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From: robison@eosp1.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.games.emp
Subject: Re: survey of worlds
Message-ID: <243@eosp1.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Oct-83 14:33:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: eosp1.243
Posted: Mon Oct 24 14:33:34 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Oct-83 00:34:11 EDT
References: <2512@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Organization: Exxon Office Systems, Princeton, NJ
Lines: 31

Our Empire players are a peaceful crew.  We started out with about 7
people on a 64*64 world, 2000 sectors with more than half of it
wilderness.  Eventually boredom threatened as each of us increased
his company to an unmanageably large size.  There never seemed to
be anything to do other than GROW...

One player relieved his boredom by obliterating his entire country
when it reached 350 sectors.

Perhaps we haven't got the hang of this game yet, but it seems the big
challenge is to set it up so that:

	- countries have a real need to cooperate
	- countries also have a real need to enter into conflict

We have restarted using a 64*64 world in which only about 30% is
useable land.  There are many continents, and an island chain.
No one will be able to acquire more than about 35 to 50 sectors unless
he wants a poorly connected, difficult-to-defend country.

Most sectors have very poor census assays (below 30 in everything),
so trade will be important.  Exchange sectors will not be used,
so boat trade will be very important.

We hope that the tension between the desire to expand and the need
for trade will produce a good game.

What is the point of eXchange sectors? they seem to make cargo trade
by boats almost useless.

	-- Keremath