08.02.00.00 Official Update Now Available!

[MaximKI]

Hello everyone,

We're happy to announce that 08.02.00.00 is now out as an official update. We expect this to be the final update for World in Flames. Thank you for your interest and support of the game for all these years!

You can download it from the 'File Downloads" section of your registered game in your My Page tab on the Matrix website or by clicking this link: HERE

To properly install this update, please make sure you have the game already installed on your system, as this is not a complete game install package.

Here is the changelog:

What's New in v08.02.00.00

Peace
- Removed the request for whether a player wants to liberate a country that has already been liberated. This unfortunately occurred when Italy had already been liberated and the program lost track of that fact.

Supply
- Fixed a problem where the program was not checking for secondary supply sources from all cooperating major powers. This would occur at times when the US was looking for supply for its land units and Commonwealth HQs, which were viable supply sources, were not being found (the search was erroneously terminated early).

What's New in v08.00.00.00

Peace
- Fixed a problem where if a player has multiple major powers which are eligible to surrender, the program permits the player to decide about them one at a time. Previously, the player was only able to decide about the first one in the list. This comes up when the Axis is doing very well and the Allied side has to decide whether or not to surrender China and/or the USSR.

Production Planning
- Fixed a problem where the City Based Volunteers for Germany were not available during the Production phase of the first turn of the Global War scenario. They can now be built at no cost to arrive at the start of the second turn: Vienna and Bratislavia militia.
- Enabled Vichy France to send build points to the major power that declared Vichy France (typically, Germany). This is only possible once Vichy France is Hostile to an Allied major power.
- Added a check so the major power receiving a build point is always changed from the value of None when the player uses the capability to change the receiving major power.

AI Opponent Mode of Play
- Made numerous small changes to the AI Opponent code so the AIO plays a better game.

What's New in v07.00.01.00

Initiative
1. Corrected a newly created bug in processing the Who Moves First decision where if the side with the initiative decided to NOT move first, the game still had the side with the initiative moving first.

Air Operations
2. Fixed a bug where A-bombs could only load onto strategic bombers. Now they can load onto transports and surface combat ships.
3. Fixed a bug in air-to-air combat (for the solitaire mode of play) where if the defending side decides to abort and has both carrier and land based air units, the program would stop after all defending air units were return to base - instead of continuing on through the sequence of play.
4. Fixed a bug where the “Return from Whence” hex was not being set for air units that flew naval air support missions.

Land Operations
5. Fixed a bug where the flag for invading units was not cleared prior to the Use Oil phase. Now any corps sized units that paradropped or invaded in the last turn of an impulse exert a ZOC into adjacent hexes.
6. Fixed a problem with counting Foreign Troop Commitment in France where Metropolitan Vichy France hexes were not being considered part of France.

Peace
7. Added code to the Restore Saved Game routine to remove all trade agreements referencing Free France when France has been completely conquered.
8. Removed the Iraq trade agreement from the list of trade agreements when a game is restored if Iraq is aligned or conquered. Note that when a minor country is conquered, internally to MWIF it is technically ‘neutral’.

AI Opponent Mode of Play
9. For the AI Opponent, fixed a newly created problem where the program wasn’t starting the Barbarossa scenario - halting at the setup phase for the USSR.

What's New in v07.00.00.00

Important Note: A substantial amount of the code for the AI Opponent (AIO) has been written and is in beta testing. The most recent changes to the code for the AIO are listed at the end of these release notes. While actually playing against the AIO is only available to the beta testers, the code changes for the AIO are shown here to inform all players that most of the routines supporting the 60 game phases and the 90+ subphases and sub-subphases have been modified with branching logic for the additional mode of play. Hopefully those changes won’t affect the other modes of play.

All Modes of Play
1. Added MadExcept to the list of Conditional Defines for all versions (current and future). This change now enables sending Mad Except bug reports to Matrix.com (where they are forwarded to me - Steve Hokanson). Removed DEBUG2 from the list of Conditional Defines for Release version 7.0.0.0.
Initiative
2. Fixed a newly created bug (December 2021) with setting the initiative at the start of a new game.

Air Operations
3. Cleared the Kamikaze flag for all units not on the map when a saved game is restored. Previously, the flag would remain set, even if the kamikaze air unit was rebuilt.
4. Fixed a small problem with undoing an air rebase of an air unit that is not a carrier air unit.

Supply
5. Fixed a supply issue with finding a path for a tertiary supply source to a secondary supply source where the secondary supply source was tracing an overland path to a primary supply source.
6. Fixed an old supply problem with finding supply for tertiary supply sources (usually the capitals of aligned minor countries) which occurred after the program found a path to a valid secondary supply source and it keep searching for a ’better’ supply source, thereby causing an infinite loop. The program is now happy with finding one valid supply source and stops looking for another one.
7. Added code to initialize the status of whether a secondary supply source had found a tertiary supply path. Without this initialization at the beginning of the search for supply, a flag was being set randomly so that sometimes the program worked correctly and other times it would not even attempt to find a path from a secondary supply source (which could not reach a primary supply source) to another secondary supply source which was in supply. One aspect of this oddness was a saved game would restore with all supply paths found and correct, while recalculating supply during play would cause the tertiary path to not be found, leaving some HQs and minor city capitals incorrectly out of supply.

Peace
8. Fixed a problem with liberating a Commonwealth country where the question about returning control of the liberated country’s hexes to the original owner was not being asked.

Production Planning
9. Made a game specific repair for a damaged red factory in Lyons. This usually becomes relevant after Vichy France has been collapsed.
10. Added code to restoring saved games to fix a potential problem where Spain does not send a non-oil resource to the Axis major power controlling Paris - while Spain is neutral.
11. Added code make sure that the Iraqi trade agreement to send an oil point to the major power that controls Syria exists. When Vichy France was declared, this trade agreement was sometimes being deleted.
12. Made yet another change to satisfying the NEI trade agreements.
13. Removed all existing code for fulfilling the NEI trade agreements and wrote new code to explicitly use the 4 oil resources in the NEI to satisfy those agreements.

Cosmetic
14. In the Pools form (CTL-Q), moved the Other Losses panel (displayed when the Destroyed units information is shown) down 20 pixels. Previously it was overlapping the top of the Gearing Limits panel and causing the header row of the Gearing Limits panel to be blank, instead of showing the column headers.
15. Corrected a cosmetic error in the Pools form where the column headers for the Gearing Limits panel were sometimes a white font color on a white background - which made the column headers appear to be blanks.
16. Modified the Pools form to list more Countries when choosing which Force Pool to display. It used to be 16 countries, now it is 22. This change makes all of the Axis major powers selectable in the top half of the list.
17. Modified the US Entry Pool form so it displays the average chit draw for the current year and the probability of drawing a chit worth 2 or less. For 1940, it shows the probability of drawing 1 or less instead. For example, 1939: Average = 2.33 and 2 or less = 56.7%; and 1940: Average = 1.79 and 1 or less = 55.1%.
18. Added the word ‘Done’ to the rightmost column of the US Entry Options form when the option has already been chosen.
19. Fixed a cosmetic bug in the US Entry Options form where the Prerequisites column was
displaying the word ‘Chosen” instead of ‘Tension’ when the option could not be selected because the tension value in one or both of the tension pools was too low.

NetPlay Mode of Play
20. Added a check to avoid a fatal error when Vichy is Collapsed and a Vichy convoy unit needs to be split into separate units for determining whether it is captured, is destroyed, or escapes.
21. Made a correction in the Search and Seizure routine specifically for NetPlay.
22. Made a couple of changes to avoid non-fatal errors during naval air-to-air combat on one of the two computers when playing a NetPlay game.
23. Fixed a problem with the Choose Action phase for the Axis player sometimes not ending the phase correctly.
24. Fix a problem from long, long ago where if a minor country was conquered and the Axis player gained some the conquered country’s naval units in the from off-map pools (e.g., Production Pools, Repair Pool) the game would stop.
25. Fixed a problem with the Surrender phase when both sides had major powers that had the option to surrender. Previously, the program could get confused and simply stop.
26. Made numerous small changes to avoid fatal errors. These were mostly for NetPlay where the two computers got out-of-sync.

