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What Empire is All About Empire is a fairly rich simulation of international politics, economics and war. It is played over a period of a couple of months by 2 or more people. The Empire world consists of a toroidal grid of sectors consisting of regular land, mountains and water. Players govern countries, which start out as a pair of adjacent sectors and soon spread into large areas requiring much management and protection. Various sector types can be created which build ships, bridges, guns, shells, airplanes, and which make medical and technological breakthroughs. Others are things like radar stations, weather stations, fortresses, highways, warehouses, etc. A typical Empire game is only over when just one country remains. A special country, the Deity, is available, which has godlike powers to modify sectors, ships, etc. The Deity is normally run by someone not playing another country and has the responsibility of fixing up any problems which occur. Running This Version of Empire ****** Daily time is vital to Empire. The system time MUST be set ******* ****** consistently or the game will not be playable. ******* ****** Make sure the disk you boot from specifies an AmigaDos stack ******* ****** size of at least 8000. ******* The first step is to create the world. Set up an empty disk for the Empire data files. Pick the size of the world that you want. The sizes available are: 16 x 16 - good for 2 players 32 x 32 - good for 3 - 6 players 64 x 64 - good for 7 - 15 players 128 x 128 - for the truly adventurous (probably needs a hard disk) Run 'EmpCre' from your empty disk, giving it the appropriate 'par' file as input. E.g. to create a 32 x 32 world (the most common size), you would type: empcre <par32 There will be a lot of output as EmpCre attempts to create a suitable world. It may take some time. It is possible that the random numbers were such that the creation failed. This is not fatal, just try again. The limit on attempts is there to prevent infinite loops when the parameters selected (see 'EmpCre.doc') are such that EmpCre can't manage the job. The Empire program itself is quite large, so the best way to run it is to make a CLI window for it and leave it running all the time. User's can run their countries from the normal Amiga keyboard, or can connect via the serial port (over a modem) at 300, 1200, or 2400 baud. Either 8 bits no parity or 7 bits even parity are accepted. Hit RETURN's to get your parity recognized and to start things up. A couple of special commands allow the remote user and the owner of the system to communicate. The 'message' command will ask for a single line of text and will write this to the Amiga's screen. The system owner can enter one of four things when Empire is running. 'play' will allow the local user to enter the game proper. 'QUIT' will cause Empire to terminate, 'message', entered when a remote user is connected, will send a message to the remote user after they next complete a command, and 'bump' will add one minute of connect time to the remote user's timer. This latter is to compensate for the connect time used up in receiving and replying to a message from the local user. If 'play' is entered when a remote user is active, then when that remote user logs out, Empire will start the login sequence for the local user. If 'QUIT' is entered when a remote user is active, the remote user will be told that the system owner wants the system, and Empire will exit when the remote user logs out. The previous settings of the serial driver are saved when Empire starts up and are restored when Empire exits. Empire uses the DTR signal to tell the modem to accept calls and expects it to signal CD when a connection is made and to remove it when the connection is broken. Empire will drop DTR when the remote user exits. If the parameter 'private' is given when Empire is started up, the serial port will not be activated, and the local user will go immediately to the normal Empire login. Note that you should set your modem to be totally quiet when a connection is made, since the first characters received after CD is signalled are used to attempt to determine the incoming call's baud rate and parity setting. On some older Amiga 1000's (including mine), the serial device doesn't drop the DTR line when it is closed. This results in the modem continuing to accept incoming calls. To get around this, Empire pokes directly at the appropriate hardware register and drops DTR when it exits. Also, when a remote user logs out, Empire similarly forces DTR low for a few seconds to ensure a disconnect between the modems. Empire opens the serial port with control-S/control-Q handshaking. This means that the remote user can suspend output by typing a control-S, and restart it with a control-Q. It occasionally happens that line noise accidentally generates a control-S - if a remote user sees output suddenly stop, typing a control-Q can often restart it. Note that the Amiga serial device does not appear to clear the suspended condition when the connection is terminated, thus the suspension can last until the next