                    Introduction : The Empire Users Guide

NAME
   Guide - The Empire Users Guide

Level: Basic

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|                                                           By Geoff Cashman   |

User's Guide to Empire                                                   1

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  .   .   .   .  |  This work copyright 1991, Geoff Cashman  |.   .   .   .   .
  .   .   .   .  |  this work using electronic methods. Non  |.   .   .   .   .
  .   .   .   .  |  purpose of distribution and/or selling,  |.   .   .   .   .
  .   .   .   .  |  express written consent. No changes may  |.   .   .   .   .
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User's Guide to Empire                                                   2

                                Preface

This guide's intended audience is the beginning player and those players
who have played a game or three and would like to have some insight on some
more subtle aspects of the game.  Some experienced players may find some
benefit from reading this guide as well.  While you may feel you are an
expert, it is always possible to learn.  Nothing in this guide is intended
to be difficult to understand, and every effort has been made to make this
guide an easy learning tool.

This publication is current to Berkeley version 1.1 patch level 5

User's Guide to Empire                                                   3

                                Foreward

It has been over a year now since I first sat down and thought in a serious
way about writing this guide.  It has been a long trip with many interesting
turns and developments.  When I first started, the version of Empire that
this guide has ultimately been written for had not yet been released.  Now,
with this project nearing release I find that yet another new version of
Empire is coming out.  I look on in near despair as I realize that this guide
may very well soon be outdated.  Nevertheless, I feel compelled to release
this information in what might be considered a final form.

However, I hope that this is not the final form.  With new versions of
Empire coming out in the very near future I hope that some other potential
author steps forward and takes up the banner of educating the new player.
I caution you though that such a work as this takes quite an effort.

To the reader and any critics or even cynics that might be reading, I say
that I am not writer.  I never was, and I never intend to be.  There are
certainly enough writers in the world to write almost everything the world
could want to know about in print.  I was never skilled in the art of proper
style for any sort of writing.  Please, be kind and keep this in mind.

I wrote this guide because I felt there was a great need for something of
this nature.  I have watched so many players come to the network looking
for information on Empire, such as the rules, or information on how to play.
One can get information about the various commands available to oneself
within the game, but to understand how to use those commands effectively
and get skilled at running a country is a far greater task.  Many new
players have despaired after playing their first game for lack of the
requisite knowledge to play effectively.  Some come back fighting hard
in the next game, but many just disappear never to be heard from again.
This guide was written with the hope that if the new player is supplied
with the basics, they can advance in skill more quickly than previously
possible and not despair at their first defeat.

I am hoping that within the near future two other companion guides to
this one will be written and released to the net.  These two guides will
be intended to make the average player a better player or even expert,
and to teach fledgling deities how to compile and establish a, solicit
entries for , and effectively run, a game.  Some people have commented
to me that the time spent on these guides would be better spent if I
were to spend time programming for Empire instead.  It is my belief that
in teaching players to be better players, and teaching deities how to be
a deity should that guide be released, the potential pool for
programmers of Empire will increase.

I can not take credit for the idea of this guide.  The need for such
a guide I think was painfully obvious to a great many players.  Some in
fact did engage in projects to fill that need.  Every such attempt has
fallen short, in my humble opinion.  Witness the large number of people

User's Guide to Empire                                                   4

who still ask the network, "How do I play?" and even more importantly
the lack of sufficient answer to such people's questions.  In my highest
hopes, I dream that someday soon that answer will be "Get a copy of the
User's Guide to Empire, which is available via FTP from xx.xx.xx".

This work was made possible by the contributions of several Empire players.
This work would not have been completed without the insights and assistance
of many Empire players and deities.  To the Empire community as a whole,
I say thank you for your priceless contributions.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

User's Guide to Empire                                                   5

                           *** Contents ***

Preface
Foreward
1.  What is Empire? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
2.  How to get into a game of Empire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
3.  The primitive basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.  Geography in Empire.  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.  The beginning phases of Empire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
6.  Diplomacy.  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
7.  Setting up your defenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
8.  Nuclear warfare.  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
9.  Technology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
10. The economy.  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
11. War.  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
12. Other helpful or not so helpful hints.  . . . . . . . . . . . 57
13. Some tricks and subtle tactics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
14. Tools.  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Appendices
 a) glossary
 b) known bugs
 c) ftp sites

Figures:
        1.  Sample of how to FTP and compile a client program
        2.  Killing a process on a remote Empire host
        3.  Example of an Empire map
        4.  Realistic version of an Empire map
        5.  Table of sector types and designations
        6.  Unexplored island prior to breaking sanctuary
        7.  Island showing exploration using theory 1
        8.  Island showing exploration using theory 2
        9   Island showing exploration using theory 3
        10. Results from 'show planes capability'
        11. Results from a 'nation' report
        12. Map of region hit by nuclear weapon
        13. Table of types of commodities in Empire
        14. Sample output of 'prod' command
        15. Results of a 'census' command of a library
        16. Map of area requiring some distribution
        17. Results of a distribution command
        18. Map of an area requiring delivery path

User's Guide to Empire                                                   6

Chapter 1 :-: What is Empire?

        Empire is a game in which you are pitted against several other
        players in a country vs. country format.  There are economies to
        run, armies to support, policies to generate, and allies and
        enemies to make.  The game supports various features that make
        certain aspects of the game seem to parallel the "realistic"
        world.  These include satellites, planes, banks, parks, etc.

        Empire, in the version herein described, is a very complex
        game.  The closest game that most people will know that is
        analogous to it is the game known as Risk.  However, Empire is
        more complex by a factor of at least one hundred.  Nevertheless,
        as a result of the computer aiding you every step of the way, the
        game is not difficult to play, though it can be difficult to
        learn.  If you read this guide thoroughly, and use it as a
        continuing resource, you can help make learning this game a lot
        easier.

        It should be noted that in learning to play this game, you
        may become frustrated or feel daunted by its complexity.
        Several players have noted that they almost gave up on Empire,
        until one day when everything seemed to start to make sense.
        I call it the "threshold level of understanding" after which
        learning the art of Empire becomes several grades easier, and
        players learn substantially faster.  I urge you to stay with
        it until you get to that level.  It may take some time, but it
        is well worth the effort.  This guide is intended to get you
        to that threshold level of understanding.

        Games usually take two to three months depending on various factors
        that are changeable by the person who runs the game prior to its
        inception.  Some games, known as blitz games, last a day or three
        and will wear out your finger tips from typing too much, will cause
        your family and loved ones to be tremendously upset with you for
        missing breakfast, lunch and dinner for three days straight, will cause
        your stomach to argue constantly with you about its right to
        food, and are a tremendous amount of fun.  Blitz games are not
        for the light of heart nor are they meant for the beginner.

        For more information concerning the basic scope of Empire,
        refer to the game itself.  Within the game, there are
        various help entries accessible through the command 'info'.
        This guide is intended to go well beyond the scope of help
        available from 'info'.

        Empire, the game, has evolved through many different forms
        over the last decade.  There are still numerous versions
        for various computers around.  The version herein discussed
        is BSD Empire, written for the most part by Dave Pare along
        with a lot of help from net people.  As release time approaches
        I am aware that Mr. Pare is working on BSD Empire V2.0.
        This guide is only current to version V1.1.5 of BSD.  I wish

User's Guide to Empire                                                   7

        the future author of the guide to V2.0, whomever that might be,
        the best of luck and bequeath that person a family size bottle
        of aspirin for personal use.

Summary: Empire is a very complex game that has a rather steep learning
         curve.  Most of the complexity of the game can be handled by
         the commands available to you, the game server itself, or tools
         that you use to better your country.  Tools are described later
         in this text.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   8

Chapter 2 :-: How to get into a game of Empire.

        The most common way of finding about about games that are about to
        happen is by monitoring the newsgroup rec.games.empire on your local
        news reading program. Other ways are via e-mail by getting to know
        several players with whom you correspond over the network.  Some
        games are by invitation only but these are few and far between as
        usually a game is better with more people in it.  If you do not know
        how to use your local news reading program, ask a local site consultant
        or find a brochure about the news programs available.  One of the most
        common newsreaders can be reached by typing 'rn' from your unix
        prompt.  If you have VMS for an operating system this may not be true.
        To go directly to the rec.games.empire newsgroup you could type in
        'rn rec.games.empire'.

        Before entering a game of Empire, consider the amount of time that
        you have available to play the game.  Two hours a day for a four
        update per day game is usually the norm.  If you are inexperienced,
        and have not fought in wars before, that two hours will dramatically
        increase should war break out between you and another country.

        Note that it is easy to get addicted to the game.  The player should
        be aware of this prior to playing.  Play in moderation.  This is
        obviously not meant to scare you off.  It is merely a word of caution
        to some people.  Remember to play in moderation.

        If you do decide to join in an upcoming game of Empire, then you will
        have the pleasure of playing one of the best games around.  Empire has
        been described as being the most complicated game ever created.
        Despite the fact that the game was created for computers and has
        been in existence for several years, as yet no robot player has been
        developed nor is it anticipated.  It is possible to build such a
        robot, but it would be a huge task.  Do not be dismayed though.
        Most of the complexity of Empire is handled by the server and client.
        There is a fair amount of what is called "micro-managing" that may
        need to be done to be a highly successful nation. However, it is
        not a necessary thing to do.  Furthermore, there are many tools
        (described later) that can handle the micromanaging aspects to
        a great degree.

        After you find out about a game, and decide that you do want to
        play in that upcoming game, you need to contact the "Deity".  The
        "Deity" is the person who runs the game.  You should mail him/her
        with information about yourself and your country.  A customary
        basic form for registering your country to play might contain
        the following information:

        Country name: (any name you like, from Brianville to USofA)
        Rep: (this is your *password*)
        Net address: (the address at which you can be contacted over the net)
        Skill level: (1-10..10 being the best, 1 being beginner)

        It might be necessary depending on the Deity to include all addresses

User's Guide to Empire                                                   9

        from which you might be playing.  With the proliferation of suns as
        general user machines this is becoming more and more a chore, and
        few deities require it.  It might suffice to say "mickey@*.buffalo.edu"
        which might cover all machines you play from if you played from
        SUNY-Buffalo.  Mickey, of course, is just an arbitrary username chosen
        for this example.

        Empire players connect to games in progress through a program known
        as a "client".  This program handles communication between your
        computer and the computer that the game is running on.

        There are several versions of clients available.  Some are more
        "capable" than others in that they can make decisions easier for
        you or make the decisions themselves.  They are intended to reduce
        the amount of work you have to do to maintain your country though
        in some cases they actually increase the amount of work you have
        to do.  I have listed places from which you can get other types
        of clients from in the FTP listings in appendix C.

        Sources for basic client program is available by FTPing to
        ucbvax.berkeley.edu.  For the user's benefit, I have included
        a copy of a session in which a user FTPs to ucbvax, retrieves the
        source, compiles the source and establishes the appropriate
        environment variables to connect to a game.

        Note that the following example will work ONLY on a unix,
        ultrix, or other flavor of unix operating system.  This will
        not work for the VMS client.

-----------------------------<begin sample>---------------------------------

(PLEASE NOTE: Walk through comments in this sample will be enclosed
 in [** and **].  They are not part of what actually appeared on screen
 in collecting this sample.  They are meant only as guides.)

[** First, I create a directory to put the client in.  I then cd into that
    directory and then proceed with the ftp to ucbvax. **]

autarch{tmp}!>mkdir myclient
autarch{tmp}!>cd myclient
autarch{myclient}!>ftp ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Connected to ucbvax.berkeley.edu.
220 ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU FTP server (Version 5.30 Tue Mar 28 18:11:37 PST 1989) ready.
[** Type in anonymous for your name **]
Name (ucbvax.berkeley.edu:mickey): anonymous
[** Send your real identity for the password **]
331 Guest login ok, send ident as password.
Password:
230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
[** I am now logged in to ucbvax's public access FTP area.  Now
    I cd into the "pub" directory, then the "games" directory, and then
    the "bsd-empire" directory where I know the Empire client source
    resides. **]

User's Guide to Empire                                                   10

ftp> cd pub
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> cd games
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> cd bsd-empire
250 CWD command successful.
[** Now, I set my file transfer mode to "binary" and set hash on so that
    I can see transmit progress on screen (# = 1024 bytes.) **]
ftp> bin
200 Type set to I.
ftp> hash
Hash mark printing on (1024 bytes/hash mark).
[** Now, I view the directory listing to confirm the name of the client
    source. **]
ftp> ls
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for ..
empire-1.1.tar.Z
empire-1.1.patch.5
empire-1.1.patch.4
empire-1.1.patch.3
contrib.tar.Z
client.tar.Z
empclient-1.1.tar.Z
[** ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ it's this one. **]
README
emptools.tar.Z
#
226 Transfer complete.
143 bytes received in 0.03 seconds (4.7 Kbytes/s)
[** Now, I "get" the file and the transmission to my directory begins. **]
ftp> get empclient-1.1.tar.Z
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for empclient-1.1.tar.Z (20859 bytes).
#########################################
226 Transfer complete.
local: empclient-1.1.tar.Z remote: empclient-1.1.tar.Z
20859 bytes received in 1.8 seconds (11 Kbytes/s)
[** The client source now resides in my directory, so I log out of Berkeley **]
ftp> quit
221 Goodbye.
[** I next confirm that the client is in my directory. **]
autarch{myclient}!>ls
empclient-1.1.tar.Z
[** Next, I have to uncompress the file (the Z postfix means it is in
    compressed format).  I again ls to confirm it's presence. **]
autarch{myclient}!>uncompress empclient-1.1.tar.Z
autarch{myclient}!>ls
empclient-1.1.tar
[** Next, I have to tar the file (tar postfix means it's in tar format).
    Again, I ls to confirm operation completed. **]
autarch{myclient}!>tar -xf empclient-1.1.tar
autarch{myclient}!>ls

User's Guide to Empire                                                   11

client/                 empclient-1.1.tar
[** Ah, ok.  I tar'ed the file and it created a directory for itself.
    So, I cd into that directory and ls it. **]
autarch{myclient}!>cd client
autarch{client}!>ls
Makefile        empire.6        host.c          main.c          saveargv.c
README          expect.c        hpux.c          misc.h          servercmd.c
bit.c           fnlist.h        ioqueue.c       proto.h         serverio.c
bit.h           globals.c       ioqueue.h       queue.c         termio.c
dtable.c        handle.c        login.c         queue.h         termlib.c
[** There's the README file up there.  That will tell me what to do next. **]
autarch{client}!>more README

                        BSD Empire 1.1

This is the empire client for BSD Empire.

To make the program, edit globals.c and change localhost to
point at the machine where the game is running.

Type "make".

You can change hosts on-the-fly by using environment variables -- see
the man page for details.

[** Simple enough.  I don't bother modifying globals.c since I can modify
    the environment variables using the unix command 'setenv'.  So now,
    I just type 'make' and hope everything goes ok.  NOTE: This was done
    on a sun4.  Your results may vary slightly. **]
autarch{client}!>make
[** Now, it does the compilation automatically without me having to
    do it by hand, I just typed the make and it does it by itself. **]
cc -g  -sun4 -c  bit.c
cc -g  -sun4 -c  dtable.c
cc -g  -sun4 -c  expect.c
cc -g  -sun4 -c  globals.c
cc -g  -sun4 -c  handle.c
cc -g  -sun4 -c  host.c
cc -g  -sun4 -c  hpux.c
cc -g  -sun4 -c  ioqueue.c
cc -g  -sun4 -c  login.c
cc -g  -sun4 -c  main.c
cc -g  -sun4 -c  queue.c
cc -g  -sun4 -c  saveargv.c
cc -g  -sun4 -c  servercmd.c
cc -g  -sun4 -c  serverio.c
cc -g  -sun4 -c  termio.c
cc -g  -sun4 -c  termlib.c
cc -g -o empire bit.o dtable.o expect.o globals.o handle.o host.o  hpux.o
ioqueue.o login.o main.o queue.o saveargv.o  servercmd.o serverio.o termio.o
termlib.o -ltermlib
autarch{client}!>ls

User's Guide to Empire                                                   12

Makefile        expect.c        hpux.c          misc.h          serverio.c
README          expect.o        hpux.o          proto.h         serverio.o
bit.c           fnlist.h        ioqueue.c       queue.c         termio.c
bit.h           globals.c       ioqueue.h       queue.h         termio.o
bit.o           globals.o       ioqueue.o       queue.o         termlib.c
dtable.c        handle.c        login.c         saveargv.c      termlib.o
dtable.o        handle.o        login.o         saveargv.o
empire*         host.c          main.c          servercmd.c
empire.6        host.o          main.o          servercmd.o
[** Walla, it compiled, and now there is a file in the directory called
    'empire' with a * next to it (meaning it's an executable.  Not all
    ls's will do this, see 'man ls' for further info on parameters for ls).
    That file is the client.  I could delete all of the '.c', '.h', and
    '.o' files right now to clean things up, but I am anxious to get into
    the Empire game that is already in progress.  So, I next setup my
    environment variables so my client knows which computer to call and
    which port to use on that computer. **]
autarch{client}!>setenv EMPIREHOST oleander.cs.odu.edu
autarch{client}!>setenv EMPIREPORT 1617
[** EMPIREHOST and EMPIREPORT variables will have been given to you by
    the deity running the game.
    With that done, I can now run my client and connect to the game. **]
autarch{client}!>empire
Country name? [** I type in my country name **]
Your name? [** And my password, NOT my real name. **]

    -=0=-

You have six new telegrams waiting...

