1.03c Quick fix

[Pocus]

Dear players,

Here is a quickfix patch to Pride of Nations 1.03. Being a quickfix, you need to have 1.03 installed before installing this 1.03c, as this is not an all inclusive patch since PON 1.00.

We will do our best to fix and enhance the game, little by little every month (or even every fortnight, if a new problem arise).

http://ageoddl.telechargement.fr/temp/Quickfix_PON_1.03c.zip

Changelog from 1.03b to 1.03c

Engine

Issues with save corruption from 1.03a should be fixed now. We can help you recover a saved game if need be.

Gamelogic

Acquiring national regions:
If a region has 100% loyalty, then it will acquire automatically 'non colonial, non national status'. This status is converted spontaneously to 'national status' if there is a land bridge to the capital...

Ruler & negative rating:
Negative values are now allowed for rulers... The code was prohibiting them before.
CAVEAT though... the current values are already stored in saved games... it means you'll have to wait for a new election before values start to be what they should.

Game Balance
The new GC has now a lot of minor countries starting up as unstable and then changing to minor industrialized over the years. This is mostly to reduce their craftsmen production (e.g Argentina won't export steel at start). Won't affect ongoing games.

In the commerce box, merchants ships will be found more easily and may be attacked by up to 5 enemy ships / merchants (before it was 2.5). Reminder: this is an abstracted combat so damages per chaser is low anyway.

Modding
By activating DebugShowAllLanes in general.opt you can see all rail lanes at once.

[vaalen]

Thank you so much for this. PON has the potential to be the greatest game ever made, in my opinion. and every time you improve it, it gets closer.

But you are making it so difficult to play any other game!

[Fouche]

Since I have yet to get an answer on this....in another posting...I will ask it here.
Question? Does now the game patched up to 1.03 (with the newest hotfix) have the correct event firing that allows for both the Union and the CSA to have additional generals to appear when the American Civil War starts? In the case of my game vs my friend, who has the USA it is now April of 1860...(the war started for him in December of 1859), and he has reported to me that there has been no other generals for the Union except for the 3 that the north gets at the beginning. He also has said that he does not see any CSA generals as yet. When should these additional generals start appearing?

[Kensai]

Thanks Pocus!

Thank you so much for this. PON has the potential to be the greatest game ever made, in my opinion. and every time you improve it, it gets closer.

vaalen is so spot on!

[jsgtnby]

Thanks Pocus and the whole AGEOD team! Your time and dedication are appreciated in making a great game even better! I don't think there is another company that supports their products the way you guys do.

Since I was using 103b without problems, can 103c be applied directly over it?

[Moriety]

Acquiring national regions:
If a region has 100% loyalty, then it will acquire automatically 'non colonial, non national status'. This status is converted spontaneously to 'national status' if there is a land bridge to the capital...

Does this mean the Siberian Colonies of Russia will automatically become national territory at the start of a new game? (I hope not, as sending immigrants is needed if you seek a predominant RUS nationality in the area).

Great to see the Rails reveal command, thanks!

[Kensai]

Since I was using 103b without problems, can 103c be applied directly over it?

Yes, install on top (as long as it is already some version of 1.03). I did exactly that: from b to c.

Does this mean the Siberian Colonies of Russia will automatically become national territory at the start of a new game? (I hope not, as sending immigrants is needed if you seek a predominant RUS nationality in the area).

The difference between core (national) and extended region is as described: 100% loyalty and connection to the capital over land is required for a region to be core. A colonial region does not become extended (let alone national) before loyalty has become 100%. I seriously doubt the enormous chunks of non subdued Eastern Siberian territory are of Russian loyalty at all at the start of the game. Bringing loyalty to 100% is a long process for most regions beyond where your ethnicity is already established.

[nemethand]

Does this mean the Siberian Colonies of Russia will automatically become national territory at the start of a new game? (I hope not, as sending immigrants is needed if you seek a predominant RUS nationality in the area).!