AI Opponent Mode of Play
27. Made numerous changes to references in the AI Opponent logic so it only executes when the mode of play is AI Opponent.
28. Modified the name of saved games using the AIO mode of play to include AI - as a prefix to the name of the saved game. This is similar to NetPlay saved games which have NP - as a prefix (and Head-2-Head/HotSeat saved games having H2H - as a prefix).
29. The AI Opponent mode of play can now be executed in the beta tester versions. However, you will need to perform the following 3 steps in order to run it:
1 - You need to load the files in the folders in the zipped file.
a - the replacement LR.CSV file in the Data/Map Data folder. This corrects a typo in the data.
b - AIO Barbarossa Set.OPR file in the Optional Rules folder. The AIO uses this to set the optional rule for its games.
c - AIO_Setup_USSR.SET file in the Scenarios/Barbarossa folder. This contains the default setup locations for the AIO naval units.
d - AIO_Scrap_USSR.SCP file in the Scenarios/Barbarossa/Scrap Lists folder. This contains the AIO scrap list.
e - the 9 *.txt files in the Scenarios/Barbarossa/AIO Scripts folder. These are the scripts that the AIO uses to place units on the map.
2 - To start an AIO game, choose the AIO mode of play. The program will then prompt you for a user name for the human player (playing Germany). Once you enter a player name, the program will take it from there and advance to Germany scrapping units and setting up the German forces on the map. You then play the game as the Germans. Once Germany and Italy declare war on the USSR, the AIO will set up the USSR reserve units. Germany can then decide about aligning a minor country and perform all the normal activities for phasing side in the first impulse.
3 - When the AIO is placing units on the map, the program will draw random numbers. Those are reported to the player (you) and you can change them to see what effect they have on where the AIO places its units. You can always just take the random number that the program selects. Or
you can enter a different number (between 1 and 100). The script files are in simple txt format. Please feel free to examine them and critique them - I would like to learn you opinions about them. Making changes to the script txt files is possible but you have to be very careful: adding or removing blanks can be fatal.
30. Finished the AI Opponent code for setting up the USSR units for Barbarossa. The program now correctly executes the Start New Game code and begins with the human player (playing the Germans) deciding which units to scrap. This occurs prior to the random unit draw for which German units are to be placed on the map by the human player.
31. Simplified the Start New game sequence when playing against the AI Opponent. Since the AIO will only play the USSR side in the Barbarossa scenario, and uses the Standard Set of Optional rules, the program skips over those decision points and chooses the scenario and optional rules automatically. It also skips over the decision about which side the AIO is playing (it always plays the USSR). A message is displayed after the human player chooses the AIO mode of play, informing him of these decisions. The human player needs only enter a name for himself. The program takes care of the rest and advances the sequence of play to the German Scrap Units subphase of the Setup phase.
32. Made numerous changes to support the AI Opponent making decisions as the non-phasing (USSR) side during the first impulse of the first turn of Barbarossa.
33. Made the Main form taller: from 200 pixels to 240 pixels. This is the size of the Main form that the Debug version of the game has had for many years. The player can resize the form to its smaller size if this change in size is inconvenient. The purpose of this change is so the 3 panels at the bottom of the Main form are now visible. Clicking on the Land Region panel causes the AIO Stats form to appear (described below).
34. Added the new form AIO Stats. It is accessible by clicking on the Land Region panel at the bottom of the Main form. Basically, this is an accumulation of statistics about which units are in the land regions of the Barbarossa map. The important information is in the left panel. The selected geographic area in the screenshot is the land region Rumania - indicated by the label in the top left column. Beneath the header line are statistics on the units in Rumania. Most of these are simple counts or sums. However, the most important numbers are the Total Combat Values for each side. While similar to the Total Combat Factors (of just the land units), the Total Combat Value includes air units and takes into consideration unit types and movement points. A simple example is that the Russian 5-4 infantry is more valuable than the 5-3 infantry, and both are more valuable than the 5-1 garrison. Because the garrison unit is cheaper to build, its unit type decreases its value in addition to its single movement point,
Describing the rest of the form, the Land Regions column lists all the land regions in Barbarossa. Similarly, the Theaters of Operation and Areas of Operation tables list those geographic areas for the scenario, The grouping of the land regions in the second column corresponds to the labels in the Areas of Operations table. For instance, Estonia/Latvia, Lithuania, Western Poland, and Eastern Poland (the third group of Land Regions) are in the Poland/Baltic Area of Operation (the third entry in the Areas of Operation column).
Clicking on a land region label displays the Cumulative Statistics for the land region, and simultaneously displays the counters of the units in the land region in the rightmost panel. Moving the cursor over a land unit counter updates the Unit Data panel in the lower right corner of the form. Clicking on an Area of Operation label does the same for all the units in the selected area of operation. Clicking on a Theater of Operation does likewise.
This is not a ‘polished’ form since I do not intend for players to use it extensively, if at all. Most
players gather this information visually, just looking at the map. But ‘looking a’ the map’ is not available to the AIO. Hence, I have written code for the AIO to gather statistics to use in its decision making. The AIO Statistics form serves a couple of purposes: (1) it lets me confirm that the statistics the AIO derives are accurate, and (2) it lets me figure out how I am going to have the AIO use these data to make decisions about moving units.
35. Removed a spurious message about the optional rules for a saved setup and the current game not matching when play against the AI Opponent mode of Play.
36. Corrected some problems with the AI Opponent code processing the transition from several subphases of the Port Attack phase when the Axis/human player flies port attacks and has surprise points to spent.
37. With current versions the human player should be able to advance the sequence of play through to the end of the first impulse.
38. For the AIO. modified the setup locations of the USSR convoys so they all start in port.
39. Added code for the AI Opponent to move land units during the USSR land movement phase. Following each land move, the AIO displays a small message describing which unit moved, its starting hex and its destination hex. The detailed map centers on the destination hex, making it easy for the human player to see where the AIO moved its units.
40. Fixed a problem with the AIO not being able to find the excising front line prior to moving its units when Finland has not been aligned by Germany. This bug was causing an infinite loop when the AIO was trying to move its land units.
41. Fixed a problem where the AIO was not choosing the Assault Land CRT when it had the option to do so.
42. Fixed a problem with the AIO not giving the human/German player the opportunity to satisfy the requirement to disorganize its land units after a partially unsuccessful land attack.
43. Fixed a problem with the human/German player not being able to decide to shatter or retreat the USSR units after a successful land attack.
44. Fixed a problem where the AIO was not responding to the question of whether it wanted to declare war on a minor country (i.e., Hungary).
45. For the AI Opponent, fixed numerous problems with the game not continuing on through all the end of turn phases: ProdPlanningPrelim, UseOil, BreakDown, ProdPlanningFinal.
46. For the AI Opponent, added code so the AIO completes the Production for the USSR.
47. For the AI Opponent, fixed a problem with Use Oil where the German player was shown the Use Oil form a second time after completing his Use Oil decisions.
48. For the AI Opponent, completed all the code for the AIO to finish the End of Turn phases (e.g., Reform, Conquest, Victory).
49. For the AI Opponent, completed all the code for the AIO to place its reinforcements on the map, including fortifications.
50. For the AI Opponent, completed all the code for the Start of Turn phases in the second and subsequent turns (i.e., Initiative, Weather, etc.) , regardless of which side wins the initiative and whether or not the Axis/Human player chooses to reroll for the initiative.

