Aharpo.616 net.games.emp utzoo!decvax!harpo!ber Fri May 7 07:43:56 1982 Re: Re: who else is running empire? - from a notesfile #R:u1100a:-13800:harpo:15500003:040:1165 harpo!ber May 7 07:30:00 1982 Accumulated time is expressed in "Bureaucratic Time Units" or B.T.U.s. The purpose of the B.T.U. Concept is three-fold: I) Commands use up B.T.U.s. This limits the number of commands that any player can give in any particular time period. Thus the fanatics can't overrun the players with less free time by tenacity alone. II) The build up of B.T.U.s not being dependent on being logged on at any particular time allows players to participate when it is convenient rather than at some fixed time (as in the case of monopoly, the stock market, etc). III) The B.T.U. arrangement helps compensate for the fact that in concept, the governments of each country are always "playing" although the player representing that country may only play periodically. The geography of the game is embodied in a rectangular map partitioned into M x N sectors (where M and N are typically but not necessarily powers of two, usually 32, 64 or 128) that is approximately 50% sea, 45% habitable land and 5% uninhabitable mountains. This "map" is generated by a program (the "creation") that places volcanoes pseudo-randomly forming ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.