[0:255] Command:
[** And you are now connected to the game and are ready to play dictator **]

                                Figure 1
            Sample of how to FTP and compile a client program

-------------------------------<end sample>-----------------------------------

        Since you are playing across a network of computers, it is possible
        that there will be problems along the way in connecting to the server
        from the computer you play on.  What follows are some common connection
        errors.

Problem 1:
autarch{client}!>empire
connect: Connection refused

Problem   This generally means that you have either set your environment
          variables wrong (see 'setenv' from earlier in this chapter), or
          the server at the host site is not currently running.
Solution  (1) Check your environment variables by issuing a 'setenv' command.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   13

          (2) Wait for the server to come up.

Problem 2:
autarch{client}!>empire
connect: Connection timed out

Problem   This generally means that there is a network outage somewhere
          along the network.
Solution  (1) You can monitor the network by using two unix commands located in
          /usr/etc on most unix systems.  These are 'ping' and 'traceroute'.
          /usr/etc/ping 128.205.7.3 for instance will send a ping at the
          host with ip address 128.205.7.3.  If that machine can be reached
          from your machine across the network it will return:
          128.205.7.3 is alive
          traceroute 128.205.7.3 will request responses from each site along
          the way.  This is useful for seeing which site along the way is
          causing the outage.
          (2) This solution is easier, but more frustrating.  Wait.

Problem 3:
autarch{client}!>empire
Country name? <your country name>
Your name? <your password>

        -=O=-
3 country in use by mickey@lictor.acsu.buffalo.edu (pid=5797)

Problem   This one is potentially nasty.  It means that another process is
          logged into your country.  This could be from multiple sources.
          1: Your friend who is playing your country as well.
          2: A process of yours that got accidentally hung.
          3: The network hung your remote process even though your local
             process is now terminated.
Solution  (1) Go kick your friend in the head :-)
          (2) Kill your process 'nicely'.  To find the process execute a
          'ps -x' command and find the appropriate process number:
          autarch{client}ps -x
            PID TT STAT   TIME COMMAND
          3555 t1 S      0:00 -usr/new/csh (csh)
          3575 t1 R      0:00 ps -x
          3559 ?  S      0:00 -usr/new/csh (csh)
          3560 ?  S      0:00 (empire)
          The offending process number in this list is 3560.  To kill it,
          simply type the command 'kill 3560'.  After that, all should be
          well.  Try entering the game again.
          (3) If your process is hung on the server machine, you can
          do one of two things.  First, you can mail the Deity with the
          "pid", or process identification number.  This number is listed
          in the original error message and in our case is 5797.  Secondly,
          you can log in to the remote site and kill the process yourself
          via the process illustrated below.  Note that in the first line
          of the illustrated process that the name storm.tamu.edu is the
          host site for the particular game I am using for this example.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   14

          Also, 1617 is the port on that machine that Empire is being run
          through.  Commands that you should type in are indicated
          by a "<----" at the end of the line.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

% telnet storm.tamu.edu 1617     <----
Trying 128.194.15.98 ...
Connected to storm.tamu.edu.
Escape character is '^]'.
2 Empire server ready            <---- [** your country name in quotes **]
coun "Terminus"
0 country name Terminus
pass "busyemperor"               <---- [** your password in quotes **]
0 password ok
kill                             <---- [** this terminates the hung process **]
3 process 1056 (from mickey@autarch.acsu.buffalo.edu) terminated
[** next type in 'ctrl-]' and then type 'close' **]
^]
telnet> c
Connection closed.
%

                                Figure 2
                Killing a process on a remote Empire host

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

          Your process is now unhung, and your country should be ready to play
          once again.

Problem 4:
autarch{myclient}empire
Country name? <your country name>
Your name? <your password>

Bad password

Problem   The server does not accept the password you typed as being correct.
Solution  Try typing it again.  Try using capital letters at the beginning of
          the password as well, or the entire password in caps.  If this does
          not work, mail the Deity and inform him or her of the problem
          and what the password should be.

Problem 5:
autarch{myclient}empire
Alarm clock

Problem   Your connection to the server is not responding.
Solution  The delay time for waiting for a response that is built into
          the client is not exceedingly long.  The theory behind this being
          that if it is taking you that long to get a response from the
          Empire server then it is not worth playing, since response times

User's Guide to Empire                                                   15

          for information from the game are going to be pretty unbearable.
          Keep trying is probably the best solution.

        These are most of the problems that you will encounter in connecting to
        the game server.  There are some more problems that you might
        encounter, but generally they are not common.  If you can not reach
        your game server for more than a day, contact your deity and let
        him/her know that you can not connect.

Summary: Getting into a game of Empire is not terribly difficult. Setting up
         a client program should be a fairly painless task.  If it is not,
         do not be dismayed.  Get help from a consultant or another player
         if you can.  Some problems with the network may temporarily prevent
         you from playing.  Be patient, the network is a horse that should
         be shot, but generally it comes around after a while.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   16

Chapter 3 :-: The primitive basics.

        There are a few basic commands and ideas that will help you get
        acquainted with Empire.  These are here summarized.

Concept: Sanctuary.
        All players begin a game of Empire in what is known as a sanctuary.
While you are in a sanctuary state you can not be attacked, overrun, or
otherwise hurt.  However, while you are in sanctuary you can not do
very many things.  In order to really begin playing the game you need
to do what is known as "break sanctuary".  You can do this using the
everyone starts with) will become capital sectors.  You are no longer
protected from attacks from enemy countries.

Concept: Movement in Empire.
        Paths of movement are indicated by several keys.  Path indicators
exist in a hex shape around the letter H on your keyboard.  Thus, y means
travel North-West, u for North-East, j for East, n for South-East, b for
South-West, and g for West.  Also, h means "stop" which terminates movement
of whatever you are moving.  There is one other key, v which "views" the
sector you are currently moving through.  Thus if I gave a movement path
of gggvgh the game would move whatever I am moving three sectors West, view
the sector at three sectors west of my starting point, then move one more
sector west and then stop.

Concept: Update
        Empire games have "turns" known as updates.  When an update occurs,
your country goes through economic growth or decline, interests are paid
on gold bars, military costs are paid for, mobility increases in your
sectors, etc.  You can do a great many things between updates, an update
merely does book keeping more or less, at a predetermined time.  To find
out when the next update is going to happen, you can type 'update' as
a command.

Command: map -10:10,-7:7
        This command will give you a map of the area immediately surrounding
your beginning two sectors.  Specifically, it will give you a map from ten
sectors West of your 0,0 to ten sectors East and from seven sectors North to
seven sectors South of your 0,0.

Command: explore civ 0,0 1
        This command allows you to move one civilian from your 0,0 and
"explore" into wilderness and mountain sectors.

Command: info commands
        This command will list the various commands available in Empire.
It is a very good idea to go through the information on each command
by typing 'info <name of command>'.  This will help you get more acquainted
with the game.  Though this guide shows many commands and how to use them,
it is no substitute for the game's help itself.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   17

Command: designate 1,1 +
        This command will enable you to designate a sector you own into
whatever you desire.  Usually, in the beginning of the game you will designate
sectors that you will not be using actively for a while into highways.
The above shown example of the command will designate your 1,1 sector into
a highway.

Command: telegram <country name>
        Countries in Empire communicate with each other via telegrams.
These are private letters sent just like a telegram would be.  They have
a size limit, but there is usually more than enough room to say what you
want to say.  There is no limit to the number of telegrams you may send.

Command: announce
        Countries broadcast to the world via the command 'announce'.  These
announcements are similar to telegrams except instead of one country reading
the telegram the entire world can read it.

Command: read
        This command allows you to read any incoming telegrams or
announcements.  Empire will notify you when you have new incoming traffic.

Command: news {x number of days}
        This command will allow you to peruse the Empire newspaper.  It does
not make for great reading.  However, it is useful for intelligence gathering.
If you just enter 'news' as a command, it will print all the news since you
last read the news.  Entering 'news 3' will give you the news for the last
three days.  In big games, the news file gets quite large.

Summary: These are the basic ideas and commands of Empire.  Empire has a great
         many commands however, and the player should endeavor to learn them.
         Empire can be played with only a few commands but the additional
         commands are there for your best interests.  If you do not understand
         a command shown here, simply type 'info <command>' while in the
         game itself.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   18

Chapter 4 :-: Geography in Empire.

        Maps in Empire are based on a simple hex design.  For example:

---------------------------------- There are three basic sector types in
                                   Empire (note: "type" is different than
     /    /    /    /    /    "designation".  Designation refers to what
    /    /    /    /    /     that sector has on it, a factory or school
-4 |  .  |  ^  |  -  |  ^  |  .  | for example.  Type refers to what it is
       /    /    /    /    /  built on).  There are:
      /    /    /    /    /   seas      : .
-3    |  -  |  -  |  .  |  .  |    mountains    : ^
     /    /    /    /    /    wilderness  : -
    /    /    /    /    /     When using the Empire map, you use an "X,Y"
-2 |  .  |  -  |  -  |  -  |  .  | system.  The X coordinate refers to how far
       /    /    /    /    /  along the horizontal you are, the Y referring
      /    /    /    /    /   to the vertical.  Thus, there are seas on
-1    |  -  |  -  |  .  |  .  |    example map at  5,-1  7,-1  0,-2  8,-2
     /    /    /    /    /    5,-3  7,-3  0,-4  and 8,-4.  Negative X is
    /    /    /    /    /     to the left (to the East) of 0,0 just as
      0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8    in your high school math courses.  However,
                                   negative Y is above (to the North of) 0,0.
             Figure 3              This is different from high school math.
     Example of an Empire map      Why the maps have coordinates in this way
                                   is one of the great mysteries of Empire.
----------------------------------

        Figure 4 below is a real map of Empire, in its real size and form.
        Figure 3 is "zoomed in".  Note that the '?' marks on the right part of
        the map belong to a neighboring country.  In this figure all wilderness
        type sectors have been designated into something other than a
        wilderness There are several mountains, and a lot of ocean visible as
        well.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   19

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[309:112] Command : map #1
     33333322222222221111111111---------00000000001111111111222222
     5432109876543210987654321098765432101234567890123456789012345
  -3 + + + + + . . . . . . . . + . . . . . . .                     -3
  -2  a ^ + m ^ + . . . . o . + . . . . . . . .                    -2
  -1 + + + + + + + + . . . a o a . + + + . . . .                   -1
   0  + + + + + + + g o o o + + + . + o c m . . .                  0
   1 + + ^ o + a j m g w g ^ ^ m + j j + . + . . .                 1
   2  + + a + + + + + + + + . b j + m + w + . . . . . .            2
   3 + a . a a + b + m o j + t + + + + + + . + . + + + . . ? ? ?   3
   4  . . . . . a g + ^ + m + + l ^ ^ ^ + o + + + + + + + + ? + ?  4
   5 + . . + + + + + ^ + ^ m + j ^ ^ c + m + + + + + + + ^ + + + ^ 5
   6  .   . . + + ^ + + + + m + + o o + k + + + + + + ^ ^ + + + +  6
   7       . + + + + + + + + o m + a o + e + + + ^ ^ a + + + + + ? 7
   8      . + + + + a + ^ + g d m + w m + m + + + + + ^ + + + + ?  8
   9     . + + + + + + + + + + + k + g t + + + + + + + + ? ? ? ?   9
  10      . . + + + + ^ + ^ ^ g + + + p g + i g + + + + ?          10
  11     . + + + + + ^ + + + ^ + + m + g o + g + + + + + ? ? ? ?   11
  12      . + + + + + + + + + + + g g + + + + g + + + + + + + + ?  12
  13     . + + + + + + + + + + + + + g + g m + w + + + + + + + + ? 13
  14      . . . + + + + + + + + + + + g + + m + + + + + + + + + +  14
  15     . + + + + + + a + + + + + + + + m + + + + + + + a + + + + 15
     33333322222222221111111111---------00000000001111111111222222
     5432109876543210987654321098765432101234567890123456789012345

                                Figure 4
                     Realistic version of an Empire map

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        The following listing is taken directly from the command
        'info sector-types' in the game.  There is a lengthy description of
        each sector type also in this command, but I have omitted it here
        for brevity.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   20

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BASICS                   INDUSTRIES                MILITARY / SCIENTIFIC
    .  sea                   d  defense plant          t  technical center
    ^  mountain              i  shell industry         f  fortress
    s  sanctuary             m  mine                   r  research lab
    /  wasteland             g  gold mine              n  nuclear plant
    -  wilderness            h  harbor                 l  library/school
    c  capital               w  warehouse              e  enlistment center
    p  park                  u  uranium mine
    COMMUNICATIONS           *  airfield               FINANCIAL
    +  highway               a  agribusiness           b  bank
    )  radar installation    o  oil field
                             j  light manufacturing
    #  bridge head           k  heavy manufacturing
    =  bridge span           %  refinery

                                Figure 5
                  Table of sector types and designations

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        As you can see, there are a wide variety of sector types in Empire.
        However, until your country becomes populated the most useful sector
        is the highway ('+'), for it allows you to move things around easier,
        even if the highway has only begun being constructed
        (ie, 0% efficient).

Summary: Empire maps are based on a simple hex design, with the movement
         keys based similarly around the letter h on standard keyboards.
         These movement keys are a basic tool in Empire and must be learned.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   21

Chapter 5 :-: The beginning phases of Empire.

        Typically a game starts with a `speed' phase. If it does not, then
        initial play can get boring quickly.  A `speed' opening also demands
        more time for the period when the updates are frequent, but hopefully,
        that will be balanced by your efficient country and the less time
        spent running it when your classes/real life demand more time.

        There are several opening strategies for Empire players.  I am going
        to go through a few of them here.  If you feel you can make a better
        strategy feel free to do so.

        Basically, all strategies for the opening phases revolve around a
        few basic ideas.  First, you want to secure as much land for yourself
        as possible.  Secondly, if you share an island with some other person,
        you want to leave yourself in a strategically advantageous position
        against your opponent, optimally to surround him/her before s/he breaks
        sanctuary.  These two ideas are the most important things to consider
        prior to the first update.  There are other things to consider, which
        will be reviewed later.

        It is highly important for you, the player, to begin playing the game
        as soon as the game begins.  If you do not, you risk being surrounded
        before the first update.  Furthermore, not breaking sanctuary prior to
        the first update can cost you a great deal in terms of population
        growth and the establishment of your economy.

        Some players will use tools, which are reviewed in chapter 14, to
        break sanctuary and occupy land from the beginning.  There are other
        means to aid your land occupation as well.  If you have a programmable
        terminal, or terminal program, you can program a key to contain a
        particular command such as "explore civ 0,0 1 jjjujuuu".  This could
        be a path along a line of land that you have already occupied, and
        wish to expand beyond.  If you had to repeatedly type in that command
        and path you would take a much greater amount of time to occupy land.
        This can also be done through X windows, using the mouse and cut/paste
        capabilities.

