v1.9.4 Beta Update Change List - Update Now Available!

[Erik Rutins]

Thought this would make for good reading while we work on getting the update ready to download. Please read this carefully, there are a number of changes that very significantly change gameplay (for the better).


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forge of Freedom
Compiled Rules Changes for V1.9.4

NOTE: Does not include list of any fixes, just changes to the interface/rules.

== Economy

• Reduced the costs of some units.
• Modified costs of some buildings.
• Victory points for capturing the enemy national capital have been raised to 3.
• When state capital is captured, CSA loses 1 national will, USA loses 2 national will.
• CSA can no longer buy new plantations after it emancipates.
• Training grounds now provide +.2 quality to all newly built units in the same state.
• Banks now yield 1% income per turn (rather than per month.)
• Counterfeiting upgrade now only 33% loss to bank income (instead of -50%).
• When the "Upgrade Weapons" option is off, Runners no longer get Gun resources.
• Winning/losing a decisive battle has a 20% to raise/lower diplomatic support with each European power.
• Cost per each diplomatic spending level is reduced from 10 Money to 8 Money.
• England/France now require 9 diplomatic levels before they will enter the war. The values that control this rule have been added to the Data/AcwConstants.txt file, so that players can mod them if they wish.
• Legendary units now appear for muster/conscript.
• Human players no longer begin the game with garrison units in the following states:
o Connecticut
o Lousiana
o Maine
o Massacheusetts
o Michigan
o Minnesota
o New Hampshire
o Rhode Island
o Vermont
o Wisconsin
• Governors now have a chance to request a building that represents historical development in that state. Each state now has a list of building-types that will not be requested in that state. (Special thanks to Artmiser for compiling this table.)
• Mustering/conscripting in a high-population province is attempted once for every 6 population levels of the province.
• The Espionage II upgrade now allows the USA to see where CSA blockade runner goods are located whenever the USA player has a fleet selected. If the CSA has Espionage II, then the USA may no longer see CSA blockade runner goods.
• Emancipation criteria. The USA can now only emancipate when (a) the South has a total European diplomatic levels of 12 or more, and (b) the USA has a positive victory score for Battles won. The CSA can now only emancipate when (a) the CSA has a total victory score of -6 or less and (b) the CSA has a negative Battles victory score. Emancipation criteria are dropped after 1863.
• Made changes to the weapons data. Added several new types of guns.
• Added "Heavy Dahlgren Guns" Naval upgrade, a pre-requisite for getting the XX-inch Dahlgren Guns.
• Added "Naval Infrastructure I" and "Naval Infrastructure II" upgrades. Each of these decreases the cost of new Ships, Gunboats, and Frigates by 15 Labor.

== Game Options

New game options:
• "Greater Population", "Doubles the population levels of cities."
• "No Time Limit", "The CSA does not receive time-limit related victory points."
• "No European War", "European powers do not declare war."
• "Total Victory", "Doubles the victory requirements required to win the game."
• "Always Instant Combat", "Every battle in the game will be resolved as an instant battle."
• "Randomize Start Dates", "Generals can appear up to 6-months before or after their regular starting date."

== Generals

• Detailed Combat: Units with strength below 1,000 now cannot be rallied by the generals’ special rally.
• Added promotion button to generals' Command Box. Any number of generals may be promoted in a turn this way.
• Demoted generals now have a 50% chance to resign in protest.
• Generals always compacted into stacks even if the "No Compact Stacks" preference is selected.
• On the Military screen we now show number of generals of each rank player currently has.
• In non-remote games, promoting or demoting a general when the "Random Stats" game option is on gives a chance that one or two of the general's stats will randomly increase or decrease by a small amount.
• Now reveals generals' special abilities whenever a general teaches them.
• Fixed bug involving generals’ starting dates and the starting date of the scenario.
• Reduced generals' chance of teaching a special ability from 5%+Leadership Rating^2%/2 to 1%+Leadership Rating^2%/3.
• In Detailed Combat, reduced bonus damage from generals by 50%. Group generals' bonus now applies to all units in group, not just units with generals directly attached.
• Academies no longer determine the number of ranks of generals, except for 5-stars, which now requires 6 Academies. Ranks are now determined by the number of military groups a player has. Academies now train the ratings of a player's military groups; each Academy trains one military group in each of the May turns. Groups with lower ratings are trained before groups with higher ratings. No rating may be trained to be higher than Good.
• Generals can now die more easily in quick battle
• Improved AI assignment of generals
• Added the first 100+ bios from the ongoing project of including a volunteer-written biographical sketch of each Civil War general
• Added historically-based start dates for all generals in database
• Added historically-based teachable “special abilities” for all 100-percenters and 25-percenters
• Added historically-based teachable “special abilities” and Leadership/Tactics/Initiative/Command/Cavalry ratings for all generals for whom bios have been written
• Have changed database so that only generals who actually commanded cavalry at the rank of brigadier general or higher have cavalry ratings
• In the November scenarios now have some generals starting in the province that corresponds to their actual locations in November 1861
• Generals all now come in as 1-stars, unless specially designated to hold their historical rank at the beginning of a scenario.
• Have added a small group of “18-percenters,” who show up twice as frequently as 9-percenters
• Generals can now increase a subordinate unit's quality, based on their Leadership

