Update 0.9.17 - Reworked the Balancing & Graphics, many other Changes...
Latest Update:
Large Re-Balancing/Graphics Update: download the new Mediterranean Sea map to play-test :-D
Graphics: mini-HUD for troops/villages improved.
Graphics: some clutter removed to improve readability of map.
Graphics: some re-coloring done to make important parts stick out more!
Graphics: improved zoom-in & zoom-out with different levels of details depending on zoom level.
Mediterranean Sea 1.0.0 (new): another experimental map without food. Please note some panels are re-arranged (e.g. trading) due to food missing.
Mediterranean Sea 1.0.0 (new): tiles are now colored based on the nation that owns the tile. This is experimental for now.
Mediterranean Sea 1.0.11 (LEGACY): some clutter removed (e.g. farmland tiles).
Mediterranean Sea 1.0.11 (LEGACY): bakery not required anymore when building a market.
AI: number of messages reduced, to remove the spamming feel!
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 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.
Cost for new clan: now 500 coins (was 2000 coins).
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!
Modding: experience of troops can now be edited. Please use the latest template.ZIP provided on the official web site.
Camera Movement: speed increased ~3x to actually arrive at the action location before the action ends :)
Troops Movement: speed slightly increased for movements & battles.
Joinable Games List: can now be sorted by (a) players, (b) latest and (c) name of the games.
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.
Rated Games: only count as rated if 2+ human players are playing.
Disjoining Games: the disjoin has an additional checkbox now that needs to be selected to disjoin to prevent accidential game disjoins!
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).
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/FAQ: laymen's description added to how the rating system works (where it links to the Wikipedia's Glicko rating system page).
Guide/FAQ: text updated for rating inflations when playing against the AI.
Guide/FAQ: speaking other languages besides English in the chat/wall/etc.
Guide/FAQ: please be nice to the moderators - read why!
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.
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: you can now enable/disable nation coloring, i.e. if enabled tiles will be colored based on the nation they are owned by.
Modding: due to the changed HUD-type, enable the checkbox "Offset Troop HUDs" if your troops overlap the troop HUDs & the numbers are not visible anymore.
Modding Wiki: moved to a static page (as I was the only one editting anyway).
Android/iOS: pinch-zoom functionality implemented for map :)
Fixes: misc. spelling corrected.
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: mouse cusor for touch-scroll didn't always properly reset to mouse-pointer (was still the 'hand').
Bugfix Harbors/Ships: ships can now only be built if there is a harbor on the tile.
Bugfix Translations: error that no valid translation was provided fixed (rare cases).
Bugfix Scaled Rendering: some render artifacts removed.
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 0.9.16 - AI Reworked & Bugfixes (should be stronger than ever!)
Latest Update:
AI Spending Overhauled: the AI has a much improved building/spending management & should properly build farms, lumberyards etc. Fine-tuned management of military troops as well (maintenance/building).
AI Messaging Tuned: less annoying reducing the vast number of messages that were previously sent.
AI Normal, Hard & Inhuman: improved happiness/population management. Should be stronger!
AI/Inhuman: slightly more angry towards human players :-P
Mediterranean Sea 1.0.10: re-balancing (income) and some fixes, i.e. ships not requiring population as they are not in a city.
Mediterranean Sea 1.0.10: re-balancing wood. There now is a -3% decay for wood. Some costs slightly increased as well.
Modding: template.zip updated (please apply the latest patches to your map)
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
Manual Updated: auto-deletion of multiplayer games explained.
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).
Translation Center/Instructions: do NOT translate tags or the special plural form markers.
Translations: latest texts added - Thanks :-D
Spelling fixes (misc.).
Exploit Fixed: only human players count for betting games (no more coin farming).
Performance: slight performance update (rendering speed/not checking screen density every loop).
Bugfix AI: happiness sorter was not correct (loked very minor!?).
Bugfix AI: food/cash allotments for troops were set to 0% (none) rather than 100% (normal).
