From: ts@chainsaw.ecn.purdue.edu (Thomas Ruschak)
Subject: Re: Some general hints on Set-Up for Empire
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 01:49:16 GMT

	First, I want to thank Karl for posting this. I have a few minor
additions/corrections.

In article <greyhelm.724158665@cygnus.cis.ksu.edu.cis.ksu.edu> greyhelm@cis.ksu.edu (Karl S. Hagen) writes:
>
>      1)  Before you start anything of this type .... decide on the 
>         conditions and rules.  Also realize that being a deity is a
>         full-time job.  It is nothing like being a player were you 
>         login and play for a bit talk and do some economics.  Look
>         at it this way.... for every player in the game figure that
>         you will field or receive 1 question/bug report  per day.
>	 This is being light ... I'm sure.  That means if you host a
>    	 32 player game figure on having 32 different requests or 
>         responses or problems.... IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THE TIME OR 
>         PATIENCE TO HANDLE THIS STOP AT THIS POINT.

	This is quite true, especially at the beginning of the game. It does
slack off towards the end, but the beginning can be quite hectic.

>	 Write down somewhere these things:
>		a) World Size 32x32  <- makes a small but friendly game
>		    Must be factors of 2 ie.  32x64 64x32 128x64
>					      96x192 
>		b) Number of nations <- Depends on how big a world.

	The way I suggest figuring this is:

		1) Decide how many players you'll have.
		2) Decide how much land you want per player. This
			can range from 10-20 to 100-200 or even more.
			Remember that a lot of people will die quick,
			and contribute their land to others. If you want
			each nation to have 100 sects, start with 50-60,
			and when the opening stages are over, it'll work
			out to 100 per country. If you're going to have
			'start islands', decide how big they'll be, and how
			much free (non-start-island) land you'll have.

		3) Decide what percentage of sea sectors you want. A naval
			intensive game might have 80% water. A land intensive
			game might have 0-20% water. A good general rule is 50%.

		4) Now, figure out how many total sectors you need. For example,
			if you want 30 countries, each with a 30 sect start
			island and 20 other sects to find and take, that's 1500
			land sectors. If you want 60% water, that means you 
			need 2250 water sectors, for a total of 3750 sectors.

		5) Now, find a world size that gives you that much. To figure
			the number of sectors in a world, multiply the X and
			Y sizes and divide by 2. For example, a 32x16 world
			has (32*16)/2 = 256 sectors. For our example world of
			3750 sectors, above, a 128x64 world would work (since
			(128*64)/2 = 4096). You could also use a 96x96 world
			(4608 sectors). USE A POWER OF TWO.

	In general, try to insure that X = 2*Y. Due to the way Empire coords
work, a 96x48 world is square, but a 96x96 world is twice as high as it is
wide.
	
>      2)  You must have a reasonable knowledge of C, gnumake, shell
>         environment, and UNIX in general.  I am not talking about 
>         I can send mail and read news and ftp .... I am talking
>         you can apply a patch... fix a minor bug and know to read 
>         the docs provided.  You also must have at least 5Meg of free
>	 disk space ... if not more for larger games.  You also want
>	 someplace to store back-ups.

	If you've never programmed in C, and don't have anyone available who
has, DON'T RUN A GAME. You might be able to get it up and running, but if you
have a problem, you're stuck. Many people on the net would try to help you, but
there's really no substitute for knowing how to do things yourself.

	Also, for reference purposes, a 96x48 game, fully compiled, with space
for a couple of sets of data backups takes about 20 Mb. Don't run out of space.

>     12)  Now you are ready to create a world.  The easiest way to 
>	do this is to use xland.  Which will allow you to draw land
>	and mountains and so forth.  the Land program is a very if'y
>	program to use that most experienced diety's will even groan
>	at using.  After compiling xland using the misc.h, options.h
>	file.h, and sect.h from YOUR games h directory.... you can 
>	type  'xland <worldsize>'  ex.  xland 64x64
>	Draw your map ... and then 'Make Sector map'
>	When this completes you should see a xland.sector.dat in the
>	directory that you started xland.  Copy or move this to 
>	EMP/data/sector     <-- sector is the sector database file.

	Karl forgot a step. Before you create a world, you MUST run the
'file' program. (Some systems already have a file program. Take care to
run the one that is in the bin directory) File creates all the misc files
that Empire needs to run, such as telegram files, the nation file, etc.
If you forget this step, Empire will die horribly.

>     15)  *IF YOU ARE USING CHAINSAW CODE*
>	  You will need to put in a 'auth' and 'ban' file if you
>	defined them in the options.h file.
>
>		The auth file determines what userid is allowed
>	to login and use the deity country ... the game does not
>	care if someone has your deity password ... if there userid
>	and log host does not match the auth file they will be kicked
>	out.
>
>	     The ban file is a list of userids and hosts that are 
>	forbidden from playing at all.

	If you are using the Chainsaw code, you will also have a directory
called 'templates', which will contain example hours, ban, and auth files
for you to work from. They include comments that will help you.

>     16)  Once you have this done ... you can finally start the Game
>	itself.  
>
>	     Go into the EMP/bin directory and type 
>
>		nohup emp_tm &
>		nohup emp_login &
>
>	  This will ensure that these programs do not get kill'd by
>	repant shells.  I have seen a few.  If you look at your 
>	processes that are running you should see .... emp_tm and
>	emp_login .. if not ... then something was done wrong during
>	steps 3-13.

	If you are running the Chainsaw code, you will have a directory called
'scripts', which contains scripts to start the game, keep it up, and back it
up. There will be a README there to help you.

Tom