Next Patch Bug List

[Moriety]

But this is the time it takes, actually, but only when the weather is good (green) in all the distance. Sometimes you need to plan your direction manually to avoid the yellow-red weather regions, even if the engine takes that into consideration in its pathfinding. I am positive that I need 4-6 turns with clippers and less than 4 with steamers to get from Japan to Europe if the Suez Canal is open. Exactly as you said. But only with nice weather.

You don't need to own the anchoring and coaling stations of your trip... ask passage/supply rights from the other nations.

The journey times given were minimum and maximum. (Accounting for weather). I sent some Frigates from the Black sea to Siberia in the 1850's and it took over a year, they had 0% cohesion by the time they passed Spain though.

I'd love to get passage rights (As Russia) from either France or the UK, but both seem to have a pathological hatred of the nation. One short war with the Ottoman Empire in 1903, completely peaceful before, seems to make no difference to how much they hate Russia....

[Sir Garnet]

In a massive siege lasting over a half dozen turns until surrender, the defenders's thousand-plus power force suffered 5 hits each turn as breaches piled up each turn. This is not consistent with what I understood the patch to have done:


• SRV > 0: 5 hits each to a number of Defender elements equal to SRV x 5% x Total Number of Elements. E.g., with SRV of 6 and 40 elements, 6x5%x40 = 12 elements take hits.

Was this deprecated?

[Pocus]

No, I checked the code, the line is still there. weird.

[Kensai]

Could it be that the code is there and it works correctly, it just sends a wrong output (message)? Thankfully, most of our reports come from the same game so by opening one (say bjfagan's report regarding Kiel, Judea, and Suez) you can check the others as well (Sir Garnet's surrender roll or Kensai's weird supplying at Sakhalin island).

By loading a turn in late 1871 you will see most of these issues, I guess. Correct at your own time, as always, I for one have placed a reminder for early February. Crossing fingers for a new patch!

Seriously, I do not know if it will or should affect other games, but for PON it is imperative that you severely boost encounter probability and battle damage at MTBs. By far! It's the only way to see sunk trader ships finally, a possibility to update them without the need to disband them first (as ships won't update unless destroyed and as they repair damage in MTBs), and it will certainly revolutionize the use of MTBs and their special ways of battle. I feel that the feedback we will provide can find its way to the rest of the titles.

[Sir Garnet]

With an excessive number of artillery in the besieging force, I watched the besieged force's strength in hits decline very slowly toward 1000, while with successive breaches each turn (getting over a half dozen) that mean SRV was relatively high and there should have been more. The unusual factor was that the city was size 11 or so and the fort IIRC was sizable, as was the depot, but that's not part of the bombardment hits formula above.

[Egg Bub]

Any possibility of making the probability of warship vs warship combat in an MTB higher that warship vs merchant? This might prevent the AI "hiding" its huge battle fleets there.

[Kensai]

Yeah, that's definitely another reason we should have MTBs upped, both in probability of encounter (2x) and damage done (3-4x) at least. Otherwise the hits in there are too few to "feel real" (like sinking enemy ship). I am not sure the engine can treat differently trader ships and war ships, perhaps it could be done, but in the meantime if the AI or any human player hides his ships there it should be the same: abstracted battles with enough hits to sink ships!

I crave for huge MTB battles, actually it's gonna be very exciting as a competition between how many ships you can sink and how many the rival can bring to replace those you sink in a certain "trade route". As it happened in real life (in WWI at least) in the Atlantic. In WWII it was even more intense.

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Sir Garnet,
I think you should load Netherland's old turn and see how that siege evolved to be certain. Any evidence-based calculation is much more important!

[czert2]

I have one small bug - i have splited one afcica tribal nation teritories between me and portugal, so basicaly no one can establis protectorate and later colony here (portugal have capital, but much less regions) and from time to time original triebe rebel against me, only to be crushed realy fast (have setuped 3 hunting squads of cavalay only units) and here comes bug - tribals captured fruits producing stucture in one of my regions and when i move my unist here i cant capture it back.

[Kensai]

Try to declare war on them through F9.

[Le Ricain]

Playing GBR.

The pic of Prime Minister Lord Rosebery is not displayed on page 1. I received the message that Rosebery was the new PM, but Page 1 still displayed Salisbury.

The modern MP unit does not display a pic on its unit.

[Pocus]

Yeah, that's definitely another reason we should have MTBs upped, both in probability of encounter (2x) and damage done (3-4x) at least. Otherwise the hits in there are too few to "feel real" (like sinking enemy ship). I am not sure the engine can treat differently trader ships and war ships, perhaps it could be done, but in the meantime if the AI or any human player hides his ships there it should be the same: abstracted battles with enough hits to sink ships!

