PON/VGN 1.03 RC3 (Third Release Candidate)

[Pocus]

Hi all,

Here is the last release candidate for 1.03, proposed as an all inclusive patch.

This is a PUBLIC BETA TEST. Please do not download nor use it if you don't want to take any risk with your current ongoing games.

The next version will be the official version, with a strong probability. This next version can have a few additions and bugfixes too though, but nothing major.


http://ageoddl.telechargement.fr/temp/Patch_PON_1.03RC3.zip

FIXES AND NOVELTIES 1.03RC3

Engine & AI
* New diplomatic item: Degrade Relationship. By applying various diplomatic pressures (legitimate or not) you can slightly degrade the relationship with the country of your choice.
* Fixed an interface bug in the Diplomacy window that duplicated costs in tooltips.
* Reworked the wording of some diplomacy items.
* AI will calculate less extensively a few things in some distant theaters of operations (increasing its speed slightly)
* AI will cache more paths calculation, speeding it up moderately.
* When a businessman emergence event triggers, you’ll also get some precious merchandises in ‘exchange’ of the capital spent. (plus a message in the message log)
* Fixed a display issue with the animated battle gauge where a leader portrait could appears erroneously.
* Leaders killed in battles while embedded in an unit (corps commander e.g) won’t cause recombination problems anymore.
* Exported and modified 6 variables for ‘Maritime Trade Box’ warfare (a bit more damages against merchant ships)
* If an attack is called off without routing (aka AutoRetreat), the attacking forces will revert to defensive posture but won’t retreat in another region.
* Land bombardment toned down. Naval bombardment upped.
* A too low cohesion can make a stack call off an assault, aggressive leaders will have a tendency to force the troops though.
* Depending of the National Identity attribute, some loyalties in each country will be attrited away and given to owner.
* If you have suffered from the loyalty bug, you can bring the console and type ‘CleanupLoyalty’. On next turn processing, odd loyalties will start to be removed. This will use the same logic as in the line before, only 100 times faster.
* New code that detect better possible replacements used by units (should solve all GIN/IND cases)
-
Data or Events oriented changes
* Colonial decisions ‘Gunboat Diplomacy’ and ‘Naval Demonstration’ have been significantly toned down in the CP they can give (their advantage is to be effective in one turn), plus they can now trigger a revolt in 10% of the cases. Don’t spam them!
* All Colonial decisions had their money/capital cost upped by 50%.
* Models changed to include new Spanish army pictures (thanks to Xesco) - full compatibility with previous DB and saves
* Units changed to ensure proper regional recruitment for subnationality forces (Russia, Commonwealth) - full compatibility with previous DB and saves.
* Events files fixed for syntax errors or wrong region selection processes which led to absence of effects (12 files - thanks to Bohémond for doublechecking)
* Added a MTB connection for East Persia and North Balkans
* Added a craftsmen production increase to many Faction Modifier Group to increase the abstract production over time (attached to Tech Tree).

[James D Burns]

Hi all,
* If you have suffered from the loyalty bug, you can bring the console and type ‘CleanupLoyalty’. On next turn processing, odd loyalties will start to be removed. This will use the same logic as in the line before, only 100 times faster.

Thank you Pocus!

With the civil war about to start in my game, I was despairing due to the fact ever growing loyalties of the Turks and others had made it impossible to build new troops in over half my cities. I’ll be testing this new console command right away. Thanks again.

Jim

[Pocus]

in an handful of turns, loyalties should be cleaned up almost totally with that

[James D Burns]

in an handful of turns, loyalties should be cleaned up almost totally with that

After running the CleanupLoyalty command for three turns and then turning it off for one turn, I’ve got some observations. It appears the foreign loyalties have permanently altered the core loyalty of the regions they’ve appeared in.

For example:

Turk loyalty will not drop below 4% for any region in the US that had Turk loyalty in it and Moldavian loyalties appeared locked to 1%.

The command appears to affect Confederate loyalties as well, dropping all regions to 10% unless the regions also had Turk and other loyalties, then it appears the Confederates lose part of their core 10% to the foreign loyalty changes.

Rebel loyalties that appeared due to the same bug that made the Turks appear drop down to about 20% fast, but then only drop a percentage or two per turn after that with the cleanup command active, so it is much harder to scrub the bogus rebel loyalties even at 100 times speed.

Here’s a save of my current game before I turned on the CleanupLoyalty command so you can test the effects to see what I saw.

