Updated roadmap! A look beyond...

[MarshallEllis]

Hey guys:

A few things to look for in my development! NOTE: The below is subject to change and not final but you should know that there is work to be done and I'm here to do it!

1.08
Simultaneous Diplomacy and Economic in PBEM. YEP, that's right you no longer need wait on your buddy!

1.09
Integrated Email transfer for PBEM. Turn files will auto send when turn is ended.
Integrated ZIP file creation for PBEM. Turn files created in the COMMOUT dir will auto zip! ZIP files placed in the COMMIN folder will auto extract!

1.10
AI improvements for diplomacy. Will try to add some 19th century personality!
AI improvements for military. Will add more code to smarten the combat/military moves.

1.11
IP (Tentative)

[Mardonius]

Great Stuff Marshall. I'd love to see some revised naval rules in here as well, at least as an option.

best
Mardonius

[Skanvak]

Great, thought 1.11 should come before 1.10...

[bresh]

I would, still like to see, options like no-quick combats for single corps. (As mentioned in couple other threads, its very unbalanced).

We still encounter a couple bugs at times, as far as i know, Host-editor cant fix bugs in ongoing games, but require Marshall to fix. This in general is a problem, since maybe someday Marshall moves on, and we are stuck.

In one of my pbm games, one of Turkeys, Anatolia Cav-corps seems to have changed "owner province" to Thrace. (We have no idea when it happend, and to avoid delay, we waiting to get it fixed, till we get another bug).

We also, still miss a several of EIA, options, that where almost 2 years ago, promised to come .


Regards
Brrsh

[Dancing Bear]

While I am ecstatic about sim dip and rein in 1.08. My thoughts on future work beyond 1.08 is there should be a return to the basics, in particular improvements to the interface. I hear a lot of complaints from those new to the game that the game interface is not very intuituve of forgiving. Some improvements along the lines that Larry suggested would help with this aspect, along with a better undo button (or at least a warning when an action can not be undone).

Some minor changes to make the game more EIA like would be good too.

[gazfun]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

Hey guys:

A few things to look for in my development! NOTE: The below is subject to change and not final but you should know that there is work to be done and I'm here to do it!

1.08
Simultaneous Diplomacy and Economic in PBEM. YEP, that's right you no longer need wait on your buddy!

1.09
Integrated Email transfer for PBEM. Turn files will auto send when turn is ended.
Integrated ZIP file creation for PBEM. Turn files created in the COMMOUT dir will auto zip! ZIP files placed in the COMMIN folder will auto extract!

1.10
AI improvements for diplomacy. Will try to add some 19th century personality!
AI improvements for military. Will add more code to smarten the combat/military moves.

1.11
IP (Tentative)

Improvement looks good, let me know when you are testing 1.08, my other tesing requirement are diminishing now, so its getting better for me

[DCWhitworth]

Marshall,

Are any of these updates going to include -

1. Dardanelles movement restrictions (Original rule 6.2.1.3). A crucial, non-optional rule from the boardgame that has been omitted.

2. Adding extra territories to new political combinations. In the case of the Ottoman Empire and Confederation of the Rhine this is compulsory in the board game.

3. The forced access rule. Another compulsory rule (albeit added by errata) that has significant implications but has been omitted.

4. A fix for the 'Too many units' error

[MarshallEllis]

Don't know yet. I will try to add what I can when I can. The four above issues may require a game format change which could obsolete older games so that is a consideration. It may be easier to add all of the above into one major update???

[DCWhitworth]

Well all these issues are long, long overdue for inclusion having been requested pretty much since the game was released.

Could you use the recent idea of parallel installations (for beta testing) as a way of working around this ?

[Skanvak]

DC suggestion is good.

Thought I think that this point is moot as people having ongoing game will either chose to finish the game with the past game version or start a new game. The solution to continue a game with the new version is non existant as it will change lots of parameter that have lead to the current game situation. (imagine an english fleet which enter black sea, and cannot leave due to patch change.