I crave for huge MTB battles, actually it's gonna be very exciting as a competition between how many ships you can sink and how many the rival can bring to replace those you sink in a certain "trade route". As it happened in real life (in WWI at least) in the Atlantic. In WWII it was even more intense.

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Sir Garnet,
I think you should load Netherland's old turn and see how that siege evolved to be certain. Any evidence-based calculation is much more important!

Send me a single TRN and an HST where in the TRN there is a large stack in a MTB, I want to check probabilities in practice, not in theory.

[Kensai]

OK, done! Tell me what you think.

[Albert Herring]

Yeah, that's definitely another reason we should have MTBs upped, both in probability of encounter (2x) and damage done (3-4x) at least. Otherwise the hits in there are too few to "feel real" (like sinking enemy ship). I am not sure the engine can treat differently trader ships and war ships, perhaps it could be done, but in the meantime if the AI or any human player hides his ships there it should be the same: abstracted battles with enough hits to sink ships!

I've no direct experience of the abstracted system, though, as none of my games have involved me in any significant naval warfare yet, but from the experiences people report I'd suggest perhaps leaving the MTBs as they are - fleet-scale naval battles don't happen much far out in mid-ocean as a general rule because fleets don't find each other, and before the submarine era it wasn't where combatants' merchant shipping was most often obstructed - but restrict the automatic supply/refuel/repair (um, not sure if repairs happen in MTBs, but if they do) to merchant shipping units only, so naval vessels will be able to drop in and out of MTBs but will need to return to port periodically rather than hiding out indefinitely, making keeping up a blockade in coastal waters more important. I don't know how the abstracted system works, but if you are looking to simulate commerce raiding, then large fleets should be no more effective (and indeed, probably less so) than individual units of scouts/frigates/cruisers - it is not about firepower but about the chances of finding anything and chasing it down; the merchant "fleets" simulate lots of individual ships spread out over a huge expanse of sea, so their losses should be in single ships (and if I'm right a "hit" on a merchant fleet element pretty much equates to the loss of an individual ship so that's probably not far off).
I guess that the alternative would be to stop naval units going into MTBs at all but map the MTBs to a set of ordinary sea areas, then apply some kind of attrition to the merchant fleets in the MTBs on the basis of naval presence in the component sea areas. But not sure how well that would work in practice.

[Kensai]

Think about it for a moment. The MTBs should not be considered "huge wastelands of sea", but specific and well-known trade routes where encounter probability is high and possible. This is very important, especially for Pride of Nations for the following reasons:

1) the game goes up to WW1... there were almost 5000 [mostly] merchant ships sunk, by submarines alone... I do not expect the game to completely respect the real numbers but ship losses should be there
2) the way MTB attrition works means that any fleet that hides there is effectively safe... this is silly and unrealistic... fleets there should indeed "have a bigger chance to evade" but nonetheless experience all the mess of a naval battle
3) merchant ships have no use in the game after they are built and sent to MTBs... there they are virtually indestructible under current rules as the hits are so few they never sink...

Pocus has given us a new set of parameters to check on our multiplayer game. We will see how it goes in our MP game and we will come back here later to discuss.

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Btw, general question: would it be prudent to change the way buildings are built on later techs? Right now, if you have a later tech already discovered you can build right away that latest tech building (ie not farm, but plantation... not workshop, but factory...). This is sometimes NOT desired, especially for smaller playable nations. Sometimes you prefer the lower tier building because of its lower demands in coal and advanced resources. Would it be possible or desired to enforce building only first-tier buildings and then the player can decide if and when to upgrade given the required techs?

[Jim-NC]

You can argue both ways (to auto upgrade, or not), with examples in history of both types of new buildings.

I would like to see the option that allows to pick your level of building your businessmen create. Thus you could get a level 1 or level 2 or level 3 business at the appropriate cost. This would also apply to when you upgrade. I noticed that some buildings allow you a choice of upgrades (the lowest level armament shop can become either a level 2 arm factory or steel factory), so this is already somewhere in the programing.

[Albert Herring]

I agree that building levels should be an option, not an enforced path - there were plenty of big new facilities starting operation from scratch in the era.