== Sieges

• Units cannot besiege if they are below 1/3rd their maximum strength. Such units neither deal damage nor receive damage in siege combat.
• Siege artillery now properly filtered on Military Advisor.
• Players can now only have one siegeworks per province.
• Now can deal damage to attacking siege artillery in siege combat.
• Units that are damaged during a siege gain Quality as if they had fought in a battle.
• Players can now choose type of siege when creating a siegeworks.
• Now easier to besiege cities: besieging units do twice as much damage as they did previously and the defenders no longer get any defensive bonus. Furthermore, besiegers do an additional 0-30% damage to a besieged city's defenses each turn.
• Siege artillery can no longer initiate battles
• Siege artillery no longer takes up space within military groups.
• Increased siege damage and rates of all sieges. Fixed siege damage display bug.
• Gunboats now participate in bombard attacks (according to rules as if they were artillery.)

== Naval

• Increased chance that ships sink blockade runners.
• Amphibious invasions that are defeated will now retreat to the nearest friendly port as long as there is a friendly fleet adjacent to them when they are defeated

== Disease

• Added disease-related variables to the Data/AcwConstants.txt file.
• A brigade with a Medical Attribute now lowers disease losses by 20% for all units directly attached to the same military group or fort; brigades with two Medical Attributes lower disease losses by 40%. This supercedes the old rule under which the Medical Attribute reduced disease losses by 50% only for the brigade with the attribute.
• Strategic supply now reduces losses from disease; every level of strategic supply reduces base disease casualties by 5%. Units at zero strategic supply, however, take 50% more casualties from disease.
• Disease casualties penalty from swamps increased from 10% to 25%.
• Base disease casualties reduced from a Gaussian distribution around 15% to a Gaussian distribution around 11%.
March Attrition
• March attrition, chance of lowering disposition has been increased from 5% to 6.25%; this chance is now doubled while force-marching to 13%.
• Loss from march attrition is now dependent on disposition:
o Rebellious: Loss is 10%
o Disorganized: Loss is 5%
o Low: Loss is 2.5%
o Normal: Loss is 1.25%
o Inspired: Loss is .83%
o Zealous: Loss is .5%

== Attributes

• Can now purchase scouts for cavalry
• Can now purchase medical for cavalry and artillery.

== Strength

A disbanded brigade will spread its men to all brigades in the same military group, both when voluntarily disbanded and when below minimum strength. Quality of units receiving strength is modified using the same formula given in the Technical

Appendix for units receiving reinforcements from Camps. Artillery and Cavalry receive only 1/3 the regular number of strength factors.

== Reinforcements (Replacements)

• When "Advanced Buildings" option is off, USA now gets base 8,000 reinforcements per turn, CSA gets 4,000.
• Reinforcement rate from camps is now 300+15*Men in Province. If the advanced population rules are on, then this would be the average of the current Men and maximum Men, otherwise it would just be the maximum Men for the province.
• Camps now have a 10% chance to reduce the province's Men by 1 in the Early April turn.
• Cost of camps has been modified: now costs fewer horses and more money.

== Interface

• Added filters on the City List for Ironworks and Universities.
• Can now click on names of cities in Cities List to open City Details for the clicked city.
• Added options to show attributes/specials for units in the Attachment Box.
• Added "no choice now" option to upgrade selection screen
• Added battle history and battle animation replay to statistics screen.
• Added report on total casualties/kills of all units from the Overview screen.
• Upon winning/losing the game the player now has a chance to review the Overview screen.
• If player clicks on a province that is different than the province of any currently selected unit(s), clear all selection and select new unit.
• Show places in city list that can't muster/conscript with dashed line.
• F2-F8 Keys now open the advisor screens from the Strategic Map.
• Reasons for failed movements are now recorded in units' history reports. Added history report to military groups.
• The gun purchasing menu now has a column that shows the quick combat value for guns, where appropriate.
• Added new can't-put-into-container mouse cursor for strategic map.

== Military Groups

• Increase the value of randomly generated US military group Logistical Staff ratings.

== Quality

• Brigades now always receive some Quality increase after battle (unless their quality is too high). If they fail to receive

the Quality increase specified in the manual, then they will still receive 1/4 of that amount.
• Brigades that have a total combat/siege casualties caused/sustained of 5,000 now qualify for one randomly selected special

ability. Brigades with a total of 8,000 casualties qualify for an additional ability.
• Legendary units created at the start of the game now receive a +1.0 Quality boost.