[Sir Garnet]

* Added a MTB connection for East Persia and North Balkans

On the MTB topic. This brings to mind Parana, which is and should stay landlocked (no MTB access) as up through the 19th century Buenos Aires and later Argentina pushed hard to us its control of the rivers to be the conduit for trade, for inland markets in Argentina as well as Paraguay and Brazil's Mato Grosso upriver. This included seeking influence over Uruguay to control both banks. Brazil pushed to ensure its own access upriver and to restore influence even if not ownership of its former southernmost province (Uruguay, called Banda Oriental). Bolivia apart from the Pacific coast and Paraguay remained effectively landlocked. Access to the sea was one war aim of Paraguay in the War of the Triple Alliance.

[Kensai]

Looks superb, Pocus, great work in every department. Hopefully this console command will fix the odd loyalties which are kind of annoying.

• Please consider adding an MBT connection for Parana (South America) as well. We justified this in our MP game as Paraguay had always used its river for an exit in the ocean. This fixes one of the last Minor nations that can't trade directly.
• Make sure colonial actions have their message published the FIRST turn they are applied not the last. I don't want to be informed of a nation has played a Protectorate action AFTER the countdown has passed. Larger nations with many colonies (Great Britain, France) may lose the moment because they didn't see the small helm of the action on time. Later, with many actions (helms) by many nations it's kind of difficult to spot it.
• One last request regarding crises: please make sure countries that have pledged their local support on others have some attributes (prestige in the stash, domination bonus, etc) added to the crisis. This will make crises much more difficult to predict how they will go, especially if it is between a major and a minor nation. I don't know if at a first instance this is impossible without more AI coding, but I can assure you it will help us immensely in the 24-nation MP of ours. We might have crises between large and small nations, it would be a same not give some chance of "domination advantage" (or a huge prestige boost) for the smallest ones. Obviously this is low priority.

[Random]

Thank you for this and for continuing to improve PON. If the developers had intended to create an hour-eating, addictive challenging 19th Century world, version 1.03RC3 is the closest thing yet. In my opinion of course.

[the_dovlets]

That's great news, I can't wait to test it

[Sir Garnet]

Pocus, are the RC1 and RC2 changes still good so that just updating the joint list with RC3 changes is accurate overall as a change list?


A countdown timer in the Casus Belli Diplomatic report would be really helpful to know and not miss deadlines.

Please consider adding an MBT connection for Parana (South America) as well. We justified this in our MP game as Paraguay had always used its river for an exit in the ocean. This fixes one of the last Minor nations that can't trade directly.

The Parana trade area should be landlocked without MTB access. Bolivian and Paraguayan access to the Atlantic was by river through the territory of Argentine provinces - a major point of Paraguayan resentment and contention. Paraguay also resented being forced in 1858 to grant Brazil navigation rights up the Paraguay and Parana rivers to Mato Grosso. One war objective of Solano Lopez was to obtain a seaport for Paraguay.

Being effectively landlocked continued to be a problem. In th Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay in the 1930s, both sides were seriously hindered in supplying themselves with munitions because their neighbors decided what they chose to let through.

In MP neighbors can buy and resell Parana's products if they choose.

[Hohenlohe]

Historically Paraguay has access to the Atlantic per River Paraná with steamers which drove the river upwards...Asuncion was the harbor for these ships, only in some wars in between Argentine states the Confederation and Buenos Aires the river Paraná was blocked certain time...thus Paraguay should have MTB access and not landlocked only, only per event should there a blockade...

greetings

Hohenlohe

[Pocus]

Ok, your points noted, I'll mostly see to fix further the loyalty cleanup code.

RC3 is including everything, not sure if this was the answer you sought.

The CB timer, you want it as a tooltip in the diplomatic interface, right?

[glennbob]

I believe he does want a tooltip in the diplo interface. Also, I have tried to cancel supply right that I have given to someone, but if it appears down the list, then you can't actually cancel it properly. Seems like the interface can't really handle the scrolling properly :P

[sagji]

Missing files
16:48:24 (Reporting) TSlaveThing.SetBitmap: Unable to find MediaInfo for image: Unit_AUS_Inf1870_Marine4.png
16:35:17 (Reporting) TScriptEngine.TriggerEvent Cannot find event file: RegionsDecisions

If I create the latter it changes to

18:46:21 (Reporting) TScriptEngine.TriggerEvent This event not found while triggering a research C:\Games\Pride of Nations\VGN\Events\RegionsDecisions.sct RGDScriptSurrender

I have seen an enemy city (Bologna) reported as having "-3 of 50" which makes the attacker at 100% and "the defender will also suffer a penalty". If you are below the limit then the text for the defender suffering a penalty should not be there. The city was relatively empty - 1 element.

