Brit

Ok. Will dig into it.

Ah. I just checked this. It seems that, while updating the interface a while ago I removed the airfield disband order. Players can capture each other's airfields, and if you own an airfield, you can choose to disband it. Unfortunately, the "disband" order isn't showing up on the interface right now. Hm.. Must be an oversight in the AI code. That's a good point. I should probably allow airfields to build repair facilities and radar stations. I'd like to be able to make them improvements on the airfield so that they can be bombed and destroyed, too. That way, they'd work the same way that airbases work in cities.

Okay, I updated the naming file to include some of this. I did have questions about the ship names. Your link above has names of ships, but I can't tell what kind of ships they are. Here's the way that naming works -- the names are taken from a file called "UnitNames.txt" in the Data directory. The [100NUMBER] means "use a random number from 1 to 100". The unit categories are used in assigning names. The Official 1900-2030 ruleset uses these categories: Infantry, Paratroopers, Artillery, Tanks, AntiAircraft Weapons Fighter Aircraft, Tactical Bombers, Strategic Bombers, Transport Aircraft, Spy Planes, Satellites, Missiles Transports, Submarines, Destroyers, Cruisers, Battleships, Aircraft Carriers, Freighters Here's what I have for the Norwegian names so far: *Flag=Norway *Category=Infantry [100NUMBER]. Infanteri *Category=Paratroopers [100NUMBER]. Fallskjermjeger *Category=Artillery [100NUMBER]. Artilleri *Category=Tanks [100NUMBER]. Stridsvogn *Category=AntiAircraft Weapons [100NUMBER]. Luftvern *Category=Fighter Aircraft,Transport Aircraft,Spy Planes [100NUMBER]. Jagerflyskvadron *Category=Tactical Bombers [100NUMBER]. Taktiske bombeflyskvadron *Category=Strategic Bombers [100NUMBER]. Strategiske bombeflyskvadron *Category=Submarines KNM Ula KNM Utsira KNM Utstein KNM Utvær KNM Uthaug KNM Uredd S[100NUMBER] If you have any suggestions for Destroyers, Cruisers, Battleships, or Aircraft Carriers, let me know. Right now, those ships will simply use a random name out of the default names section. You can either send me back a comment on this thread, or you can open the file and start tweaking the names yourself - and then send them to me when you're happy with the naming scheme, and I'll include the updated file in the next update.

Thanks. Glad you like it. By the way, if I end up updating the game's website to include quotes, do you mind if I use yours?

Good point. As far as ships, the more advanced ships have built in radar, though it might be useful to make it larger.

The maximum map size is 4000x3200 (an area of 12 million). For comparison, the Demo map is 1800x1200 (an area of 2.16 million). Are you dragging and dropping the troops off the ship? Generally, you should give your transport orders to move to a location near the shore, so that a pickup/dropoff location appears, then give your units orders to move onto the land by clicking somewhere on the land (you can optionally click the pickup/dropoff location before clicking on the land).

Carriers are treated like cities and airfields. They *should* send fighters to defend against bombers, but I should double-check that to make sure the logic is setup correctly. The problem with the carriers right now, is that the AI doesn't know much about how to best move them around the map -- using them like mobile airfields.

The AI sees aircraft carriers as take-off/landing locations. If he wants to move an aircraft from point A to point B, he can land at the aircraft carrier if it's convenient for his path. The AI will also use the aircraft carrier as a basing location to reach a target.

Thanks. I'll put them in for the next update.

Notable changes and fixes: - Changed the behavior of the unit-orders window behavior - it doesn't show if you click a city/unit in the left-panel - Added Unit HP to the unit-orders window - Added 'All Players Are Permanently At War' option to the New Game / Rules Modifiers - Units get automatically named when they are created. - Added some checkbox options to suppress the 'resource shortage' warning window. - Changed the way city-autopopups work. The window doesn't close between cities. - Fixed bug: if a carrier is inside a ship-fleet, and aircraft are given order to land in the group, aircraft weren't landing on the carrier - Fixed bug: Sometimes the red-movement circle doesn't appear - Fixed bug: If a transport has orders to land in a city, ground-units inside the transport can't be given orders to leave the city beforehand - Fixed bug: units with long names don't entirely fit on the news window - Speeded-up the unitbar scrolling - Fixed bug: Carriers couldn't repair aircraft - Adjusted the rules: submarines are slightly stronger against battleships - Reduced game file sizes by about 20%-40%

Thanks. Always glad to hear when people enjoy it.

Strange. I don't have a Win7 64bit machine to test on.

