EIA v1.26.04 Beta Hotfix #4 Available

[pzgndr]

Hotfix #3 posted. The updated change log shows a two minor fixes: changing control of Sicily/Finland/Norway, and a reported bug with naval combats loading land units to battle. But the big huge change is a number of AI performance improvements based on my completed playtest of an entire campaign game using Hotfix #2. Below is an excerpt of the game log for significant events, with the game ending in March 1815 with Russia as the winner. I was playing Spain versus Hard AI computer opponents.

1814, May Prussia Has DECLARED WAR On France
1813, Apr Turkey And Spain Agree To INFORMAL PEACE
1813, Apr Spain Has DECLARED WAR On France
1812, Apr Prussia SURRENDERS CONDITIONALLY To France
1812, Feb Austria Has DECLARED WAR On France
1812, Feb Austria Accepts A Call From Prussia To War Against France
1812, Feb Russia Has DECLARED WAR On France
1812, Feb Russia Accepts A Call From Prussia To War Against France
1812, Feb France Has DECLARED WAR On Prussia
1811, Jul France And Spain Agree To INFORMAL PEACE
1810, Nov Turkey SURRENDERS CONDITIONALLY To Austria
1810, Nov Turkey SURRENDERS CONDITIONALLY To Russia
1810, Jul Austria Has DECLARED WAR On Turkey
1810, Apr Turkey Has DECLARED WAR On Spain
1810, Apr Turkey Accepts A Call From France To War Against Spain
1810, Apr Spain Has DECLARED WAR On France
1810, Feb France And Russia Agree To INFORMAL PEACE
1809, Aug France Has DECLARED WAR On Russia
1808, Dec Austria SURRENDERS UNCONDITIONALLY To France
1808, Sep France Has DECLARED WAR On Austria
1808, Jul Russia Has DECLARED WAR On Turkey
1808, May Prussia SURRENDERS CONDITIONALLY To France
1808, Apr France Has DECLARED WAR On Prussia
1808, Feb Turkey And Spain Agree To INFORMAL PEACE
1807, Dec Spain SURRENDERS CONDITIONALLY To France
1807, Nov Turkey Has DECLARED WAR On Spain
1807, Sep Russia Created Kingdom Poland
1807, Aug France Has DECLARED WAR On Spain
1806, Dec France Created Kingdom Conf of the Rhine
1806, Dec Austria SURRENDERS CONDITIONALLY To France
1806, Dec Turkey SURRENDERS CONDITIONALLY To Russia
1806, Jul Prussia SURRENDERS UNCONDITIONALLY To France
1806, Apr Russia Has DECLARED WAR On Turkey
1805, Oct Prussia Has DECLARED WAR On France
1805, Oct Prussia Accepts A Call From Austria To War Against France
1805, Oct France Has DECLARED WAR On Austria

Now, I'll try to summarize my notes for issues resolved along the way:
- France created COR but was not adding provinces
- Problem with forced access not allowing access
- Problem with new amphibious raid not working correctly
- Problem with Informal Peace not working correctly
- Optional Russia creating Poland revised *
- Problem with allies ceding provinces
- Problem with placing new COR units
- France mid-game DOWs on Prussia and Austria revised
- Some minor capital garrisons not being created
- Problem with COR units being assigned
- Problem with Enforced Peace not working correctly
- Some blockades still not happening as expected
- Problem with special units (Guard, Artillery) not redeploying
- Late-game Great Britain invasions of the mainland not happening as expected

* The problem with Poland is that I had an optional strategy implemented where Prussia and Austria would cede a province to Russia and it would create Poland. But too much Russian territory went to Poland, which hurt Russia for money and manpower. I revised this to restrict the strategy against human France only and for Russia to commit only Lithuania province to Poland. This should help create a buffer state against France without hurting Russia. We'll see.

Alright, this was a productive playtest and I verified several mid-game and late-game AI performance issues. There are still a couple of minor things I'd like to resolve; e.g., there were three British corps stuck in Palermo that did not get moved out and two Swedish corps in Stockholm that Russia did not get moved out. But overall this was a good game with the allies pressing France from all sides by the end.

As I mentioned previously, this is a pre-release candidate version that we all can continue playtesting some between now and when I get back from a roadtrip in mid-September. My priority is to fix any reported bugs or AI issues with this Hotfix #3 version. I will do what I can to investigate and resolve a few minor issues that I have on my ToDo list. Other than that, this version with minor adjustments will likely be the next offical update version that I will send to Matrix by end of September. That's the plan. Players can help by playing Hotfix #3 and reporting any bugs or issues. Enjoy!
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Playtest Complete.jpg (1.08 MiB) Viewed 348 times

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Hello,
The naval combat screen shot you posted August 18 has no land forces present! yeah
Just noticed that the screen shot shows Russian fleet incurred no losses even though hit with 15% by 13 ships.
Still happening in subsequent play tests after clean install...1.08.07...1.23.08...1.25.03 and dropped in 1.26.04 fix #3.
Thanks for your time!

[AbNormal]

Thank you for v1.26.04 hotfix #3
Sorry to be a pain but...
1st Russian fleet blockading Swede fleet at Karlskrona has intercept orders but on British naval the
Swede fleet sails to London without being intercepted.
On subsequent Turk land combat Tunisian core counter attacks at Tunis. When moral is broken no cavalry
loss taken by Tunis core.
Cheers!