What's New in v04.04.01.00

All Modes of Play
Optional Rules
1. Added code to implement the optional rule Isolated Reorganization Limits.
2. Added code to implement the optional rule City Based Volunteers.
3. Added code to prevent France from building city based volunteers until after Free France has been created.
4. Fixed a problem placing City Based Volunteers on the map.
5. Fixed a problem with City Based Volunteers being placed in the Future Force Pool instead of the Force Pool at the start of a game where the CBV‘s city is controlled by its owning major power. For example, the SS unit for Vienna is now in the German Force Pool and available to be built (for free) in the first production phase of the Global War scenario.
6. Fixed a problem with not being able to set up a City Based Volunteer in an off-city hex when its designated hex for placement was fully stacked.
7. Fixed a couple of problems with gearing limits when building carrier air units that cost zero. Some changes for City Based Volunteers that cost zero (when they are first built) had caused the gearing limits for zero cost carrier air units to be incorrect.
8. Completed code the for enabling Search and Seizure. This is not an optional rule, but it is similar in that the opportunity to perform a search and seizure rarely occurs.
9. For the optional rule Isolated Units, reduced the maximum distance for a unit to avoid being isolated from 50 hexes to 10 hexes. Units that are out of supply and more than 10 hexes from a supply source are now isolated. This change was to improve the response time when moving units.
10. Skipped over the code to increase the number of available pilots after the loss of an air unit when the optional rule for Pilots is not being used.
11. Finished the code for implementing V-Weapons.
12. Finished the code to fly A-Bombs for port attacks, strategic bombing, and carpet bombing.
13. Enabled the destruction of oil resources and saved oil points even when not playing with the optional Oil rules. However, this only applies if playing with the optional saving resources and the factory destruction rules.
14. Enabled Flying Bombs in the Start Game form - for beta tester debug testing purposes only.

Scenarios
15. Fixed a problem with Barbarossa Solitaire when at the point the USSR is suppose to set up its reserve units, the program had halted.
16. Fixed a problem in Barbarossa where a recent change to support NetPlay (all scenarios) was causing the program to halt on the Neutrality Pacts form at the end of a turn, and also when advancing to the next phase. The latter case was halting during the DOW phase.
17. Fixed a problem with starting a new game for the Guadalcanal scenario. The program needs to set up Vichy France because that major power controls some islands in the Pacific. Changes that I had made recently to fix some problems with the normal creation of Vichy France for the NetPlay mode of play (applicable in other scenarios) had caused this problem with Guadalcanal.
18. Fixed a problem with starting a new game for scenarios that begin after Vichy France has been formed.
19. Corrected the Decline and Fall scenario Fighter-2 setups for Germany. Also fixed a major problem with the V-Weapons setups [they had been arriving as Japanese saved oil points].
20. Fixed a problem with some later scenarios (e.g., Missed the Bus, Lebensraum) where the German replacement battleships were included in the German setup. Now those units can only enter the game if the German player explicitly builds them.

Reinforcements
21. Added code to check for naval replacement units during the reinforcement phase so only replacement units still in the Future Force Pool are considered. This solves a problem with later scenarios where replacement units are part of the unit setup lists.
22. Fixed a problem with placing the AOI territorial unit reinforcement in a city.
23. Added a few lines of code so any division placed on the map, when a corps/army sized unit is broken down, arrives organized.
24. Made some change to the code so unloading a carrier air unit from a carrier during the Remove Air subphase of the Reinforcement phase is handled as a unique case. The carrier air unit no longer remains in the list of units in the hex.

Lending
25. Added a check to avoid a non-fatal error in the Lending phase when selecting a trade agreement.

Initiative
26. Fixed a new problem in changing from the Initiative form to the Move First form. This bug was created when I was adding branching logic for the AI Opponent code.

Air Operations
27. Fixed a cosmetic error in the Spend Surprise Points form when the winning side used surprise points to change the air-to-air combat odds. This error only occurred when the Allied side was the winning side for using surprise points.
28. Corrected the Kamikaze setting for a Japanese bomber in a naval combat so when there is only 1 bomber, the player is asked a simple question about whether the air unit flies as a Kamikaze instead of displaying a form to choose which units fly as kamikazes.
29. Fixed a problem where a DOW by the USSR on Japan was causing the Japanese units to be surprised by the Communist Chinese - and unable to fly Ground Support air missions..
30. Fixed a problem where carrier air units aboard damaged carriers were still able to participate in naval air combats.

Land Operations
31. Fixed a problem with stacking NEI territorial units with Netherlands units.
32. Fixed another combination of a Commonwealth territorial unit cooperating with units belonging to a Commonwealth aligned minor country. The program now let’s them stack together.
33. Added a line of code so USSR units can now attack Italian peacekeepers in Rumania (or Finland, etc).
34. Fixed the problem with SCS units being unable to load from a coastal hex after possibly being intercepted.
35. Added a check for invalid Land Combats and eliminated them when found. This situation is extremely difficult to recreate, since it only happens in a NetPlay game when one side does not fully process the last Land Combat. The game continues correctly thereafter, but when it is restored later, one of the computers has data that indicates that a land combat has not been fully resolved. This change cleans up that little mess.
36. Fixed a problem where Nationalist Chinese and Communist Chinese units were able to cooperate on land attacks, amongst other things.
37. Fixed a problem with relocating units when they have been forced to relocate during the Rail Movement phase.
38. Fixed a problem with railing German units through Sweden when Norway has been completely conquered by Germany - and the other conditions for railing units through Sweden have been met.

Naval Operations
39. Fixed a problem when there are too few naval units to take the full number of destroyed/damaged/aborted results in a naval combat. This had been fixed previously, but I forgot to add it to the list of Changes Since.
40. Fixed a problem with naval combat where the defenders’ attack on the attacker was not being executed when all the defending units were destroyed by the attacker.
41. Corrected the Naval Interception form so it shows the maximum section box correctly, instead of the maximum movement points for the naval stack.
42. Added a couple of lines of code to close any open informative forms prior to displaying the Naval Combat Include form - which is used for multiple purposes: (1) select section boxes to include in a sea area combat, (2) choose the sea area combat type, and (3) decide whether to abort or stay for further rounds of combat in a sea area. The last occasionally caused a minor problem for NetPlay games, preventing a manual save of the game before making that decision.
43. Fixed a problem with moving naval units from a port where they are out of supply, into a sea area where enemy units can attempt an interception, and the interception is either not attempted or fails, so that now the moving naval units suffer both the 1 movement point loss for starting out of supply, and a second movement point loss for entering a sea area where enemy units can intercept them, and there are no friendly units. The latter cost is for the optional rule “In the presence of the enemy”. Prior to this correction, the moving naval units were only suffering a 1 movement point penalty, instead of 2.
44. Corrected the count of naval movement points expended by a moving stack after an attempted interception. Previously the code had been forcing the moving stack to stop when it still had one movement point remaining.
45. Fixed a problem with destroying two or more naval units which were forced to rebase but had no available rebase hexes. Destroying them one at a time worked. This correction means a stack of units can be destroyed all at once.
46. Fixed an obscure problem with loading units onto a naval transport that had been a floating port (but that optional rule had been turned off during the game).

Reorganization
47. Removed a recently added line of code which was forcing the cost for an HQ to reorganize an armor/mechanized unit to an minimum of 1. When an armor HQ uses an offensive chit, the cost can be less than 1 (e.g., 0.5 reorganization points).