        There are a few different theories on how to explore out from your
        sanctuaries to claim as much land as possible for yourself.

        In the following maps, the square island shown is entirely wilderness
        except for the two sanctuaries in the middle.  It is important to note
        that prior to exploring the entire island, the only thing you would
        be able to see on your map would be this:

User's Guide to Empire                                                   22

            - - - - -
           - - - - - -
          - - - - - - -
         - - - s s - - -
          - - - - - - -
           - - - - - -
            - - - - -

        It is your job to explore the island, while occupying, or securing for
        yourself, as much land as possible.  Note that for the sake of
        simplicity I have not placed another country on this example island.
        If a sector is a "+","c", or "s" it is an occupied (by you) sector.
        If it's a "-" it's a wilderness sector, and if you can move into it,
        it is unoccupied.  This is an important piece of information.  If you
        can note move into a wilderness sector it means that it is occupied by
        another country.  Note that "." are seas, as indicated in chapter 5.
        The basic commands to complete this exploration are 'explore' and
        'designate'.  Learn about those commands either from chapter 4 or
        the game before attempting these theories.

        First, I show the entire island prior to your breaking sanctuary and
        exploring:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

          . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
         . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
         . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
         . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
         . - - - - - - - - - - - - - s s - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
         . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
         . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
         . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
           . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

                                Figure 6
                Unexplored island prior to breaking sanctuary

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Next, I show theory 1, occupying in a concentric circle.
        Note that once you have broken sanctuary (using the 'break'
        command) that your two sanctuary sectors immediately become
        capitals, with your real capital at 0,0.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   23

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

          . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
         . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
         . - - - - - - - - - - - + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - - - + + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - .
         . - - - - - - - - - + + + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - - + + + + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - .
         . - - - - - - - - + + + + + c c + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - - + + + + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - .
         . - - - - - - - - - + + + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - - - + + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - .
         . - - - - - - - - - - + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
         . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
           . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

                                Figure 7
                Island showing exploration using theory 1

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        So far, 84 sectors have been occupied.  Now I show theory 2,
        occupying in spokes with concentric hexes spaced every few sectors
        apart:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

          . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
         . - - - - - - - - - - + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - - - + + - - - - - + + - - - - - - - - - - - - .
         . - - - - - - - - - + - + - - - - + - + - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - - + - - + + + + + - - + - - - - - - - - - - - .
         . - - - - - - - - + - - + + - - + + - - + - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - + - - + - + + + - + - - + - - - - - - - - - - .
         . - - - - - - - + + + + + + c c + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - + - - + - + + + - + - - + - - - - - - - - - - .
         . - - - - - - - - + - - + + - - + + - - + - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - - + - - + + + + + - - + - - - - - - - - - - - .
         . - - - - - - - - - + - + - - - - + - + - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - - - + + - - - - - + + - - - - - - - - - - - - .
         . - - - - - - - - - - + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
           . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

                                Figure 8
                Island showing exploration using theory 2

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

User's Guide to Empire                                                   24

        Now, 84 sectors have once again been occupied.  However, an additional
        56 sectors are now within the borders of your country.  Thus, securing
        a total of 140 sectors for yourself.  The disadvantage?  You have three
        lines of occupation ( the "+" sectors) between the center of your
        country and unsecured wilderness.  In theory 1, the same number of
        sectors provides for 4 lines for most of the country.  Another
        disadvantage is that it costs more mobility to use theory 2.  The more
        lines of occupation you have between the central areas of your
        country and the unexplored wilderness or an enemy the easier it is
        to defend your country.

        A third theory is the idea of coastal occupation as a means of securing
        a large island.  The idea being to secure the land immediately around
        you and then explore in one direction until you find seas, and then
        proceed to occupy the coast:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

          . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
         . + + + + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . + - - - - - - - - - + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
         . + - - - - - - - - - - + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . + - - - - - - - - - - + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
         . + - - - - - - - - - - - + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
          . + - - - - - - - - - - + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
         . + - - - - - - - - - - + + c c + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - .
          . + - - - - - - - - - - + + + + + - - - - - + - - - - - - - - .
         . + - - - - - - - - - - - + + + + - - - - - - + - - - - - - - .
          . + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - + - - - - - - - .
         . + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - + - - - - - - .
          . + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - + - - - - - - .
         . + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - + - - - - - .
          . + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + - - - - - .
           . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

                                Figure 9
                Island showing exploration using theory 3

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Here, once again, 84 sectors have been occupied.  In addition, 179
        sectors of wilderness have been secured, ie cut off from another
        country.  This brings a total of 263 sectors occupied or secured.
        This is obviously impressive.  However, it has its drawbacks as well.
        If there was a country bordering this country, that country would
        need only to attack and occupy one of your sectors and then they
        could explore into all of the "secured" sectors.  In addition, there
        are only 2-3 lines of occupied sectors between the borders and the
        center of the country.  This also costs more in terms of mobility than
        either theory 1 or 2.

        The next section contains a strategy submitted by Scott Yelich.  Scott
        adheres in this summary to theory 1 as his method of exploration:

User's Guide to Empire                                                   25

  "Designate one of the two initial [sanctuary] capital sectors to
an agricultural center.  Then move a civ out from either sector to
either 1,-1 or 1,1 and designate it a +.  Then, I continue to move out
one civilian at a time from both of my initial sectors.  Only move
the civ one spot into the wilderness and then I designate that sector
as a highway (+).  Then, do a map to see if there is anything
especially interesting... such as, a mountain, more land or ANOTHER
PLAYER.  Of course, Only do that map at certain times... it's not
necessary to do a map after EVERY explore since explore will show you
a one sector radius!

[Editor's note: exploring with one civilian across a wilderness sector
takes .8 mobility.  Across a highway, even a 0% highway, it will cost
only .2 mobility.  Thus, the reason for designating new land as soon
as you occupy it.  You will conserve mobility if you only explore into
lands bordering your new highways.]

  "Here is where quick action comes into play.  If you spot any controlled
sectors (?) or a (-) that can't be entered (if you can note move into the
sector it is occupied by someone else! hurry!), try to make a boarder as
quick as possible by following the pattern above... move one civ, look,
repeat.  If you don't find any controlled sectors, simply [try] to
AVOID MOUNTAINS at ALL costs...  especially during the first couple of
updates.  Typically, from 30 to 70 sectors can be grabbed this way
within the first minute or two.

  "To sum up, the strategy for this is: 1) You want to see who is out there,
2) You want to see what land is out there, 3) when you take more sectors
during the initial updates, you will get more mobility each update
(typically 8, 'version' will tell...).  Anyway, the more sectors you grab
with the first update, the more you can grab the second.  It's like an
exponential function."

        This next section is a strategy submitted by Geoff Cashman.  Geoff
        adheres in this summary to theory 2 as his method for exploration:

  "The basic strategy of moving one sector into the wilderness and then
designate them with a command such as this:  designate #1 ?des=- +  which will
designate all sectors in realm #1 that are wilderness into highways, is a
common one.  Using it wisely is not always done.  My personal method is to
expand only in a few directions, ie 3-6 different directions from your 0,0 2,0
area.  The idea here being to make "spokes" of exploration radiating out from
your 0,0 and 2,0 area.  Using this method, you can use less mobility and see
more land though not actually own more land until after the first update.
Another advantage is you might reach an opponent before s/he reaches you.  A
weakness is that an opponent can explore inbetween your spokes.  If I feel
this is possible inbetween two spokes then I connect the spokes via concentric
(on 2,0 0,0 ) arc several sectors out from the 0,0.  If you do not use this
method, then you would use up all of your mobility to achieve the same number
of sectors by the second update.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   26

  "Why save mobility?  Mobility in the 0,0 sector is especially critical.
The reason is because the 0,0 starts out with 999 civs.  If a sector has
999 or more civs it will not give birth to more civilians.  Half of the
battle in winning Empire is population explosion at the beginning of the
game...ESPECIALLY if you get involved in a low tech war with a neighbor
early on.  More population means more resources mined, more supportable
military, and more taxpayers.  If you are going to be a tech producer then
it may be desireable to limit population, but early on I do not recommend
it.  So, with 999 civs in your 0,0 sector you need to be able to move out
many civs (depends on the number of ETUs per update (see the version command)
as to how many you should move out, see number of births per 1,000 civs per
etu in the version command).  Thus, my strategy is slightly different.
I concentrate on getting a 100% highway built at 1,-1 or 1,1.  Why those
sectors?  because I can then use the mobility in 1,-1 or 1,1 to move civs
or products into 2,0."

        The use of the third theory requires a player with some experience
        to deal with its shortcomings.  For the beginner, I do not recommend
        it.

        The following was submitted by another player to point out their means
        of establishing their production and the beginning stages of their
        economy:

"Setting up a distribution network, even with inefficient warehouses, is
fairly critical early on.  If you starve civilians in the beginning of the
game, you will fall behind in production.  It is not uncommon to lose
contact with the game for a day or more due to net failures.  Do not
depend on your capability to connect to the game to feed your civilians.

"Some people never leave their 0,0 or 2,0 designated as a capital during the
beginning of the game.  They check the resources in 0,0 and then determine if
it's suitable for being a mine or a gold mine.  If neither, then they designate
2,0 into a mine.  If mine, then 2,0 becomes a gold mine.  Using this method
they can get maximum production from their civilians that are essentially
trapped for the time being in their 0,0 and 2,0 sectors due to lack of
mobility.  Note that in doing this that you must conserve BTUs.  Having
a 0% efficient capital somewhere else will cause a lack of production of
BTUs.  You must be careful not to run out of BTUs completely, or it could
cause you a great deal of grief.

"NOTE: IT IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO LEAVE A CAPITAL ON THE COAST AFTER
ANYONE PRODUCES A BOAT.  Until that time, a capital on the coast is
an advantage in some ways.  It is easier to defend (less places that
it can be attacked from).  You MUST get some civilians into the capital
at -2,0 (about 50) before the first update along with some food.
In general, your capital will not produce BTUs for a while, but neither
do you need them for a while.  However, leave your 0,0 sector as your
capital until JUST prior (like 2-4 minutes, make it 10 to be safe) to
the update.  Does this all sound complicated?  Yep.  But it works.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   27

"After the first or second update I will occupy the remaining wilderness
that I can see, using the mobility from the sectors that I explored into
in the previous update.   I will then continue to move civs out of 0,0 and
into 1,-1 or 1,1 (the highway that I am trying to make 100%) and move from
there.  If I am not going for tech production then I don't need the library
or parks (you can still make education, it helps in some regards, but for
the most part you don't need it if you are not going the way of tech.

You can then pretty much do as you please and work towards the goals you
think are reasonable for your country.  "

        One matter that can not be overlooked by any player is the simple
        fact that people need food to survive.  If a sector has less than
        60 people in it total, including civs, soldiers, and uws, then it
        will not starve.  But if after the update it has more than 60 total
        people will starve.  Make sure to feed your people!

        Ultimately, you want to take over every sector on your island.
        If you have neighbors on your island, you will probably have to share.
        Just try to get a bigger portion of it than your neighbors do.

Summary: There are several basic ideas expressed in this chapter:
         1) Break sanctuary as soon as the game begins.
         2) Secure as much land for yourself as possible.
         3) Use your civilians efficiently.
         4) Do not allow your 0,0 sector to have a lot of civs in it.
         5) Get a distribution system set up early (explained later).

User's Guide to Empire                                                   28

Chapter 6 :-: Diplomacy.

        It's your own ruin or success.  One of the best players of the game
        (who shall go un-named) has had severe problems due to lack of skill
        in diplomacy.  Remember, there is another person on the other end of
        that telegram.  They are human like you are, and like to be treated
        like it for the most part.  There are jerks, and there are non-jerks.
        Determine for yourself and go along with what you think is best, but
        remember, it is ok to lose a few battles so long as you win the war.
        A diplomatic loss can be an overall victory.

        One of the most powerful weapons in the game is information.
        What types of information can you use to your benefit?  Information on;
        the locality of other countries, the plans of opponents, the trading
        going on between certain countries, etc.  There is also a very powerful
        tool right here in this document: how to play the game well.  There
        was a classic case of a country (myself) who accidentally announced
        his attention to attack a bordering country.  The bordering country
        happened to be on, an began an attack.  The attack stalemated for the
        most part because of the obvious inexperience of the person running
        that country.  I offered information to him on how to play the game
        better in exchange for his surrender and some other terms of agreement.
        I turned a horrendous diplomatic mistake into a diplomatic success
        within two hours.  This is obviously the rare case (surprised me too),
        but is a good example of the power of information.

        Another aspect of diplomacy is style.  You project a style in your
        telegrams and announcements whether it is intentional or not.  If
        people like you they tend to side with you more than the next guy.
        Of course, if you are a jerk but a powerful one people tend to
        reluctantly side with you.  Then again, they are more likely to
        backstab you.

        While I am on that subject:  Backstabbing is a bad idea in general.
        It leads to distrust of many players with regards to yourself and tends
        to give yourself backstabbist's wrist if you do it too much.  Even if
        you change your country name from game to game people tend to pick
        out who the major jerks are and their previous names or even net
        addresses.  Trust is important.  If you have allies you can trust
        implicitly you will sleep a lot better at night and also have people
        who you can trust to run your country for you while you are away for a
        few days pursuing real world goals.  If you are going to backstab
        someone crush them while you can and make sure their allies can not
        get at you.  Furthermore, make the world see that the person was a
        fool for trusting you in the first place (like, due to previous war
        or some such).  Sometimes, that extra attack you get without
        interference from automatic defenses due to a declaration of alliance
        with your opponent can be critical.  You can also map an opponent
        country if you are allied with them and they will never know it.
        Thus another good reason why you should be trustable and can trust
        other close allies.  Having allies is important, especially
        in the current market games.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   29

A)  What is diplomacy?
        The dictionary defines diplomacy as "1: The art and practice of
        conducting negotiations between nations.  2: Skill in handling
        affairs without arousing hostility."  The second definition may
        not be entirely accurate in that in Empire, diplomacy can sometimes
        be used to cause battles, rather than avoid them, to gain a particular
        end.  I will go into this later.

B)  What purpose, diplomacy?
        Since Empire is a multi-user game the diplomacy side of the game
        is one of the main factors inherent to its playing.  Being able
        to interact with other players, make bargains, treaties, alliances,
        sales, war, etc. leads to an incredibly variety of possible
        scenarios among various countries.  In asking, what purpose is
        there to diplomacy, it must first be realized that diplomacy in
        the game of Empire is virtually unavoidable.  To what degree
        you involve yourself in diplomacy is the true measure.

        Diplomacy can be utterly disastrous for you.  It can also be
        very beneficial.  It can also be a mediocre tool that goes mostly
        unused.  If you master the techniques of diplomacy you will find
        yourself with a very valuable and powerful tool.  If you fail
        at grasping the basic concepts of diplomacy, then you may find
        yourself the quick victim of a diplomatic trick.

C)  General types of relations amongst nations in Empire
        1) No contact.  The two countries have never been in contact.
        2) Allies.  Several types:
                a) Old friends, or local site friends.
                b) People whom you trust more than other people
                   in the game, but are not entirely comfortable with.
                   Nevertheless, you ally with them for lack of allies.
                c) Enemy allies.  People whom you ally with whom you
                   intend to attack.
                d) Undeclared allies.  You conduct a lot of business with
                   the country, but you do not officially declare your
                   alliance.
        3) Hostile.  Generally speaking, any country who is unfriendly
           towards you.  May not necessarily be declared hostile.
        4) At war.  If you have not figured out what this means, stop
           reading, never play Empire, and go back to elementary school :-)
        5) Neutral.  The broadest category.  You've dealt with this person
           but have not decided one way or another your relations.  It might
           be a person from a previous game or a total unknown.

d)  Types of diplomacy
        1) Active diplomacy
                You interact with the country on a very high level.  Whatever
                their relations with you, a lot of correspondence is going on.
                This is probably the easiest form of diplomacy to invoke.
        2) Passive diplomacy
                Low level contact only.  In essence, you do not work with
                this country.  Some goals served by this:  Country in question

User's Guide to Empire                                                   30

                learns little about you; Country in question may give you more
                info than you give him or her; etc..
        3) Indirect diplomacy
                Diplomacy through a middle country to another country.  This
                is most often seen in situations where a known friend is an
                ally of a country you want to be allied with.  You attempt
                to use your friend to convince the prospective ally to ally
                with you.
        4) Median diplomacy
                Being the middle person in a triad or more of allies that
                may not be already allied.  This can be a VERY dangerous
                position to be in.  The other sides of the triad or more
                may have certain expectations of you, which go against what
                another country may want from you.  This is essentially
                sitting on a fence.

