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dougbush93
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Gold Edition Fixes Needed

Sun Aug 09, 2009 4:03 am

After playing through 2 years of a CG as the Entente with the 1.06H patch (playing in WEGO), I think the game is almost there. It is massively improved over the original version that came out. However, I've noticed a few critical things that need to be fixed in the Gold Edition to get the game to work the way the manual says it should. I would call these "fixes", not "enhancements":

1) Negative Money - powers are allowed to go 100+ EP into debt / negative money, with no limit on what they can spend when that happens. The boardgame and the manual do not say this is allowed. If a power is at 0 EP, it should not be able to purchase any new units, build munitions, or anything else that costs EP. Otherwise why track EP at all?

2) RP Stock Limits are not in effect - The manual, in rule 6.2, says that at the end of a reinforcement phase, there are limits to how many RP each nation can keep in stock (these limits start in 1915). These limits are not in effect in the game. As a result, nations can stockpile 50+ RPs, which completely messes up the game's RP "engine", which is a critical element of winning or losing the game. The 6.2 limits need to be put into effect. The reason for the limits is to force players to attack and use RP, rather than just sitting there.

3) Naval Retreats - Naval retreats don't seem to work either way they are supposed to. In numerous naval battles, including even "Trap" battles, the enemy is able to retreat before any rounds are resolved, which is clearly against the rules, and makes it impossible to bring a fleet to battle. Retreats in the rules are only allowed AFTER a round ends, so those battles should be going at least 1 round. On the other side of the issue, I have had numerous naval battles where both sides try to retreat, yet the battle goes on to another round. Again, this is not what the rules for the game state. If both sides attempt to retreat, the battle should automatically end, as long as 1 round has been resolved.

4) Naval Path Finding - There is still no path between the North Sea and Dogger Bank. Hopefully an easy fix. Also, in my ongoing game no Russian fleet can enter a coastal sea zone controlled by Germany, for some reason.

5) Strategic Warfare Notifications - Playing as the Entente, I still don't get messages explaining what happened with my anti-submarine roll each interphase.

Those are the only things I noticed that are really off from the rulebook in 1.06H. I hope they are addressed in the Gold Edition. :love:

Doug

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calvinus
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Sun Aug 09, 2009 8:50 am

They will be all addressed, mainly those ones more critical, such as #1 and #2.

In particular, for point #3, I will try to find a solution in order to avoid noisy side-effects (freezes).

Point #4 is already under work, and it's extremely troublesome and hard to fix, arghhh!


I have already worked out some important fixes:

Improvements:
- The tooltip on the top frame now shows the complete list of available combat doctrines, so included those ones discovered by the allies
- All available combat doctrines can be used in battle, so included those ones discovered by the allies

Fixed bugs:
- Corrected the only-AI battle freezes in strict-turn-based mode (4-players game)
- Fixed a bug that caused infinite U-Boots reinforcements
- Fixed a rare crash in trench battles related to the assault troops fire-power determination
- Fixed a bug that prevented the AI defender from committing support units (tanks & assault troops) in trench battles

That means a new beta-patch will come soon... ;)

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calvinus
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Sun Aug 09, 2009 9:03 am

dougbush93 wrote:1) Negative Money - powers are allowed to go 100+ EP into debt / negative money, with no limit on what they can spend when that happens. The boardgame and the manual do not say this is allowed. If a power is at 0 EP, it should not be able to purchase any new units, build munitions, or anything else that costs EP. Otherwise why track EP at all?


Ok, done:
- All new unit build & fire-power improvement orders can be done only if the national treasury has 1+ EPs

dougbush93 wrote:2) RP Stock Limits are not in effect - The manual, in rule 6.2, says that at the end of a reinforcement phase, there are limits to how many RP each nation can keep in stock (these limits start in 1915). These limits are not in effect in the game. As a result, nations can stockpile 50+ RPs, which completely messes up the game's RP "engine", which is a critical element of winning or losing the game. The 6.2 limits need to be put into effect. The reason for the limits is to force players to attack and use RP, rather than just sitting there.


I'm going to check & fix this point.

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calvinus
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Sun Aug 09, 2009 9:18 am

dougbush93 wrote:2) RP Stock Limits are not in effect - The manual, in rule 6.2, says that at the end of a reinforcement phase, there are limits to how many RP each nation can keep in stock (these limits start in 1915). These limits are not in effect in the game. As a result, nations can stockpile 50+ RPs, which completely messes up the game's RP "engine", which is a critical element of winning or losing the game. The 6.2 limits need to be put into effect. The reason for the limits is to force players to attack and use RP, rather than just sitting there.


I'm messed: I checked this point, even in debug mode so being very careful, and it works fine, according to the rules. :bonk:
The RP stocks are lowered to max limits, at the end of each Military phase.

