Brit

No one has any comments on the new map?

Try it again, there are often problems if you try to get an update immediately after it is released.

Notable Changed/Improvements: - Added a new map: the NorthAfrica (Beta) map. This is not a World War 2 scenario, just a two-player map in North Africa. - PBEM: Added a "Load Last Game" button to the main-menu interface, under "PBEM" and "Single Player" menus - Added smoke pumes to cities based on the number of refugees - Fixed Bug: the meetup times in the internet-chat would sometimes be wrong - Fixed Bug: Units would sometimes get caught on terrain and couldn't move - Fixed Bug: Aircraft were not returning home when they should (this bug was introduced in the last update, thanks to changes in the AdHoc order system) - Fixed a bug with nuclear bombers: they'd sometimes destroy units they fly over - Fixed Bug: combat sound effects were playing even when sound effects were turned off

Thanks for the suggestions. Adding them to my list.

I tracked down the bug and fixed it. An update will be out soon.

No, the depth of the water doesn't affect the movement of ships and submarines. (Also, the water gets move shallow near buildings, and ships/subs need to be able to get into port.)

I'm going to have to add some additional AI behaviors before that will work well. For example, the AI needs to run air-patrols and also be better about moving its ships around, and doing things like closing in on locations where submarines were recently seen.

Okay, I've toned down the swamp a bit. I have to admit that I've noticed quite a bit of swamp on the maps, too. Hm, I thought some of the events showed their event type. I'll take another look.

Sorry, there isn't an undo feature. But, yeah, you're right that it would be a useful thing to add to the editor.

Notable Fixes/Improvements: - Units will automatically capture resources and cities (with no defenders) if resources or cities are discovered - Added the "Capitol" city-improvement. Only one capitol per nation. It gives a variety of advantages. - Added a Large Factory city-improvement. The regular factory can be upgraded into a large factory. - Changed the position of the city-window: it always appears on the left side of the application (instead of appearing in the center) - Fixed Bug: VoiceChat data was sometimes taking a long time to reach the target - PBEM, Fixed Bug: If a player creates a PBEM game while offline, the game warns the player. - PBEM: Added a tab to the "PBEM Settings" window so players can see all the games on the server and their last update - Rules Editor: city-improvements can be set to "one per nation" (like the capitol building) - Rules Editor: Added a feature so that city-improvements can be upgraded (e.g. Factory can be upgraded to "Large Factory") - Rules Editor: Added a feature so city-improvements can be automatically destroyed when captured (e.g. Capitols get destroyed)

What ended up being the problem with jeep's game was that there was a bad game-event file. (The game actually writes out a file, but then removes it once everything is processed. This happens behind the scenes, so it's not something that player normally knows about.) Yeah, there is a little lag. I added a button on the PBEM games so that you can have the game instantly check for updates, which helps alleviate the lag a bit. (In other words: If you know you're online at the same time as the other players, you can quickly send events back and forth and use the 'check for updates' button to reduce the lag. Some players have used this to crank through a dozen turns or so in a short amount of time.) You also can't use features like voicechat with other players. And, there's a possibility that you'll miss a trade offer with another player. (For example, if you setup your orders, submit your turn, and shut down the game. Later, another player sends you a trade offer. But, you don't bring up the game again until after the turn was processed.)

I think that's a coincidence.

I'm not sure what you'd like to have happen here. It's true that ships are more vulnerable when docked, so I suppose if an enemy ship comes after you when they are docked, then the ships should try to move forward to attack (since it gives better odds). But, in general, you don't want them to move, and you don't want them to move out and attack the enemy if other healthy ships are in the area to intercept the enemy ship, right?

Okay, I made changes to the ad-hoc order system (the ad-hoc system is used to automatically give orders to units - for example, attacking enemy units based on field orders). Units will now automatically capture resources, as long as: - The resource was just discovered - The unit has no orders other than movement orders (if you have orders to attack something, it will ignore the newly discovered resource) - There are no enemies (that you know of) in the immediate area - The resource is currently owned by no-one or a player that you are at war with I suspect that there might be some other factors I should put into the system to keep your units from running after newly discovered resources when you don't want them to.

I know that Civilization 3 allowed the AI to see areas of the map that they shouldn't see. I've seen the AI turn its transport ships around just as I colonized an island. There was also a trick that players used to use with the AI where they'd intentionally leave an interior city undefended so that the AI would send troops inside the human player's borders to capture the city it couldn't see, then they'd ambush the AI. (I believe they fixed this in one of the patches.)

Oops. Sorry, I saw your question earlier and meant to answer it after I took a look at the code. Units inside groups ignore their Field Orders. They depend on the field orders of the unit-group.

This update was mostly about a bunch of smaller bugs with the game. Notable Fixes and Improvements: - Fixed Bug: Units can now attack stacks of (non-grouped) units - Fixed Bug: There was a problem that would cause units to rotate incorrectly during game replay - Forts are created by the random map generator - Players can now pause production using the City-Build window's "pause production" button - Added a warning if the player is about to submit a turn, and they need more research orders - Fixed Bug: Units could see units they couldn't normally see if they were within 4 pixels of the other unit - Fixed Bug: Sometimes random AI players would use the same flag as another player - Fixed Bug: the note's meetup times were not displaying correctly - Fixed a variety of bugs with the aircraft, including: - - Fixed some display issues with aircraft - - Fixed a bug in the aircraft paths - if it's setup to move to multiple airbases, the path could get messed up and crash the aircraft - - Fixed Bug: groups of aircraft wouldn't immediately crash when they ran out of orders - - Changed the interface to prevent the player from giving movement orders to locations it can't reach - PBEM: - - Fixed Bug: After a player submitted his turn, other players wouldn't get immediately notified of the turn submission. - - The event files now contain the name of the game (for easy identification)

Thanks. I'm glad it's working again for you.

I tracked down this bug and fixed it. It's in the next update.

Yes, I want to. It'll take some more code to allow the AI to deal with the uncertainty, plus the AI might play a little worse, but I'd like to remove it. Having the AI play without knowing the placement and strength of the enemies adds more strategic possibilities (like more interesting submarine warfare, increases the need to remain unseen before an invasion, etc).

Yeah, if you sent me your saved game and all the files in your PBEM directory.

Ah, you're right. I saw the problem in your game, took a close look code, and discovered that units can see other units that can't normally see if they are within 4 pixels of the other unit. This is fixed in the next update.

I'm looking at the information on the server. I can see three events on the server for that game, and two players: USA and USSR. Are you playing player 1? I'm not sure why your events are being queued up. I don't see any game events from player 2. Are they having trouble getting their stuff to upload, too? My guess at this point is that there's some sort of password mismatch, but I'll have to investigate some more. I'm hoping to clear up some other problems with the PBEM system while I'm at it.

You still have ships that can see submarines.

The aircraft units cannot see subs. But, the AI can see all the units (it doesn't rely on the aircraft's view range). So, the view ranges only affect human players.