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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 "Hσkan Th÷rngren", 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.