Hamurabi (Ahl's BASIC listing and Dyment's FOCAL original)

The first report shows 100 people (95 plus 5 arrivals), 1,000 acres, and 2,800 bushels in store, left from a harvest of 3,000 bushels at 3 bushels per acre after rats ate 200. hamurabi/start-state

{
 "people": 100,
 "acres": 1000,
 "bushels": 2800,
 "harvest": 3000,
 "yield": 3,
 "rats": 200
}

Cited by: Hamurabi

The book's description starts the city with 3,000 bushels in storage, but the listing's first report shows 2,800, because rats ate 200 of a 3,000-bushel harvest. hamurabi/store-not-3000

Value: 3000 bushels

Cited by: Hamurabi

Each year land trades at $17+\lfloor 10r\rfloor$ bushels per acre for a random $r$ in [0, 1), a whole number from 17 to 26. hamurabi/land-price

About: Hamurabi Commodity trading

{
 "min": 17,
 "max": 26,
 "distribution": "uniform"
}

Cited by: Commodity trading, Hamurabi

The player may buy land at the year's price if the store covers it, and buying any land skips the chance to sell that year. hamurabi/land-buy

About: Hamurabi Commodity trading

Cited by: Hamurabi

A sale pays the same price per acre into the store, and the city must keep at least 1 acre. hamurabi/land-sell

About: Hamurabi Commodity trading

Cited by: Hamurabi

Each person eats 20 bushels a year, so the number fed is the bushels given divided by 20, rounded down. hamurabi/food

Value: 20 bushels per person per year

Cited by: Hamurabi

Seed costs half a bushel per acre planted, rounded down, and must come from the store left after feeding. hamurabi/seed

Value: 0.5 bushels per acre

Cited by: Hamurabi

One person can farm 10 acres, but Ahl's check is strict, so $P$ people may plant at most $10P-1$ acres, where Dyment's FOCAL allows $10P$. hamurabi/tending

Value: 10 acres per person

Cited by: Hamurabi

The yield is a whole number of bushels per acre from 1 to 5, each equally likely, and the harvest is the yield times the acres planted. hamurabi/harvest

{
 "min": 1,
 "max": 5,
 "distribution": "uniform"
}

Cited by: Hamurabi

A second roll of 1 to 5 sets the rats loose when it is even, 2 times in 5, and they eat the store divided by the roll (half on a 2, a quarter on a 4) before the harvest goes in. hamurabi/rats

{
 "chance": 0.4,
 "eats": {
  "2": 0.5,
  "4": 0.25
 }
}

Cited by: Hamurabi

Arrivals are $\lfloor c(20A+S)/(100P)+1\rfloor$, where $c$ is a third roll of 1 to 5, $A$ the acres, $S$ the store after harvest and rats, and $P$ the population before starvation. hamurabi/immigration

The arrivals join at the next report (BASIC 218), before the plague check.

Cited by: Hamurabi

A plague halves the population when $\lfloor 10(2r-0.3)\rfloor \le 0$, which holds for $r<0.2$, a 20% chance, though the remark beside it says 15%. hamurabi/plague

Value: 0.2

The roll is made at the end of a year and applied at the next report, after the arrivals join. Q starts at 1 (BASIC 110), so the first report never has a plague. DEC's 1975 printing has the same formula and the same remark (p. 129, lines 541–542).

Cited by: Hamurabi

Everyone not fed dies, and the population becomes the number fed; a surplus kills no one and the population stays. hamurabi/starvation

Cited by: Hamurabi

Starving more than 45% of the population in one year gets the ruler impeached and ends the game. hamurabi/impeachment

Value: 0.45

Cited by: Hamurabi

A year with food to spare skips the update of the average starvation rate $P_1$, so the next update counts that year at the old average instead of 0%. hamurabi/average-skip

Starve 20% in year 1 and overfeed for nine years, and P1 stays 20: the final rating calls the term heavy-handed. Feeding exactly enough (P = C) does run 553 with D = 0. DEC's 1975 printing has the same lines (p. 129, 550–555).

Cited by: Hamurabi

A term is 10 years of decisions; the 11th report ends the game with the rating. hamurabi/term

Value: 10 years

Cited by: Hamurabi

The final rating tests the average yearly share starved, $P_1$, and the acres per person, $L$, against three pairs of limits, and the first pair the ruler fails sets the verdict. hamurabi/rating

[
 {
  "verdict": "impeached",
  "starvedOver": 33,
  "acresUnder": 7
 },
 {
  "verdict": "smacks of Nero and Ivan IV",
  "starvedOver": 10,
  "acresUnder": 9
 },
 {
  "verdict": "could have been somewhat better",
  "starvedOver": 3,
  "acresUnder": 10
 },
 {
  "verdict": "a fantastic performance"
 }
]

Over 33% or under 7 acres: impeached. Over 10% or under 9: Nero and Ivan IV. Over 3% or under 10: "somewhat better", with a random count of people who would like to see you assassinated. Otherwise: Charlemagne, Disraeli, and Jefferson. The city starts at 10 acres per person.

