Changes Documment for Ver. 2.0
Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2000 8:01 am
Hi Guys,
This will be a long note, but it includes all the intended game enhancements, bugfixes and changes made up to the release version of WIR:TMP v. 2.0. It will also be found on the "Features" page on this site.
Regards,
Nick
============================================
War In Russia - The Matrix Project
Bug Fixes
1. Fixed readiness display bug in corps and HQ display.
2. A marsh hex now correctly reduces supply by 2 (as indicated in the manual), instead of 1.
3. Armor, artillery and antitank units attached to a corps now suffer disorganization like everyone else, though they still continue 0 stacking points as before
4. A bug which made off-map (non-existing) units contribute stacking points has been squashed. This caused some corps/armies to suffer disorganization readiness loss. The player could not see this. (It took place before the combat phase) but could have a severe impact on combat.
5. The routine which checks success or failure of entrenching beyond level 3 now works (it was bugged and entrenching never failed).
6. Axis group #0 now can intercept (a bug existed whereby this unit never intercepted).
7. Fixed a major bug that caused the Valentines and Grants to never take losses in the antitank fire phase.
8. Fixed a major bug that caused Artillery and Flak guns to take losses in the anti-tank fire phase.
9. Attacking armor units directly attached to corps (i.e. not part of divisions) never contributed any firepower to attacks, though they did take losses.
10. Fixed a bug that let more aircraft intercept than actually exist.
11. The "Flak guns firing" message is now displayed for both sides.
12. Corrected two bugs that could increase the force committed in combat to up to 200% of what was actually available in units.
13. The Soviet 21st NKVD division should now function normally (receive reinforcements, etc.)
14. Moving HQs no longer causes random operation points losses.
15. Tank units no longer suffer losses when not attacked.
16. Fixed two bugs that led to a wrong calculation of the number of attacking tanks.
17. Removed a bug that prevented oil production from increasing normally.
18. Corrected a display bug that made city bombing reports display wrong damage levels.
19. Corrected a bug whereby Su-2 factories were automatically upgraded to P-47D factories. They now upgrade to Sturmovik production.
20. Corrected a bug which could prevent some air group from being automatically upgraded to new equipment by the AI (the result was that the AI still had some LaGG-3 groups in 1945 !).
Cheats
1. The computer no longer cheats as far as disorganization is concerned. Normal overstacking effects apply to its divisions.
2. The computer cheated by losing 10% readiness at the start of his turn, instead of the normal 40%. This cheat has been removed when balance level is "Even".
Interface and Message Enhancements
1. Figures for casualties are now much higher in combat reports - 50 men per squad instead of 10. This made most divisions look like they had only 2000 men. The change makes losses more realistic and typical of those seen on the Eastern front.
2. Leadership is now displayed to the right of a Leader's name. This makes it easier for players to compare current leadership to the leadership of available leaders.
3. A message is now displayed when a player has insufficient HQ OP points to move units.
4. A message is now displayed when there are insufficient rail points to rail a unit. Moreover, when points were insufficient the unit was marched instead of being railed, causing it to lose huge amounts of readiness. This no longer happens - the player now has the choice to make it march or not.
5. The sizes of units are now displayed correctly.
6. Combat reports will now display correct dropped bomb tonnage (in tons, not pounds). In the case of city attacks, the bomb tonnage displayed in the report is the actual tonnage dropped. It can be very random, being dependent on whether the bombers found their targets or not. Even a big attack may yield a very low tonnage result.
7. The causes for movement failures are now displayed through various messages.
8. The Axis player is now warned when his units suffer blizzard attrition losses when moving.
9. The player is now warned when an air mission is refused due to insufficient HQ Ops. points.
10. Fighter groups are no longer displayed as "used" after performing missions.
11. After an air group has been transferred from one HQ to another, a "Transferring" status is now displayed when examining that air group.
12. Air combat messages now indicate the number of damaged aircraft if the game detail level is set to 'High'. Note that the damaged aircraft are part of the indicated losses, not in addition thereof.
