cg@ami-cg.UUCP (Chris Gray) (12/06/89)
Summary: What do YOU want in the next release of Amiga Empire?
I have recently finished converting Amiga Empire V1.3 into a new form. The
main feature of this new form is that it allows more than one person to
play at the same time. In terms of units, it is set up like this:
+------------+
| | empire.world, empire.sector
| Data files | empire.country, empire.ship
| | empire.fleet, etc.
+------------+
|
|
|
+------------+
| |
| Server | an AmigaDOS process
| |
+------------+
/ | \
/ | \ AmigaDOS messages
/ | \
+--------+ +--------+ +--------+
| | | | | |
| Client | ... | Client | ... | Client | AmigaDOS processes
| | | | | |
+--------+ +--------+ +--------+
\ | /
\ | /
\ | /
+------------+
| |
|LIBS:Empire.| AmigaDOS shared, disk-resident
| library | library
| |
+------------+
The bulk of the Empire code is in the shared library. Thus, Amigas with
small amounts of memory (even 512K) can run multiple Empire clients at the
same time. Also, it is fairly easy to write a client program - it needs
little more than a connection to the server and a way to do text input and
output. Thus, integrating Empire into an existing BBS system should be
straightforward.
Currently, this new version is done, and developer tested. It needs lots
more testing (and resulting bug fixes!). Also, I haven't yet built a client
which talks over the serial port - all my testing has been using multiple
shell windows. And finally, I want to make everything work properly under
Workbench as well as from the shell.
In terms of functionality, the game is pretty much the same as in the
previous release, except for the following:
- ships have their own tech factor, which is inherited when they are built,
and can be bumped back up with the new 'refurb' command. Currently, the
various costs and rates haven't been worked out satisfactorily.
- new 'propaganda' command allows players to toot their horns in a new 4th
page of the newspaper.
- new 'message' command allows players to send immediate messages to other
countries that are logged in.
- new 'chat' command allows several players to enter an online "CB" mode.
- simple editor allows editing of propaganda, telegrams and messages before
they are sent.
- multiple deities are supported.
- various other minor things that I've forgotten about.
There are a few more things that I plan to do, mostly in the way of making
more things adjustable, (e.g. allowing a country to say whether they want
to be told right away - a bulletin - about nasty things happening to them,
or whether they want everything squirrelled away as telegrams).
Several months ago, however, a bunch of us got together and discussed more
major things we wanted to change or add. That was rounded out a couple of
weekends ago with some even more radical ideas. Some of the ideas:
- get rid of gold mines, gold bars, banks, and contracting. Income comes
only from taxes on civilians and from sales to other countries. The tax
rate is adjustable by the country itself - higher taxes increase the
liklihood of sector revolts, where the workers get mad and refuse to do
ANY work (but still consume everything as normal).
- greatly diversify the economy. Simple 'ore' and 'mines' are replaced by
a set of resources:
fertility in farm sectors => food, which is needed in urban centers
and, to a lesser extent, in other sectors
oil reserves in oilwell sectors => oil, which is needed in several
places (fuel for ships, planes, powerplants, etc.)
timber resources in lumbermill sectors => building materials
(needed for sector growth) and paper (needed in capitals in
order to produce BTU's)
iron deposits in steel mills => steel, which is needed to build
ships, bridges, guns, shells, planes, etc.
exotic minerals in exotic mineral mines => fancy instruments, which
are needed for tech centers, research centers and planes.
(The whole thing is a positive feedback loop - initially, a
country's tech and research levels just grow over time by them-
selves, but a plateau is soon reached where effort is needed to
make them better.)
- powerplant sectors - must be by water, and need oil for operation. They
feed all sectors in range which point at them. A country can sell power
to its neighbours.
- boot camp sectors - turn civilians into military ('enlist' goes away)
- junkyard sectors - stuff stored here doesn't cost upkeep (rates
adjustable by deitys), but does tend to decay away.
- rubble sectors - result when things are damaged below 0%.
- new ship type - radar plane - can fly over land and do radar and lookout.
Probably has no guns or bombs.
- paratroop plane - similar
- salvage ship - can find and raise sunken ships
- juggernaut - massive land-bound tank. Sort of a mobile fortress, but
moves very slowly. Damages all sectors it enters.
- fleets have associated 'paths', which allow them to automatically move
around, load and unload, do radars, drop mines, etc.
- new 'infect' command - try to infect sectors adjacent to a research
institute - may backfire (based on relative research levels) and get
the research institute infected.
- automatic long-distance delivery routing from producers to consumers
- lots of other minor things, like allowing deitys to set the maximum
number of BTU's.
In general, we want to make the game more interesting by reducing the
drudgery, increasing the variety and increasing the inter-country
interaction. (The latter can be done by adjusting the "richness" of the
various resources so that none but the extremely large countries would want
to develop everything.)
So, what does everyone think? Should I produce and release a version of
Amiga Empire without all this new stuff? Should I do everything? A lot of
the ideas are "borrowed" from other versions of Empire, but since I've
never seen documentation on them, my implementations are likely to be quite
a bit different.
Send your thoughts to me (Chris Gray) at
uucp: {alberta|uunet}!myrias!ami-cg!cg (my home machine)
internet: ami-cg!cg@myrias.COM (ditto)
CompuServe: 74007,1165 (checked every week or two)
--
--
Chris Gray usenet: {uunet,alberta}!myrias!ami-cg!cg CIS: 74007,1165lbmcclos@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (Lance B McCloskey) (12/12/89)
Mr. Gray, I really like your port, my next door neighbor and I have been playing it since the first of the semester. I have some things I would like to see in the next version, but our mailer doesn't work. Would you kindly post your internet address, and I will mail the file to you. Lance McCloskey
cg%ami-cg.uucp@cunyvm.cuny.edu (12/16/89)
Summary: What do YOU want in the next release of Amiga Empire?