Most of it, yes. I have just faced that tons of colonial structures disappeared becuase of the change.

[Jim-NC]

I can report that a colony with 100% control will change to "non-national region" if there is no land bridge. In our MP game, I am Spain, and several islands have switched, and destroyed the colonial buildings in the process (Canary Islands, Caroline Islands, Guam, and Ferdinand Po made the switch, and are no longer colonies).

[Kensai]

Most of it, yes. I have just faced that tons of colonial structures disappeared becuase of the change.

He asked about the start of the game, not 1870. If Russia has 100% loyalty in most regions of Siberia by 1850, then the problem probably lies to the Include files of the startup setup, not the progress of the game. Perhaps an extended region could be considered one that has both 100% loyalty and more than 50% of one of the core national ethnicities (ie for Austro-Hungary: German, Hungarian). This will fix most situations as ethnicity changes really slowly (even less than loyalty) and starts up obviously quite low for remote areas out of the core of a nation.

The only thing that potentially worries me is what may happen to some events that may check on colonial status before triggering. Otherwise, it is not a huge issue. The game engine already tags (look at F8) the regions as "colonial" regardless of their actual progress. Moreover, what could happen if an enemy power subdues one such region and loyalty changes just by 1% to the other side. The moment it goes 99% the old owner and 1% new owner, will it destroy all regular structures and allow colonial once more? Also, there is a potential problem for GBR, which is higher: non-national region or dominion?

Last, in our game always, why Primorie and some other areas turned to Russian National region (101%) when it definitely doesn't have 100% loyalty in most regions? Unless Siberians add their loyalty to the Russians, this is impossible.

[Pocus]

There can be side effects yes, there are apparently. I believe in this case that the data should perhaps be altered to have under 100% loyalty... Problem is we are trying to fix oddities from broken events with this new code, so if the cure is worse than the disease, just tell us.

If you fall under 100% loyalty, you won't switch back to colonial...

A dominion is still a colonial status, so under. If Canada is screwed by this change, then yes we have a problem. Apply 1.03c with care on your ongoing games before we clear the issue and find a solution that can satisfy all needs.

[Kensai]

Perhaps the rule should be very strict: 100% loyalty and more than 50% ethnicity of the nation owning the region and/or colonial area.

[nemethand]

Last, in our game always, why Primorie and some other areas turned to Russian National region (101%) when it definitely doesn't have 100% loyalty in most regions? Unless Siberians add their loyalty to the Russians, this is impossible.

I doubt there have been 100% loyalty, not even core/national/historic/etc regions have 100% loyalty in Mother Russia. You sure it li loyalty which determines and not another attribute - e.g. MC?

Some colonial territories in Central Asia (Bukhara, Afghanistan) and in the Far East (Manchuria) and also the colonial area around Irkutsk (Vitim?) did not change status, they remained colonial areas.

And yes, the change is reflected both in the F8 (colonial) screen as well as prestige points gained from colonial ranking (went down quite a bit).

[Jim-NC]

I doubt there have been 100% loyalty, not even core/national/historic/etc regions have 100% loyalty in Mother Russia. You sure it li loyalty which determines and not another attribute - e.g. MC?

Some colonial territories in Central Asia (Bukhara, Afghanistan) and in the Far East (Manchuria) and also the colonial area around Irkutsk (Vitim?) did not change status, they remained colonial areas.

And yes, the change is reflected both in the F8 (colonial) screen as well as prestige points gained from colonial ranking (went down quite a bit).

Not only did the prestige point gain go down, the maintenance went down as well. The average colonial gain went from 10 to 6 per turn. Spain's colonial maintenance costs went from 2 to 1. I can confirm that hte F8 screen changed for me as well. The regions that went "non-national" are no longer showing on my F8 screen, and they are at 101%.

