AACW {public beta} patch 1.16 Release Candidate 9 - December 19, 2011

[lodilefty]

For the Holidays, and the Tournament
AFAIK, unless noted, Saves from RC7 will incorporate the fixes.

http://ageoddl.telechargement.fr/temp/patch_AACW_v1.16_rc9.zip

The AGEOD team recognize the enormous number of volunteer hours spent improving the Rail network accuracy, addition of new regions to enhance historical play, creation and adaptation of the "Kentucky Mods" to give a different "feel" to the start of the war, numerous other fixes and enhancements by various modders to the Database, and public beta testing of new executables and changes. Without the efforts of the community, AACW would not be as complete as it is today. We all know games are never perfect or can ever be considered as finished, but help and implication of our fan base always leads to a better product, and, once again, THANK YOU ALL!


================================================== ========================
AGEod's American Civil War Update 1.16 Release Candidate 9
December 19, 2011
================================================== ========================
The patch is a comprehensive patch, meaning it can be applied directly over your initial game installation setup version.

• ''Close Window'' check box fixed in Element Detail window
• Fixed events where a new CSA Blockade Runner could appear in Cuba, West Indes, or Jamaica
  
  • [color=blue]This fix will not release units created in a saved game started prior to 1.16 RC9[/color]
    
• Fixed rare occurance of a 2nd Kentucky invasion by the AI event after Kentucky is invaded.
• Fixed the inclusion of GBR Divisions in CSA total Division count
  
  • Note: [color=red]GBR will NOT be able to form new divisions. If you “undo” the Division formation button on a GBR Division, you will not be able to recreate the division. You WILL be able to un-combine/re-combine the division. (“+” and “-” keys)
    [/color]
• Fixed overlayed title text in Battle Report
• Fixed the USA DuPont/Choctaw arrival to avoid appearance in landlocked region (not fixed if the event has already occured)
• Fixed USA Draft Riot event that was causing error
  (syntax: trying to select a Region, where an Area was required)
• Fixed Sudden Death by National Morale rule. (setting rulNationalMorale = 2 )
  

[RC8 – released in beta only]

• Aligned mini-flags with text on Ledger: Objectives page
• Updated Faction definition files to the current game-engine standards
• Added GameRules to allow AI to properly take over an abandoned PBEM or edited AI side
• The ''Kentucky Entry'' unit in 1861 April w/ KY will only appear for human players. The AI was always ''buying'' this unit, thus bypassing all of the AI logic events in the Kentucky Entry events.
• Corrected notation bugs in USA Events.sct (wierd results due to interpreting a note as an erroneous command
• Modified event that unlocks CSS Florida, moving her to the Shipping Lanes (bug: couldn't move out of England) (won't be corrected in saved games started in RC7)
• Distant Unload icon restored (was omitted in RC7)
• Corrected Poor Spy Network Ability Alias in several models
• Added CSA Coastal Artillery alternate raise areas
• ''Experience Tooltip'' now works

See the Read Me link in your Windows Start menu for complete change log.

[Confederate]

Yeah, an early Christmas present xD!

[gchristie]

[font="Impact"][SIZE="3"]This news, while welcomed, further undermines my Christmas shopping resolve.

I must be strong...[/size][/font]



[SIZE="2"]And you can bet I'm reading all those bullets this time[/size]

[Normalguy]

Oh no!

[Longshanks]

LL, thanks for keeping our tourney in mind with the compatibility considerations. We appreciate it!

Players and hosts: I sent you an email with instructions, so see that on how to time your upgrade.

[Normalguy]

Ummmm....not really important but.....

RC9 - after choosing a scenario you get the screen to choose sides - move the cursor over the CSA side and I get the CSA elements of the screen flashing repeatedly rather than just being highlighted. The USA side highlights as normal.

It's as if the CSA elements of the screen are being constantly re-drawn.

This happens with all scenarios it seems and has only happened after updating to RC9.

Strange!

[Franciscus]

Ummmm....not really important but.....

RC9 - after choosing a scenario you get the screen to choose sides - move the cursor over the CSA side and I get the CSA elements of the screen flashing repeatedly rather than just being highlighted. The USA side highlights as normal.

It's as if the CSA elements of the screen are being constantly re-drawn.

This happens with all scenarios it seems and has only happened after updating to RC9.

Strange!

Confirmed...

It escaped my attention, I am continuing a GC started before RC9...

[Normalguy]

Confirmed...

It escaped my attention, I am continuing a GC started before RC9...

In the nicest possible way...I'm glad you have the bug too and that it is not just me

[ERISS]

None virus found too. Maybe for my antivirus is now ignoring AGE games?

