EMPIRE(6) | Games | EMPIRE(6) |
NAME¶
empire - the wargame of the centurySYNOPSIS¶
empire [-w water] [-s smooth]
[-d delay] [-S save-interval]
[-f savefile]
DESCRIPTION¶
Empire is a simulation of a full-scale war between two emperors, the computer and you. Naturally, there is only room for one, so the object of the game is to destroy the other. The computer plays by the same rules that you do. -wwaterThis option controls the amount of water on the map. This
is given as the percentage of the map which should be water. The default is
70% water. water must be an integer in the between 10 and 90
inclusive.
-ssmooth
This controls the smoothness of the map. A low value will
produce a highly chaotic map with lots of small islands or lakes. A high value
will produce a map with a few scattered continents. Be forewarned that a high
value will cause the program to take a long time to start up. The default
value is 5.
-ddelay
This option controls the length of time the computer will
delay after printing informational messages at the top of the screen.
delay is specified in milliseconds. The default value is 2000 which
allows the user two seconds to read a message.
EXAMPLES¶
empire -w90 -s2 This produces a map with many islands. empire -w50 -s0 This produces a really strange map. These values are not recommended for the faint at heart. empire -w10 This produces a map with lots of land and a few lakes. The computer will have a hard time on this sort of map as it will try and produce lots of troop transports, which are fairly useless. There are two other option. -Sintervalsets the save interval for the game (default is
10). Once per interval turns the game state will be automatically saved
after your move. It will be saved in any case when you change modes or do
various special things from command mode, such as `M' or `N'.
-fsavefile
Set the save file name (normally empsave.dat).
INTRODUCTION¶
Empire is a war game played between you and the computer. The world on which the game takes place is a square rectangle containing cities, land, and water. Cities are used to build armies, planes, and ships which can move across the world destroying enemy pieces, exploring, and capturing more cities. The objective of the game is to destroy all the enemy pieces, and capture all the cities. The world is a rectangle 60 by 100 squares on a side. The world consists of sea (.), land (+), uncontrolled cities (*), computer-controlled cities (X), and cities that you control (O). The world is displayed on the player's screen during movement. (On terminals with small screens, only a portion of the world is shown at any one time.) Each piece is represented by a unique character on the map. With a few exceptions, you can only have one piece on a given location. On the map, you are shown only the 8 squares adjacent to your units. This information is updated before and during each of your moves. The map displays the most recent information known. The game starts by assigning you one city and the computer one city. Cities can produce new pieces. Every city that you own produces more pieces for you according to the cost of the desired piece. The typical play of the game is to issue the Automove command until you decide to do something special. During movement in each round, the player is prompted to move each piece that does not otherwise have an assigned function. Map coordinates are 4-digit numbers. The first two digits are the row, the second two digits are the column.PIECES¶
The pieces are as follows:Piece | You | Enemy | Moves | Hits | Str | Cost |
Army | A | a | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5(6) |
Fighter | F | f | 8 | 1 | 1 | 10(12) |
Patrol Boat | P | p | 4 | 1 | 1 | 15(18) |
Destroyer | D | d | 2 | 3 | 1 | 20(24) |
Submarine | S | s | 2 | 2 | 3 | 20(24) |
Troop Transport | T | t | 2 | 1 | 1 | 30(36) |
Aircraft Carrier | C | c | 2 | 8 | 1 | 30(36) |
Battleship | B | b | 2 | 10 | 2 | 40(48) |
Satellite | Z | z | 10 | -- | -- | 50(60) |
AFPT | D | S | C | B | |
AFPT | 50.0% | 12.5% | 25.0% | 00.391% | 00.0977% |
D | 87.5% | 50.0% | 25.0% | 05.47% | 00.537% |
S | 75.0% | 75.0% | 50.0% | 31.3% | 06.25% |
C | 99.6% | 94.5% | 68.7% | 50.0% | 04.61% |
B | 99.9% | 99.5% | 93.8% | 95.4% | 50.0% |
MOVEMENT FUNCTIONS¶
There are a variety of movement functions. The movement functions of pieces can be specified in user mode and edit mode. Cities can have movement functions set for each type of piece. When a movement function for a type of pieces is set for a city, then every time that type of piece appears in the city, the piece will acquire that movement function. Be forewarned that moving loaded transports or loaded carriers into a city can have undesirable side effects. Normally, when a movement function has been specified, the piece will continue moving according to that function until one of the following happen:•An enemy piece or unowned city appears next to
the piece. In this case the piece will be completely awoken, unless its
movement function has been set to a specific destination. Armies on ships and
pieces inside cities will not be awoken if the enemy piece is gone by the time
it is their turn to move.
•You explicitly awaken the piece.
•The piece can no longer move in accordance with
its programmed function. In this case, the piece will awaken
temporarily. You will be asked to move the piece at which time you may
awaken it.
•The piece is a fighter which has just enough fuel
(plus a small reserve) to get to the nearest city. In this case, the piece
will awaken completely, unless its movement function has been set to a
specific destination, or its movement function has been set to
land.
