Introduction : User's Guide to Empire
Basic
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| By Geoff Cashman |
User's Guide to Empire 1
Preface to the Wolfpack Edition
This is Geoff Cashman's venerable User's Guide to Empire. It was written
in 1991, and Empire has evolved quite a bit since then. Nevertheless, many
players have found it useful through the years, so here it is. We
reproduce it verbatim except for this preface and corrections of a few
editing mistakes.
Copyright
Copyright (C) 1991-2008 Geoff Cashman. This is free documentation; see the
source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
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
Foreword
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may very well soon be outdated.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
Foreword
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
'break' command. When you do this, your two sanctuary sectors (which
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: Updates
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 desirable 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 guerrillas. Guerrillas 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 guerrillas whatsoever. They are
completely automatic. Should guerrillas win a sector back from your
enemy then the surviving guerrillas become members of your regular
User's Guide to Empire 37
military, and you can use them as such.
If your guerrillas 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: Bureaucratic Time Units (BTUs), Available work (Avail)
Figure 13
Table of types of commodities in Empire
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bureaucratic 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. Agains