connection. THIS WILL TOTALLY LOCK UP EMPIRE. The matching control-Q to free up the works must be at the same baud rate and parity as the one that locked it up. Also, it appears that a break condition received on the serial port will unlock the suspension, regardless of baud rate/parity setting. Good solutions to this problem require the use of multiple tasks, doing things like timing out after a given period of no activity, along with using the SendIO/CheckIO pair to do I/O instead of DoIO. Getting Started When a country first starts out, it will have 2 adjacent sectors, both designated as sanctuaries. Sanctuaries cannot be attacked or fired upon by other countries, so the late starter is protected from aggressive neighbours. Each sanctuary will have 64 civilians, 64 military, 64 tons of ore, 100 mobility units, and will be 100 percent efficient. The first command will usually be map -1:1,-1:2 to produce a small map of the sectors around the sanctuaries. Next will come 'move' commands to move civilians and/or military into the neighbouring sectors to claim them. Census commands will then show the mineral and gold deposits in the land sectors; further map and move commands will explore and claim more territory; sectors will be designated as banks, harbours, mines, gold mines, etc. This first phase of the game is one of exploration, development, and setting up management (delivery routes). Soon, however, two countries will meet, and the possibility of conflict will arise. Since much of the fun of your first Empire game is figuring out what you should be doing before everyone else does, I won't say any more than that. Instead I'll just summarize the concepts and commands. Concepts 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. Sector Types . - sea Ships can sail here, other land-based operations can't happen. You can't own sea sectors. ^ - mountain These are land sectors, but you can't designate them. They cost a LOT of mobility to move onto. - - wilderness Most of the usable world starts out this way. They are the default type of land sector. They cost more to move onto. s - sanctuary You start with 2 of these. They cannot be attacked. You can't designate more. c - capital Your active capital is the center of your coordinate system, and supplies you with BTUs. Defend harder. Can do anti-aircraft fire. u - urban area Ore => increased civilians, which are are bundled in units of 10. d - defense plant Ore => production => guns. i - shell industry Ore => production => shells. m - mine Time => production => ore. Mineral deposits are not consumed. g - gold mine Gold deposits => production => gold bars. Gold deposits are consumed. h - harbour Ore => production => ships (via build command). w - warehouse Ore, shells and guns stored in bundles of 10. * - airfield Ore => production => airplanes. Can do anti-aircraft fire. t - technology center Ore => production => technological breakthroughs. f - fortress Can fire guns, defend other sectors. Fight harder. Anti-aircraft fire. r - research lab Ore => production => medical breakthroughs. + - highway 100% highway costs nothing to move onto. Other countries can use highways unless they are checkpointed. ) - radar station Can see ships at sea and other sectors. ! - weather station Used to predict and map weather. # - bridge head Ore => production => bridge spans in orthogonal directions (via build command). = - bridge spans Like highways, but over water. b - bank Collect interest on gold bars. Defend harder. Anti-aircraft fire. x - exchange Used in international trade. Ship Types NOTE: it is possible for the Deity to change these values. type name cost sp vis rng civ mil sh gun plns ore bars vrng ------------------------------------------------------------------ p PT boat 30 50 6 1 - 10 10 1 - - - 4 s submarine 70 25 1 2 - 25 25 2 - - - 3 b battleship 127 25 25 8 - 127 127 4 - - - 6 d destroyer 60 35 15 3 - 80 40 2 - - - 4 f freighter 80 20 20 - 127 - 127 127 - 127 127 3 m minesweeper 50 20 20 1 - 25 10 1 - - - 3 t tender 100 30 20 1 - 100 127 30 - - - 3 c carrier 127 25 25 2 - 60 40 2 127 - - 4 cost - number of production units needed, also need cost * 9 dollars sp - speed factor - the smaller the better vis - how visible the ship is to radar and lookout rng - twice the maximum gun firing distance civ - number of civilians it can carry mil - number of military it can carry sh - number of shells it can carry gun - number of guns it can carry/fire (tender can fire one, freighter 0) plns - number of planes it can carry ore - number of tons of ore it can carry bars - number of gold bars it can carry vrng - how far it can see (radar and lookout) - subs are special Submarines can launch torpedoes (the torpedo command) and have sonar to see other submarines. Destroyers can drop mines (mine command) and depth charges (via the drop command) and have sonar so they can see submarines. Minesweepers remove mines when they move into a sector. Tenders can resupply other ships at sea (the tend command). Carriers are like mobile airfields. Ships must be at least 60% efficient before they can do anything. If they drop below 20% efficient (as