The enemy then mobilised and a corps and some other stuff appeared in the city - at which point it went to 17 though there were 18 elements mobilising and 1 other in the city.

New business emergence always produces gems.

Getting a repeated message saying assault called off due to low cohesion - however the unit is on defend orders, and no unit in the area is on assault orders.

[sagji]

The fix for sugar has ended up with the level 1 tech requiring the level 3 tech - which indirectly requires the level 1 - so you can't research the level 1.
Tech 297 needs to depend on 296 (these are consecutive artillery upgrades).

The release notes doesn't mention that trade history is shown in the F4 screen.

[Francois Xavier]

I carried over a save form RC2 and this popped up:

The Wealth of capital in your country led to the emergence of a new businessman, he managed to close a deal of -5 Petroleum for 0£!

Is this because I'm playing as Japan?

EDIT: After the second turn, I realized also that 'wealth' is misspelled as weath.

[Pocus]

Missing files
16:48:24 (Reporting) TSlaveThing.SetBitmap: Unable to find MediaInfo for image: Unit_AUS_Inf1870_Marine4.png
16:35:17 (Reporting) TScriptEngine.TriggerEvent Cannot find event file: RegionsDecisions

If I create the latter it changes to

18:46:21 (Reporting) TScriptEngine.TriggerEvent This event not found while triggering a research C:\Games\Pride of Nations\VGN\Events\RegionsDecisions.sct RGDScriptSurrender

I have seen an enemy city (Bologna) reported as having "-3 of 50" which makes the attacker at 100% and "the defender will also suffer a penalty". If you are below the limit then the text for the defender suffering a penalty should not be there. The city was relatively empty - 1 element.

The enemy then mobilised and a corps and some other stuff appeared in the city - at which point it went to 17 though there were 18 elements mobilising and 1 other in the city.

New business emergence always produces gems.

Getting a repeated message saying assault called off due to low cohesion - however the unit is on defend orders, and no unit in the area is on assault orders.

all fixed. Except what businessmen generate...They generate a little quantity of the most rare tradable resource among all organized nations, provided there is at least 1 pt of this resource in a stock somewhere (we don't want to see cars in 1850). So you'll get generally what most people want the most, and as this is a self adjusting mechanism, I believe it will help smooth shortages in a nice way. Sometime it's gems, sometime oil, opium...

[Pocus]

I carried over a save form RC2 and this popped up:

Is this because I'm playing as Japan?

EDIT: After the second turn, I realized also that 'wealth' is misspelled as weath.

right, it was a possibility given the code I had. Fixed, a minor bug (for me), but a major step for mankind!

[V for Vegas]

Loaded up the new patch and got this straight away on a fresh game as France in the GC. Never seen it before.



I quit and restarted. After scrolling around a bit it gave me another error.

Started a couple more times and have not been able to reproduce the error. Running an i5, ATI card.

[PhilThib]

Uusually a directX update, and a check on the Graphic Card drivers solve this kind of issues (especially with ATI cards).

[Kensai]

Philippe(s), can you tell me if stakes don't work for Japan (or any other nation) before getting a high Imperialism or Diplomacy ruler rating? Is there a minimum for them to work? Tests I have made on previous turns always fail much more than the tooltip 50%.

Turns included for our current MP game as Japan.
(I shall PM you my pass if you want to investigate further)

[Boernes]

I think the issue with Niger's misplaced capital region still exists, although it should be addressed in RC1 ... when I installed the beta patch RC3, it has overwritten the changes I made to the ColonialAreas.ini myself (which were fixing it)
Checking the map, Area.ini, ColonialAreas.ini and Bamako is still Capital of Niger and shown as Part of Niger, even though its in the middle of Mali.

[sagji]

all fixed. Except what businessmen generate...They generate a little quantity of the most rare tradable resource among all organized nations, provided there is at least 1 pt of this resource in a stock somewhere (we don't want to see cars in 1850). So you'll get generally what most people want the most, and as this is a self adjusting mechanism, I believe it will help smooth shortages in a nice way. Sometime it's gems, sometime oil, opium...

