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May 30, 1994
In This Edition
This is what's happened in the Empire world since the last edition of
EMPIRE NEWS:The long term games Junkiefest II and Hidden II have officially ended, and two new long term games have begun: Smorgasborg and Denver Flatland (see "Long Term Games").
There's a new version of eif available with minor bug fixes (see "Clients").
A serious bug was found in the server; a fix is available (see "Server").
In this issue I've added a new section called "Current Projects" to keep you up-to-date with who's working on what right now.
These are the projects that Empire coders are presently working on:
project coder language status ------------------------------------------------------------------------- empclient for VM/CMS rewrite Drazz'zt REXX beta GNU Emacs client Markus Armbruster elisp hpc.pl modifications Ken Stevens perl ve - visual empire Don Harper C ? Empire 2.0 Thomas Ruschak C on hold TinyEmpire Drake Diedrich C/perl conception Empire Revision ??? C brainstorming Users.Guide rewrite - looking for volunteers -empclient for VM/CMS rewrite:
Drazz'zt 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?").GNU Emacs client:
Markus Armbruster is presently working on an elisp client for Empire.
From what I understand, it will have three windows: input, output, and
map. So far, the client part more or less works, and he's currently
perfecting the map part.hpc.pl modifications:
I am currently modifying hpc.pl, adding configurable cursor-keys (for readline), extensive alias capability (supporting multiple commands, sub-prompting, $1 type argument parsing, and $variable substitution),
and extensive documentation. I have finished everything except multiple commands, sub-prompting, and documentation. In the future, I'd like to add support for multiple games. My ultimate goal is to port all the functionality of eif over to hpc.pl. Perl is better.ve - visual empire:
Don Harper has been fixing this handy program. What's the status Don?Empire 2.0:
Thomas Ruschak, the author of the most recent version of empire (called "Chainsaw"), hopes to finish fixing the last of the bugs in the Chainsaw code and release it as "Empire 2.0" sometime this summer or next fall.TinyEmpire:
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 posted a bare bones perl server to r.g.e (it supported three or four commands).Empire Revision:
As you well know, recently there has been volumes of discussion about how Empire would be better implemented. The atmosphere is that a momentous project to completely rewrite Empire is about to take form.
Thomas Ruschak has suggested that since the overhaul will be so major, we should consider calling the project something other than "Empire". Karl S. Hagen and Dave H.D. Pare disagree. The proposal to switch to
UDP was deftly shot down by Dave Pare. At present, there seem to be 3
major changes proposed. I will present them in the order that Dave
Pare suggested we tackle them:A) Ensure database integrity (Dave H.D. Pare and Bill Canning)
1) Merge emp_tm, emp_player, and emp_login.
2) If a player's i/o socket overflows, buffer to disk.
3) (Bill Canning) For sub-prompting commands like "attack", a checksum of the relevant data could be calculated before and after the attack to determine whether the attack should go through, or perhaps be revised in some way.
B) Clean up the code (Karl S. Hagen)
1) consolidate repeated code
2) fix bugs, info pages, and documentation
C) Improve client-server protocol (Karl S. Hagen)
1) Ensure backwards compatability by having a "mode" determine the client-server protocol.
2) For "dumb" mode (default) the protocol would look just like it does now.
3) In "smart" mode, the protocol would look very cryptic, but carry
more information in less space. The client would maintain a database
of sectors and units which is kept up to date (possibly asynchroniously) by the server. The client could then take care of most sub-prompting (except maybe "nav", "expl", and "bomb").Users.Guide:
PLEASE PLEASE would some kind soul take it upon themselves to rewrite our Users Guide? It dates back to the Merc code days (pre units / missions).
"Hidden 3"
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 94Recently, the Flatland game has been down. So far no explanation.
Junkiefest II has officially ended. The country "BLT" won by a landslide.
Hidden II officially ended for the fourth time--but this time it's off
the net. There was a hard-drive crash near the beginning of the game,
so there was no official winner. Of the countries who kept playing
after the crash, the alliance "Menace_2_Society" (Lothlorien), "Mr.X"
(Mantarr & duckland), "children", and "Kaos" unofficially won. Then
after that, the game continued for another month, and 10011001 took
over the world.
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 myself (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.
The advantage of a perl client is that it is easier to integrate other
tools directly into it.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.12.May.1994Empire 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 (3 years out of date):
/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 or Thomas Ruschak (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.sh
Drake 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.Z
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/w3
There 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 macs
client, you should be able to find out where they are.
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 Michael Feuell Krikkit (Carnage) Jim Gillogly Banzai, POE Karl S. Hagen greyhelm@engg.ksu.edu Don Harper Duckland Doug Hay (retired) Alien Drazz'zt UCPL079@UNLVM.UNL.EDU Kevin Klemmick Waffen (Hidden) kleco@netcom.com Andrew Lasda Flatland alasda@nyx.cs.du.edu 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 Ken Stevens children stevens@math.toronto.edu Sam Tetherow Khazad'ur Scott Yelich AO (Santa Fe)
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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