World in Flames v03.01.00.00 Public Beta Available Now!

World in Flames is the computer version of Australian Design Group classic board game. World In Flames is a highly detailed game covering the both Europe and Pacific Theaters of Operations during World War II. If you want grand strategy this game is for you.

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HybridSpyda
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World in Flames v03.01.00.00 Public Beta Available Now!

Post by HybridSpyda »

Hi Everyone,

A new Public Beta is now available for testing!

Grab it HERE!

While it's downloading, check out the v03.01.00.00 change log below:

All Modes of Play
Scenarios

1. For the Barbarossa scenario, added the 4 non-oil resources in the Ukraine for use in production (by the USSR or Germany).
2. Added a check to avoid an error in Barbarossa. A resource in Vichy France was being considered for Production Planning. Barbarossa doesn’t use any resources in Vichy France.
Air Operations
3. Fixed a problem with air-to-air combat where if the sole attacking air unit were aborted (or cleared through, or destroyed), leaving no attacking air unit in the air-to-air combat, then the second die roll of the air-to-air combat (by the defender) was not made (result = 0), instead of using the air-to-air combat rating of the attacking unit that was aborted/cleared through/destroyed.
4. Added a check to avoid a non-fatal error when trying to test FTC limits for a moving stack when there are no units in the moving stack. This comes up rarely, but has occurred from time to time when initializing for the CAP subphase of Port Attacks.
5. Made a change for Port Attack Defensive AA Fire to avoid an error. Without a saved game, I am not certain that this solves the problem.
6. Removed a spurious diagnostic message when landing carrier planes back on a carrier.
7. Added the Kamikaze optional rule. This can be turned on when selecting optional rules at the beginning of a game. Alternatively, it can be toggled On/Off during a game - except during a naval combat.
8. Fixed a problem with Kamikazes where at least one bomber was required to be a kamikaze. Now you can select no bombers to fly as kamikazes.
Land Operations
9. Enabled a territorial unit from a Commonwealth member nation (e.g., India) to stack with a territorial from a minor country aligned with the Commonwealth (e.g., Burma).
10. Fixed a problem with the game halting after terminating an Overstacked digression following the end of the Land Combat Resolution phase. Made similar changes for the phases Conquest and Surrender.
11. Changed the calculation of the Notional unit’s strength so it gets a +1 when adjacent to a Territorial unit. All territorial units are corps sized, so (by players’ popular demand) they should provide the +1 bonus.
12. Fixed a problem with resolving multiple successful land combats that force overrun enemy naval units (which escape) to rebase. A variable was not being reinitialized so after a group of naval units in the second combat were rebased, the program was not returning to resolve the next (e.g., the third) land combat.
Naval Operations
13. Added a line of code so the detailed map centers on the sea area in question when a naval interception can be attempted.
Vichy France
14. Fixed a problem where Vichy land units were unable to advance after combat.
15. Fixed a problem with Undoing moves of units controlled by Vichy France that are not Vichy French (e.g., they belong to a minor country controlled by Vichy France).
16. Fixed a problem with saved build points in Vichy France not being available after Vichy France is collapsed. They are now available to whomsoever owns the save build points. Note that only a limited number (usually 1) can be used each turn because they are not in the capital of the owning major power. Any additional saved build points in a hex remain on the map and another one can be used in the following turn.
17. Added a check to avoid a fatal error when determining hex control for a resource in Vichy when Vichy is not a valid major power.
Production Planning
18. Added a check to avoid a fatal error in Production Planning when a build point is no longer capable of being delivered to the receiving major power.
19. Added some more checks for setting the destination of traded build points to China so the destination is always Kunming. The normal destination for traded build points is the capital of the major power receiving the build points. But there is no rail connection to Chungking, so that isn’t feasible for China.
Reorganization
20. Fixed a problem where reorganizing a single convoy point with a reorganization unit only capable of reorganizing 1 convoy point. Previously the program was creating a new convoy unit with zero convoy points.
21. Fixed a problem with reorganizing units with a unit belonging to a major power that used an Offensive Chit in a Combined Action. Now those units have their reorganization points doubled when reorganizing land, naval, and air units.
22. Fixed a problem with reorganizing units when 1 reorganizing point of the reorganizing HQ/TRS/ATR was more than enough to reorganize the target unit. For example, in some instances an HQ only needed half a reorganization point to reorganize the target unit. In that case, the program was spending one full point (which is correct) but not reorganizing the unit (which was wrong).