Cited by: Hamurabi

Ahl's BASIC still sets C to 0 after a land trade and to 1 after feeding, values nothing reads before the next dice roll overwrites C, because in Dyment's FOCAL those lines reset the steward's patience. hamurabi/vestigial-c

Cited by: Hamurabi

Ahl's steward answers an impossible order with "THINK AGAIN" and asks again as often as needed, and only a negative number ends the game. hamurabi/retry

Cited by: Hamurabi

DEC's 1975 printing of the listing has the same rules and constants as the 1978 edition, except that its seed check, INT(D/2)<S, refuses a planting that would use the last bushel. hamurabi/editions

The 1975 printing is the third; the first, July 1973, wasn't available to compare. Dyment's FOCAL check (I (FITR(D/2)-S-1)4.65, f0005.fc line 32) allows the last bushel, as 1978 does.

Cited by: Hamurabi

Dyment's FOCAL program starts from the state Ahl kept, 95 people with 5 arriving, 1,000 acres, and 2,800 bushels after a 3,000-bushel harvest at 3 per acre and 200 lost to rats. hamurabi/focal-start

Cited by: Hamurabi

Dyment's land costs 17 plus a roll of 1 to 5, so 18 to 22 bushels per acre, which matches his write-up's average of "one acre for 20 bushels of grain". hamurabi/focal-land-price

{
 "min": 18,
 "max": 22
}

The scanned listing prints line 03.10 as "D 6;D -;S Y=C+17"; the transcription has "D 8". Ahl's BASIC widens the range to 17–26 (land-price).

Cited by: Commodity trading, Hamurabi

Dyment's program has no term or rating, and after each report it asks whether to continue. hamurabi/focal-continue

Cited by: Hamurabi

Starvation in Dyment's program only kills, and no number of deaths ends the game. hamurabi/focal-no-impeachment

Cited by: Hamurabi

Dyment's plague halves the population when $\lfloor 10\cdot |\mathrm{FRAN}()|\rfloor =0$. hamurabi/focal-plague

One chance in 10 if FRAN() is uniform; the write-up says FOCAL's FRAN() is "not adequate" for the game and prints a patch.

Cited by: Hamurabi

Dyment's steward has a patience counter, C, and when an impossible order finds it below zero, "HAMURABI HAS GONE ON STRIKE" and the game ends. hamurabi/focal-patience

C starts each year at 1 (03.20), so the third impossible order in a row ends the game; a land trade sets it to 0 and feeding back to 1. A negative answer ends the game at once (7.2).

Cited by: Hamurabi

Ahl's BASIC keeps Dyment's rules for seed, the harvest, rats, arrivals, and food, down to the arrivals formula $c(20A+S)/P/100+1$. hamurabi/focal-same-rules

Ahl rounds the rats' share down (INT(S/C)), where FOCAL keeps the fraction. The differences that matter are elsewhere: the price range, the plague odds, the tending check, the 10-year term, impeachment, and the rating.

Cited by: Hamurabi

Dyment's DECUS listing already spells the steward's name HAMURABI, with one m. hamurabi/spelling

Disputed: Ahl's 1978 note says "somewhere along the line an m was dropped out of the spelling of Hammurabi in the Ahl version of the computer program" (ahl-1978-basic-computer-games, p. 78). Richard Moss writes that the m was dropped "in order to fit an eight-character naming limit" (moss-2015-city-building-games). DEC's 1973 book files the program as HMRABI.

Cited by: Hamurabi

Dyment's steward opens each year with "I BEG TO REPORT", and The Sumerian Game reported spoiled grain with "Sir: I am sorry to report". hamurabi/report-line

Kate Willaert drew this connection; Ahl's line 215 reads "HAMURABI: I BEG TO REPORT TO YOU,".

Cited by: Hamurabi

The DECUS listing opens with the line C-FOCAL , 8/68. hamurabi/focal-header

No source read here says whether 8/68 dates the FOCAL interpreter or the program.

Cited by: Hamurabi

DECUS's November 1969 catalog lists The Sumer Game, FOCAL-5, by Doug Dyment of Digital Equipment of Canada, "a simulation program/game which will run on a minimal PDP-8 system". hamurabi/decus-1969

Cited by: Commodity trading, Hamurabi

Kate Willaert reports that the game was printed as King of Sumeria in DEC's Focal-8 Demonstration Programs in July 1970, and that Dyment wrote a much more compact revision a year or so after the DECUS version. hamurabi/focal8-demo-1970

Cited by: Hamurabi

Wikidata's item for Hamurabi also covers Dyment's FOCAL program, under the aliases The Sumer Game and King of Sumeria, and gives 1969 as its year. hamurabi/wikidata-1969

The catalog row also lists the aliases "The Sumer Game" and "King of Sumeria", and the HP 3000 as its platform.

