We have a new Beta to try in the Members Club.
"While this version is intended primarily for testing NetPlay using the Barbarossa scenario, it includes corrections that are quite beneficial for Solitaire and Head-to-head play. Note that there are still known bugs in naval operations for NetPlay, so using this version for running Guadalcanal or any other scenario that makes use of naval operations should be avoided when using NetPlay.
Change History:
V1.3.3.0 – January 20, 2015
Air Operations
During the Ground Support subphase Attacker Fly to Target, enabled the phasing side to send fighters to land combat hexes within their full range even if there are no bombers designated to fly to the hex. This effectively lets the phasing side fly CAP missions, without creating a new subphase expressly for that purpose. The WIF FE rules are somewhat unclear about whether this is permitted, so this change was made based on a consensus of the beta testers. Note that this affects all modes of play.
Enabled moving air units at sea to a lower box, or returning them to land during the Naval Air phase.
Fixed several places where damaged major ports were not properly being treated as minor ports. In particular, the question of including subs as targets in a port attack on a damaged major port is no longer asked (i.e., the port is treated the same as a minor port and the subs are always included).
Fixed a problem with some carrier air units engaged in a naval air combat having their role set to Fighter even though they could have flown as Bombers.
Fixed a problem with an air unit aborting from an air-to-air or anti-aircraft combat sometimes remaining Selectable even after it had returned to base. Instead it’s now no longer selectable, but can have its move Undone.
Fixed a problem in Head-to-head games for port attacks that was causing a fatal error during the anti-aircraft subphase.
Land Operations
Fixed a bug where attacks into jungle by countries other than Japan were gaining a column shift on the Land CRT 1D10 instead of losing a column shift.
Fixed a bug with automatic victory calculations on the Land CRT 1D10 where left shifts were not being applied and right shifts were applied as if they were left.
Fixed a problem with determining the number of attacker losses from a sea or air invasion, which is supported by other attacking land units and fails and the number of attacker losses is greater than the number of invading units. For instance, if one land unit is invading and 2 other land units are attacking from an adjacent hex and the attack fails with the attacker having to take 2 losses, then the attacker loses the invading unit plus one of the other attacking land units.
Supply units are no longer affected by land combat results. If they are alone in the defending hex after the defender takes losses, then the phasing side can advance into the hex and capture them.
Naval Operations
If a naval move to a sea area is cancelled using the Choose Section form, then the moving units are returned to their starting port. Previously this was only true when units had been loaded from coastal hexes upon entering the sea area. Now it also happens when no units are loaded from coastal hexes.
Fixed the problem with the end-of-phase button being disabled for the Return to Base phases when a major power had units at sea on sentry which could return to base, but had no units that absolutely had to return to base. In these cases the end-of-phase button is now enabled.
Production Planning
For Barbarossa, enabled executing the Preliminary Production Phase.
Fixed a minor calculation of the number of build points that can be sent to a hex so that hexes containing an undamaged major port can receive one additional BP.
Game Save/Restore
Fixed a problem with restoring saved games during the US Entry phase. Previously, they could sometimes go into an infinite loop.
Enabled restoring games that were saved during the Include Notional phase.
Peace
Fixed a couple of problems when enforcing peace in Finland and Rumania where the end-of-phase button was enabled when it should have been disabled, and disabled when it should have been enabled.
Fixed a problem with collapsing Vichy France where the determination of whether a country controlled by Vichy France became controlled by France or the major power that formed Vichy France was sometimes incorrect. For example, the French possessions in the South Pacific oftentimes became controlled by Germany instead of by France.
Player Interface
Restored the missing line of code so the Units In Hex form can be locked/unlocked using the Space Bar.
Enabled the Roll-up button on the Naval Review Details form. This also permits the player to make the form shorter in height, if so desired.
For NetPlay
Added a message so both players see the die roll for the end of turn.
Using oil to organize units now does so on both computers.
Placing fort reinforcements on the map and repositioning them now works correctly on both computers.
Fixed a couple of problems with the form for deciding whether to Include a Notional Unit in a combat. This was causing all sorts of problems later with phases being skipped (e.g. Shore Bombardment), which major power controlled the invasion hex, and ultimately Land Combat Resolution.
Modified the transition from phase to phase for all 60 phases to avoid a potential problem with one player’s computer terminating a phase after the other player’s computer already initiated the next phase. This problem was causing the phasing side’s computer to have the End-of-Phase button disabled when it should have been enabled (e.g., at the start of the Rail Movement phase).
Added code to make sure the end-of-phase button is enabled for the deciding major powers at the start of some phases: Rail Movement, Ground Strike - CAP, Land Combat Declaration ,Air Rebase, and numerous others.