Supply
48. Extended the maximum distance for a railway supply path for the Commonwealth where the secondary supply source is in Iraq and Persia to 60 hexes (it had been 20).
49. Fixed a bug in tracing a Basic supply path greater that 1 hex from a port to a primary supply source. This was causing some overseas units to be out of supply which needed to find primary supply 2 or 3 hexes inland from a port.
50. Fixed a problem with the Axis propagating overseas supply through Gibraltar (when it is Axis controlled).
51. Fixed a problem with the form that displays Supply Sources and Routes. It had not been showing the capitals of conquered minor countries which trace supply to a major power that cooperates with the conquering major power.
52. Fixed a problem with tracing overseas supply through the Eastern Med for Italy when the conquered Greek city of Athens must be used.
53. Standardized and optimized the supply search routines for overland routes: from units to ports, ports to supply sources, supply sources to supply sources, and units to supply sources. These improvements shaved roughly 5% off the calculation time for determining supply.
54. Fixed a problem with finding overseas supply for France when: (1) it has a new home country, (2) Vichy France does not exist, and (3) France does not cooperate with any other Allied major power. The bug was buried in the routine to determine maximum basic path hexes for major powers. As has happened before, in trying to reduce the search time for finding supply, a situation had occurred where the program did not find a viable supply path.
55. Fixed a problem with overseas supply taking a long time to calculate for an incompletely conquered France. In this instance, the program was trying to use the Caspian Sea for tracing supply for France to Dakar in Senegal. There was code to prevent that search from occurring but it was only in 1 of the 2 places where it was needed.
56. Fixed a problem with tracing basic path supply overseas to Baku in the Caspian Sea.
57. Fixed a problem with supply calculations taking too long. Incompletely conquered France, with a new home country in, say, Western Africa should not attempt to find supply overland to its new capital from ports in the USSR or Scandinavia. Indeed, no ports in Europe should be investigated unless the new capital is in Syria, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, or Yugoslavia.
58. Fixed a supply problem where if France is incompletely conquered and its new home country is in equatorial Africa, the program no longer tries to find a path from ports in Iraq and Persia to the new French capital. I had corrected the same problem earlier this year for ports in Scandinavia, the Baltic States, and the USSR. The effect of this change is to drastically reduce the time the program spends recalculating supply under the above circumstances.
59. Fixed another problem with supply calculations taking too long. The program was searching for an overland path from ports to a Commonwealth primary supply source from ports in Scandinavia, the Balkans, Greece and Turkey. No port in those countries is ever going to be able to reach a city in India (primary supply for the Commonwealth), so the searches shouldn’t even be attempted.
60. Fixed an obscure supply bug where Mao was unable to trace supply to a Chinese city controlled by Communist China once Japan was conquered and China became neutral.
61. Fixed a problem with finding primary supply cities for China when Japan has been conquered and China is neutral.
62. Fixed a problem with finding supply from a tertiary supply source to a secondary supply source belonging to a cooperating major power.
63. Fixed a problem with finding supply from a tertiary supply source to a secondary supply source belonging to a aligned minor country.
64. Fixed a problem with finding tertiary supply to Tangier.
65. Fixed a problem with finding supply from a Tertiary to a Secondary supply source where the program had been going into an infinite loop.
66. Fixed a problem with finding supply from a Tertiary to a Secondary supply source for aligned minor country capitals.
67. Fixed a newly created infinite loop when searching for supply from aligned minor country capitals (e.g., Warsaw) to a primary supply source.
68. Shortened the time required to recalculate supply substantially by eliminating searches by Japan and its aligned minor countries (e.g., Korea) which checked if ports in Europe could reach a primary supply source in Japan. In one instance the search time went from
64 seconds to under 1 second.
69. Fixed a problem with units belonging to a major power tracing supply (overseas) to a primary supply source belonging to an aligned minor country. For instance, Commonwealth units were incorrectly being shown as in supply when they could trace (overseas) to a city in Egypt.

Peace
70. Fixed a rare problem in the Conquest phase where one computer in a NetPlay game was having trouble processing the conquest of a “governed area” - e.g., the Mariana Islands.
71. Fixed a problem with collapsing Vichy France where the red factory in Lyon was not being converted to a damaged factory controlled by the Axis. Now the Axis is able to use the red factory - although the Axis has to repair it if playing with the optional rule for Factory Construction and Destruction.
72. Fixed a problem with conquering a new home country for a minor country/major power where the conquered country has another viable/aligned minor country that can become its new home country. The rules are quite explicit that a country is only completely conquered when it has no aligned minor countries that can become its new home country.
73. Assigned Yugoslavian partisans, which had been French controlled, to control by the USSR when France is completely conquered.

US Entry
74. Added a check to avoid a non-fatal error when the program tries to display the US Entry Pool form to draw a marker for US Entry and the form is already showing.

Production Planning
75. Fixed a problem in Production Planning when there is no path for a build point to be sent to fulfill a trade agreement. This change drastically reduces the search time in some cases.
76. Made another small change to reduce the search time for sending build points as part of a trade agreement. This mainly helps when no path exists.
77. Enabled changing the source of a traded Build Point during the Final Produciton Planning phase. This is needed because if a game is restored after the Preliminary Production Planning phase, the program creates new Build Points during the Game Restore process and loses all the information associated with the previous traded build points. In particular, the source city for a traded build point is lost and becomes the sending major power’s capital.
78. Added a new section of code expressly for sending NEI oil resources to Japan (and the Commonwealth). Those trade agreements are now processed in a manner similar to the processing of the US to Japan trade agreement. That is, it is performed before and separate from assigning resources to fulfill other trade agreements.
79. Added a line of code to prevent the Canadian oil resource in Estevan from ever being used to fulfill a Commonwealth to China trade agreement for an oil point.

Game Save/Restore
80. Fixed a problem in restoring saved games, created with version 04.02.00.16 (and later), where all trade agreements became mandatory. When restoring a saved game, the program now checks for those that are marked as mandatory to see if they really should be mandatory. If they are marked incorrectly, the program sets them as having a duration of One Turn.
81. Improved the text message when the program is unable to open the game record log file. The message now identifies the cause as: “Most likely the program (MWIF) is already running”.
82. Fixed a problem with restoring damaged games where sometimes the correction to data was causing the program to go into an infinite loop.
83. Added checks when restoring a saved game so that the number of resources, oil points, and build points in a trade agreement cannot exceed 200. This change, primarily, is to fix damaged games where the amount of non-oil/oil/build points in a trade agreement became set to -1, which for a byte variable appears as 255.
84. Added code to the routine that restores saved games to repair NetPlay saved games that have missing unit data. This problem occurs when building units (probably pilots or convoys). The unit count recorded in the saved game file is higher than the number of data sets for the units. With this correction, the unit count now matches the actual number of units with data sets.
85. Added a few lines of code for restoring saved games to change the controlling major power of partisan units when their current one is completely conquered. For example, if a partisan is controlled by France, and France has been completely conquered, then the controlling major power is changed to a different Allied major power, This enables the partisan unit to be destroyed in land combat.

Cosmetic
86. Modified the position of the openiong splash screen so when playing with a larger monitor, the form is centered in the monitor (instead of being in the upper left hand corner)
87. Modified the terrain type displayed on the Main Form panel for lake and swamp hexes during snow and blizzard weather to be: Lake (Clear) and Swamp (Forest) respectively. This is to provide some additional help to players that the terrain types Lake and Swamp have different characteristics during winter weather (i.e., snow and blizzard).
88. Added code to remove informative massages from the screen before another message prompt is displayed. This primarily is for NetPlay games where one player may be advancing the sequence of play while the other payer’s computer is waiting for an acknowledgment of an informative message. After this change, the second player’s computer shows and then removes some messages without an acknowledgment by the second player. Previously, the second player’s computer would sometimes accumulate several message prompts on the screen and not all of them could be cleared,.
89. Modified some code for removing informative messages from the screen when about to show a new informative message. My last iteration to avoid requiring the player to respond to older messages did not close the form in the standard manner. Now the old message on the form is cleared and the form closed normally.
90. Fixed a newly created problem with displaying the Simple Message form. A recent change cleared forms that were presently displayed (e.g., no Allied targets in a naval combat). The sequence in which forms were being cleared generated a Mad Except error at times in NetPlay games.
91. Improved the messages about no bombers receiving AA fire so that it states that explicitly. Previously, the message simply said that there were no bombers. Likewise, improved the message when there are no bombers bombing enemy units (e.g., after they have been aborted due to AA fire).
92. Removed some of the recent changes to automatically close informative messages, such as “No Allied naval targets”, “No anti-aircraft fire”, etc. Because some of these routines incestuously referenced similar calls to display informative messages, the program was freezing at times when executing NetPlay games.
93. Modified some code for clearing informative message prompts so the program no longer generates spurious Mad Except errors.
94. Improved the embedded message/notes for the Use Oil form.
95. Corrected the spelling of city based volunteers (in one place).
96. Adjusted the Summary panel in the Production Planning form so it is higher in the form and no longer overlaps the resources panel below it.

