NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/rec/games/programm/5168

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From: [e-mail] (Dave Mitton)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Empire History (was: Strategy algorithms)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 23 Dec 92 17:45:15 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
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Reply-To: [e-mail] (Dave Mitton)
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Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation, Littleton MA
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In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Eric Wang) writes:
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: [e-mail] (Eric Wang)
Subject: Re: Strategy algorithms
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 02:51:39 GMT

>>[e-mail] (Hannu Mallat ~ PurpleHaze!) writes:
>>>I'm planning on programming a simple(ish) strategy game, something
>>>like Empire.
>
>[e-mail] (Patrick Draper) writes:
>>I think Walter Bright wrote that one. Empire has a long history, dating all
>>the way back to Fortran IV on a mini, if I am not mistaken.
>
>>Does anyone know the history of Empire?  Is the Walter Bright that is with
>>Zortech and often on the net the same one as the author of Empire?
>
>The following is drawn from the READMEs of several versions of Empire,
>clouded over by the haze of many years.
>
>Single-player PC Empire originated at Reed College in Oregon in the late
>70's, I believe, as (of all things) a tabletop game.  Peter S. Langston,
>one of the Reed gamers, wrote the first computer implementation, I think
>in Fortran on a PDP-11, to relieve the players from the vast amounts of
>bookkeeping that the game required.  This version was ported to numerous
>other platforms, including VMS.
>
>Some time later (soon afterwards, I think), Walter Bright implemented
>essentially the same game for IBM PCs, apparently while an undergrad at
>Caltech.  (When I was there from '83 to '88, there were rumors that
>WGB's original Fortran source code still existed in compilable form
>somewhere in Dabney House, but was jealously guarded.  Once, while
>visiting Dabney House's computer room, I actually saw somebody tinkering
>around in an ...\empire\src directory that contained about 40 files with
>names like move.f attack.f fighter.f city.f, but I had to leave almost
>immediately and never got another chance to snoop on that computer.
>However, this is now moot, as C source for empire has been in the public
>domain for several years, and can be anon-ftp'd from various archives.)
>I'm not sure how WGB Empire is related to PSL Empire.

    First a story, then some conclusions:

EMPIRE as player vs computer game appeared on TOPS-20 systems in DEC
around 1978.   I was handed a source copy that someone had been working
on porting to RT-11 FORTRAN.  I started making it work on RSX-11M-Plus
FORTRAN.  The DEC network was very small at the time (<100 nodes) and
another fellow in VMS found my work and got it limping on VMS.
We pooled our efforts and produced a copy which we released via DECUS.
We had to put a lot of effort into the code, as it was buggy as all heck
and had many array indexing errors that tended to wipe out games.
We spend a lot of time debugging and improving the roubustness, and the
friendliness of the user interface.

I added code that prevented you from doing fatal things with units
(Armies to Sea) without an "Are you sure?" message.
I rewrote the algorithm that figured out the next square for a unit on
a programmed path.
My partner was unhappy with canned set of maps and wrote his own map
generator.  He also spent a bit of time attempting to debug the computer
enemy algorithms.
Any FORTRAN source that has the comment "Send comments to ELROND::EMPIRE"
is from us.  We released two versions, I think.

Of course things went nuts after that.  A friend of mine ported it to
VMS PL/1 and made a two player version.  Lots people added new units
to the mix.  Someone else ported it to C under MSDOS  and made it
work on Rainbows.  An internal version supported DEC REGIS colored graphics.

Eventually Walter Bright got a hold of me and claimed that the program
was his invention.  At that point DECUS stopped distributing it, as did I.
In fact I've lost my sources due to a new overzealous system manager deleting
my account as he didn't know who I was, and I forgot to ask for the backup
tape before it expired.
I have no proof of the origin of the sources handed me.  So I have to trust
Walter on that.   However, in the mean time, many copies of our FORTRAN
program are out there.

I don't know anything about "due diligence" in protecting a game concept
but students (and employees) should be careful about how freely they
let "play test" copies get distributed.  And beware to guard their source
code from system management too.

>Eventually, WGB sold his implementation of Empire to Interstel, who
>retconned it into their Starfleet series of games.  (Starfleet I was a
>success; Starfleet II: Krellan Commander, as you might recall, was a
>total flop, as it was thoroughly riddled with fatal bugs.  Empire became
>Starfleet 1.5, but it doesn't really fit.)  The latest version I've seen
>of Interstel Empire is 2.05, which by now is about 5 years old and is,
>in a nutshell, no challenge to a moderately skilled player.  WGB and his
>co-author spent much work making it graphical and implementing a pretty
>user interface, but no discernable work in improving the play of the
>computer opponents over the non-graphical public version 1.5.  Overall,
>I found it to be rather disappointing, nice on the outside and hollow on
>the inside.

    Someone else has come out with an updated PC Empire recently
Reviews are in the traderags.

 <para on C++ deleted)

>Finally, numerous persons have ported Empire to C on Unix, and source
>code for a couple versions thereof are available for anon-ftp from all
>of the big archive sites.  If you want to write your own Empire, try
>downloading one of these first -- it'll get you started in the right
>direction or cripple you forever with its bad ideas, take your pick.
>I've never compiled one of these suckers, so I can't say how well it
>plays.  I seriously doubt they're any better than WGB's computer
>opponents, though, otherwise the game would be worth playing, people
>would still be playing it, and I'd have heard about it.  And I haven't
>(more's the pity).
>
>>If it is, we can go right to the horses' mouth, so to speak.
>
>Well, you could try, but I'd guess that Zortech C++ is much higher a
>priority to him than a game.  I've heard rumors that WGB is working on
>the next version of Empire, naturally written in Zortech C++.
>
>Eric Wang
>[e-mail]>


    Dave (ELROND::EMPIRE).