EIA v1.25.03 Official Update - Hotfix in Progress

[pzgndr]

As promised in my "State of the Game" post a couple weeks ago, there are a few near-term issues I am investigating further to resolve with a quick hotfix EXE patch sometime in the next month or two. So far:
- area_determine_owner bug - resolved.
- minor country not being conquered by one month's unbesieged occupation of its capital (related to area_determine_owner bug) - resolved.
- surrender conditions display glitch - resolved.
- pathfinding optimization - resolved.

I am interested in player feedback regarding the idea of allowing Finland, Norway, and Sicily to be re-conquered by the Free States of Sweden, Denmark, and Naples, respectively, if a player later in a game controls both minors, thus allowing doubled income/manpower for those particular conquered minors. Yea/Nay?

Other than that, I'm standing by for any other bug reports for the v1.25.03 Official Update version. I need reproducible bugs and game saves so I can investigate and resolve issues, and verify fixes. I'm looking at a cutoff by end of month and then I'll get a hotfix out in October. I only want to post one hotfix EXE and then move on to v1.26 code development. So, please, if you can play some, post any issues here. Or if you're having a great game with no issues, I'd like some positive feedback too. Thanks!

[roos]

Bug!
France (AI) conquering Prussian (player) owned minors (Hanover, Mecklenburg) even though they are not at war. Peace was reached the month before and France still had troops in these minors.

Save.zip

(200.77 KiB) Downloaded 25 times

About reforming dual area minors. I'd say yes. It makes no sense that countries suddenly should split up if they loose a war and are turned in to a vassal (free).

[pzgndr]

I think the conquer bug is fixed with what I've done to resolve the area_determine_owner bug. I will use your game save to verify on Monday when I get back to my PC.

For reforming dual minors, I am inclined to make that automatic if a player controls both minors. I could add a pop-up message asking the player if he wants to do that or not, but there's no good reason to say no especially if the primary minor is already a Free State and you'd be getting double income/manpower for the other conquered minor. I appreciate the feedback and endorsement of the idea.

UPDATE 9/18. I verify Hanover and Mecklenburg stay Prussian controlled and the conquer bug is fixed.

[pzgndr]

Alright, I've fixed a few things so I'm going to post an interim Hotfix Beta for folks to check out. So far, here's what's included in the attached EXE (just unzip it and overwrite the current EXE):
- area_determine_owner bug - resolved.
- area_nation_exerting_control bug - resolved.
- minor country not being conquered by one month's unbesieged occupation of its capital - resolved.
- surrender conditions display glitch - resolved.
- pathfinding optimization - resolved.
- Controlling Major Powers issues - resolved (now, AI Major Powers with forces in range of a minor declared war on or close to Instability are excluded from selection).

The first three are related, the main issue being the area_determine_owner bug but I also spotted the area_nation_exerting_control bug during playtesting. So AFAIK, area control is now working correctly and minors are being conquered correctly again. I think the surrender conditions display glitch is fixed but I don't have a reproducible save of the problem to be able to verify the fix; if anybody gets it again let me know. And pathfinding is better now. For the last one, the problem was the AI sometimes jumping in to defend "its" minor and possibly denying the invader a victory or else the AI was sometimes taking on too many minors to control (and lose PPs when conquered) and dipping into Instability. Human players still have flexibility to do those things.

I tried allowing Finland, Norway, and Sicily to be re-conquered but ran into some issues. I'll try some more and maybe get it into this Hotfix or else it will wait until v1.26. I'm still looking for any other feedback for near-term issues so let me know if you have something.

I'll give this a couple more weeks and then I'm off to a long weekend at West Point. After that, I'll wrap up this Hotfix with whatever I've got and get it out during the week of October 9. And then after that, I'll start on v1.26.

[roos]

BUGS!
Sorry, i tried to save a save, but failed somehow.

1. I (prussia) tried to storm Rhodes fortress and Turkey (computer) had both 1 factor garrison and 5 factors in a corps in the fortress.
Turkeys losses were never deducted from the total. I tried several times.

2. In the same turn Prussia (human) lost a battle with only one corps vs France (computer). Prussia ended up with 1 inf and 5 mil and then lost 1 cav in the pursuit. Game froze since neither the 5 mil nor the 1 inf was sufficient to cover the 1 cav loss.

3. AI failure.
AI keeps attacking besieging forces with very small garrisons leading to the loss of fortresses.

Ill send a save if i can repeat the problems.

[pzgndr]

BUGS!
Sorry, i tried to save a save, but failed somehow...

Good feedback. Thanks! I'll work on these.

I can recreate #1 and investigate that. #2 may require a simple code change to just eliminate the remaining force if the pursuit loss cannot be met. #3 has been problematic ever since I tried allowing besieged forces to attack IF they outnumber the besiegers. I'll try one more fix or else I'll ditch the idea.

As of today, I note about 20 downloads of the hotfix beta. I would greatly appreciate any more feedback, good or bad, before I wrap up this hotfix over the next couple of weeks. So please speak up if you get a chance to play and have any comments. My goal is to see v1.25.03 with hotfix be as squeaky clean as possible. I think we're almost there. After I get the final hotfix out, I'll start work on v1.26.

[kevin@czymbor.net]

Long time follower, first time poster. I have a game stopping bug I can't get past in this most recent update.

I am playing as Great Britain, hard level AI.