[Kensai]

So Jim, is this good or bad? I feel that given the precedent fast pace of our game, this resolution makes perfect sense. You managed to convince the locals (loyalty 100%) that they are part of your great empire, something that is quite difficult in the African regions unless we're talking about old and established colonies of Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, France, and Great Britain. Is this so bad?

The regions are not showing up in F8 because you probably haven't installed v1.03c yet. To me they show up perfectly.

[Kensai]

I doubt there have been 100% loyalty, not even core/national/historic/etc regions have 100% loyalty in Mother Russia. You sure it li loyalty which determines and not another attribute - e.g. MC?

Some colonial territories in Central Asia (Bukhara, Afghanistan) and in the Far East (Manchuria) and also the colonial area around Irkutsk (Vitim?) did not change status, they remained colonial areas.

And yes, the change is reflected both in the F8 (colonial) screen as well as prestige points gained from colonial ranking (went down quite a bit).

nemethand,
I fired up our game and passed over your regions with the filter. All your regions that turned respected the rule (100% loyalty for you). This is strange as Sakhalin island has a loyalty to a nation called "Siberian". This is the real issue. In a future iteration of the game, the Include files should add this Siberian loyalty to every region of Siberia (in various percentages) as to portray that loyalty wasn't 100% Russian. But this is not an issue of v1.03c, honestly, but of the initial files that did not take this into consideration. Also, perhaps, there will be need to tone down the effect on loyalty of the bribe, treaty, etc colonial actions to increase loyalty per region only by 2-3% instead of 5%.

Bukhara and Afghanistan were historically very problematic and there the local loyalties have been portrayed successfully. You will have to work your way with military and colonial actions to subdue them and then again there might be events that reverse these actions over time. It is perfectly normal.

[Moriety]

nemethand,
I fired up our game and passed over your regions with the filter. All your regions that turned respected the rule (100% loyalty for you). This is strange as Sakhalin island has a loyalty to a nation called "Siberian". This is the real issue. In a future iteration of the game, the Include files should add this Siberian loyalty to every region of Siberia (in various percentages) as to portray that loyalty wasn't 100% Russian. But this is not an issue of v1.03c, honestly, but of the initial files that did not take this into consideration. Also, perhaps, there will be need to tone down the effect on loyalty of the bribe, treaty, etc colonial actions to increase loyalty per region only by 2-3% instead of 5%.

Bukhara and Afghanistan were historically very problematic and there the local loyalties have been portrayed successfully. You will have to work your way with military and colonial actions to subdue them and then again there might be events that reverse these actions over time. It is perfectly normal.

This was what I was concerned about.
I'm in my first game (so still learning) (Version 1.03 still). I've been working hard to get a 52% Russian/48% Siberian pop in each province. It's 1885 in the game and about 80% of the Siberian regions are now there. I'd hate the Colony status to change before I've completed the immigration process.
As I understand it Khiva, Bokhara, Afganistan and Kokand all remain as Colonies- in my 1.03 game all have 100% loyalty and pop to themselves and cannot be altered, only exception is the famous Khyber Pass which has some UK loyalty (The city and Military OP are British although AFG is a RUS colony).

[Kensai]

I don't understand, Moriety, you say that in a new game (v1.03) all the Eastern Siberian provinces have 100% Russian loyalty or not? Because if they do have (in 1850) then it's a problem of the startup Include files, not the c patch, essentially. One should fix the include files for all future Russian players to have a consistent Siberian loyalty in the beginning, so the process will be long.

If you say you are 52-48 then it's a far cry from 100-0 that is needed to call an area extended region. So no worries, it should not affect you. nemethand could comment on his activities of how he turned those huge areas of Siberian-loyalty population to Russian, it's rather the feat!

[RELee]

Huzzah! Again I say, huzzah!

