology level, affects your
likelihood of catching the plague. Research level is increased by the
efforts of research institute sectors.
Both technology and research levels go up 1 for each 25 units of production
available in the appropriate sectors. Both also decay away at the rate of
1% per day.
The full game seems quite complicated, but in reality an entire game
can go by without some of the commands ever being used. The most commonly
used commands are:
bye - exit the game
map - display a rectangle of sectors
move - move men or materials from one sector to another
designate - start building a sector as something
navigate - sail a ship or fleet of ships
fire - fire from a sector or ship at another sector or ship
telegram - send a telegram to someone
read - read your own telegrams
census - get a detailed report of some sectors
country - see what other countries exist and are currently connected
power - get a summary of the power of the various countries
Game play typically goes through several phases:
exploration - players move out from their initial sanctuaries and
explore and claim a region of territory.
contact - some of the countries meet and set up borders. Small fights
can break out, but these can severely weaken the participants.
development - players set up their countries. This involves getting
gold mines running and delivering gold bars to banks, getting an
urban center going to produce more civilians, choosing which
sectors to turn into iron mines and various factory types, setting
up delivery routes for ore and manufactured goods, finding a
hiding place for a backup capital, etc. The priority of these
things will vary from player to player, and a surprise attack
during the later parts of this phase can badly damage a country
that is not adequately defended.
naval exploration - countries now have ships (often a couple of PT
boats at this point) and start exploring the oceans. There are
usually two goals - one is to find large, unclaimed islands to take
over; the other is to map out the basic shape of the world and find
where the other countries are. Naval warfare can crop up at any
time. Submarine "wolfpacks" prey on underdefended fleets, coastal
radar station/fort pairs fire on ships that come too close,
paranoid countries mine their harbors to keep others out, nasty
people mine other countries harbors, etc.
stockpiling, alliances, war - the players start to get bored if they
haven't been involved in a fight, so the slightest excuse (often a
sector or two on a shared island, or minor things like a fleet
being sunk) can be used to pick a fight.
victory - one possible victory condition is when one country (or one
strong alliance of countries) controls the entire world. In a large
game with many players, such a final victory is difficult to
accomplish, and is boring for those whose countries have already
been destroyed. An alternative victory condition is that of being
at the top of a "power" report at a pre-specified time or date.
By default, Amiga Empire will run with an ETU (Empire Time Unit) of 30
minutes. Such a game will last 2 - 4 months. [at least] This parameter can
be changed, either when creating the world with EmpCre, or by a deity in
Empire itself, to much lower values. Values of 10 - 30 seconds will result
in a game which can probably be played over a weekend. Such games have a
quite different flavor, especially if the hosting system has enough serial
ports and modems to support 4 or more simultaneous players. Such a fast
update time with a large world may require a faster CPU and a hard disk.
The easiest way to learn how to play Amiga Empire is to play it. When you
don't understand something, or want more information, these documentation
files and the shorter, more specific help files are available on line via
the 'doc' and 'help' commands. (The hosting system may not have all of them
online.) A printed manual, at least of the 'doc' files, is probably best.
Details of command syntax can be found under 'help syntax'.
The other documentation files in this series are:
communication - talking to other players, editing messages, etc.
economics - earning and spending money, loans, etc.
society - a random grab-bag
sectors - details on the various sector types
ships - details on the various ship types
weather - how it works, what it can do
aircraft - planes, anti-aircraft fire
war - land, air, sea, defense
update - details of sector and ship updating
factors - the many deity-adjustable factors
deity - how to be a deity
hosting - notes on running a game
empcre - details on creating new worlds
seremp - details on running the serial port client
Most players need not read any of the last 6 files.
As an example, here is a log of starting up a new country. User input can
be identified by the "Command: " prompt. The new country is called
'Amelon', which is what I usually call my countries. Commentary is shown
indented from commands and output.
[96:60] Command: map -2:2,-2:3
- - 0 0 0 0
2 1 0 1 2 3
-2 -2
-1 - - - - -1
00 - s s . 00
01 - . . . 01
02 02
- - 0 0 0 0
2 1 0 1 2 3
This country, like all new countries, starts out with two sanctuary
sectors, side by side. In the map, I can only see sectors which are
beside sectors I own. I can see 6 wilderness sectors (the -'s) and 4
sea sectors (the .'s).
[95:60] Command: move m 0,0 1 \le
You are breaking sanctuary!!!
