Matrix Games Forums

I thought you'd all like to see what goodies are going to be in the patch we're working on, so I'm pasting a copy of the documentation.

Before you ask, there is no known release date yet, though we're certainly getting close. At this point we've added everything to the patch that we plan to (other than bug fixes that might come up, of course), so it's a matter of continuing to test rather than continuing to program. We'll let you know more about release status when we are able. But for now, here, at least, is a sneak peek.


Interface Improvements

Improved lag performance issues on main strategic screen and in detailed combat experienced by some players.

Players may now select a button from the standard popup menu by pressing a key corresponding to the first letter of the button they wish to choose. If two buttons have the same first letter, the button first in order on the list will be chosen.

The Overview statistics screen now excludes militia units from strength/quality history graphs.

High attrition provinces now have cities marked with a red 'X'

Added a message when ships ungrapple as a result of a failed boarding action.

Added report on treaty defaults to Treaty Report. Now include treaty/clause information with glory loss report.

Added message in Political Report for conquering/escaping fleets when city is captured.

Changed "miss" message when score critical hit and no other damage in naval detailed combat.

Added Battle Report entries for successful and failed frigate anti-privateering activity.

Added message for awakened units in detailed combat


Rule Changes

Amphibious assaults into enemy territory inflict 4%xGuns casualties on disembarking units. Non-British/French units are automatically strategic-disordered when disembarking in enemy territory; British/French units have 50% to become strategic-disordered. Disembarking into an occupied province (a province in which the disembarking nation controls the city) does not cause amphibious assault attrition.

Added several "Super-Fortresses" to the map. Super-Fortresses are now shown with distinctive city wall graphics. Selecting a province with a super-fortress now displays information about the fortress level at the top of the screen.

Russia now loses 75 NML when enemy troops occupy St Petersburg and 75 NML when enemy troops occupy Moscow.

Ships now participate in medium sized naval actions only if they are not attached to fleets containing a large ship.

Shipyards are now much more efficient at repairing ships.

Players may now refuse particular types of units generated by feudal levy (non-PBEM games only).

Conquered minor powers no longer generate units during the springtime feudal levy.

Rule change: Reduced Turkish development cost penalty to $50.

Rule Change: Only certain provinces can act as supply sources. Depot chains must be able to trace a path back to a supply source. A supply source is only valid for a nation if the nation owns the province and the city is not occupied by another power. These provinces are marked with a circle in the controlling nation's color.

Rule change: Now allow winner of a war to choose not to vacate enemy territory (non-PBEM).

Borovichi, Torzhek, Volhynia, Cyrenaica, and Benghazi are now high attrition provinces.

Any single change to national morale is now constrained to be within the range -250 to 750.

Teleported units after a war are now not subject to the large stack upkeep cost penalty on the turn they teleport.

Reduced NML lost for naval actions.

Sieges harder when besieging a target with whom a nation is at total war. The effect of total war on sieges is shown in the Battle Report.

Guerrilla units no longer count toward mobilization limits.

France now loses only 100 NML when capital occupied by 40,000+ enemy forces if the Bourbon Restoration event has not come into play.



Bug Fixes

Fixed bug with "Extra Caissons" option

Fixed: casualties for nations not being initialized properly on save game, glory, experience and morale not being reported properly.

Fixed bug that allowed units to attack cavalry screens.

Fixed bug when code tries to initialize second crossing treaty from start files.

Fixed: Units from map region bonus were sometimes working for prohibited nations.

Fixed linker problem with the (unsupported) TCP/IP routines

Fixed: Minor power non-capital provinces are now occupied upon a successful siege instead of being captured (as per the rules in the manual).

Fixed Ctrl +/- bug from 1.0.1 for zoom in detailed battle.

Fixed: Make separate check for depot validity after all are built to prevent illegal depots from being built

Fixed bug re naval avoid battle.

Fixed total war conquering bug.

Fixed: Some scnearios had Friesland as the capital of Netherlands; changed to Batavia.

Fixed coastal guns now do not count toward WTF calculations.

Fixed bug needing player to ratify enforced alliance clause.

Fixed crew damage as reported in combat report when marines are firing. Added separate line showing damage from marine fire.

Fixed assertion in game.cpp line 4108 "g<NoNations"

Fixed: save game during detailed combat truncates the Events Report

Fixed: the morale/glory reports and not being cleared properly when the game is restarted

Fixed: popup report in detailed combat doesn't report broken ships properly

Fixed UI problem with setting sliders on Economic Advisor to zero in advanced economic mode on the first turn of the game.