13. The number of flak guns defending a target hex is now displayed.
14. The delay for changing production of a factory is now displayed in parentheses in the factory lists [Example: "KV-1 5*(4)" means that the factory will start producing 4 weeks later].
15. The estimated number of divisions in an enemy unit is now followed by the "divs?" message when you click on an enemy corps. Similarly, the estimated number of air groups is now followed by the "gps?" message when you click on an enemy HQ.
Enhancements
Air Routines
1. The lethality of aviation against ground targets has been significantly reduced. It has been found that in the original game the killing power of aviation is huge compared to that of ground forces. This fix, which has an important impact on the game, strives to restore the importance of air support to more realistic levels.
2. Air attacks are now more effective against armor.
3. Bombs (as opposed to cannon) are now much more efficient against armor.
4. Large numbers of aircraft now have a smaller influence in combat, giving aircraft and pilot quality a greater importance. Small Elite units will now give a good accounting of themselves.
5. Transport air groups and groups which do not bomb (having aborted, or are not able to use bombs or cannon, etc.) no longer gain experience during air attacks. This fix prevents players from sending transport aircraft on bombing missions just to make them to accumulate experience.
6. Escorting Fighters no longer bomb cities, thus preventing a gain in experience from a bombing run.
7. Fighter-bombers which have a low dogfighting value (like the Me110) will no longer intercept unless set to CAP, if dogfight value < 17 + (year-1941).
8. Obsolete fighter-bombers like the Me-110 now fly correctly during the owning player's turn.
9. Fighter vs bomber air combat routines: the Cannon rating (of the attacker and of the defender) is now paramount in resolving the combat.
10. Fighters will no longer escort bombing runs from secondary HQs directed at Finish 6th Corps.
11. The efficiency of all Allied strategic bombing is halved, except USAAF raids after March 1944.
12. Air groups with 0 aircraft now get replacements.
Ground Unit Routines
1. The loss of readiness due to disorganization (i.e., overstacking) now takes place at the start of the turn the player's plotting phase, so that the player can now see its effect on his units when his turn comes. Only the phasing player's units are affected at the start of a turn.
2. In the original game, HQs were protected from air interdiction - they took only 1/3 damage from bombs. The routines have been modified so that they are now similarly protected from air cannon fire. This prevents players from accumulating huge tank kills by striking at units refitting in headquarters. It is assumed that refitting tanks are deployed in reserve far behind the front and are well hidden.
3. Weakly armored tank destroyers like the Jpz-I, Marders, Nashorn and Su-76 did not participate in attacks. They now do.
4. Axis light-armored Tank Destroyers (attack>7 and armor<5) now contribute half of their strength and take half losses when attacking (as it was German doctrine to use such armored vehicles for defensive warfare).
5. The armor combat routines have been improved, resulting in slightly higher tank losses.
6. Troops should now be transferable with the keyboard command 'g' at all display levels.
7. The bombardment phase of combat is now more effective.
8. Bombardment disrupts the defender much more, and cause fewer infantry losses
Anti-Aircraft Defenses
1. The flak defending cities was limited to the number of flak guns in the player's pool. At each scenario's start this pool is empty. The flak was therefore nonexistent over any city until a sufficient flak pool accumulated. This limitation has been lifted.
2. Airfield Flak has been strengthened; City Flak has been slightly strengthened.
3. The lethality of Flak has been increased.
4. Flak defensive values are now divided by 10 instead of 4 against escorting aircraft, which are assumed to stay clear of flak.
Weather Routines
1. Axis divisions only take 2% losses per turn in blizzard in 1941, instead of 10% per turn
2. Axis forces now lose less readiness during blizzard turns.
3. Aircraft mission availability is now dependent on weather as follows:
Clear 82%
Snow, Soviets and Finns in blizzard 66%
Germans in post-1941 blizzard 51%
Mud, Germans in 1941 blizzard 37% (capped at 50%)
These are averages, actual numbers being dependent on random rolls
4. Finnish units no longer suffer from blizzard turns. They are now as good as Soviet units in this respect. Their readiness is now significantly higher and they do not take attrition losses when moving in blizzard.