23. Added a check to avoid a fatal error at the start of the naval reorganization phase when the game is damaged and has spurious units on the map.
24. Added a check to avoid a potential non-fatal error during the HQ Reorganize Units phase when an HQ has no units to reorganize.
25. Added a couple of checks to the Use Oil form to avoid a non-fatal error when no oil is available/accessible to reorganize the selected unit and the player clicks on the Reorganize Unit button.
Supply
26. Fixed a problem in supply where the program went into an infinite loop trying to find tertiary overland supply for aligned minor country capitals.
27. Added a check to avoid a fatal error when completing the sea area path for overseas supply - under very unusual circumstances.
28. Added a check to avoid a possible fatal error in determining overseas supply paths.
29. Fixed a problem in supply where an aligned minor country HQ was able to trace tertiary supply to a secondary supply which cooperated with the HQ’s controlling major power. For example, Mannerheim (Finnish) was able to trace supply through Graziani (Italy), which shouldn’t have been possible since Italy and Finland do not cooperate. Pleasantly, correcting this fixed some other problems (infinite loops) in supply.
30. Removed a lot of code for trying to find ‘Mixed’ supply paths. The original idea for this code was that a combination of cooperating supply sources and aligned supply sources were possible. For instance, a German unit would be able to trace a supply path through a cooperating HQ (e.g., Italy) and an aligned country’s capital (e.g., Bucharest). But that is never legal, since Rumania cannot have a supply path to or from an Italian HQ. So I trashed all that code. It should save a small amount of time when calculating supply in complication positions.
31. Added some checks to avoid a fatal error when the search for supply runs up against the top of the map edge (e.g., in Siberia, Canada, or Alaska) where the terrain of the off-map hexes is undefined.
Conquest
32. Fixed a problem with hex control being incorrect in completely conquered minor countries.
33. Fixed a couple of possible errors in the Conquest phase where territories of a conquered country became Neutral even when there were land or air units present. Those territories/countries now become controlled by the major power with the greatest ‘influence’ in the country. However, land and air units in those countries stay where they are, even if they are (1) friendly to the major power that now controls the territory, or (2) at war with that major power.
34. Changed the controller of a Warlord to Communist China when the Communist Chinese take a Warlord’s city from Japan. Likewise, made the same change for when the Nationalist Chinese take a Warlord’s city from Japan.
User Interface
35. Fixed a problem with scrolling down one page on the Detailed Map where it was scrolling down 2 pages instead of 1. This changed required replacing the file WIFCustom.Bpl.
36. Added a generic version of the 2 Die 10 Land Combat Results Table to the Help menu so it can be viewed at any time during game play.
37. Revised the Pools form (<CTRL> Q) so it shows more units on one page (54 versus 52) at the standard width of 1024 pixels. When the form is resized to be wider, then it shows 6 more units per additional column, instead of the 4 displayed previously.
38. Added pilot and convoy deaths for all major powers for the turn to the Pools form. They appear when the Destroyed Pool is viewed and are reset to zero at the beginning of each turn.
39. Modified the View Units form (<CTRL> U) so it can be resized vertically. This lets the player see more units if his monitor has more than 768 pixels vertically.
40. Modified the Global Map so it centers the form on the capital of the current (local) major power when it is shown. So, if the game restores with Germany making decisions, then when the Global Map is first shown, it centers on Berlin. Anytime the form is displayed, this occurs. Centering the global map has to be done manually at other times. Note that you can now cause the global map to center on the capital of the local major power by closing it and reopening it: typing on <CTRL> G twice is an easy way of doing that.
Cosmetic
41. Edited the text for the Optional Rules Help form so the text shown when clicking on the help button in that form describes how to toggle optional rules ON/OFF.
42. Corrected the text for the informative message shown when the Allies declare war on a minor country or Vichy France. Went through and clarified the other text messages for all US Entry Action by both sides.
Other
43. Fixed problems that occurred occasionally when drawing/moving/removing US Entry Chits.
44. Added a check to avoid a non-fatal error when quitting the game while the Initiative form is visible.
45. Added a check to avoid a non-fatal error when quitting the game while the DOW Majors form is visible.
46. Corrected a non-fatal bug when quitting the game while the Spend Surprise Points form is visible.
47. Changed a few place in the code where the player was required to select at least 1 unit, when selecting no units should be possible: selecting which unit(s) use Emergency Supply, selecting which unit to repair (Guadalcanal ‘production’ phase), selecting which unit belonging to a conquered country should arrive as a reinforcement.
NetPlay
Trade Agreements/Lending

