Empire 4.2 Released

December 13, 2003
The port to Linux is complete!

EmpireClassic (sometimes refered to as Empire4) has reached another major milestone in it's 30 year history. Empire started as Civilization in 1972 at the evergreen state college,   It was written in interpreted Basic on an HP2000 mini-computer. Students customized the HP's operating system, and extended the Basic language into a one-of-a-kind installation.  When that machine was retired, the source to Civilization was lost.  Empire was written from scratch in 1984 in Pascal on an HP3000, where it was released to the HP3000 Contributed Library. This version was played and enhanced until 2003, when all future enhancements on the HP3000 version were stopped, and a project was launched to port the game to Linux and C++. That port is now complete.

A distribution which includes compiled executables for both Linux and Windows is available on Sourceforge.  A distribution which includes complete source is also available on Sourceforge. The first game is planned to run during Winter 2003/2004. Check forum announcements for details.

Java Empire Client (JEC)

November 23, 2003
Progress on the Linux port of EmpireClassic is nearing completion, but the real news is JEC, a Java based client for Empire.  JEC provides some of the same functionality provided by ECC (Empire Classic Client) on the HP3000, but is only functional with EmpireClassic on Linux (version 4.1x). It create beautiful graphic maps of the world, which let you scroll around the world and zoom in on a particular region. But unlike ECC, the clear strategy of JEC is to totally replace the telnet command line interface with a GUI.

JEC currently supports such features as selecting a ship, and setting its course by clicking on a destination on the map. You can move people and items on land, launch ships, and do other basic functions now, all from the JEC GUI interface. One of it's best features, is that it shows all visible ships from all other nations on the same map with your ships.  At last, you can graphically see your fleets, with their destinations indicated, and enemy ships, showing their speed and heading, all on the same situation map.  It's wonderful.

In the screen clip above, four Algorithm destroyers close in on Mountainia 01 island, while a submerged Mountainian submarine (#54) watches helplessly.

Other features include a separate telnet window, and a chat window which provides an automatically updates USERS command, followed by a chat screen that looks and feels like an IRC window. You can download JEC at Floogle. Alpha testing  on EmpireClassic for Linux is available on Floogle as well. Telnet to floogle.empireclassic.com and login user=empire4, password=empire4.

Big Game 2003 Started

June 8, 2003
The annual big game started Friday, May 30th. The "Big Game" lasts a full year and pushes all the game settings to the max. 999 X 999 world size, 255 islands, up to 255 concurrent players. It's big!

There is still plenty of time to join in, and since time accumulates so slowly, even if you join today - you will not be able to launch your first Liner for 3 weeks. To join the Big Game now and begin accumulating time, TELNET to HP3000.empireclassic.com, when the system prompts with EMPIREFCLASSIC: type HELLO PLAYER.EMPIRE5

See you in the "Big Game".

Official IRC Channel Established

May 3, 2003

Team Floogle has selected pgpn.com has the irc server to host the empire channel, for Empire conversation and support. It's a good place to ask "how-to" questions if you are a new player. Our thanks to Adam and the pgpn crowd for their help. The server name is irc.empireclassic.com (port 6667), channel #empire.

Web Forum Available

April 27, 2003

A web based forum is now available to facilitate collaboration on software development, and provide a venue for Empire related discussions. Registration is open, and public comments are welcome. The forum can be accessed at

forum.empireclassic.com

C/C++ Port Moves Forward

April 12, 2003

Team Floogle, lead by Chas Douglass, has re-activated a 4 year old effort to port EmpireClassic from Pascal to C/C++. A test version is available to try via TELNET at floogle.empireclassic.com (user ID=empire, password=empire). The new version compiles on both Linux (Red Hat) and Windows 2000.

Empire Classic Client (ECC)

October 28, 2002

Geary Epply has released a new Empire Classic Client (ECC) which combines a text based telnet client with a graphical mapping tool. The graphical map supports zoom, and shows the locations and destinations for all fleets. It runs using the Microsoft .NET framework.

ECC Screenshots and download.

