Public Beta Patch 1.04 RC4

[Pocus]

Dear Players,

We would not want you to have one idle minute in the Easter week end, so here it is, a public beta patch for CW2. Just be sure to understand that this patch, although seemingly quite stable, is still in the work. As 'RC4' indicates, it is the fourth iteration of the next patch-to-be, with 3 release candidates already tested and played by our fellows beta-testers.

Nothing horrible should happen if you try it, but again, this is not an officially released, quality-insurance tested, patch. Your feedback is more than welcome though. As for the definitive release date of the next official patch, we don't know. Probably not before summer, with all the bees busy on several game projects

And now, the link and some reading for you.

http://www.ageod-forum.com/downloads/latest/Patch_CW2_v1.04RC4.zip

Patch 1.04 – Release Candidate 4.
Release Date: --

How to update your game:
This patch is a comprehensive patch. It can upgrade to latest version any previous version of CW2.
This patch is save-compatible.

LIST OF CHANGES

Gameplay
Hidden activation feature implementation slightly improved.
RC3
Can’t build stockades when there is a fort.

Interface
Filters in the unit construction panel are preserved when closing it.
Some tooltips have been fixed.
Titles of historical options can now display in two lines.
Added descriptions to units in the Detail Window (thanks to LeRicain for that)
RC2
Units under construction appear fixed in the appropriate warmap filter or with the ctrl-F1 filter.
RC3
Combat power for friendly units is no more aggregated in a single value.
Regional decisions: Extended tooltip when hovering the force pool indicator now gives precisely the types of units needed.
Shift key can now be used both for lands and waters regions, allows seeing the links between regions.

Historical setting and events
Historical options bringing money now bring more than before (compared to 1.03).
Some early events were firing in the 1863+ campaign (expansion pack only).
All KY regions properly unlocked (expansion pack only).
RC2
Fix in a loophole that would severely limit corps and armies in an ongoing game.
Union recovers morale slightly slower if under 100.
Money options for USA: gain 800. For CSA: gain 600. Fixed tooltips.
RC3
Some brigs could not be built as expected. Only needed for the April Campaign, but needs a restart.

Database
Ships cost 10% less war supplies than before (in 1.03).
Some leaders were provided twice.
RC2
Fixed an issue with the ‘Flotilla Brigade’
Cities produce 20% less supply.
Rail pool transports significantly more supply.
RC3
Sea mines and sub decision can only played if adjacent to a friendly harbor
Merrimack and Monitor added back to initial July setup.

AI
Support gift reviewed further.
Bug fixing in scripted interest for naval regions.
RC3
Fixed a rare bug in AI algorithm ‘give supports’.
RC4
Generic AI significantly improved on most algorithms, thanks to a chirurgical yet powerful modification (expect a +10-15% improved Athena nastiness!)

Modding / Script engine
A log appears in the splash screen while you parse a script. Useful to see where you are in the parsing process. Plus, it looks cool! The periodicity of this log is controlled by sysScriptMemoPeriodicity in system.opt.
Regional decisions: Condition on number and type of units can now have a range greater than 1 (max is now capped to 6, but this is very CPU intensive, use with caution).
Added an extra field for decisions: NeedThisStrucAttribAdjSelf. Used in CW2 to tweak mines and sub decision.
Added 4 scripting commands (re)Store faction/region. See wiki for details.
Added parameters Group and NoSelectorUpd to SelectSubUnits command. See wiki for details.
Map aleas now support scripted events.

[Highlandcharge]

Thanks Pocus... you deserve a big Easter egg

[RebelYell]

Thank you! Very nice changes.

[GraniteStater]

Of course, someone has to ask if it's save compatible - didn't see it at first glance in the discussion.

[Gray Fox]

Thanks so much! Can't wait to try this.

[Ace]

Added bonus is that so far it seems save compatible with games started in 1.03...

[tripax]

Thanks, Great! Any chance you can release the DB files for 1.04RC4?

[Ace]

I think those are the same files...

[minipol]

Thanks for the patch !

[ArmChairGeneral]

I am excited to play the chirurgically altered (had to look it up) AI and check out the new rulesets (esp Sea-mine/Submarine). Persistent filters in the unit construction panel is going to be a click-saver.