Cited by: Hamurabi

DECUS's June 1968 catalog lists no FOCAL programs, and its one program by Dyment is a Sentence Generator (8-112). hamurabi/decus-1968

Cited by: Hamurabi

Richard Moss dates The Sumer Game to 1968, on a PDP-8 in FOCAL. hamurabi/moss-1968

The article cites no source for the year.

Cited by: Hamurabi

Ahl's source note in the DEC book says the FOCAL program "has been floating around DIGITAL for nine or more years". hamurabi/ahl-nine-years

Disputed: Nine years before the first printing (July 1973) is 1964, the year of The Sumerian Game's dated printout. The earliest dated listing of Dyment's program found is November 1969 (decus-1969).

Cited by: Hamurabi

DEC's printing of the listing opens with a remark that it was "converted from the original FOCAL program and modified for EduSystem 70 by David Ahl, Digital". hamurabi/focal-remark

Cited by: Hamurabi

Ahl's 1978 note says the program was "originally written in Focal at DEC; author unknown", and that he converted it to BASIC and added the 10-year performance assessment. hamurabi/ahl-added-term

Cited by: Hamurabi

DEC's 101 BASIC Computer Games, first printed in July 1973, includes the game as HMRABI, "Govern the ancient city-state of Sumeria". hamurabi/book-1973

Cited by: Hamurabi

Creative Computing's 1978 BASIC Computer Games, converted to Microsoft BASIC by Steve North, prints the game as "Hammurabi" on pages 78 and 79. hamurabi/book-1978

The page heading reads "Hammurabi"; the program still prints HAMURABI.

Cited by: Hamurabi

Doug Dyment, then at DEC in Canada, told Kate Willaert he wrote the game, which he titled King of Sumeria, as a demonstration program after a graduate student at a university in Alberta described The Sumerian Game to him. hamurabi/dyment-origin

Cited by: Hamurabi, The Sumerian Game

Hamurabi descends from The Sumerian Game through Dyment's FOCAL Sumer Game, which Ahl converted to BASIC, and which Dyment based on a description of The Sumerian Game. hamurabi/lineage

Cited by: Hamurabi, The Sumerian Game

Ahl's 1973 book introduces King as one of the "land and resource management games" and tells newcomers to "start with HMRABI". hamurabi/ahl-land-management

Cited by: Hamurabi

Joachim Froholt writes that Hamurabi "is considered a foundational pillar in the strategy genre and an ancestor of today's city-building and empire-management games". hamurabi/froholt-strategy

Froholt's next sentence hedges: "it would be unwise to say that these genres wouldn't have existed in anything like their current form without Hamurabi".

Cited by: Hamurabi

Historian Andrea Contato says others used Hamurabi as inspiration for derivative games, and that the city and empire management genre that followed led "to titles like SimCity and eventually Civilization, much later". hamurabi/contato-derivatives

Contato names no specific derivative of Hamurabi in this passage.

Cited by: Hamurabi

Fraser Brown's history of the strategy game calls Hamurabi "a strategy precursor". hamurabi/brown-precursor

The ’60s date belongs to The Sumer Game, not Ahl's BASIC version.

Cited by: Hamurabi

Richard Moss calls The Sumer Game "the first computer game to concern itself with matters of city building and management". hamurabi/moss-city-building

Moss's word; the atlas says "earliest known". The article doesn't mention The Sumerian Game, which is earlier (sumerian-game/project).

Cited by: Hamurabi

Jerry Pournelle used Hammurabi as a yardstick for later strategy games, calling M.U.L.E. "a cross between Hammurabi, Diplomacy, and an arcade game" in 1984 and Anacreon "a kind of super Hammurabi" in 1989. hamurabi/pournelle

Pournelle compares; he doesn't say either game was derived from Hammurabi. In 1989 he adds that "Half the people I know wrote a Hammurabi program back in the 1970s".

Cited by: Hamurabi

Richard Moss counts George Blank's Santa Paravia and Fiumaccio (1978) as the most notable of the "expanded versions" of The Sumer Game that kept "the same core systems". hamurabi/santa-paravia

About: Q3949220

Blank's own article (SoftSide 1, no. 3, December 1978) doesn't mention Hamurabi. Moss gives the game as Apple II, but SoftSide printed it for the TRS-80.

Cited by: Hamurabi

Walter Bright says he typed in Hamurabi from a book of BASIC listings in high school, expanded it at Caltech under the name King, and turned to Empire when he tired of it. hamurabi/bright-king

Bright names the film Battle of Britain and the board game Risk as Empire's inspirations, not Hamurabi. Empire (1977) has no row in the games catalog.

Cited by: Hamurabi

DECUS's 1978 PDP-8 catalog lists a French "version of HAMURABI (the Sumer Game)" by J. F. Champarnaud and F. H. Bostem of Liège, and RUBEN, "a modification of the 'King of Sumeria' game" by James R. B. Howard II and Jimmie B. Fletcher. hamurabi/decus-variants

Cited by: Hamurabi