a result of shelling, torpedoes, etc.) they will sink. Updating This section is quite detailed. The details are provided so that those who want to run their country optimally can see what they need to see. Others (especially beginners) should just ignore this section until they have played for a while, at which point they should scan it to get a feel for how things happen. The sector update algorithm is central to Empire. It is based on steady change over half-hour time units. It can be summarized as follows (values are either for the sector being updated or for the owner country of the sector; all calculations are integral): NOTE: The Deity can change most of the magic numbers. proc makeProduction(): q := min(work * efficiency / 100, ore); if <sector not contracted> then if money > 0 then q := min(q, 127 - production); production := production + q; fi; else q2 := q * priceInNickels / 20; money := money + q2; fi; ore := ore - q; corp; /* in an urban center, people are lazy, so every 10 counts as 1 here */ workForce := civilians + military / 5; if lastUpdate = 0 or lastUpdate > CurrentTime then lastUpdate := CurrentTime; fi; deltaTime := CurrentTime - lastUpdate; if deltaTime > 256 then deltaTime := 256; fi; work := deltaTime * workForce; if work >= 100 and (<I own this sector> or work > 48 * 2 * 100) then if weather <= -9 then /* hurricane */ damageSector(random(21) + 70); elif weather <= -8 then /* no construction happens */ else q := 0; if weather <= -7 then if money > 0 then q := min(work / 200, 100 - efficiency); fi; mobility := min(127, mobility + deltaTime / 2); else if money > 0 then q := min(work / 100, 100 - efficiency); fi; mobility := min(127, mobility + deltaTime); fi; efficiency := efficiency + q; money := money - q; fi; /* civilian growth */ q := deltaTime * civilians; if designation = <urban area> then q := min(127, civilians + min(q / 100, ore)) - civilians; civilians := civilians + q; ore := ore - q; elif designation = <bridge span> then civilians := civilians - q / 400; elif civilians > 31 and civilians < 97 then civilians := min(127, civilians + q / 200); else civilians := min(127, civilians + q / 400); fi; /* mobility increase */ mobility := min(127, mobility + deltaTime); lastUpdate := lastUpdate + deltaTime; /* NOTE THIS!!! */ /* military supplies */ q := military / 32 * deltaTime / 8; money := money - q; if <this is owner's active capital> then BTUs := min(96, BTUs + deltaTime * civilians * efficiency / 5000); researchLevel := researchLevel - researchLevel * deltaTime / 4800; techLevel := techLevel - techLevel * deltaTime / 4800; fi; case plague_stage: incase 3: /* terminal plague stage */ <kill some people off>; <send telegram, make news>; if plague_time <= deltaTime then plague_stage := 0; else plague_time := plague_time - deltaTime; fi; incase 2: /* infectious stage */ if plague_time <= deltaTime then plague_stage := 3; plague_time := random(33) + 32; else plague_time := plague_time - deltaTime; fi; incase 1: /* gestatory stage */ if plague_time <= deltaTime then plague_stage := 2; plague_time := random(33) + 32; <send telegram, create news>; else plague_time := plague_time - deltaTime; fi; incase 0: /* not infected - see if it should become so */ plagueFactor := ((civilians + military) / 254) * ((techLevel + ore + 100) / (researchLevel + efficiency + mobility + 100)); if random(100) < plagueFactor then plague_stage := 1; plague_time := random(33) + 32; fi; esac; /* note that 'move', and deliveries will pass the plague when it is in the infectious stage */ <do any deliveries out of this sector - special handling is done when delivering civilians or military into a sector that hasn't been updated for a long time> if efficiency >= 60 then /* NOTE THIS!!! */ case designation incase <bank>: /* interest */ money := money + deltaTime * goldBars / 2; incase <capital>: incase <radar station>: incase <weather station>: /* utilities */ money := money - deltaTime; incase <technology center>: incase <research institute>: /* utilities */ money := money - deltaTime; if money > 0 then q := production / 25; production := production - q * 25; if designation = <technology center> then techLevel := techLevel + q; else researchLevel := researchLevel + q; fi; fi; makeProduction(); incase <defense plant>: if money > 0 then q := min(production / 10, 127 - guns); production := production - q * 10; guns := guns + q; fi; makeProduction(); incase <shell industry>: if money > 0 then q := min(production / 2, 127 - shells); production := production - q * 2; shells := shells + q; fi; makeProduction(); incase <airfield>: if money > 0 then q := min(production / 25, 127 - planes); production := production - q * 25; planes := planes + q; fi; makeProduction(); incase <harbour>: incase <bridge head>: makeProduction(); incase <gold mine>: q := min(production / 5, 127 - goldBars); production := production - q * 5; goldBars := goldBars + q; q := min(goldSample * work * efficiency / 1000000, goldSample); if <sector not contracted> then if money > 0 then q := min(q, (127 - production) / 2); production := production + q * 2; fi; else q2 := q * 2 * priceInNickels / 20; money := money + q2; fi; goldSample := goldSample - q; incase <mine>: q := mineralSample * efficiency * work / 10000; if <sector not contracted> then if money > 0 then ore := min(127, ore + q); fi; else q2 := q * priceInNickels / 20; money := money + q2; fi; esac; fi; fi; Ship updates are much simpler: if lastUpdate = 0 or lastUpdate > CurrentTime then lastUpdate := CurrentTime; fi; deltaTime := CurrentTime - lastUpdate; if deltaTime >= 3 then lastUpdate := lastUpdate + deltaTime; if weather <= -9 and shipType ~= 's' then damageShip((random(21) + 10) * shipDamageFactor(shipType)); elif weather <= -8 and shipType ~= 's' then /* bad weather halts construction */ else if weather <= -7 and shipType ~= 's' then /* bad weather delays construction */ deltaTime := deltaTime / 2; fi; mobility := min(127, mobility + deltaTime); efficiency := min(100, efficiency + deltaTime); fi; fi; Command Syntax Users directly on the Amiga (i.e. not logged in over the serial port) can send output to a file by following the command name with '>' and a file name (to create the file and write to it) or with '>>' and a file name (to append to the file). Using '>prt:' is quite handy. All commands will prompt for their needed arguments, so if you are unsure of how to use one, just give it with no arguments to get prompts. Some syntactic elements: <country> - a country name (in full, case significant) or country number. <sector> - a sector specified as row,column (e.g. 4,-7) <sectors> - a region given as toprow:bottomrow,leftcolumn:rightcolumn optionally followed by '?' and a set of conditions anded together with '&'. Conditions test things in the sector against each other or against constants. Operators are '=', '#', '<' and '>'. A realm number (# followed by 0 - 3, or just # for #0) can be used instead of the row/column range. Either range can be a single number. E.g. census # will do a census of realm #0, which is automatically built by the update command to encompass your entire country. E.g. map -5:5,-5:6 will map the region around your capital. E.g. designate -3,1:5 f will designate a row of 5 sectors into fortresses. E.g. des -10:10,12?designation=-&minerals>50&civ>99 m will designate all wildernesses in the region which have a mineral sample larger than 50 and more than 99 civilians as a mine. The units in a sector which can be tested are: efficiency, mobility, defended, military, planes, minerals, production, contracted, shells, ore, gold, checkpoint, civilians, guns, bars, designation and owner. The last is only useful for the Deity. As a special case, a '/' followed by a designation code can be used as a condition to select all sectors of that designation. E.g. des #2/- + will turn all wildernesses in realm 2 into highways. <ship> - the number of a ship <fleet> - a fleet letter (a-z, A-Z, or * for the default fleet) <ships> - a designation of a group of ships. Can be a fleet letter, a <sectors> range or a list of ship numbers separated by '/'s. Optionally followed by a condition as above, but which is applied to the ships instead. Units which can be tested in a ship are: civilians, military, shells, guns, planes, ore, bars, designation (ship type), efficiency, mobility and owner. It is often desireable to interrupt the actions or output of commands which process several sectors or ships. This can be done on the Amiga by typing a control-C. It can be done when connected over the serial port by typing a control-C, a DEL or by sending a BREAK. The computation done by the 'power' command can also be stopped this way. Commands accept <loan #> if the indicated loan is an outstanding loan offer to you, then you are accepting it. The loaner will be informed and a news item generated. Beware of not paying back loans promptly. See also: ledger, lend, repay, collect. assault <sector> <ship> attempt to take over the sector with military from the ship. Costs BTUs. The sector may fire back and may be defended. The assaulting troops are at a disadvantage w.r.t the defenders. Also, capitals and forts fight twice as hard against assault as other sectors. See 'attack' for more details on fighting. attack <sector> attempt to take over a sector with military from orthogonal sectors. Costs mobility and BTUs. The sector may be defended. For each orthogonal sector you own, you will be asked how many of the military there you wish to commit to the attack. Troops from a 100% efficient fort have a 4 to 1 defending advantage, and troops from 100% efficient capitals or banks have a 2 to 1 advantage. Troops attacking from a 100% efficient fort have a 2 to 1 advantage. Attacks cost BTUs at the rate of .15 per attacking troop killed. Also, mobility is used up in the attacking sectors depending on the terrain types as follows: type of sector being attacked attacking from (+) (?) (-) (^) (+) highway .125 .208 .291 21.3 (?) others .167 .250 .333 21.3 (-) wasteland .208 .291 .375 21.4 (^) mountain 10.7 10.8 10.9 31.9 The running battle will be displayed using '*'s, '!'s and '@'s. A '!' indicated a defender has died, an '@' indicates an attacker has died, and a '*' indicates an entire attacking sector has run out of attackers. board <ship> <ship> attempt to board the first ship with military from the second. You can only board a freighter if there are no ships in the same fleet in the same sector which have military on board. build <sectors> <what> build ships (give the letter) at harbours or bridge spans (give one of udlr for direction) at bridge heads. Costs production units and money. See an earlier table for the costs of various kinds of ships. Bridge spans require 127 production units and $2000. buy <lot #> the specified lot, if it is still for sale, will be shown to you, and you will be given a chance to purchase it. If the lot is a ship, the purchase is straightforward. If the lot is items at an exchange, you will be asked how many of each item to buy and which exchange of yours to deliver the items to. See also: price, report. bye exit Empire census <sectors> prints detailed census for sectors. Some entries: * - checkpointed - allows others access if they know the code cmsgpob - delivery direction for item - 0 is up, go clockwise $ - sector's production is contracted % - sector is defended by a fort change country <country> change name change password switch to another country, or change this country's name or password. checkpoint <sectors> set checkpoint codes at sectors. 0 means no checkpoint. You will be asked for your country's password as authorization. Sectors which are checkpointed can be moved onto (navigated into for harbors) by other countries, if they know the checkpoint code. Note that highways and bridge spans can be moved onto UNLESS they are checkpointed. (If someone moves things onto your highway or bridge span and leaves them there, they become yours.) The presence of a checkpoint code is indicated by a '*' in the census listing. collect <loan #> if the given loan is an outstanding defaulted loan owed to you, you will be given the opportunity to confiscate a sector from the debtor in full or partial payment of the loan. Empire uses some magic to determine the "value" of a sector, which must not be too much greater than what you are owed. Note that you can only confiscate sectors that are orthogonally adjacent to a sector that you own. See also: accept, ledger, lend, repay. contract <sectors> production in shell industries, defense plants, airports, harbors, bridge heads, mines, gold mines, research institutes and technology centers can be contracted. You will be offered a price per production unit. If you accept, then you will earn money as appropriate when the sector is updated. If you decline, the sector is left uncontracted. The presence of a contract is indicated by a '$' in the census listing. country list the countries in the world along with some info about them. declare war|alliance|neutral <country> declare your relationship to the other country. This affects the spy command and anti-aircraft fire. defend <sectors> {%|sector} if the '%' is given, then you will be asked for your password, and, if correct, the defender for any defended sector in the specified area is displayed. Otherwise, you need to enter the location of a fort to defend the given sectors. If no defender is given on the command line, you will be asked for the defender for each sector in the specified area. When a defended sector is attacked, assaulted or fired on, the defending fort will attempt to fire on the attacker. The presence of a defense is indicated by a '%' in the census listing. deliver <what> <sectors> {<threshold>} {<sector>} after playing Empire for a while, you will notice that moving various supplies from sector to sector on a regular basis takes up too much time and BTU's. Automatic deliveries are the cure for this problem. Any of civilians, military, shells, guns, planes, iron ore and gold bars can be automatically delivered from a given sector to any neighbouring sector (orthogonal or diagonal). The 'deliver' command is used to set up and query delivery settings. Delivery directions will also show up on the 'census' listing. In its simplest form, a delivery is specified as in this example: deliver c 0,0 (50) -1,0 This specifies that whenever sector 0,0 is updated, and it contains more than 50 civilians, the excess civilians should be moved to sector -1,0 (subject to the player owning sector -1,0 and sector 0,0 having enough mobility). The threshold (50) can be omitted, in which case a threshold of 0 is used. A more complex example: deliver o -2:0,-3:-1 (20) Here, Empire will prompt for each owned sector in the specified region, as to where to deliver ore to. Again, the threshold can be omitted. Also, on the individual replies to the prompts, the destination sector can be followed by a threshold in parentheses which will be used for that particular delivery. If the form deliver b -10:10,-10:10 +50 is used, then the thresholds for, in this case, gold bars, will be changed without changing any delivery destinations. The final form: deliver s -5:5,-2:7 - will simply print out the delivery destinations and thresholds for each sector in the region which has a delivery set up. Deliveries are performed whenever sectors are updated. A message of the form "delivery walkout between r,c & r,c" indicates that a sector was trying to deliver to a sector you don't own. See also: route. designate <sectors> <what> designate sectors to be a new type. The efficiency and production in the sectors will be set to zero unless the sector was already of the given designation. Your current capital cannot be redesignated as anything else. The LAST sector designated as a capital will be your current capital, which is at 0,0 in your co-ordinate system. drop <target-sub> <dropping-destroyer> drop a depth charge on a submarine from a destroyer. If the submarine is able, it will fire a torpedo back (which might miss anyway). The two must be in the same sector. dump <sectors> dumps sector information in a very compact, hexadecimal format. Useful for those who want to set up tools to display more useful maps, etc. The format is as follows: rrccdCCmmppMMeessggPPoobbddiiGG[dt*7]OK where rr - row, 0 => size of world cc - column, 0 => size of world d - designation character CC - civilian count mm - military count pp - production MM - mobility ee - efficiency ss - shell count gg - gun count PP - plane count oo - iron ore count bb - gold bar count dd - relative location of defender (rowDelta + 8, colDelta + 8) ii - iron mineral deposit GG - gold mineral deposit dt - delivery direction and threshold for civilians, military, shells, guns, planes, ore, gold bars O - 0/1 indicating sector is contracted K - 0/1 indicating sector is checkpointed When the Deity does a 'dump', the following is appending to the output lines: oossttuuuuuuuu where oo - owner of the sector ss - plague stage tt - plague time uuuuuuuu - last update time The sector output will be preceeded by a line giving the time and date of the dump. Note that some sectors "bundle" some items - urban centers bundle civilians, warehouses bundle shells, guns and ore, and banks bundle gold bars. The counts shown are the number of bundles. Bundles are bundles of 10, except for gold bars which are bundles of 4 in banks. enlist <sectors> <total-required> turn civilians into military. Not more than 50%, none in urban areas. The enlistment will be spread fairly uniformly over the eligible sectors. fire <sector>|<ship> <sector>|<ship> fire gun(s) at sector or ship from fortress or ship. If the target is a fortress it will try to fire back. If the target is any land sector that is defended, the defending fort will try to fire back. If the target is a ship, any ships belonging to the same country which are in the same fleet will attempt to fire back. The amount of damage done depends on how many guns are fired (from a ship), and on the type of the target ship. fleet <fleet> <ships> add the ships to the given fleet. All start out in fleet '*'. Valid fleets are A-Z and a-z. The first ship specified will be the flagship of the fleet - when it can no longer navigate, the entire fleet will stop. For non-flagship ships in a fleet which is moving, the ship will drop behind if it can't move. A ship can be removed from a fleet by adding it to the '*' fleet. fly <ship>|<sector> <plane-count> <bomb-count> <directions> fly planes (possibly with bombs) from ship or airfield. Directions are: u - up /r - up right r - right \r - down right d - down /l - down left l - left \l - up left e - end of flying (land or crash) v - view sector below b - drop some bombs Movement prompt is <fuel left:planes:bombs each:position>. Fuel comes from the starting airfield or carrier. Landing chances vary greatly. Watch out for anti-aircraft fire. Fuel units per plane is calculated as: fuelAvailable := sectorOrShipMobility * 4; fuelUsed := min(fuelAvailable, 32); /* fuel tank size */ fuelUnits := techFactor * fuelUsed; Note that these, as well as most other "magic" constants can be changed by the Deity. In good weather, when carrying no bombs, planes can fly one orthogonal sector per fuel unit. Fuel used rises by 1 for each bomb rack required (each rack can hold 3 bombs) and by 0.2 for each bomb carried. Diagonal flying takes 1.414 times as much fuel. forecast <sector> <time> forecast weather near the given weather station for the given number of half-hours into the future (max is the number of civilians there). The range of the forecast depends on the efficiency of the station. grant <sector> <country> grant a sector to a country it is beside. headlines {days} print newspaper headlines for the given number of days (default 1). help ? list commands and their BTU costs. ledger lists outstanding loans and loan offers that you are a participant in. See also: accept, collect, lend, repay. lend <country> offer a loan to someone. You get to pick the amount, interest rate and term. A telegram is sent to <country> informing them of the offer. See also: accept, collect, ledger, repay. load <ship> <percent> load stuff onto a ship in a harbour. If no <percent>, prompts for each type of stuff. <percent> is percent of ships capacity to load. Ship capacities are listed above with other ship information. lookout <ship>|<sector> visual lookout - reports on nearby ships and sectors. In good weather, orthogonal and diagonal land sectors can be seen; in bad weather, only orthogonal neighbours. map <sectors> shows the designation of the sectors you or god owns within the region. Other people show up as '?'