Other
97. Added the ability to view the Foreign Troop Commitment data between two major powers. This information is available using the Relationship form (<Ctl> R). At the bottom of the form there is a new button: Display FTC. After selection a cell within the form’s large matrix, with both the column and the row of the cell being major powers, clicking on the Display FTC displays a simple message reporting the number of HQ reorganization points in the country and the number of non-HQ units. As part of this change, the Help Content.txt file has been updated to include how to use the FTC Display button.
98. Added code to display an illegal filename when it contains more than one period. Previously, the message simply stated what the problem was without identifying the bad file name.
99. Added a check to avoid a non-fatal error when using the Flyouts form.

AI Opponent
100. Added AI Opponent to the Modes of Play section of the Start form - for beta tester debug testing purposes only.
101. Restored the form Test LAIO Scripts to the Debug drop down menu list.
102. Added a new folder for each of the scenarios to hold (future) AIO Scripts.
103. Created the AIO scrap list and AIO saved setup for the USSR in Barbarossa.
104. Finished coding the AIO so it uses predefined Scrap lists and Saved Setup lists.
105. For the AI Opponent, added a set of variables for how many of each air unit type is available during setup. This change required adding this information to the saved game files (GAM). The program can still restore older saved games, as before. The AIO uses this new data when selecting which air units go into the Reserve Pool (when playing with the optional rule Pilots) or how many air units are returned to the Force Pool (when not playing with Pilots).
106. Coded the AIO to select the best of the air units when the number available is greater than the number that can be placed on the map.
107. Made numerous changes to parsing AIO scripts. The program now correctly identifies logical lines within the script and echoes them back when Test LAIO Scripts is used. It can be found at the bottom of the Debug drop down menu on the main form.
108. Made some corrections to the AIO parser code so it understands a few more lines of the test LAIO script for setting up Barbarossa.
109. For the AIO playing the USSR in Barbarossa, added code to always place the USSR submarines in Leningrad and the naval transport in Sevastopol.
110.Added code for the Debug drop down menu for units during Setup. It now shows both the Setup Group Index and the Combat Value for the unit. The latter is only used by AIO.

Debug
111. Modified the code for moving units so the Place/Move Units Debug form can be used during all DOW subphases

Declarations of War
112. Changed the major power which advances the sequence of play to the phasing side for some of the DOW subphases. This prevents the sequence of play advancing before a player can place the units of an attacked minor country on the map. The problem of advancing the sequence of play too soon only occurred if the US was at war with all the Axis major powers and the Axis declared war on a minor country.
113. Fixed a problem with the USSR claiming the Finnish Borderlands causing the program to halt if the claim was denied and the USSR was therefore required to declare war on Finland.

Air Operations
114. Fixed a problem with anti-aircraft fire over land hexes.
Land Operations
115. Corrected the processing of the use of Snow Units during land combat resolution, especially when the 2D10 Land Combat Table is being used. These changes cause the non-deciding player to wait until the deciding player (first the defender and then the attacker) decides to gain the benefit of snow units, which require a snow unit to take the first loss. It primarily prevents the non-deciding player’s computer from advancing the sequence of play to deciding about Assault or Blitz prematurely.
116. Made some changes to avoid a rarely occurring non-fatal error at the end of resolving the last land combat when playing via NetPlay.

Naval Operations
117. Added a check when one naval unit takes both a Destroyed and Damaged result and the Destroyed result destroys the unit, so the program no longer tries to apply the additional damage result.
118. Fixed a couple of problems with executing a series of naval interceptions.

Reorganization
119.
Rewrote some of the code for reorganization so using Air Reorganization followed by HQ Reorganization on a single unit works correctly even when different major powers are supplying the reorganization points.
Search and Seizure
120. Modified Search and Seizure so it doesn’t skip the phase when playing using NetPlay.

Peace
121. Added code so when China is conquered, it is marked as completely conquered on both computers.

Cosmetic
122. Added some code to remove informative messages when the Surprise form is displayed and also when the Abort/Stay from a naval combat form is displayed. This is primarily for NetPlay games where the lingering forms get in the way of understanding what is happening on the screen.

What's New in v04.02.00.00

All Modes of Play
Trade Agreements
123. Fixed a problem at the start of the Global War scenario if the player calls up the Trade Agreements form.
124. Fixed a problem if the player calls up the Trade Agreements form when there are no trade agreements. This only occurs in the scenario Guadalcanal.

Initiative
125. Added a Close Form command to the Initiative form once a player decides to NOT ask for a reroll. This is primarily for NetPlay games, to clear the form from the screen once that decision has been made, This prevents: (1) the player from clicking on the button multiple times, and (2) more importantly, the informative message about who is moving first being hidden behind the Initiative form.

Air Operations
126. Made hundreds of edits to simplify the checks for whether a unit is an air unit throughout the code. The older code had worked for 20+ years but the system seemed to be choking on it from time to time recently. I always believe the simplest code is the best. Code that uses fancy stuff makes me nervous.

Air-to-air Combat
127. Fixed a problem in air-to-air combat with return fire from an air unit with no return fire capability. That is, when the unit’s air-to-air combat rating is “(0)”.
128. Added checks to close the Air-to-air combat form if it remains visible after all air-to-air combats have been completed. These changes were made for all land based air missions.

Surprise Points
129. Added extensive in-line documentation to the code for resolving air-to-air combat and fixed a bug with applying surprise points.
130. Fixed a problem with using surprise points to avoid a Port Attack. Previously the program was halting in the Anti-Aircraft Fire subphase when the port attack was avoided.
131. Fixed a problem with applying Surprise points to air-to-air combat differentials (air combat values). The surprise point bonuses apply to the differential in air combat strengths, not to the air combat strengths themselves. For example, a +1 from surprise points for the attacker in a combat where each side has an air-to-air combat rating/strength of 3, would put the attacker on the +1 column (3 - 3 + 1 = +1) and the defender on the 0 column (3 - 3 = 0). The air combat rating/strength of both sides would remain 3 throughout the first round of air-to-air combat, for both the attacker and defender die rolls.
132. Fixed a problem with flying defensive fighters as CAP or as defensive escorts during the Ground Support phase where all the attacking land units are controlled by a major power that has surprised the fighter’s home country. This is now true regardless of the hex in which the land combat is taking place. An example of the problem that these changes correct is when Belgium has been surprised by Germany and Germany is attacking French land units in France. Previously, the surprised Belgian fighter had been permitted to fly CAP or as a defensive escort during the Ground Support phase to hexes in France attacked by Germany.

Return to Base
133. Fixed a problem with returning air units to base after an air mission where they were
being allowed to land in the hex to which they flew the mission even if overstacking
occurred. Now every landing hex is checked for overstacking.
134. Modified the Land Carrier Planes form to display the carrier planes (if any) already aboard the selected carrier. This lets the player see how much of a carrier’s ‘capacity’ has already been used, before deciding whether to land a carrier air unit on the carrier. In complex naval air combats involving numerous carriers and their air units, it can be difficult to figure out which is the best carrier on which to land a carrier air unit.

Kamikazes
135. Fixed a problem with the optional rule Kamikazes so the Japanese player can assign naval bombers to fly as Kamikazes after air-to-air combat has been resolved and before antiaircraft fire is calculated and applied.
136. Fixed a problem with restoring old saved games (saved before November 2019) during an mission phase. Because those saved were made before the optional rule Kamikazes was added, those saved games could restore with all bombers marked as flying as Kamikazes.

