Update 4.0.158 - Ratings, Online Status, misc. other Updates
Latest Update:
Largeness Display (Settlements): the settlement graphic will now update if the population increased or declines (rather than increasing only).
Nation Dialog: now also shows the total troops count if visible, i.e. for self, protectorates and allies after a delay.
Ratings Reworked: there are now ratings for (a) fast games, (b) fast games /w teams, (c) slow games and (d) slow games /w teams.
Ratings History: a history is kept of previous ratings & can be graphed over time (max. 10 years). For each month 3 data points are recorded: 1.-10., 11.-20. and 21.-*.
Ratings: volatility now both increases & decreases.
Friend/Player Status: players that are connected to the game have their profile icon shown in a BLUE ring (rather than golden!) :-D
Friends/Team Members: are now sorted by online & last online status :)
AI on Inhuman: targeting of commando-units/kings improved :-P
AI & Submission Demands: now more slightly more likely to accept to become a protectorate if the other nation is quite a lot larger.
"King Dead Bug": a king/ruler will survive if the battle was won even though the king's army perished. See for reference: http://www.multiplayerhub.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=5226
"King Disappearing Bug": there was an additional check missing if a king was eliminated in cases where territory revolted, became neutral and eliminated a king. See for reference: http://www.multiplayerhub.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=5258
"Join War Penalty": for open travel, there now also is a -50% happiness penalty when accepting to join a war where the player already has troops on the territory! See for reference: http://www.multiplayerhub.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=5164
Award Medals/Trophies: medals & trophies are now only given out for rated games!
Account Mode: "banned" added. A banned player can still access purchasing information but not create/join games or send messages except the moderators team. Minimal account functions only.
Guide "Actions & Events": further information added that explains how strong/weak nations are determined, i.e. using the standings at the previous turn.
Guide "Diplomacy": 20% of the protectorate's gross income goes to the protector.
Guide: new rule regarding teasing others and entrapment. Please refrain from agitating other players.
Guide: what to do when going on vacation.
Guide: what will happen to compromised accounts and players spreading private account information.
Translation Popup: using onRelease (instead of onPress) now to open the translation popup menu. See for reference: http://www.multiplayerhub.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=5187
Translation Popup: long-presses on touch-screens now bring up translation options for Chat, Wall and In-Game Messages.
Performance Tuning (Freezing): should run slightly faster during event display and potentially prevent freezes. At the same time, the AI should update faster as well. Should also reduce ANRs on Android.
Manual Updated: public shaming, slander, defamation and such are not tolerated in the game anymore. We value everyone's privacy highly.
Code Cleanup: obsolete code removed from game.
Bugfix Crashes: divisions by 0 during animations.
Bugfix Crashes: music not properly loaded.
Bugfix Crashes: while not properly being able to join game ('null'-pointer error).
Bugfix Crashes (Android): large heap requested which should reduce crashes by out of memory errors!?
Translations/Glyphs: missing Romanian & Chinese letters added.
Translation Warning: you will now be warned if you are translating a language you are most likely non-native in. Also, please read the instructions!
Translation Instructions: updated what we consider ban-worthy offenses. Translating isn't about use or you, it's to provide high-quality texts in other languages for players that are not fluent in English - Thanks!
Translation Center Bugfix: very long texts could throw an error. The database wasn't able to index the text. Should be fixed now!
Starting Games Early (multiplayer): confirmation dialog added so a game is not started early by mistake.
Disjoining Rated Games: volatility will not change anymore when disjoining a rated game!
Bugfix Gifting: gifting maps/coins/etc. was broken. The error "no access" is gone & you should be able to gift to other players again.
Bugfix Stripe (purchasing): should now properly output an error for double purchases.
Bugfix Freezes: games would sometimes not update due to duplicate IDs causing crashes.
Bugfix Crashes (Modding): pressing key while no scenario was selected (rare occurance).
Bugfix Crashes: during game setup (not everything was initialized fully when called).
Bugfix Crashes: showing the number of available maps for download (count "bubble").
Random Games (single player): a new dialog allows selection of AI difficulty and objective now!