. You can see sectors beside ones you own. When the Deity does a map, he/she can see all sectors, and water shows up as spaces instead of dots. message send a one-line message from the remote user to the local window. mine <ship> <count> drop mines from a destroyer. When ships move into a mined sector, they may hit them, doing damage. When a minesweeper moves into a mined sector, it can remove up to 5 mines. move <what> <sector> <count> <directions> <what> is cmsgpob. <sector> is where to move from. <count> is how many to move (watch out for bundling). <directions> are as above, but with no 'b'. Movement prompt is <mobility:position>. Mobility costs vary with sector type, weather, and what is being moved. Costs for an orthogonal move onto a "standard" sector in good weather are: c - 1 mobility per 5 civilians m - 1 mobility per 5 military s - 2 mobility per 5 shells g - 2 mobility per gun p - 4 mobility per plane o - 1 mobility per 5 tons of ore b - 10 mobility per gold bar (armoured cars, guards, etc.) Some sectors are better at moving some items than others. For example, warehouses can move ore, guns and shells in bundles of 10 for the cost of 1 unit; banks can move gold bars in bundles of 4. Also, moving onto a 100% efficient highway costs no mobility. nation shows some info about your country navigate <ship>|<fleet> <directions> sail ships. <directions> are as above, but no 'b' or 'v'. Costs vary with ship type and technology level. Watch out for mines. Movement prompt is <flagship mobility:minimum mobility:position>. If fleet is '*', then the flagship is the lowest numbered ship in fleet '*', otherwise the flagship is the first ship given when the fleet was set up. When the flagship can no longer navigate, the whole fleet. Sailing into a hurricane can damage your ships. Ships use less mobility for navigating as your country's tech factor increases. newspaper {days} print headlines and detailed news for the given number of days (default 1). A bulletin from the system operator may be printed before the headlines. power {force} display summary of statuses of countries. Rebuilt if more than 12 hours old, or if 'force' specified. Power is calculated based on the following magic formula: (a * g + d) / 3 + (b + c + e + ii) / 10 + j / 100 + f + i + h * 5 where a - number of sectors b - number of civilians c - number of military d - number of guns e - number of shells f - number of planes g - average sector efficiency h - number of gold bars i - number of ships ii - total ship tonnage j - money price <ship> {<price-per-ton>} price <sector> <what> {<new-price-per-unit>} set the sale price on a ship or on the goods at an exchange. Each ship for sale will be a new lot, and each exchange with things for sale will be a new lot. Your offering will be visible on the trade report, and is open to anybody. Purchasers may buy however much they want of whatever is offered at your exchange. See also: buy, report. radar <ship>|<sector> do a radar scan from a ship or a radar station. Shows the ships you find and a small map of what the radar sees. Range varies with ships and with sector efficiency. Note that submarines do not show up on radar (destroyers and submarines have sonar, however), and that PT boats are very hard to see. Also, radar does not show ownership of sectors it displays, so beware of relying on radar to see an enemy approaching overland. read read your telegrams. Most are from the Deity regarding nasty things other countries are doing to you. realm <number> {<sectors>} (No '?' pattern allowed.) Set the realm (0 - 3) to the indicated rectangle of sectors. Realm 0 (written as #0 or #) is also set by the update command. You should set up some realms, so that you aren't in danger of mistyping a sector range. repay <loan-number> repay some or all of a loan you owe money on. See also: accept, collect, ledger, lend. report {naval|land} produce a trade report showing what is for sale for how much. You do not see who is making the offer, but you can often deduce that. 'naval' will restrict the report to ships, 'land' will restrict it to offers at exchanges. See also: buy, price. route <what> <sectors> like map, but shows delivery routes for <what>, and doesn't show things you don't own. The delivery directions are shown as follows: ^?^ - deliver to sector above this one ?/ - deliver to sector up-right ?> - deliver to sector to the right ?