It is a little odd to get the same resource turn after turn.
When a new resource is first produced then everybody will get it from their new business. A resource may be rare because there no production but not valuable because there is no demand.
What is valuable to someone else might not be so valuable to you - if you produce an excess of gems but have a critical shortage for dyes, then that gems are the rarest resource world wide isn't so important.

The 1870 tech "Scientific management" gives several level 3 structures, the tech "Factory illumination" gives the level 2 versions, however it isn't required to get "Scientific management" - so you could research them in the wrong order.

Looking at the coastal guns issue, I think they aren't firing - but they still should not be involved in the combat, i.e. the check for not firing should be a check for not being included.

[James D Burns]

It is a little odd to get the same resource turn after turn.

In my new US game I’m seeing a different resource almost every turn. I’ve seen Tea, Fruit, Coffee, Gems, Petroleum (not sure this one should be showing up yet as its only 1857, but it's appeared a few times), Silk, Rice Rum, and I think Gold was appearing before I built up the gold fields. So perhaps your economy simply doesn’t need anything vitally enough to get some other resource to appear? Or maybe it has to do with having started your game under an earlier build?

[Kensai]

What is valuable to someone else might not be so valuable to you - if you produce an excess of gems but have a critical shortage for dyes, then that gems are the rarest resource world wide isn't so important.

Isn't? The rarest and most demanded resource would command the highest price in the market, even higher if nations compete for it with the 25% premium! So even if you are full of them it is always nice to have them as selling the extra will never be a problem.

But I understand what you mean here. Businessmen should generate the rarest of things YOUR nation needs.

Looking at the coastal guns issue, I think they aren't firing - but they still should not be involved in the combat, i.e. the check for not firing should be a check for not being included.

Same for ships I believe, look at Williams latest battle in Smyrna with the Ottomans. Or you meant you see coastal guns and ships appearing in the Battle Log but firing (say) blanks?

Philippe(s), can you tell me if stakes don't work for Japan (or any other nation) before getting a high Imperialism or Diplomacy ruler rating? Is there a minimum for them to work? Tests I have made on previous turns always fail much more than the tooltip 50%.

Well, I stand corrected, the crisis happened but at the last turn. I haven't really noticed, is it normal to fire ALWAYS at the last turn? The Prussians have made a protectorate and the crisis popped up only then. I had already played 3 stakes so far, have all the "dice rolls" been played (giving me a higher chance) or the game calculated only one (the first or last, so the others got wasted)? Hopefully the first approach, otherwise there is no advantage to spot a rival attempt to change a status early and bombard it with stakes to have better chances of a crisis. Stakes costs you know!

Nevertheless, we found an inconsistency on the interface. Both nations got the same -1 Just Cause and Domination numbers. I was expecting we would have the exact opposites.

[Pocus]

After running the CleanupLoyalty command for three turns and then turning it off for one turn, I’ve got some observations. It appears the foreign loyalties have permanently altered the core loyalty of the regions they’ve appeared in.

For example:

Turk loyalty will not drop below 4% for any region in the US that had Turk loyalty in it and Moldavian loyalties appeared locked to 1%.

The command appears to affect Confederate loyalties as well, dropping all regions to 10% unless the regions also had Turk and other loyalties, then it appears the Confederates lose part of their core 10% to the foreign loyalty changes.

Rebel loyalties that appeared due to the same bug that made the Turks appear drop down to about 20% fast, but then only drop a percentage or two per turn after that with the cleanup command active, so it is much harder to scrub the bogus rebel loyalties even at 100 times speed.

Here’s a save of my current game before I turned on the CleanupLoyalty command so you can test the effects to see what I saw.

I see ... For the CSA the code is stuck because the highest ethnic in what will be the Confederate capital is not dixie but Turks, so it can't retrieve the proper infos that would prevent regions with a bit of Dixie from losing CSA loyalties... The sick man is too sick, sorry for your game (I see you restarted another).

For the leftover loyalties that don't get removed easily, I need to understand why...

[Norljus]

In the Industry and Commerce screen (F4) the activation sounds for the conversions are no longer played. And it would be usefull to have a visible indication of the conversion state.

[the_dovlets]

I receive a message similar to this one almost every turn

"Entrepreneurs about in our nation Sir. Merchants got their hands on -4 Rum for the low price of 0". Is this a known bug ?

Thanks!

[Francois Xavier]

I receive a message similar to this one almost every turn

"Entrepreneurs about in our nation Sir. Merchants got their hands on -4 Rum for the low price of 0". Is this a known bug ?

Thanks!

If you read the thread, that would be clear.