The rationale behind this complexity is that fighters must be awoken completely
before they are out of range of a city to prevent one from accidentally
forgetting to waken the fighter and then watching it fly off to its doom.
However, it is presumed that when a path is set for the fighter, the fighter
is not in danger of running out of fuel.
Pieces do not completely awaken when their function has been set to a
destination because it is slightly time consuming to reset the destination,
but very simple (one keystroke) to wake the piece.
The movement functions are:
Attack
This function applies only to armies. When this function
is set, the army will move toward the nearest enemy city, unowned city, or
enemy army. This is useful when fighting off an invading enemy or taking over
a new continent. When an army is set to this mode, it will also explore nearby
territory. This tends to make the "grope" movement mode pretty
useless.
Awake
When pieces are awake, you will be asked for the
direction in which the piece should move on each turn.
Fill
This function applies to carriers and transports. When
this function is specified, these ships sleep until they have been filled with
fighters or armies respectively.
Grope
This function causes a piece to explore. The piece heads
toward the nearest unseen square of the map on each of its moves. Some attempt
is made to explore in an optimal fashion.
Land
This function applies to fighters and causes the fighter
to head toward the nearest transport or carrier.
Random
This movement function causes a piece to move at random
to an adjacent empty square.
Sentry
This movement function puts a piece to sleep. The
function of a city cannot be set to 'sleep'.
Transport
This movement function only works on armies. The army
sleeps until an unfull transport passes by, at which point the army wakes up
and boards the transport.
Upgrade
This movement function only works with ships. The ship
will move to the nearest owned city and remain there until it is
repaired.
<dir>
Pieces can be set to move in a specified direction.
<dest>
Pieces can be set to move toward a specified square. In
this movement mode, pieces take a shortest path toward the destination. Pieces
moving in accordance with this function prefer diagonal moves that explore
territory. Because of this, the movement of the piece may be
non-intuitive.
As examples of how to use these movement functions, typically when I have a new
city on a continent, I set the Army function of the city to attack.
Whenever an army is produced, it merrily goes off on its way exploring the
continent and moving towards unowned cities or enemy armies or cities.
I frequently set the ship functions for cities that are far from the front to
automatically move ships towards the front.
When I have armies on a continent, but there is nothing to explore or attack, I
move the army to the shore and use the transport function to have that
army hop aboard the first passing transport.
COMMANDS¶
There are three command modes. The first of these is "command mode". In this mode, you give commands that affect the game as a whole. In the second mode, "move mode", you give commands to move your pieces. The third mode is "edit mode", and in this mode you can edit the functions of your pieces and examine various portions of the map. All commands are one character long. The full mnemonic names are listed below as a memorization aid. The mnemonics are somewhat contrived because there are so few characters in the English language. Too bad this program isn't written in Japanese, neh? In all command modes, typing "H" will print out a screen of help information, and typing <ctrl-L> will redraw the screen.COMMAND MODE¶
In command mode, the computer will prompt you for your orders. The following commands can be given at this time: AutomoveEnter automove mode. This command begins a new round of
movement. You will remain in move mode after each of the computer's turns. (In
move mode, the "O" command will return you to command mode after the
computer finishes its next turn.
City
Give the computer a random unowned city. This command is
useful if you find that the computer is getting too easy to beat.
Date
The current round is displayed.
Examine
Examine the enemy's map. This command is only valid after
the computer has resigned.
File
Print a copy of the map to the specified file.
Give
This command gives the computer a free move.
J
Enter edit mode where you can examine and change the
functions associated with your pieces and cities.
Move
Enter move mode for a single round.
N
Give the computer the number of free moves you
specify.
Print
Display a sector on the screen.
Quit
Quit the game.
Restore
Restore the game from empsave.dat.
Save
Save the game in empsave.dat.
Trace
This command toggles a flag. When the flag is set, after
each move, either yours or the computer's, a picture of the world is written
out to the file 'empmovie.dat'. Watch out! This command produces lots of
output.
Watch
This command allows you to watch a saved movie. The movie
is displayed in a condensed version so that it will fit on a single screen, so
the output may be a little confusing. This command is only legal if the
computer resigns. If you lose the game, you cannot replay a movie to learn the
secrets of how the computer beat you. Nor can you replay a movie to find out
the current positions of the computer's pieces. When replaying a movie, it is
recommended that you use the -d option to set the delay to around 2000
milliseconds or so. Otherwise the screen will be updated too quickly for you
to really grasp what is going on.
Zoom
Display a condensed version of the map on the screen. The
user map is divided into small rectangles. Each rectangle is displayed as one
square on the screen. If there is a city in a rectangle, then it is displayed.
Otherwise enemy pieces are displayed, then user pieces, then land, then water,
and then unexplored territory. When pieces are displayed, ships are preferred
to fighters and armies.
MOVE MODE¶
In move mode, the cursor will appear on the screen at the position of each piece that needs to be moved. You can then give commands to move the piece. Directions to move are specified by the following keys:QWE A D ZXC
Change the production of a city.
Fill
Set the function of a troop transport or aircraft carrier
to fill.
Grope
Set the function of a piece to grope.
Idir
Set the direction for a piece to move.
J
Enter edit mode.