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: on Windows NT the custom mouse cursor could produce crashes (should be fixed now?).
Bugfix Crashes: translation center (login change).
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
Game Invites: option to block game invites. Select the (Cog)-button in the chat, then [Settings...] and uncheck "Receive Invites".
Clan Settings added: option to turn off game invites now available for clans as well!
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.
Admin Guide Updated (admins only): some more information about approving/rejecting translations.
Admin Settings added: option to turn off game invites.
Admin Events Setup: option to limit events by number of clan players.
Render Glyphs: missing characters added for Malay/etc.
Spelling: misc. bugfixes.
Events Calendar Updated: more space for upcoming events.
FPS-Counter: reduced in size.
Bugfix Crashes: translation center.
Update 0.9.13 - Translation Center & misc. Bugfixes
Latest Update:
Balancing: only map scenarios marked as "Balanced" can be used to create (a) rated or (b) gambling games.
Balancing for "Capture the Flag" & "Offense/Defense" goals: those modes default to unbalanced and cannot be used in rated/gambling-type games anymore (too much abuse!).
Balancing/Modding: all map scenarios default to unbalanced! Please re-upload your map with the corresponding balanced scenarios marked as "Balanced"! They will be not able to be used for rated/gambling games otherwise.
Translation Center: the game has now a translation center build in :-D If you want to help, please open the translation center & provide translations for your native language. You'll get coins for accepted translations :-D
Translations via Android/iOS: the game now default to the system's onscreen keyboard, that means, you can also do voice-translations! Speak your translation & it will appear in the text box. Just fixup errors & submit :-D
Arabic/Hebrew Rendering & Text Input: I did an overhaul over the bidirectional rendering engine. It should work a lot better. Please report problems - Thanks :-D
Render Glyphs: Ukrainian render-glyphs added (some were missing).
Bidirectional Cursor Input: to support Arabic & Hebrew text input, the input cursor is now bi-directional (can be turned off).
Banned Users/Games: banned users cannot create games anymore (join will still work).
GUI Performance: improved performance where lots of items out of view were still rendered (send to GPU). They are now not rendered.
GUI Scrolling: scrolling was slowing down rendering (fixed a bug that did a re-layout every frame during scroll-moving).
GUI/Awards: clicking on the awards now brings the tooltip also (e.g. useful if you are on a touch-screen!).
Coin Display: additional refresh calls added to properly refresh the coin-balance.
Coin Notification: will be sent to a player that has won a game and received coins.
Steam: now shows "rich presence" & players can join someone's game directly without invite (advertised in Steam-chat!) :-D
Steam/Language Default: is now the game's default language (ignoring the system setting).
Steam Backend: changed to Steamworks4J 1.6.1 (was old PuppyGames library previously)
Moderating (Admin ONLY): looking at an account now always queries the database for the latest information (reseting the cache). If a user is e.g. "banned" it will now show!
System Onscreen-Keyboard: integrated for Android & iOS (mostly working). Go to [Settings] and enable the "Onscreen Keyboard: System" to disable if you have problems.
Chat Function "/chess": it prints a chessboard (nothing else at the moment).
Bugfix Saving As...: saving maps or exporting shapes didn't allow to select a file name anymore.
Bugfix for road-building: correct image shown again in build dialog.
Bugfix events display: will now also always show city captures (if battle-display is enabled) even if there is not "battle".
Bugfix GUI: Toast-messages such as "Downloads Finished" are now properly displayed above everything incl. popups (so they are visible).
Bugfix Purchasing (Steam): purchases would only work the 1. time & then get stuck with the "purchasing..." overlay.
Bugfix Server: catching leaked DB connection.
Bugfix Crashes/Modding: some pieces could have 'null'-positions resulting in crashes.
Bugfix Crashes: local awards list not matching with obtained awards.
Bugfix Crashes: due to background music player disposing already gone objects.