5. Soviet air units are less affected by blizzards - they now fly as they do during Snow conditions.
6. The Western and Italian fronts are no longer affected by blizzard.
7. Entrenching is now less likely in swamps and impossible during mud and blizzard conditions (except in minor and major cities).
Western & Italian Front Routines
1. A routine was removed which allowed the Western and Italian fronts to collapse whatever the strength of the German forces in these HQs. Germany has a much better chance of holding against the Allies if sufficient force is sent on these two fronts.
2. Italian Front routines have been tweaked to increase Allied strength on the Italian Front. This prevents the Axis from staying in Africa until 1945.
3. Rumanian air groups will no longer disappear when Italy surrenders. Italian air groups now disappear instead.
Fortifications
1. Terrain fort levels now are as follows:
Swamps, woods, minor city: +1
Mountain, major city: +2
2. The following cities are fortified cities and add the following fort levels to defending units (in addition to the +1 or +2 fort level for being a city):
Leningrad: +2
Helsinki: +1
Brest-Litovsk: +1
Constanta: +1
Sevastopol: +2
Koenigsberg: +2
Breslau: +1
3. Fortifications now divide the defender's losses by square root (fort+1), instead of by (fort+1). For instance, a unit at entrenchment level 7 in a major city (fort level=2+7=9) has its losses divided by 3 (instead of 9).
Special Supply Routines
1. Increased the cost of special supply per unit. This is to prevent the overuse of this extremely efficient function. The HQ OPS points cost of special supply has been changed to:
4 per Division
2 per Sub-unit (Armor, etc.)
2. The use of special supply no longer causes HQ OPS points to soar to 60,000.
Supply Routines
1. Units no longer suffer 40%-60% supply attrition at the start of their turn unless they are out of supply. To compensate for this major change, units receive less supply in the supply phase.
2. An immobile supply unit should now be able to reach 99% readiness if it remains motionless long enough. The less supplied its hex is, the longer this will take.
This will be a long note, but it includes all the intended game enhancements, bugfixes and changes made up to the release version of WIR:TMP v. 2.0. It will also be found on the "Features" page on this site.
Regards,
Nick
============================================
War In Russia - The Matrix Project
Bug Fixes
1. Fixed readiness display bug in corps and HQ display.
2. A marsh hex now correctly reduces supply by 2 (as indicated in the manual), instead of 1.
3. Armor, artillery and antitank units attached to a corps now suffer disorganization like everyone else, though they still continue 0 stacking points as before
4. A bug which made off-map (non-existing) units contribute stacking points has been squashed. This caused some corps/armies to suffer disorganization readiness loss. The player could not see this. (It took place before the combat phase) but could have a severe impact on combat.
5. The routine which checks success or failure of entrenching beyond level 3 now works (it was bugged and entrenching never failed).
6. Axis group #0 now can intercept (a bug existed whereby this unit never intercepted).
7. Fixed a major bug that caused the Valentines and Grants to never take losses in the antitank fire phase.
8. Fixed a major bug that caused Artillery and Flak guns to take losses in the anti-tank fire phase.
9. Attacking armor units directly attached to corps (i.e. not part of divisions) never contributed any firepower to attacks, though they did take losses.
10. Fixed a bug that let more aircraft intercept than actually exist.
11. The "Flak guns firing" message is now displayed for both sides.
12. Corrected two bugs that could increase the force committed in combat to up to 200% of what was actually available in units.
13. The Soviet 21st NKVD division should now function normally (receive reinforcements, etc.)
14. Moving HQs no longer causes random operation points losses.
15. Tank units no longer suffer losses when not attacked.
16. Fixed two bugs that led to a wrong calculation of the number of attacking tanks.
17. Removed a bug that prevented oil production from increasing normally.
18. Corrected a display bug that made city bombing reports display wrong damage levels.
19. Corrected a bug whereby Su-2 factories were automatically upgraded to P-47D factories. They now upgrade to Sturmovik production.