How did you manage to reproduce this error? :blink:

Maybe a savegame can help me...

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calvinus
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Sun Aug 09, 2009 9:35 am

dougbush93 wrote:5) Strategic Warfare Notifications - Playing as the Entente, I still don't get messages explaining what happened with my anti-submarine roll each interphase.


I addressed this points, as follows:
- U-Boots hunting tests results are now notified to all players
- Fixed a bug that caused a wrong increment of the economic hit losses caused by strategic submarine warfare

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calvinus
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Sun Aug 09, 2009 9:43 am

dougbush93 wrote:3) Naval Retreats - Naval retreats don't seem to work either way they are supposed to. In numerous naval battles, including even "Trap" battles, the enemy is able to retreat before any rounds are resolved, which is clearly against the rules, and makes it impossible to bring a fleet to battle. Retreats in the rules are only allowed AFTER a round ends, so those battles should be going at least 1 round. On the other side of the issue, I have had numerous naval battles where both sides try to retreat, yet the battle goes on to another round. Again, this is not what the rules for the game state. If both sides attempt to retreat, the battle should automatically end, as long as 1 round has been resolved.


The rules do not say you cannot retreat during/before the very 1st round of naval combat. Instead they say you cannot retreat (withdraw) during the 1st round only if you've been "trapped" (see page 73 and following ones), unless you got a "surprise" bonus. So you are asking for a design change?

The other point "both sides try to retreat" is a problem of informatic adaption... it's to be removed indeed from the rules booklet!
In fact, this is a typical boardgame rule: in a boardgame you guess if both players try to retreat, because they declare their willing (written secretly on a sheet of paper) and if both of them have declared the same, the battle is over.
In WW1 PC, instead, you declare your willing to withdraw and the test is made immediately! So your opponent sees the result of your action almost immediately too... this is why that rule cannot be reproduced in the game, sorry. :(

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dougbush93
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Sun Aug 09, 2009 2:15 pm

calvinus wrote:I'm messed: I checked this point, even in debug mode so being very careful, and it works fine, according to the rules. :bonk:
The RP stocks are lowered to max limits, at the end of each Military phase.

How did you manage to reproduce this error? :blink:

Maybe a savegame can help me...


Thanks for checking on all these points. On this one, the problem is that the RPs should be reset to max levels at the end of the reinforcement phase, not the end of the military phase (when you can use them in combat, etc.)

Regardless, I will provide a savegame where all powers appear to be way over their limits.

Doug

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dougbush93
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Sun Aug 09, 2009 2:27 pm

calvinus wrote:The rules do not say you cannot retreat during/before the very 1st round of naval combat. Instead they say you cannot retreat (withdraw) during the 1st round only if you've been "trapped" (see page 73 and following ones), unless you got a "surprise" bonus. So you are asking for a design change?

The other point "both sides try to retreat" is a problem of informatic adaption... it's to be removed indeed from the rules booklet!
In fact, this is a typical boardgame rule: in a boardgame you guess if both players try to retreat, because they declare their willing (written secretly on a sheet of paper) and if both of them have declared the same, the battle is over.
In WW1 PC, instead, you declare your willing to withdraw and the test is made immediately! So your opponent sees the result of your action almost immediately too... this is why that rule cannot be reproduced in the game, sorry. :(


On the first issue, the pre-round 1 retreats are happening even when it is a trap battle (I'll try to get a screen shot), but it does appear I am wrong about the rule for other situations, so I apologize. I will try making my fleet trying to intercept faster so the other fleet can't slip away before the battle.

On the second point, if the manual is changed to match the game then that's a good solution. As long as they are consistent it's ok.

Doug

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calvinus
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Sun Aug 09, 2009 4:00 pm

dougbush93 wrote:Thanks for checking on all these points. On this one, the problem is that the RPs should be reset to max levels at the end of the reinforcement phase, not the end of the military phase (when you can use them in combat, etc.)


Well, you wrote you play in WEGO, right?? So in WEGO the Reinforcements phase and the Military phase are mixed into one single phase. That means the Military phase includes the Reinforcements phase.

So my suggestion is to play in strict-turn-based mode.

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Sun Aug 09, 2009 4:51 pm

Not a bug but rather interface improvement.

Currently player could not check where his minefileds(ocean) located without turning fog of war off. Is it possible to make your own minefields visible?

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calvinus
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Sun Aug 09, 2009 5:44 pm

paladin333 wrote:Not a bug but rather interface improvement.

Currently player could not check where his minefileds(ocean) located without turning fog of war off. Is it possible to make your own minefields visible?


Instead there's a bug. Naval minefields can be placed only on coastal sea areas, not in open seas (oceans). I fixed it.

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Mon Aug 10, 2009 1:37 am

calvinus wrote:Well, you wrote you play in WEGO, right?? So in WEGO the Reinforcements phase and the Military phase are mixed into one single phase. That means the Military phase includes the Reinforcements phase.

