Fri Feb 13, 2009 8:01 pm
Herewith the news:
[Version 1.0.6]
***********
New Features:
- Added Spanish language localization
- Added two new shortcut keys: F9 (pause/unpause AI) and F11 (do screenshot)
- Commander-in-chief values are now displayed on the leader card
- Game updated to version 1.1.3c of irrKlang sound library
- Introduced the prohibition of battle reinforcements for army-numbered corps in reserve
- Added a new shortcut key (CTRL+R) that allows to display all actual rail connections on the map
- Added a new shortcut key (CTRL+S) that allows to display all supply lines for the selected stack
- Added a new shortcut key (M) that centers the map over the first unsatisfied mandatory attack
- Added a new shortcut key (A) that centers the map over the first not-activated army (army-by-army activation mode only)
- The new combat doctrines adoption tests are now performed also at the beginning of the Grand Offensive
- Added new features for naval IA: patrolling/control of important open sea zones threatened by the enemy and refuge to harbors for repairings
- Added the automatic naval repairings in port during the Interphases
- Interceptions have been revised in order to fit the original boardgame rules (no interceptions across major/large rivers unless a friendly town/city is present in either one of the two shores, no interception across lakes and high mountain peaks or straits)
- Every time a nation capitulates, all belligerant nations now receive a supply grant and an unlimited grant of passage throughout the whole surrendered country
Improvements:
- Added several memory leak checks in most critical points in order to make the game more stable and secure for those unlucky PC configurations that are still suffering randomic crashes
- In 4-players mode the allied AI player does not perform diplomatic missions anymore
- Added a procedure that performs all corrections in border reciprocity among map areas (see Persian Gulf / Red Sea bug)
- Mutinies can now span their effect only on Infantry/Cavalry corps
- Improved the performance of AI for evaluating the play of events (huge mouse lags occurred in advanced play mode when the "hand" of AI events was quite large)
- The message of successful/unsuccessful diplomatic missions has been enriched because it was a bit confusing
- Removed a nasty loop in delay siege action performed by AI
- Technological Researchs window: available technologies are now displayed not grayed out
- Added a check that should avoid the play of not-mandatory events (stratagems) done by the AI against herself
- Removed a cheat that allowed the teleporting of independent detachments during the Military phase with the drag & drop using the right mouse key
- The historical event "Goeben battlecruiser takes refuge in Pola" has now more chances to happen
- Added difficulty checks for most mandatory events
- The max number of losses that can be inflicted to armies due to a mutiny can be now customized (row MME in GameRules.CSV DB)
- The description of French Plan XX has been corrected
- Political actions can be planned now also during the Politics phase
- Battle window: general's values are now displayed also for Commander-in-chief leaders, when used as army generals
- Introduced max number of technological researchs per nation;
- Introduced check on entry year for technological researchs.
- The scrolling offset of the Reiforcements shortcut HQs box is no more resetted when a reinforcement is placed
- Supply rules corrected (HQs may be considered as a supply relay only if supplied)
- Naval movements cannot be anymore performed from land area to another land area, so avoiding the weird moves "inside" Africa
- Added dark caption background rectagle to the combat result texts
- Nationality of strikes and rebellions is now always the same of the owner controlling the target areas
- The political action "Restore Order" now suppress also unrests of other nationality, provided they are located inside the acting nation
- Added memory optimization for background music playback
- Sound engine improved in order to avoid memory leaks and out of memory
- Introduced a customizable armonization in battle reinforcemets rule (Fire-Power doctrine) between the Western and the Eastern Front
- The messages for notification of a successful/failed combat doctrine adoption test is now more visible
- The rule for placement of reinforcement in major cities is now ignored in Africa
- Grand Offensive NW checks improved for the cases when the enemy escapes the battle and the area is conquered without combats
- Added some more randmness in commitment of artillery units during major battles
- Removed cheat in major land battles that allowed to move one commitment from one flank to the other
- Message notifications concerning air and naval missions are now displayed on a popup window in addition to the Game Log
- Lines in Statistics window are now drawn bold
- Removed redundant operations that made sometimes the Events and Political AI very slow
- Siege AI refactored (simplified) in order to avoid the allied AI hangs in 4-players mode
- The algorythm for paths calculation has been improved because some naval moves were never allowed
- OV1 game rule has been disabled (Overrun in Fortress area: forces ratio [measured in number of corps, excluding reserves] required to have an overrun, overran forces go inside fortress) because it generated a lot of misunderstandings in players
- Removed a cheat that allowed the teleporting of single units during the Military phase with the drag & drop using the right mouse key, even in enemy areas
- Game map has been corrected in Caporetto, Vittorio Veneto and Belluno area (terrain updated, see scenario changes)
- Game map has been corrected in Trentin border (Cima Presanella and bordering areas)
- Chances of success in technological researchs have been slightly increased
- Offsets of lists inside the Diplomats Management window are no more resetted when a movement or a mission is scheduled
- Diplomats can be now merged even if located in different countries, provided they belong to the same nation
(*) Scenario changes:
- Corrected all rail connections
- Corrected several spelling errors in map area names for German language
- Corrected several spelling errors in fleets names for German language
- Corrected several spelling errors in leader names for German language
- Corrected several spelling errors in unit names for German language
- Added some corrections to the English and French marine troops redeployment events
