HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: greyhelm@cis.ksu.edu (Karl S. Hagen)
Newsgroups: rec.games.empire
Subject: Labor Day Blitz
Date: 31 Aug 1992 04:39:42 GMT
Organization: Kansas State University, Dept. of Computing and Information Sciences
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: cygnus.cis.ksu.edu


      Howdy folks,

        I have had a few requests for the KSU weekend blitz's to
    return.  Well with the labor day approaching ... I thought
    I would see how many people out there would like a labor day
    blitz game.

		email greyhelm@cis.ksu.edu


Newsgroups: rec.games.empire
From: elf@titan.ucc.umass.edu (Wanderer)
Subject: Re: Strategy
Organization: the Elves of Briton
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 20:15:57 GMT

jasonp@cunix4.Prime.COM (Jason R. Pascucci) writes:
>
>Hi,
>
>I'm interested in hearing if there is a generally accepted
>strategy, especially where begin-game is concerned,
>even to the point of 'what to do at the first update'.
>

the widely abused strategy involves "Tech-First"
the idea is to be the first person with tech, and the most too.

first update build a 'm', 
second build a 'j'
third build a 'l'
fourth build a 't'

now at some point before the fourth update you must build a 'g' and
an 'o' so that you can supply your 't'. It's when to build these
that involves slightly different strategies depending on the player.

the best idea is to experiment along these lines and find out what works
best for you.

an idea: if you're on your own island (and you know it) don't bother
exploring the whole island initially.

other things people like to do:
	1) maximize your civ growth
		a) this means making sure you'll have less then 999 
		   civs after the update
		b) demob your mil, as mil don't reproduce
	2) don't worry about food for a while, wait until you need it.
	3) as soon as *anyone* has ships, start putting at least 
	   one mil in each coast (so they can't take it)
		a) this is normally about the same time you get tech
		b) ships can only attack with 1/10 of there mil if you
		   have mil there (unless they are landing ships)
	4) don't use warehouses (use a '+' instead)
		a) warehouses and highways have the same mob benefit
		   during updates
		b) it doesn't cost anything to move stuff into the '+'
		   it does cost mob to move into the 'w'
	5) build highways, a good highway system can be crucial 
	   during defence in a land or sea battle
	6) **** make friends ****
		a) lot's of people that know what they're doing will help
		   if you don't know, ask. better to learn and lose once
		   then to never learn and keep losing.
	7) **** enjoy it **** 
		a) no use getting pissed beause someone overran you
		   there'll be other games, plenty in fact.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

ack!
I have to leave, but I'll finish this some other time.
good luck.

*--*
the Elf
Newsgroups: rec.games.empire
From: kmrobert@nyx.cs.du.edu (K.M.Roberts)
Subject: Re: More Update Stuff... perhaps a "new" idea?
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 92 22:50:42 GMT

	Time zones, eh?
	This wouldn't *neccesarily* segregate europeans, californians ect..
I know I for one have a VERY weird  scheduale and I would be more than happy
if my update  were at... say 12am and pm.... 

	Other zones might also prove beneficial to me, and others.
You can tell the time zones and how many countries are in each and have
people race to register for the ones they want. If they get one that does
not make their top 3 list or so, too bad...

	Sometimes you have to live with hassles in empire (ex. people who 
break late!) and you find ways to deal with it!

	You think Denver COlorodo WANTS to be 2 hours behind New York?

just a thought...
--
kmr...                                      Fiction is created by writers
kmrobert@nyx.cs.du.edu                      Lies are concocted by liars
"I have engaged the                         Fiction is a string of lies
Theoretical Weasel!"                        I am a liar...
Xref: sparky rec.games.empire:2615 alt.games.xtrek:3985 rec.games.netrek:6043
From: tedrick@melody.Berkeley.EDU (Tom Tedrick)
Newsgroups: rec.games.empire,alt.games.xtrek,rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: Land Units should be modifiable (balance)
Date: 4 Sep 1992 11:31:46 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: melody.berkeley.edu

->Getting this (customized empire units) balanced is likely to be a nightmare.

There was a lot of trouble getting xtrek spaceships balanced as
I recall (back when Chris Guthrie and them were working on it in
the 1980s). But customizing them was great fun.

I was thinking about how to deal with this. Maybe have a norm
for units of type x. Then for each point you raise one parameter
above the norm, there is some equation requiring a reduction
in the other parameters some number of points.