Thank you for access to the beta patch. I appreciate the extra layer of QC that an official patch might entail, but I for one am willing to risk it to get the latest AI and ruleset adjustments, so appreciate the choice.

[minipol]

Thank you for access to the beta patch. I appreciate the extra layer of QC that an official patch might entail, but I for one am willing to risk it to get the latest AI and ruleset adjustments, so appreciate the choice.

Same here, I don't mind using the RC patches in my game

[Mitchell]

Thank you very much! Excellent gift for the Easter.

[wololoh]

One thing I did notice is that the scenario end dates for "1862: struggle for the heartland" and "1862: East" are still set in 1867, which is an error I believe (and I hope/assume this is very easy to fix ).

[RebelYell]

Will the next patch have the leaders PDF?

[Mitchell]

...and coloured mini-map?

[jaylord]

Just finished a game as the Union against Athena, Apr '61 start with an upgrade from 1.03 to 1.04 RC4 in late '62. Until the upgrade, Athena was building coherent armies and trying to maneuver against me. I did manage to trap AS Johnston in Bowling Green Ky and wiped him out, so I was going to win, but that's OK, I was playing this one to get a real handle on using the regional options. Lee and the AofNVa was in Winchester and Sherman had just promoted was at Fredricksburg with the main eastern army. Lyon with a large army was in Baltimore that was almost ready to embark for Savannah. Interesting situation; if Sherman marches on Richmond Lee marches on Washington (although if this happens before Lyon embarks, Sherman will probably win the race). Then I installed the update and...

The entire Rebel army splintered into a hundred separate stacks and marched north. In the winter. Many into the central Pennsylvania mountains. It was the dumbest thing I ever saw. Stuart with one of the few substantial stacks (~2500 power) bounced off of Lyon all the way up the east coast to Jersey City before running into the mountains, eventually circling back around and being trapped in Winchester Va where he was annihilated. Another fair sized stack from the AofNVa was still wandering around in the mountains when Richmond fell in Sep '63. The rest of the Rebel army swarmed around the north until I gobbled them up with minor forces like Pacman. Meanwhile, Chattanooga, Atlanta, Savannah, Springfield MO, Fayettville AR, El Paso, Baton Rouge and finally Richmond fell to the main Union Armies, largely unopposed. What a waste. Afterwards, I loaded the game as the Confederates and looked at what they had:

1) Even after all their losses the total number of Rebel forces wasn't much less than mine. I'm playing on Lt with historical attrition just for me and a spotting bonus for Athena so she can really crank out the forces. Most of the Rebel brigades had been built and she had a lot of replacements built up (45 Inf for example). They had a large army (if all gathered together) bouncing around along the west bank of the Mississippi between St. Louis and Cairo trying to get past my Ironclads. Even if they had gotten across, they would have probably just splintered even more and gone for Chicago, Indianapolis, etc. If Athena had just gathered her forces into armies it would have been a tense time for the Union.

2) She had at least 8 ironclads in Texas. Not sure what the plan there was. They might have been useful for taking back NO or Battery Wagner, but the just sat at the dock in Texas, rusting. The blockade level was 65%, so Athena needed to do something.

3) Athena put an ~1700 strength corps under Ewell in Western Arizona. Just sat there for a year. With no supply wagons and no depots. How the hell was it supplied????? I owned every area in NM and El Paso, so they didn't have a supply line. In fact, it didn't look like Athena was building any Supply Wagons or Depots at all. But this has been an issue even with 1.03. Athena doesn't seem to ever be out of supply and my forces only seldom are. It's only since this last update have I've even seen even a smidgen of a red bar on one of my supply wagons. Now, I'm pretty careful with my supply lines and always have plenty of wagons, but something isn't right.

All in all, this seems like a step backwards. The angry swarm of bees strategy for the Confederate armies really only works once (if that), afterwards it's just annoying. Maybe there should be an AI setting to turn off aggressive deep raiding by Athena. Oh well, I think I'm ready now to play against Human players, but if the supply immunity applies to human Rebel players, not just Athena, then I'm not sure about this. I prefer to play the Union, but I need to be able to cut off the Rebel forces when they get to aggressive.

[Jim-NC]

Hello and welcome to the forums jaylord.