Fixed caisson initial facing in detailed combat

Fixed oblique fire bug



AI Improvements

Tweaked AI unit purchasing behavior.

AI ships should repair at start of turn more frequently when on fire or fouled.

Tweaked AI use of shot types when AI on defense.

Tweaked combat AI to be more aggressive in certain situations. Made cavalry tactics vary more frequently.

Tweaked AI to have fleets use "avoid battle" more often.

Tweaked: AI now more anti-France as long as there has been no Bourbon Restoration event.

AI now has a better valuation of the Respect Neutrality clause


EDIT: The patch will also include the (highly) detailed "Modder's Guide" that has already been posted in the Members Club and a very readable and helpful introduction to the Advanced Economy, both written by beta-tester bjmorgan.

Hi Gil.,
I'm pretty happy with some of the bug fixes namely:
Fixed: Minor power non-capital provinces are now occupied upon a successful siege instead of being captured (as per the rules in the manual).

I wonder, does this mean that the AI won't be trading 26 money for 1 horse anymore???? There goes my British funding

I'm just throwing the idea out there like that, but if you guys ever want a little bit of help with economic models with less micromanagement (because I don't think the actual model represent how a governement really deal with economic problems), I will soon have a master in Economics and I'll probably start a Phd. in the same field pretty soon. So I'd be interested to help. I also got some experiences with Computable General Equilibrium Models (CGEM) wich is one of the most interesting models for comparative analysis... I'd be willing to help develop that kind of stuff I unfortunetely have no skill at all in programing and these kind of models requires strong CPU to resolve... So I have no idea how it would be feasible to implement in a computer game where there is alot of nations... But I'm just throwing the idea out there

One more thing:

Iron Warrior seem to think the support order doesn't work... You could ask him on our PBEM thread in the opponent wanted forums what he meant by this. Because I never tryed this order I can't help you. But he seems to think that this bug is as important as I tough this was: Fixed: Minor power non-capital provinces are now occupied upon a successful siege instead of being captured (as per the rules in the manual).

Yeah I am really hoping support orders gets fixed. I never heard back from Eric on the issue. I am glad that Minor power occupied bug is in though.

Aside from that I have to be honest and say that from the list posted I am a little disappointed. It appears the focus of the patch is on single player, which I don't play anyway. Ah well, maybe next patch.

Cool.  Looks good to me.  I am a bit sad that that the following:

"Rule change: Now allow winner of a war to choose not to vacate enemy territory (non-PBEM)."

is not available in PBEM.

I still see play vs. the computer as practice for real games against humans in PBEM.  Isn't it possible to add this to PBEM policies?  Sort of like an "Evacuate if surrender" and then have a check box for each major power?

Note: I changed the post to make sense. In my original post I said this was "only available in PBEM." No. It is not available in PBEM. And this is what I find unfortunate.

I've checked support orders under several situations, tracing through the code as the game ran, and they seem to be working as designed.&nbsp; There is still an initiative check made by the supporting unit to ascertain whether it can move before moving.

In our 1796 pbem game "another PBEM" is the title of the thread I think, I had a treaty as GB with Prussia to declare war on enemies of Prussia and vice versa.  France surrendered to me and then Prussia went to war with France.  I was unable to declare war because of the enforced peace with France from the surrender, but Prussia was taking a -40 glory hit every turn because I couldnt declare.  Isnt that incorrect?  Shouldnt GB have taken the Glory hit in that instance? Or did Prussia take the hit because they were the aggressor in a war against a person I had an enforced peace with? Trying to figure out if this is working correctly.

I wasn't the aggressor, as France chose to attack a nation which then asked me for protection.

Eric, were you able to get support orders to work in pbem? My problem was not initiative, but the force that was given the support order attacked before the other arriving force... resulting in both being defeated piecemeal.

Are naval forces not able to be given support orders? If this is the case the manual appears to wrong (or my reading comprehension way off- which is totally possible).

During the same game that this happened I started to give a land force support orders, and the same thing starting to happen... no dashed line as described in the manual. I don't know for sure that it doesn't work, but will try it as soon as I get the chance in one of my current pbem games and post the results in the thread in the support section.

I can provide my saves from the pbem game if needed, but I am not the host and not sure if it would do any good. If you are able to get it to work, maybe something is wrong with my game?

