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"All the news that fits, we print."
June 10, 1994
In This Edition
This is what's new since the last edition of EMPIRE NEWS:Two new games, Junkiefest III and Dwarven Chowder, have been announced! (see
"New Games Starting Up").The game Paperboy has started up (see "Long Term Games").
Eron Jokipii is working on an Amiga client, Pat Loney is working on a
Win3 client, Ken Stevens is working on a perl client, Scott Yelich is
working on a perl client, and Sam Tetherow is working on a C++ windows
client, a perl client, and lots of neat perl scripts (see "Current
Projects").Chad Zabel has been working on the server (see "Server").
Chad Zabel is planning on running a couple of BloodBowl games over the
summer (see "New Games Starting Up").Ken Stevens is collecting items for the Empire "WISH LIST" (see "Current
Projects").Chris Farrel and Chuck Simmons are revising the Users.Guide (see
"Current Projects").I've moved the discussion about the server project from "Current
Projects" to "Server".
"Dwarven Chowder"
Dusty and Drazz'zt have announced a new game to open Wednesday 15
June. 3 countries per start island. About 25 start sectors each.
Hoping for 39 countries. One 48 ETU update per day at 10pm EST. Send
the following to empire@ewl.uky.edu
Real Name:
Country Name:
Representative:
Email Address:
Playing Addresses:
Number Games Played:"Junkiefest III"
Jim Ortlieb's famous newbie game is now full. He has 20 players and 6
on the waiting list. The game will open on Saturday 11 June at noon EST.
First update will be Monday 13 June at 21:00 EST. Countries unbroken
after Monday's update will be replaced. Host/port is
gsbux1.uchicago.edu/1617. His email address is ajortlie@gsbux1.uchicago.edu"BloodBowl"
Chad Zabel plans to run a couple of BloodBowl games this summer to
test teh new server code. Watch r.g.e. for details."Hidden III"
Kevin Klemmick will announce Hidden III sometime early in the fall.
He now has a host to run the game on.
These blitzes reset every day:
Name host port coun pass updates resets --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Riverworld opus.chem.psu.edu 1618 1-10 1-10 10 min 7:30pm EST Levante zwetsche.ethz.ch 3000 1-15 1-15 10 min 3:30am ESTYou can login to the Riverworld blitz as a visitor using either
"Visitor/Visitor" or "visitor/visitor".The "Tilo" blitz runs modified code which decays commodities every update.
These are the long term games currently being run:
Name host port country password updates started --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Riverworld opus.chem.psu.edu 1617 visitor visitor 1/4 days Nov 93 Flatland nyx.cs.du.edu 6668 Visitor Visitor 1/day 13 May 94 Smorgasboard alderaan.lanl.gov 2001 visitor visitor 1/day 22 May 94 Paperboy paperboy.ids.net 1617 1/day 9 Jun 94Riverworld is presently in the throes of a nuke-fest. Mirkwood is
is sporting the yellow Jersey. With updates spaced four days apart, this
has been a game of carefully planned strategy. It could well be the
longest running game in Empire history!Flatland is still down with no explanation.
Smorgasboard has three countries per 120 sector start island, and the
fighting has been fast and furious right from the start. The game has
been getting rave reviews from the players.Paperboy opened with 18 countries. Only half of them were able to
break before the first update. With a world size of 256x256 giving
each player about 900 sectors, players are asking for a restart.
These are the projects that Empire coders are presently working on:
project coder language status ------------------------------------------------------------------------- VM/CMS client Sam Tetherow REXX beta eec Sam Tetherow perl 1 mo hpc Drake Diedrich perl 2 wks peif Ken Stevens perl 2 wks Win3 client Pat Loney C 2 mo GNU Emacs client Markus Armbruster elisp 2 mo Amiga client Eron Jokipii C 3 mo WISH LIST Ken Stevens ongoing Users.Guide Chris & Chuck preparation Windows client Sam Tetherow C++ preparation ve - visual empire Don Harper C ? ECC Scott Yelich perl on holdVM/CMS client
Sam Tetherow has finished a complete rewrite of the standard VM/CMS
client. His new version uses CMSPipelines which is not supported on
all VM/CMS systems. He also has an older "stand alone REXX code"
version which doesn't need CMSPipelines. Anyone interested is
encouraged to contact him (see "Who's Who?").eec - Elven Empire Client
This perl client offers file redirection, piping, system commands,
execution of commands from files, rudimentary aliasing, and !history
substitution. Also included are a number of perl scripts to help you
manage ships, planes, and land units.hpc - harmless perl client
This perl client offers file redirection, piping, system commands,
execution of commands from files, readline support, and perl
evaluation. hpc will be released with two powerful perl modules:
parse.pl and user.pl. parse.pl parses the output of nearly every
empire command into an internal database. user.pl contains many
useful "tool" functions (e.g. autoexplore, civmover, autofeed) which
use the info in the database to generate empire commands.peif - Perl Empire InterFace
Ken Stevens is writing a perl client which has all the functionality
of eif and hpc. (He has been working closely with Drake to ensure
that peif works smoothly with parse.pl and user.pl). This is what he
has finished so far: eif-style aliases, runfeed, interrupt handling,
multiple game support (addgame, kill, try), multiple commands
separated by semicolon, sub-prompting, automatic conversion of .eifrc to
.peifrc, and cursor-key support for readline. What remains to be
done is csh-type history substitution (!cen, ^jjh^juh), and >! file
redirection.Win3 client:
Pat Loney is writing a Win3 client using winsock and tcpip.GNU Emacs client:
Markus Armbruster is presently working on an elisp client for Empire.
