What's next

[Dancing Bear]

Well Marshall, while we wait for 1.08.02, can you tell us what is coming up next? I imagine there'll be a few bugs with the BETA release to clean up, and there are a few outstanding reports on Mantis, will those be the focus? There might be quite a bit of time if you are waiting for the test group to complete a game year by PBEM.

[Marshall Ellis]

Well, let's see...

I want 1.08 final to be a good base for 1.09! I cannot improve while I'm fixing very well so once we get the bigguns out of the way then I can focus on AI for 1.09, possible Classic scenario package, PBEM improvements (Integrated email and zipping) for 1.10! Most of this code/graphics is done but not integrated yet!

[Dancing Bear]

Hi Marshall
I agree that having 1.08 as a good base for further improvements is a good idea, and fixing the remaining bugs is a mandatory pre-requisite to moving forward. However, there is only about a dozen items listed in Mantis that I would say are truly bugs (see below), (although I fully expect for some new ones to pop up as 1.08.02 is put through its paces). I think testing of 1.08.02 by testing group is going to take quite a bit of time. Can you also look at some minor tweaks to the interface (also below), and adding a "done and allow the AI to complete this battle" button to the battle screens, and a "allow the AI to play my next land phase" option to the skip menu (let's forget about the delay reinforcements to the land phase option for now as it sounds complex).
Also is there a way for the announcement pop-ups at the beginning of the reinforcement phase to be cleared, so only new announcements pop up? (this does not happen in any other phase).

List of bugs/errors that likely need addressing (some are likely already done).

698 Defeated fleet fled to enemy-controlled port
696 Turn Austrians into Prussians
694 Allied access not being resolved if Spain skips reinforcement
693 Corps is kicked out after temp access expires even if warring powers have since become allies and allowed access
692 Selected text is replaced by the word "Label" followed by a number after updating to 1.07.01
691 Unable to add Nelson to blockading fleet during reinforcement phase
631 Losses from naval battles not appearing in log
640 Battle file deleted on game load before battle starts
576 Enemy Depot in City blocks occupation
670 There is no 'draw but defender withdraws' option in 3rd Party Combat System
619 Cannot Specify a Surrender in 3rd Party Combat
636 Game does not award defender of siege battle +1 PP if the attacker does not win
566 No voluntary Fleet scuttling allowed (add scuttle fleet button to naval phase)
697 Reinforcement bug (added June 7)

List of interface tweaks (there were some other good suggestions for the economic phase as well).

578 Pay for Supply button
635 Standing orders button in land phase needs a scroll symbol
699 Make setting orders for one fleet in a stack automatically changes the orders for all fleets in the same stack
651 Change symbol for taxes from coins (i.e. same as cash on hand) to the word "income" in top menu bar. Alternatively use the word "treasury" instead of coin symbol. The similar coin symbols for treasury and income are confusing.
598 Add column to unit text report that lists the orders given to each unit
660 Change colour of the box in the top left corner of a besieging force to black (same as blockading fleet)
653 Display Prussian saved manpower to Prussian Player during economic phase
652 show current manpower and revenue for other nations when the "show selected nation" button is used
404 Add a horizontal line through the victory point chart
700 Make transfer of money to minor states automatic

[Marshall Ellis]

DB:

This looks like a good que! I can look at these fixes and tweaks!

[Sorta]

Can you add 697 as a must fix bug as our game has been stalled since 17 May.

regards, Angus

[Dancing Bear]

ORIGINAL: Sorta

Can you add 697 as a must fix bug as our game has been stalled since 17 May.

regards, Angus

Angus, I'd just play on through this one. Does it make a big difference who has Papacy? GB can always remove the garrison and let Austria take it. I mean what is the Papacy worth in the big scheme of things?

[Dancing Bear]

Don't forget about the PBEM speed suggestions (let the AI play out battles and run a land phase or two). It would be good to tighten that side of things down, before jumping to the AI. That way at least one large group of your players will happy, before you tackle the next.

[delatbabel]

Marshall, can you confirm that whatever fix you put in place for the siege die rolls being repeated also ensures that all die rolls are randomly generated at the start of every field battle? I'm seeing a number of field battles across different games with repeated die rolls -- all battles where the attacker's chit picks and defender's chit picks were the same resulted in the same die rolls.

I've confirmed this quickly by starting a new PBEM game in 1.07 and starting one battle Prussia vs France with the same forces and same chit picks on each side. In 5 attempts all games had exactly the same die rolls. Note that I couldn't reproduce this in FTF mode, only in PBEM mode.

If it's not a bug then I have managed to completely freak out the random number generator on the system.

Can I recommend the Mersenne Twister? Algorithms for which abound on the internet.