[Durk]

In the nicest possible way...I'm glad you have the bug too and that it is not just me

Your are correct that this is a very small issue, but interesting. I kind of enjoyed watching Jeff Davis in disco mode.

[Captain_Orso]

*hehe* wrong thread Lodi

[lodilefty]

*hehe* wrong thread Lodi

oop

[Confederate]

Not sure if this is a bug, but when opening the ledger, the "Replay last turn" button dissapears.

[Captain_Orso]

Nope, it's always done that.

But I do have one thing that will boggle your mind. Open a unit display by clicking on the unit's NATO icon and then hit F1

[Confederate]

Nope, it's always done that.

But I do have one thing that will boggle your mind. Open a unit display by clicking on the unit's NATO icon and then hit F1

Didn't realize that until today

I also realized that when hovering over the Confederate's when opening a scenario it blinks

But other members saw that first

[Philippe]

I can't be more specific about this at the moment because of time constraints, but I may be able to take a look at this later this evening.

I'm having trouble loading the program with the new beta patch. I did manage to get it to load at one point and I had just right-clicked on a nato icon and hit F1 (just made the info screen go away?), when I glanced up into the upper right hand corner and could have sworn that some of the buttons were missing. Then the program froze and I had to exit.

After that I tried loading a few times and kept getting a message that AACW has encountered an error. Haven't figured out how to copy down the error message details, which can probably pinpoint what's happening.

I'm running on XP SP3, and there seems to be some kind of a conflict going on (not surprising since this is a civil war).

I'll take another crack at this later tonight.

[Captain_Orso]

don't trash your system dude I can say that, I'm that old

While a unit display is open if you open a ledger on top of that, the window seem to stumble over each other to see who goes first and then neither of them get shown; just like little kids

To clear the situation, open any unit display and then close it normally by either right-clicking outside the unit display or on the close-window [X] icon

[Franciscus]

RC9 over RC8, continuing a GC with Kentuckyas CSA

I think I have stumbled upon the old discrepancy between the alleged result of a politic measure (Cotton embargo) as stated in the message text and the actual result in the Objective ledger....

December 1861. I declared Cotton Embargo. Next turn I get the message that I get [SIZE="3"]-16[/size] British Engagement points, as this measure strongly displeased British public opinion. Yet, The foreign engagement points actually jumped from [SIZE="3"]34 to 54[/size]...

Deja-vu ?

Save attached

[Philippe]

My problem seems to have resolved itself.

I uninstalled AACW. Then I defragged my computer. Then I re-installed AACW and applied the patch.

There was a little hesitation the first time the program ran, but after that each start-up seemed a little faster. It was almost as if my computer was getting used to the program. Or the program was getting used to my computer.

My sense is that even though the patches are cumulative, the program is a bit more delicate than it appears at first blush. But after a clean install everything seems to be in working order.

Perhaps sacrifices to the finicky hard drive gods are in order.

[Captain_Orso]

If you killed the game while it was running there may have been files that were opened and being changed when you did that, which would leave them in an undefined state. Other than save-game file, reinstalling would fix that.

As far as the game starting faster and faster, if you've defragged your disk that will always help as mechanical activities always take the longest on any computer, plus window pages the game into its page pool. When you end the game and re-start it, windows knows that the game engine and files are already in the page pool and only has to check if they haven't changed (update flags) and just uses the copies already in the page-pool, this making loading that much quicker.

On side note, it's alway only a last resort to kill a program that is running, even it it seems to not be running correctly and if you do, you can expect that files being updated will be corrupt afterwards.

[lodilefty]

My problem seems to have resolved itself.

I uninstalled AACW. Then I defragged my computer. Then I re-installed AACW and applied the patch.

There was a little hesitation the first time the program ran, but after that each start-up seemed a little faster. It was almost as if my computer was getting used to the program. Or the program was getting used to my computer.

My sense is that even though the patches are cumulative, the program is a bit more delicate than it appears at first blush. But after a clean install everything seems to be in working order.

Perhaps sacrifices to the finicky hard drive gods are in order.

Slower loading first time after install or patch is WAD, as the models and units cache get built . IIRC, they save 20-30 seconds loading time

[lodilefty]

RC9 over RC8, continuing a GC with Kentuckyas CSA

I think I have stumbled upon the old discrepancy between the alleged result of a politic measure (Cotton embargo) as stated in the message text and the actual result in the Objective ledger....

December 1861. I declared Cotton Embargo. Next turn I get the message that I get -16 British Engagement points, as this measure strongly displeased British public opinion. Yet, The foreign engagement points actually jumped from 34 to 54...

Deja-vu ?

