Matrix Games Forums

Okay, here's what is fixed/changed in 1.24 so far

1. Should not be able to use amphibious movement in a contested sea zone (Shipping is allowed)
2. Late game builds not always showing up
3. UBs on unrestricted warfare were not finding shipping (they were, but.. is the short answer)
4. Can't move supplies to Russia through the Black Sea because Constantinople remained under CP control
5. Brits were able to select the ports of conquered nations like France to amphib to
6. Ships shouldn't leave Constantinople for the Eastern Med and be intercepted in the Black Sea
7. Try to make "Return to Port" naval mission smoother
8. Rail movement issues. I think I fixed a small bug but I may have made this even more complex as now when you click on a British unit in France (for example) you will see French rail capacity, not British.
9. Problem of units sometimes showing up in bizarre locations when the city they were supposed to enter at was unavailable.
10. Russians should be able to sail out of the Black Sea once the Turks are defeated.
11. More options for transfers allowed such as France now able to transfer food and material to Britain
12. Italian forts being zeroed when Italy enters the war.
13. Withdrawals from a hex are now allowed even when that hex is attacked

Things mentioned but I haven't been able to find a problem :
1. It was said that Greece and Romania were set to pro-CP even when that option wasn't on
2. Austria losing national morale due to Italian surrender
3. Germany getting lots of food after Russia falls

Looks great as always.

A rather esoteric issue: With the Ottoman Empire on the Entente side the Entente player doesn’t get the option of choosing the Ottoman flag and resources can’t be transferred to/from the Ottomans to the other entente Powers. Also, it seems necessary to change control of the Constantinople hex to another entente power to ship recourses to Russia.

I gotto know. There was an actual sub issue, right? I wasn’t going crazy?

With the Ottoman Empire on the Entente side

That's right, you emailed me about that game, Germany attacking the Turks. May I ask why? I don't see the benefit. I'll look at what I can do for integrating the Ottomans on the Allied side.

I gotto know. There was an actual sub issue, right? I wasn’t going crazy?

There's a maximum number of naval battles that can happen. I set the limit high enough I thought but your 30+ UBs were running out of data, so they would find a merchant but be unable to resolve. The simplest thing to do would have just been expand the data. However, I don't want to make any change that causes the data footprint to change because it makes every saved game previous to 1.24 unloadable. So, I noticed that even when the maximum number of naval battles was reached you'd often still see only 5 or 12 battles or whatever. The reason being that the display only shows battles where damage occurred. Many of your UB vs shipping battles didn't inflict damage but they were still using up data space. So I created temporary naval battle data with lots of room. All battles are resolved there and only those where damage occurs are moved into the display data.

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter

With the Ottoman Empire on the Entente side

That's right, you emailed me about that game, Germany attacking the Turks. May I ask why? I don't see the benefit. I'll look at what I can do for integrating the Ottomans on the Allied side.

The whole thing was originally a misunderstanding on my part. I always assumed that British Amph movement was only allowed after Belgian/Netherlands neutrality was violated by the Central Powers or after the Ottoman Empire joined the Central powers.

Hence in my last game I declared war on the Ottoman Empire with Germany to – so I thought – prevent the BEF from going anywhere. As I wrote in that AAR I thought that was a nifty what-if build into the game. In a situation where Germany respect Benelux neutrality and the Entente is perceived as the stronger military side on land – as they likely would be with the Ottoman and Italy firmly in their camp – I can easily imagine Britain deciding to content herself with committing her fleet and material resources to her allies but being unwilling to incur the social cost of expending millions of lives and mobilizing a conscripted army.

All in all I think this is a reasonable historical what-if. Admittedly not allowing the Greatest Sea power in the world to move by sea sounds a bit silly but I considered it representing political restrictions – No Entente Cordinale in this timeline?

Clearly a Central Power DoW vs the Ottoman in turn 1 has to be assumed to represent a different political lead-up to the war and not an actual German attack on the Ottomans but that is a flight of fancy I find acceptable.

We are currently playing with a house rule that until either the Central Powers declare war on a Benelux country or the United States enter the war British Forces many not use Amph movement or rail movement. (This would include HQ’s) and the Ottomans on the Entente side

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter

I gotto know. There was an actual sub issue, right? I wasn’t going crazy?