So my suggestion is to play in strict-turn-based mode.


Well, the manual does not say the reinforcement point limit at the end of reinforcement phase only applies to strictly turn based play. And, in many other answers on these boards, players have been told to play in WEGO mode to avoid some other problem, or help the AI do a better job. So, if it is possible to fix this for all modes of play, that would be ideal. Thanks.

Doug

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Mon Aug 10, 2009 7:15 am

dougbush93 wrote:Well, the manual does not say the reinforcement point limit at the end of reinforcement phase only applies to strictly turn based play. And, in many other answers on these boards, players have been told to play in WEGO mode to avoid some other problem, or help the AI do a better job. So, if it is possible to fix this for all modes of play, that would be ideal. Thanks.

Doug


The manual says the RP limits are applied at the end of the Reinforcements phase, and tells also that in WEGO mode the Reinforcements phase is mixed inside the Military phase, so the consequence is clear. The problem is that I cannot perform the update of game objects before the orders and battles are all executed, and the RP limits check procedure is inside the game objects updates... :(

I believe the WEGO mode is the simplest way to play, but not the best. This is one of the problems it creates. Indeed I think there are some other points it makes the game a bit unbalanced in favor of the human player. The overall procedure that makes all moves performed all together removes the original design of the boardgame at all. This is why I suggested you to play in strict-turn-based mode, not exactly in army-by-army activation mode. That's to say you will have the Military phase splitted into: Reinforcements, Military and Politics phase; plus the play order will be much strict: player #1 actions, then player #2...

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Tue Aug 11, 2009 5:57 am

calvinus wrote:The manual says the RP limits are applied at the end of the Reinforcements phase, and tells also that in WEGO mode the Reinforcements phase is mixed inside the Military phase, so the consequence is clear. The problem is that I cannot perform the update of game objects before the orders and battles are all executed, and the RP limits check procedure is inside the game objects updates... :(

I believe the WEGO mode is the simplest way to play, but not the best. This is one of the problems it creates. Indeed I think there are some other points it makes the game a bit unbalanced in favor of the human player. The overall procedure that makes all moves performed all together removes the original design of the boardgame at all. This is why I suggested you to play in strict-turn-based mode, not exactly in army-by-army activation mode. That's to say you will have the Military phase splitted into: Reinforcements, Military and Politics phase; plus the play order will be much strict: player #1 actions, then player #2...


I switched to strictly turn based w/o Army-by-Army and the RP limits do work, as you said they would. That was great to see. :thumbsup: The game also runs faster when executing moves in this mode. For the RP issue, perhaps just a note in the manual about how it works a bit different in WEGO would be adequate. Thanks for checking it out. Except for the WEGO thing, the RP system seems to finally work very well.

Doug

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Tue Aug 11, 2009 12:56 pm

My quick impressions from my 1.06h game (1914 2-player campaigh, CP, WEGO, all maps at start, no sounds. My machine is pretty hefty in spec and I use XP):

No crashes so far :D . First patch for which I can say this.

Mouse does get "sticky" (frame rate collapses) if I scroll to the little globes/Mesopotamia, and if a lot of powers are in the war. If I click around the minimap I avoid catastrophic slowdowns, however the framerate problem *seems* to have got somewhat worse in 1.06h.

AI tries a bit harder in diplomacy. I was very lucky and got Italy through the diplopoker option. Romania was heavily pro-CP to start with and I pushed it over the brink by Sep. Turkey and Bulgaria followed despite some resistance from the AI in Bulgaria's case. AI got England, Japan and Greece BEFORE they started playing silly buggers with Spain and Holland. No efforts towards the US though, which is annoying. As I said, I was very lucky, but things seem to have improved.

I had a Russia first strategy again. Russia tries hard, I have to say, but I absolutely swamped it with 15 (16 if you count the Persians) armies from all directions. A year later Kerensky is hanging on for dear life. No problems there, but France *definetely* doesn't attack hard enough in A-L, although Italy running riot in the South may have something to do with this. The French definetely seem to hold the line with detachments better than before (so, no marching on an empty Epinal or Belfort hex now)

Colonial war takes place. A bit limp but it exists. Tsingtao is attacked as before, and the British even got the Italian East African colonies. Nice improvement.

A few odd/annoying things.

The Japanese fleet still takes off to chase the African based German cruisers in the Atlantic and leaves Spee on a leisurely cruise about the Pacific, eating up British EPs.

The German 14th army, when built, contains Lawrence's Arabs (!!!) as a starting unit.

The British landed in Basra, immediately ran out of supply, then got isolated, and finally died before a single Turkish unit got withing 4 hexes of them. This is a complete fun killer, normally the Turks should have a nightmare of a time with the Brits. No Dardanelles effort either.

