kent@xanth.cs.odu.edu (Kent Paul Dolan) (07/12/88)
My news reading has been a bit spotty recently, so forgive me if a review has already been published for Empire. Anyway, here goes mine. "A STAR FLEET Planetary Campaign" EMPIRE "Wargame of the Century", Amiga version 2.03, published by by interstel (tm), written by Walter Bright and Mark Baldwin. Includes game disk, quick command reference card, and 70 page manual. "Word in manual" copy protection. First, for those who have played the Unix(tm) version, this is the same game, but considerably simpler, since only cities do production, and the only production is combat units. Second, this is a _long_ game, just like the original. One person can take out two computer opponents in about 26 hour of play. Human against human is much slower. There is a "play by mail" version, which I haven't had a chance to test yet. A "typical" game lasts around 150 to 300 moves. Empire is a game of "world" conquest, played on a rectangular map 60 cells high by 100 cells wide. The game supports two or three players, of whom all or none may be computer players, so that possible play modes are human against computer, human against two computer players, human against human, human against human against computer, human against human against human, or computer against computer or computer against computer against computer. There is a demo mode, a two or three way computer only game, that can be got to without the copy protection check, which is a nice advertising feature. I turned it on, and *** eight hours later *** a two player game was still underway, when I had to shut it down for a thunderstorm. The game has an excellent "Amiga feel", with requestors, gadgets, menus, lots of mousing around, graphics and sound used (neither spectacular), excellent windowing, multiple screens (two, workbench plus game), multitasks OK, and so on. Playing this game will make you very appreciative of the Amiga software design. Besides play mode, there are lots of other nifty features, like "design your own world", that let you play with the game. Normal play is with a subset of the world on the screen, but there is a "world map" that shows you (what you know about) the whole world that can be called up in addition. Attention to detail is very nice in terms of playability; when a turn ends, a full screen requestor is put up for the next player, the map sliders go back to zero so you don't know where the other player was working. If you spot an enemy or neutral unit, and leave without combat, that unit is carried on your map in the position and status you last saw; this may well _not_ be the position and status when you send a unit back in that neighborhood, but it is a good reminder of "things to check up on" for later. Each player has a private map of the world, and starts with a single city somewhere. From that small start, the player goes on to conquer first neutral territories, then, after more of the world is known, to fight enemy units. Conflict is accomplished by trying to move a unit onto an opposing unit. Cities are the primary targets, because each city is a production entity, capable of working on just one product at a time, but can be changed with a small time penalty (and loss of any partially completed unit) to work on another item. Landlocked cities can only produce armies and planes. Armies are produced quickly, large ships slowly, and other units somewhere between. Cities are named after real cities famous in the history of warfare (Marathon) or current military might (Hampton Roads). I can't tell you how delighted I was to conquer the latter (the larger Norfolk vicinity, where I live, is known as Hampton Roads.) Combat units are armies (the only unit that can conquer a city) fighter planes, and ships: troop transports, submarines, destroyers, carriers, battleships, and aircraft carriers. A unit either wins a battle, or is destroyed, winning (naval) units can sustain damage, and can return to a friendly port for repairs. Since only armies can conquer cities, and since the world usually has a couple of dozen major land masses, and five or six dozen cities, troop transports are necessary to win. The game is a study in managing complexity, and provides many aids to the player. Even in the midst of world wide conflict, an experienced player can accomplish a move in about 15 minutes, one eighth the time for the (admittedly more complex) Unix version. Units can be set to patrol certain pathways, aircraft can be automatically routed from production areas to the battlefront, units can be put on sentry, and many other options. Hmm. I guess I could go on until I'd rewritten the manual. ;-) Enough to say that this is an excellent game for the war game enthusiast or for someone who has worn out the thrill of arcade games on the Amiga. The only design bug I've found so far is that I can't find a way to get non-army units out of a city if they have been put on sentry duty there, and that is a minor problem at best. The sellers could have completely left out the attempt to tie the game into the Star Fleet I and II series, for my taste, but that's a quibble. Lots of fun. Oh, yes, the game keeps a combat ranking for commanders, and can be (the manual says "do") freely copied from the original for a playing copy, or run from hard disk. Enjoy! Really worth the ~$40 price. Kent, the man from xanth.
cjp@antique.UUCP (Charles Poirier) (07/14/88)
In article <5828@xanth.cs.odu.edu> kent@cs.odu.edu (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >Enough to say that this is an excellent game for the war game enthusiast or >for someone who has worn out the thrill of arcade games on the Amiga. I second the recommendation. Just a few comments to add. >The only design bug I've found so far is that I can't find a way to >get non-army units out of a city if they have been put on sentry duty Easy. Type "G" for "group orders", outline a region containing the city, then hit "O" for "cancel orders". (All commands have key and menu versions.) The computer players (if you play against two of them) don't gang up on you particularly, but treat both other players as enemy. The automated play is basically competent, but I have no difficulty mowing down either one or two computer opponents at Expert level. Reducing my production efficiency from the normal 50% to about 33% seems to even things up. You can also adjust the combat efficiency, but I found that just too heartbreaking. -- Charles Poirier (decvax,ucbvax,mcnc,attmail)!vax135!cjp "Docking complete... Docking complete... Docking complete..."