== Detailed/Quick Battles

• Military groups set to "Avoid Battle" will no longer be called by Instant Battle and PBEM Quick Battle as reinforcements.
• Added an “After Battle Report” showing damages, quality gain, effects of generals, and so forth.
• Combat retreat prefer to retreat to city if possible
• Naval evacuations. If a player loses a battle in a province adjacent to a friendly fleet, and there are no other valid retreat locations by land, then the player's units will retreat to the nearest friendly unblockaded port province. Brigades evacuating lose all strategic supply and have their disposition reduced to Disorganized.
• Detailed combat preferences are now saved/loaded between games.
• Units now receive quality increases after small battles, though at 1/4 of the normal rate.

== Quick Battle

• Reduced damage cap and lowered pursuit losses.
• Defender now has slightly higher morale check bonus in quick combat.
• Forts now only provide defensive bonuses for quick battle for players who own both the province containing the fort and the fort itself.
• Increased the defender’s morale check advantage.
• Now displays battle location and size at the top of quick combat.
• Added attribute/special ability information to unit popup information.
• Decreased artillery damage modifier in Quick Combat.

== Detailed Combat

• Restore to command now does not consume a use when clicking on a unit already in-command.
• Moved starting positions of supply caissons back
• Sound effects should be less repetitious now
• Added Detailed Combat option always to show blinking star for out-of-command units.
• Now no AI bonus field fortifications in detailed combat below the difficulty level of Major. At the difficulty level of Major, the chance of the AI getting bonus field fortifications is 15%; this increases by 12% per difficulty level above Major. AI still has a chance for bonus field fortifications after it has developed the Hasty Entrenchment upgrades.
• Changed the key to cancel "quickly resolve detailed combat" from spacebar to 'x'.
• Disordered/routed units now do less damage in return-fire.
• The modifiers to a unit's morale in detailed combat (such as Disposition, Home Territory bonus, game difficulty level, etc.) now can neither reduce a unit's starting detailed combat morale below 50% of its level of Quality nor raise it above 1.0+150% of its level of Quality. For instance, a unit with a base Quality of 4.0 cannot have a detailed combat morale modified below 2.0 nor above 7.0.
• Units in detailed battle can now only be rallied by the "special rally" only once.
• Units in detailed battle can lose no more than 2.0 levels of Morale due to being in threat zones.
• Decreased the frequency with which commanders perform the "special rally"
• Artillery can now only spend up to 4 movement points while still being allowed to fire in the same move; that is, artillery that spend more than 4 points cannot move after firing.
• Failure to deploy skirmishers now only results in the ending of the unit's turn and the loss of the unit's Fresh status instead of making the unit disordered.

== PBEM Replay

PBEM Replay. In PBEM games, after the Movement Phase has been completed, a replay file will be created in the PBEM directory with the following nomenclature: <GAMENAME>_Replay_<TurnNumber>.<sve|rep>. The USA player may load this file, view the replay, and then take his turn in lieu of loading his normal turn file, if he wishes; the CSA player may view this file, but cannot take his turn immediately after viewing this file as the USA player can. When the replay file is loaded, the player will be prompted to choose either the USA or the CSA as the "viewing" player -- a password check will be initiated if players have chosen passwords. Note that the replay file is a PBEM game file, and as such must be loaded from the "Load PBEM" option from the main-screen; attempting to load it in-game will result in an attempt to convert the file to a single-player game format.

Should now be able to load PBEM replays from within the game (*please test*). Loading PBEM replay during an m-player game will fail with an error message.

In PBEM games, the AI now has to pick options for partisans and raiders in order for the replay file to work properly.

[PaulWRoberts]

Thought this would make for good reading while we work on getting the update ready to download

Does this mean what I think it means???

[:)]

[LarryP]

So Erik, what have you been doing with all your spare time? [:'(]

[Erik Rutins]

A little of this, a little of that... [8D]

One more thing to add to the list - my personal advice... this is NOT the same AI you are used to. It will probably kick new players' butts for a while and will certainly make things much more interesting for veteran players than the old one could. Eric did a great job improving it on both the strategic and detailed combat levels.

Regards,

- Erik

[Peever]

List of Changes

Wow is this a patch or an expansion pack?&nbsp; [X(]

Looks like a lot of great changes/updates.&nbsp; Can't wait to try out the new AI too.&nbsp;

[Erik Rutins]

Also, for those reading this - once you have installed and are playing the public beta, I don't want to see any posts regarding game feedback or issues in any forum other than the public beta feedback sub-forum that's just been setup here. It's extremely important for us to be able to keep any public beta issues separate from ongoing questions and issues related to the release version. Thank you for understanding.