Messaging: the messaging system now shows the unread count by default (ditto it was before). To enable the [Done] button to mark messages as read manually, go into your account settings (via cog-icon in chat) and enable the [Done] button. That way, you can track messages better you haven't responded to.
Chat Broadcasts: shows the turn number also if a game has started (shows nothing if still in setup).
Map Downloads: maps can now be rated :-D
Map Downloads: maps can now (a) be sorted and (b) be searched by name :-D
Map Downloads: display improved for small screens. Also fixed for large screens (line breaks).
Maximum Turn: the new minimum max. turn that can be selected is 20 (was 10 before), to prevent people from gambling the system.
Minimum Turn Duration for Slow/Longhaul Games: minimum is now 8h/turn (compared to 12h/turn before). Please be aware that if you sleep more than 8h per day, you will potentially lose games!
Provinces/GUI: dropdown list added to allow sorting provinces by either (a) population size or (b) happiness.
View Games: button renamed to "Play Games" -- hopefully players will be able to find games now!?
Translations: updating existing translations will only pay 1 coin per fix (independent of the word count) to combat false submissions to gain coins only.
Translations: the last author for an existing translation will be listed if the information is available. That's to track down players that submit bad translations. Be wary!
Translations: glyph list updated (some missing Chinese characters added).
Translations: "Albanian" added, which is now also available for translations!
AI Bugfix: first nation in a game would not move at all in first turn under certain circumstances.
AI Bugfix: the AI would not do anything if there were no settlements available in a map.
Volume Slider (Music/Sound FX): adjusted to better represent the actual volume (changed from linear to exponential!).
Admin Function (moderators): query promo deal redeem status information via terminal.
Admin Function (moderators): functionality to view a user's purchases (should not give "no access" anymore).
Admin Function (Officers/Dev ONLY): option to add/subtract coins from an account via terminal.
Admin Function (Officers/Dev ONLY): option to add/remove products from an account via terminal.
Bugfix Crashes: clicking the auto-translation button in the language center.
Bugfix Crashes: adding a 'null'-GUI child to a GUI group was crashing the game (ignoring it now).
Bugfix Crashes: when displaying the final results screen (and some users were 'null').
Bugfix Crashes: when changing commerce tax levels (entry was not ready yet/gone already).
Bugfix Crashes: would crash on Android sometimes during signing/logging in.
Update 4.0.153 - Japan Maps & misc. minor Updates
Latest Update:
Japan Maps: two new official maps "Feudal Japan" and "Japan & Korea". :-D
AI Balancing: the AI is playing a lot less aggressive now on lower difficulty levels. Also, there was a bug making the AI declare war even on the Casual/Easy levels.
Team Games: Diplomacy & Elections are disabled by default for team-game scenarios. You can re-enable those options during game setup via advanced options if desired!
Private Messaging: the private message inbox shows an unread message count also for each message that has the [Done] button active (to track read but pending messages). Click the [Done] button to mark as handled. If this is
GUI Fixes: the top/centered main HUD during game-play was preventing some map-clicks from passing through. That should now be fixed and the provinces close to the main HUD at the top/center are now selectable.
Modding: after play-testing a map, the game will return to the editor (rather than the menu screens).
Modding: allows adding a different commando-unit icon besides the crown-icon for each nation. E.g. Samurai Helmet for Japan map :-D
Game Ended Screen: the end-game screen is now vastly improved with various additional statistics & better layouting :-D
Game Ended/Player Eliminated: some basic statistics stay now enabled and can still be accessed, i.e. the analysis and objective.
Balancing/Team Games: due to the many player requests, I have re-enabled (a) diplomacy and (b) elections by default. Please turn off as needed :-P
Balancing/Administration Cost: changed formula for the administration cost to 1/sqrt(x) where x is proportional to the population/nation size. As a positive (hopefully), if you hold a fertility festival, the income should now always increase (and not go down).
Overview Map: can now be opened & closed.
Overview Map: there is a button that switches the map display between nation-based coloring and diplomacy-based coloring.