[Pocus]

Adding ethnicity as a condition would perhaps be rather stringent, although that would still fix the broken Boshin events... So perhaps this is the way to go. I admit that removing colonial status as soon as you have 100% loyalty is perhaps too much... but then I have less playing experience of PON that our dear PBEMers, by now

I can perhaps add that if you have 100% loyalty, then you have 10% + % of your main ethnic chance per turn to remove colonial status? That would still solve immediately the Boshin events while slowing down the others issues you may see in Sakhalin and elsewhere?

[Kensai]

Since we've already installed it on our PBEM (with all the changes) feel free to do whatever change you feel. Eventually, we could reset those changed colonies through a script on our ongoing game. You should always consider a game that starts from zero (either in 1850 or 1880) and have the patch perfect for it. We are old dogs now, we know most of the tricks (with your help and support) to adapt the game accordingly. Don't worry about us unless we report a bug!

Indeed I think as well that as much as convenient it is, many colonial areas have already 100% loyalty and their complete transformation to extended (non-national) areas is quite the gift to a nation. Great Britain and the old Empires of Spain, Portugal, etc may find themselves immediately with a status even higher than Dominion, very early in the game. I believe you HAVE to be strict about which nation has this privileged status of being national or non-national extended region. 100% loyalty and a majority of ethnicity (or some other prerequisite, for example population size, a city, whatever) will force only the most steadfast and developed of colonies to have this special status.

I can perhaps add that if you have 100% loyalty, then you have 10% + % of your main ethnic chance per turn to remove colonial status? That would still solve immediately the Boshin events while slowing down the others issues you may see in Sakhalin and elsewhere?

How often would this check? If once per turn, it is a huge percentage. If once per year, it's acceptable but without the 10% in the beginning.
So as nations bring in immigrants and treat the locals (playing the various colonial actions) to raise ethnicity and loyalty, eventually there will be some chance for them to be so assimilated to "feel like motherland".

If you HAVE to make it check once per turn, I would suggest the following prerequisites for transformation from colony/dominion to (non-)national region:

• Colony has reached 100% loyalty in ALL its comprising regions.
• Every turn there is a check of the ethnicity percentage reached divided by 10. Meaning if the major ethnicity of the nation owning that colony has reached 35% then there is 3,5% probability EACH turn that it would turn to an extended (or national if there is a land bridge as with Russia's or USA's colonies).

[Jim-NC]

One thing it does is change the PP gain for colonies. As the territory is no longer "Colonial", you lose the PP gain due to SOI. However, you do not get a boost for having a new "national" or "non-national" region. Thus the "old" colonial powers lose some PP gain, but get new non national areas in former colonies. The problem is the change to PP (which is the currency of the realm), now as you get areas to become your, you no longer get PP for them.

[Kensai]

True, but perhaps you get to do industry there now that they are considered national regions, including advanced factories and shipyards that give VPs per turn. Moreover, since the game is probably not trimmed for the old powers (Portugal, Spain, Netherlands) this is a negligent error. For the major playable nations it happens to all of them more or less equally, so there is no real winner after all. Proof to that is that in our game the ranking in the colonial score didn't change for the top nations.

However, I think that there might be some kind of score (as adjuvant objectives) to all nations having under their possession an F8 region, even if it is national or non-national extended. This way Russia for example will not lose its VP per turn now that many Siberian regions were added as national regions as they have a land connection to the capital (Saint Petesrburg). Same thing for non-national regions so Britain, Spain, etc won't lose their points per turn for keeping the old colonies which are loyal and advanced: ie Canada, etc. This might also give some bonus VPs per turn to nonplayable nations that have their own national regions per se (China, Ottomans, Morocco, Xinjang, Oman, etc) as they will now be sitting in VP-giving regions. It's not that bad either.

All things considered, another future change I would add for a new game is to have the Include (startup setup files) of the game to give less loyalty to old colonies so they don't change immediately status. It should be the player to do this through colonial actions (which should also be cut down drastically). That way, even old loyal British colonies and areas such as Canada and Australia will need some time to work on their loyalty (and hopefully ethnicity) before changing.