ORIGINAL: lenin

I wasn't the aggressor, as France chose to attack a nation which then asked me for protection.

Well that just means theres even less justification for what happened.

The Glory penalties in certain diplomatic situations appear to be transposed.

See the topic in the other PBEM game, the 1804 one where France is taking massive Glory hits because Austria wont comply with some of the Demands France made of it in a surrender agreement.

Seems to be a bug. Hope somebody sounds off from WCS.

Thank you for supporting the unsupported TCP/IP multiplayer! [:D]

Mus, I have heard from someone at WCS that the glory penalty problem has been addressed for the patch.

ORIGINAL: barbarossa2

Mus, I have heard from someone at WCS that the glory penalty problem has been addressed for the patch.

Good deal.

ORIGINAL: Mus

ORIGINAL: lenin

I wasn't the aggressor, as France chose to attack a nation which then asked me for protection.

Well that just means theres even less justification for what happened.

The Glory penalties in certain diplomatic situations appear to be transposed.

See the topic in the other PBEM game, the 1804 one where France is taking massive Glory hits because Austria wont comply with some of the Demands France made of it in a surrender agreement.

Seems to be a bug. Hope somebody sounds off from WCS.

Yup, that one has also got me too. Again losing glory, despite the fact it isn't me defaulting... Hehe, very frustrating.

If you guys are taking hits like that, the game will take forever to finish.&nbsp; I, as Sweden, certainly don't plan on winning.&nbsp; But it is frustrating for me to watch Britain and France be punished like that.&nbsp; So the winner will be someone who doesn't have any treaties?

Barbarossa, I have a feeling those games are going to die and new ones be started in their place when the patch comes out anyways.&nbsp; Most of us were just getting our feet wet, knowing there were a couple issues that needed to be sorted before a serious game was started.

Some Suggestions:

1) Again, I think it would be nice to make sure the fog of war sticks in the seconds after you click, "End Turn".  It is pretty easy to position the map where you would like to know information and then click "End Turn" and then you can see everything which was supposed to be hidden from you.  I THINK this should be an easy fix.

2) The formula for losses from guns when disembarking into enemy territory of "4% x guns" seems a bit solid. There are, of course, some situations where they would completely end any thought of a disembarking, and other situations where they would have no effect. I would be for some kind of random number of losses and even a possible abort result when facing lots of guns. Of course, this all would depend on where the disembarking would be in the territory historically. Just last night while reading "The War for All the Oceans" by Adkins, I read of a disembark attempt directly under the nose of a fort in a night time attack which could have gone DREADFULLY wrong had the element of surprise been lost, and earlier read of another disembark basically right on top of a fort. There were times where disembarks could be planned right on top of such fortifications, and others where there were no forts for miles in any direction. Of course, at this scale, players can't choose exactly where. So, again, IMHO, there should be some kind of table which randomizes between no losses, light losses, heavy losses, and aborts caused by guns.

3) If this can't be done already (and I don't think it can), it would be nice if you have been given access to an ally's territory, that you can embark your troops onto your ships from there instead of having to march home to do this.

4) Between the first and last month of snow (inclusive) in a Baltic Sea Ice Region (BSIR), you should not be able to move ships to/from a BSIR, embark or debark units from/to a BSIR. Ice was an important factor in the Baltic sea and according to "The War for All the Oceans" would shut down all Russian ports as late as April 3. So, I would say even through the full of April it should be a possibility. Regions so affected should range from Uppland to Kovno based on Baltic Sea ice maps I have seen.

Probably far too late to have any impact, but, I wish there were a factor for 'straggling', as opposed to simply attrition. Hard-marching armies always straggled, but, over time the stragglers caught up/were rounded up/were hospitalized. I just don't accept that marching while in supply should always cause permanent losses of manpower to a unit, per the attrition rules.

ORIGINAL: ShaiHulud

Probably far too late to have any impact, but, I wish there were a factor for 'straggling', as opposed to simply attrition. Hard-marching armies always straggled, but, over time the stragglers caught up/were rounded up/were hospitalized. I just don't accept that marching while in supply should always cause permanent losses of manpower to a unit, per the attrition rules.

Also quality should probably have an effect on march attrition. Veterans could keep up in forced marches. Conscripts and other less experienced men were soft and fell out because they couldnt keep up or even looked for opportunities to desert.

That's a great suggestion Mus/ShaiHulud.&nbsp; I wonder how much of the "attrition" numbers were actually stragglers?