[Pocus]

Beware that the supply system is set to simple by default, did you leave it as is? Simple supply means you can't starve of supply unless in a region which is besieged or is not adjacent to a production structure, so there is quite a bit of leniency here.
About the angry bees tactics, Athena can be super bold if stronger in power, but still I'm surprised to read she spread too thin to many stacks. I'll be on the lookout for that.

[jaylord]

Beware that the supply system is set to simple by default, did you leave it as is? Simple supply means you can't starve of supply unless in a region which is besieged or is not adjacent to a production structure, so there is quite a bit of leniency here.
About the angry bees tactics, Athena can be super bold if stronger in power, but still I'm surprised to read she spread too thin to many stacks. I'll be on the lookout for that.

My bad on the supply rant. I thought I had Easy Supply turned off, but it was on. No wonder there were huge piles of supplies all over the map!

[Z74]

Ahm Jay perhaps you'd want to give Pocus a gamesave to check on the behavior you described about the AI.
The rain season is over and my internet connection is back... unbelievable... 3 weeks without but it's good I found a public beta patch.
Is RC4 ok or it's better wait for a RC5?

[jaylord]

Z74,
I think the "Angry Swarm of Bees" behavior came about because:

1) Athena, in number of men anyway, probably did outnumber me. I was trying to see if it was feasible to wait and only send troops into the field when they were trained up to Regulars. This really curtails the raw number of men the Union has, but in the long run might be worth it. The better quality troops really make up for the early leader advantage the Rebels have. The Union troops have higher cohesion and they are extremely stubborn in battle. It really gets hard for the Rebs to make them retreat, and therefore the Yankees don't take horrendous losses from pursuits.

2) My stupidly not realizing that at some time I flipped over to Easy Supply. I was previous to this game playing with some of the scenarios and must have done it then. It's actually kind of neat that Athena knew she didn't have to bother with supply, so "CHAAARRRGE!" Still kind of dumb with Sherman sitting in F'burg, but what the heck. It shows she doesn't cheat as she obviously didn't see Lyon with 50,000 Regulars sitting in Baltimore waiting to go to Georgia and Carolina when she stampeded north.

I'm going to wait for the next release to play some more because I think 1.04 RC4 might be compiled in Debug mode because it runs much slower than 1.03 did. Overall slower execution and no multi-threading, so I was starting to fall asleep between turns. Also, I do think there is something wrong with the Leader promotions. In my last game I got Lyon, Sherman and Thomas up to 3 Stars fast, but completely annihilating 2 armies in the West helped there. In the East the only promotions of note I had were Kearney, Meade and Sedgwick to 2 Stars, but they were involved in Stuart's Wipe-out in Winchester. It almost seems that you need to completely destroy a major enemy force to get any promotions.

[charlesonmission]

Is there an estimate for when 1.04 official comes out?

Thanks,

Charles

[Pocus]

Hi Charles,

We are trying to squeeze it within a few weeks.

[tripax]

That is exciting! Can you give any hints about major changes to expect?

[Captain_Orso]

*ahem* maybe those listed in the first post of this thread

[tripax]

*ahem* maybe those listed in the first post of this thread

Sorry, I've been using RC4 and was wondering if there were any major changes compared to that. Of course there have been significant changes between 1.03 and 1.04RC4.

[Ace]

No changes. RC4 and the official patch will be the same.

[elxaime]

No changes. RC4 and the official patch will be the same.

I had one question to see if this is a bug or WAD. Playing the Union in a PBEM, it seems the Land Mine RGD cannot be played in an enemy coastal fort like Ft. Morgan. It is tough getting the cursor to select the tiny land region surrounding a coastal fort, but even when you do the Land Mine decision doesn't deploy. It seems to work elsewhere, e.g. Island No. 10. Thoughts?

Also, will the tool-tips be revised to be more informative on the regional decisions? Right now you can only guess when they will refresh or whether some of them are one-time use only. In ROP the game told you which ones were one time only, but in ACW you just don't know. For example, Union sailor landings and Yankee troops...are these all you get for the whole game or do they refresh periodically?

[Pocus]

There are some significant chances now that the official patch will include more stuff than the RC4 patch

[Jim-NC]

Landmines only work on towns/cities. See here