[czert2]

Yes i think as kensai sugested - having certain minimal national population to convert to extended region is nice way to go (and it will make moriarty happy (and me) , since he can tranform siberia regions for desired population composition), but not sure if it will help with his problem with colonial poland.
And find one minor incovience - as i send colonis all over siberia to get 100% cp and over 50% pop here, i have in some region low MC, despite that no enemy feet landed here ever, and that is well
So i think that adding code for geting 1% of MC "back" per turn will be logical way to go, unless enemy presence is here. It will be similiar to how you get MC 5% from tribal nations one you have protectorate+ status.

[glennbob]

I would have to agree with Jim, the major fault is that PP gain is hugely decreased per turn, and the ability to build shipyards and such in these areas doesn't make up for this. I now gain 29 per turn rather than 40+, I'm only gaining 6 more PP per turn than Prussia now. There has to be a mechanism to supplement this loss, perhaps some PP gain per number of official non-national regions owned outside of the homeland?

Also, I agree with Kensai's idea of doing a check per turn against ethnicity in the area, it should even out the whole situation and make it more practical. It has been implemented rather quickly with not a lot of forethought about the wider effect on the world, but oh well :P

[Kensai]

Well, true, but actually your gain over Prussia is much more realistic now, given that in the first years of our game we played with the full (unrealistic) colonial options before cutting them down and GBR managed to grab a huge amount of colonies and develop them. Blame your predecessors on this, but as I said, it's a mixed blessing. If the game wasn't so fast its initial colonial years (1850-60 in our PBEM) less colonies would have met the prerequisites to be non-national regions. But trust me, you only look at the down side. The bright side is that your administration costs in these loyal and advanced regions is so low, you can channel your extra gains in R&D and military operations, getting back the colonies you may have lost.

All things considered, if the algorithm ever changes in v1.03d and you desire a new system, we can adapt our situation in the game through script. Meaning, we can even revert the regions back to colonial status if you so desire.

[Moriety]

Yes i think as kensai sugested - having certain minimal national population to convert to extended region is nice way to go (and it will make moriarty happy (and me) , since he can tranform siberia regions for desired population composition), but not sure if it will help with his problem with colonial poland.
And find one minor incovience - as i send colonis all over siberia to get 100% cp and over 50% pop here, i have in some region low MC, despite that no enemy feet landed here ever, and that is well
So i think that adding code for geting 1% of MC "back" per turn will be logical way to go, unless enemy presence is here. It will be similiar to how you get MC 5% from tribal nations one you have protectorate+ status.

Czert2,
Don't forget, each time you play the immigrants card the target province loses 1% loyalty (when they arrive).

@Kensai,

My game is 1885 and all Siberian provinces are at 100% loyalty. Unsure what the starting loyalty was in 1850 though.


It has taken me this long (35 game years) to get a majority of these provinces to a 52% Russian/48% other ethnic mix, and I'm happy it takes (about) this long. I'd be unhappy if all the provinces went national very early in the game as I'd end up never being able to recruit RUS units beyond the Urals (assuming you can once they go national from colony status). Mind you, I hope they start to go national soon!

[Kensai]

That's why I think an ethnicity of more than 50% is a strict and accurate preresequite. Because it could mean the difference between a loyal colony and a less loyal one. Siberia had little population and immigration could really tip it after 30-40 years in the game. However regions such as Afghanistan were the ethnicity is totally different would probably never achieve this, which is realistic.

[Moriety]

That's why I think an ethnicity of more than 50% is a strict and accurate preresequite. Because it could mean the difference between a loyal colony and a less loyal one. Siberia had little population and immigration could really tip it after 30-40 years in the game. However regions such as Afghanistan were the ethnicity is totally different would probably never achieve this, which is realistic.

Yep, I agree 100% on that, it's a good solution.
I've never been able to send any immigrants to the Central Asian states like Afghanistan & Khiva but that's WAD though isn't it?