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From: carlton@genrad.UUCP (Carl Hommel)
Newsgroups: net.games.emp
Subject: Empire Tutorial
Message-ID: <382@genrad.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 17-Sep-84 12:12:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: genrad.382
Posted: Mon Sep 17 12:12:57 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Sep-84 05:16:51 EDT
Organization: GenRad, Bolton, Mass.
Lines: 80

Here are 20 tips for beginning players.

1.  use the  command to set realm 1 to -20:20,-10:10.
    Then, after every update, say "realm 0 #1" 
    This will let you see what is surrounding you.

2.  Toss all of your iron and most of your civilians into one of your
    two ex-sanctuaries.  You need the civilians much more than you need
    the BTU's.  When you start getting people, move them back into your capitol.

3.  Send out small groups of people (like 1-5) to find mountains.  Your
    objective: an iron mine in the 75-100 range.  You need iron to throw into
    your urban center to get more people.

4.  Designate the sectors with 1-5 people in them as "+" (roads).  There aren't
    enough people in them to do anything useful, and even a 1% road is better
    for moving people than a "-" (wilderness).

5.  You don't need more than 1 urban center.  Its hard enough scrounging up 
    enough iron ore for it and all the "j" (light manufacturing) and "k"
    (heavy manufacturing).

6.  Make sure that any sector with more than 100 civilians has food in it.
    Otherwise, they won't make babies, and a civilian workforce is everything.

7.  Go through  and  and make a chart 
    showing what products need which materials.

8.  Resist the urge to ignore happiness.  I think it impacts the following:
    a)  Unhappy people will not build guns (or airplanes).
    b)  Unhappy people will not  in your army very easily.
    c)  Happy people make babies faster.

9.  "l" sectors are libraries, not light manufacturing.  (An easy, but dumb
    mistake, I made it twice last game.

10. Be very careful with the  command.  
    "enlist # ?desig=f 50" will not enlist 50 people in every fortress, but
    50 people from every sector.

11. Use warehouses.  They make it much easier to move products.

12. You need 11 times as much oil as gold dust.  However, oil comes from the
    sea.  Large gold mines (80-100) are worth fighting over.

13. hcm's are primarily used for national defence.  They build guns, shells,
    and ships.  If you don't feel threatened by your neighbors, (ie if you
    can't find them) you don't need that many of them.  Remember, if you
    stockpile hcm, they won't show up on the power reports.

14. lcm's are the "butter" of the "guns or butter" equation.  They buy 
    happiness, education, technology, and research.

15. Do not ignore research.  Your tech level should be half of your research
    level.  If you don't believe me, wait until your first plague.  But then,
    it will be too late.

16. Plague will show up in an urban center with over 3000 people and 500 iron.
    You MUST have several 100% roads "+" to get the people out to avoid plague.

17. Spend the BTU's to do a  at least once a day, if POGO doesn't.
    Store the results of these in one big file.  Compare your progress to
    others.  Are they militarizing?  Spreading out?  Concentrating in a few
    high efficency sectors?

18. A fleet is the second greatest drain on resources in the game.  Nuclear
    weapons are the first.

19. Islands:  You must  the island from a ship.  Turn it into a 
    harbor "h".  When it gets up to 2% efficency, move in a cargo ship, unload
    civilians and food, and turn it into whatever you want.

20. If an island has more than 2 sectors to it, build a bridgehead to it.  This
    is a reasonable use of 200 hcm's.

Enjoy!

		Carl Hommel
Wife:  Oh, no!  He just nuked your 100% gold mines!
Husband:  No problem.  They were played out, and he missed the warehouse.