Rankings Table: now also shows the clan's (if any) a user does belong to :-D
Rankings Table: the rankings table now looks at updated ratings in the past 60 days (was 14 days before) when building the new rankings table.
Sponsoring: games can now sponsor 1., 2. and 3. places (not only the 1. place finisher).
Betting Coins: the amount can now be split between the top 3 players if desired (rather than just winner-takes-all).
AI Exploit: AI was accepting to become a protectorate to easily. This is now disabled for multiplayer games & has a smaller likelihood to be accepted in single player matches.
Cost for name change: now 250 coins (was 1000 coins). Please note, for a first name change, simply message the moderators and we will change it at no cost!
Cost for new clan (already previously applied): now 500 coins (was 2000 coins).
Clan Message Board: clan members with status ACTOR or higher can delete messages from the clan message board now!
Banning from Game Chat: game-creators can only ban players for 7 minutes in their in-game chat (to prevent abuse).
Guide: administration cost explained in further details (see section "Economy" in the Guide).
Guide/FAQ: text updated for rating inflations when playing against the AI (don't do it or else).
Guide/FAQ: speaking other languages besides English in the chat/wall/etc. It's OK, but using English fosters cross-cultural communication.
Guide/FAQ: please be nice to the moderators, they are not out to get you!
Guest Login: you don't need to enter your old password when setting a new password as you won't know the guest password (was auto-created).
Font/Small: mini font size slightly increased to make it more readable.
Fixes: misc. spelling corrected.
Admin Function: we have now the option to add comments to user profiles (e.g. why we flagged or banned them etc.).
Admin Function: query function added to locate a player's user accounts for those who have forgotten their login information (if you have an invoice ID, we can now locate your username).
Admin Guide: guide updated on how to write admin comments for flagged, banned or disabled users.
Bugfix: Moderator messages (via inbox) cannot be blocked and are delivered even if the moderator group has been blocked by a user.
Bugfix: mouse cursor for touch-scroll didn't always properly reset to mouse-pointer (was still 'the hand').
Bugfix Server: password recovery via email didn't work (was loading mail-server settings from wrong configuration file).
Bugfix Crashes: game would crash at startup while failing to display error dialog when the GUI wasn't loaded yet. Might still fail with the original error though?
Pricing Changes: +5 coins/login per day (instead of +1), +10 coins/login on Monday (instead of +6), -5 coins to CREATE multiplayer games (instead of -2). Maps are USD 1.- respectively 100 coins cheaper.
Pricing Changes/Reasoning: the new system will allow you to get new maps for free earlier. You will be able to obtain the e.g. mini world map now priced at 100 coins within 20 days (i.e. 20 logins) instead of 6 months compared to the old system. Although the cost of creating new games has increased, the coins per days has increased 5-fold replenishing coin balances quicker.
Camera Movement: speed increased ~3x to actually arrive at the action location before the action ends :)
Redo-Button for Blitz: the [Redo]-button for Blitz games is gone. It causes potential synchronization issues. Use the Undo-ALL button in-game instead.
Disjoining Games: the disjoin has an additional checkbox now that needs to be selected to disjoin to prevent accidential game disjoins!
Rated Games: only count as rated if 2+ human players are playing.
Clan Memberships: there now is a 72h period in which a player cannot leave or be kicked from a clan (to prevent abuse).
Clan Memberships/Guide: please note that joining/disjoining a clan to circumvent the clan restrictions can get your account flagged or more (see Guide for details).
Rankings: the Top 100 rankings can now be downloaded as a comma-delimited CSV text file. Click the [Download]-button on the rankings page!
Messaging: messages sent to and from the "Moderators" group cannot be blocked. Otherwise we are not able to respond to inquiries!
Guide: laymen's description added to how the rating system works (where it links to the Wikipedia's Glicko rating system page).
Admin Option: moderators can now ban players from the chat for an arbitrary number of minutes as needed (not limited to 7 minutes only anymore).
Admin Option: moderators have now the option to manually adjust player's ratings (for players trying to manually inflate their ratings).
Admin Option: moderators have now the option to manually adjust a player's awards.