Update 0.9.11 - New Awards (Multiplayer) & Bugfixes/Crashes
Latest Update:
Top Rated Award (monthly): the top rated player each month will receive a new trophy in their profile :-D
Profile Award - Activity: if a player is active during the month, +1 Viral award will be handed out :-D
Profile Award - Modding: for players that submitted maps & got their map accepted.
Profile Awards - "Supporter" & "Sugar Daddy": for Supporters & Sugar Daddies (that made purchases and gave out gifts to other players).
Accounts in Bad Standing: disabled, banned or flagged accounts will now show an icon over their profile picture to warn others :-D
Game Status (multiplayer): re-ordered so games where you are alive are listed higher up than games were you were already eliminated.
Game Deletions (auto): non-ended/ongoing games are not deleted as quickly as ended games.
Multiplayer Policy: please note that (a) scamming players by repeatedly setting up unfair games and (b) false advertisement of games is not tolerated anymore (Guide update).
GUI Input: now supports text selection, copy/paste etc.
Server: monitoring updated (Admin only). Emergency mode added to allow logs when services could not be instatiated.
Bugfix/Saved Games Listing: for some players the games wouldn't show (load the list forever). That's because an empty files could break the loading of the files list.
Bugfix League-Results: only the 1. player that finished was recognized, the other players were added to the wrong table :-/
Bugfix Language Detection & Selection (Locale): was not working correctly for some corner cases.
Bugfix Crashes/Modding: crashes where some objects had no position (crash occured during removal).
Bugfix Crashes: when notice-manager was null (i.e. not logged in/connected).
Game Option "Strict Diplomacy": for strict diplomacy (default), protectorates with the same protector cannot go to war with each other. Existing wars stop.
Game Option: Diplomacy can be turned on/off.
Game Option: Total War - Everyone is at war with each other when the game starts.
Game Option: Total Peace - Everyone is at peace with each other when the game starts.
Balancing Administration: the cost is now based on f(x) = -x^3 + 3x^2. The previous function used a circle equation to determine costs which would result in the cost suddenly to skyrocket and the abruptly resolve to linear. Please note that administration will increase a few gold for smaller nations!
Balancing Research: it is now only based on commerce income (not all the income sources combined).
Mediterranean Sea (1.0.7)/Template: Peasants are now (a) weaker, (b) cost more food/wood, and also (c) have higher food-upkeep cost. They were too cheap before!
Mediterranean Sea (1.0.7)/Template: Peasants cannot be restored, i.e. re-supplied/fixed.
Mediterranean Sea (1.0.7)/Template: City Repair costs slightly more stone.
Mediterranean Sea (1.0.7)/Template: Craftsman & Market require more iron/stone but less wood. They also produce more gold now.
Mediterranean Sea (1.0.7)/Template: War ships cost slightly more iron to produce.
Mediterranean Sea (1.0.7)/Template: City walls cost less gold.
Mediterranean Sea (1.0.7)/Template: Troop offense/defense costs updated, i.e. less gold, more iron! More consistent also.
Mediterranean Sea (1.0.7)/Template: Population food consumption decreased by about 20%.
Mediterranean Sea (1.0.7)/Template: Troop food consumption increased by about 15-20%.
Mediterranean Sea (1.0.7)/Template: Iron Mines: cost less gold to build.
Mediterranean Sea (1.0.7)/Template: Farms cost less stone to build.
Mark as Done: troops can now be marked as done for a turn (new checkmark button). They will be ignored while going through the unmoved troops.
Protectorates: Protectorates cannot change their protector (only cancel the relation). Other nations cannot ask existing protectorates to switch their protector.
Exploration: for nations that become allies or protectorates, there territory will be fully visible after the treaty is signed.
Decree Icons: they are now shown on the village overview & city views. Indicate if a decree can be executed or not (non grayed out). Please note, you need to download the latest map versions to see them.
Decree Icons/Modding: please download the latest template.ZIP & apply the bundle.config to your map to have them contain decree icons!
Strength Bars: non-full if troops need repair (was rounded up before!).