It will have three windows: input, output, and map. So far, the
i/o part more or less works.Amiga client:
Eron Jokipii is writing a dial-up client for the amiga. It will have
the following windows: input, output, map, sectors, units, ships, planes.
He is presently adding multi-threading.WISH LIST:
If you know of any bugs in Empire or if there are any features you'd
like added to Empire, then please mail them to Ken Stevens (see "Who's
Who?) with the word "wish" in the subject line. The criterea for
new features being added to the wish list are:
1) It shall improve the player's experience
2) It shall not be complex
3) It shall not change the game in any fundamental wayUsers.Guide:
Chris Farrel and Chuck Simmons are revising the Users.Guide, adding
documentation for land units, missions, starv, budget, bestpath, and
other features which have been added in the Chainsaw code.Windows client:
Sam Tetherow is in the preparation stages of porting a C++ client to
Microsoft Windows.ve - visual empire:
Don Harper announced a while ago that he was working on ve. Haven't
heard from him in a while though...ECC - Empire Control Center / Empire Cyber Client / Extremely Cool Client [This description was written by Scott Yelich.] Version: V0.047Anr 5/12/94 (alpha not released) *** NOT AVAIABLE *** ECC is intended to be a "cyber" client that allows sub-client modules to perform any or all functions of playing empire that the human player does not wish to perform. The user interface allows for multiple sub-clients to connect, including multiple human players and multiple computer modules. The client is coded in PERL with a call to WISH (TK) for the X interface. The client can be accessed via telnetting to a port for an ASCII interface in either line mode, full screen or X windows. Sub-modules allow play via EMAIL, IRC, MUD, etc. Development of ECC has halted due to Scott starting his own business (spy.org). Development will resume within 3 months (which also gives time for the code to stabilize).
Clients are available via anonymous ftp to ftp.cis.ksu.edu in the
directory /pub/Games/Empire/clients:system location works? -------------------------------------------------------------------- Unix (standard) /pub/Games/Empire/clients/empclient-1.1.tar.Z yes Unix (aliases) /pub/Games/Empire/clients/eif1.0.2.tar.Z yes Unix (perl) /pub/Games/Empire/clients/pec.2.0.sh yes Unix (perl) /pub/Games/Empire/clients/hpc.sh yes X-win /pub/Games/Empire/clients/xemp5.0.02.tar.Z yes X-win (sun4) /pub/Games/Empire/clients/xemp5.0.02.bin.sun4.gz yes VMS /pub/Games/Empire/clients/VMS yes VM_CMS /pub/Games/Empire/clients/VM_CMS yes Unix (multiplex)/pub/Games/Empire/clients/emp_mux.tar.Z not sureeif1.0.2.tar.Z "Empire InterFace" by Doug hay offers aliases and
access to system files and programs. Recent bugfixes by Jim Gillogly
(fixed the "kill" command) and Ken Stevens (fixed highlighting for the "sect"
command) are included in version 1.0.2.pec.2.0.sh "Perl Empire Client" by Sean "Elven King" Eddy, Michael
"the Elf" Feuell, and Sam "Drazz'zt" Tetherow.hpc.sh "Harmless Perl Client" by Drake Diedrich.
emp_mux.tar.Z by Alan M. Levi is a client "multiplexer" to allow two
people to connect to the same country at the same time.