I have forces Russian forces besieging my Swedish forces in Stockholm. When the Russians break into the fortress and the battle occurs I am unable to complete the action of taking away the losses. It seems to have already taken them away and still shows what I need to remove but does not allow for any actions to happen at all.

I was having the same problem on the continent recently as well with forces in Hesse's capital, French besieging my Hessian forces. I reloaded and changed how I was managing that area to get around that problem, but when I had the corps in the city and it was besieged and fought it was impossible for me to complete the battles.

I have not seen this occur with my British garrison in Bordeaux. That battle allowed me to remove my casualty when France successfully breaches and kills it. Perhaps only a bug with minor corps/factors?

I have not seen the problem when I initiate battles or sieges, such as throughout my North African campaign.

My land combat save file is the quickest way to demonstrate the problem if you pass through it and then carry on with the computer player turn and if they successfully breach into the cities. I do not know how to proceed with providing you the file, or which ones. Let me know if you need the .dat and .sav files for that phase and how best to share them.

[kevin@czymbor.net]

Another problem with the Diplomatic Reactions for Great Britain screen, at all points in the game (setup as well as during game play).
I normally double click and select all for the "accept control" lefthand side of the screen. It selects them all and usually has been fine in the past versions. Current version, every time I go into the Diplomatic Reactions screen all of those selections are cleared. Whether I select all of the items or just a few, going back to the screen they are all cleared again.

[pzgndr]

Let me know if you need the .dat and .sav files for that phase and how best to share them.

Yes, please zip the land combat .dat and .sav files and post them here (you probably can't until you have 10 Matrix posts) or email them to me at pzgndr @ hotmail . com

I also have the AI Turkey besieged garrison not removing losses issue that I'm investigating. I'll see what's up with your AI Russia besiegers not allowing you to take losses. They may be related. I'll figure it out.

I'll also check the Accept Control issue. I haven't seen that one before. Thanks for the feedback!

[pzgndr]

I fixed a few more things so I'm going to post another interim Hotfix Beta for folks to check out. So far, here's what's included in the attachment file (just unzip it into the current game folder):
- area_determine_owner bug - resolved.
- area_nation_exerting_control bug - resolved.
- minor country not being conquered by one month's unbesieged occupation of its capital - resolved.
- surrender conditions display glitch - resolved.
- pathfinding optimization - resolved.
- Controlling Major Powers issues - resolved (now, AI Major Powers with forces in range of a minor declared war on or close to Instability are excluded from selection).
NEW
- some AI garrisons not taking assault losses - resolved.
- game freeze due to insufficient pursuit losses - resolved.
- outnumbered AI garrisons keep attacking larger besieging forces - resolved (recently added feature deleted).
- combat freeze when some human garrisons take final assault losses - resolved (but combat summary does not capture final round losses).
- Accept Control checkboxes in Diplomatic Reactions screen clearing selections - resolved.
- game messages for Attacker to click DONE to resolve siege inappropriate for AI attacker - resolved (\Data\programtext files updated).

A shout out to roos and kevin for reporting issues. Thank you! This is more than I expected to have to do, but I do want to resolve these issues so players can fully enjoy the recent v1.25.03 official update. The outnumbered AI garrisons and Accept Control checkboxes were my fault; I may relook the AI garrisons attacking smaller besieging forces later with v1.26. The issues with defending garrisons taking assault losses took some time to track down and fix, but these seem to be working OK now for the saves I was working with.

Unless there are any more reported surprises, I'll wrap up this Hotfix next week and then move on to v1.26 code development.
.

EiANW 12503 RELEASE Hotfix Beta.zip

(2.58 MiB) Downloaded 27 times

[kevin@czymbor.net]

Emailing you a Land phase file.
Winter land movement is being incorrectly over limited.

My infantry corps are only being allowed 1 movement space and cavalry corps is only being allowed 2. I believe the rules and function for winter movement are meant to be reduced by 1 during winter movement and in this case they are over impaired. Therefore, infantry should have been able to move 2 for British and cavalry should have been 4, I think.

Another part of this that is odd and unique to the White Russia area on the map is that the movement application is not showing different for the swamp area that is near there.

It appeared that Russia was hindered in the same way as they were actively working on moving many of their forces toward Moscow during the winter months I was waiting to proceed to attack it. My supply was hindered by my starting after ports froze up so I did not immediately notice the land movement issue but in thinking back to that previous winter I feel I was not getting full movement options. I am not sure if it was factoring against me for my forage rolls or not. I am dominating the present game enough that I was indifferent to losses so I was not paying attention to those details.

[pzgndr]

I believe the rules and function for winter movement are meant to be reduced by 1 during winter movement and in this case they are over impaired. Therefore, infantry should have been able to move 2 for British and cavalry should have been 4, I think.

The EIH optional rule is working as intended in the game but there are differences.

The EIH rule is:

9.5 WINTER
During “winter” months, movement into mountains and across crossing arrows are increased by one, while costs for marsh are decreased by one. Winter also restricts crossing arrow movement to “5” factors crossing that arrow in each direction.
EXCEPTION: The Dardanelles crossing arrow is not affected.

However, the game restricts all movement across crossing arrows rather than increasing movement cost, and does not reduce movement cost for marsh. I am adding this to my list for v1.26 to update the optional rule and the manual.

[pzgndr]

FYI, I am closing this out and re-posting the "official" hotfix above. No change to the EXE. I appreciate the comments that I've received so that I could quickly resolve the issues with the latest official update.