Version 3.52 Released

August 10, 2002
A patch level release of Empire has been released, and is in production on HP3000.empireclassic.com. 3.52 features a major rewrite of the ISLAND command to finally fully support the ISLAND RELEASE command with all its associated options. A new subcommand, ISLAND TRANSFER, has been added to allow a nation with naming rights to transfer naming rights for an island to another nation.

Annual "Big Game" Started

August 2, 2002
The annual big game started Saturday, August 2nd. The "Big Game" lasts a full year and pushes all the game settings to the max. 999 X 999 world size, 255 islands, up to 255 concurrent players. It's big!

There is still plenty of time to join in, and since time accumulates so slowly, even if you join today - you will not be able to launch your first Liner for 3 weeks. To join the Big Game now and begin accumulating time, TELNET to HP3000.empireclassic.com, when the system prompts with EMPIREFCLASSIC: type HELLO PLAYER.EMPIRE5

See you in the "Big Game".

Linux port started

July 1, 2002
The original HP3000 Pascal source has been moved to a Linux development server, and the process of porting the same functionality to Linux has begun. The FreePascal compiler is being used, and there are several differences in this compiler from the HP3000 Pascal compiler which are slowing progress. In addition, some operating system differences between MPE and Linux are causing signifigant effort.. Current estimates are for the port to take a couple of months. When the port is complete, I would expect the version number to be 3.6 - and to have the source available on Sourceforge.

Questions on the porting process should be directed to Ben.

Where did the Server Go?

June 12, 2002
The HP3000.empireclassic.com is changing IP addresses.
The new address is 208.168.200.150 and will take effect any time. The timing is tricky, because even though the name has been switched to the new IP address, DNS may take a day or two to synchronize with all DNS servers world wide.

If you are unable to connect to a server which has your regular game on it, try using the IP addresses directly.

208.168.200.150 is the new IP address, until the sysop makes a change, this may point to an older test server.

198.190.228.6 is the old IP address, if DNS propogates the new IP address before the sysop physically changes plugs in the back of the machine, use this one.

In a few days - this will all resolve nicely.

Version 3.51 Deployed

June 9, 2002
Version 3.5 (and then quickly 3.51) were deployed on HP3000.empireclassic.com in game #4 (Hello Player.Empire4). This game is configured with classic sanctuary islands, thus all sanctuaries are dropped on the same island - Eden. It makes for a very different game that the more modern random island selection, where players may not encounter each other for months.

Source available on the web

June 8, 2002
the complete Pascal source for EmpireClassic on the HP3000 is now available at Source Forge http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/empire/HP3000/

Version 3.5 Expected Before June

April 2, 2002
Enhancements are underway for version 3.5 of Empire Classic, to be released on the HP3000 platform. This version features new data hiding configuration options to permit game managers to make information more open. It also features improvements in help. This may be the last release for the HP3000. If a 3.6 release is attempted, it would try to incorporate the Sagi Tools into the base code.

Version 3.5 coding is complete and testing is underway on the major new functionality, Information Hiding. In previous versions of Empire Classic, most information about other players needed to be discovered. When your nation was first created, if you entered a NATIONS command, you would see only yourself - because you had not seen or encountered the other player's nations yet. In large games, it was not uncommon for many nations to not be aware of most of the other nations in the game. It almost felt like playing alone.

Version 3.5 will allow game prophets to configure the level of Information Hiding to be used at the time the game is being created. Here are the choices:

Information Hiding - High
This is exactly how the game performs in version 3.4. information about other nations, island locations, etc. must all be discovered.

Information Hiding - Medium
At this setting, some information is known to all players. This includes the names of all other nations, and their relative power. This means all living nations will be displayed on the NATIONS, POWER and NAVIES commands, plus you will be able to send MAIL to all other nations - even if you have never encountered them in person. This enables a more of a community feeling, where you can tell who else is playing, and can compare your relative power and naval strength.

Information Hiding - Low
Most information about the game is known to all players. In addition to all the information revieled at the medium level, the location of all islands is known from the start be all players. In fact, any player can visit any island (with the LAND command) and see who is on the island and where they are by using the REPORT and VISUAL commands.