Empire documentation is available at ftp.cis.ksu.edu:Empire FAQ:
/pub/Games/Empire/FAQ.*Empire Description:
/pub/Games/Empire/WhatIsEmpire-FAQ.txtChainsaw info pages:
/pub/Games/Empire/docs/chainsaw.3.0.info.tar.Z
The info pages are also available on WWW at:
http://opus.chem.psu.edu/~dld/info/Users Guide (presently being revised)
/pub/Games/Empire/docs/Users.Guide
If you want to run a game, you can get the source for the server from
ftp.cis.ksu.edu:
/pub/Games/Empire/source/chainsaw.3.31.tar.ZJim Ortlieb has found a serious bug in bomb.c. You may obtain a fix
either from him (see "Who's Who?"). All deities should apply this
patch.Kevin Klemmick has modified the plane code to generate more readable air
combat reports. Deities are encouraged to replace the aircombat.c and
mission.c files in chainsaw.3.31.tar.Z with ones found in:
pub/Games/Empire/source/newplanes.shDrake Diedrich has uploaded a diff file containing all the bug-fixes
to Chainsaw 3.31 used in the Riverworld games (mostly changes in the
info files and spelling corrections):
pub/Games/Empire/source/diff.cs.river.ZTinyEmpire:
Drake Deidrich proposes that the best way to rewrite the Empire Server
would be to start from scratch with a simple game having a bare
minimum of commands. He plans to begin this project sometime in the fall.Server Modifications:
Chad Zabel is now the keeper of the official source. This is what he
has done so far:
- added Jim's bomb.c patch
- added Drake's Riverworld patches
- rewritten autonav (it now avoids 'x' and 'X" on your bmap and uses
ally bridges and harbours). He is currently removing most of the options in options.h, making 44 standard, deleting 3, and keeping 27 as options.Server Mailing List:
The mailing list, a forum of discussion regarding changes to the
server, has been established (with current traffic about 4 mail messages per day). If, and ONLY IF you are very familiar with the Empire source code, have experience modifying the Empire source, and have time to help with the Server project, send mail to empire-list-request@engg.ksu.edu with the subject line: subscribe or body content: subscribe.Server Discussion:
The topics currently being discussed on the Server Mailing List are:
- how can we ensure database integrity?
- should the three server processes be merged, and if so, how?
- should threading be implemented and if so how?
- how will the server interact with the database manager?
Most bug-fixes and new features will remain on hold until these issues
have been resolved, because the big changes must be made before the
little ones are.This is what will be happening with the server in the coming months:
1) Once Chad finishes with the options stuff, he will pass the source
over to Dave Pare who will implement threading and a single-write
database manager.
2) Once Dave has finished doing that, then the code will go back to
Chad and everyone on the Server Team will pore over the WISH LIST and
start whittling it down.
3) Once the high priority bug-fixes and new features have been installed,
the source will then make its way over to Karl S. Hagen who will clean
up the code, and add a "smart client" protocol mode which will be more
cryptic but carry more information in less space. The idea with a
smart client is that it will take care of most sub-prompting, and it
will maintain an internal database of sectors and units which is
updated asynchroniously by the server.
Player tools are available via anonymous ftp to ftp.cis.ksu.edu in the
directory /pub/Games/Empire/tools/Player:submitted name author language works? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sep 2 1992 EddyTools.tar.Z Sean Eddy C no Sep 2 1992 GEET-2d.tar.Z Lynn Slater elisp no May 12 1994 autofeed Jim Gillogly perl yes May 12 1994 chitools.sh Ken Stevens C,awk,perl yes Sep 2 1992 cmc-tools.tar.Z Cowboy Bob/King Craig C no Dec 18 1991 ewall.tar.Z ??? ??? no Sep 2 1992 hex.ps.Z Scott D. Yelich postscript yes Sep 2 1992 news_power.sh Jim Gillogly perl yes Dec 18 1991 rdist.tar.Z ??? C no May 12 1994 simu Drake Diedrich awk yes Apr 9 1993 ve.tar.Z see below C almostTo add your tools to the archive, send email to Karl S. Hagen (see
"Who's Who?") and he'll tell you what to do.Here is a summary of the tools that work:
autofeed moves food from sectors with too much to those with too
little. (It uses "dump" rather than "starv" so it is a little slow).chitools.sh contains 7 tools including a civ mover, production delta
program, autofeed script, spy info database, and a mail-like interface
for reading telegrams.hex.ps.Z prints hex paper.
news_power.sh parses the news into a more concise form and produces a summary report at the end.
simu is an update simulator, showing you what your country will look
like after the next update.ve.tar.Z "visual empire" is a cursers interface for viewing your
country. It was written by Matthew Diaz, Michael Baldwin,
Bill Jones, Jim Knutson, Ken Montgomery, Dan Reynolds, Jeff Wallace,
and Julian Onions (*whew!*).