Indeed, when the Turks (eventually) crawled to Suez there was not a single enemy around. I'm now in Damietta (Aug 1915), completely unopposed. In fact, where is the British army altogether? Apart from the suicides in Basra, I haven't seen any of the lazy bums :) doing anything.

The Greek Army left Salonica completely empty and concentrated in Thrace, so a couple of Bulgarian corps slid behind them and encircled them. Nice for me, but dumb AI.

Technological advances for me are going at snail's pace. Indeed ,Austria and Germany have got ZERO tech advances all game, the only successes coming from Italy. Entente seems to be chugging along at the expected pace.

Perhaps connected to the above, I have had ZERO air recce missions succeed, all game.

I'm still confused about the successful offensives thing. I declared one against Vilna in May 15, but got in in Mar-April through a breakthrough that got a bit too successful. The result is confusion: not success, not failure, nor launching of the offensive. Should there be more info from the game about this? A similar thing happened with the Italian offensive vs Marseille: it failed in turn one, then succeeded next turn, but I still haven't had a message about success a couple of turns (and plenty of hexes in advances) later.

In general, some of the game's messages leave a lot to be desired. E.g. after the diplo actions I would like to know if a country actually declares war, and I don't have to click around the map afterwards.

OK, I didn't say they were *brief* impressions, just "quick".

06 Maestro
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Tue Nov 17, 2009 5:18 am

Is there going to be an actual, official Gold Edition forum? It seems like it would be a good idea to have such a forum so that the developers could have the benefit ( ;) ) and assistance of the gamers that actually play the game.

With the changes that are expected in the Gold Edition it sounds much more like a new game rather than a patch-it should be treated as such.

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Tue Nov 17, 2009 8:09 am

Yes, we'll start a separate (but linked) forum for this. The Gold edition will really look and feel different...still polishing it right now ;) :cool:
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Mon Nov 23, 2009 6:24 am

While we wait for the new Gold official thread, this looks like a good spot to put some obsevation-while those are in mind.

1. The events pop up messages are a mixed bag. There are far too many, but to turn them off would cause a loss of important info-so a player is forced to weed through those. It seems to me that there are 3 times the number of messages than there needs to be. During the "interphase" this is quite unbearable as there are so many. I simply X those all out-thus loosing some important information. Some observations follow;

a. There are redundant messages.
1. Many of the messages will first appear telling you that you are trying a particular event-not necessary as I know what I'm trying to do.

2. There is then the message which tells you of the possible results of your chosen event-not necessary; I know (or should know) what it will do-that is why I picked it.

3. Then you receive the message that the event succeeded or failed. This is good, and all that is required. The results of it succeeding or failing could be added to this message.

b. Message accuracy.
1. Messages are sometimes nonsensical. For instance; an Allied nation giving some type of aid to another on its side which has already surrendered.

c. Message timing.
1. Although the game has been drastically improved in this area since its initial release, event messages still pop up during battle or siege screens. Fortunately, it is not that big of a problem now, but it should not be occurring at all.

d. Rules governing events.
1. There should be a clear statement as to what are the requirements to being able to play an event in the rules. I know that an annex with most of these was released some time ago, but it should be included with the rules-clear and concise as possible. I still occasionally have events that refuse to being played for some unknown reason-rare, but still an issue. Ideally, the info explaining the basic requirements for an event to be played and the results of it succeeding would be included in the actual "event card". The historical explanation or justification can be put in the rule book.


2. Financial.
a. EP support of Alliance powers does not work in some cases even when there is a route through friendly territory.

3. User Interface.
a. The Ep support dialog is confusing, "Economic support for Germany" box which then grants support to a list of nations?

b. The Economic Points support box which opens from a nations political dialog has some problem of the cursor jumping all around in it. It sticks, jumps, and freezes. This is the only box which I have this problem in this game. I do not have this problem with any other program-something is out of whack with that particular dialog box. (Where you "grant" economic aid).

c. HQ Reinforcement box sometimes will not allow a unit from the reinforcement tab to be added to the HQ in the HQ list. However, the same unit can be moved from the reinforcement tab directly to the HQ on the map. There is normally a stacking limit violation listed in red as the cause. It seems that the reinforcing unit is "seeing" right through the HQ dialog and not seeing the HQ. This was not always the case, so I really don't know what is going on with this-except that there is no stacking problem as I can put the new unit into the same HQ on the map.

4 Statistics/National log
a. A total count of corps included with the strength would be a nice touch.
b. Dates with the line charts.

5. Please make certain that multi play/IP mode is fully functional. As it is now, I can play small scenarios on my LAN, but it breaks trying a full campaign within a few turns online.

I will be back with more, but only because I love you guy's :thumbsup:
BTW, if you want a beta tester (English only for official commo) I am here for you.

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