E)  Some goals that can be achieved through diplomacy:
        1)  Getting another country to ally with you so that you can
            overfly his country at will without planes scrambling.
        2)  Getting two countries whom you dislike to go to war against
            each other.
        3)  Getting another country to perform an act that is beneficial
            to you or your allies.
        4)  Getting a reduction in price of certain commodities or articles
            from another country.
        5)  Gaining an ally.
        6)  Assisting in destroying an enemy.

        One of the most dangerous means by which diplomacy can be used was
        written about in the book "Red Storm Rising" by Tom Clancy.  If you
        have not already read this book and you are an Empire buff, it is
        strongly recommended reading.  This method is referred to as "The
        Maskirovka" or "Masquerade".  It is often referred to as the "big lie"
        by the victims of this trick.  Essentially it works as follows:

        a) You wish to attack another country, but would like to have things
           sightly different before the attack begins.
                o  You may want that person to be your ally before the attack
                   so you can overfly him/her without being shot down.
                o  You might want to get him/her to give you a loan prior to
                   your attack.
                o  You might want them to move their fleet off in another
                   direction or in closer to your forts.
                o  You might want them to give you certain materials of war
                   that you can use in your attack against them.
           All of these things and much more can be accomplished with
           the concept of maskirovka.  Decide what you want to achieve.
        b) You set out to give the impression to the target country that you
           are in a particular state of matters.  This can be accomplished
           in various ways depending on what you are trying to achieve.
           You can have another country attack you for instance to make it

User's Guide to Empire                                                   31

           appear that you need military arms or supplies to hold them off.
           This is one small example of what can be done.  Ensure that the
           image you are presenting can ultimately lead to getting what you
           want to achieve accomplished.
        c) You must be convincing in your impression.  Use all means reasonable
           to ensure the target country is getting the right image.  Using
           e-mail with collaborating countries to coordinate such matters
           is often best.
        d) As you begin feeling that you have achieved the correct image,
           begin asking the target country for whatever it is you are trying
           to achieve.  Do not come right out and say it.  That may cause
           the whole trick to collapse on you.  Approach it sideways so to
           speak, and try to get the target country to offer whatever it is
           without you directly asking for it.
        e) If the country agrees to the transaction of events you are seeking,
           all is well and good.  You have achieved your goal.  Keep in mind
           that if you have played the maskirovka well, you have not yet
           committed yourself in any particular direction with any sense of
           strong commitment.  At this point, you can always back down from
           your further goals for which the maskirovka was designed to help.
           The maskirovka at this point will have given you a more favorable
           situation without having committed yourself.  It may also have
           enabled you to see more into the mind of your opponent, often
           a valuable commodity.
        f) If you have failed in your maskirovka, you may still have made
           some gains.  You again might know more about your opponent than
           before.  You might have reached some of your goals that the
           maskirovka set out to accomplish.  Lastly, you have not committed
           yourself in any particular direction, yet you have tried to
           enhance your position.  Not a bad proposition.

        There are many variations to maskirovkas.  The guides listed above are
        very general at best, and are meant more to give you an idea of how to
        build a plan for maskirovka than anything else.

        Chess players who have ever played in matches or tournaments will
        probably feel right at home in scheming a maskirovka.  You must try to
        get into the mind of your opponent, understand what s/he sees from
        his/her vantage point and get a feel for how you think s/he will
        respond.  You must think as if you were your opponent.  Understand
        their vantage point as best as you can.  Do not think of what you
        would do in a given situation, think what they would do.  Think
        consequences to every action you can take.

        This usage of diplomacy is "active diplomacy", sometimes mixed with
        "indirect diplomacy".

        Another oft seen ploy of sorts is one in which you befriend a dying
        rich country.  They may be on there way out, and there may not be a
        whole hell of a lot you can do for them.  However, befriending them
        towards the end may bring you gifts of money or lower market prices
        from them when they dissolve.  Show sympathy for their situation.
        You can be sincere, or you may chose not to be.  Sometimes a dying

User's Guide to Empire                                                   32

        country has no friends to whom they will leave their money.  If your
        the first to show sympathy, they may be willing to give you much in
        return.  This is an active form of diplomacy, but is rarely seen
        except after a long period of passiveness relative to that country.

        Posturing.  Probably the most common form of diplomacy.  This basically
        means presenting an image to a possible attacker that you are more
        capable than you appear.  In general, people tend to believe it.
        Consider the simple fact that generally speaking a good Empire player
        spends a lot of time working on his or her country.  Then, let them
        believe through posturing that they are at a greater risk than
        they actually are.  They may tend to get possessive about their
        country and not want to risk its destruction and the eventual loss
        of so many sleepless nights and hours building the country in the
        first place.

Summary: Diplomacy is a powerful tool.  Some players consider it the
         most powerful aspect of the game.  In many ways that can be shown
         to be true.  However, do not let other facets of your country
         decline and spend a huge amount of time building an excellent
         diplomatic situation.  The success or failure of diplomacy depends a
         great deal on the other players perception of your words.  If your
         diplomacy fails, you may find that you will be forced to back up what
         you say with military force.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   33

Chapter 7 :-: Setting up your defenses.

        There are various means of "automatic" defense that Empire employs
        against enemy invaders.  These can be outlined in three major areas:

        1: Home air defenses

                Empire has numerous planes and plane capabilities.  The higher
                your tech level, the better the planes you can build.  For
                automatic defenses you are concerned with planes that have the
                "intercept" capability listed next to them in the command,
                'show planes c'.

                Generally speaking, as some games diverge from this list, the
                planes that have intercept capability are:
                        a: Fighter 1       (also has VTOL capability)
                        b: Fighter 2
                        c: Escort 2        (in SOME games)
                        d: Jet fighter
                        e: Jet fighter 2   (also has VTOL capability)

                These planes are based out of airbases (except for the VTOL
                planes which can scramble from airbases and non-airbase
                sectors) and will automatically intercept incoming enemy
                planes.

                notes: 1: Planes will only scramble if there is petrol in
                          the sector they are scrambling from.
                       2: Airbases must be at 60% or better efficiency to
                          scramble.  This does not apply to other sectors
                          from which VTOL planes are scrambling, nor does it
                          apply to VTOL planes in airports.

                In this version of Empire it is VERY important to have a good
                home air defense network.  Having a great many planes with
                intercept capability without proper planning is not a good
                defense.  You must learn to use the planes wisely.

                Hints for good home air defense:
                1:  Have airports within intercept range of each other.
                    A plane's intercept range is 1/2 of its range indicated
                    in the command 'show planes c'.  For example:

User's Guide to Empire                                                   34

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[513:36] Command : show planes c
                     acc load att def ran fuel abilities
Sopwith Camel, fight  30    1   3   2   6    1 tactical intercept VTOL light
TBD-1 Devastator, lt  30    2   1   2   8    1 bomber tactical VTOL light
C-56 Lodestar, trans   0    7   0   1  15    2 cargo
B-26B Marauder, hvy   85    6   2   3  15    2 bomber

                                Figure 10
                  Results from 'show planes capability'

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                    In this list of planes, only the Sopwith Camel plane is
                    capable of interception.  It has a range of 6, and thus
                    it can intercept enemy planes up to 3 sectors away from
                    the sector it is based in.  Have your planes based in
                    sectors that are three sectors away from each other.
                2:  Always have a substantial number of military in your
                    airports.  It is all too easy for an enemy to track
                    down your airport and capture it, thus possibly destroying
                    all your planes, and in the very least taking them
                    from you.
                3:  Ensure that all sectors that you have planes based in
                    have a sufficient amount of petrol for them.  Note that in
                    the above figure, the Sopwith Camel uses 1 fuel per
                    mission.  Thus, having 10 or more petrol per Sopwith
                    would be sufficient.
                4:  Do not base your entire defense on non-VTOL capable
                    interceptors.  If you do, then your enemy can remove
                    your air defenses just by taking out your airports.
                    Sopwith Camels (Fighter 1s) and Jet Fighter 2s are
                    the VTOL intercept capable planes.  Sopwith Camels
                    generally become useless for intercept duty as the
                    game wears on.  After all, a paper airplane can not
                    put up with cannon fire from an F-15 for very long!
                5:  It is a good idea to have each sector in your country
                    covered by at least two airbases (or non airbases from
                    which your are basing VTOL planes).  This makes it more
                    difficult for your enemy to locate where your airbases are.

        2: Forts and guns

                Forts will automatically fire on any enemy army units that
                attack land of the defending nation, assuming that the guns
                in the fort have the range to reach the aggressor.  This
                also assumes that the fort has shells and military.

                Fort gun range is determined by multiplying the number of guns
                in the fort by the technology factor of the nation.  This
                number can be found in the nation report [see command: nation].

User's Guide to Empire                                                   35

                Here's an example of calculating your gun range:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[77:144] Command : nation

        Terminus Nation Report  Sun Oct 20 18:27:08 1991
Nation status is ACTIVE     Bureaucratic Time Units: 144
100% eff capital at -3,5 has 999 civilians & 0 military
# 0  -70:-40,-30:-16    # 1  -35:25,-3:15    # 2  -30:15,-4:7
# 3  -45:5,7:22    # 4  -45:5,7:17    # 5  -65:-20,-31:0
# 6  -65:-20,-12:0    # 7  -80:-30,-5:10    # 8  -8:10,-5:5
# 9  -32:32,11:22    #10  -50:18,-12:10    #11  -40:-10,-5:5
#12  -38:29,-3:23    #13  -65:30,-18:6    #14  -20:20,16:22
#15  -30:30,-3:23    #16  -40:20,7:25    #17  -80:30,-30:23
 The treasury has $57485.00     Military reserves: 1676
Education.......... 17.78       Happiness....... 13.42
Technology......... 52.78       Research........  1.44
Technology factor : 40.66%      Plague factor :   1.51%

                                Figure 11
                      Results from a 'nation' report

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                To calculate the gun range, multiply the number of guns in
                the fort (up to a maximum of seven) by the number listed in
                "Technology factor" which is shown in this figure as 40.66.
                Then, divide the resulting number by one hundred and that
                is the number of sectors away the gun can fire at.  In this
                case, if you have seven guns the resulting range is 2.85
                sectors.  Effectively, the fort can fire just short of three
                sectors away.

                There is an additional aspect of forts which make them
                useful as defensive sectors.  Military forces inside of
                a fort have four times the defensive factor of military in
                most other sectors.  Ie, 100 soldiers in a fort is equal to
                400 regular troops if they are defending the fort.

                Also note that forts can not be taken by paratroops dropped
                from planes.  They can only be taken via amphibious assault
                and overland attack.

                Forts are generally useful along your border sectors early
                in the game and later on in the game throughout your country.
                Ensure that they each have sufficient (seven or more) guns
                and shells each, when you are able to devote that many guns
                and shells to them.  Forts are sometimes very critical when
                your country is being over run.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   36

        3: Naval support

                Your navy will defend itself if it has the capability to do
                so.  Ships do not automatically come with guns when they are
                built; they must be provided with guns and shells by loading
                them onto the respective ship.  Most ships have the capability
                to fire guns.  Should a ship of your nation be attacked, it
                will defend itself if it can.  In addition, ships within range
                will also retaliate.  Note that submarines will *not* fire
                no matter how often they are fired at.

                Ships will not defend your land sectors.

                If ships are attacked from the air, they will fire their
                anti-aircraft guns (which are the same as your regular guns,
                and again are not automatically installed upon their
                construction).  Anti-aircraft guns on ships are pretty much
                worthless on defense.  Additionally, if enemy planes fly
                over your ships but do not attack those ships, your ships
                will not fire on them.  Thus having a line of ships as
                radar pickets will not work.

        In addition to these three major modes of automatic defense, there
        are a few more minor ones.

        Any gun in any sector of yours that is overflown by enemy planes
        will fire on those planes if it has shells, guns,  and military
        available.

        Military in any sector of yours that is attacked will automatically
        fight back to the best of its ability.  There is no such thing as
        retreat in automatic military fighting.  In addition, there are three
        sectors which multiply the effectiveness of military within them.
        We have already mentioned forts in this capacity, in that they
        multiply the effectiveness of troops within them by four.  Capitals
        and Banks multiply troops effectiveness by two, when on the defensive.

        Also note that Capitals and Forts, as previously mentioned, can not
        be taken by airborne paratroopers.  Neither can mountains.

        Lastly, should sectors of yours be taken, the enemy will have to deal
        with your patriotic guerillas.  Guerillas will attempt to retake
        sectors from the enemy every update until they are defeated (which
        takes some time).  They are large in numbers, but have been known to
        reach strengths of a hundred or more soldiers, though this is rare.
        If they can not hope to retake the sector they may try to blow things
        up in the sector the enemy has conquered.  This results in loss of
        efficiency to the sector as well as reduction in the work capability
        of the sector.

        You have *no* control over your guerillas whatsoever.  They are
        completely automatic.  Should guerillas win a sector back from your
        enemy then the surviving guerillas become members of your regular

User's Guide to Empire                                                   37

        military, and you can use them as such.

        If your guerillas manage to take a sector back behind enemy lines
        it is possible for you to enlist reservists in that sector.  In
        so doing, you may throw a major thorn into the side of your attacker.
        This is a major reason for maintaining a large amount of reserves.

Summary: Automatic defenses in Empire are a critical part of every country.
         If your country can not defend itself then you can expect to be
         quickly over run.  Use the automatic defenses described in this
         chapter, and you will become a more difficult opponent.  Remember
         the three basic areas of automatic defense.  In addition, keep in
         mind that your airforce is probably the most important component of
         your automatic defenses.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   38

Chapter 8 :-: Nuclear warfare.

        Nuclear war in Empire is not currently the dreaded end of the world
        doomsday machine it is in the real world.  Nuclear weapons in the
        standard release of Empire have no fallout, no radiation, no dust
        clouds, etc.  Nuclear weapons in Empire are essentially big
        conventional bombs.  They are "clean" weapons in that the only
        difference between them and conventional bombs is that they are
        bigger and create nuclear wasteland.

        As such, a nuclear war is much more survivable.

        There are several things that you need in order to wage nuclear
        war against an enemy.  First, you need the nuclear warheads themselves.
        You will also need a missile or plane of sufficient type and range to
        launch the warheads on.  Lastly, you need to have target information,
        ie where to land the nuclear warhead to cause the damage you want it
        to cause.

        Next, you need to decide if it is worth the cost to wage a nuclear
        war.  Should the enemy country know where you are, and have the means
        to retaliate in kind, s/he will most likely do so.  This can cause
        grave damage to your own country, and eliminate any gains you may have
        achieved by beginning a nuclear war.

        There is also the large chance of great diplomatic cost.  Most
        countries do not tend to favor countries that rely on nuclear weapons
        for victory, since it is the "easy" way out.

        However, the scenario that the beginner needs to be most concerned
        about is being the victim of a nuclear attack.  Most beginners never
        come close to achieving enough strength to have an effective nuclear
        force.  It may take several games before you become practiced enough
        to maintain an economy and military that is capable of having the
        resources, etc. necessary for such a force.  Nuclear weapons can be
        bought from larger powers, however the beginner still rarely tends
        to have these.

        In the event that you are attacked with nuclear weapons you need
        to take immediate steps in order to ensure your survival.  You must
        first decide if it is in fact worth it for you to continue.  Most
        nuclear attacks are survivable.  In many cases, you may be hit by
        only one warhead.  Depending on the size of your country, a small
        number of warheads hitting you is survivable.  This all assumes the
        warheads are of the 5mt variety.  5mt warheads create a wasteland
        that is 5 sectors long from left to right.  3mt warheads create
        wasteland that is 3 sectors from left to right.  Diameter in both
        cases is the same north-south as east-west.  These are the only
        nuclear weapons that can really create serious problems for you.
        Other nuclear weapons cause problems, but are essentially nuisances
        that can be easily overcome.