Anti-aircraft Fire
137. Fixed a problem with the Anti-aircraft Fire form reappearing during the return to base digression when a land based bomber aborted due to anti-aircraft fire. Now the form only reappears after the aborted bomber has been returned to base and the digression ended.
138. Fixed a problem with the program sometimes generating a fatal error after applying several results from Anti-aircraft fire.
139. Fixed a rare problem with anti-aircraft fire where if there are bombers from two major powers on the same side receiving AA Fire, and the amount of damage exceeds 5, such that one of the bombers has to be aborted. The program now correctly changes the local major power to the major power aborting the bomber. After the bomber returns to base, the program reverts the local major power to the “deciding major power” for the side controlling the remaining bombers. The case where this was a problem was with both German and Italian bombers received AA fire, and one of the German bombers aborted. The program was losing track of which major power should be deciding where the additional 2 points of AA damage needed to be applied to the remaining bombers.

Air Rebase
140. Added code to prevent rebasing a carrier air unit from land to a carrier at sea during the Air Rebase phase when the major power making the move has zero air missions remaining.
141. Fixed a problem with permitting air units to rebase over territory belonging to a neutral Vichy France. They now have to fly around Vichy controlled hexes, just like hexes belonging to any other neutral country.

Land Operations
Rail Movement
142.Fixed a problem with rail moving a factory where the check for an enemy unit in the country wasn’t requiring that the enemy unit be a land unit. For example, the USSR was gaining the benefit of being able to rail move factories when only enemy air units were in supply in the USSR proper.

Land Movement
143.Fixed a problem with moving a territorial unit belonging to non-minor country countries (e.g., New Caledonia and British Somalia) not gaining the benefit of reduced movement cost through Jungle, Mountain, and Forest terrain in their home country. The rules do not mention any benefit for Desert Mountain terrain.
144. Fixed a problem with territorial units being able to ‘cooperate’ with major powers other than their controlling major power. This change applies to the units stacking in the same hex, loading aboard transports, etc.
145. Revised the code for determining cooperation between territorial units and other units on the same side. There are numerous combinations of territorial units with other units and three special exceptions, which are: (1) the AOI unit, (2) territorial units belonging to Commonwealth member nations, and (3) territorial units belonging to conquered countries.
146. Added a check to avoid a potential Mad Except error at the end of the Land Movement phase.
147. Fixed a rare problem with overrunning enemy air/naval units with a Ski division during Snow/Blizzard weather when moving through enemy ZOCs. The enemy ZOCs do not apply to Ski units in that type of weather, so the overruns should always be permitted.

Disembarkation
148. Added code so HQ units do not have to check for FTC limits if they move into a hex by themselves. This lets them disembark into the home country of a friendly major power ignoring FTC limits. Note that if they are accompanied by other units, then they do have to check for FTC limits. This is important when moving an HQ aboard a naval transport into a port, since the FTC limits could be violated in that case. But if the HQ moves alone into a hex, then it merely increases the FTC limit for that major power moving into the other major power’s home country. One situation where this new code is likely to be needed is in France if a Commonwealth HQ moves into Belgium, leaving a couple of Commonwealth infantry corps in France, If later the HQ wants to return to France, it should be permitted to do so.

Invasions
149. Fixed a problem with invasions into a hex that is in the home country of a friendly major power. FTC limits are now checked and enforced even though the hex is controlled by an enemy major power. For instance, if the Commonwealth wants to invade a German held hex in the USSR (e.g., Murmansk), then it must satisfy FTC limits to do so.

Land Combat
150. Fixed a problem with the 1D10 Land Combat Resolution calculation of fractional odds when the odds fall between 1:1 and 1:2.
151. Fixed a problem with some units being shown as capable of making a land attack even though there were no enemy units in the adjacent hex. There are several places where they can attack a hex that does not contain enemy units: (1) in support of an invasion (by air or sea) and (2) when there are peacekeepers in the hex.
152. Corrected a problem with an HQ being able to use Emergency HQ supply when the HQ’s controlling major power had been surprised (by any other major power).
153. Fixed a problem when a lone Vichy notional unit defected, yet the notional unit was remaining in the hex after the invasion combat was resolved. The notional unit is now removed and the invasion goes in uncontested - as if it were a disembarkation.
154. Fixed an extremely rare problem where USSR units were not being permitted to attack a hex in Eastern Poland that was occupied exclusively by German Peacekeepers. The USSR was at war with Rumania but not with Germany. The German units had moved into Eastern Poland from Rumania.
155. Added a check to avoid a potential Mad Except error when displaying the current odds for a land combat on the Land Combat Selection & Resolution form.
156. Fixed an initialization problem with land combat. Sometimes restoring a saved game had the land combat resolution starting with the Advance After Combat phase, which caused a fatal error.
157. Fixed a problem with Retreats from a Land Combat when the retreating units overrun air and/or naval units belonging to the attacking player. The program now interrupts the retreat sequence of play with a digression to process the overrun units (usually forcing them to rebase) before returning to the retreat subphase of the land combat resolution phase.

Naval Operations
Naval Movement
158. Fixed yet another problem with using the Select Units form to select/move a group of naval units.
159. Added several checks to avoid potential fatal errors in Return to Base phases - this problem was created in a recent new version.
160. Fixed a problem with destroying naval units that cannot return to base during the Stay At Sea/Return To Base phases.
161. Added some code to retain data on which sea areas air and naval units have moved during the impulse - for the purposes of permitting the non-phasing side to initial combat therein. This correction handles the case where the player moves multiple units into a sea ara and then undoes some of the moves. The program was getting confused when the player took these actions in certain sequences.
162. Fixed the Choose Section form so it once again shows the sea area name in the form’s title.

Naval Interception
163. Changed the conditions for displaying the Include Submarines checkbox on the Naval Interception form so it is only visible if there are submarines which are at war with units in the moving stack. Before, the condition was simply whether there were submarines on the other side in the sea area.
164. Fixed several problems with interception of naval units that are aborting from naval combats.
165. Fixed a rare problem with naval interception of naval units aborting from a naval combat in the phasing side’s naval combat phase. The program checks to see if the intercepting player has a unit capable of initiating combat in the sea area. Usually a player on the phasing side is unable to initiate combat in the phasing side’s naval combat phase unless he has taken a Naval, Air, or Combined action. The exception (which was missing from the code) is that they can do so to intercept enemy naval units aborting through a sea area, even if they have taken a Land or Pass action for the impulse.

Naval Combat
166. Fixed a problem with temporary carrier air units sometimes not being included in a naval air combat,
167. Fixed a problem with applying destroyed results to convoys in submarine combat when there are convoys from multiple different countries and the first convoy to take a Destroyed result has only 1 convoy point AND there are no other convoys belonging to the same country available to take the second loss. Previously the program was destroying one too many convoys.
168. Fixed a problem with US convoys taking losses in naval combat when the US is neutral and has not chosen either of the US Entry Options: Refutes Naval War Zones or Unrestricted Naval Warfare.
169. Added a line of code to avoid a very rare fatal error during naval combat when the Phasing side initiated combat with the one and only unit in the sea area capable of initiating combat.
170. Added a check to avoid a potential Mad Except error when deciding whether to commit subs to a naval combat.
171. Fixed two problems with Kamikazes: (1) if the air unit flying as a kamikaze was a land based bomber, it was not being destroyed, and (2) when only 1 air unit could fly as a kamikaze, it always flew as a kamikaze. Now kamikaze air units are always destroyed at the end of a naval air combat round and if only one air unit is eligible to fly as a kamikaze, the player can choose to have or have not the air unit be a kamikaze.

Naval Abort Queue
172. Fixed a problem with moving units from the Naval Abort Queue. The difficulty arose when there were multiple transports carrying units from a different major power in the abort queue. For example, if there were multiple Commonwealth transport/amphibious units carrying US land units, all of which were in the abort queue, but there were no US naval units in the abort queue, then the program failed to identify the Commonwealth as the deciding major power. Instead it made the US the deciding major power. But the US had no naval units in the abort queue - which meant that no units could be moved.

Supply
173. Corrected a problem where HQs were unable to find supply to primary supply sources of cooperating major powers (e.g., Italian HQ to German primary supply source).