May 05 after Russian naval.zip

(203.69 KiB) Downloaded 7 times

[pzgndr]

Sorry to be a pain but...

Not at all. If I don't know about an issue then I can't investigate and resolve it. I'll take a look at what you've reported. Not tomorrow, but later. Thanks!

[pzgndr]

The naval combat screen shot you posted August 18 has no land forces present! yeah
Just noticed that the screen shot shows Russian fleet incurred no losses even though hit with 15% by 13 ships.

Good catch! It took all afternoon to figure out that something I changed back in v1.25.03 to ensure land combats were working correctly and that I also carried over to naval combats was incorrectly zeroing out defender casualties for naval combats. Screenshot shows an example where the defending Russian fleet is now taking losses and is correctly recorded in the game log. This is not a showstopper bug but it's fixed now and will be included in the release, or next hotfix if I do one. Thanks!
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copenhagen[2].jpg (851.09 KiB) Viewed 248 times

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Awesome! Sorry it was time consuming.
The moving info banner in the chat box for phasing player is tres cool!
Thank you!

[pzgndr]

1st Russian fleet blockading Swede fleet at Karlskrona has intercept orders but on British naval the
Swede fleet sails to London without being intercepted.
On subsequent Turk land combat Tunisian core counter attacks at Tunis. When moral is broken no cavalry
loss taken by Tunis core.

For issue #1 regarding the Swede fleet, AI Great Britain was moving it as a free fleet back to London. It's not that is should have been intercepted, it was blockaded and shouldn't have been moved at all. So I've fixed that in the AI code. As for a possible interception, I note that you had intercept orders for your Russian fleet for the same area. It's in blockade at the land port area and not the adjacent sea area, so anything moving through that adjacent sea area would not be subject to an interception check. I've fixed (I think) the adjacent areas interceptions, so players should probably be using that more to catch enemy fleets trying to move past them. I think a fleet in port may be checked to intercept an adjacent sea area, but offhand I'm not sure.

For issue #2 regarding a cav loss, I think the code is correct. The applicable rule states: "In the round in which a side breaks, one of its losses must be cavalry, if possible." That's if it takes losses. If the side breaks but doesn't take any combat losses, it does not take a cav loss on top of no losses. That's how the code is working. I ran your combat a couple of times and did not get the Tunisians to break and take losses. So I assume this is OK. I had to research the original rules to verify there was nothing about not having to take a cav loss if the opposing side didn't have any cavalry. Again, I assume all is OK but if anybody catches an exception then I'll take another look.

[pzgndr]

FYI. I have updated the documentation (User Manual and In-Game Manual) for v1.26. As I've previously mentioned, I'll be out of town on travel for the next week. I will continue to monitor comments here. When I get back to code development next week around Sept 11, I will address any reported game bugs and AI performance issues. Then I intend to wrap it up. I'll post a Hotfix #4 with the latest naval combat bug fixed last week and anything else in the final EXE. Then I will send files to Matrix Games for the production team to build the installer for the next official patch. Once I get that to test and verify, I'll let Matrix Games know to release it. Hopefully all done by end of September.

On a personal note, we did a pre-drywall walkthrough of our new home last week. We expect to go to settlement in mid-October and complete our transition by mid-November. We have been very pleased with the scheduling and progress. So now is a good time for a little roadtrip and a break. I'll keep my fingers crossed that nobody reports some new game-stopper issue with Hotfix #4 while I'm gone. We'll see.

In my heart, I know we're not done-done with this game code just yet. After release of the v1.26 official patch, I will continue to monitor for any game bugs and AI performance issues. The biggest change with v1.26 has been implementation of AI grand strategies and national objectives, as well as getting AI Great Britain up to speed and resolving some issues with all of the Major Powers. But most of the AI performance is oriented on a fairly historical track; i.e., if players stick to a fairly historical track then the AI should respond fairly well. The great unknown is how the AI will respond to players' ahistorical strategies and/or ahistorical alliances. I suspect we'll find out sooner or later as players try to "break the game" and beat the AI. That's fine. So, the next AI coding challenge will be to build in some additional flexibilities as needed to better respond to such situations. Also, as players get used to the "new and improved" AI-controlled computer opponents, if the AI bonuses need to be toughened up to make the game more challenging then that's something to consider. Anyways, this will all be something for next year and v1.27 code development...

[pzgndr]

Last Call. I note 27 downloads of Hotfix #3 and no reported issues over the past week. Yeah! There is still one little issue I want to resolve and then I'm going final. If anybody has a comment to add, please speak up today so that I can address it. Thank you all for your patience through all of this.

[pzgndr]

Hotfix #4 posted. The updated change log shows a two additional fixes: the latest naval combat bug as discussed and the other little issue that's been keeping me busy for a couple of days - getting the conquered minor ships to save and be reused later when the minor becomes a Free State. This appears to be working OK now for both human and AI players but something about Denmark is eluding me. My playtests verified this works for Portugal and Sweden. I'll probably circle back to this later, next year.

So, this Hotfix #4 is the release candidate that I will be submitting to Matrix Games. I think the only real difference with the files going into the installer package are the large game manual and in-game manual files. My plan is to wrap up all of this and upload the files to Matrix today.