You now own sector -1,-1
Move a single military from sector 0,0. It is moved up-left to sector
-1,-1. Moving anything out of a sanctuary causes that sanctuary to be
"broken", turning the sanctuary into a capital. The sector moved into
was vacant, so it now belongs to this player. If you have trouble
remembering what the parameters to some commands are, just leave off
the parameters - Empire will prompt for them. For the 'move' command,
the available directions are:
u - up
/r - up right
r - right
\r - down right
d - down
/l - down left
l - left
\l - up left
[Under 2.1 the number keys may also be used. The
keys are layed out as on the numeric keypad.]
I remember them by remembering that the '/' or '\' always comes first,
and the movement hits it going in the direction of the 'l' or 'r' and
slides up or down the '/' or '\'.
[93:60] Command: move m 0,0 1 /le
You now own sector 1,-1
[91:60] Command: move m 0,0 1 le
You now own sector 0,-1
[89:60] Command: move m 0,0 1 ue
You now own sector -1,0
[87:60] Command: move m 0,1 1 ue
You are breaking sanctuary!!!
You now own sector -1,1
[85:60] Command: move m 0,1 1 /re
You now own sector -1,2
Continue moving military out, taking over all of the visible
wildernesses. Note the BTU count going down as I issue commands.
[83:60] Command: map -2:2,-2:3
- - 0 0 0 0
2 1 0 1 2 3
-2 - ^ - - - . -2
-1 - - - - - . -1
00 - - c c . - 00
01 . - . . . 01
02 . - - 02
- - 0 0 0 0
2 1 0 1 2 3
The map now shows many more sectors, including a mountain (^). The
sector at 0,3 is accessible from sector -1,2.
[82:60] Command: realm 0 -3:3,-3:4
Typing the four corners of a box is tiresome, so use the 'realm'
command to define a realm (box). I can then use '#0' to talk about
this realm. As a further abbreviation, just '#' refers to realm 0.
[82:59] Command: designate #/- +
6 sectors designated
[81:59] Command: map #
- - - 0 0 0 0 0
3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4
-3 -3
-2 - ^ - - - . -2
-1 - + + + + . -1
00 - + c c . - 00
01 . + . . . 01
02 . - - 02
03 03
- - - 0 0 0 0 0
3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4
Turn all of the wilderness that we own in realm 0 into highways (+).
(The "#/-" notation is a simple form of a "condition" which can be used
to select a few sectors out of a large rectangle of them.) Highways are
easier, in terms of mobility, to move across than wildernesses. Note
that the highways will not be efficient yet, so they will cost some
mobility to move onto. When they are 100% efficient, they will cost NO
mobility. Another reason for doing a designate like this is so that I
can tell which of the sectors I own.
[80:59] Command: census #
cmsgpob des eff min gold mob civl mil sh gun pl ore bar prod
-------------------------------------------------------------------
+ 0 46 87 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 -1,-1
+ 0 43 53 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 -1,0
+ 0 63 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 -1,1
+ 0 27 77 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 -1,2
+ 0 77 43 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0,-1
c 100 75 31 90 64 60 0 0 0 64 0 0 0,0
c 100 28 47 95 64 62 0 0 0 64 0 0 0,1
+ 0 57 39 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1,-1
Take a detailed look at the sectors I own. 'cmsgpob' refers to delivery
directions for civilians, military, shells, guns, planes, iron ore and
gold bars, none of which we have set up yet. We see that our two
initial sanctuaries at 0,0 and 0,1 are now 100% efficient capitals.
They started out with 100 mobility, 64 civilians, 64 military and 64
iron ore each. The 'min' and 'gold' columns are the important ones here
as they show the richness of the iron and gold deposits in the sectors.
Sectors -1,-1 and -1,2 look like good places for gold mines, and
sectors 0,-1 and 0,0 look like good places for iron mines.
[80:59] Command: designate -1,-1 g
[79:59] Command: designate -1,2 g
[78:59] Command: designate 0,-1 m
[77:58] Command: designate 0,0 m
*** can't redesignate your current capital ***
Empire won't let us redesignate our current capital (at 0,0), so we
must first move the capital (to 0,1 here, since having a 100% capital
is good).
[76:58] Command: designate 0,1 c
WARNING: your co-ordinate system has shifted to center on your new capital!
[76:58] Command: map #
- - - 0 0 0 0 0
3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4
-3 -3
-2 - ^ - - - . -2
-1 - g + + g . -1
00 - m c c . - 00
01 . + . . . 01
02 . - - 02
03 03
- - - 0 0 0 0 0
3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4
0,0 is now at what used to be 0,1.
[75:58] Command: designate 0,-1 m
Tearing down 100% efficient capital at 0,-1
Changing a sector into something else involves tearing down what was
there before, so we are told of the destruction. Lets see what other
countries can see of what we have been doing, and what anyone else has
done:
[73:58] Command: news
-=[ EMPIRE NEWS ]=-
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
! "All the news that fits, we print." !