Bugfix Chat: some usernames were non-clickable in chat (parsing fixed).
Bugfix Steam: allowing multiple games using the libGDX-backend to access Steam functions at the same time (before, Steam wouldn't work for a 2nd game that is running).
Bugfix Tournaments: tournament game setup could break if a perfect number of players would join, e.g. 180 players for a 30 players per game and 5 players advancing.
Bugfix Crashes: during game startup (loading inventory).
Update 4.0.150 - AI Updated, News/Events, Translations & more...
Latest Update:
AI Normal, Hard & Inhuman: improved happiness/population management. Should be stronger!
AI/Inhuman: slightly more angry towards human players :-P
Domination Goal/Objective: protectorates count 100% towards victory points. Also, if captured & enabled, nations are converted to protectorate states.
Joinable Blitz/Fast Games: the list now refreshes every 15 seconds while you are on the open games page :-D
Joinable Games List: can now be sorted by (a) players, (b) latest and (c) name of the games.
Exploit Fixed: only human players count for betting games (no more coin farming).
Event Calendar: shows blinking indicator light if events are upcoming very "soon"!
News Section: there is now a latest news section above the public wall (multiplayer).
Chat Game Broadcasts: limited to 2.5 minute interval (was 2 minutes before). This is to reduce spamming.
Hiding ONLINE Status: there is now an additional setting to hide your online status. It currently hides your presence in the main chat only (you will still be counted though). This does not affect game-related chats. Also, posting in the chat still works, so don't post if you don't want to get caught. Anyhow, this is a preparation for an upcoming feature showing online status information of friends/players in general.
Banned Players: they can still create games (re-enabled).
Manual/Guide: contains examples and additional details on how to calculate attacks and defenses.
Translation Center/Instructions: do NOT translate tags or the special plural form markers.
Server: inactive users (no login for 6+ months) will have their profile picture reset to none. That's to reclaim database disk space. This has no negative side effect beside a player that didn't play for a very long time to have to re-create their profile image. All other data including ratings etc. will be preserved.
Modding Wiki: moved to a static page (as I was the only one editting anyway).
Bugfix AI: happiness sorter was not correct (loked very minor!?).
Bugfix Translations: error that no valid translation was provided fixed (rare cases).
Bugfix Crashes: translation center (login change).
Balancing Fortifications (Walled Cities): neutral troops inside a walled city will now also get a fortification bonus (+100%). The walls previously had no effect on those troops.
Blocked Users: if you have blocked a player, the player will not be able to join your games anymore.
Clan Settings added: option to turn off game invites now available for clans as well!
AI Updated: should handle fortifications of provinces better.
Manual Updated: upkeep cost is 5 gold per 100 units. Separately calculated for each provinces and always >=1.
Manual Updated: instructions to cross-platform login added (also shown below e.g. "Login via Steam" button on login dialog!)
Manual Updated: coin refunds for multiplayer games explained.
Manual Updated: spreading lies or rumors (your account might be flagged, banned or disabled).
Manual Updated: aggressive clan recruiting from other clans is considered bad behavior and we reserve the right to take appropriate actions.
Manual Updated: auto-deletion of multiplayer games explained.
Translations: latest translations integrated - Thanks for the help :-D
Translations: plural forms for numbers added. Please read the updated translation instructions and also refer to the corresponding definitions for your language as needed here: http://www.unicode.org/cldr/charts/latest/supplemental/language_plural_rules.html
Language Glyphs: missing glyphs added (Chinese, Serbian/Cyrillic, etc.)
Spelling: misc. bugfixes.
Events Calendar Updated: more space for upcoming events.
FPS-Counter: reduced in size.
Admin Settings added: option to turn off game invites.
Admin Guide Updated (admins only): some more information about approving/rejecting translations.
Admin Events Setup: option to limit events by number of clan players.
Bugfix: Joining/Disjoing a game will not re-broadcast a game in the chat. Please use the [Announce in Chat]-button once enough time has elapsed.
Bugfix Crashes: translation center.
Bugfix Crashes: on Windows NT the custom mouse cursor could produce crashes (should be fixed now?)
