---> Patch 1.07 <---

[Pocus]

The 1.07 patch is now available!

http://ageoddl.telechargement.fr/BoA_patch1.07.exe

Readme:

*** Birth of America update 1.07 readme ***
Tuesday, May 16, 2006

*** Bugs fixes ***
1- Orders files with appended carriage return (added by overzealous mailing programs) should not crash the game anymore.
2- An army entirely killed while force marching would cause a crash.
3- Upgrading units should now work. This is done automatically if your leader is a Training Officer or Master Driller (Washington, von Steuben, ...).

*** Scenarios & data ***
1- Some erroneous links corrected in the map (Isle au Noix for example)
2- Scenarios reworked again, notably the French-Indians war scenarios. Also if Louisbourg fall, the french will loose 100 VP. If not taken, starting in 1758 some added reinforcements will arrive, notably the "Grand Renfort d'Amérique" with 5 lines regiments and assorted assets.
In the AWI, added the 1st RI regiment, an american regiment with black troops (august 78).

*** Gameplay additions & changes ***
1- Ships can now bombards. In order to do so your fleet must have:
a) big guns (range 5 or better), b) be in offensive posture and at sea c) must not have bombarded this turn d) have the order "bombard" activated.
A valid target is (coastal province each time):
a) an enemy army in a region where you have an army in offensive posture
b) an enemy in a city, if the city has an harbor
c) an enemy fleet, harbored, in a port not protected by a fort
d) an enemy army, entranched with artilleries.

Beware, the enemy can strike back...

2- Units recombinations
You can recombine weakened units (who have lost elements) into a single one. Common usage will be to regroup your weakened artilleries, supplies and militias into stronger units. To do so, multi-select the units which should merge, then hit CTRL-C. Provided the merging is legal (right elements, no more than 4), then the operation will be done instantly (no need to be processed by the hosting phase).

3- Indians units will now cost 2 CP (command points) if commanded by a leader unable to command indians units. Reminder: these units have a 0 CP cost normally, if left alone or with the right commander. Ambush percentage chance has been increased for all units what's more.

4- Levies are now raised in february and june, starting with february 76 in the AWI.
5- If you fight in a region where you have a structure, you will now retreat inside. Also if you sortie from a structure, the hosting module will force you to switch to an offensive posture if not done. This is to prevent a possible exploit, where players would sortie and go away from a structure besieged by a force in defensive (to get the benefit of entranchement eg).

6- Yet another test has been made to get a right flavor message when you are victorious or defeated in a battle. Pyrrhic victories are still difficult to get right...

7- A passive posture now enable you to get out of a ZOC. Reminder: a ZOC is a zone of control, = a region where the enemy has a fort or many troops. (see the previous readme for all the rule)

8- the protection rating of troops is now used differently. Before each point in protection substracted 4% to hit chance. Now the To Hit chance is time 0.96. This should be more realistic in some extreme cases (low or high To Hit chances). eg: 5 protections give (0.96)^5 = 0.80

*** Graphics ***
1- The cityscapes sprites have been remade to look "crispier".
2- If you use the pause after battle option, the battle balance is now disabled.
3- Explosions have been replaced by the region of the battle pulsating in red.
4- The English flag has been fixed.


*** User interface additions ***
1- Scrolling will now disable correctly the tooltip, if you choose to have a delay on tooltip appearance.
2- Added shortkeys
For postures: Use A, O, D, P for Agressive, Offensive, Defensive, Passive


Sentry: S
This will skip the army/fleet when you browse thru your list of assets with the browse keys.
Reminder: E: previous land group R: next land group T: previous fleet Y: next fleet
*** The armies/fleets are skipped if on move, UNLESS you press also CTRL. ***

For special orders & missions: Use SHIFT +
T: Move inside Town upon arriving into the destination region.
E: Entranch
F: Build Fort
D: Build Depot
S: Sortie from structure
M: Forced March
A: Ambush
R: Raze Fort
B: Burn other structure
B: Bombard

Ctrl-C: combine units

3- Some regions colors are now customizable. Open Boa\Settings\General.opt, add these keys:
colFoW = 175|175|175|255
colEventBlock = 145|145|145|255
colPermaBlock = 125|125|125|255

the 4 numbers for each color are: red value, green value, blue value, opacity (leave 255, as for these 3 the opacity is hard coded).
colFow is for fog of war. colEventBlock is for regions that are blocked (unplayable) but can be unblocked by an event. colPermaBlock are for region blocked during the entire scenario (outside the playing area).

4- Optimal mouse cursor "giggling a bit" should not reset the tooltip delay anymore.

[Frost716]

Great!!!..thanks!!....Is there any way of having patch 1.7 and still keeping the explosion graphic instead of the pulsating red?...

[Pocus]

ah... You are threading on a dangerous path here (private & internal joke)

[Sandra]

Erf...