        The following is a map of your -20:0,-10:3 region.  You have been

User's Guide to Empire                                                   39

        hit with a 3mt nuclear warhead at your sector -12,-6.  It wastelanded
        7 of your sectors and damaged nearly the entire area.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                           21111111111----------
                           098765432109876543210
                        10 . . . . . . . . . . . 10
                         9  . . ) . . h f . . .  9
                         8 . . a m g o + m . . . 8
                         7  . a +   + * m . .  7
                         6 = # +    w b ) . . 6
                         5  . . h   + e f . .  5
                         4 . . f + + c f l . . . 4
                         3  . . k j + f m m . .  3
                           211111111119876543210
                           09876543210----------

                                Figure 12
                  Map of area hit by 3mt nuclear warhead

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Here is a basic outline of what you will need to do should you be hit
        with one or more 3mt or greater warheads:

        1: Get food to the people in areas that need food.  Especially areas
           that are partially or totally cut off from the rest of your country.
           ON THE MAP ABOVE:  This would probably be necessary for all sectors
                              east of -12 and/or north of -4.

        2: Distribution routes *will* be cut off by a nuclear hit.  Redo your
           distribution routes around the nuclear wasteland areas.  Make sure
           that your new distribution center has enough food to feed the people
           you are trying to support with it.
           ON THE MAP ABOVE:  This would probably be necessary for all sectors
                              in the region.
        3: Move people into the area affected by the blast.  Get highways in
           the area back up to efficiency as soon as possible.  This will
           allow for increased movement in the immediate area of the blast
           which could be critical to the survival of the people in that area
           as well as defense of the area.
           ON THE MAP ABOVE:  You will probably need to restructure your
                              highway system in the region.  Move people in
                              from the south-east (off the map).
        4: Lastly, try to get production back online in the area.  This is
           not as critical as the first three things.

        Those are the essentials for recovering from a nuclear blast.  The

User's Guide to Empire                                                   40

        first three items should be done as soon as possible top to bottom,
        ie number one is priority one.

        There are also defense considerations after you have been hit by
        a nuclear blast.  Your air defenses in the area might be wiped out
        which would allow your opponent to take over your land in that area.
        There are also steps you can use to shore up your defenses in the
        area while you are getting the area back on its feet:

        1: Enlist military in the region.  Looking at the map in figure 12,
           You might do something like:

        [23:210] Command: enlist -20:0,-10:3 -25

           That would enlist military in the region so that every sector had
           at least 25 military in it.  Note that you can only enlist half of
           the population in a sector at one time, but you can enlist in the
           same sector over and over again.

           Doing this would hamper an enemy's progress should they attempt a
           paradrop assault in the region.

        2: Move undamaged or nearly undamaged VTOL fighter planes from the
           south-east (off the map) into the area.  Do not put them on
           the airbase.  Provide them with petrol as well.  This will
           shore up your air defenses which were damaged by the blast.  It
           will also make it much more difficult for an enemy power to attack
           by air in the region.

        3: Move guns and shells into the forts on the map if they are not
           already there.  Make sure there is at least 7 guns and a lot of
           shells in each fort.  Also make sure there are substantial military
           forces in each.  This will help prevent extended military action
           on land by an enemy.

        4: Move naval forces into the region if possible.  This will help
           to prevent amphibious assaults.

        If you do all of these things, recovery from the blast will not
        take long at all.  These things will minimize the effect of the
        blast and get the area back on its feet again.

        Do not be dismayed by loss of resources etc.  You *can* recover.
        I have been a victim of nuclear war probably half a dozen times,
        and so far have found only one case in which I was crippled by
        the effects.  My entire homeland (of ~100 sectors) was
        wastelanded except for less than 10 sectors.  No, I could no
        longer hope to win the game, but I did hang on long enough to
        purchase a nuclear warhead and missile and attack the person
        who nuked me.  Doing something like this will make the player
        who nuked you respect you more in future games, and consider
        the consequences before pushing that button.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   41

        It has become fairly routine lately for games to end with a world
        wide nuke-off.  Generally speaking, nations having nuclear weapons
        threaten the world with destruction if they are not acknowledged
        as victors.  Other people protest of course, and nuclear war happens.
        A game that has taken eight weeks to evolve to that point can be
        destroyed in less than an hour in the hottest nuclear wars.  This
        of course does not lead to any clear cut winner, and is rather
        pointless but people do it anyway.  It is after all, a game, and
        people want to have fun.  Nuclear war, to many people in Empire,
        is fun.

Summary: Do not be demoralized by a nuclear attack.  Powers using nuclear
         weapons expect their opponents to get demoralized. Recovery from a
         nuclear attack of larger degree is possible as well.  It takes
         perseverance and sometimes hard work.  Don't be dismayed by mass
         starvations.  Populations can recover if you work at it.  Your
         reputation may be greatly improved if you do recover from a nuclear
         blast.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   42

Chapter 9 :-: Technology.

        By most people's definitions technology or the means to purchase
        technological weapons from another country is one of the most
        critical elements in doing well in Empire.

        Having technology allows you to:
        1.  Have increased ranges on your land based radar.
        2.  Build higher capability planes.
        3.  Build more advanced types of planes.
        4.  Build higher capability ships (not as great an effect as in planes)
        5.  Build more advanced types of ships.
        6.  Build bridges.
        7.  Build nuclear weapons.
        8.  Have increased ranges on your guns in forts.

        Thus, having a high technology country is a very useful thing.
        However, attaining a high technology level is very difficult for
        the beginner.  Running a country that has an economy balanced well
        enough to produce technology at a rate sufficient to stay in the
        technology race is a very difficult task, even for players who are
        more experienced and/or have a lot of allies supporting their
        economies as well.

        Producing tech is expensive.  It costs a lot in terms of money
        and materials.  Not only do you have to produce tech, but you
        have to educate your people to a high enough degree that tech
        production can be done efficiently.  Doing this takes a great
        many light construction materials (lcms) for education, and a
        large amount of oil, gold dust and lcms for tech production.

        It is not uncommon for tech nations to be one of the smallest
        and poorest nations around.  Most of their time and resources
        have to be devoted to tech production rather than ships for
        exploration and military to defend outlying colonies.

        Do not fantasize.  If you are a beginner, forget about producing
        tech no matter how good you think you are.  You will be wasting
        your resources in doing so and crippling your economy while other
        countries will run far far ahead of you in production.

        In general, until you have played a few games it is far better to
        purchase high technology items from other players.  Diplomacy,
        discussed at length in chapter 7, is an effective tool for
        purchasing technologically superior items.

        Should you decide to run tech, there are several things you should
        know.  If you are able to take these into account, and balance these
        factors against each other you may be able to produce tech at a
        sufficient rate to stay with the leaders.

        Education is important to produce tech.  You have to have an
        education level of at least five before you can produce any.  However,

User's Guide to Empire                                                   43

        an education level of five will produce tech only in an inefficient
        manner.  The higher your education level, the more efficiently tech
        will be produced.  This means that a single tech center can produce
        more tech per update, and cost you less in raw materials, though it
        will cost the same per unit of tech produced.  The savings in raw
        materials is critical.

        Some countries feel it is better to keep your population low when
        they are planning on having a high education level.  The reasoning
        behind this is that it takes less effort to educate a small number
        of people and costs less money as well.  There is a bad side to this
        plan though.  With a small population it is hard to produce things
        in large quantities, and exploring into and occupying new lands is
        very difficult.

        Technology production demands a large amount of resources.  Especially
        oil.  However, the higher tech you are the more oil you are able to
        refine per amount of crude oil in the ground.  Thus, it is better to
        only take out of the ground what oil you need to keep your country
        running, and leave the rest for later on when you have higher tech,
        and get more per barrel of crude.  Thus, if you were to do the
        following:

        [23:512] Command: resource 4,0

        You might see that your 4,0 sector has 100 units of oil in the ground.
        At tech 0 you'll be lucky if you get 500 barrels of oil out of that.
        However, at tech 100 you will probably get somewhere around 700-750.
        That's a big difference.  So, only take approximately what oil you will
        need for each update out of the ground, and leave the rest for later.

        Tech production also requires gold dust.  Gold dust mining is not
        affected by tech like oil wells are.  Thus, mining the gold dust
        right away or saving it later has no impact on how much is produced
        per unit of gold dust in the ground.  There are other considerations
        though.  If you have a lot of gold dust sitting around in your
        warehouse or other storage place, other countries will see via the
        power report that you have a lot of dust.  If they are low on dust they
        just might look at you as a possible target.  So, if you are going to
        mine a lot of your dust right away you might want to consider putting
        a good portion of it into banks where the dust gets converted into
        bars, which will give you more money per update.  This especially
        applies to the Kent State version of Empire, where you can grind up
        your gold bars into gold dust at a loss of 20% of the original amount
        of dust put into the bars.

        Uncompensated workers are also useful for tech production, as well
        as many other things.  However, it has been noticed that a tech
        center with 999 uws will produce tech less efficiently than one with
        500 uws.  The loss in efficiency is greater than what is expected
        from the tech limitation function, which is a non-linear function
        designed to limit fast tech production.  Most players do not feel that
        the loss in efficiency is worth it for the greater amount of tech

User's Guide to Empire                                                   44

        production, especially in small countries where having two or even
        three tech centers is unrealistic due to the small amount of land
        available.

        As your technology increases, the possibility of there being an
        outbreak of plague in your country increases.  This is not of great
        concern until such time as your plague factor (found by the command
        "nation") increases above a factor of 3.0 or more.  Even if plague
        does break out in your country, if the plague factor is less than
        3.0 or so, the plague will have minimal effect on your country.
        During your first outbreaks of plague, you will lose some civilians
        but the birth rate of the civilians will be greater than the death
        rate.  Thus, increasing your research level (by opening and operating
        a research center, which requires the same materials as a tech center)
        prior to your plague factor reaching 3.0 is actually a waste of
        resources, time, money and effort.  This fact has been lost on a
        great many people and it is not uncommon to find many players
        boasting of a high research level long before you would have a
        plague factor of 3.0 without any research production.  While we
        have emphasised "3.0" as a point at which things start getting
        bad with plague, that is a vague figure.  Things start getting
        bad before that point, and get worse afterwards.  Its a matter of
        how much you want to put up with civilians dying off.

        There is a command called "report" which will list other countries,
        their status, and their levels of tech, research, and education
        relative to you.  If your tech is significantly higher than
        say a country called 'Canada' then report will indicate that
        Canada's technological level is 'backward' relative to you.
        If Canada's technological level is significantly higher, than
        report will indicate 'advanced', meaning Canada is advanced
        relative to you.  If its roughly the same, 'similar' will be
        shown.  There are two other possibilities, 'primitive' and
        'superior' which are used for extreme differences in levels.
        It should be noted that report is inaccurate at best, and only
        gives a very vague idea of levels.

Summary: Technology is one of the basic aspects of having a country that
         lasts to the end of the game.  Generally, the higher tech you are
         the greater chance of your survival.  However, if you have a high
         technology friend, you chances of survival are still increased
         greatly.  Empire is a classic case of cold war as far as
         technological development is concerned.  As a beginner, you are
         probably better off not producing a great deal of tech until you
         become well versed in how to run a strong economy.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   45

Chapter 10 :-: The economy.

        There are several products produced in Empire economies.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

         Group 1                  Group 2
         1. Gold dust              8. Light Construction Materials (LCM)  (3)
         2. Oil                    9. Heavy Construction Materials (HCM)  (3)
         3. Iron                  10. Gold bars (1)
         4. Rads                  11. Petrol (2)
         5. Food                  12. Soldiers (6)
         6. Civilians
         7. Uncompensated workers

        Group 3                   Group 4
        13. Education (8)         17. Ships (8,9)
        14. Research  (1,2,8,13)  18. Planes (8,9)
        15. Technology (1,2,8,13) 19. Bridges (9)
        16. Money (6 or 7 or 10)  20. Nuclear weapons (2,4,8,9) ????

        Special items:  Beaurocratic Time Units (BTUs), Available work (Avail)

                                Figure 13
                  Table of types of commodities in Empire

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Beaurocratic Time Units (BTUs) are used when executing a command, such
        as "build" for example.  They are also used to shuffle paperwork
        around, say for soldiers killed in combat.

        Available Work (Avail) is used up by producing sectors and those
        sectors in which you build things (planes, for example).  It is an
        indices of the amount of labor hours available for work.

        Running your economy efficiently as possible is one of the keys to
        being a good Empire player.  Without a good economy it is impossible
        to wage a long lasting war, especially an offensive one.  It is
        possible to last a long time defensively even with a weak economy
        but your chances are greatly increased if you have a strong economy.

        So, what defines an efficient and strong economy?  An efficient
        economy is one in which the amount of a product being produced in a
        sector is nearly equal to the amount that the civilians can produce in
        one turn.  For example, if a light construction materials (LCM) plant
        can produce two hundred LCMs an update, but is only producing one
        hundred, then fifty percent of the people in that plant are basically
        doing nothing.  They could be used elsewhere on something that needs
        more civilians or you could put more iron into the LCM plant to allow
        the civilians to make more LCMs.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   46

        A strong economy is an economy that produces a lot of materials,
        resources, etc relative to the size of the country.  If your country
        has only say ten thousand civilians but is producing a large amount
        of materials per update then your country may in fact be a strong
        country.  This is a very unlikely scenario, but it is a good example.
        A strong economy is usually the result of an efficient economy,
        though there are other factors, those mainly referring to population
        growth.  To find out how much work your civilians are going to perform
        at an update you can issue the "prod" command to get a production
        simulation.  Using this you can see if all the civilians in a given
        sector will be making something or if some will be sitting around and
        doing nothing.  Here is a sample output from a prod command:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[138:250] Command: prod #1
Mon Sep 30 20:18:37 1991
PRODUCTION SIMULATION
   sect  des eff wkfc will make- p.e. cost  use1 use2 use3  max1 max2 max3  max
  -2,0    o  39%  422   39 oil   0.50 $0                                     39
   2,0    m 100%  807  387 iron  1.00 $0                                    387
 -10,2    b 100%  653   36 bars  1.00 $360  180d            310d             62
  -8,2    j 100%  576  138 lcm   0.50 $0    276i            276i            138
  -4,2    g  27%  615   79 dust  1.00 $0                                     79
 -11,3    t 100%  620 0.00 tech  0.00 $0      0d   0o   0l    0d   0o   0l 0.00
  -8,4    l 100%  499   40 edu   1.00 $360   40l            239l            239
    7 sectors

                                Figure 14
                     Sample output of the 'prod' command

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        The important columns to note here are the "will" and "max" columns.
        If the number indicated in the "will" column is less than the "max"
        column by more than 1, then you have civilians who are sitting around
        doing nothing.  The way you calculate the number of civilians you have
        sitting around is fairly simple.  First, it is important to note that
        the number indicated in the "wkfc" column is the number of civilians
        and uncompensated workers (UWs) you will have in the sector *after* the
        next update.  You need to reduce the number of civs and/or UWs in the
        sector to optimum *before* the next update.

        For this example, and for sake of ease, I am going to assume that
        there are no UWs or soldiers in this sector, which both produce work.
        We will assume that there are only civilians, and happy, content ones
        at that.  Civilians that are starved, or recently starved do not work
        as hard.

