EIA v1.26.03 Beta Hotfix #6 Available

[pzgndr]

The Russian land AI appears to be in an infinite loop.

Well that didn't take long. LOL. So AI Russia was trying to defend St Petersburg, but didn't control it and didn't have forces in range and Moscow was threatened. I made so adjustments and it works now. This is another case of doing something good (protecting the alternate capital) without me carefully considering all of the possible situations. I'm kinda surprised Russia hasn't surrendered yet; I need to investigate that. Thanks for another good game save.

I reposted Hotfix #6. So you and whoever else got the first one need to re-download.

[AndrewV]

Thanks for the quick fix.

Regarding Russia not having surrendered yet, I only declared war that turn. My memory of playing face to face was that the turn order allowed someone to surrender the same turn as the declaration of war, but I'm pretty sure the Matrix version requires you to wait till the next month.

[pzgndr]

Regarding Russia not having surrendered yet, I only declared war that turn. My memory of playing face to face was that the turn order allowed someone to surrender the same turn as the declaration of war, but I'm pretty sure the Matrix version requires you to wait till the next month.

Probably so. But this has me reconsidering St. Petersburg with regard to surrender. The rules impose certain penalties for St. Petersburg occupied by unbesieged enemy factors: no money collection, no trade, PSA -1. Ok. But, I'm thinking that peace conditions B.7 and C.4 restrictions that ceded provinces may not contain the losing major power's capital city should also include St. Petersburg for Russia. Otherwise, enemy control of Karelia province as you had in your game deprives Russia of any meaningful post-surrender recovery during enforced peace. Not very sporting, eh?

I'll continue to treat both Russian capitals as-is for surrender calculations but won't try AI counter-attacks on St. Petersburg, just Moscow. And I'll make a game change for those surrender conditions.

I'm hopeful that future games with the fixes I've made will challenge a human France moreso that you were challeneged. If not, then I'm open to suggestions for making hardai tougher than it is. I've made a note about Spain massing its entire army on the border with Gibraltar rather than France. I think the Lille Crossing is problematic for both AI France and AI Great Britain which is why I recommend not using that option unless both players are human; just too risky and allows too much recklessness. But, yeah, I'd like to make the AI brilliant but that's unlikely to happen. Best for players to find a difficulty level they are comfortable with. And if Hard AI isn't tough enough, then handicap yourself by delaying things or holding some forces back or somethiing. Like we do with all other computer games when the AI isn't up to speed. Like the AH Third Reich PC game that I still occasionally play...

[pzgndr]

Regarding Russia not having surrendered yet, I only declared war that turn. My memory of playing face to face was that the turn order allowed someone to surrender the same turn as the declaration of war, but I'm pretty sure the Matrix version requires you to wait till the next month.

Probably so. But this has me reconsidering St. Petersburg with regard to surrender. The rules impose certain penalties for St. Petersburg occupied by unbesieged enemy factors: no money collection, no trade, PSA -1. Ok. But, I'm thinking that peace conditions B.7 and C.4 restrictions that ceded provinces may not contain the losing major power's capital city should also include St. Petersburg for Russia. Otherwise, enemy control of Karelia province as you had in your game deprives Russia of any meaningful post-surrender recovery during enforced peace. Not very sporting, eh?

I'll continue to treat both Russian capitals as-is for surrender calculations but won't try AI counter-attacks on St. Petersburg, just Moscow. And I'll make a game change for those surrender conditions.

I'm hopeful that future games with the fixes I've made will challenge a human France moreso that you were challeneged. If not, then I'm open to suggestions for making hardai tougher than it is. I've made a note about Spain massing its entire army on the border with Gibraltar rather than France. I think the Lille Crossing is problematic for both AI France and AI Great Britain which is why I recommend not using that option unless both players are human; just too risky and allows too much recklessness. But, yeah, I'd like to make the AI brilliant but that's unlikely to happen. Best for players to find a difficulty level they are comfortable with. And if Hard AI isn't tough enough, then handicap yourself by delaying things or holding some forces back or something. Like we do with all other computer games when the AI isn't up to speed. Like the AH Third Reich PC game that I still occasionally play...

[AndrewV]

Yeah reading the rules I'm not sure I should have been allowed to take Karelia as part of a surrender, unless I already controlled every non-capital province.

When we played face to face we always played with the optional rule that limited major powers to never losing more than three home nation provinces total. (The rule technically only applies to major powers with players, but I think we would have applied it to all major powers without anyone noting the limitation). That might be something to think about implementing to prevent AI powers from being reduced to too tiny a rump.

Bugs

Spain just shipped corps from Tangier to Cadiz, despite not owning Cadiz (and without having access). Attached are the autosaves from both the French Naval phase before Spain's Naval phase, and the French Land phase after Spain's Land phase. It seems it isn't the first time, since their troops were also moved out in Jan.