I take your point about the later stages of the game, although the unrestricted U-boat campaign also involved a considerable change in the accepted rules of war - before that, merchant interception had been a very haphazard affair even where there were active blockades, involving stopping and seizing contraband under prize rules. Of course, some MTBs are "in" fairly confined waters like the Med/North Sea/Baltic (although, as you point out, they represent trade routes - between that area and the owner's home ports, so in fact the ships in them represent ships in different locations depending on their nationality - a Japanese merchant fleet in the North Sea MTB represents a chain of shipping around the whole globe, while a British one would pretty much represent ships actually in the North Sea itself, so the issue of battle fleets meeting in an MTB is a bit problematic; it gets more so if you consider that a battle fleet in the game is literally a group of ships sailing together, while a merchant fleet in an MTB is lots of ships all over the place, possibly with a convoy system (partially) in place - so what, or indeed where, is a (game) fleet in an MTB that consists of both warships and merchant ships? It might be reasonable to assume that it represents the flow of merchant shipping with the warships allocated to escort duties (in which case they wouldn't, by and large, be off attacking enemy shipping), but then the game needs to effectively split up the warship units as often only an element (or less) would be likely to be actually sailing together. Conversely, a huge battle fleet is of no great value to attack un-convoyed commerce unless it's blockading a destination or in confined waters like the approaches to the Suez Canal, while a single light cruiser closed down trade across the entire Indian Ocean for a few months in 1914 and sank about as much as the entire U-boat fleet of the time operating under prize rules. (I've not played the late stages of the game at all - is a single light cruiser even an independent unit in the game by 1914?)

Anyway, I can no longer remember where I was going with that, but it sort of starts to point towards keeping warships out of MTBs altogether to me, unless something can be done to assign roles - interception, defensive patrol, convoy escort - to them (maybe using the postures?)

[bjfagan]

You can argue both ways (to auto upgrade, or not), with examples in history of both types of new buildings.

I would like to see the option that allows to pick your level of building your businessmen create. Thus you could get a level 1 or level 2 or level 3 business at the appropriate cost. This would also apply to when you upgrade. I noticed that some buildings allow you a choice of upgrades (the lowest level armament shop can become either a level 2 arm factory or steel factory), so this is already somewhere in the programing.

I never thought the structure upgrades had anything to do with size of the facility per se, but more to do with modernization and efficiencies that can only come over a period of time. This seems to be working fine in my opinion.

Now, maybe I misunderstood what you want. Maybe you want a player to be allowed to build a level 1 structure, even though they have advanced up to a level 3 structures, then the player could slowly upgrade the structure in stages up to a level 3. Kind of like the progression of anchorage, coaling station, harbor and then navy base.

[Kensai]

Now, maybe I misunderstood what you want. Maybe you want a player to be allowed to build a level 1 structure, even though they have advanced up to a level 3 structures, then the player could slowly upgrade the structure in stages up to a level 3. Kind of like the progression of anchorage, coaling station, harbor and then navy base.

Yes, that's the point. It is really important for smallish nations. I am experiencing this as Greece right now. I would really like to avoid stressing the economic-resource balance by creating a higher tier factory. It makes more sense to start from a workshop and then work the way up to the last tier. I think this applies better also from a historical point of view. Even Henry Ford, he didn't start with a huge factory, but a small workshop.

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Pocus, you had told me to remind you by the end of January (well, now early February):

- naval theater map
- bumped damage at MTBs (we just installed in our game your suggestion)
- Suez channel (we recreated it in our map but still does not allow for traffic, even if France is not at war with no one)
- take out the Southern exit (historical port of Eilat) from Judea region as this allows for the crazy movement of ships between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea
- perhaps a way to not enforce autoupgrade in units and structures, ie let the player build tier 1 structures and then further develop them... for units it might be more difficult
- correct costs for later units that use a previous image (bjfagan's suggestion)
- perhaps set CP for (non-)national regions requirement to 100% to differentiate it from Great Britain's 95% needed for dominions... otherwise dominions might not form!
- Philippe's added functionality (talk to Philippe Thibaut for this, he can send you the excel he sent me with the new shipyards, etc)

All the above at your own time. The save is for our Carlist Spain that just spawned. Is there a way to populate the replacements screen? F3. I tried giving CRL some force pool of SPA-tagged troops but still F3 won't populate. In the same save you can experiment what is going on with the Suez channel.

[Pocus]

re - MTBs: The aim of the MTB, for the end game, is indeed to allow with ease the simulation of the submarine warfare, so damages should be upped to reflect that. They should not be sanctuary. On the other hand, battle in MTB is not done with the battle engine but with an attritionary procedure.

Kensai, that's a long list I can only tackle on my spare time
I would also like to contact you by email about something else.

[powloon1]

A very minor request. As it is well known that turns can take several minutes to process what I find is that I end up getting up to do other things would it be possible to add a sound when the turn processing is complete?

[Jim-NC]

In our MP game, I note that it appears that the tech "Sugar Beet Diffusion" Tech is broken.

I was playing Spain, and I wanted that tech. When I clicked on it to speed up research, the tech would not stay "clicked", and I was not charged for the money spent. The tech has been sitting on 57 or 67%, and not moving for approximately 2 years (game time). I thought I was being unlucky in rolls.
I have switched to Britain, and I noticed that for Britain, the tech is at 59%, and not moving. Britain has few techs to research, and thus the tech should be moving each turn. I have checked for 2 turns, and the tech has not moved off 59%.