        In the above shown production simulation there are two sectors which
        have civilians sitting around idle.  These two sectors are the bank
        ('b') at -10,2, and the library ('l') at -8,4.  We will use the library
        for our example.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   47

        The library is going to produce 40 education, but it is capable of
        producing 239.  It doesn't have enough lcms (the only material needed
        to produce education) to produce 239 education.  Thus, only the civs
        necessary to produce 40 education are actually working.  The remaining
        number of civilians, as a percentage, is calculated by this simple
        formula:

        ((# in max column) - (# in 'will' column)) / (# in max column)

        Thus, the percentage of civilians in the library not actually doing
        work is (239 - 40) / 239, or 83.26%.  That's a large percentage!  Now,
        to calculate how many civilians you can move out of the sector without
        reducing your production beneath 40 education in that sector, multiply
        .8326 * the number of civilians currently in that sector.  So, you need
        to do a census command:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[162:166] Command : cen -8,4
Mon Sep 30 20:19:07 1991
CENSUS               del dst
  sect        eff mob uf uf *  civ  mil   uw food work avail ter fallout
  -8,4    l  100% 127 .. .0    403    0    0   49 100%   54   0   0

                                Figure 15
                Results of a 'census' command of a library

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        There are 403 civilians listed in the 'civ' column for the library at
        sector -8,4.  Thus, you multiply 403 by .8326 and you find that you can
        safely remove 355 civilians from that sector and still be producing
        40 education.  That's 355 civilians that can be doing valuable work
        elsewhere instead of sitting around doing nothing!

        The other alternative to get the sector producing efficiently
        is to move lcms into the library up to the number that the library can
        possibly process with the current number of civilians.  Once again, we
        refer to the production report and note the 'use1' and 'max1' columns.
        The library will use 40l (40 lcms) at the next update unless you put
        more lcms into the library.  It can use up to 239 (239l in 'max1')
        lcms.  Thus, it can process an additional 199 lcms.  So, you find lcms
        somewhere else in your country and move the 199 lcms into the library.
        At the next update your library will produce 239 education.  Once
        again, all of the civilians in the sector are now doing something.

        Of course, you can also use a combination of these two methods to
        achieve an equitable balance.

        There are other aspects to running an efficient economy as well.
        Ideally, you do not want to have an abundance of raw materials lying
        around especially in the early stages of the game.  The best situation
        is to have your economy using the same amount of resources per update

User's Guide to Empire                                                   48

        as it is making, thus having a zero delta situation with respect to
        all materials in your economy, you neither gain nor lose surplus of
        materials.  Keep in mind however that it is important to create and
        maintain a surplus of materials from which to draw on in times of war,
        especially later on in the game.  Without spare materials, you can not
        wage war very effectively.  In doing this you are getting the best
        balance of production, and are producing finished items at a faster
        pace then if you spent more work producing raw materials.  If you
        spent more work producing finished materials, you would run out of
        raw materials, and find that you have to move your civilians around
        to produce more raw materials or have them sitting idle doing nothing
        while your other civilians produce sufficient raw materials for them
        to do work.  The benefits of a balanced economy are obvious.

        There are additional tasks that are somewhat rewarding in running an
        efficient economy, but they become increasingly technical in nature
        and their impact as a whole against your economy is significantly less.

        As you become more experienced you will no doubt discover these thing
        yourself, or hear about them in a game or on the network.  These basic
        elements are more than enough for you to run smooth production if you
        adhere to them.

        There are still more elements of an economy which, while very useful,
        are not exactly related to the strength or efficiency with which your
        economy is running.  Your country, should it live for some time and
        develop a well balanced economy, will produce a huge amount of
        materials.  It is impossible for you to keep track of everything in
        each and every sector of your country.  Of course, the Empire creators
        realized this and have developed some critical commands for reducing
        by a very large amount the quantity of time you need to spend adjusting
        your economy.  These are the 'distribute' and 'deliver' commands.

        'Distribute' and 'deliver' are commands in Empire which allow
        you to set up your economy to run automatically, with little
        intervention from yourself.  Distribution is the most commonly used
        command in doing this.  However, deliver has certain features which
        are useful as well.

        Distribute is based on the central warehouse scheme of production
        and consumption of materials.  An iron mine produces iron, which it
        ships off to the central warehouse.  A light construction materials
        plant needs iron to make lcms, and thus requests iron to be sent to it
        from the warehouse.  The lcm factory produces lcms, and sends them
        off to the warehouse.  A library plant needs lcms to produce
        education, and requests lcms from the warehouse to do so.  The
        warehouse handles regional traffic for your economy.  Some smaller
        countries only have one warehouse.

        Deliver is based on the local delivery truck idea.  A nearby farm
        produces a certain amount of food per update, and sends it directly to
        the neighboring sector.  You know that the neighboring sector can
        consume more food per update than that farm can produce (this is very

User's Guide to Empire                                                   49

        rarely true, this is just an example).  So, the farm sends all the
        food it produces to the neighboring sector.  The neighboring sector
        notes how much food has been delivered from the farm, and then requests
        from the warehouse enough food to feed the rest of the civilians in
        the sector.  In so doing things in this manner, you are possibly saving
        mobility by not having the food automatically move to the warehouse
        from the neighboring farm and then to the neighboring sector.  The same
        result would be achieved however, though as stated at a possible
        greater loss of mobility.  Nevertheless, most people prefer to depend
        entirely on 'distribute' to handle automatic distribution of materials
        around their country.

        To set up a distribution system, or network, you have to set a
        distribution 'path' *from* every sector *to* the warehouse.  I
        emphasize the direction that the path is moving in because all
        distribution paths go *to* the warehouse, not from the warehouse
        to the sector, though materials can and will go from the warehouse
        to the sector along that same path.  The idea here is say a farm
        outside of St. Louis about 50 miles produces 500 units of food, the
        farm needs to know the route by which it should send its trucks to get
        to a warehouse in St. Louis before it can send the food to that
        warehouse (this of course being a real life scenario). The best path
        to choose is across highways.  A 100% highway requires no mobility to
        move anything in to it.  Obviously you don't want to travel the 50
        miles to St. Louis across dirt roads.  You would prefer an interstate
        if you were a truck.  In Empire, a 100% highway is essentially an
        interstate.  Your goal is to have a distribution path from each sector
        to the warehouse travel the route over the least mobility cost path.
        The greater the percentage of that path that is 100% highways the
        better.  It is important to note that distribution paths have a maximum
        length of 10 sectors.  For example:

User's Guide to Empire                                                   50

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[529:32] Command : map -20:10,-3:6
     21111111111---------00000000001
     0987654321098765432101234567890
  -3  . . . . . ) . . . . . . .      -3
  -2 . . . f . o . . . . . . . .     -2
  -1  . . . a k a . a a h . . . .    -1
   0 k l k a + + + . + + c m . . .   0
   1  m w o ^ ^ m + j j + . + . . .  1
   2 + + + + . b j + m + w + . . . . 2
   3  m j j + t + + + + + + . ) . +  3
   4 + ^ j m + + l ^ ^ ^ + * a a o m 4
   5  ^ + ^ m + j ^ ^ c + m m + + +  5
   6 + + + g m + + m b + k o + j w g 6
     21111111111---------00000000001
     0987654321098765432101234567890

[529:32] Command :

                                Figure 16
                  Map of area requiring some distribution

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Let's say that in the previous figure you wanted to set up a
        distribution path from the oil well at -15,1 (the 'o' sector left of
        the middle of the map) to the warehouse at 0,2 (the 'w' sector right
        of the middle of the map).  The command to set up the distribution
        path from that oil well to the warehouse would be:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[529:32] Command : distribute -15,1 nnnjujjjuj
oil field at -15,1 has no distribution path.
<10: 0,2>h
New path distributes to 0,2

[534:31] Command :

                                Figure 17
                    Results of a distribution command

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Now there is a path along highways from the oil well to the warehouse.
        If you do not understand the nnnjujjjuj command above, refer to chapter
        3 and the section under "movement in Empire".

        Next, you need to set thresholds for the sector.  This sector is an
        oil well, and it produces, you guessed it, oil.  So, you want the oil
        that is produced to be shipped to the warehouse.  You have to tell the

User's Guide to Empire                                                   51

        people in the oil well that all oil over 1 unit is to be shipped.
        This is called a "threshold", a level at which any quantity of that
        unit over that amount if shipped to the warehouse.  Note that the
        lowest threshold you can have and still have the item shipped is 1.
        If the threshold is 0, then it will not be shipped.  The command to set
        the threshold in the sector -15,1 for oil is:

[534:31] Command : threshold oil -15,1 1

        Next, you want to make sure that food gets out to the oil well.  The
        other aspect of thresholds is that if there is less than the threshold
        of a commodity, then the warehouse will send out enough of that
        commodity to equal the threshold, assuming it has such commodities in
        the warehouse.  The command to set the threshold for for in the sector
        so that food will go to the sector from the warehouse could be this:

[534:30] Command: threshold food -15,1 50

        Which means at each update, the warehouse will attempt to ensure
        that there is 50 food in the oil well at -15,1 by sending enough
        food, if it can, to raise the stockpile of food in that sector to
        50 units.

        Again, distribution paths must be set up for every sector that you
        intend on doing anything with.  Essentially, as the game progresses,
        this means all of your sectors.  You must also set appropriate
        thresholds as well.  Some sectors need iron from the warehouse to
        produce, and thus a threshold will be required for iron.  Some need
        more than one commodity, so thresholds must be set for each of those
        commodities.  EVERY sector should have a threshold value set for food.
        You do not want to starve your civilians!  To find out what
        commodities a sector needs to produce an item, use the 'production'
        command discussed earlier in this chapter.

        Some things to note about distribute:

1) No distribution path may be longer than 10 sectors.
2) A distribution path must go through sectors controlled by you.
3) Sometimes it may seem that the warehouse is not getting the commodities
   to the sectors requesting it.  Empire updates sectors one at a time, and
   as such the warehouse may actually run out of a commodity, receive the
   request for that commodity, be unable to fill it and move on the the
   sectors it updates after that sector.  Those sectors in turn may send
   commodities to the warehouse, thus giving it enough to fill the previous
   request.  However, since it has already updated that sector, it will not
   fulfill the backlogged request.  Empire updates the world left to right
   and top to bottom.  Thus in a map of your country the most north-west
   sector gets updated first and the most south-east sector gets updated last.
4) The warehouse has to spend mobility to send commodities to the requesting
   sectors.  Warehouses do this at a great reduction in the cost to the
   normal mobility.  However, if the warehouse runs out of mobility it
   will NOT distribute any more commodities for that update.
5) Do NOT set thresholds for all commodities in a sector.  Only set the

User's Guide to Empire                                                   52

   thresholds for the commodities you KNOW that sector will need.  Distribute
   will not distribute commodities to sectors with the thresholds set for
   every commodity.

        Deliver is much more basic.  As a result however, it is much less
        powerful, though it is useful.  Deliver works as explained earlier in
        that it does local deliveries of a specified commodity.  Deliver is
        capable of delivering an item to only neighboring sectors.  During the
        update, deliver is done before distribute.  It is important to note
        that.  Let's say that a farm has a lot of food to send to the
        warehouse.  It may not have the mobility to send it all to the
        warehouse, and thus you get a large surplus left over in the farm.
        Eventually, the farm will not have room to store the surplus anymore.
        This is of course bad, since the farm will no longer produce very much
        food.  It will produce only enough food to replace what was taken from
        the storage at the farm.

        The solution to this is to have the farm sends its surplus to a
        neighboring 100% efficient highway.  This will cost the farm no
        mobility and will open up its storage areas for new production at the
        farm.  The highway can then spend mobility sending the food to the
        warehouse.  Once again, we use the map:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[529:32] Command : map -20:10,-3:6
     21111111111---------00000000001
     0987654321098765432101234567890
  -3  . . . . . ) . . . . . . .      -3
  -2 . . . f . o . . . . . . . .     -2
  -1  . . . a k a . a a h . . . .    -1
   0 k l k a + + + . + + c m . . .   0
   1  m w o ^ ^ m + j j + . + . . .  1
   2 + + + + . b j + m + w + . . . . 2
   3  m j j + t + + + + + + . ) . +  3
   4 + ^ j m + + l ^ ^ ^ + * a a o m 4
   5  ^ + ^ m + j ^ ^ c + m m + + +  5
   6 + + + g m + + m b + k o + j w g 6
     21111111111---------00000000001
     0987654321098765432101234567890

                                Figure 18
                   Map of an area requiring delivery path

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Let's say the farm at -5,-1 (just north of the middle) has a huge
        surplus of food.  You can send that surplus to the highway at -4,0 by
        issuing this command:

[566:115] Command : deliver food -5,-1 n (50)

User's Guide to Empire                                                   53

        Which means, deliver all food in the sector at -5,-1 in excess of 50
        units in the 'n' direction.  Note the deliver threshold in parentheses
        must be in parentheses and that deliver thresholds are different than
        distribute thresholds.

        While I have described how to use the basics of deliver, I do not
        recommend it for the beginner.  Using a distribution network is quite
        sufficient for the beginning player, and you will not notice any great
        difficulty in running your economy without using the deliver command.
        In fact, some of the best players in Empire do not use deliver at all.

Summary: The things discussed in this chapter may seem time consuming, and
         may seem to require a lot of detail.  However, these things are
         important to you as an Empire player to learn and understand.  They
         become easy to use after only a short while.  Having a strong
         economy is the basic element in having a strong country.  If you
         have not understood this chapter, read it again.  Better yet, read
         it while experimenting with a couple of your own sectors in a game.
         While understanding 'deliver' is not very important, understanding
         'distribute' is.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   54

Chapter 11 :-: War

        The art of waging war is certainly beyond the scope of this guide.
        There are a great number of books written on the history of man's wish
        to destroy themselves.  In this chapter, I only intend to give the
        player some rudimentary basics for waging Empire style wars.  Even more
        pertinent in the case of the beginner, how to defend against or
        hopefully repulse an invader.

        Keep in mind that as a beginner, you stand a very good chance of losing
        your first war.  Consider it a learning experience.  The person who
        defeated you is better than you are in most circumstances, and just by
        their actions you can learn how best to wage an offensive or defensive
        war.

        There are several things that you can do to defend your country
        in the event of an attack.  However, it is always best to be prepared
        for an attack before it happens.  There are some basics already
        discussed in this guide on these preparations.  Refer to chapter 8
        for information on automatic defenses, and how they can help your
        country.  I will review the essentials here.

        1) Have a strong airforce with many fighter planes with the intercept
           capability.  Make sure they are used as indicated in chapter 8.
        2) Have forts with overlapping fields of fire.
        3) Have a large number of reserves (typically 1/10 of your population).
        4) Have at least two enlistment centers ready to produce more fresh
           recruits.  Ie, at 100%.  You can "shut off" enlistment centers, that
           is stop them from producing recruits, by leaving 1 civ in them
           or having a military population in the sector equal to one half
           of the civilian population.  To turn them on, put in more civs or
           reduce the number of military.
        5) Have a strong navy to guard your coast.
        6) Mine your own coast.  This prevents many amphibious assaults.
           It also helps to prevent people from mapping your coastline.
        7) Have a good highway network.  This allows you to move materials
           and armies around your country quickly and with ease.
        8) Have more than one capital.  If your real one is taken, you will
           need a back up immediately.
        9) Have a lot of food in all of your sectors if possible.  This allows
           sectors that are cut off from your warehouse to be self sufficient
           at least with respects to feeding the people with food for a few
           updates until you can open up a path to them.

        These are just *basic* hints.  Some more hints are given later in this
        guide.  These are meant to get you started.

        Of course, it is better to not be attacked at all.  But, how do you
        avoid being attacked?  This is not simple, but there are some things
        that you can do to make yourself less of a target.

        One, do NOT allow people to map your coast using their ships,
        especially patrol boats.  Maps of your coastline are deadly.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   55

        The opposing country knows where your country lies, and can furthermore
        send that information on to another player who might be interested
        in attacking you in exchange for some commodity or assistance.
        Maps are a critical piece of intelligence gathering.  Some of the
        best players in the game sink ships on sight without warning.  If you
        warn a ship off it might be able to use some of its mobility to
        make a final swing along your coast before going away, and seemingly
        out of your hair without having caused further trouble.  Every piece
        of information about your coast is valuable military intelligence.
        Additionally, it is a good idea to try to map other people.  Do not
        get upset when your ships get sunk.  They will get sunk.  Just consider
        them expendable commodities that are doing a temporary job with
        permanent results.

        Two, if you appear tough people generally will not attack you.
        Posturing can be an effective tool.  Furthermore, if you have a large
        airforce and/or army, people tend to avoid you.  It does not matter if
        your airforce only has wimpy planes in it, your opponent can only
        tell the quantity of planes that you have, not the quality.  They
        might have a general idea of the quality of your airforce, but a large
        airforce is still an intimidating presence.