\ - deliver to sector down-right v?v - deliver to sector below this one /? - deliver to sector down-left <? - deliver to sector to the left \? - deliver to sector up-right ships {<ships>} like census, but for ships. If no argument is given, all of your ships will be reported on. spy <sectors> attempt to spy on the sectors from any neighbouring ones of yours with military in them. The owner's relationship to your country determines what happens to spies who are caught. The chances of your spy being caught is dependent on the number of military guarding the sector you are spying on. telegram <country> {file} Send a telegram to the given country. Reading a telegram from a file is not allowed for users connecting over the serial port. A telegram typed at the terminal is ended by an end-of-file (control-backslash) or by a period by itself on a line. The Deity can send a telegram to everyone by using '*' as the country. tend <ship> <tender> tend a ship from a tender in the same sector. This allows stuff to be transferred at sea. As for most naval operations, the weather must be good enough. You can't tend freighters or carriers. torpedo <victim-ship> <submarine> Launch a torpedo against a ship from a submarine. Maximum range is less than 2 sectors. Destroyers in your sector may drop depth charges on you. Each torpedo costs 3 shells from the submarine. The chances of the torpedo hitting drop greatly as the distance increases. To prevent submarines from being too powerful, a penalty is imposed for using the torpedo command - the sub's mobility drops to 0, and by a further 10 for each torpedo fired. unload <ship> <percent> like load, but the other way around. update {<sectors>} {verbose|quiet} perform the update operation on the given sectors. Other commands that need to change a sector will do an update too, as will census. Order of access is from top-to-bottom, left-to-right. This can affect how you want to set up deliveries, since this is when they are done. If no <sectors> is given, then the whole world is done (sort-of - other people's sectors are only ever updated if they haven't been for two days), and your realm 0 is set to a rectangle containing all of your sectors. 'verbose' will supply more messages than you would normally get about the updating. 'quiet' will suppress nearly all update messages. weather <sectors> display a map of the current weather over the given rectangle and indicate the current location of the high and low extremes. Relation to Peter Langston's Old Empire For those of you who know all about Empire, this is a totally new re- implementation (in Draco of course) of the Peter Langston version of Empire (also known as Old Empire). This is not the single-player game available on some PC's which is played in a few hours. For the old pros, the only feature not implemented in this version is treaties. Pretty much everything else is present. One other major change is that sector co-ordinates are row,column instead of x,y. This version has been implemented by me (Chris Gray) in my spare time with some help from Chris Thierman and play testing by Al Covington, Don Reble, Tim Breitkreutz and Randy VanKooten. We originally worked from a copy of Peter Langston's documentation, which is often incomplete, contradictory and just plain wrong, so there are differences between this and the original. After getting the decompiled Old Empire source from Tom Fisher, the features we added were more in line with Langston's original, but still not identical. In particular this version of Empire can only be used by one person at a time, and has had some disk I/O optimization added to make it usable on a floppy disk. It is also in one large program instead of a set of seven overlays. Also, there is no 'empfix' program - the functions of that program are incorporated into the Empire program itself. Short History of Empire The first widely available version of Empire was written by Peter Langston (who also wrote the 'wander' adventure game system). It was available (as far as I know) only in PDP-11 object code format for running under UNIX Version 6. I played two games with that version on a PDP-11/45 at the University of Alberta. The game appears to have been popular within the North American UNIX community, and its absence on other machines was a sore point. Tom Fisher took exception to this and proceeded to de-compile the object module into C. His version is now available and will run on most UNIX systems. It is difficult to modify, however, because much of its structure reflects the decompilation process - it is a maze of labels and goto's. It also reflects the memory limitations of the PDP-11 and is structured as a set of 7 different programs which are accessed as overlays. Another version of Empire, presumeably a re-implementation, has been done by people at Berkeley (I think). I've never seen this version, so can't say much about it, except to say that it has been augmented with farms, bombers, tanks, nuclear weapons, etc. I have recently heard of another project to re-implement Empire, in which the sources will explictly NOT be made available. The sources to this Draco version are now available (they are probably on the disk you are reading this from). Chris Thierman took it upon himself to implement Empire for the University of Alberta's Amdahl mainframe nearly two years ago. The project proceeded, but was never completed. We both bought Amigas about that time and eventually I had Draco ported and Chris was using it a bit. He decided to port Empire to the Amiga and requested my aid in doing a translation from QC (a compiler of mine for the 360/370 series) to Draco. I agreed and soon found myself headlong in the implementation of Empire. The game you have here is the result. Happy Empireing!!