These are the tools that either do not work, or are obsolete:EddyTools.tar.Z contains 3 tools. "distributer" and "civmover" are
out of date and do not work, but "accountant" (calculates production
deltas) still works.GEET-2d.tar.Z is an emacs "robot" client that doesn't work.
cmc-tools.tar.Z was a fantastic civ-moving tool and I wish someone
would fix it. What was so great about it was the way you could set
civ-moving prioritites in a configuration file. It has 4 tools, "pmvr", "mmvr", "umvr" (for moving civs, mil, and uw's) and a "dist" tool for setting dist paths (now obsolete).ewall.tar.Z is a tool for sending telegrams to multiple recipients
(now obsolete).rdist.tar.Z What the heck is this? There's no documentation.
submitted name author language works?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Feb 13 1992 DuckScripts.tar.Z Don Harper mixed yes
Feb 13 1992 EvilDeityScripts.tar.Z Dave Nye sh yes
Oct 11 1991 emptools.tar.Z Peter J. Nicklin C yes
Jul 12 1993 fairland.1.6.2.tar.Z Ken Stevens C yes
May 13 1994 RiverworldTools.tar.Z Drake Diedrich mixed yes
Nov 6 1992 transferkit.tar.Z Thomas Ruschak C yes?
Nov 6 1992 xland-2.0.tar.Z Dan Bennett C no
Apr 9 1993 xland-chain3.0.tar.Z Dan Bennett & Tom C yes?Here is a description of the various deity tools:
DuckScripts.tar.Z contains 35 perl, awk, and csh scripts which parse
the output of various empire report commands (power, plane, prod, etc.)
and generate summaries of the data.EvilDeityScripts.tar.Z contains the shell scripts "saveass" and
"watchdog". "saveass" saves a copy of the empire data files just
before an update so that you can restore from backups if something
goes wrong. "watchdog" checks to see if either emp_tm or emp_login
has crashed, and if they have, restarts them. A sample crontab is
included.emptools.tar.Z contains the source for GNUmake version 3.56 (probably
quite an old version) and mkmf ("make makefile"), two unix utilities
used to compile the server.fairland.1.6.2.tar.Z is a land generator program (now a part of
chainsaw.3.31.tar.Z I believe), which creates a world with a specified
number of continents of a specified size with equal resources.RiverworldTools.tar.Z contains a number of scripts for running a game. It
includes modifications of Dave Nye's "watchdog" and "saveass" scripts,
as well as scripts for auto-resetting a blitz, a script for checking
login irregularities, and a cool program which draws colour maps
of the game as it progresses and converts them into a mpeg movie.transferkit.tar.Z is a program for transfering a game from one machine
to another.xland-chain3.0.tar.Z replaces xland-2.0.tar.Z. It is an X-windows
program used by deities to "draw" land for an empire game using a mouse.
If you have access to the World Wide Web, you can connect to Empire's
WWW page at: http://www.engg.ksu.edu:80//empire/home.htmlWhat's the World Wide Web? See for yourself. To quote Drake
Diedrich, "It is way cool." If you have emacs, then you can connect
to the World Wide Web using "w3". Just ftp the following two elisp
packages and install them:diredall.tar.Z available at ftp.thp.Uni-Koeln.DE /pub/gnu/emacs
w3.tar.gz available at cs.indiana.edu /pub/elisp/w3There are also more graphical WWW clients available (e.g. X-windows),
but I don't know where they are--once you get into WWW with the emacs client, you should be able to find out where they are.
The cast in alphabetical order:Name Country Deity of email ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Markus Armbruster armbru@pond.sub.org Dan Bennett (retired) Eurasia (Kent State) Drake Diedrich harmless Riverworld dld@random.chem.psu.edu Sean Eddy Mirkwood sre@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk Chris Farrel Geravik cfarrell@yar.cs.wisc.edu Michael Feuell Krikkit (Carnage) Jim Gillogly Banzai, POE Andy Green Paperboy green@ids.net Karl S. Hagen greyhelm@engg.ksu.edu Don Harper Duckland Doug Hay (retired) Alien Eron Jokipii LV 426 ej@cs.arizona.edu Kevin Klemmick Waffen (Hidden) kleco@netcom.com Andrew Lasda Flatland alasda@nyx.cs.du.edu Pat Loney Overlord (European) loney@kaos.lerc.nasa.gov Dave Nye (retired) EvilEmpire Jim Ortlieb CrackHouse (JunkieFest) ajortlie@gsbux1.uchicago.edu Dave "H.D." Pare mr-frog@xcf.Berkeley.EDU Thomas Ruschak The_Scum (Chainsaw) ts@ecn.purdue.edu Bill Sharp Smorgasboard sharp@alderaan.lanl.gov Chuck Simmons (retired) Metzada c/o Chad Zabel Ken Stevens children stevens@math.toronto.edu Sam Tetherow(Drazz'zt) Khazad'ur UCPL079@UNLVM.UNL.EDU Scott Yelich AO (Santa Fe) scott@santafe.edu Chad Zabel Rad_Zone (BloodBowl) zabel@cs.und.nodak.edu
If you have any additions/corrections/changes/feedback to the information in this post, please email me at stevens@math.toronto.edu.
Ken Stevens a.k.a. Buster, ruler of children
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