20. Corrected a bug which could prevent some air group from being automatically upgraded to new equipment by the AI (the result was that the AI still had some LaGG-3 groups in 1945 !).
Cheats
1. The computer no longer cheats as far as disorganization is concerned. Normal overstacking effects apply to its divisions.
2. The computer cheated by losing 10% readiness at the start of his turn, instead of the normal 40%. This cheat has been removed when balance level is "Even".
Interface and Message Enhancements
1. Figures for casualties are now much higher in combat reports - 50 men per squad instead of 10. This made most divisions look like they had only 2000 men. The change makes losses more realistic and typical of those seen on the Eastern front.
2. Leadership is now displayed to the right of a Leader's name. This makes it easier for players to compare current leadership to the leadership of available leaders.
3. A message is now displayed when a player has insufficient HQ OP points to move units.
4. A message is now displayed when there are insufficient rail points to rail a unit. Moreover, when points were insufficient the unit was marched instead of being railed, causing it to lose huge amounts of readiness. This no longer happens - the player now has the choice to make it march or not.
5. The sizes of units are now displayed correctly.
6. Combat reports will now display correct dropped bomb tonnage (in tons, not pounds). In the case of city attacks, the bomb tonnage displayed in the report is the actual tonnage dropped. It can be very random, being dependent on whether the bombers found their targets or not. Even a big attack may yield a very low tonnage result.
7. The causes for movement failures are now displayed through various messages.
8. The Axis player is now warned when his units suffer blizzard attrition losses when moving.
9. The player is now warned when an air mission is refused due to insufficient HQ Ops. points.
10. Fighter groups are no longer displayed as "used" after performing missions.
11. After an air group has been transferred from one HQ to another, a "Transferring" status is now displayed when examining that air group.
12. Air combat messages now indicate the number of damaged aircraft if the game detail level is set to 'High'. Note that the damaged aircraft are part of the indicated losses, not in addition thereof.
13. The number of flak guns defending a target hex is now displayed.
14. The delay for changing production of a factory is now displayed in parentheses in the factory lists [Example: "KV-1 5*(4)" means that the factory will start producing 4 weeks later].
15. The estimated number of divisions in an enemy unit is now followed by the "divs?" message when you click on an enemy corps. Similarly, the estimated number of air groups is now followed by the "gps?" message when you click on an enemy HQ.
Enhancements
Air Routines
1. The lethality of aviation against ground targets has been significantly reduced. It has been found that in the original game the killing power of aviation is huge compared to that of ground forces. This fix, which has an important impact on the game, strives to restore the importance of air support to more realistic levels.
2. Air attacks are now more effective against armor.
3. Bombs (as opposed to cannon) are now much more efficient against armor.
4. Large numbers of aircraft now have a smaller influence in combat, giving aircraft and pilot quality a greater importance. Small Elite units will now give a good accounting of themselves.
5. Transport air groups and groups which do not bomb (having aborted, or are not able to use bombs or cannon, etc.) no longer gain experience during air attacks. This fix prevents players from sending transport aircraft on bombing missions just to make them to accumulate experience.
6. Escorting Fighters no longer bomb cities, thus preventing a gain in experience from a bombing run.
7. Fighter-bombers which have a low dogfighting value (like the Me110) will no longer intercept unless set to CAP, if dogfight value < 17 + (year-1941).
8. Obsolete fighter-bombers like the Me-110 now fly correctly during the owning player's turn.
9. Fighter vs bomber air combat routines: the Cannon rating (of the attacker and of the defender) is now paramount in resolving the combat.
10. Fighters will no longer escort bombing runs from secondary HQs directed at Finish 6th Corps.
11. The efficiency of all Allied strategic bombing is halved, except USAAF raids after March 1944.
12. Air groups with 0 aircraft now get replacements.
Ground Unit Routines
1. The loss of readiness due to disorganization (i.e., overstacking) now takes place at the start of the turn the player's plotting phase, so that the player can now see its effect on his units when his turn comes. Only the phasing player's units are affected at the start of a turn.
