- Jan 2, 2001
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Archived from groups: rec.games.empire (More info?)
Soon, very soon, there will be a formal call for players for Twisted Mind 2K4.
If you are interested in pre-registering, see the thread titled "Decisions,
Decisions". 2K4 is a slightly different version of Empire. Included below is
the info file from the test server. Please feel free to e-mail or cross post
any comments.
And for those of you not having the length of time in the Empire world to
remember the Twisted Mind series, let us just say that Mr. Ed still hasn't
fully sobered up and Nirvana is still in therapy. (Although there was some
testemony that he was already in therapy when he played in his last Twisted
Mind game.)
Not mentioned in any of the newstand tabloid rags has been the fact that
Twisted Mind 2K4 will be open to all skill levels. Newbies in this game will
find that the FTI (Fodder Time Index) will be signifiacntly longer than other
games. And all players will enjoy the RRAT (Reduced Required Access Time)
that the 2K4 modifactions have engineered.
So enjoy the quality reading below.
Pat
AKA Overlord
A thoroughly brief introduction to Empire 2K4.
Modifications have been made to the server and can be broken down into three
categories: Minor, medium, and major.
Minor modifications include the following.
There will be no dust in the game. Tech centers will not need dust to
produce. (You can make research centers all you want. But we don't need
that concept anyway.)
There will be no oil in the game (**GASP**). Gun factories do not need the
commodity anymore. Neither do tech centers. (That's right, tech centers
don't need dust or oil.) Petrol facilities placed on a sector with oil
reserves will make petrol directly.
There is no iron in the game. Put your lcm or hcm plant on a sector with
mineral content and watch it produce.
GO_RENEW is enabled.
Food is not needed.
Loans, trade, and market are enabled. More on that later.
Reacting units use no mobility.
Now for the medium level modifications.
All forts, artillery land units, bb's, bc's, and ca's fire one sector. This
is regardless of the technology level. All other ships with guns can fire
zero sectors. (They can shoot at ships in their sectors. Sub torpedo
ranges have not been changed.)
Ships with a range of zero may now fire (in their own sector.) Ships with
a range of -1 may not fire.
Trade ships are enabled (see below for details in the major modifications
section).
Super cargo ships have been added. (see below for details in the major
modifications section.)
there are no more radar stations. Instead, radar is now an infrastructure
just like road and rail. use "improve radar". Coastwatch uses this new
property.
Tech centers are no longer dependent on education level. PE is 100%.
Price of carriers has been lowered. Ranges of planes have been lowered.
Bridgetowers are enabled. More on that later.
All infantry units have the security flag.
Now for those of you keeping score, you will notice that I have removed the
need for just a few of the sector types. They include the following:
m, r, l, o, g, b, a, ).
Now for the major changes. There are two.
First. Civ's are a thing of the past, at least as a commodity of a sector.
They are now more of a property of a sector. Mountains will always have 99
civ's in them. (This number will not be listed in the census. It will
still show up as zero. Sue me. I'm lazy.) Plains sectors will always have
25 civ's. "Regular" sectors will have 5000 civ's. This is not a type-o.
Note that if you take out all of a sector's mil, you can explore around. Civ's
don't exist.
Oh, no uw's either.
Let the concept of no civ's sink in a bit. Think about what that means.
Also ponder the amount of work a sector can do with 5000 virtual people.
Che will still be made BTW. And they are generated as if the sector had
5000 real civvies.
The first test game pointed out a major problem with having "ghost civs".
enlisting was abused more than the head coach of little league team. Also,
revolting che didn't work properly. All that has been fixed. The oldowner
flag will now be seen across the land as sectors change hands.
Now for the other major modifications. I call this country/nation attributes.
Currently, I have 7 attributes. They are Warrior, Tech Monger, Engineer,
Informant, Producer, and Financier. Since the first test game I added
another attribute - Distributor.
When you break, you will be promted to enter the attribute that you want.
I did not write an edit command to change this attribute. So you will be
stuck with it for the entire game. How do these attributes affect the play
of your game? Read on.
