Pending Update

[lancer]

Hi,

Here's a heads up on a number of bug fixes that I've done to address the important outstanding matters on the list. I've sent the files to Vic and it's up to him to when he rolls out an update but I'd imagine it won't be too long before they'd be a Matrix Beta version out there. Steam version? Can't say.

You'll know if you're using the latest as it'll show 'Version 25' in the Briefing Tab (top left), under 'Config' after you scroll down a touch.

--- Fixes

A bug with the Free SetUp option that allows the German Player a lot more latitude than was intended (lets them incrementally creep their way into Russia while nobody is watching).

Corrected German spelling for all SS Officer Titles

A few minor spelling corrections for Hugo's War Diary.

A tool tip added to the Soviet Intel report to avoid confusion as to what it's referring to.

Tambov and Stalingrad are no longer possible FSB locations which should resolve a couple of issues with AGS and relocating FSB's.

A bug in the big ball of code that determines Victory conditions where, under certain circumstances, a German Decisive Victory is downgraded to a Draw, Advantage Germany. I suspect that this has been the underlying issue of a few previous forum posts that I attributed to a combination of easy game settings. If this has affected you in the past you can officially feel chizzed out of a hard won victory and had best start writing letters to the appropriate historian who will, I'm sure, amend the record to correctly highlight your martial prowess.

Fatigue. It turns out that, while fatigue is only accumulated while slow Divisions are set to a Blitzkrieg posture (correct), it also only applies while in the Blitzkrieg posture (incorrect). If you switch to Sustained Offensive or Defensive postures your slouching, weary, soldaten suddenly spark up and look a lot more alert than they should.

Why has nobody mentioned this before? Full marks to the one honest German out there (whose name I've misplaced) for bringing it my attention. All those others who have noticed it and omitted to mention it (for obvious reasons) can expect a knock on the door during the next full moon, courtesy of High Command. Everybody else can look forward to a more historical, somewhat tougher, Barbarossa experience.


Cheers,
Cameron

[pierreoza]

thx for the support !

[Vic]

Should have thus up for private test early next week!

Best wishes,
Vic

[pierreoza]

ok

[Franciscus]

Feldmarshalls Lancer and Vic, thank you for this game and for continuing support.

I see that one of the bug fixes will make the game tougher for the germans. I thank you, but in reality I did not need it...[:D]

My last campaign, played recklessly and in the end with terrible relations with almost everybody specially the trucks and trains guys, came tantalizing close to victory. I captured Leningrad, Rostov and Kharkov and was a few hexes from Moscow. But then the Blizzard set in and I was subjected to something that I will now name a "reverse Barbarossa" [:'(]. General Winter and the Siberians crushed AGC, encircled and completely wiped out what remained of 2nd, 9th and 4th Army as well as 3rd PG, A few scattered remains of the 2nd PG still held out close to Gomel, cutoff from any supply and the AI proceeded to isolate what remained of AGS and AGN and ended my misery by capturing Konigsberg and the AGN HQ. I was subjected to a serious thrashing and it was fun...[:)]

All along the only thing that I found that did not make sense was my relation with the fuhrer (well, Von Bock, with almost all the AGC destroyed complaining to me about trucks was also laughable). I played nice guy with Hitler all along (followed his plans and always agreed with him in the meetings) and my relations with him were "superb". And they kept at this level even with the destruction of the wehrmacht, the loss of Smolensk, Riga, Kiev, even Brest-Litowsk and while the russian armies were about to capture Warsaw. He apparently kept thinking the best possible about me right until the last turn...

Of course, I can understand that you guys did not expect that such a lousy player as myself would play your game [:D][:D], but nevertheless I will sugest that maybe the relationship between the german player and the man with a funny mustache should be seriously influenced by such catastrophic losses as the ones I suffered.

Great game.[:D]

[lancer]

Hi Franciscus,

Yep, that'd be a useful addition to the game. In fact most decisions could have a deeper set of conditions and triggers in order for them to not appear out of context.