Fixed a problem with hex control being set incorrectly for the non-phasing side when during Land Movement (or Retreats or Advance After Combat) the deciding major power on the phasing side Undoes a move. Previously, undoing any move which had caused a hex to be converted to being controlled by a different major power was not returning control of the hex to the previous owner. This only happened on the non-phasing side’s computer, so who controlled what hexes could end up being different on the two computers.
Updated the location of factories when undoing their moves using rail movement.
Fixed a problem in the Return to Base phase where if a major power M on side A only had units on Sentry status at sea, the Return to Base phase would be skipped for M. However, side B would be waiting for the side A player to click on the end-of-phase button for the M, which couldn’t be done.
Added accompanying text for the new GRL (Game Record Log) for when a land move is cancelled. This only appears when examining debug information for NetPlay games.
For AI Opponent
Changed some of the data for the AI Opponent as to which hexes in the USSR belong to which Land Regions. Now the Murmansk to Leningrad rail line is completely in the land regions Murmansk and Leningrad. The Voronezh land region has gained one hex from the Moscow land region and 4 hexes from the Stalingrad land region. These changes correct data entry errors made using out-of-date definitions of which hexes belong to which land regions.
V1.3.1.0 – December 15, 2014
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Solitaire & Head- to- Head[/b]
[ul]
- Fixed a problem with landing disorganized carrier air units back onto their carriers after a naval combat.
- Fixed a problem with loading units from non-port coastal hexes when playing with the Amphibious rule.
- Changed the positioning of all the Combat Result Charts so they “stay on top”. That makes them visible so they can be closed.
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[b]New Turn[/b]
[ul]
- Fixed several problems with displaying the Initiative and Move First forms and reporting the results to all players of the various die rolls and decisions using those forms.
- Corrected a problem with the DOW on Minors form always appearing for Germany regardless of whether or not there were minor countries on which Germany can declare war. Typically, this only occurred during Barbarossa.
- Fixed a problem where an endless series of the game record logs was sent by the non-deciding player while waiting for the other player to decide who goes first.
- Fixed a problem with Port Attacks where the program halted if there were no surprise points to spend for choosing a target. This bug also affected naval combat results.
- Fixed a problem with Ground Strikes where flying CAP was not possible. There was an associated problem (also fixed) with selecting units from the Selectable Units form during CAP subphases.
- Checked that the problems with flying multiple Ground Strike missions no longer exist. A player can fly multiple ground strikes against multiple units in a hex with no difficulties.
- Corrected a problem with an air-to-air combat halting when a land based air unit was destroyed (i.e., AX or DX result).
- Eliminated a redundant execution of whether a pilot lives or dies when his plane was destroyed. This was causing the numbering of the Entry Numbers on the two computers to become out-of-sync, which made restoring saved games problematic.
- Fixed a problem with an endless stream of game record logs being sent by the non-phasing player at the end of the Air Reorganization phase. Now the non-phasing player’s computer waits patiently for the phasing side to finish expending reorganization points.
- Corrected problems with overrunning air units causing the program to halt with the overrun units remaining in their original hex on one of the computers. This change affects not only units overrun during land movement, but also those overrun during advance after combat.
- Corrected problems with overrunning naval units causing the two computers to get out-of-sync (amongst other aberrations).
- Fixed a problem with intercepted naval units not continuing on to naval combat when the decision to Fight Through is made. There were related problems when deciding to Stop once intercepted; those changes were also corrected.
- Fixed several problems with processing naval interception digressions. A digression now proceeds correctly when the interception is not attempted, the search fails, or the moving player decides to stop in the sea area. When the moving player decides to fight through, the naval combat proceeds correctly through to the naval combat results subphase.
- Fixed a problem with processing naval combat surprise points when the points were spent for air-to-air combat. Fixed other problems when the points were spent on anti-aircraft fire.
- Fixed a problem for the Liberation phase where only the deciding player’s computer would process the phase. The other player’s computer would advance through to the next turn. Made the same change for the Surrender and Conquest phases.
- Fixed a problem with the Surrender phase executing twice, thereby causing one of the computers to advance two turns while the other correctly advanced one turn. For example, this left one computer in the Jul/Aug turn while the other was mistakenly in the Sep/Oct turn.
- Checked that the problems reported for the HQ Reorganization phase no longer occur.
Cosmetic
- Changed the message for when a carrier air unit has to be destroyed when there is no carrier on which it can land. Previously the message had the phrase “return to base” which was technically incorrect. It now states that there is no available carrier on which the unit can land.