To close the discussion, let's say... "over my dead body !"
Seriously :
- the artistic direction tries to give a boardgame feeling and we think that the explosions were a lack of taste.
- the images didn't belong to us
- in the near future we shall have another system, far more good-looking

[Henry D.]

YIIIIEEEEHAAAAAH!

Sounds great, I can hardly wait to try it out...

For occasions like this, this forum really needs a :drooling:-smiley

Thanks, Pocus et al.!

[Frost716]

[quote="Sandra"]Erf... ]

Ok..gotcha..look forward to seeing the future system then..

[Fatboy]

I have just tried 1.07 & it looks great!
However I can't see the entrenching button.
Has it gone or is it just my imagination?

[Robin]

[quote="Sandra"]Erf... ]

Never !

[Pocus]

I have just tried 1.07 & it looks great!
However I can't see the entrenching button.
Has it gone or is it just my imagination?

Entrenching is now done automatically when units stop moving, to reduce your mouse-click usage...

We will see if the system is further modified in the future (multi entrench level, etc.)

[Pocus]

Update: New 1.07 uploaded with some minors corrections (localization file, a very rare non-crashing bug and such...)

Not mandatory to play. You can re-apply this 1.07 on top of your previous 1.07 if you want.

[Ardie]

There are now an odd amount of numeral ratings in the unit detail box. Have you dropped the protection trait?

Or is this an oversight?

[Pocus]

an error in the localization file.

Please download and re-apply the 1.07 patch (just uploaded sub-sub-version (d) 2 mn ago).

[oi_you_nutter]

with all these different 1.07 versions floating around, could you make them a,b,c,d in the file/link name

otherwise how do we tell them apart ?

(as a software developer i never release two different versions as the same version number )

thanks

[blackbellamy]

There's not a versioning conflict. There aren't different current versions of 1.07, there is only one.

[Chief Rudiger]

Hi,

To me the new bombard ability seems overpowered. I'm playing the AWI GC as the rebels and the RN just sits off Manhattan destroying the smaller units inside my fort or anyone who marches along the coast. Knox's guns have disappeared, which is a real pain, and I assume they were some of the X hits from the last few turns.

Coastal guns being locked is quite annoying too - I'd rather move the battery I captured in Portsmouth to Manhattan to protect that communication hub.

Also, fleets bombarding each other are annoying, I lost the Continental Navy to bombardment on the turn it was created when it feels like their blockade-runners and privateers should have been able to retreat (they were set on passive). The fleet was in the sound off Norfolk and the RN was in the region immediately East, but not the “Atlantic”.

I'm playing on normal with more time enabled but that’s it. The RN fleet seems to constantly have four or five "ships" in it but I don't know what kind. They inflicted maybe around 50 hits a turn on NYC and have wiped out small units such as Cav in the open. The fort in New York had to begin with about 7 Continental Army regiments plus 6 artillery sub units, 2 siege guns and a half dozen supply wagons. There were no naval guns and the fort was not under siege. I don’t think I returned any hits with my field or siege guns.

To me, ships shouldn't be able to bombard land armies unless they're engaged in a battle or siege, otherwise I think an army would just take an inland road to avoid being shot at.

Otherwise, a great game!

[Pocus]

with all these different 1.07 versions floating around, could you make them a,b,c,d in the file/link name

otherwise how do we tell them apart ?

(as a software developer i never release two different versions as the same version number )

thanks

I can understand your position, but its still 1.07, all sub versions are compatible with each other, and each one is just a minor fix on something cosmetic, a little display bug and such... Just to be sure, download again 1.07 and re apply it on top of your current 1.07.

Anyway... we will add a letter, for the comfort of you (and others players).

[Pocus]

[quote="Chief Rudiger"]Hi,

To me the new bombard ability seems overpowered. I'm playing the AWI GC as the rebels and the RN just sits off Manhattan destroying the smaller units inside my fort or anyone who marches along the coast. Knox's guns have disappeared, which is a real pain, and I assume they were some of the X hits from the last few turns.

Coastal guns being locked is quite annoying too - I'd rather move the battery I captured in Portsmouth to Manhattan to protect that communication hub.

Also, fleets bombarding each other are annoying, I lost the Continental Navy to bombardment on the turn it was created when it feels like their blockade-runners and privateers should have been able to retreat (they were set on passive). The fleet was in the sound off Norfolk and the RN was in the region immediately East, but not the “]
Download and re-apply 1.07 on top of your 1.07, this has changed on this sub-version (the (d) one).

We will now switch to 1.07e if we post another minor update on 1.07.

Bombardment was still very experimental, and we are just getting several reports of the beta that goes in the same direction as you.

in the current 1.07 you should not be able to bombard garrison in cities, unless you have an army standing outside it. This should be a bit more easy for the poor rebels Also you can't kill units now, 'just' reduce them to 50%

=> Bombardment in BoA is now a support fire, best used before an attack.