There's a maximum number of naval battles that can happen. I set the limit high enough I thought but your 30+ UBs were running out of data, so they would find a merchant but be unable to resolve. The simplest thing to do would have just been expand the data. However, I don't want to make any change that causes the data footprint to change because it makes every saved game previous to 1.24 unloadable. So, I noticed that even when the maximum number of naval battles was reached you'd often still see only 5 or 12 battles or whatever. The reason being that the display only shows battles where damage occurred. Many of your UB vs shipping battles didn't inflict damage but they were still using up data space. So I created temporary naval battle data with lots of room. All battles are resolved there and only those where damage occurs are moved into the display data.

Thanks. I thought I was going crazy. So it had nothing to do with unrestricted submarine warfare pr say butthe fact that the additionally detections generated was pushing me over the limit.

So it had nothing to do with unrestricted submarine warfare pr say butthe fact that the additionally detections generated was pushing me over the limit.

That's right

Just to add in regards to the Withdraw order that was requested by dpstafford, its only corps that benefit from a higher urgency, not HQs and artillery. Plus any readiness loss that would have occurred through normal movement is doubled.

14. Forgot to mention that I've switched the procedure for the control of isolated hexes so that those hexes, including cities, revert to friendly control an impulse after the last isolated unit fades away.

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter

With the Ottoman Empire on the Entente side

That's right, you emailed me about that game, Germany attacking the Turks. May I ask why? I don't see the benefit. I'll look at what I can do for integrating the Ottomans on the Allied side.

Allowing the Ottomans to join the TE seems to be an ahistorical diplomatic situation that is inconsistent with the general diplomacy rules of the game. GoA reflects the diplomatic situation that existed just prior to the outbreak of the war. The predisposition of the neutral nations is towards the TE with only the time of entry into the war being affected by diplomatic efforts. Allowing the CP to declare war on the Ottomans is just as ahistorical as allowing Britain to declare war on Belgium. If GoA had a prewar diplomatic module allowing for diplomatic initiatives like the old "Diplomacy" game that would be one thing, but assuming the historical diplomatic stances this does not seem to be consistent with the basic design of GoA.

Doing that would push GoA away from the strong historical context that I and others find so appealing and moving it into the realm of generic pseudo historical games like EU. Please don't change this.

I have noticed that Greece has no strategic movement points. Is this intentional or a bug?

I am not sure its a good idea to allow France to transfer food to Britain. If France keeps 3 transports into the Atlantic, they can build a pretty large food surplus, which if transferred to Britain would make it extremely difficult for German subs to even have a chance of starving Britain. Not that they have much of a chance of doing that now, but changing this would mean Germany would have to starve Britain AND France to affect either one.

ORIGINAL: EdinHouston

I am not sure its a good idea to allow France to transfer food to Britain. If France keeps 3 transports into the Atlantic, they can build a pretty large food surplus, which if transferred to Britain would make it extremely difficult for German subs to even have a chance of starving Britain. Not that they have much of a chance of doing that now, but changing this would mean Germany would have to starve Britain AND France to affect either one.

I think you are right about this. It would affect play balance too much. Transfers of food and resources are not subject to sub interdiction and effectively would make the u-boat campaign pointless.

Frank,
I also feel there should be higher limits on the number of corps you can build. I often do little with AH ('17-'18) and can easily accumulate large numbers of arms and men but am limited by the number of corps I can form - same with Turkey and often BUlgaria. To me, this doesn't seem real.
What do others think?

Edit: I suspect if AH had done things a lot differently (my brain vs. the Hapsburgs) and suffered many less casualties, they would have been able to form more corps.

Allowing the Ottomans to join the TE seems to be an ahistorical diplomatic situation

True.

I have noticed that Greece has no strategic movement points. Is this intentional or a bug?

Intentional based on my understanding that there was no major continuous railroad from Athens to Salonika at the time.

Transfers of food and resources are not subject to sub interdiction and effectively would make the u-boat campaign pointless.

Not directly but the seas do have to be controlled. Its in 1.24 so we'll see if it causes problems.

Also a potential (and very minor) issue with German transports in the Baltic. Perhaps this is a slight bug but probably WAD and may have been discussed a long while back.