Screenshot 2024-07-18 031654.png (457.03 KiB) Viewed 324 times

I also expect you are aware of the phantom corps markers that are often displayed in the corps display after the real corps markers. It's not a new bug, they were present in the release version many years ago. But I've never seen quite this many French first corps. Any idea how fixable this is?

Screenshot 2024-07-18 020230.png (20.67 KiB) Viewed 324 times

Edit:

I've also been noticing odd movement paths for corps adjacent to water for most of this game, without actually bothering to open the AAR option and screenshot the actual path the unit took. As far as I can remember it has never allowed me to move anywhere I could not have reached normally, but mentioning anyway.

Screenshot 2024-07-18 033420.png (363.68 KiB) Viewed 320 times

Thanks Bill for your work on Empire in Arms.

[pzgndr]

Thanks Bill for your work on Empire in Arms.

You're welcome. And thank you for the feedback. It helps!

I fixed the AI Spain move to Cadiz; it needed a check to verify Spain controls Cadiz or else it will now look for the nearest home port. Fixed for the next hotfix. I don't know about the odd land movement path glitch. I've wrestled with the pathfinding some and it works better than before. All I can say is that it's a valid move so I'm not going to worry about this one too much. As for the phantom corps, I tried figuring out where they come from but could not. I did expand the unit grid to display more corps since one player was maxing out a stack and got problems. You look like you're getting close to the new limit (30) so beware. Again, I wrestled with this and it works better so I'm not going to worry about it.

I like the comment about AI not losing more than three home nation provinces total. And I think one max per surrender victor would also help. So, for example, during the first war with Austria, France could take one, and during a second war France and Turkey could both take one each, for a maximum of three that Austria would lose.

[AndrewV]

Yeah I did hit the 30 corps/area limit, (and the garrison limit as well), but it is not like I needed all those corps following Napoleon around.

Regarding the each major power can only lose 3 home nation corps provinces, I have mixed feelings. Face to face it makes a lot of sense, since a player who is reduced to a tiny rump will lose interest and stop playing. That is a major problem when games run many months. When playing by email, that is perhaps slightly mitigated by the ability to replace that player with an AI.

However when I'm playing alone against the computer, I'm in a conquer the world mindset, and want to dominate the world as much as possible. (I'm always that way when I play grand strategy games). If I wanted to, I could easily handicap myself by restricting myself from taking more than 3 territories (or even limiting myself to 1, or perhaps limiting myself to only picking from the conditional peace conditions).

Even play by email, you could probably add that optional rule as a house rule, and just ask everybody to respect it when setting surrender terms. (I haven't played EiA play-by-email, but I'm guessing the host could ask everybody to resend their diplomatic turn if somebody forget, and took territory that they shouldn't, otherwise isn't there an option for the host to be able to edit the game state?)

Anyway my game as France is now finished, and I'm contemplating whether I start a new game as someone else, or play another game for a while.

[pzgndr]

However when I'm playing alone against the computer, I'm in a conquer the world mindset, and want to dominate the world as much as possible.

Taking a more "realistic and historically accurate" view of wargames, I am more inclined to make the AI computer opponent as challenging and historical as possible. At least the Hard AI should be most challenging. Players can always opt for lesser difficulty levels if they want to play "beat the AI" into submission. I suspect there will still be weaknesses to be exploited. In the meantime, there are AI bonuses as discussed elsewhere and I think I've fixed the gaps in Hotfix #6. I am proceeding with the Restriction On Territorial Losses rule for the AI only; human players can agree on house rules. Now, when I speak of "realistic and historically accurate" with regard to Empires in Arms and its abstractions, I think we can agree on overall combat results being fairly realistic (e.g., a 2:1 battle should usually be won but sometimes not) and the balance of power between the Major Powers (i.e., money, manpower, OOBs, etc.) is more or less historically accurate such that overall game results are fairly believeable. Not perfectly exact, of course, but a good game should be a learning experience and not an exercise in fantasy. Anyways, you and others may still conquer the world if you wish, but IMHO a good Napoleonic wargame or WWII wargame should reflect the early rising tides of the Grande Armee or Nazi Wehrmacht aggressors and then later the "high water mark" and eventual pushback by the Allies. Just a thought.

Alright, not seeing any more reported issues over a quiet three-day weekend (Thank You!!), I plan to proceed with a longer playtest this week with hotfix #6. If any game issues or AI weaknesses get reported, I will deal with those. I also want to shift gears and look at a couple of minor improvements to the PBEM Admin Menu. Then, maybe late this week or next week, I'll post another v1.26.04 version as (hopefully) a pre-release candidate and see how that goes. That's the plan...