From: fein@acsu.buffalo.edu (L. Fein)
Newsgroups: rec.games.empire
Subject: Re: Some REALLY SERIOUS gripes about empire
Date: 13 Oct 92 05:03:48 GMT
Organization: Land Of Faa Bureau of Go Play RISK

In article <reynolds.718915819@judy.cs.iastate.edu> reynolds@cs.iastate.edu (Owen Reynolds) writes:
>
>    I don't even want to hear about military not being realistic or
>any garbage about garbage. I've got some serious complaints about empire
>and no qualms about wasting bandwidth to air them:

	Well, aren't *we* in a snit? :-)

>
>FOOD -- I'm from the big cities, but I've been living in Iowa for a while

	Too much fresh mountain air? :-)

>  and I think I'm starting to understand some of this farming thing. The
>  basic idea is you fence off a bunch of high fertility land, put seeds
>  and stuff in it, and keep everyone THE HELL OFF!!! I'd guess around 20
>  is the right number of people for an agribusiness.

	And who weeds the land, tills the land, harvests the crops, loads
the crops onto trucks and trains? Phantoms? Take a gander at the code sometime
before you run your trap.

>
>    About catching 999 fish from each bridge; hell, I think that was a
>  great idea, but why stop there? Why not let people on highways hunt
>  and catch 999 rabbits an update? I don't see why hunting on the
>  shoulder of a paved highgway should be any harder than fishing in
>  water someone went and built a 5-mile-long bridge in.
>

	Maybe that's not such a bad idea, but then why bother with ag's?
And if they can hunt on highways, who not in the oil fields, and the capitols,
and down at the factory? Maybe rabbits are kind of afraid of trucks and shit
screaming by at 90+ miles/hour? 

>STARVING -- There are two kinds of people in starving sectors: people
>  who ate three meals a day--eggs for breakfast, a sub and wine for lunch,
>  and a potroast for dinner--and people who ate nothing and are dead.
>    The latter have a legitimate complaint with the government, and I
>  fully understand their work dropping to 0%. The live ones have no real
>  grounds for a work slowdown.
>

	Perchance the people in the starving sector might be just a LITTLE
peeved at the government for letting their friends and relatives starve?
Or, following YOUR theory, they should just get out their remingtons
and mow down a few rabbits? (note heavy sarcasm :-)


>PEOPLE IN GENERAL -- There's no one phrase which would be used to describe
>  a country or region in which birth-control is virtually unknown and an
>  active attempt has been made to shoehorn the greatest number of people
>  into the smallest possible area, but none of the ones that spring to
>  mind include the word 'superpower.'

	Well, there IS a limit on the number of civs that can fit into
a sector, 999. And there *IS* a death rate. And as far as shoehorning the max
number of people into the min. space, well, ever take a look at Japan? Or
China? Those countries are bursting at the seams, and China is more or less
a superpower.. And Japan is getting there.. if not there already.


>
>MONEY -- So the reason empire countries have even airports and higways
>  crammed full of people is so they can pay taxes. Now, I'm the one who
>  told them what to do, so I assume I must be the one paying them. Why?

	Where did you get THIS one from? Now we should get rid of taxes?
If indeed an empire country DOES pay it's players (and I know civs in
the cap get paid... ) well, hell... it seems to me the money you get
back from them is more than you give them.

>  They get free food, need no shelter since they never complain about
>  being moved into 0% wilderness and it never rains anyways, and free
>  education and trips to Disneyland. WHY am I paying these people?
>

	Well, you DO get free work from them.. That more than makes up 
for whatever pittance you might pay them. And there's no disneyland
in Empire. only parks. And no one says you HAVE to make happiness, or 
education or tech. But if you don't you *will* make it to the bottom of 
the power chart. And quickly. When the guys with the shotguns on the
roadside see moving vans marked "Dorsai Express", or "Mithrilien Moving
and Storage", and the guys driving flip you the bird as they run over
your dinner on their way to the capitol, well, hell... don't come cry to
me.

>    For that matter, what are they going to do with the money? There's
>  nothing to spend it on, and if there was, I'd just be forced to make
>  it and give it to them for free. I'd probably be changed $10 per point
>  of whatever it was, to boot.

	Well, they have to buy guns and bullets to hunt with right? :-)

>
>EFF -- It's allready been established empire people are stupid, so I

	Calling the kettle black, eh?

>  won't even touch the fact that a big piece of wood sinks at less than
>  20%, but you can find a guy to FLY a 10% erector set and bailing wire
>  airplane.

	So, change the code. Make it 20 percent for the planes. You have to
start somewhere.. Unless the ship/plane is 100% it stops working? *YOU*
play in that game. 

>
>    No, my big beef is with repairing damage. It just takes work. No lcms,
>  no hcms, just work. So does a 50% battleship just have one really big
>  dent in it, or what?

Your big beef is wrapped tightly in your rapidly pistoning fingers. 

Well, it takes work, money, and time. That's something, isn't it?

To sum up, my ignorant, inexperienced friend, things are the way they are
in Empire because (with a few exceptions) they work. And there are good
reasons for keeping things like they are. You are complaining about the 
very fundamentals of this game. (It *IS* a game, you know. Right? :)
If the very basics of Empire disturb you that much, perhaps you should
look for entertainment elsewhere.