                           Server : Empire3 Changes

NAME
   Empire3 - Changes in Empire 3 (1995-96)

Level: Expert

There  have been several changes/fixes made to the Empire 2 code in the Empire
3 Server.  This outlines the various changes and how they will affect you, the
player.   Most  of  these  changes  were  coded  by  Ken Stevens <children@em-
pire.net>.

Sectors
   -  The delivery and distribution stuff was removed from the output of "com-
      modity"  and  each column was widened to 5 characters (to accomodate the
      new system where sectors are now allowed to hold up to 9999 of stuff)
   -  Mountains will now mine gold at 3/4 the rate that gold mines do  (thar's
      gold 'n them thar hills!)
   -  Mountains can now only hold 1/10th the population of normal sectors.
   -  The mobility cost to move into a sector has been changed from:
          cost = (mcost - eff) / 5
        to:
          if (mcost < 25)
            cost = (2 + (3 - mcost) * eff) / 5
          else
            cost = (mcost - 20 * eff) / 5

      OLD SYSTEM: eff   0%  100%     NEW SYSTEM: eff   0%  100%
                    +  0.2   0.0                   +  0.4   0.0
                    m  0.4   0.2                   m  0.4   0.2
                    ^  5.0   4.8                   ^  5.0   1.0
      Note  that this means land units can attack 100% mountains now, so there
      will be a tradeoff for the defender--either they can have  a  low  effi-
      ciency  mountain that costs more mobility to attack but gets a lower de-
      fense bonus, or they can have a high efficiency mountain that costs less
      mobility to attack but gets a higher defense bonus.
   -  New  conditional query "coastal" which gets set when you take a "census"
      of the sector.  Type "cens * ?coast=1" to get a list of all of your sec-
      tors  which  are  adjacent  to  water  (and thus vulnerable to assault).
      Ships
   -  - The size of "ts1 trade ship 1" was reduced to 100 lcm, 50  hcm,  $1500
      (from  200  lcm,  100 hcm, $2500).  Most players were waiting for ts2 so
      this is a nice way to deal with that.
Planes
   -  In the old system, planes would be charged either 10 mobility (intercep-
      tors), 12 mobility (escorts) or 20 mobility (the rest) per flight.  This
      cost was then multiplied by (100 / eff) with the restriction that  plane
      mobility  could  not  go below -32.  Planes flying missions were charged
      only 1/4 of this.  In the new system, planes are charged a base rate  of
      5  mobility  to prepare for takeoff.  On top of this, they are charged a
      flight cost which is either 10 (interceptors and  escorts)  or  20  (the
      rest),  however  this flight cost is scaled down according to the length
      of the flight--it is multiplied by (flight length) / (max plane  range).
      The  flight cost is then scaled by (100/eff) with the restriction that a
      plane can't go below -32 mobility.  Planes flying missions  are  charged
      1/2 of this.
   -  The  mobility  of  a  plane  will now go down by one point for every two
      points of damage it took from air-to-air combat, to a limit of -32  mob.
      This is to simulate the high mobility cost of air-to-air combat, and the
      fact that air-to-air combat is more effort for low tech planes.
   -  SAM interception is now separate from plane interception; for  each  at-
      tacking  plane, if it cost at least $1000 to build, then one SAM will be
      launched at it.  After SAMs have been fired, fighter planes will  inter-
      cept what's left over.
   -  The restriction that high tech nations can not build low tech planes has
      been removed (the above changes address the f1 SAM-soaking problem).
   -  Marine missiles on interdiction now fire at a single  ship  rather  than
      the  whole fleet.  They pick the ship which is the most valuable accord-
      ing to (cost to build) * efficiency.  Furthermore, marine missiles  will
      only  launch  at  a ship if the ship cost >= $1000 to build or if it can
      carry land units or planes.
   -  Sectors which your planes fly over when they fly missions  will  now  be
      added to your bmap.
Land Units
   -  There  are  three  new  land  units:  'cavalry 2', 'light infantry', and
      'aau1'.  Here's the basic scheme.  The old cavalry are  an  average  be-
      tween  the  somewhat  weaker cav1 and somewhat stronger cav2.  light in-
      fantry are half the size of and slightly fastar than inf1's. 'aau1' come
      at  the  same  tech  as Zepplins and let low tech countries try to throw
      rocks at low tech planes...
Maps
   -  You now have 50 realms.
   -  Each country now has two bmaps, their 'working' bmap  and  their  'true'
      bmap.   The true bmap contains only information put there by the server.
      The working bmap also contains information put there  by  the  bdes  and
      sharebmap  commands.   The  'bmap'  command usually displays the working
      bmap unless the player specifies 'bmap <SECTS> true'.   If  the  players
      working bmap becomes corrupted somehow, then they can type 'bmap <SECTS>
      revert' to revert their working bmap back  to  their  true  bmap.   This
      change  was  necessary  to  prevent abuse of the new 'sharebmap' command
      (which compares the players true bmaps  when  determining  whether  they
      overlap).
   -  There is a new command "sharebmap <COUN> <SECTS>".  If <COUN> is friend-
      ly towards you and your 'true' bmaps already share enough information in
      common,  then  your  bmap will be added to their bmap.  For more details
      see 'info sharebmap'.
Information
   -  The new info page "info Mobility" gives the formulas  for  all  mobility
      costs in the game.
Communication
   -  If  someone  else was the last person to use your country, then when you
      login you will get a message like:

               Last connection from: Mon Nov 13 04:48:04 1995
                                 to: Mon Nov 13 05:13:12 1995
                                 by: children@RedDragon.Empire.Net

   -  If the game is a blitz, then the 'players' command will list other coun-
      tries  which  are logged on.  This will cut down on the 'is anybody else
      logged on?' announcements.  Note that for players,  'last  command'  and
      'user@hostname' are not printed (only deities get to see this stuff).
   -  You  can  now read old announcements which you've already thrown away by
      typing:

      SYNTAX
         [##:##] Command : wire <number of days>

      This works much in the same  way  as  news.   The  server  automatically
      deletes all announcements older than 7 days.
   -  New  server  commands  'toggle  sync', 'toggle async', and 'sync' permit
      client-server database synchronization.
   -  Before you type a telegram, you will now see:
          Enter telegram for Fodderland
          undo last line with ~u, print with ~p, abort with ~q, end with ^D or .
          1024 left:
        The new tilde escapes work very nicely.

Options
The following options have been made standard:
NEWPAF:         Plane combat is in nice easy-to-read columns

SEE ALSO
   Server