Maybe a square root function (rather than the log, which we
used to limit tech). For example, to raise a parameter 2 above
the norm requires a reduction of 4 somewhere else, 3 above
the norm requires a reduction of 9 somewhere else, and so on.

How was it done in xtrek? Just by trial and error and lots of
experience?

Squares/square roots are likely too restrictive so maybe something
between that and linear would be better.

Newsgroups: rec.games.empire
From: kpearce@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (BULLDAWG)
Subject: More Stuff about elimating Update Blitzs (but still have Blitzs)
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 21:05:08 GMT

Keywords:  better?  no update.

OK, perhaps my idea before of 1 mob added every 10 minutes wasn't too good
considering that against an undefended country one could martch right
through, but.....

1)  A real country undefended would have the same effect....

2)  OK, well a real country would mobilize: how about if one could set a
automatic defence file for each country say:

	if (adjacent_sector.enemy_mil) > 1
         
	then enlist sector percent_defend

where the server would then automatically enlist whatever the (not logged on
victum) player had decided would be the threat counterbalence:

so say Mean_Joe lands 20 mil on Smuck coast.  He doesn't have mobility yet but
in ten minutes he will have one mob added.  Smuck doesn't have any mils around
but he has set his percent defend to 80% in the coastal (perhaps 200% around
a cap?) so the server then enlist (presuming that Smuck has reserves) 16 mil
in each sector boardering the invading party.
 
Mean_Joe still could blitz in, but he'd haft to hold the sea sector des it a h
and pour the mils in until Smuck a. logs on or b. runs out of reserves.

Ken
From: bill@cv.hp.com (Bill Frolik)
Newsgroups: rec.games.empire
Subject: Re: Another considered change
Date: 1 Sep 92 19:15:50 GMT
Article-I.D.: hpcvusn.1992Sep1.191550.14371
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Company, Corvallis, Oregon USA
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

smithw@col.hp.com (Walter Smith) writes:
: elf@titan.ucc.umass.edu (Wanderer) writes:
: > talk to the people that put together the UB game.
: > they found historical precedent to the effect that WWI bombing
: > actually did more damage to morale (work %) then it did to
: > the area itself (eff %). they took this to heart and added it in.
: 
: Makes sense.  

This is a good idea.  Damage to work % is now in the HP version,
and will be tested in the next game.


: > comment: the lottery is dumb. but I liked it! :*)
:
: Yeah, can't argue with that.  The odds have been tinkered
: in the more recent release.   We were getting too good at
: stacking the odds..:-) 

Of course it's dumb.  But it's fun, and people seem to like it.


: >thought: how about having bombings going into the negatives
: >          via a "ruin" sector type, ie you bomb the sector into ruins
: >          and then they have to build *up* from a ruins.
: 
: Interesting...since damage is done as a %, it'll be hard to
: work it in...but I like it.

This, too, is now in the HP version.  It's actually fairly trivial 
to add, and should have an interesting effect on the way battles
play out.  Sector type is '_' (flattened rubble?).  Sectors can't be
designated as ruins -- ruins only result from damage.

For our first cut implementation:
Damage code flips designation if damage exceeds three times sector 
efficiency, and ruin "efficiency" initially becomes (dam-eff)*2.  
E.g., 10% damage to a 10% sector just reduces efficiency to 9%, 
but 10% damage to a 3% sector flips it into a 14% ruin.  Continued 
damage to the ruin increases its eff by an amount equal to the damage.
Certain obvious sector types cannot become ruins (sea, wilderness,
bridge spans, etc).  Ruins do not produce food, and dismantle at 1/4 
the normal sector dismantle rate, although they use the normal 
dismantling workforce.  All other aspects (mobility, etc) are same 
as wilderness.


: > flames: your land units are way, way more complex then they should be.
: 
: You mean the tanks?  Anything in particular you find akward/complex?
: How do you like the spies?  (they are in there, right?)

Tanks seem to work fine; nobody has yet complained about anything 
being too complex.  Everything (tanks, spies, balloons, whatever) 
has a purpose and can be very handy in certain situations.  Whether
you choose to use it or not is up to you.  Many people play the
game without ever building a tank, but it's nice to be *able* to
build one if you want one.