The last point is that you will always have ongoing party so you need to decide a time and implement them. I agree that implementing them all at the same time might be better but the sooner the better (I guess DC will agree).

[MarshallEllis]

ORIGINAL: DCWhitworth

Well all these issues are long, long overdue for inclusion having been requested pretty much since the game was released.

Could you use the recent idea of parallel installations (for beta testing) as a way of working around this ?

I cannot argue that these are overdue but they are some of the most complicated additions/changes. I simply do not have methods of working these yet. BUT yes the separate BETA installations could help here!

[DCWhitworth]

Skanvak makes the point very well here. There will *never* be a good time to make these changes as there will always be ongoing games

These need to be dealt with, and keep getting pushed back because of the difficulties. At some point they need to be looked at seriously, not continually deferred.

[Dancing Bear]

Hi Marshall
are all the changes complicated or are some easy? Can we do the easy ones?

What about some of the other EIA features we could be added? British trainning, Napoleon's decreased ratings with time, increase to Prussian tactial corps rating in 1810, voluntary fleet scuttling, restrictions on territorial losses, adding manpower to vp totals at the end of the game, limits to number of corps supplied by depots, and likely a few others. Are any of these relatively easy to implement?

I'd also push for improvements suggested by Larry in other posts (and by a few others) to make the game much more intuitive, particularly for the beginners.

[Spartan07]

Great work Marshall. For me whatever we can do to increase the game speed in Pbem has my priority. I see you have some plans to automate email trun sending. It would be really nice to be able to control click on all the countries you wish to send a diplo message to. t the moment we can do one at a time or all. Along with all the other nice things eveyone works.
 
Getting closer all the time and still having fun along the way.
 
Thanks,
 
Mike

[Dancing Bear]

I think for PBEM speed improvements, we down to the following options

1. A land phase skipping
2. Option to delay cav reinforcements a month
3. Ability to roll calendar forward over several months to skip a season
4. No file exchange for seige battles
5. Option to have battles completed on opponents computer (i.e. no file exchange after chits are selected, useful for battles where reinforcement and guard commitments are not required, with pre-set pursuit selected).
6. Trival battles

[gazfun]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

Hey guys:

A few things to look for in my development! NOTE: The below is subject to change and not final but you should know that there is work to be done and I'm here to do it!

1.08
Simultaneous Diplomacy and Economic in PBEM. YEP, that's right you no longer need wait on your buddy!

1.09
Integrated Email transfer for PBEM. Turn files will auto send when turn is ended.
Integrated ZIP file creation for PBEM. Turn files created in the COMMOUT dir will auto zip! ZIP files placed in the COMMIN folder will auto extract!

1.10
AI improvements for diplomacy. Will try to add some 19th century personality!
AI improvements for military. Will add more code to smarten the combat/military moves.

1.11
IP (Tentative)

I dont want to seem to be pushing the barow all the time, but is there going to be reinforcements enabled in the Third Party Combat system, somewhere here [:)]
[:D]

[pzgndr]

Mantis has an unused Roadmap feature?  Maybe Marshall and Del could start grouping issues together for future versions, at least the next 2 or 3 out.  These would be estimates of course, but it would be helpful to see a bigger picture than just a couple of bullets.  The v1.08 change log already has a couple dozen resolved issues besides just #68 Simultaneous Diplomacy and Economic in PBEM.

[MarshallEllis]

I could do that but my changes forecast change so much . At the moment I am very dynamic in what I am adding and when. I'm afraid that If I did do this it would not be very accurate!

[Sorta]

I second (or third) the focus on PBM speed issues - Simultaneous Diplomacy and Economic would be a significant improvement.

I realise that there are many other requests but speed seems to me to be a priority over gameplay improvements as the game is playable and fun right now.

Thanks for continually improving the game.

[MarshallEllis]

Thanks Sorta! That is still our focus for 1.08! I realize that the AI needs some help but I don't want the builds to get too big which increases testing time and slows our release rate!