Empire is a strategy and tactics war game, you against the
computer. It is played on a computer generated map containing
land areas, sea areas, and cities. The object is to eliminate
the opponent by capturing cities and destroying enemy forces.
Cities, once captured, have production capability, and can
produce units such as armies, fighters, destroyers, etc. for
offense or defense.
Early in the game, exploration is most predominant, followed
later by planned offensives and holding actions, till eventual
victory or defeat.
Typical games take as long as ten hours, and some people
find the game addictive. The program keeps the game in a disk
file, as a single game usually takes multiple terminal sessions.
The .DOC file containing the instructions is correct and
complete, but is terse and lacks examples. This may cause
confusion in the first games. Don't sweat it.
This is an RSX11M version of Empire. It has been heavily
modified since the last release to add FCSFSL support (reduced
overlays greatly) and add special video attribute handling. The
damn bug in the piece locator routine is still here, but at least
it doesn't hang the terminal any more.
EMPIRE uses a PLAS region to handle its variables and is
known to work under M-Plus V2.1 with FPP. It hasn't been checked
out on any other systems. There are apparently some problems
with the non-FSL version now, but I haven't had time to check
them out.
This version uses UFD [377,377] to store maps generated when
a "new game" is initiated. If you want to change this, go ahead,
but please leave the original code here if you're going to
resubmit this to a SIG tape - I had to hack the code somewhat to
get all 6 (group, member) characters in and it makes it so much
easier to change the save UFD now (just add leading zeroes if you
want some other UFD).
By all means drop me a line if you have changes or
suggestions.
Bruce R. Mitchell
Machine Intelligence and Industrial Magic
PO Box 816
Byron, MN 55920