[Brett]

Does the latest patch contain the (d) in the file name? The patch I download (from the link at the top of this thread) still shows just 1.07 in the file name.

Also, when the game loads, the version number on the startup screen still just says "1.07". So, I am not sure if I have the latest version.

Also, I cannot download the patch from the main BOA website screen, I can only download it from the link in this thread. I am not sure why it works here, but not on the home page patch download link.

[Pocus]

Sorry all for the mess. To make things clearer, the latest version is 1.07d, and the splash screen will now show you that (but the patch is still named 1.07)

Just download again and apply the patch, if you see 1.07d on the splash screen, you are up to date.

If e, f, version appears, I will follow the same procedure.

[Brett]

Thanks for the change, I appreciate it. I hope it wasn't too much trouble. Showing the update version on the splash screen just makes you more confident that you are in fact playing the lastest release.

Thanks again!

[Donegal]

umm has the entrenchment icon disappeared in this new version or it is bug?

[Frost716]

Donegal,

Read all the posts...it's mentioned above.

[Pocus]

Patch 1.07e on the server (same link as in the first post).

Notes:
The file don't change name, as the games web sites would have problems following all the sub-versions. The intro screen is labelled 1.07e though.

Sub-versions: There is sub-versions because our team is rather small, even in the beta, and it happens often that we fail to check all the aspects of a given rule (for example if you sortie without moving, the "retreat to city" rule works...). This is somehow the price to pay to have real-time patching. If you don't feel like downloading several time the patch, just wait a few days that the things are cleared up. Alternatively we can do as some others companies, produce a patch, recognize there is still bugs, and wait the next patch to correct it. The benefit of having a light-weight company that can assemble a patch in 15 mn would be lost though...

Last note, if some of you want to get the "beta patches" so that we don't bother all players with sub-versions, just ask, and I will add you to the list, not as beta, but as players who want the patches as soon as I release them.

1.07e:

a) fixed the retreat rule when besieged
b) reworked the bombardment rule (readme updated). You can only bombard a garrison (in a city with harbor) if you have an army in the region or are landing in the province. Nothing more...

Damages toned down too. Also fleets can no longer get resupplied in ammos (general supply still ok) from adjacent regions. It means that a fleet at sea, with a friendly coast nearby can't have his ammos refilled...

Fixed a graphical bug reported by Lafrite.
Fixed a graphical bug reported by Sunray.
Fixed a drag&drop bug reported by MarkShot.
Fixed battle of lands units on frozen river, reported by Sunray.

Added Ctrl-S to remove the Sentry order to all your units. I will post the complete list of shortkeys today as a reminder to all.

[Hobbes]

I think the method you use to release patches is unsurpassed! I would like to recieve any patch as soon as possible.
Thanks, Chris

[MarkShot]

Using the term "sentry order" is perhaps confusing, since an "order" implies that the game mechanics does something with. In this case, perhaps "unit browse filter" is a more meaningful term.

By the way, I know you are trying to be responsive with patches, but I expect more. I would like to run the game directly under the debugger and be able to IM you whenever there is a problem and have an instant fix that I can just input directly into the debugger's command line window so that my current game will not be disrupted. Do you think that might be possible?

Thanks.

[Pocus]

We use sentry order because this is the common term used in some famous games, like Civilization, but I reckon it can be misleading somehow...

[Brett]

I just installed 1.07e and started a new F&I Campaign, and I notice there is now a battery of Siege Artillery in Charleston that is named "New York Batterie".

[Cinncinatus]

I wanted to bring again to your attention the fact that Halifax VA is on the WEST not east side of the Staunton River (which your map also by the way now has as "Staimton" River.)

BOA has a generally nice look to it, and some very nice features. Yet it really needs a more strict mind person to go over the map, units, and scenario details so much of which is fictitious and flat out wrong -- in some instances ludicrously so. Really, it almost seems like the next thing we will see is a sorcerer regiment. What is the point of making a historical simulation if these kinds of things are not or cannot be corrected? At least give us a scenario or unit editor at some point so we can do these things ourselves.

[PhilThib]

Doing a scenario editing / creation manual is extremely time consuming. I am working on something to help you, but won't have time to release it before mid June at the earliest leure:

[Brett]

If there is a version 1.08, I would like you to consider re-doing Braddock's initial deployment at the start of the F&I campaign.

From what I can research, Braddock's Order of Battle should more closely resemble what is described here:

http://www.britishbattles.com/braddock.htm

At the very least, I believe Braddock's force should start the campaign with a battery of artillery included with it, and probably also a unit of light infantry.

Also, George Washington should not be at Ft. Cumberland at the start of the campaign, because he was serving as General Braddock's aide at the time and thus would be co-located with him in Alexandria. Ft. Cumberland should appear on the map a few turns later, much like Ft. William Henry does during the game.

I don't mean to be critial, I would just like to see the campain reflect actual history a little more accurately.

Thanks for all your hard work!