Figuring out even straightforward questions such as 'are you about where you expect to be' isn't easy given the multitude of different variations that an algorithim would need to accomodate in order to pass the human test. You could easily set something up to give a logical answer but while it'd be logical to the computer, they'd be many circumstances when it wasn't to you. It's a fair step up in development time and code sophistication to write something that passes the common sense test.

There's also a limit to what can be realistically achieved given the toolset available and I've probably already banged up against the walls implementing my decision system as it is. There's an awful lot going on under the hood.

It's a tribute, though, to the tremendous flexibility of Vic's DC engine that it was able to bend and flex sufficiently to handle my 'non-standard, out-there' design. I doubt that there would be anything else out there, apart from full programming languages, that could do so.

I sit and wonder occasionally what else you could do with it. Hopefully, one day, somebody will show us.

Who knows what Vic is cooking up with Shadow Empires?

Cheers,
Cameron

[Franciscus]

Ok, understood [;)]

While we are at it: I am now trying for the first time a game as Russia.

It's now end of July (turn 10 or so), and my losses are already more than a million soldiers, and of course many destroyed divisions. Yet when I call up the Intel log, I still get that in all fronts I have lost "zero" HQ and zero divisions. Is this WAD, simulating the breakdown of intel ?

And just one more thing: the russian AI is able to blow bridges, an important but usually overlooked (by me ) aspect of the game. Yet there is apparently no way for a human russian player to do it. Also WAD ?

Regards

[lancer]

Hi Fransciscus,

There was a problem with the Intel system but that was patched a while ago. Are you playing with an older version or perhaps using some of the easier game options?

The Soviet player can indeed blow bridges by moving Zhukov to the nearest HQ and playing the 'Blow Bridge' card provided a Division of that HQ is in a hex where the bridge is (doesn't matter what side of the river).

Cheers,
Cameron

[Franciscus]

ORIGINAL: lancer

Hi Fransciscus,

There was a problem with the Intel system but that was patched a while ago. Are you playing with an older version or perhaps using some of the easier game options?

The Soviet player can indeed blow bridges by moving Zhukov to the nearest HQ and playing the 'Blow Bridge' card provided a Division of that HQ is in a hex where the bridge is (doesn't matter what side of the river).

Cheers,
Cameron

Hi Cameron

I am playing with latest patch (1.03r). Challenging and slow AI, no other options.

Regards

[Philippeatbay]

This probably falls under the rubric of being late to the party, but I've been wondering how one goes about reading through all the diary entries in sequence. Last time I looked it seemed that you could only read the latest diary entry on the turn that it was posted. I thought the point of a diary in real life (tm) was to be able to review the resultant chronicle at some point in the future. (I started to worry about this during a turn in which there were no diary entries, and thought that Hugo might have died an unheralded death, but sure enough, four days later he started scribbling away again).

[lancer]

Hi Franciscus,

If you could send me a save game I'll take a look.

---

Hi Philippe,

Ordinary diaries do work that way but not Hugo's. Heer censors are very strict on this. It's also not a given that Hugo will pen an entry every turn. He's a busy guy, after all.

Cheers,
Cameron

[Franciscus]

Hi Cameron

I posted a saved game in the tech support subforum


Cheers

[lancer]

Hi Fransciscus,

Took a look at your save game and it's working as intended. The Soviet Intel report only shows German losses and, in your case, you haven't yet caused any.

It is a little confusing as to which side it's referring to and I'll add a tool tip in there to make it clearer just as soon as I can figure out how I coded it in the first place. It's been a while.

Cheers,
Cameron

[Franciscus]

ORIGINAL: lancer

Hi Fransciscus,

Took a look at your save game and it's working as intended. The Soviet Intel report only shows German losses and, in your case, you haven't yet caused any.

It is a little confusing as to which side it's referring to and I'll add a tool tip in there to make it clearer just as soon as I can figure out how I coded it in the first place. It's been a while.

Cheers,
Cameron

Thank you, Cameron [&o]