The Official Empire Wish List

Sectors

( First part has been fixed - rad part has not ) Heres a bug: Take
a warehouse, store a couple of k of oil in it and then des it as an
oil mine. after the update it has 999 oil in it, and the ocontent has
been warped up to something like 389. Similarly, a 100 rad sector with
999 civs and 999 uws will only produce 250-300 rad rather than the
750+ you should have got.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

Change bridges (and towers) so that they only crumble when shelled
below 15%. Allows attackers an extra chance for a bridge attack.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

feed <SECTS> <SECT>
If a sector in <SECTS> needs more food, send it food from <SECT>.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

- WARNING - may be difficult to code
forts should return fire even if shot missed
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

Ships

For ship/plane/unit specification, allow a/13/b/15/16/c type
specification where fleets, wings, and armies may be included along
with numbers.  (WARNING: This would require massive restructuring.)
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

Reduce the amount of mob subs use to torp--right now they are at a
severe disadvantage.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

once ships on sail have arrived at their destination, the "Your fleet
lead by ship #x has reached x,y." in production report every time.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

You can load all the civs from a harbour onto a ship without being
prompted if you want to abandon that sector.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

The gain in efficiency of planes on carriers or sufficiently crewed
ships on sea should use construction materials etc. This is to make it
consistent with land units gaining efficiency in a sector where the
necessary materials are present.  Otherwise it leads to abuse: Say in
the beginning of the game I build a ship but don't want to spend the
hcms to build it completely - so I just crew it it will gain
efficiency by itself. I think it could easily be implemented by giving
every ship some capacity for lcms and hcm's.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

you shouldn't be able to torp around corners
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

Planes

chh [38:382]% scrap p 28,0 ?eff<50
Really scrap all planes in 28,0 [n]? n
The prompt is misleading.  (Same goes for scuttle).  Scuttle and scrap
should probably be consolidated.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

Land Units

perhaps since land units in mountains are so hard to attack, we shuold
just not let land units into mountains to begin with.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

perhaps land unit attack mob needs to be increased.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

I would like to be told more than: "11 Units loaded" after I issue a
lload command. Why isn't the syntax of the result of the lload command
like that of the load command?
        submitted by Andrew Gilmore <gilmorea@ucsub.colorado.edu> 16 Dec 95

It is painful that 'march' won't accept an army designation if its units are dispersed.  Mine are dispersed when they lose a fight, and I just want to march them back to a fort.  
It seems to me reasonable and realistic to order multiple units to march to the same place.  It should be easy to code.  Just loop through the list, marching each unit independently.
This implementation would change the result when all units start together, and the one with the least mobility can't reach the destination.  If it is thought desirable to stop
the whole list short to keep them together, then the two cases could be treated separately.
                                              Norton Hall
        submitted by Norton Hall <nhall@azstarnet.com> 22 Jan 96

Missions

Allow people to specify relation level to trigger different missions
(note there is already space for this in the nation struct).
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

Combat

aborting an attack should cost you btus or possibly mobility
(otherwise you get info for free).
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

Information

Budget can generate a negative cost for building ships or planes.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

neweff [s <SHIPS>|p <PLANES>|l <UNITS>] to show the efficiency these
things will have after the update. At present you can only get this
info by doing some heavy calculations.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

gstarve <SECTS>
lists sectors that need more food if they want to attain maximum civ
growth.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

prod
should list the commodities consumed in f h * ! sectors for building
stuff. (This would help you calculate your production deltas.)
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

bmap <SECTS> sh
to show enemy ships (that you would see with radar or coastwatch).
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

bmap <SECTS> sa
to show enemy satellites (that you would see on radar).
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

dump
should give you the oldown number, rather than just a *. (Does dump
only give you a * if you're not the oldown? I don't know. You can find
the oldown using ?oldown= so dump should give it to you).
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

radar [<SHIPS> | <SECTS>] S
shows enemy ships but not your own.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

cen * ?connect=<SECT>
lists all sectors connected by land to <SECT>. Handy for setting up
territories.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

Budget Bug: when production priorities are set, harbors will produce
work BEFORE ships are built, which means you can use avail produced
AFTER the update, ie so you can repair objects in sectors you newly
designate.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

Allow | as well as & in selection syntax. e.g. res * ?des=o|des=g
(WARNING: cannot use single bar as the or character because "|" is
used as a pipe in the standard client and possibly in other clients.
Another character should be used instead ( or maybe "||"?)
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

Updates

Planes should not be built by conquered populace. (The problem here is
that building planes uses mil, and you can lose the sector because all
your mil that was being used to hold the sector disappeared into the
planes so you loose the sector at the update.)  ALREADY FIXED?
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

Under the ALL_BLEED option, research bleed doesn't work the same way
that tech bleed does. A nation may produce tech but no research on a
given update, yet the 0 research gets included in the average.
However, if a nation produces no tech, the 0 tech doesn't get included
in the average. (This holds true even if that nation does produce
research, although its probably pretty rare to produce research and
not tech).
Having two loops that resolve tech bleed and then research bleed,
instead of one which tries to do both, would be a fix.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