jow@unccvax.UUCP (Jim Wiley) (07/14/88)
In article <5828@xanth.cs.odu.edu>, kent@xanth.cs.odu.edu (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: > "A STAR FLEET Planetary Campaign" EMPIRE "Wargame of the Century", > Amiga version 2.03, published by by interstel (tm), written by Walter > Bright and Mark Baldwin. Includes game disk, quick command reference > card, and 70 page manual. "Word in manual" copy protection. > > The only design bug I've found so far is that I can't find a way to > get non-army units out of a city if they have been put on sentry duty > there, and that is a minor problem at best. > > Kent, the man from xanth. Try going into survey mode, position the cursor over the desired city and type the letter 'O'. This should clear orders for all sentries. This game has a little more realism than the UN*X EMPIRE, at least the version I play. Destroyers can move 3 spaces per turn, all other ships can move 2. Subs can only be 'seen' by other subs, cities, destroyers and cruisers. Subs can not 'see' fighters. Battleships do 3 points dammage per hit. Cruisers do 2 points damage. Only cruisers and battleships can bombard armies on land and don't run aground. Troop transports have 1/2 attack and defence ratings. Makes sense as a troop transport shouldn't be as strong as a destroyer. Some more features, too. You can have ships escort other ships. When you move a ship all those assigned to escort it follow along. You can set a unit patrol back an forth between two points. You also can bring up a 'world map' which displays the entire discovered world on the screen at once. You also have a status display which gives the total number of cities, and the number you have. It also gives you current production for each type of unit, soonest completion, number you currently have, number you have destroyed and number you have lost. When starting a new game you can select production efficiency and combat efficiency from 0% to 100% for each player. You can make the game as easy or as hard as you want. I would definitly recommend this game. Jim Wiley
darin@taurus.laic.uucp (Darin Johnson) (07/14/88)
In article <5828@xanth.cs.odu.edu>, kent@xanth.cs.odu.edu (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: > EMPIRE "Wargame of the Century", > > First, for those who have played the Unix(tm) version, this is the > same game, but considerably simpler, since only cities do production, > and the only production is combat units. Actually, this is based on the VMS version (from DECUS I think). I haven't bought it, but from reading the cover and looking at the pictures, it appears pretty similar. The big change is mouse and intuition support. Note, that xconq (for X Windows) is similar, but much more advanced. It has terrain types, more kinds of pieces, etc. It also allows mouse control. I have been thinking off and on about porting this, but never actually get around to it. It would be harder to support a multi player version though. It surprises me that games like this and STAR FLEET actually sell, since there are PD versions available if they ever get ported. Makes one wonder if rogue or hack could be packaged and sold :-) (if it were cheaper and I didn't have the xconq sources lying around, I would think of buying it, since it is VERY addictive.) Darin Johnson (...pyramid.arpa!leadsv!laic!darin) (...ucbvax!sun!sunncal!leadsv!laic!darin) "All aboard the DOOMED express!"
dvl@hpcupt1.HP.COM (Doug Larson) (07/15/88)
> "A STAR FLEET Planetary Campaign" EMPIRE "Wargame of the Century", > Amiga version 2.03, published by by interstel (tm), written by Walter > Bright and Mark Baldwin. Includes game disk, quick command reference > card, and 70 page manual. "Word in manual" copy protection. > Enjoy! Really worth the ~$40 price. > Kent, the man from xanth. I agree, it really is worth the ~$40 price. Of course, "xconq" on my n-thousand dollar workstation at work has nicer graphics, but we are talking significantly more expensive hardware. One of the features that Kent did not mention that I find really useful is the ability to set the production capability and combat ability of each player. These two are set in percent, and the default for each is 50%. The point of this is that you can make the computer tougher and tougher as you gain experience. Also you can set the computer to play at "standard" ability or "expert" ability. I find playing a single computer opponent set to 62% combat,62% production and "expert" to be challenging. ( I found 64%,64%,expert to be deadly - I lost fairly quickly). Doug Larson hpda!dvl
eachus@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Robert Eachus) (07/18/88)
It is possible to "wake-up" units that are on sentry duty, even
in cities. Just enter survey mode, move the cursor to the units or
city in question, and type O. The propt line will say "Orders
cleared" for far too long, and you are off and running. Remember to
move the cursor off any of your pieces (with the arrow keys) before
clicking on the location you want to clear orders for, since sometimes
the program reads your intent as moving the unit to that destination.
The program is burning up incredible amounts of CPU time around
here, since the kids are out of school, but the logic in the machine
opponents needs lots of work. For example, it will send troop
transports out empty, and use them to attack enemy cities. At the
beginning of a game you get to choose the relative production and
cobat efficiencies of the various opponents. I suggest giving the
machine players an advantage in production capacity to make up for
their incompetence. (You can go ahead and give them a combat
advantage if you want, but for me that spoils the game.)
Human vs. human (with or without a machine opponent) works pretty
well, but I would avoid three person games, as it becomes difficult to
get everyone together and interested. My son, daughter, and myself
have a game which is at turn 150 or so, and about 25 hours, with no
end in sight.
All in all a very good game, even if it takes as much time to
play as Bard's Tale.
Robert I. Eachus
with STANDARD_DISCLAIMER;
use STANDARD_DISCLAIMER;
function MESSAGE (TEXT: in CLEVER_IDEAS) return BETTER_IDEAS is...