: Walter Smith
: smithw@cs.itc.hp.com
: UUCP

--

_________________________________________________
                                                       
Bill Frolik                   Hewlett-Packard Co. 
bill@hpcvlx.cv.hp.com         1010 NE Circle Blvd 
(503) 750-4082                Corvallis, OR 97330  
Newsgroups: rec.games.empire
From: kpearce@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (BULLDAWG)
Subject: More Update Stuff... perhaps a "new" idea?
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 15:35:22 GMT

Keyword:  Update

To join the fray, I have my own idea:

Eliminate update's all together for mobility, leave updates for things like
production, starving, etc.

Instead, lets have a routine that goes something like:

if (time())      /*  say every 10 minutes */
   {
	while (sector_file(i).mobilty != MAX_MOB)
	{  sector_file(i++).mobility++; 
	}
    }
and so on...

This precludes any knowledge of the actual calls  :)

So you see, every 10 minutes or so, the server runs through all the sectors
(perhaps with a pointer to a list so that one does not waste tiem looking
at sea sectors) and adds 1 mobility (or whatever the etu rate for the game)
to each sector in turn that doesn't have the maximum mobility.

I believ that this would eliminate traditional update attacks, while still
maintaining or perhaps creating a "fluid-like" beahviour to drawn out wars.

I suspect that the routine to run through a K or 2 of sectros probally would'nt
be any worse than a momentary "net-lag" kind of thing for users logged in at
the moment.

Of course leaving the other non-mobility stuff for the update allows the 
computer to be cpu-intensive only at the update as is now....

Ken
From: leet@acsu.buffalo.edu (Brian D. Leet)
Newsgroups: rec.games.empire
Subject: Re: More Stuff about elimating Update Blitzs (but still have Blitzs)
Date: 2 Sep 92 21:21:22 GMT
Organization: UB

I like the idea of "calling up the reserves" as part of automatic defenses.
The key would be to make sure people couldn't get all your forces to the wrong
place with "faked" attacks (like 1 mil etc.).  It would be possible to fool 
the defenses with a large force, but isn't this fairly realistic?  Also what
about automatic military movement in the back lines?  Maybe the forces would
come from a distribution spot as opposed to reserves?  Anything along these 
lines would make sense to me.
From: duelge@schaefer.math.wisc.edu (Jason Duelge)
Newsgroups: rec.games.empire
Subject: Re: UPenn update ... Temekula retirement announcement
Keywords: You were all just bricks in the wall
Date: 31 Aug 92 13:12:53 GMT
Reply-To: duelge@schaefer.UUCP (Jason Duelge)
Organization: Univ. of Wisconsin Dept. of Mathematics

>Funny... Teme forgot to mention Ualberta...
>
>I guess being down to 5 sectors means that he's lo longer viable :)
>
>Danny McGurl                        "No, no Pixel!  Beer is not for baby cats."
>Office of Information Technology        --Richard Ames,
>dsm@prism.gatech.edu 		        __The Cat Who Walks Through Walls__

Ok, to make your treacherous hiney happy, i'll sumarize the Alberta game.

RevelGhosts attacks Temestrond after asking for peace.  Game crashes during
his attack (at which time he was fighting Nastrond and gaining ground)
Game comes back up, Temekula fights back, and removes RevelGhosts from the
island.  Temekula quits playing (as the summer is nearing its end, and he
doesn't like RG's treachery).
So, the country is down to 5 sectors?  Congratulations, i guess you really
taught me a lesson then.  hahaha

Jason

ps  Sorry about this post, Andy, but i will not go gently into that good
night.  Besides, for a relatively newish player, to fight against Revelstone
and Ghostlands (two treacherous dogs if ever there was a one) is no easy
task.  You made a fine showing, and were willing to stick it out.  I sure
as hell wasn't.  :)
From: elvis@netcom.com (kEvin A. Thornbury)
Newsgroups: rec.games.empire
Subject: Re: More Stuff about elimating Update Blitzs (but still have Blitzs)
Date: 3 Sep 92 00:49:03 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

mytelka@codon9 (Daniel Mytelka;612 Barker;x2-5110) writes:

>In article <1992Sep2.210508.19119@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> kpearce@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (BULLDAWG) writes:
>>
>>2)  OK, well a real country would mobilize: how about if one could set a
>>automatic defence file for each country say:
>>
>>	if (adjacent_sector.enemy_mil) > 1
>>         
>>	then enlist sector percent_defend
>>
>>where the server would then automatically enlist whatever the (not logged on
>>victum) player had decided would be the threat counterbalence:
>>

>The problem with this is that it's still not effective early in the game,
>which is when around the update attacks are most effective. You need a 60%
>sector with extra civs on it to mobilize in. This automatically will make your
>provisions useless. And let's say you change this so that you can mobilize
>anywhere, with civs form your 0,0 or something; you will still run into 
>problems when the enemy puts 50 mil on an adjacent sector, and you're forced
>to mobilize in SEVERAL adjacent sectors. "Tried to mobilize in sector -4,2
>but out of reserves"? Enemy adds a few more mil and destroys your whole
>army. Good fodder, putting all of your mil where they can be attacked.