Reorganize
174. Added a check to avoid a potential non-fatal error in the Reorganize phase when the HQ has no units to reorganize.

US Entry
175. Fixed a problem with choosing US Entry Option “Occupy Northern Ireland” generating a fatal error when a unit in Northern Ireland had to be relocated.

Production Planning
Actions, Destinations, & Routes
176. Added code to reset the Action value for an oil resource marked as “Used for Reorganization” to “Idle” in any phase before the Use Oil phase. This change in Action value occurs anytime the Production Planning form is displayed (prior to the Use Oil phase). There had been a problem in some games where an oil point was used to reorganize units in a previous turn and this flag hed never been reset.
177. Made a change to routing resources from the North Atlantic to the Bay of Biscay versus the Faeroes Gap. The program now prefers using the Faeroes Gap. The player can still change the route of resources to go through the Bay of Biscay. This change in the code sets the program’s first choice as the Faeroes Gap. The reason for this change is that often a player will have multiple resources coming up from the south (Cape St. Vincent) heading to the United Kingdom and they will need to use the Bay of Biscay. Now the resources coming from the North Atlantic will no longer compete for the convoys in the Bay of Biscay if there are other convoys in the Faeroes Gap which can be used.
178. Fixed a problem where the US (while neutral) was able to use convoys belonging to major powers other than the recipient, to send resources and build points to other major powers on the Allied side, even though the US Entry Option “Refutes naval war zones” had not been selected.
179. Added a few of lines of code to clear Default and Override settings for resources unavailable due to enemy partisans in the resource hex, enemy Zones of Control, and oil resource damaged. These changes are to make sure that the program doesn’t try to use the unavailable resources in production due to preexisting Default/Override settings.
180. Fixed several problems with Production for the Barbarossa scenario where Germany was not receiving non-oil trade resources from minor countries. They now receive 8: 3 from Sweden, 4 from Spain, and 1 from Turkey. Those resources appear ‘magically’ in 8 specific German factories. There is also a 9th non-oil resource received in trade from Hungary, but that becomes a German controlled resource once Germany aligns Hungary. The Swedish resources still require convoys in the Baltic Sea.

Build Points
181. Fixed a problem with the Production Planning form sometimes generating a Mad Except error when a build point has a Default setting but no route to the specified Default destination.
182. Added a new section of code to check if major powers have sent enough Build Points to fulfill their trade agreements. If they have not, then additional build points are marked as Lost - No Path, and the number of available build points for the major powers is comparably reduced.
183. Corrected the list of alternative factories when choosing the originating city for a build point being sent to fulfill a trade agreement, so only factories that are actually producing build points can be selected.
184. Automated the selection of an alternative factory for sending build points to fulfill a trade agreement when the sending major power’s capital is controlled by an enemy major power. For example, once the Axis occupies Paris, France uses factories in other cities which are producing build points to send BPs to the United Kingdom.
185. Fixed a problem in Production Planning where the Build Points listed as being lost (no path) were not being shown. Similarly, in some cases the list of Build Points being sent sometimes was incomplete.
186. Cut 1 minute off the search time for finding factories which produce build points to fulfill trade agreements (in one troublesome case). Made other improvements to reduce the time needed to process Production Planning.
187. Revised the Production Planning form so it shows more detail for resource/build point Actions. Production planning Action types are:
• Idle - The resource has no assigned use or was explicitly set to Idle.
• Production - The resource will be used in production.
• Save - Saved oil/build points only. Oil points will be saved; BPs used.
• Used - Oil resource used to reorganize units.
• Lost_EZOC - Resource is in an enemy ZOC without a friendly land unit present.
• Lost_Part - The resource's hex is occupied by an enemy partisan unit.
• Lost_Dam - The oil resource is damaged.
• Lost_Strat - The oil resource was lost to enemy strategic bombing.
• Lost_NoPath - The resource/BP has no path to any of the recipient's valid destination hexes.
• Insufficient_BPs - Insufficient BPs produced.
• Lost_Excess_BP - Excess BPs in the hex (only 1 BP can be used per city, except for the capital).
• Seized - The resource was seized during the Search and Seizure phase.
188. For the Production Planning form, added the source location and destination for trade build points that could not be produced. For example, when 6 build points had been promised in trade but only 4 were produced, the program now displays for the two ‘lost’ build points: the capital of the major power that was suppose to send the build points as the source location, and the capital of the major power that was suppose to receive them as the destination.

Use Oil
189. Fixed a problem with using oil to reorganize units where a major power had no oil of its own available but could use oil belonging to a cooperating major power. Before this change, the major power without oil was not given the opportunity to use oil from a cooperating major power.
190. Fixed a newly created problem with the Use Oil form where the Expend Oil button was incorrectly disabled. That occurred when there was only one unit to reorganize and/or only one oil source available.
191. Fixed a newly created problem with the Use Oil form where reorganizing all the units sometimes left the Expend Oil button enabled and the oil to be expended as the first oil resource in the list instead of the one which had used most of its oil.
192. Corrected the informative message shown in the Use Oil phase for major powers that have no disorganized units that require oil to be reorganized.

Peace
193. Fixed a couple of small problems with claiming Bessarabia and the Finnish Borderlands, when the USSR does not advance into the areas it claims and Germany enforces the peace. Those areas now revert to Rumania with no major power controlling them.
194. Fixed a problem with enforcing peace in Finland and Rumania when the USSR had not claimed Eastern Poland.
195. Fixed an extremely rare problem when declaring Vichy France and non-French naval units in French controlled hexes are forced to rebase. When those naval units belonged to major powers on both sides, and all of the rebasing units belonging to one side were intercepted and destroyed, the program had been failing to change the deciding major power to one of the major powers on the other side which still had naval units to rebase. The program now changes to control to the major powers that still need to rebase unit.
196. Added a check to avoid a potential Mad Except error when determining the controlling major power of all units after a major power (e.g., Japan) was completely conquered.
197. Fixed a problem with naval units overrun during the Conquest phase (where the overrun units need to be assigned to a new major power) causing the program to halt.

Vichy France
198. Fixed a problem with collapsing Vichy France incorrectly causing US Entry chits to be drawn for the alignment of Madagascar and French Indochina from Vichy France to Free France.
199. Fixed a problem with moving non-Vichy Axis units (land, air, and naval) into Vichy Controlled Administrative Areas (e.g., Syria, Algeria). The program now checks for whether the unit belongs to the major power that installed Vichy France. If it does not, the move is prevented. For units belonging to the major power that installed Vichy France, there is a check to see if Vichy is At War and Hostile to any Allied major power. If so, then the move is permitted. If Vichy is not At War then the move is prevented. If Vichy is At War but not Hostile, the FTC Limits apply for the major power that installed Vichy France. Note that none of this applies to entering Metropolitan Vichy France, where units belonging to any Axis major power may enter at any time - although doing so collapses Vichy France.
200. Fixed a problem where Vichy French territorial units were incorrectly unable to disembark into their home country due to FTC Limits.
201. Fixed an very rare problem with invasions of Vichy France. When the invasion by an Allied major power has both DOW Surprise and makes Vichy France Hostile to the invading major power, then the invasion automatically succeeds and the program immediately converts the invaded hex to the control of the invading major power. Once that has been done, additional units should be able to invade the same hex during the invasion phase. Previously, the program was treating the invasion hex as belonging to the invading major power and therefore incapable of being invaded by additional units. The program now checks to see if the hex already contains a unit that has invaded in the current impulse, and if so, it permits additional units to invade the hex. Note that the invasion still automatically succeeds.
202.
Added a check to avoid a potential Mad Except error when a Vichy French land unit was still on the map although Vichy France had been conquered.
203.
Fixed a problem with Vichy units incorrectly cooperating with territorial units from minor countries that were previously held by Vichy but are now controlled by an Allied major power.
204.
Fixed a problem with collapsing Vichy France where convoy units with more than 1 convoy point where being rolled for captured/destruction/escape as a single unit, instead of first being split into separate single point convoys, followed by each convoy point/unit then being rolled for capture/destruction/escape separately.
205.
Modified a line of code so the End-of-Phase button remains disabled during the Move French Land/Air subphase of Vichy Creation until the Senegal and Madagascar militia units are moved out of Occupied Metropolitan France to Vichy Metropolitan France. That is assuming one or both of those units are in Occupied Metropolitan France.
206.
Modified a couple lines of code so the Senegal and Madagascar militia units move into the Force Pool, (like other French militia units), if they are on the map when Vichy France is declared.
207. Fixed a problem with Iraqi oil once Vichy France is declared. One of the oil resources is now available to the major power controlling Syria and the other oil resource in Iraqi is Idle with no destination. This status remains true until: (1) Vichy Collapses, (2) the Allied side takes Syria, or (3) Iraq aligns with a major power.