Warrior. What a fun bunch. Your motto has two simple creeds. 1) If it
moves, kill it. 2) If it doesn't move, prod it until it does. Then visit
creed #1 again. In the game (and Empire is a game, remember?) your troops
will attack and defend with 33% more strength that the other clowns in the
game. Additionally, you may assault with more troops off of a ship (as much
as 2X). Finally, when you reach a high enough tech, you may build the
Special Operations unit.
Tech Monger. Ah, i see you like to wear the big target on your chest. Oh
well. Good for you. Your tech centers can take the same amount of resources
(money, avail, and lcms) and make 10% more tech points out of them.
Additionally, you get a 10% cost reduction for each point of tech you build.
These two bonuses are combined so on a dollar for dollar basis, you are
getting 2 - 10% bonuses. But wait! There's more. You also get an extra
20% bonus off of the ally tech bonus.
Engineer: Note that the guy writing this has a BS in Nuclear Engineering and
an MS in Mechanical Engineering. Engineers are great. Bow to them. They
know how to build things like briges and roads and planes that can't be
seen on radar. And they know how things work like Stirling engines and
transistors and women. So if you pick the Engineer attribute, bridges will
cost you 50% less. You build infrastructure at twice the efficiency. You
are the only country that can build bridge towers and units with the
engineer flag.
Informant: You guys will scream at this one. The informant can view the
report numbers (tech levels) like the deity. I.E, he will know every one's
exact tech level. He will also view the powerchart like the deity (except
for the overall score numbers. he won't see those). The informant is the
only one that can build spy units or use the anti command.
Producer: All producer sectors make 20% more avail. The producer is the
only country that can sell via the market and trade.
Financier: The Financier gets 15% increase in taxes. Also, only the
Financier can offer loans or build trade ships.
Distributor: The Distributor moves through sectors with 25% less mobility.
this includes moving, exploring, and marching land units. This is the only
country that can build supply units and super cargo ships. (Our favorite
cargo ships have been whacked down to something not nearly as desirable.)
Now, we can have more than one warrior in a game. Or more than one tech
monger, etc. And some of the percentages are not play balanced. so some
feedback would be appreciated. Finally, budget and produce commands don't
take these bonuses into affect. Again, sue me. I'm lazy. Perhaps if we
had a volunteer...
Thanks
Pat
AKA Overlord
Soon, very soon, there will be a formal call for players for Twisted Mind 2K4.
If you are interested in pre-registering, see the thread titled "Decisions,
Decisions". 2K4 is a slightly different version of Empire. Included below is
the info file from the test server. Please feel free to e-mail or cross post
any comments.
And for those of you not having the length of time in the Empire world to
remember the Twisted Mind series, let us just say that Mr. Ed still hasn't
fully sobered up and Nirvana is still in therapy. (Although there was some
testemony that he was already in therapy when he played in his last Twisted
Mind game.)
Not mentioned in any of the newstand tabloid rags has been the fact that
Twisted Mind 2K4 will be open to all skill levels. Newbies in this game will
find that the FTI (Fodder Time Index) will be signifiacntly longer than other
games. And all players will enjoy the RRAT (Reduced Required Access Time)
that the 2K4 modifactions have engineered.
So enjoy the quality reading below.
Pat
AKA Overlord
A thoroughly brief introduction to Empire 2K4.
Modifications have been made to the server and can be broken down into three
categories: Minor, medium, and major.
Minor modifications include the following.
There will be no dust in the game. Tech centers will not need dust to
produce. (You can make research centers all you want. But we don't need
that concept anyway.)
There will be no oil in the game (**GASP**). Gun factories do not need the
commodity anymore. Neither do tech centers. (That's right, tech centers
don't need dust or oil.) Petrol facilities placed on a sector with oil
reserves will make petrol directly.
There is no iron in the game. Put your lcm or hcm plant on a sector with
mineral content and watch it produce.
GO_RENEW is enabled.
Food is not needed.
Loans, trade, and market are enabled. More on that later.
Reacting units use no mobility.
Now for the medium level modifications.
All forts, artillery land units, bb's, bc's, and ca's fire one sector. This
is regardless of the technology level. All other ships with guns can fire
zero sectors. (They can shoot at ships in their sectors. Sub torpedo
ranges have not been changed.)
Ships with a range of zero may now fire (in their own sector.) Ships with
a range of -1 may not fire.