2. In the original game, HQs were protected from air interdiction - they took only 1/3 damage from bombs. The routines have been modified so that they are now similarly protected from air cannon fire. This prevents players from accumulating huge tank kills by striking at units refitting in headquarters. It is assumed that refitting tanks are deployed in reserve far behind the front and are well hidden.
3. Weakly armored tank destroyers like the Jpz-I, Marders, Nashorn and Su-76 did not participate in attacks. They now do.
4. Axis light-armored Tank Destroyers (attack>7 and armor<5) now contribute half of their strength and take half losses when attacking (as it was German doctrine to use such armored vehicles for defensive warfare).
5. The armor combat routines have been improved, resulting in slightly higher tank losses.
6. Troops should now be transferable with the keyboard command 'g' at all display levels.
7. The bombardment phase of combat is now more effective.
8. Bombardment disrupts the defender much more, and cause fewer infantry losses
Anti-Aircraft Defenses
1. The flak defending cities was limited to the number of flak guns in the player's pool. At each scenario's start this pool is empty. The flak was therefore nonexistent over any city until a sufficient flak pool accumulated. This limitation has been lifted.
2. Airfield Flak has been strengthened; City Flak has been slightly strengthened.
3. The lethality of Flak has been increased.
4. Flak defensive values are now divided by 10 instead of 4 against escorting aircraft, which are assumed to stay clear of flak.
Weather Routines
1. Axis divisions only take 2% losses per turn in blizzard in 1941, instead of 10% per turn
2. Axis forces now lose less readiness during blizzard turns.
3. Aircraft mission availability is now dependent on weather as follows:
Clear 82%
Snow, Soviets and Finns in blizzard 66%
Germans in post-1941 blizzard 51%
Mud, Germans in 1941 blizzard 37% (capped at 50%)
These are averages, actual numbers being dependent on random rolls
4. Finnish units no longer suffer from blizzard turns. They are now as good as Soviet units in this respect. Their readiness is now significantly higher and they do not take attrition losses when moving in blizzard.
5. Soviet air units are less affected by blizzards - they now fly as they do during Snow conditions.
6. The Western and Italian fronts are no longer affected by blizzard.
7. Entrenching is now less likely in swamps and impossible during mud and blizzard conditions (except in minor and major cities).
Western & Italian Front Routines
1. A routine was removed which allowed the Western and Italian fronts to collapse whatever the strength of the German forces in these HQs. Germany has a much better chance of holding against the Allies if sufficient force is sent on these two fronts.
2. Italian Front routines have been tweaked to increase Allied strength on the Italian Front. This prevents the Axis from staying in Africa until 1945.
3. Rumanian air groups will no longer disappear when Italy surrenders. Italian air groups now disappear instead.
Fortifications
1. Terrain fort levels now are as follows:
Swamps, woods, minor city: +1
Mountain, major city: +2
2. The following cities are fortified cities and add the following fort levels to defending units (in addition to the +1 or +2 fort level for being a city):
Leningrad: +2
Helsinki: +1
Brest-Litovsk: +1
Constanta: +1
Sevastopol: +2
Koenigsberg: +2
Breslau: +1
3. Fortifications now divide the defender's losses by square root (fort+1), instead of by (fort+1). For instance, a unit at entrenchment level 7 in a major city (fort level=2+7=9) has its losses divided by 3 (instead of 9).
Special Supply Routines
1. Increased the cost of special supply per unit. This is to prevent the overuse of this extremely efficient function. The HQ OPS points cost of special supply has been changed to:
4 per Division
2 per Sub-unit (Armor, etc.)
2. The use of special supply no longer causes HQ OPS points to soar to 60,000.
Supply Routines
1. Units no longer suffer 40%-60% supply attrition at the start of their turn unless they are out of supply. To compensate for this major change, units receive less supply in the supply phase.
2. An immobile supply unit should now be able to reach 99% readiness if it remains motionless long enough. The less supplied its hex is, the longer this will take.