A new command called tax.
Syntax is tax +/-[digits.digits]
tax modifies how much money you get per civilian in taxes each update. The default is
the base rate set by the deity. If you need money badly enough, you can
icrease taxes, (tax +2%) - this would result in you needing (n*2)x the amount
of happiness. So +2% would need 4 times as much happiness as required at
+0%. Similarly -2% would tax your people less, and therefore require less
happiness generated.
Probably needs to be bounded (range is +/-10% for instance)
Also, the ratio (hap=base_hap * 2 * %tax) probably needs tinkering with after play testing.
        submitted by Julian Onions <j.onions@nexor.co.uk> 01 Dec 95

Change to STOP command.  When a sector is STOPped, change the STOP
command so that AVAIL accumulates (the workers are read to do something
different than what they usually do).  Useful when a mine (or other
sector which uses all AVAIL each updated) is next to the ocean, and
you want to build a bridge there.
        submitted by Asoka Diggs <adiggs@teleport.com> 08 Dec 95

I propose that any producing sector will draw the materials required for max
production from it's distribution point (warehouse, harbour) automatically if
the threshold value is set to 0. Any other value set by the player will be 
used if thresh != 0. Also, all products from sectors will be automatically
moved to the distribution point (Not leaving that wastefull 1 behind if 
possible) again overridden by thresh != 0. Thirdly, populations will 
automatically spread out into ADJACENT sectors which have less than optimum
populations (If they are owned by you) trying to keep max pop growth. This 
would cost NO mob. Alternatively, population would spread from any sector
with too high pop to those below optimum if civ thresh == 0, costing normal
mob. Setting thresh == 999 or any other required value would keep things as
they are now. I think these proposals, or something along these lines, 
would not detract from realism (How many real leaders tell their factories
how much raw material to buy...), but would greatly increase playability,
enjoyability and decrease micromanagement workloads, all combining to leave
the player to enjoy the important aspect of the game - the fighting.
[Make sure the automigrating civs don't starve -ed]
        submitted by Ed Down <sb314@city.ac.uk> 20 Feb 96

Communication

Separate BULLETIN's from Telegrams (so that when we're in the middle
of a fight we will know if we were just attacked or we simply have
just received a letter from a friend).
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

When you are writing a telegram or an announcement and an update hits,
then your telegram or announcement gets lost. ( is it even POSSIBLE to
fix this?)
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

Documentation

info takeover, avail, loyalty
There should be man pages on these.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

Deity

More flexible hours control (e.g. to disable login on weekends) ( If i
am not mistaken - you can disable logins on weekends - Bob and I did
this using hours in one game - I think there are bugs in it though
from what I remember - who knows... maybe it doesn't work anymore
anyone tried it lately? - Ken H.)
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

Add che (target and number) to deity dump format.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

Add two new options: LOAN and TREATY.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

Miscellanious

Often BTU's aren't updated immediately, and the prompt is out of sync
with the actual amount of BTU's they have.
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

make xland compile under linux
        submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95

Ships,forts,bombers,artillery...the effectiveness per unit of each
of these relative to how many BTUs is way out of wack.  I can shell
the snot out of a country with 4 hat1s for faaaaar less BTUs than it 
would take with BB4s.  One raid with 2 BB4s hurts maybe 10 sectors and costs 500 BTUs
        submitted by Geoff Cashman <cashman@silver.ucs.indiana.edu> 21 Dec 95

I'd like to propose a new login-sequence command, "available".
In blitz games, in order to find a country to play you either have to check 
the PEA or get in the login sequence and start checking countries (first 
that the name still exists, then that the password is still the same, and 
then that there isn't somebody playing it, not having changed either).  How 
about shortening this process with a command that lists the countries whose 
names and passwords haven't changed, which haven't broken yet, and which are 
not in use by another user?
So you get "2 Empire server ready"
you type "avail"
and get back "0 available countries: 1 4 9 10"
now you know that any one of these will be good.  This would only be good in 
blitz games obviously (actually, if one of the checks it does is that the 
password matches the country name, then it won't need to be disabled for 
non-blitz games cause they never have countries with the same passwords [at 
least they shouldn't!]...except for the visitor country - ah! and that will 
automatically tell you what guest countries are available - visitor, 
Visitor, guest, Guest, etc.)  So you'll actually get:
"0 available countries: 1 4 9 10 visitor"
***alternatively, instead of adding a new command we could just change the 
country command (in the login sequence) so that if you type "coun ?" it will 
give you the above (how about "coun *" which will give you a random country 
that matches the qualifications? it would have to return the country it gave 
you so that you can type in the password)
        submitted by Ashley A Thomas <ase@cyberspace.org> 18 Jan 96

another login wish:
how about modifying the 'play' command so we can skip the 'coun' and 'pass' 
commands (still leave those commands in for negotiation when necessary):
'play MyCountry MyPassword'
and
'kill MyCountry MyPassword'
        submitted by Ashley A Thomas <ase@cyberspace.org> 19 Jan 96