Trade ships are enabled (see below for details in the major modifications
section).
Super cargo ships have been added. (see below for details in the major
modifications section.)
there are no more radar stations. Instead, radar is now an infrastructure
just like road and rail. use "improve radar". Coastwatch uses this new
property.
Tech centers are no longer dependent on education level. PE is 100%.
Price of carriers has been lowered. Ranges of planes have been lowered.
Bridgetowers are enabled. More on that later.
All infantry units have the security flag.
Now for those of you keeping score, you will notice that I have removed the
need for just a few of the sector types. They include the following:
m, r, l, o, g, b, a, ).
Now for the major changes. There are two.
First. Civ's are a thing of the past, at least as a commodity of a sector.
They are now more of a property of a sector. Mountains will always have 99
civ's in them. (This number will not be listed in the census. It will
still show up as zero. Sue me. I'm lazy.) Plains sectors will always have
25 civ's. "Regular" sectors will have 5000 civ's. This is not a type-o.
Note that if you take out all of a sector's mil, you can explore around. Civ's
don't exist.
Oh, no uw's either.
Let the concept of no civ's sink in a bit. Think about what that means.
Also ponder the amount of work a sector can do with 5000 virtual people.
Che will still be made BTW. And they are generated as if the sector had
5000 real civvies.
The first test game pointed out a major problem with having "ghost civs".
enlisting was abused more than the head coach of little league team. Also,
revolting che didn't work properly. All that has been fixed. The oldowner
flag will now be seen across the land as sectors change hands.
Now for the other major modifications. I call this country/nation attributes.
Currently, I have 7 attributes. They are Warrior, Tech Monger, Engineer,
Informant, Producer, and Financier. Since the first test game I added
another attribute - Distributor.
When you break, you will be promted to enter the attribute that you want.
I did not write an edit command to change this attribute. So you will be
stuck with it for the entire game. How do these attributes affect the play
of your game? Read on.
Warrior. What a fun bunch. Your motto has two simple creeds. 1) If it
moves, kill it. 2) If it doesn't move, prod it until it does. Then visit
creed #1 again. In the game (and Empire is a game, remember?) your troops
will attack and defend with 33% more strength that the other clowns in the
game. Additionally, you may assault with more troops off of a ship (as much
as 2X). Finally, when you reach a high enough tech, you may build the
Special Operations unit.
Tech Monger. Ah, i see you like to wear the big target on your chest. Oh
well. Good for you. Your tech centers can take the same amount of resources
(money, avail, and lcms) and make 10% more tech points out of them.
Additionally, you get a 10% cost reduction for each point of tech you build.
These two bonuses are combined so on a dollar for dollar basis, you are
getting 2 - 10% bonuses. But wait! There's more. You also get an extra
20% bonus off of the ally tech bonus.
Engineer: Note that the guy writing this has a BS in Nuclear Engineering and
an MS in Mechanical Engineering. Engineers are great. Bow to them. They
know how to build things like briges and roads and planes that can't be
seen on radar. And they know how things work like Stirling engines and
transistors and women. So if you pick the Engineer attribute, bridges will
cost you 50% less. You build infrastructure at twice the efficiency. You
are the only country that can build bridge towers and units with the
engineer flag.
Informant: You guys will scream at this one. The informant can view the
report numbers (tech levels) like the deity. I.E, he will know every one's
exact tech level. He will also view the powerchart like the deity (except
for the overall score numbers. he won't see those). The informant is the
only one that can build spy units or use the anti command.
Producer: All producer sectors make 20% more avail. The producer is the
only country that can sell via the market and trade.
Financier: The Financier gets 15% increase in taxes. Also, only the
Financier can offer loans or build trade ships.
Distributor: The Distributor moves through sectors with 25% less mobility.
this includes moving, exploring, and marching land units. This is the only
country that can build supply units and super cargo ships. (Our favorite
cargo ships have been whacked down to something not nearly as desirable.)
Now, we can have more than one warrior in a game. Or more than one tech
monger, etc. And some of the percentages are not play balanced. so some
feedback would be appreciated. Finally, budget and produce commands don't
take these bonuses into affect. Again, sue me. I'm lazy. Perhaps if we
had a volunteer...
Thanks
Pat
AKA Overlord
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