Why not have all atts resolved at the update? You type att 1,1 anytime
before the update; then at the update, the system checks for all
attacks against you, enlists troops to bring the attackers % down to
some number processing sectors in order of some sector priority. The
attacker only gets what he ordered. Or, more simply, just forget the
the enlisting reserves bit. All attacks happen at the update, with 
the odds of attack modified for simultaneous attacks and hhe-attacks-
one-sector-but-I-attack-that-sector-from-somewhere-else-attacks. Let
planes drop paratroops as normal, but they don't hit ground until
the update. Same with assaults, commit the troops to the assault then
move the ship away if you want. The beachead gets stormed at the update.

Now, aside from getting bombed and shelled, you've got no
problems between updates. I'm sure this has been proposed before, but I
don't remember the objections....



kEvin
From: cgehman@huey.mis.semi.harris.com (Corey Gehman)
Newsgroups: rec.games.empire
Subject: YAIDUA (Yet Another idea to downplay update attacks)
Keywords: updates
Date: 3 Sep 92 13:40:55 GMT
Reply-To: cgehman@harris.mlb.semi.harris.com
Organization: Harris Semiconductor, Melbourne  FL


I have two ideas to have many small updates but still not have
the roller coaster ride across the front...

First, the easy one to implement:
After a successful attack, make that sector take x number of ETUs
to be "mopped up" or "consolidated" before the mobility starts
increasing.  I think this actually makes sense in a real world
situation.

Second, and more difficult to make balanced:
Have guerrillas reduce mobility A LOT.  This would translate into
gas stations, roads, being blown up.  The problem that I see
with this is at the start of the game when there are few civs
and mils there won't be very many guerrillas to reduce the
mobility, so it won't take long to get mobility.


I don't like the idea of mobilizing troops.  There would then
be no surprise attacks.  If someone is about to attack, the
defender should not know what sector is being attacked until
it's too late to move stuff in it.  (with a single attack command)
The idea that the defender has the time to move in the reserves
and mobilize them BEFORE an attack that he really should not know
about is crazy.

Surrounding a sector with a fraction of your military in each
sector is fairly stupid.  Those military will be fodder.  Of
course, it will take a little longer since they need to wait
for mob, but the single force can attack one after another
and not move in.

---
| Corey Gehman                       |
| cgehman@harris.mlb.semi.harris.com | The Amiga is dead.  Long live Sun.
| cgehman@lion.eng.clemson.edu       |
Newsgroups: rec.games.empire
From: elf@titan.ucc.umass.edu (Wanderer)
Subject: Defeating the "around the update blitz" (Was Re: update alternative)
Organization: the Elves of Briton
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 20:06:07 GMT

all this talk about new update scheduling seems to be in an effort to
reduce the importance of being on at the update, primarily because of
the "around the update blitz" attack.

if we had land units with there own mobility, rather then "mil" that
are a "property" of the sector unit type, then this problem would 
probably go away. as the land units would be able to do a blitz in
anyway.

how's this for an idea, when someon actually goes ahead and makes 
land units, how about one of them having a "defend" flag. so that 
any sector around it that is attacked, will be defended as if that
unit were mil in the sector under attack.

someone else mentioned the idea about using 1 plane at a time to
strip aircover. this is a bug that needs to be gotten rid of. I'm
surprised that someone hasn't done it yet.

the easiest fix for that is having defending planes not use any
mobility at all. I played in a blitz that had this set once.
It worked out quite well.

more complex fixes include working in time variables, so that mobility
can be cross-referenced to see what's been going on elsewhere.

*--*
the Elf
From: kermits@pasifae.cc.uch.gr (Aggelos Keromyths)
Newsgroups: rec.games.empire
Subject: Empire FTP site
Date: 4 Sep 92 10:40:26 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Department, University of Crete HELLAS
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3

[ Article crossposted from rec.games.empire ]
[ Author was Aggelos Keromyths ]
[ Posted on Fri, 4 Sep 1992 10:31:18 GMT ]

Announcement  

  A new ftp site for empire now exists in athina.cc.uch.gr. The directory tree
  is the same as at empire.bbn.com. There is also a /pub/Incoming where new
  releases/scripts/docs can be uploaded. However, drop me a mail when you do
  so as to know what should be the location of the uploaded file and (basically)  let me know it's there (i am a quite lazy guy).