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Sun Feb 11 18:02:42 1990
Relative calm prevails.
The details of Empire news since Sun Feb 11 00:00:00 1990
=== page 1 ===
=== page 2 ===
Sun Feb 11 17:51:24 1990: Amelon broke sanctuary
Sun Feb 11 17:51:24 1990: Amelon took over unoccupied land 4 times
Sun Feb 11 17:51:40 1990: Amelon broke sanctuary
Sun Feb 11 17:51:40 1990: Amelon took over unoccupied land 2 times
=== page 3 ===
=== page 4 ===
Gee, nobody else has done anything yet! I could have a head start.
[73:58] Command: power
*** power report not available ***
There is no initial power report. Also, a deity can control whether or
not non-deities can 'force' a new power report (it can take quite a
long time on large worlds), so one is not automatically built.
[73:58] Command: power force
Please wait, recomputing power...
Power report updated
Empire power report as of Sun Feb 11 18:02:54 1990:
sect civ mil sh gun pl bar % ship $ pow country
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
8 128 128 0 0 0 0 12 0 5000 108 Amelon
The power report is pretty dull do far.
[73:58] Command: country
Current time Sun Feb 11 18:02:54 1990, world created Sun Feb 11 17:44:20 1990
# last access time BTU's status country name
-----------------------------------------------------------------
01 *Sun Feb 11 18:02:38 1990 [ 58] [ 73] Active Amelon
00 Sun Feb 11 17:48:34 1990 [9999] [ 96] DEITY god
There are no other player countries yet. The '*' beside the line for
Amelon indicates that Amelon is currently connected.
[73:58] Command: nation
Status of Amelon on Sun Feb 11 18:02:58 1990:
Number of sectors: 8
Cash on hand: 5000
Technology level: 0
Technology factor: 0.25
Research level: 0
Plague factor in capital: 0.27
Realms: #0: -3:3,-3:4 #1: 0:0,0:1
#2: 0:0,0:1 #3: 0:0,0:1
#4: 0:0,0:1 #5: 0:0,0:1
The 'nation' command shows some information about my country. I haven't
spent any money yet, and my technology and research levels are still 0
since I haven't even built any technology centers or research
institutes yet. Six realms can be defined.
[73:58] Command: info
Last game won by: God
World created Sun Feb 11 17:44:20 1990.
World size: 16 rows by 16 columns.
There are currently 2 countries out of a maximum of 3.
Maximum daily connect time is 60 minutes.
An ETU (Empire Time Unit) is 1800 seconds.
The world has seen 0 loans, 0 offers, 0 ships and 0 fleets.
Some basic information about the world.
Now we disconnect for a while, and come back early the next morning...
[92:60] Command: cou
Current time Mon Feb 12 00:42:00 1990, world created Sun Feb 11 17:44:20 1990
# last access time BTU's status country name
-----------------------------------------------------------------
01 *Mon Feb 12 00:41:52 1990 [ 60] [ 92] Active Amelon
00 Sun Feb 11 17:48:34 1990 [9999] [ 96] DEITY god
02 Mon Feb 12 00:41:34 1990 [ 55] [ 21] Active Victim
Another country, called 'Victim' has been created. He was last playing
a few seconds ago. Note that my capital was automatically updated when
I entered the game. This has given me more BTU's, and, because it is
the next day, has reset my time left to 60 minutes.
[92:60] Command: power
Empire power report as of Mon Feb 12 00:41:11 1990:
sect civ mil sh gun pl bar % ship $ pow country
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
31 128 128 0 0 0 0 6 0 5000 141 Victim
8 128 128 0 0 0 0 12 0 5000 108 Amelon
'Victim' is already ahead of 'Amelon' in the power report. Perhaps he
is a more experienced player. Looks like I might want to take over some
more sectors. Has anything else happened while I was away?
[92:60] Command: news
-=[ EMPIRE NEWS ]=-
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
! "All the news that fits, we print." !
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Mon Feb 12 00:42:14 1990
Relative calm prevails.
The details of Empire news since Mon Feb 12 00:00:00 1990
=== page 1 ===
=== page 2 ===
Mon Feb 12 00:36:10 1990: Victim broke sanctuary
Mon Feb 12 00:36:10 1990: Victim took over unoccupied land 2 times
Mon Feb 12 00:36:17 1990: Victim broke sanctuary
Mon Feb 12 00:36:17 1990: Victim took over unoccupied land 27 times
=== page 3 ===
=== page 4 ===
Nope, nothing but 'Victim' building his country. I'll update my entire
realm 0 and see what happens.
[92:60] Command: update #
8 sectors updated.
You paid $10 for sector improvements.
You paid $1 for military supplies.