One must send out another 2 transports when there are 2 transports in the Baltic with a remaining endurance of 1 if one wishes to receive the extra recources. The naval forces screen will show 4 transports in the Baltic. Yet, if one doesn't send out the 2 other transports, there will still be the 2 transports with an endurance of 1 but you will not get the resources.

I feel one shouldn't have to overlap the transports but I can also talk myself into making sense of this - you just have to have 4 healthy transports to continuously get the resources.

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter

8. Rail movement issues. I think I fixed a small bug but I may have made this even more complex as now when you click on a British unit in France (for example) you will see French rail capacity, not British.

New patch looking very good - just wanted to check that the Rail movement fixes includes stopping erroneous ones being generated when one cancels ones moves.

I have that down as fixed?

But then perhaps I fixed it in 1.24 but forgot to add it to the list.

I also feel there should be higher limits on the number of corps you can build.

The only problem is that would really change the data footprint and I'd really hate doing so.

I feel one shouldn't have to overlap the transports

I will check this and see if it would be possible to count the shipping prior to checking endurance.

I have been giving a little thought to game balance and have a slight concern that the sum of the various changes (particularly the new withdrawal rule and the ability for France to transfer resources to Britain) might swing the overall balance against the CP which is already the more challenging side.
My personal preference would be to suspend for the moment the ability for France to transfer resources to Britain (which I had always thought was a clever mechanism to make a successful U Boat campaign possible) but of course very happy to leave the final decision on all these matters to Frank.

ORIGINAL: Von Hindenburg

Also a potential (and very minor) issue with German transports in the Baltic. Perhaps this is a slight bug but probably WAD and may have been discussed a long while back.

One must send out another 2 transports when there are 2 transports in the Baltic with a remaining endurance of 1 if one wishes to receive the extra recources. The naval forces screen will show 4 transports in the Baltic. Yet, if one doesn't send out the 2 other transports, there will still be the 2 transports with an endurance of 1 but you will not get the resources.

I feel one shouldn't have to overlap the transports but I can also talk myself into making sense of this - you just have to have 4 healthy transports to continuously get the resources.

This isn't only a problem with German transports. The French and British have this problem also.

I image it has something to do with the program checking for transports at sea during the strategic phase. The check probably is happing after transports that were at sea return.

ORIGINAL: glozier

ORIGINAL: Von Hindenburg

Also a potential (and very minor) issue with German transports in the Baltic. Perhaps this is a slight bug but probably WAD and may have been discussed a long while back.

One must send out another 2 transports when there are 2 transports in the Baltic with a remaining endurance of 1 if one wishes to receive the extra recources. The naval forces screen will show 4 transports in the Baltic. Yet, if one doesn't send out the 2 other transports, there will still be the 2 transports with an endurance of 1 but you will not get the resources.

I feel one shouldn't have to overlap the transports but I can also talk myself into making sense of this - you just have to have 4 healthy transports to continuously get the resources.

This isn't only a problem with German transports. The French and British have this problem also.

I image it has something to do with the program checking for transports at sea during the strategic phase. The check probably is happing after transports that were at sea return.

I agree, if the check for trade happened before the ships returned to port in the strategic phase, everything would be fine. But the way things are, the ships end up being at sea for a turn when they dont generate any trade. Its manageable once you have a general idea how the game works, but its very odd that you can leave transports at sea on one turn, and then they dont generate any trade the following strategic phase (which was the whole purpose they were left at sea). If the intent of the game design is that transports only generate trade for two turns, it would be better if they returned to port during the second strategic phase they were at sea (right after they generated trade). I know that tricked me in my first game as the TE, I hadnt realized that you dont get that final turn of trade - I had the North Atlantic full of tranports that third turn, but didnt get any trade. It was half rations for the Brits that winter!

I have been giving a little thought to game balance and have a slight concern that the sum of the various changes might swing the overall balance against the CP

Its a valid concern.

I don't know if the withdrawal rule change will affect much outside of the eastern front and I'm not sure Britain should be allowed to starve if France has a food surplus but 1.24 is being posted with "beta" on it because it will be necessary to have a look to see if creates more problems than it fixes before declaring it final.