Kill
Wake up the piece. If the piece is a transport or
carrier, pieces on board will not be awoken.
Land
Set a fighter's function to land.
Out
Cancel automove mode. At the end of the round, you will
be placed in command mode.
Print
Redraw the screen.
Random
Set a piece's function to random.
Sentry
Set a piece's function to sentry.
Transport
Set an army's function to transport.
Upgrade
Set a ship's function to upgrade.
Vpiece func
Set the city movement function for the specified piece to
the specified function. For example, typing "VAY" would set the city
movement function for armies to attack. Whenever an army is produced in
the city (or whenever a loaded transport enters the city), the army's movement
function would be set to attack.
Y
Set an army's function to attack.
?
Display information about the piece. The function, hits
left, range, and number of items on board are displayed.
Attacking something is accomplished by moving onto the square of the unit you
wish to attack. Hits are traded off at 50% probability of a hit landing on one
or the other units until one unit is totally destroyed. There is only 1
possible winner.
You are "allowed" to do fatal things like attack your own
cities or other pieces. If you try to make a fatal move, the computer will
warn you and give you a chance to change your mind.
You cannot move onto the edge of the world.
EDIT MODE¶
In edit mode, you can move around the world and examine pieces or assign them new functions. To move the cursor around, use the standard direction keys. Other commands are: BuildChange the production of the city under the cursor. The
program will prompt for the new production, and you should respond with the
key corresponding to the letter of the piece that you want produced.
Fill
Set a transport's or carrier's function to
fill.
Grope
Set a piece's function to grope.
Idir
Set the function of a piece (or city) to the specified
direction.
Kill
Wake all pieces at the current location. If the location
is a city, the fighter path will also be canceled.
Mark
Select the piece or city at the current location. This
command is used with the "N" command.
N
Set the destination of the piece previously selected with
the "M" command to the current square.
Out
Exit edit mode.
Printsector
Display a new sector of the map. The map is divided into
ten sectors of size 20 by 70. Sector zero is in the upper-left corner of the
map. Sector four is in the lower-left corner of the map. Sector five is in the
upper-right corner, and sector nine is in the lower-right corner.
Random
Set a piece to move randomly.
Sentry
Put a piece to sleep.
Transport
Set an army's function to transport.
Upgrade
Set a ship's function to upgrade.
Vpiece func
Set the city movement function for a piece.
Y
Set an army's function to attack.
?
Display information about a piece or city. For a city,
the production, time of completion of the next piece, movement functions, and
the number of fighters and ships in the city are displayed.
Note that you cannot directly affect anything inside a city with the editor.
HINTS¶
After you have played this game for a while, you will probably find that the computer is immensely easy to beat. Here are some ideas you can try that may make the game more interesting.•Give the computer one or more extra cities before
starting the game.
•Try playing the game with a low smoothness value
(try using the -s2 or even -s0 option).
•When starting the game, the program will ask you
what difficulty level you want. Here "difficulty level" is a
misnomer. To compute a difficulty level, the program looks at each continent
and counts the number of cities on the continents. A high "difficulty
level" gives the computer a large continent with many cities, while the
user gets a small continent with few cities. A low "difficulty
level" has the opposite effect. It may be the case that the computer will
play better when the "difficulty level" is low. The reason for this
is that the computer is forced to move armies to multiple continents early in
the game.
HISTORY¶
According to A Brief History of Empire[1], the ancestral game was written by Walter Bright sometime in the early 1970s while he was a student at Caltech. A copy leaked out of Caltech and was ported to DEC's VAX/VMS from the TOPS-10/20 FORTRAN sources available sometime around fall 1979. Craig Leres found the source code on a DECUS tape in 1983 and added support for different terminal types. Ed James got hold of the sources at Berkeley and converted portions of the code to C, mostly to use curses for the screen handling. He published his modified sources on the net in December 1986. Because this game ran on VMS machines for so long, it has been known as VMS Empire. In 1987 Chuck Simmons at Amdahl reverse-engineered the program and wrote a version completely in C. In doing so, he modified the computer strategy, the commands, the piece types, many of the piece attributes, and the algorithm for creating maps. The various versions of this game were ancestral to later and better-known 4X (expand/explore/exploit/exterminate) games, including Civilization (1990) and Master of Orion (1993). In 1994 Eric Raymond colorized the game.FILES¶
empsave.datholds a backup of the game. Whenever empire is run, it
will reload any game in this file.
empmovie.dat
holds a history of the game so that the game can be
replayed as a "movie".
BUGS¶
No doubt numerous. Satellites are not completely implemented. You should be able to move to a square that contains a satellite, but the program won't let you. Enemy satellites should not cause your pieces to awaken.AUTHORS¶
Original game by Walter Bright. Support for different terminal types added by Craig Leres. Curses support added by Ed James. C/Unix version written by Chuck Simmons. Colorization by Eric S. Raymond. Probability table corrected by Michael Self.COPYLEFT¶
Copyright (C) 1987, 1988 Chuck Simmons See the file COPYING, distributed with empire, for restriction and warranty information.NOTES¶
- 1.
- A Brief History of Empire
05/21/2014 | empire |