[Erik Rutins]

Gentlemen,

Can you hear the guns barking in the distance? March to the sound of the guns! The public beta update is now online!

For instructions, please go here:

tt.asp?forumid=438

[FirstPappy]

Excellent timing for the NYC area. Snow, sleet, hail and rain. Perfect night to download a beta patch!! Thanks guys.

[christof139]

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, it's a big one!!!! [X(]

Will update soon, maybe tonight.

Thanx for the effort!!!

Also, will there be help coming to us modders and our questions to altering a few things in the files?? I always like diddling with stuff to some degree or other, unfortuantley the files diddle back sometimes, befuddling the diddler.

Also, altering PCX sprite files is somehting I only diddled a bit with a long time ago, and I was not too successful because I don't know much about graphics, but some modders can do this easily, but not me. Tis why I like the TS games, as the graphics, both the sprites to some degree and the Unit Panel and Leader's icons to a much greater degree are somewhat easy to modify. I should copy some of the Unit Panel Icon mods I and others have made and use them as avatars. Yup, I'll do that. It will make some people drool.

Anyway, I am glad you all have released this huge upgrade patch for testing, and you certainly have done a whole lot of work and thinking etc.

In the future, some tactical battle scenarios on maps modelled after the actual battlefields would be great. Not to mention the Trans Miss. Theater, oops, I guess I just did, but battles like Pea Ridge, Prarie Grove, Wilson's Creek, Price's Siege and Capture of Lexington, Sabine Crossroads/Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, Yellow Bayou, the Battles at Ft. Bisland and Irish Bend (with Gunboats!! participating), Jenkins Ferry, Poison Springs, Mark's Mill, Honey Springs (maybe), etc. are not to big and a good palce to start with making tactical scenarios. I have scads of info. on the Trans Miss., and would freely contribute info. and time, especially concerning OOBs, weapons, and what nots. "Forget the East, the East is least. Think of the West, it's best in the West." (Repeat 3-times each night before sleeping.)[;)]

Then, when experience is gained in making scenarios by working with these small but very interesting ones in the Trans Miss., think of Murfreesboro. "Forget the East, the East is least. Think of the West, it's best in the West." (Repeat 3-times each night before sleeping.)[;)]

Well, I think I will download the patch and give it a whirl. [:D][:'(][:)]

Thanx again, Chris

[freeboy]

wow, another game to play!

[Greyhunterlp]

You know I expected this.
No dev posts at all on a friday. kinda gave yourselves away

[Jonathan Palfrey]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Thought this would make for good reading while we work on getting the update ready to download. Please read this carefully, there are a number of changes that very significantly change gameplay (for the better).


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forge of Freedom
Compiled Rules Changes for V1.9.4

Thanks for all this! I'm almost afraid to ask, but: will the manual be updated so that it describes the latest version of the game? Otherwise the original manual will be seriously out of date.

[Curious]

In another thread it states that there's going to be a downloadable addendum to the manual.

CB

[christof139]

Long night at the Fronts Comrade Stalin. The new upgrade patch works very well, except I undid the making of a siege gun (takes 10 turns, must change this, too long) and forgot to remake it it so Bragg couldn't attack Pensacola. Poopski. Should start over or maybe I have an early save game to restart at.

The casualties are much more realistic and the casualty mechanics work good.

I noticed the decrease in the amount of resources available to the Blockade Runners too, and like the game with the Legendary Unit choices of 'On' or 'Off'.

Overall, it be smoking!!!

I will still mod weapons types and cost and effectiveness values for them, along with costs of some buildings etc., and maybe some build times.

See you all later, I have to find my Siege Gun, and my glasses, and I hope I don't run into or step on either, respectively.

I ran into an SP 8-inch Howitzer once, it's hard, all that metal and not too mention the noise to boot. [X(][&:][8|][:o][:(]

The game interfaces are really good now. [:)]

Chris[>:][>:][>:][>:][>:]

[desertstorm]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Gentlemen,

Can you hear the guns barking in the distance? March to the sound of the guns! The public beta update is now online!

For instructions, please go here:

tt.asp?forumid=438

can not download the update, get the message "couldn`t connect to host".

[Erik Rutins]

I just checked it again and it's downloading for me, you may want to give it another try.

[desertstorm]

I have try it again, but it is the same Message. I can only download the map poster

[Erik Rutins]

Just to double-check - did you register your game? Are you seeing the beta update in the registered downloads section? Have you tried right clicking on it and doing Save Target As to see if that works better? Have you tried more than one browser?

[LarryP]

I just tried it again and it still works fine here in Nevada. [&:] You got to get this download DesertStorm, it's excellent! [8D]

[desertstorm]

Thank you Erik, there was a error with my star downloader.
A rebel yell on this patch/update