Save attached

Excellent Report
This is a stellar example of how to report a bug and what files to upload!

Fortunately for us, this is actually a script event bug with the Trent Affair

Note: there is a 10% chance that Trent Affair escalates (which is what occurs in your save) which increases FE by 35!!!

FUBARR with Trent Affair:
1. CSA Events are procressed after USA. so the CSA notification of the Trent Affair occurs 1 turn later, but the effects occur immediately = confusion for CSA player
2. CSA notification event if escalation occurs bugged = duplicated event name so it could never fire!!!
3. Strings missing for the CSA escalation notification event
4. 90% chance that the turn after escalation, the Trent Affair "cooler heads" event could still fire = Wrong!

So fixed:
1. I moved the 3 CSA events to the USA Events script, placed just afer the USA events = same turn notification now occurs
2,3,4. All events and strings corrected and tested to work properly

In your save, the mystery of your FE change is the -19 effect of the Embargo failure was mushed into the huge +35 effect of the Trent Affair escalation. Your game status is OK so you can continue, and "next time" the notifications will work properly! (somewhere else is the other +4 FE. Many things can cause that )

Attached:
Extract directly into your \ACW directory
2 Directories affected
4 files overwritten

[Franciscus]

Glad to be of help, lodi !

[Franciscus]

I applied the hotfix to my game and played on.
In January 1862 I got 2 events messages on sucession: The Trent affair, with USA apologizing for Wilkes action, and CSA losing -1 NM, and right away the Trent "escalation", with USA refusing to apologize... , and CSA gaining huge bonus.

Kind of confusing, no ?

I think maybe just correcting the text of the plain "Trent Affair" (ie, simply eliminating the USA decision, just describing the capture of the Trent) would solve this discrepancy...Just by itself it justifies the loss of 1 NM. Then the firing of the "cooler heads" or the "escalation" would modulate further the repercussions, according to the USA action...

Save attached

Regards

[Doomwalker]

Minor issue.

I just now noticed, that I am not getting the Confederate flag in battles and reports with RC9.

[lodilefty]

Minor issue.

I just now noticed, that I am not getting the Confederate flag in battles and reports with RC9.

Merry Christmas! Stay Safe!!

oop. "Housekeeping error" as I tidied up the DB

12/26/2011 Edit: Corrected the file names again (I made a housekeeping error while fixing the housekeeping error made when I made a housekeeping error:wacko

Attached 6.5KB:
Extract directly into ACW\GameData
1 Folder overwritten (\Factions)
8 files overwritten

[Doomwalker]

Merry Christmas Lodilefty. I will do my damndest to.

No worries, it happens. Thanks for the quick upload/fix.

Quick note. The faction files have the 3 capitalized letters at the end, and don't overwrite the files in the game folder. Once the files have the letters removed and overwrite the files in the game folder, everything works as it is supposed to do.

[Citizen X]

Happy Holidays.
There is a thing in recent patch that I only slowly began to think about: distant unload. I have a question about it.
How is the time for unloading calculated? Is it the same modifiers as moving from land region to land region? Is unloading immediate so that spare days in the turn of arrival already get used to unload?
I didn't have the time to test it myself. Maybe someone can share some experience here?

[Normalguy]

Happy Holidays.
There is a thing in recent patch that I only slowly began to think about: distant unload. I have a question about it.
How is the time for unloading calculated? Is it the same modifiers as moving from land region to land region? Is unloading immediate so that spare days in the turn of arrival already get used to unload?
I didn't have the time to test it myself. Maybe someone can share some experience here?

I just ran some quick tests:

Test 1
Fleet already in destination sea/river sector day 1
Troops disembark into target sector day 5 = 5 days to disembark

Test 2
Fleet arrives at target day 9
Troops disembark day 14 = 5 days

Test 3
Fleet arrives day 12
Troops on shore day 14 = 3 days.

Test 4
Fleet sails direct into (friendly) port/town on day 5
Troops appear to be unloaded on day 5.

Conclusion - disembarkation via distant unload takes 5 days or to the end of the turn whichever is shortest time.

Target sector did not seem to affect the timing i.e. using distant unload into a swamp, a port or grass sector seems to give the same results. That seems reasonable - you are unloading troops that are 'offshore' into the ship's boats and then rowing them ashore onto a beach (unlike in Test 4 where the fleet unloads direct onto the dock side).....a beach is a beach is a beach...

[Normalguy]

Merry Christmas! Stay Safe!!

oop. "Housekeeping error" as I tidied up the DB

Would that tidying affect the loading screen bug too? The one where Jeff D keeps flashing when you try to select CSA at game start.