Aggelos Keromytis
From: ts@chainsaw.ecn.purdue.edu (Thomas Ruschak)
Newsgroups: rec.games.empire
Subject: Re: proposed update alternative
Date: 31 Aug 92 20:42:49 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network

In article <hassink.715284682@manning> hassink@cs.UAlberta.CA (Hassink Brian John) writes:
>This is just an idea I've been toying with, something to aleviate
>the importance of the update.
>
>Currently there is an update at a scheduled time which represents
>an "x" amount of ETU's and updates the entire world at once. What
>I'm proposing is an update system which would update an individual
>country using the time difference from the last login. In essence,
>your country would be changing in real-time. There could still be
>regularly scheduled updates to update nations who do not log in
>frequently.
>
>The method of distribution and production would have to be adapted
>to this new system. As an example, say you build some aircraft,
>then logout and then back in again after a few hours. Your aircraft
>would gain eff and mob based on those few hours, so they may now
>be 25% eff with 10 mob. Also, your factories will have produced a
>few lcm's or whatever over this time span as well.

	This is essentially the old PSL update scheme (for those who didn't
play that old, old, original version, PSL empire is named for Peter S. Langston,
and was the original empire). That update scheme works ok, except for a few 
things. 1) Round off (also applies to 1 ETU / update schemes) In old PSL, if
you looked at a sector too soon, the production sequence would run, and
round-off would mean you got no production. If you kept looking at your country
frequently, you'd NEVER get any production :-) 2) Timing. People don't WANT to
have to play empire 24 hours a day. For all it's faults, the update scheme is a
pretty decent way to limit the time you have to spend to be successful...

Tom
From: robertw@calvin.usc.edu (Robert Watkins)
Newsgroups: rec.games.empire
Subject: One From the Archives...
Date: 2 Sep 1992 18:47:16 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: calvin.usc.edu

Mercenary Empire final power report (later dubbed Merc I)...

     - = [   Empire Power Report   ] = -
      as of Thu Jun 27 10:46:16 1991

         sects  eff  civ  mil shell gun  pet iron dust food oil  pln ship money
  Metzada 667  100% 504K  25K  54K 5.4K  50K  31K 1.6K 868K  23K 519   33  1.0M
135654.88
  Citadel 461   98% 346K 5.1K  34K 1.2K  16K 125K 856  514K 5.4K 289   12  265K
 97520.42
Abanasini 415   93% 180K  15K  56K 4.2K  54K  91K 1.5K 233K 3.0K 332   71  208K
 84369.66
   Califa 285  100% 202K 5.4K  36K 429   19K  75K 169  179K 9.1K 211   13   98K
 74833.92
      DAK 422   98% 240K  17K  15K 541  8.5K  69K 2.8K 369K 7.5K  25   17  177K
 69202.75
Lexandria 257   99% 177K  10K  37K 1.6K  15K  75K 849  148K 4.7K 122    9   53K
 60756.94
     Kzin 225   99% 215K 5.8K 5.2K 209  9.4K  29K 340  276K 3.0K  78    6  1.2M
 53280.95
   Facade  69  100%  64K 4.1K 8.3K 769  2.2K 2.2K  22   75K 1.3K 149   15   21K
 14919.13
Swaziland  84   99%  28K 221  2.2K 537  1.6K  11K   2   38K 849    0   10   16K
 10458.11
     Pain  29  100%  22K 942   13K  57   91   20K   7   12K 658    1    0   89K
  9505.51
grassland  28   95% 8.6K 709  255   45    1  1.0K  16  4.4K 270    4    5  185K
  4406.31
  Octagon  18   99% 1.7K   7  770   10    1  4.0K   6  1.1K 115    0    2   47K
  2266.24
  Bedford   9   99% 1.4K  12   20    3    0    0    0  1.2K 450    4    3   26K
   961.75
     Hell   1   91%  60    1    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0 -4.7K
     5.57
          ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
worldwide 3.0K  98% 2.0M  89K 262K  15K 175K 533K 8.2K 2.7M  59K 1.7K 210  3.1M