- Introduced a downgrade of attack/defence/morale values for BEF special units (upon II British army entry)
- Corrected the picture of the "Reshuffle" event
- Added condition to the event "Mustapha Kemal is appointed army leader": Turkey must be at war
- Corrected the entry turns for most Austrian events
- Corrected the die roll modifiers for events "Portugal enters the War" and "Japan enters the War": Great Britain must be at war, not simple pro-Entente
- Added a further condition for the event "Torpedoing of Lusitania": Great Britain must be at war
- Corrected the die roll modifier for the event "Torpedoing of Lusitania": +3 instead of -3 if Germany has adopted the political action "Unrestricted Submatine Warfare"
- Corrected the effects of the event "Torpedoing of Lusitania": now it's a gain of US diplomatic level for the Entente, not more a loss
- Corrected the entry turns for most Austrian events
- "Nationalist Agitations" events in Great Britain and France have now a bit less chances to happen
- Added condition for the "Irish Uprising quelled" event: "Spring in Dublin" event has to be occurred
- Added condition for the "American-Mexican War" event: USA must be neutral
- "Rasputin assassinated" event has now difficulty 4
- Terrain of Vittorio Veneto and Belluno areas is now Hills
- Terrain of Caporetto area is now Plains
- Colors of Austria-Hungary have been improved
- 1914 scenario (Russian warplans): the mandatory attacks of Russian I and II armies have been moved from 'West Prussia' to 'Ost Pommern'
- Added two bonus modifiers to the "Senussi Uprising" event draw die roll, that has now so more chances to occurr
- Some bonus modifiers have been removed from the "End of Senussi Uprising" event draw die roll, that has now less chances to occurr
- Once played, the "Zimmermann Telegram" event now creates a new "Diplomacy" event
- Corrected the tanks combat value determination modifier provided the "Estienne / JFC Fuller" event play
- The icon of the "Historical War Plan" event has been moved to the Military group
- "Grandmaison" event can now be played also during turn #2
- The icons of the "Rohr" and "Laffargue" events have been moved to the Technological group
- The difficulty of "Supplementary Munitions" events is now 2
- Now both the "Supplementary Munitions" events can generate max 6 MUN points
- The difficulty of "Reshuffle" event is now 5
Fixed bugs:
- Siege buttons sometimes were disappearing (4-players mode)
- Finally fixed the naval transport and supply bug for the areas bordering the Persian Gulf and Red Sea (see Improvements)
- Fixed a bug that made the drag & drop not working in some occurrences
- The bug of wandering interface elements has been eradicated
- Sieges and battles of just capitulated nations were causing a game hang
- Fixed bug in checks for technology shared and public status transitions
- Trenches level was increased also upon the 2nd or later usages of trench technos
- Fixed a graphic bug in battles window that prevented the scrolling on the right of units on the Rear of naval & air battles, and sieges
- Some multiplayer bugs fixed (crash upon load end on client, synchro of die rolls upon turn startup)
- Justly planned diplomatic moves can now be undone
- Fixed a rare bug in diplomatic missions: only one mission over two were performed in some circunstances
- Fixed a bug in Munitions speding during battles: MUN points were spent during the first three combat rounds when a fortress is present, not during the fourth and following rounds, as designed
- Fixed rare crash in Grand Offensives planning window
- Fixed a very rare crash in save procedure (land battles, only for advanced game more)
- Land battle result determination improved: the cause of the weird results now eliminated
- Fixed bug in diplomatic missions: AI was so quick that was able to schedule two missions per turn
- Fixed an extremely rare hang on siege screen (4-players mode only)
- Fixed a small bug in rail moves that prevented the generation of battles
- Fixed some small bugs in volume settings for sound effects and background musics
- Fixed a regression bug in 1.05i that made all air duels not occurring
- Fixed a crash on game quit caused by the Austrian event that makes Prague as third capital of the triple monarchy in Austria in case of successful reformation
- Fixed display error on refresh of Diplomats Management window
- Removed the flickering of "AI is working" black window when exiting the Statistics page
- Fixed siege hang occurring when the city has already fallen in friendly hands
- Fixed rare hang in battles occurring when the AI had practically no valid choice in tactical options
- Fixed bug in RP spending procedure (if all independent detachment RPs were spent before proceding to the GHQ/Army ones, any further spending became impossible)
- Finally removed the freeze on game playback transitions
- Fixed a bug in war lengh checks that caused big NW losses to most nations
- Fixed the erratic army-by-army hang (during AI activations)
- Fixed a bug in Isolation checks: the Isolation/Supply counter was resetted every time the savegame is reloaded
- Fixed bug in Multiplayer engine: loss of synchonization in dice roll seed for Initiative order determination when no player had scenario rule preordered initiative
- Fixed bug in Multiplayer engine: loss of synchronization in dice roll seed during the execution of orders and actions
- Fixed bug that made impossible the processing of separate peace proposals
- Fixed display error that reported the result message for the combat doctrine research tests even for void doctrines (in case of a planned Grand Offensive with no new doctrine adoption)
- Fixed a display error in determination of areas to be highlighted with the yellow filter on map (areas reachable by normal movement)
- Fixed some bugs that caused a generic failure on check procedure of political actions conditions (i.e.: "Polish Military Government")
- Map tooltip engine has been refactored in order to avoid the random crashes occurring on some PC configs
- Political actions that can be adopted only once cannot be anymore scheduled
- Added a check to avoid the hang on last siege before end-turn/phase in 4-players mode
- Fixed a crash caused by antivirus programs when the AI stores the evalutaion of her performances in SEQ files
- Fixed a bug that made impossible the battle reinforcements from GHQs in case no army HQ was involved
(*) : old savegame are not affected, sorry.
Elements highlighted in bold refer to the 1.0.6 as a difference from 1.0.5L.