[Marshall Ellis]

Del:

This SHOULD be fixed unless you've found another instance.
1.08.02 is ready to be posted for BETA and when it gets done then can you check it out?
If you can dupe then send me your game and I will look...

[Ashtar]

Wait! Are you saying that you are not sure combat die rolls are random?
You know, I have seen pretty low probability rolls for the last 5-6 game months which basically thwarted all my efforts to conquer Europe as Nappy.
Rare extreme events happens, no problem with that, but if you now tell me that there are random die problems I can get a little upset here [:@]


By the way, years ago I proposed on this very forum to generate in advance the entire sequence of random numbers potentially needed for a battle and write them - conveniently masked - in the battle file (a few bytes all in all).
Is it true that you decided to simply use the chit choice (which is obviously numerically limited) as a seed instead?

[NeverMan]

WHAT???
 
Why is this still a problem? It's NOT difficult to do this, I'm curious why this is still a problem.

[captain18]

Marshall/Dancing Bear,

GHQ has had its game 5 stalled since May17, we would appreciate some help before we lose players.
We would all really appreciate if 697 can be resolved.

Currently I as the Spanish player am placing the Papacy forces, because Austria declared war on the Papacy. There is currently a British Corp in Rome.

We cannot work though it as there is no way the Spanish player should be placing Papacy garrions that are in British colours!!!!

Seriously we would like some help on this one since this game is getting up to its 2 year mark in real life and we would hate to see it fold over a bug.
thanks
captain1

[Dancing Bear]

Well hopefully Marshall can help you with this one. It appears you are willing to wait, but I would have played on for this one. It is hard to see how control of the garrison in Papacy makes that much difference. It is also possble, that the garrison only appears to be British and will turn out to be Spanish once the turn is played through.

[Marshall Ellis]

ORIGINAL: Ashtar

Wait! Are you saying that you are not sure combat die rolls are random?
You know, I have seen pretty low probability rolls for the last 5-6 game months which basically thwarted all my efforts to conquer Europe as Nappy.
Rare extreme events happens, no problem with that, but if you now tell me that there are random die problems I can get a little upset here [:@]


By the way, years ago I proposed on this very forum to generate in advance the entire sequence of random numbers potentially needed for a battle and write them - conveniently masked - in the battle file (a few bytes all in all).
Is it true that you decided to simply use the chit choice (which is obviously numerically limited) as a seed instead?

Ashtar:

I changed it so that all die rolls are pre-rolled before combat (randomly) so that we could cut cheating (replaying battles) BUT and we had an issue where some of the rounds were repeating but this has been fixed!

[Marshall Ellis]

ORIGINAL: captain1

Marshall/Dancing Bear,

GHQ has had its game 5 stalled since May17, we would appreciate some help before we lose players.
We would all really appreciate if 697 can be resolved.

Currently I as the Spanish player am placing the Papacy forces, because Austria declared war on the Papacy. There is currently a British Corp in Rome.

We cannot work though it as there is no way the Spanish player should be placing Papacy garrions that are in British colours!!!!

Seriously we would like some help on this one since this game is getting up to its 2 year mark in real life and we would hate to see it fold over a bug.
thanks
captain1

I will fix whatever needs to be fixed but this will probably wait until 1.09! If you send me your game and tell me what needs to be done then I will fix it!
We MUST get 1.08 out to the public. Been too long between 1.07 and 1.08!

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

ORIGINAL: Ashtar

Wait! Are you saying that you are not sure combat die rolls are random?
You know, I have seen pretty low probability rolls for the last 5-6 game months which basically thwarted all my efforts to conquer Europe as Nappy.
Rare extreme events happens, no problem with that, but if you now tell me that there are random die problems I can get a little upset here [:@]


By the way, years ago I proposed on this very forum to generate in advance the entire sequence of random numbers potentially needed for a battle and write them - conveniently masked - in the battle file (a few bytes all in all).
Is it true that you decided to simply use the chit choice (which is obviously numerically limited) as a seed instead?

Ashtar:

I changed it so that all die rolls are pre-rolled before combat (randomly) so that we could cut cheating (replaying battles) BUT and we had an issue where some of the rounds were repeating but this has been fixed!

This is really a half-measure, since people can still cheat by changing their chits.

[Marshall Ellis]

Die rolls are only revealed AFTER chits are revealed. How could you change chits without the other player knowing?

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

Die rolls are only revealed AFTER chits are revealed. How could you change chits without the other player knowing?

Restart the battle?

[Marshall Ellis]

How would you restart the battle without the other player knowing? When the defender chooses a chit then hits done, he/she must then send the game back to the attacker without knowing any die rolls or chits?

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

How would you restart the battle without the other player knowing? When the defender chooses a chit then hits done, he/she must then send the game back to the attacker without knowing any die rolls or chits?

AH, ok, my mistake. It's been a few versions since I was involved in any PBEM combat.