I just added an auto-naming feature to the game. When units get created, they get named automatically. The naming system is based off the unit type and the nation who owns it. For example, when the US builds an aircraft carrier, it might be named the "USS Enterprise", but when Japan builds a battleship, it might be named the "Hyuga". Now, here's where I'm asking for input: when ground and air units get created, they are named things like "45th Infantry" or "82nd Armor" (or "82nd Panzer" for the Germans). The question is: what are alternate names that could be used for ground/air units based on their country of origin? Right now, it's Nth Infantry, Nth Airborne, Nth Artillery, Nth Armor, and Nth Squadron (for air units). I was going to use "Nth Kampfgruppe" for German Infantry, but that's not quite accurate. Is "Nth Luftwaffe" okay to use in place of "Nth Squadron" for aircraft? Are there foreign terms I could use to add some flavor to the naming system?

Just added #3 to the game.

I'll look into it.

I tried the search just now and didn't see EOS in the first ten pages of results. I did add "empire" to the meta-keywords in the homepage, but I guess maybe "empire" is just too common of a word. I just added "empire game" to the meta-keywords. Maybe that will help. Thanks.

I asked Battlefront about this issue to see if they had any insight. Here's what they said: "Some internet security programs mimick what DEP does without telling anybody, so they may need to be shut down, too. Unfortunately, sometimes it's tricky to figure out what exactly is blocking the execution. I would suggest that he posts to the www.battlefront.com/helpdesk. Ian is very good with getting to the root of these issues."

Yeah, sorry I haven't addressed them yet. I don't have a time-frame on getting the AI to use aircraft carriers or using them well. It's something I'm going to have to sit down and think about how I can integrate carrier decisions with the rest of the AI decision-making. Regarding #3, maybe I'll take a look at this issue this week. I'll give it a try and see what kinds of issues it raises in the game. It might be a simple addition, I'm not quite sure yet.

Thanks for the feedback. One other idea I had was that the unit-orders window would only appear if you clicked on a unit on the map or unit-bar, but not if you clicked on a unit in the News window (i.e. the left panel). It sounds like I'll probably turn off the unit-orders by default, but let me know what you think of this alternative system. My only concern with this newer system is that it might not be immediately obvious to the player when the unit-orders window will or will not appear. The 'Restore Last Settings' button on the New Game window should restore whatever settings you used in your most recent game. Yeah, that's probably a good idea. The system, as it works right now is a little weird from a coding perspective, so I keep messing with it. I think some people have had some crashes because of weird timing issues with the city-popup windows. You mean that when you try to setup an ongoing trade with the open-market, it cancels the trade after a few turns, or are you having a different problem with it?

I looked into this over the weekend. Most of the technology used in the game is cross-platform (OpenGL is used to draw the map window, the networking library and the sound system is cross-platform). But, I assumed it would be a monumental task to move the game off of MFC (the Microsoft Foundation Classes), which is used for the User Interface other than the actual map screen. I did see some migration tools around for moving to QT (a cross-platform user-interface). It still sounds like a lot of work, but it's not impossible. At this point, I'm not sure that the value-to-work ratio is better than other things I could be doing, but at least it's a possibility. It's also nice that QT is free now, instead of being thousands of dollars, like it was a few years ago.

Okay, I took your advice and redid my website over the past day and a half. There's still some things I want to add to it - like more screenshots (especially newer screenshots) and I'm going to update the video. And I haven't added quotes yet. Let me know what you think of the new site: www.empiresofsteel.com (Admittedly, I didn't get a web designer.) True. The game did get a mention on Rock, Paper, Shotgun back when it was released. It was more of just a three-sentence 'the game has been released, demo is available' kind of a post. Quite a few comments, but people didn't seem to care too much for it. I could try to get a review from them. It's always hard to get exposure from the gaming press unless you're announcing something - like a game release. Being five months out from release isn't much of an announcement.

Thanks for the feedback. By the way, when you talk about the website, are you talking about the Battlefront section or www.empiresofsteel.com website?

You're welcome. Glad you like it.

I've had two people email me about the unit-orders window automatically appearing. If you don't like it, you can turn it off in the preferences window (toggle the checkbox "Automatically Switch to Unit Orders Window"). I turned it 'on' by default, because I was making a guess about what players might want. If you like it or don't like it, let me know. I'll change the default setting based on what players think of it.

Notable Changes and Fixes: - Added a unit-orders window that automatically appears when a unit, group, or city is selected - Fixed bug: units that are sentried won't entrench - Fixed bug: units that are inside unit-groups don't entrench - Artillery who have 'no field orders' will now auto-attack enemy units that are within artillery range (but won't move towards them) - Fixed a crash in the map editor - Border lines stay around a little longer - Players can now start with random city locations (in the rules modifiers window) - If you already have a technology hint, it won't appear on the trade-agreement creation list (user request) - Added a "Batch Processing" option to the Ruleset Editor. This let's users change details on multiple units at the same time. - Fixed bug: bad border calculations were causing erroneous "border violation" messages - Fixed bug: animated history window was sometimes blanking-out - Fixed bug: text would sometimes overwrite itself on the resources window - Added 'show map coordinates of the cursor' to the preferences window