48. Added a check to avoid an infrequent fatal error during the Resource Lending phase.
Air Operations
49. Fixed a problem in air-to-air combat where the program was halting after the result of the first die roll (by the defender on the attacker’s units) was processed.
50. Fixed a problem with air-to-air combat where the program halted if only the Axis had air units to arrange for air-to-air combat.
51. Substantially modified the routines for naval air combat, specifically for the air-to-air combat dice rolls. By splitting some routines into their component parts, I was able to better control when messages (i.e., Game Record Logs - GRLs) about dice rolls and other events are sent from one player to the other. The main problem these changes corrected was that at times the computer wasn’t rolling the dice for the attacking player (the defending player rolls first) - or rolling twice for a player. Other fixes include: (1) correcting the program halting after the first player decides whether to Abort or Stay in an air-to-air combat, (2) eliminating a spurious second prompt for a player to decide whether to Fight or Abort after a round of naval combat, and (3) an occasional extra display of the Anti-Aircraft Fire form (the player owning the attacking bombers should always decide which bombers suffer the damage of the AA fire).
Naval Operations
52. Fixed a problem in the Naval Movement phase, where the major powers that can move changed if a major power had its units successfully intercepted and then decided to stop in the sea area. Previously, the program skipped over the remaining major powers capable of moving and advanced the sequence of play to the Naval Combat phase.
53. Fixed a problem with naval interceptions where if a moving group of naval units was not intercepted in a first sea area and not intercepted in a second sea area, then the program halted.
54. Fixed a problem with a naval interception routine generating a fatal error on the intercepting side’s computer when: (1) the Allies intercept, (2) the search is successful, and (3) the moving side (Axis) decides to stop.
55. Fixed a problem to avoid a non-fatal error after there was no attempt to intercept moving naval units and the units chose to stop in the sea area.
Other
56. Added the Game Number to every transmitted message (i.e., Game Record Log - GRL) so a receiving game can filter out (i.e., ignore) GRLs from other NetPlay games being played at the same time (e.g., by other players).
57. Added a check to avoid a non-fatal error that could occur at various times.
58. Fixed a problem with using Emergency Supply where using Emergency Supply only effected changes on the computer controlled by the player using emergency supply.
59. Added yet another check to avoid a non-fatal error.

Happy Gaming!
Matthew Ravenwood

QA & Operations Manager

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paulderynck
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RE: World in Flames v03.01.00.00 Public Beta Available Now!

Post by paulderynck »

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Paul
TrogusP96
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RE: World in Flames v03.01.00.00 Public Beta Available Now!

Post by TrogusP96 »

Can this be installed over an 1.0 initial install or do intermeditate updates need to be installed first? If so which?
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RE: World in Flames v03.01.00.00 Public Beta Available Now!

Post by Shannon V. OKeets »

ORIGINAL: TrogusP96

Can this be installed over an 1.0 initial install or do intermeditate updates need to be installed first? If so which?
Use Check for Update on the opening screen to get the most recent Official Update (version 03.01.00.00).

Then this Public Beta can be installed after that.
Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.
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BrianJH
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RE: World in Flames v03.01.00.00 Public Beta Available Now!

Post by BrianJH »


I can't download the public beta update. When I click on the link I just get a time out error.

Can this be fixed before Christmas?



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Shannon V. OKeets
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RE: World in Flames v03.01.00.00 Public Beta Available Now!

Post by Shannon V. OKeets »

ORIGINAL: BrianJH


I can't download the public beta update. When I click on the link I just get a time out error.