        Three, do not make yourself a target by having a lot of valuable
        commodities showing up on your power report.  Having lots of money
        in a money poor game for example makes you a juicy target.  The same
        holds true with gold dust or oil.  You need not worry about iron and
        food, since those are renewable resources.  Try to use gold dust and
        oil as you make it.  Having some surplus around is fine, but the more
        you have sitting around the more of a target you become.

        If you are attacked, it is always best if you are logged on to the game
        so that you can actively defend your country rather than relying
        entirely on automatic defenses.  However, as can obviously be seen, you
        probably will not know that your enemy is going to attack you.  Neither
        will s/he broadcast that they are going to attack unless they are very
        foolish or extremely confident.

        In light of this, your opponent will try to attack you at a time when
        they know you are not logged on.  Thus, a great many Empire wars begin
        in the wee hours of the morning, when most people are asleep.  What can
        you do to overcome this shortcoming?  Have allies for one.  If one of
        your allies is going to be up most of the night you can have them
        telephone you if you are being attacked.  Of course, this is for the
        more diehard types :-)

        There are many tactics that an enemy will use against you.  Again,
        these tactics are beyond the scope of this guide, but there are some
        general tactics that you should be aware of.  An opponent may try one
        or more (usually more) of the following tactics:

        1) Remove your airforce as an effective retaliatory force.
        2) Remove your airforce as an effective defensive force.
        3) Take your capital (you lose half your money).

User's Guide to Empire                                                   56

        4) Take your banks (you could lose all your gold bars, very valuable!).
        5) Destroy your highway system.
        6) Take your warehouses (lose your stored commodities. OUCH!).
        7) Bomb your enlistment centers.
        8) Take your radar stations.

        In addition, your opponent may try to destroy your distribution and/or
        delivery system (if you so opt to use deliver).  After you take a
        sector back from your enemy check the thresholds and distribution path
        in the sector.  Sometimes if you take a great deal of sectors back it
        is best to just use the 'wipe' command and start from scratch.
        Remember to check your delivery thresholds as well, by issuing a
        'level' command.  Your opponent will probably also redesignate the
        sector to something useless or even detrimental to you.

        It is important to be on around update times when you are at war,
        either defensively or offensively.  Things can go very quickly right
        before and after an update.

        One of the best ways of being a good military tactician is to be
        imaginative.  Think of ways to do things that might surprise your
        opponent.  Think of ways to do things that will cost you less lives,
        or less resources than your original way.

        There is a saying that sometimes the best defense is a good offense.
        This can be very true in Empire.  If you are attacked it might be a
        good idea to launch a counter attack against your opponent's homeland
        if you are able to.  This will certainly surprise them, and may lead
        them to think you are stronger than you actually are.  This can be a
        very powerful tool.

        If you want to win the war, be resilient and tenacious.  Fight as hard
        as you can with every last soldier and resource.  If you make your
        enemy pay a heavy price they may withdraw.  Sometimes breaking an
        opponent's will to fight is the most important factor in winning a
        tactical or strategic situation.  Even if they do not withdraw, or you
        do not win, you may at least be helping to defend the future of your
        allies.  That in itself is an honorable achievement.  There is also the
        point that if you are a tenacious fighter your opponent will respect
        you more in future games than if you just roll over and play dead while
        his/her armies pillage your country.  Reputation does count for a lot in
        Empire.  You may lose now, but your defiance in losing can help you a
        great deal in future games.  Some countries simply will not attack
        another country because they know that country's reputation as a good
        player.  Alternatively, some countries have a poor reputation and
        are attacked in every game they play in!

Summary: The art of Empire war is one that is different from the real life
         world that we live in.  However, many tactics from the real world
         can be applied to Empire.  Remember to be imaginative, learn from
         your mistakes.  Learn from your allies and your opponents.  Fight
         as if it was a real world nation, and you are the leader.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   57

Chapter 12 :-: Other helpful or not so helpful hints:

        Here are some hints on how you might be better able to run
        your country.  Note that a lot of these hints were garnered through
        many player years of play.  You are free to disagree with them, and
        are certainly encouraged to come up with your own ideas.  However,
        keep in mind these recommendations.

        - Build your military reserves to a reasonably high level
          (I try to aim for 5-10% of my total population).  Reserves are
          not expensive to maintain, and it is a commodity that can not
          be destroyed by any military action.
        - As soon as someone starts building ships guard your coastal
          sectors with at least 1 military in each.  This prevents an
          opponent from making landings in mass quantity on your homeland
          with measly cargo ships.  If you have military in a coastal sector
          then opponent ships really need the "land" capability (see
          show ship capability command for further insight) in order to be
          truly effective.  Guard harbors with more military, say 50 or
          so.  Else an opponent can assault a harbor, move his or her invasion
          fleet in, unload the ships and walla several hundred foreign military
          are sitting in your former harbor.
        - As soon as planes start being built, try to get at least 10 military
          into every sector.  This makes it more difficult for a country to
          wipe you out quickly.  In this manner they usually need 2 or more
          transports to take a single sector.  This makes it costly in air
          mobility for them and softens the blow of their attack.  In addition
          reinforce capitals with a lot of military.  Same with banks, airbases,
          and warehouses.
        - Do not base your entire air defenses on non-VTOL (vertical take off
          and landing) planes.  Base your VTOL planes in non airport sectors.
          In doing this, you prevent your enemy from knocking out your airbases
          through any number of means and then flying at liberty over your
          country.  There are two VTOL fighters.  Fighter 1s, which are
          essentially biplanes with very brave souls in them and Jet Fighter 2s
          which are akin to the British Harrier jet.  Fighter 1s are not
          necessarily a bad plane.  Against low tech transports they do not
          fair too badly.  There are two other means of air defense if your
          airbases are knocked out.  Anti-aircraft guns exist in any sector
          that has guns and shells.  They will fire if the sector in question
          is at war with the planes in question.  They are mostly worthless.
          The other method is SAMs (surface to air missiles).  These can be
          quite effective but are shoot once only weapons.
        - Forts are an integral part of any home auto-defense scheme.  They
          will fire on any enemy aggressors that are within range whenever
          any sector of yours within range is attacked.
        - Naval units become essentially useless later on in the game except
          for some actions.  Nevertheless, be careful to have naval units in
          appropriate places around your coast for coastal defense.  Especially
          until you have planes that can pinpoint bomb well (jet lt bombers,
          jet f/bs, helicopters).
        - Always have several fake capitals in reserve.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   58

        - If you are not using planes that are 100% and are not planes used
          in air defense, get them off your airports.  Otherwise they become
          easy targets for air assault and bombs.
        - Bridge span sectors are effective means of food production and
          are especially useful in that role in countries with few sectors
          or countries with limited fertility.  They are usually somewhat
          expensive to build, but pay for themselves quickly.
        - Keep in mind that allies are important.  You might want to go it
          alone, but at some point along the way you will need an ally or
          three.  Allies can do many things for you, not the least of which
          is call you over the phone when you are under attack at four in the
          morning.  Its nice to know that even though your country is not
          being played, someone is watching it from a distance and seeing
          whether it gets attacked or not.  You sleep easier :-)
        - If you are positive there is no one else on your island with you
          at the beginning of the game then demobilise your military and
          put them on reserve.  This will save you a lot of money, and help
          in population growth.
        - Never put airports, banks, or capitals on your coast.  They are
          easy targets for your enemies if you do.  Sometimes it is necessary
          to place an airport on your coast to get that extra one sector
          of range for your planes in an attack.  If you do that, don't leave
          your planes in that sector for very long.  You might be surprised.

Summary:  Many of these ideas can only be gained through experience.  Do not
          be come distraught for lack of knowledge.  Experience is a wonderful
          teacher.  These hints cover some of the major pitfalls of beginners,
          and that is all.  There are far more things to be learned that can
          only be taught through experience.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   59

Chapter 13 :-: Some tricks and subtle tactics

        I have listed here some of the tricks used by the more advanced
        players in victimizing the beginning players.  I  divulge this hard won
        information because I feel it will make for a better Empire game for
        everyone.  In reading these, I hope that you will be encouraged to
        develop tactics of your own.  It is not hard to be imaginative.

        Note that not all tricks and subtle tactics will work as advertised.
        Some games have slightly different implementations that have a
        negative effect on these hints.

        - Sacking a warehouse.  This is an old tactic that is useful
          only in those games that have a market.  Essentially the trick is to
          take an opponent's warehouses or distribution points and sell off
          everything that is in the sector to the market.  You don't need a
          buyer immediately, just sell everything off.  If you want the items
          for yourself, sell them to the market at an exhorbinately high price
          and wait for a friend to buy them and sell them back.
        - Tracking an airbase.  This is a less known trick.  Non-VTOL planes
          intercept from airbases.  They also intercept from airbases in a hex
          pattern.  Ie, if the plane has a six sector intercept range it will
          intercept up to six sectors west, six sectors north-west, etc in all
          the six directions.  If you can find two corners of that plane's
          interception hex you can triangulate to find the sector from which it
          is intercepting.  This does work for VTOL planes as well, but isn't
          as useful since airbases usually have far more planes in them to be
          dealt with.  Once you have tracked the originating sector of the
          intercepting planes, what you do to that sector is your option.  Most
          often, a concerted effort will be made to crack the defensive fighter
          cover and blast the airbase.  Sometimes countries will use their
          surface to surface missiles (which do not get intercepted) to take
          out the airbase.  For non-VTOL planes taking out an airbase just
          means getting it below 60% efficiency.
        - Fort "walking".  If you have a land border with a country, you can
          use your forts to demolish a bordering sector with that country.
          By demolishing it, your are completely destroying every living
          civilian and soldier in that sector.  When that is accomplished you
          can explore into that sector as if it were wilderness.  You can then
          designate that sector into a 0% fort, which it will become
          immediately, and then move guns and shells into that sector.
          Then, you can do the same thing to a sector bordering your new
          sector.  In this manner you can slowly invade another country
          beyond a one sector advance in one update without the use of
          planes or ships.  This costs A LOT of BTUs and shells, but in
          critical situations is very useful.
        - Fire base.  This tactic has some relation to the tactic used in
          the Vietnam conflict by U.S. Forces.  The idea is to take an enemy
          sector in an area that you want to wreak havoc on.  Next, use your
          pinpoint bombing capable planes to bomb your own position's sector
          efficiency.  You will have some collateral damage on your troops,
          but it is well worth it.  When the efficiency drops below 5% you can
          then designate the sector into a 0% fort, place guns and shells

User's Guide to Empire                                                   60

          in it using air transports, and then have a base from which to
          blast away at your enemy without the use of much airpower.  It is
          possible to use the fort walking tactic from this position.
        - Messing up a country's distribution paths and or thresholds.
          This is most often an "annoyance" tactic.  Most players know about it
          and check the distribution paths and thresholds of sectors they take
          back from an invading country.  The idea is to set the thresholds so
          that a lot of commodities will be distributed to the sector from the
          warehouse of your opponent after your opponent takes the sector
          back.  Then you can take the sector again and get the commodities
          if s/he has not noticed they are there.  Even if s/he notices it is
          a pain getting the commodities back to the warehouse.
          Alternatively, you can screw up the distribution path to run through
          a mountain and then to his warehouse, and also set the thresholds
          of the commodities quite high.  This will cause mobility in her/his
          warehouse to be used in great quantities to get the commodities to
          the recaptured sector.  Either of these ideas can get particularly
          nasty.  Say you conquer a sector, and set the thresholds on food to
          9000 units.  Your opponent takes back the sector, and neglects to
          reset the threshold.  At the next update the warehouse moves 9000
          food (or at least as much as it can) into the sector.  This might
          leave your warehouse without food to deliver to the rest of the
          country.  Food stocks begin to drop, with obvious repercussions.
        - Messing up a country's delivery routes and thresholds.
          Same as above except using deliver.  Many countries do not use
          deliver at all, and as a result are susceptible to this tactic.
          You can cause mass starvation in a country that you attacked, but
          no longer control without the leader ever knowing how.
        - Destroyer trap.  Move a submarine near a destroyer, say one sector
          away.  Lay some mines from the submarine, and then send out an active
          sonar ping using the "sonar" command.  Enemy destroyer rushes over to
          see what it is and KAWHOMP! hits a mine.  You can leave a sector that
          has mines in it safely but can not necessarily enter safely.  Every
          mine laid in a sector increases the chance of a ship hitting a mine
          while entering that sector by five percent.
        - Determining if someone is on.  You can get an idea of when someone
          is usually logged on by doing something like this:

[65:255] Command : news 10 | grep <name of country you want to learn about>

          This will scan the news file from the server for the last ten days
          (or however many days up to ten are being preserved in the news).
          You can then get an idea of when your opponent is logged on.
          There are tools that can do this for you, but so far none has
          reached public distribution.
        - Attacking any sector with one soldier repeatedly.  Within the code
          there is a small chance that against incredible odds a small
          collection of soldiers might win.  Taken to the extreme, there is
          a chance for one soldier to win, even against 400 soldiers, or so
          says the game.  Thus a player who wants a particular sector bad
          enough, may spend thirty minutes attacking a sector of yours
          over and over again with one military.  They might win eventually,
          and if it is important enough then they have gained a major sector.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   61

        - A player might offer to sell you a type of commodity in several
          batches.  Or, you might just start buying batches of a commodity
          from any given commodity.  If the player you are buying from is on,
          they might change the price on you between batches that you are
          purchasing.  For example, DoDo starts buying food in batches of
          9000 from WabbleHead at 10 cents per food.  This costs DoDo $900
          per batch of food.  Suddenly between DoDo's 2nd and 3rd purchase
          of 9000 food, WabbleHead changes the price on the food from 10 cents
          to 10 dollars per unit.  DoDo never realizes it and pays $90,000
          for the 3rd batch of food.  Moral:  Don't purchase anything without
          checking the price first, and never buy in several batches at once.
          This applies to market and trade.
        - It is possible to move small quantities of a commodity across any
          sector in your country and not have it cost mobility.  To do this,
          you have to have the commodity moving from a warehouse to whatever
          sector you want to move it to.  The basic trick, is to move the
          commodity in batches of 5 or less.  Note this does not work for
          bars, and some other commodities.  It does work for food, shells,
          etc; items that do not take a great deal of mobility to move to
          begin with.  This trick is very effective for getting supplies
          to a region cut off from your main area without highway access
          and possibly even a mountain range separating you from it.
        - Mine your coast.  This prevents your opponents from effectively
          mapping your coast, and you can catch their ships in the act since
          a damaged ship moves a lot slower than a 100% ship.  Some people
          might even scuttle the ship in question to avoid detection.
        - Be aware that submarines will try to map your coast.  Use your
          submarines and destroyers to find them.  Use minefields as a
          preventative measure.
        - Do not give out your net address to anyone except the Deity unless
          people offsite can not finger you, or you have an account on
          another machine, and can regularly play from it.  People can finger
          you over the net to see if you are logged in or not.  If you're not,
          it's a good time to attack probably.
        - Beware of people offering you loans.  Make sure you know the terms
          of the loan.  Someone might offer you a loan that looks nice, say
          for $30,000.  But, the loan might expire in one day and have an
          interest rate of 127%.  The lending country can collect sectors
          directly from you without your permission if you are in arrears
          on the loan.
        - Defend your radar stations.  Always have at least 20 military in
          each of your radar stations, especially ones that are on the coast.
          Otherwise a passing ship might decide to capture it and take a
          snapshot of your country.
        - If a sub attacks one of your ships, it is possible to wander around
          the area with a ship that is not capable of sonar or depth charging,
          and still find that sub.  How?  Try boarding the sub by its hull
          number.  If a sub attacks you, you will get a message saying that
          sub number so and so did such and such to your ship.  Use a ship
          in the area to wander from sector to sector trying to board the
          sub.  If you find it, you will get a message saying that you can not
          board a sub.  Walla, you have found the sub without sonar, which
          other ships can hear anyways.  This is a nice quiet form of anti-

User's Guide to Empire                                                   62

          submarine warfare.
        - You can load a missile cruiser full of anti-shipping missiles, and
          then create a script file with firing commands for every ship in
          existence.  Remove your own ships of course.  Then execute the
          script, and the missile cruiser will fire at only those ships
          that are in range, regardless of whether the ships are in radar
          range of the cruiser or not.  They need only be in range of the
          anti-shipping missiles.  This is an effective, if blundering, way
          of removing approaching fleets before you see them on your radars.
          Note: anti-shipping missiles are not available in standard BSD code,
          but are available in some other versions, namely the Kent State
          code.