Can either of the Phils check our MP game and see if they see something wrong with this tech (it's the only tech I see a problem with at this point, but there may be others).

[Sir Garnet]

I hate whatever improvement makes the save files disappear (whether saved from main menu or quick saved) when the game glitches/crashes, easily wasting hours of analysis and work. The first I remember this is in recent months so I think it is an update change. One might think the purpose of saving repeatedly while doing a turn is to have the work saved when the game crashes or graphics glitch.

Doesn't matter how frequently I save unless I go outside the game to drag and drop a copy anywhere else. Normal backup software doesn't update frequently enough to help. I can't put the save directory in dropbox, or can I? I'm told there are simple applications that will immediately synch/backup using Dropbox but I'm seeing them for Mac, or Vista and newer for PC - not XP.

[Kensai]

Jim-NC, I had noticed that issue with that tech for Britain as well. As far as I know, it may be an issue only to our game as others have reported that by 1890 they get the next tier sugar production structure, something that should not be possible without it. It needs a look at it, perhaps using the above CRL save.

[Ebbingford]

Playing this as Britain with latest patches and QF. Several observations so far.
The Miner's Rebellion in Australia event still doesn't work. The option is available on the F1 page of the ledger and you can chose what course of action you want to take. The next turn nothing happens and the option is still there on the F1 page of the ledger.
The Gurkhas units that you can build from the start of the game are 1870-90 model units. Would it not be better to have these units use the normal Indian light infantry model until they upgrade to the 1870 unit?
The region of Penang is a bit strange. There is a Dutch coaling station and a British military outpost there in the set up. Once you turn the region into a British colony this stays like this. I have 100% British MC and it is colonial territory, but I can't do anything there as the tooltip says I have to own the region. I do though, but it is still showing the Dutch flag.
I have some native units that have come under my command since I turned their nation into a British colony. The problem is they are in a part of the map that is undiscovered and I can't select them to move them out of it. I have tried to do it by cycling through my units (R key) until I get to them and then dragging them by using the tab from the stack panel at the bottom of the screen, it doesn't work though. They are going to starve to death.
Sorry if these points have been raised and answered already.

[Jim-NC]

Regarding the stuck units in Terra Incognito, have you tried finding and selecting them using the F2 screen?

[Ebbingford]

Yep, I couldn't select them to move using the tab. I can't recheck this now as they have all died though.

[Ebbingford]

I have just relaunched the game and this unit is now showing as moving out of the unexplored region. It must have worked when I dragged it by it's tab, but without leaving the trail of projected movement on the map.

[Jim-NC]

It is weird, but your units can plot a movement path through Terra Incognito to get somewhere else. You can't see if it (unless/until it crosses into a visible area).

[Kensai]

For the future low priority patch a couple of low priority things I have noticed:

- In 1874 Japan opens to the world.. in our game Japan is one of the nations that is supposed to create "vassals" (the equivalent of protectorates only for Japan, China, and the Ottoman Empire) so we had scripted this ability to the nation some years earlier to match the alternate reality we were experiencing (an accelerated pace of game). The problem is, if you declare a colonial area a Vassal you cannot then upgrade it to Colony meaning that Japan or any other nation that might have had vassals, it cannot move forward unless through a script.

- With the new executable (in our PBEM game, soon it will come to the next patch I suppose) that fixes some ship upgrade chains, the F7 screen has some glitches in some of the graphics. Some of them appear blank.

- Always in the F7 screen, for some reason the technology of "beet diffusion process" (sugar) seems to be broken... even if you select it for accelerated research by next turn process it will have deactivated again... for Japan it is stuck to 39% for many months now (that I have been watching).

[Albert Herring]

From a general interface point of view, I'd like to see a change to the horrible misuse of checkboxes on the screen used for user responses to scripted events - checkboxes are not appropriate for mutually exclusive settings in any case (should be radio buttons - checkboxes are for on/off booleans not general alternatives). And then conflating that with having the selected preference (once made) being the UNCHECKED box ..... who the [swearing deleted] thought that was a good idea? Completely counterintuitive. I imagine that is the sort of thing that would need to be left for a major update rather than a quickfix, though.

(On my first playthrough, as Japan, I managed to reject the daimyo consultation through this particular idiocy, without realising that I had done so. Not a way to encourage new players.)

Also, feature request: add a facility to the F11 screen to filter structures which can be upgraded.

And (second edit): when you upgrade a structure from the F11 screen, the totals for manufactured goods, etc. at the top of the screen do not update, so you cannot see whether the upgrade is possible. There is also nothing (that I've found yet) to tell you how much an upgrade costs.