Can this be fixed before Christmas?



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The file is 788 MB (zipped). Perhaps that is a too much for your system given the speed that it uses to download?

It takes just under 11 minutes on my system.
Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.
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BrianJH
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RE: World in Flames v03.01.00.00 Public Beta Available Now!

Post by BrianJH »

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

The file is 788 MB (zipped). Perhaps that is a too much for your system given the speed that it uses to download?

It takes just under 11 minutes on my system.


Right, so it seems my DNS Cache was a bit messed up. After sorting that out, I could then download the file.


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Majorball68
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RE: World in Flames v03.01.00.00 Public Beta Available Now!

Post by Majorball68 »

ORIGINAL: BrianJH
ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

The file is 788 MB (zipped). Perhaps that is a too much for your system given the speed that it uses to download?

It takes just under 11 minutes on my system.


Right, so it seems my DNS Cache was a bit messed up. After sorting that out, I could then download the file.


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Thanks for this, I had no idea what you were talking about but it worked :)
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Courtenay
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RE: World in Flames v03.01.00.00 Public Beta Available Now!

Post by Courtenay »

ORIGINAL: BrianJH

Right, so it seems my DNS Cache was a bit messed up. After sorting that out, I could then download the file.

Can you tell us how to sort out a messed up DNS cache? If this happened to me, my only recourse would be frantic google search, hoping that someone could tell me what to do.

For that matter, how do you tell if you have a messed up DNS cache?
I thought I knew how to play this game....
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Majorball68
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RE: World in Flames v03.01.00.00 Public Beta Available Now!

Post by Majorball68 »

ORIGINAL: Courtenay

ORIGINAL: BrianJH

Right, so it seems my DNS Cache was a bit messed up. After sorting that out, I could then download the file.

Can you tell us how to sort out a messed up DNS cache? If this happened to me, my only recourse would be frantic google search, hoping that someone could tell me what to do.

For that matter, how do you tell if you have a messed up DNS cache?

Windows 10 you open the command prompt as Administrator.




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Majorball68
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RE: World in Flames v03.01.00.00 Public Beta Available Now!

Post by Majorball68 »

Then type in what you see in this picture(ipconfig /flushdns) hit enter, wait 5-10 seconds all done.

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BrianJH
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RE: World in Flames v03.01.00.00 Public Beta Available Now!

Post by BrianJH »

ORIGINAL: Courtenay

Can you tell us how to sort out a messed up DNS cache? If this happened to me, my only recourse would be frantic google search, hoping that someone could tell me what to do.

For that matter, how do you tell if you have a messed up DNS cache?

All of the answers are contained in the two screenshots I posted in post #7 above.

Majorball68 answered your first question on how to fix a messed up DNS cache.

As for the second question on how to tell that my DNS was messed up, well check the fist part of the screenshot and pay particular attention to the ip address that ftp.matrixgames.com resolved to. In the first screenshot when I "pinged" ftp.matrixgames.com it resolved to us.ftp.geo.matrixgames.com [64.111.28.24] and as you can clearly see I was not getting any response from that address. So this explains the time out errors I was seeing when trying to download the posted beta update.

What got me thinking was when Steve responded that he could download the file just fine.

Now in the second part of the screenshot I posted, you see me run the ipconfig command as explained previously. But here is the important part, check and compare what I get now when I ping ftp.matrixgames.com. You will see that it now resolves to na.ftp.geo.matrixgames.com [198.27.76.89] which is different than before, and the best part, I am now receiving an echo response, which is good.

What is a DNS cache? So when you resolve a web host such as ftp.matrixgames.com it converts this into IP address, the computer remembers the result by storing the answer in a cache. It does this so that when the same host name is again requested to be resolved it can return the answer from the cache, rather than having to go to the internet for the answer, this cuts down on excessive load on the DNS servers. Now, the result stays in the cache for a predetermined amount of time, which could be several days in fact, depending on the DNS record for the host name and how that is configured. If a DNS change is made to a host name that occurs before the record has expired from the cache, then you might see what I experienced above.

I have tied to keep the explanation as simple as I can, it is a somewhat complicated process. Being an IT Systems Administrator in my professional employ, I see issues such as these quite often.

Brian.
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