Summary: Be sneaky.  Be imaginative.  Think of tricks you can pull on your
         opponent.  Quite often, they will in fact work.  Most players of this
         game are not Rommels, Pattons, or Montgomerys.  Many can be duped
         by very simple tricks.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   63

Chapter 14 :-: Tools

        Tools are programs used by players on their local machines to
        assist them in developing their country, analyzing another country,
        conducting war on another country, etc.  Tools are very powerful
        devices at times.  As such, many players have tools that they consider
        to be military secrets and they do not release copies of them.  As a
        result, many programs doing basically identical tasks have been
        written.  I encourage those players that are reading this that have
        such secret tools to release them to an anonymous FTP site with a
        directory for Empire.  Not only does this make the game better for the
        beginners, but it also helps to keep the experts on their toes, and
        give a challenge to those of us who have been playing for quite some
        time.

        Some players feel that playing with tools takes something away from
        the playing aspect of the game, and feel that in so doing they are not
        really playing the game anymore.  This has lately turned into a
        religious war of sorts in the Empire community, with many people taking
        both sides of the coin.

        You do not need tools other than your client to play Empire.
        Empire is designed such that any player can play the game without
        hindrance without the use of a tool other than the basic client itself.

        What follows is a list of tools that are most commonly found
        among players of the game.  Most of these are publically available at
        an FTP site listed in Appendix C.

Tool            Purpose
autodist        Automatically sets distribution paths for an entire
                country or realm within the country.
autofeed        automatically feeds the people in your country.
pmvr,civmvr     Automatically redistributes your population so that sectors
                will be able to have population growth rather than maxing
                out at the limit of 999 civilians.
econ            Provides an analysis of your country's economic progress
                at the next update.
GEET            Gnu-Emacs Empire Tool.  An emacs interface for Empire that
                has a great many capabilities and functions.  Provides for
                better automatic defenses as well.
EIF             A more advanced client than the basic client.  Allows
                for aliasing commands, command editing, etc.
XEMP            Empire client for X windows.  Provides many nice features
                including an on screen map constantly displayed.  A very
                nice interface that unfortunately still has several bugs.

        These are just a few of the Empire tools out there.  There are still
        many more programs not listed.  Some cover news analyses, country
        analyses over several updates, etc.

        Most tools come with documentation on how to use them, and it is
        beyond the scope of this guide to illustrate how each one of them

User's Guide to Empire                                                   64

        is used.

        There are other aids that are often called tools which are called
        scripts.  Scripts can do a great many things for you.  The most common
        of these applications are simply files containing a list of commands
        that you want to execute in Empire.

        For example, let's say that at each update you wanted to dump the
        current news into a file in your local directory, get a new power
        report and dump that into another file, and dump all current telegrams
        into yet another file.  This would be three commands that you could
        consolidate into one command by doing this:

        Construct a file in your local directory that has the appropriate
        commands in it.  In this case you could write a file with three lines:

news >>news.file
power new >>powerfile
read >>old.tele

        You could call this file update.do

        While in Empire you could then request the Empire client to access
        that file and execute those commands by using the exec command followed
        by the file name.  Thus:

[102:253] Command: exec update.do

        Building such a simple script is useful for doing a set of commands
        over and over again without typing it in each and every time.

        Lastly, remember to exercise wisdom in the use of tools.  It is
        possible that the execution of a simple tool can damage your country
        irrepairably.  Use tools, especially those written by others, with
        caution.  Try them out on small sections of your country first.  Look
        at the source code prior to running it if you have access to the
        source code.  It is theoretically possible for someone to write
        a tool that will scan the list of countries in a game, and if the
        author's country name is in that list, send valuable information
        about your country to him or her.  Yes, it is true, some people
        have no morals believe it or not.

Summary: Tools are very powerful items if used wisely.  It is not necessary
         to have tools to play Empire effectively.  Some experts of the game
         refuse to use tools of any type, and they remain among the best
         players.  Tools are no replacement for skill.  Be careful when using
         tools, they can ruin your country.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   65

******************************* Appendices ************************************

Appendix A :-: Glossary of terms, names, and etc.

Amphibious assault - Attacking a sector using ships, usually landing ships.
Avail       - A unit of measuring available labor hours in a sector.
Backstab    - To harm another country with whom you had prior treaties
              and or alliances that were in effect at the time of your
              harmful action.  Usually a severe action.
Blitz game  - An implementation of an Empire game that is very fast paced.
              Usually these games last no more than two days.
BSD         - Berkeley Standard Distribution.  A term borrowed from Unix.
              It indicates that the version is a release version from Berkeley,
              ie Dave Pare.
BTU         - Beaurocratic Time Unit.  A unit of government activity.  Used
              by various commands as cost for executing that command.
Capital     - The government center of a country.  BTUs are produced by
              only one capital in a country, regardless of how many are
              designated.  Only the actual capital of the country produces.
Client      - A program that allows you to connect to the Empire server.
Commodity   - Just as in the real world; any of a plethora of raw and refined
              materials that can be traded, stolen, etc.
Dave Pare   - Not the original author of Empire, but the person who has
              made it possible for it to be what it is.  THE major author
              of Empire.  Also known as Mr. Frog.
Deity       - Person (yes, a real life human) who runs/referees a game.
Deliver     - A means of managing economic resource allocation via orders
              from neighboring sectors.
Designation - What the sector has been ordered to be, ie a highway for example.
Distribution- A means of managing economic resource allocation via a central
              warehouse scheme.  Often referred to as a "distribution
              network"
Education   - Activity on the part of a country to raise the overall
              intelligence level of a country, to promote research and
              technological development.
Eif         - "Empire Interface".  A version of the client with certain
              enhancements.
Empire host - The computer the server is running on.
ETU         - Empire Time Unit - A subdivision of an update.  An update's
              value is measured in terms of ETUs.
FTP         - "File Transfer Program".  This is a means of transferring
              files over the computer networks.  Most computers are capable
              of using FTP.  For more information you may refer to your
              host computer's help.  For example, "man ftp" or "help ftp".
GEET        - Gnu-Emacs Empire Tool.  An emacs based client, also known
              (to the chagrin of the author of GEET) as GEEK.
Geurilla    - A patriot behind enemy lines.  They will attempt to do damage
              to the enemy's military or the sector the enemy is occupying.
              You can not control guerilla actions.
HCM         - Heavy construction material.  A unit of material used in
              Empire economies for bridges, planes, etc.
KSU, Kent State code - refers to the version of Empire based on the Berkeley

User's Guide to Empire                                                   66

              release.  There are several enhancements in this version, and
              many think it is better than the Berkeley release.
LCM         - Light construction material.  A unit of material used in
              Empire economies for education, technology, research, planes,
              boats, etc.
Megatons    - A unit of measure of nuclear warhead yield.  One megaton
              equals one million tons of TNT explosive power.  Often
              represented as 'mt' as in '5mt'.
Mobility    - A number indices indicating the available amount of moving
              capability in a sector, for a plane, or for a ship.
Plague      - An all encompassing term representing disease in the Empire
              world.  Can be kept in check by the country doing research.
Representative,Rep - Your password for your country in the game.  NOT your
              real name.
Research    - Activity on the part of a country that keeps plague in check.
Reserves    - Civilian soldier.  A soldier not on active duty who is paid
              a small sum to retain training in case of times of need.
Sanctuary   - Your starting area in any game.  Usually comprised of two
              sectors.  Can not be attacked, or otherwise affected by
              any opponent.
Script      - A file containing several Empire commands that can be
              automatically run or run manually from the client.
Sector      - A unit of geography, comprising an area represented by a
              single character on maps.
Server      - The program (running usually at a remote site) that handles
              the functioning of the game.  In essence, the game itself.
Spy         - A member of your military forces sent across neighboring
              country borders to gather information.
Technology  - The scientific development of a country.  Relates most directly
              to a country's capability to create better weapons.  Also known
              as 'tech'.
Threshold   - A break off point for the 'deliver' and 'distribute' commands
              that indicates a quantity beyond which every unit of a
              specific commodity is moved automatically at an update.
Tool        - A program used on a player's local machine to aid in there
              goals in Empire.
Update      - A 'turn' in Empire.  Mobility is increased in sectors,
              civilians multiply and eat food, military is paid for, etc.
UW          - Uncompensated worker.  A nicer name for slave.
VTOL        - Vertical Take Off and Landing capability for planes.  Requires
              no runways or other developed airport like structures.
Wasteland   - A permanent sector designation caused by a nuclear blast of
              one megaton or larger.  Can not be traveled across by land,
              but can be flown over.
Warehouse  - A central collection and distribution point for products
              of an economy.
Wilderness  - Undesignated areas other than mountains and ocean.  Represented
              by a '-' character on maps.
XEMP        - An X windows based client.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   67

Appendix B :-: Known exploitable bugs

        As a result of Empire having several thousand lines of code, there
are numerous bugs.  Some are simply annoying, others you never notice.  Some,
like the following, are bugs that you can be used against you.

        a) "Intercept" bug - Non-VTOL planes can and will rise and intercept
           hostile planes from any sector as long as there is petrol in the
           sector, the plane has the intercept capability (see show plane c),
           it is at least 40% efficient, and it has mobility.

        b) "Escort" bug - Planes that are capable of escort duty can escort
           themselves on various missions, as long as they are capable of
           the mission in question (such as a bombing raid).  Say for example
           that you want to fly a reconnaissance mission over enemy territory,
           but you know that enemy planes are going to intercept you.
           When the game asks you for the plane that will be doing the recon,
           you can give it plane 345 for example, which for the sake of
           this guide is a jet fighter.  When it asks you for the planes
           that are going to escort it, you can say 345 again.  The game will
           respond as if two planes are flying the mission when in fact only
           one is.  Enemy planes will think there are two planes.  Enemy planes
           will first do battle with the escort.  Let's say they did 16% damage
           to the escort, and the escort did 14% damage to one of the enemy
           interceptors.  Next, the enemy interceptor attacks the recon plane,
           which is the same plane, and inflicts 21% damage.  The recon plane
           inflicts 13% damage on the interceptor, and the recon plane aborts
           the mission.  It looks like you lost the dogfight.  In actuality,
           you did not.  The intercepting plane suffered a total of 27% damage.
           It looks like you suffered 37% damage.  However, you actually only
           suffered the *last* damage inflicted, which was to the recon plane.
           Thus, you only suffered 21% damage and you won the dogfight.

        c) "Flying Bridge" bug - Say for example you have a 100% bridgehead
           sector with enough HCMs, workers, and avail to build a bridge.
           Normally, you would say "build bridge x,y" and then it would ask
           you for a direction to build the bridge.  If after you built the
           bridge you were to redesignate the bridgehead, the bridge would
           collapse.  However, if you redesignate the bridgehead sector
           before you build the bridge, the bridge will be built and will
           not collapse.  At the next update, the bridgehead will become
           the sector you redesignated it to (say, a highway) and the bridge
           will still be there.  Note: It is believed that most current
           games of Empire have a new patch that prevents this bug.

        d) "Resource sucker" bug - Let's say you have a sector with 23 gold
           content left, and it is a gold mine.  Normally it might produce
           say, 111 gold dust at the next update.  If you were to put 9000
           civilians into that sector, it would produce over 900 dust at
           the next update.  The sector's resource content of gold will go
           to 0, but instead of getting a roughly 115 dust from the sector
           with the remaining content, you have gotten over 900 dust.
           Civilians reproduce quickly enough that losing 8000 civs this way

User's Guide to Empire                                                   68

           is really of no concern especially when you consider what you
           have gained.  This bug works also for oil wells and uranium
           mines.

        I have listed the bugs here because it is important that players
        know about these bugs in case they are used against them.  I do not
        condone the use of these bugs, nor do many players of the game.
        Many deities (the people who run the game) take action against
        players using these bugs, such as taking away your technology or
        your money.  Do not use them.  Simply be aware that others may use
        them and come up with ways to counter their use.  If you are aware
        that another player is using one of these bugs, report it to the
        deity of the game.  S/he might give you a reward of some sort.

        Also note that since these bugs have been published> here, it is likely
        that some programmer has written bug fixes for these.  Most, and
        possible all of these bugs might not work in a game you are
        participating in.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   69

Appendix C :-: FTP sites and other sources for Empire related items

        Herein listed are the net address of computers that have files
        related to Empire in there anonymous FTP directories.  An example of
        anonymous FTP is found in chapter 2 of this guide, and that method
        with appropriate substitutions for file names can be used to retrieve
        files off of these FTP sites.  If you have trouble using anonymous FTP
        seek out your local site consultant for more information.

Host                    Directory               Files available
ucbvax.berkeley.edu  -  pub/games/empire/bsd    Empire client, server,
                                                various tools, this guide.
empire.bbn.com       -  pub/Emp                 Various tools, VMS client,
                                                this guide.
star.cs.vu.nl        -  xemp                    Xemp
hylka.helsinki.fi    -  public/vax/games-etc/empireclient.dir
                                                VMS client
uunet.uu.net         -  games                   Tools, server.
alcazar.cd.chalmers.se - pub/emp                Various tools, patches, eif
                                                eddie, this guide.

User's Guide to Empire                                                   70

Index

Agriculture centers          25,49,51   Naval operations
Announcements                      17           Defensive            36,54,57
Avail                              45           In mapping              55,61
Backstabbing                       28           Anti-submarine             61
Banks                              56           Amphibious        35,40,54,57
Bridges                   42,45,58,67           Mining               54,60,61
BTUs                            26,45   Nuclear weapons
Capitals            16,26,36,54,55,57           Damage from                38
Clients                             9           Ending games               41
        Basic client                9           Getting                 38,42
        Compiling                9-12           Recovering from            39
Deliver                48,52-53,56,60           Defense of areas hit by    40
Designate                    17,21,25   Oil              42,43,45,50,54,55,67
Diplomacy                       28-32   Paratroops
Distribution network   27,48-52,56,60           In nuclear war             40
Education           42-43,44,45,47,48           Against capitals           36
Empire                                          Against forts           35,36
        Addictive                   8           Against defended sectors   57
        Blitz games                 6   Plague                             44
        Compared to Risk            6   Planes
        Description                 6           In defense        33-34,54,57
        Game length                 6           In mapping                 28
        Time needed to play         6           VTOL                 33,34,40
Enlistment                      40,54           Out of airbases      33,34,59
ETU, Empire Time Units             26           In nuclear war          38,40
Exploring                    16,21-25           Defending from             57
Food in sectors                 27,54           In escort                  67
Forts         30,34-35,40,54,57,59-60   Population                      26,43
FTP                              9,63   Posturing                          32
Gold dust        26,42,43,45,54,55,67   Registering
Guerillas                       36-37           Hearing of games            8
Guns                      34-35,36,40           Standard registration     8-9
HCMs                            45,67   Rec.games.empire                    8
Help                            16,17   "Red Storm Rising"                 30
Kent State Empire              43, 62   Research                        44,45
LCMs                      42,45,47,48   Reserves                     37,54,57
Loans                           30,61   Sanctuary              16,21,22,25,27
Mapping                   28,54,55,61   Scripts                            64
Maps                         16,18-20   Sectors                            20
Maskirovka                      30-31   Server, connecting problems  12-15,26
Missiles                                Starvation                26,46,51,54
        In nuclear war             38   Technology          26,27,33,34,42-44
        Against planes             57   Telegrams                          17
        Against airbases           59   Thresholds                50-53,56,60
        Against ships              62   Tools                    7,8,21,63-64
Mobility            24,25,26,49,51,61   Uncompensated workers           43,46
Mountains                       25,36   Updates    16,21,25,26,27,36,46,51,56
Movement                        16,20   Warehouse 26,43,48,49-51,56,59,60,61
                                        Wilderness          20,21,22,23,24,25

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SEE ALSO
   Introduction