The only sectors with more than one soldier are the two original
sanctuaries. Lets look at them in more detail:
[91:60] Command: census 0,-1:0
cmsgpob des eff min gold mob civl mil sh gun pl ore bar prod
-------------------------------------------------------------------
m 10 75 31 104 68 60 0 0 0 64 0 0 0,-1
c 100 28 47 109 68 62 0 0 0 64 0 0 0,0
The capital hasn't changed much, but did get some more mobility. The
mine has grown to 10% efficient. A few more civilians have appeared in
both sectors. What did my country look like again?
[91:60] Command: map #
- - - 0 0 0 0 0
3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4
-3 -3
-2 - ^ - - - . -2
-1 - g + + g . -1
00 - m m c . - 00
01 . + . . . 01
02 . - - 02
03 03
- - - 0 0 0 0 0
3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4
[90:59] Command: realm 0 -3:3,-5:3
[90:59] Command: move m 0,0 1 /r\re
You now own sector 0,2
[88:59] Command: mov m 0,0 1 /rue
You now own sector -2,1
[86:59] Command: mov m 0,0 1 \lue
You now own sector -2,-1
[84:59] Command: mov m 0,-1 1 /l\re
You now own sector 2,-1
[82:59] Command: mov m 0,-1 1 /lde
You now own sector 2,-2
[80:59] Command: mov m 0,-1 1 lle
You now own sector 0,-3
[78:59] Command: mov m 0,-1 1 l\lle
You now own sector -1,-4
[76:58] Command: mov m 0,-1 1 \l\le
You now own sector -2,-3
[74:58] Command: des #/- +
8 sectors designated
[73:58] Command: map #
- - - - - 0 0 0 0
5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3
-3 . - ^ - - . - -3
-2 . - + ^ + - + . -2
-1 . + - g + + g . . -1
00 . . + m m c . + . 00
01 . . + . . . . . 01
02 . + + . 02
03 . . . . 03
- - - - - 0 0 0 0
5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3
I shift realm 0 to be re-centered on my capital, and expand it a bit.
Then I take over the wildernesses I can see, change the new ones into
highways like the others, and do another map.
[72:58] Command: mov m 0,-1 1 \l\lle
You now own sector -2,-4
[70:58] Command: mov m 0,-1 1 \l\lue
You now own sector -3,-3
[68:58] Command: mov m 0,0 1 \luue
You now own sector -3,-1
[66:57] Command: mov m 0,0 1 uuue
You now own sector -3,0
[64:57] Command: mov m 0,0 1 u/r/re
You now own sector -3,2
[62:57] Command: des #/- +
5 sectors designated
[61:57] Command: map #
- - - - - 0 0 0 0
5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3
-3 . . + ^ + + . + . -3
-2 . + + ^ + - + . . -2
-1 . + - g + + g . . -1
00 . . + m m c . + . 00
01 . . + . . . . . 01
02 . + + . 02
03 . . . . 03
- - - - - 0 0 0 0
5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3
Another round of move out, redesignate, and map.
[60:57] Command: realm 0 -5:3,-5:3
[60:57] Command: map #
- - - - - 0 0 0 0
5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3
-5 -5
-4 - - - - - - - . -4
-3 . . + ^ + + . + . -3
-2 . + + ^ + - + . . -2
-1 . + - g + + g . . -1
00 . . + m m c . + . 00
01 . . + . . . . . 01
02 . + + . 02
03 . . . . 03
- - - - - 0 0 0 0
5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3
Expand realm 0 yet again. It looks like I'm definitely on the south
shore of a continent or island. Future exploration will have to be to
the north. How am I doing now?
[59:57] Command: power force
Please wait, recomputing power...
Power report updated
Empire power report as of Mon Feb 12 00:45:47 1990:
sect civ mil sh gun pl bar % ship $ pow country
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
31 128 128 0 0 0 0 6 0 5000 141 Victim
21 136 128 0 0 0 0 5 0 4989 111 Amelon
Much better, but I still have more to do. (The main reason that
'Victim' has more "power" is that he hasn't redesignated either of his
sanctuaries yet, so he still has two sectors at 100% efficiency.)
This should have been enough to get you going. Strategies beyond this point
vary greatly from person to person. Some even vary what you've seen here,
e.g. by moving out in straight lines from the sanctuaries, getting a "long"
view of what the world is like. In moving, be careful not to dump people
into the sea, or waste mobility making them climb a mountain! Also keep in
mind the mobility costs of varying the number of military moved, whether
they are moved orthogonally or diagonally, what they are moving onto, etc.
It usually doesn't matter, but if you are cutting things close, it can.
You should now either start up a small test world to explore for yourself,
or continue reading the documentation in this directory.