Victory
208.Fixed a newly created problem where the game did not advance to the second turn (Nov/Dec 1939) after closing the Victory form at the end of the first turn (Sept/Oct 1939).
209. On the Victory Form subtracted one from the number of Turns Remaining when the form is shown at the end of turn. At all other times, the count of turns remaining includes the current turn.

Cosmetic
210. Corrected the placement of the End-of-Phase button on the Main form.
211. For the View Units form (Ctrl-U), added the month in which units in the production pool arrive as part of the description for where the unit is located.
212. Modified the Pools form so if the number of units to be displayed is greater than 54 (9 columns by 6 rows), and the monitor is wide enough to display twice as many columns, then the program automatically resizes the form’s width so it displays 108 units. The Force Pool for a major power almost always contains more than 54 units, and the player typically wants to see as many of those units as possible. You can still expand the form to show even more, if the monitor is wide enough.

Other
213. Added a check to avoid an inconsequential error message when quitting the game while the Spend Surprise Points form is visible.
214. Fixed a problem with UndoAll sometimes not performing that task. The change in the code was simply to keep searching for units whose moves can be undone until no more are found. I also sped up this code so it only checks for units that are in the map.
215. Added a check to avoid a potential Mad Except error when selecting units using the Selectable Units form.
216. Added a change so that units which are destroyed while using Emergency Supply, have the Emergency Supply flag set to False. This change shouldn’t affect game play.
217. Added a line of code so the View Units form always centers the Detailed Map on the selected unit if the player double clicks on a unit in the list that is on the map.
218. Modified the map data file for governed areas (Data/Map Data/Standard Map CGA.CSV) so the Galapagos Islands are controlled by Ecuador instead of Peru
219. Corrected the setup order of the major powers for the Missed the Bus scenario. I had modified it for testing purposes and never restored it to the original/correct setup order.
220. Corrected some spelling errors in the AO.CSV file (Areas of Operation - used by the AI Opponent).
221. Added text to the Help Content file to explain the effect on the probability of the US drawing a US Entry chit when the Japanese occupy a Chinese city and the optional rule Additional Chinese Cities is in use. It changes from a flat 40% without the optional rule, to (2 + the number of factories in the city) times 10% when the additional cities are shown on the map..
222. Fixed a typo in the Start Game form.
223. Fixed a problem with partisans never appearing in minor countries at war with a major power (A), but whose controlling major power is not at war with A. For example, if Italy is at war with Greece, which is controlled by the Commonwealth, and Italy is not at war with the Commonwealth, then Greek partisans were not appearing.

NetPlay
Air Operations
224. Fixed a fatal bug with Port Attacks when there is only 1 surprise point available for the Axis player.
225. Fixed a problem with using surprise points to avoid a port attack causing the program to halt. At times, this may have also been a problem in Solitaire and Head-to-head games.
226. Fixed a problem with applying anti-aircraft fire damage points to air units during port attacks. Previously, the reduction in naval air combat factors was only applied on one of the two computers. The other computer had the AA fire as having No Effect. That sometimes resulted in different outcomes on the two computers.
227. Added code at the start of the transition to a new air phase (e.g., port attack, ground strike) to set the air subphase to CAP prior to the call to AutoSave. This is so both players save the game as being in the CAP subphase. Previously, one player’s saved game would have the erroneous setting of Done. When the game was restored, the phase would then immediately advance to the next phase, instead of restoring to the CAP phase of the given air mission phase. This also applies to saved games in the Solitaire and Head-to-head modes of play.

Naval Operations
228. Fixed a couple of problems with undoing moves in the Unload Land Units and Invasion phases. Previously Undoing either of those moves created duplicate images of the land units in the sea box sections from which they started the phase.
229. Added a check to avoid a non-fatal error message when moving a naval unit into a sea area where it can be intercepted.
230. Fixed a problem with a naval interception combat of naval units - that were overrun during an Advance After Land Combat, forced to rebase, and successfully intercepted - causing the program to jump to the Air Rebase phase instead of processing the naval combat.
231. Finally got the naval interception combat of naval units that are forced to rebase when they are overrun during an Advance After Combat subphase of Land Combat Resolution to run correctly through to the next phase (Air Rebase).
232. Reviewed, revised, and corrected the NetPlay Naval Interception code. Processing all the possible logic branches for player decisions and die rolls requires thousands of lines of code. My addition of new code to handle the situation of intercepting naval units aborting from a naval combat, earlier (see # 106 and #107 above) was imprecise and caused an assortment of problems in NetPlay. These new changes fix those errors.
233. Fixed a problem with destroying naval units unable to return to base during the Stay At Sea phases.

Peace
234. After the conquest of Italy, removed a spurious message about all the US Entry Options having been chosen. Specifically, the disposition of the French carrier Bearn was causing a problem on the Axis computer.
235. Fixed several problems with the incomplete conquest of Italy. Specifically, the assignment of which Axis major powers get some of the Italian naval units that are randomly assigned to Captured/Destroyed/Escaped from the Repair, Construction, and Production Pools now executes correctly.

Cosmetic
236. Removed the displayed die roll for all players when drawing neutrality pact markers.

[Joseignacio]

Any advance ( not specified) in the huge lag in the last years of war when moving land units?

[rkr1958]

Hello everyone,

We're happy to announce that 08.02.00.00 is now out as an official update. We expect this to be the final update for World in Flames. Thank you for your interest and support of the game for all these years!

Does this mean all MWIF development is over? Including future AI (beta) versions?

[pzgndr]

Any advance ( not specified) in the huge lag in the last years of war when moving land units?

From last year's development update:

Since Microsoft is removing support for Windows 10 in October, I bought a new computer system, running Windows 11. To accompany that change, I upgraded my version of Delphi from 10.4 to 12.3...
Version 8.0.0.0 of World in Flames, which I just made available as a public beta to all users, was created using my old Windows 10 computer system and built with Delphi 10.4...
The solution is to change MWIF from a 32 bits application to a 64 bits application. A 64 bits application has essentially unlimited memory - as far as MWIF is concerned. As may be expected, converting an application from 32 bits to 64 bits requires a lot of tedious work on the code. Without going into details, I spent a good portion of July, all of August, and I’m well into September trying to get the 64 bits version of MWIF running cleanly. It compiles and builds okay but fails when I execute it...

I'm curious if Steve was successful in upgrading 8.02 to Win11 and 64-bit Delphi. If the 'essentially unlimited memory' is there, it may help with the lag issue. The announcement probably would have told us if Steve did this.

Sorry to see the announcement that this may be the final update. My hopes for a half-map Fascist Tide scenario and eventual AI computer opponent have been half-hearted for the past few years and now pretty much done. Maybe Steve and Matrix will work something out to save his source code and development notes so that someday another developer might continue with the project? Not me; I'm burned out from Empires in Arms over the past 10 years. I wish Steve the best as he deals with whatever issues he has that are now keeping him from his dream. God Bless.

[Joseignacio]

Thanks, hadnt read that

Thanks for suggesting the idea to make it open code if Steve is not working on it anymore.