I have recently finished converting Amiga Empire V1.3 into a new form. The
main feature of this new form is that it allows more than one person to
play at the same time. In terms of units, it is set up like this:
+------------+
| | empire.world, empire.sector
| Data files | empire.country, empire.ship
| | empire.fleet, etc.
+------------+
|
|
|
+------------+
| |
| Server | an AmigaDOS process
| |
+------------+
/ | \
/ | \ AmigaDOS messages
/ | \
+--------+ +--------+ +--------+
| | | | | |
| Client | ... | Client | ... | Client | AmigaDOS processes
| | | | | |
+--------+ +--------+ +--------+
\ | /
\ | /
\ | /
+------------+
| |
|LIBS:Empire.| AmigaDOS shared, disk-resident
| library | library
| |
+------------+
The bulk of the Empire code is in the shared library. Thus, Amigas with
small amounts of memory (even 512K) can run multiple Empire clients at the
same time. Also, it is fairly easy to write a client program - it needs
little more than a connection to the server and a way to do text input and
output. Thus, integrating Empire into an existing BBS system should be
straightforward.
Currently, this new version is done, and developer tested. It needs lots
more testing (and resulting bug fixes!). Also, I haven't yet built a client
which talks over the serial port - all my testing has been using multiple
shell windows. And finally, I want to make everything work properly under
Workbench as well as from the shell.
In terms of functionality, the game is pretty much the same as in the
previous release, except for the following:
- ships have their own tech factor, which is inherited when they are built,
and can be bumped back up with the new 'refurb' command. Currently, the
various costs and rates haven't been worked out satisfactorily.
- new 'propaganda' command allows players to toot their horns in a new 4th
page of the newspaper.
- new 'message' command allows players to send immediate messages to other
countries that are logged in.
- new 'chat' command allows several players to enter an online "CB" mode.
- simple editor allows editing of propaganda, telegrams and messages before
they are sent.
- multiple deities are supported.
- various other minor things that I've forgotten about.
There are a few more things that I plan to do, mostly in the way of making
more things adjustable, (e.g. allowing a country to say whether they want
to be told right away - a bulletin - about nasty things happening to them,
or whether they want everything squirrelled away as telegrams).
Several months ago, however, a bunch of us got together and discussed more
major things we wanted to change or add. That was rounded out a couple of
weekends ago with some even more radical ideas. Some of the ideas:
- get rid of gold mines, gold bars, banks, and contracting. Income comes
only from taxes on civilians and from sales to other countries. The tax
rate is adjustable by the country itself - higher taxes increase the
liklihood of sector revolts, where the workers get mad and refuse to do
ANY work (but still consume everything as normal).
- greatly diversify the economy. Simple 'ore' and 'mines' are replaced by
a set of resources:
fertility in farm sectors => food, which is needed in urban centers
and, to a lesser extent, in other sectors
oil reserves in oilwell sectors => oil, which is needed in several
places (fuel for ships, planes, powerplants, etc.)
timber resources in lumbermill sectors => building materials
(needed for sector growth) and paper (needed in capitals in
order to produce BTU's)
iron deposits in steel mills => steel, which is needed to build
ships, bridges, guns, shells, planes, etc.
exotic minerals in exotic mineral mines => fancy instruments, which
are needed for tech centers, research centers and planes.
(The whole thing is a positive feedback loop - initially, a
country's tech and research levels just grow over time by them-
selves, but a plateau is soon reached where effort is needed to
make them better.)
- powerplant sectors - must be by water, and need oil for operation. They
feed all sectors in range which point at them. A country can sell power
to its neighbours.
- boot camp sectors - turn civilians into military ('enlist' goes away)
- junkyard sectors - stuff stored here doesn't cost upkeep (rates
adjustable by deitys), but does tend to decay away.
- rubble sectors - result when things are damaged below 0%.
- new ship type - radar plane - can fly over land and do radar and lookout.
Probably has no guns or bombs.
- paratroop plane - similar
- salvage ship - can find and raise sunken ships
- juggernaut - massive land-bound tank. Sort of a mobile fortress, but
moves very slowly. Damages all sectors it enters.
- fleets have associated 'paths', which allow them to automatically move
around, load and unload, do radars, drop mines, etc.
- new 'infect' command - try to infect sectors adjacent to a research
institute - may backfire (based on relative research levels) and get
the research institute infected.
- automatic long-distance delivery routing from producers to consumers
- lots of other minor things, like allowing deitys to set the maximum
number of BTU's.
In general, we want to make the game more interesting by reducing the
drudgery, increasing the variety and increasing the inter-country
interaction. (The latter can be done by adjusting the "richness" of the
various resources so that none but the extremely large countries would want
to develop everything.)
So, what does everyone think? Should I produce and release a version of
Amiga Empire without all this new stuff? Should I do everything? A lot of
the ideas are "borrowed" from other versions of Empire, but since I've
never seen documentation on them, my implementations are likely to be quite
a bit different.
Send your thoughts to me (Chris Gray) at
uucp: {alberta|uunet}!myrias!ami-cg!cg (my home machine)
internet: ami-cg!cg@myrias.COM (ditto)
CompuServe: 74007,1165 (checked every week or two)
--
--
Chris Gray usenet: {uunet,alberta}!myrias!ami-cg!cg CIS: 74007,1165