Troop & Produce Management: the buttons for each item are now disabled if actions are not possible, e.g. troops cannot be repaired etc.
Troop Information: the attack ranges are also shown when building/going to troop info (i.e. only when 2+ tiles away).
GUI Production: farms, city structures etc. that produce output have the output now displayed in blue (to make it easier recognizable).
GUI/Menu: improved incl. the top bar which is now narrower.
GUI Input: Bugfix for text-selection in text-input (multi-line; position was thought to be centered while it wasn't). Also, newline now should work correctly :)
GUI Input: up/down cursor-key should now work :-D
Server: monitoring updated (Admin only).
Server: performance update during reboot (backup was slow - increased speed by moving backup finalization outside). Also using Liquibase 3.5.3 which should be faster.
Server: backend server updated (Jetty 9.2.20)
Bugfix: acquiring troops should now show the city name (not "null").
Update 0.9.7 - Festivals, Elections, Open Travel/Friendly, GUI Fixes etc.
Latest Update:
Game Option: Open travel through friendly territory! If enabled, you can move troops through ally/protectorate territory. If your troops are caught on non-friendly territory, you will get a penalty each turn for those troops.
Game Option: Elections. The most powerful nation can hold occasional elections (feature ported from Age of Conquest IV). Most powerful means 30+% of territory and a 5+% lead to second largest nation.
Balancing Tax/Commerce: it's now linearly based on happiness. The happier your population, the more income (still no income if happiness is <50%).
Balancing Attrition: if troops are on non-open territory (or non-friendly) they receive a -25% strength penalty per turn. Indicated by blinking "!".
Balancing Attrition: the old way for attrition has now be deprecated (legacy). You can still enable it in the game setup, but the feature is rather convoluted.
Balancing Happiness: there is no more happiness loss if a settlement becomes neutral. Penalty reduced for settlements that get a new owner, now at -8% (was -12%).
Balancing Happiness: there is no a governor option that automatically increases provinces with <50% happiness. A festival can be held every turn as well to increase happiness overall.
Population Option: on the finances tab, there is the option to hold nation-wide festivals to grow the population.
Mediterranean Sea (1.0.6): defaults to closed travel now, but open travel through friendly (allies/protectorates) now.
Mediterranean Sea (1.0.6): defaults to legacy-attrition disabled.
Mediterranean Sea (1.0.6): tax/commerce income slightly increased to balance income effects due to happiness changes.
Mediterranean Sea (1.0.6): balancing city repairs: cheaper & can now be fully repaired with 1 click (if not under siege)! However, the cities do not auto-repair themselves anymore!
Mediterranean Sea (1.0.6): starting assets (except food) increased to 400 (from 200) for gold, wood, iron and stone.
Mediterranean Sea (1.0.6): balanced city structures upkeep costs (non-gold).
Negative Gold: a -10% loan penalty is applied each turn gold is in the red!
Diplomacy/Peace to Alliance: there is no more penalty when upgrading a relation from Peace to an Alliance.
GUI Update: some functionality moved or even removed (happiness, attrition, military spending).
GUI Chat + In-Game Info (multiplayer): refined.
GUI/Tax Season Notification: now takes you directly to the finances panel to adjust taxes.
GUI Labels: long nation names/etc. are now abbreviated with an ellipsis...
GUI: misc. refinements & other improvements (less clutter, better organized).
Joined Longhaul Games: exiting a longhaul game will go back directly to the other longhaul games (rather than the multiplayer dashboard).
Modding (Editor): added additional scenario parameters that can be adjusted via GUI!
AI Update: wasn't calculating stats correctly (based on 4 days/month rather than 1 day/month) for Mediterranean Sea map.
Client: improved file loading/listing & tried to make it more smooth (System.gc() removed). Might produce problems???
Game Auto-Deletion: faster for games that have ended.
Server Maintenance/Improvements: misc. to simplify updates.
Server Dashboard (Admin only): improved /w additional statistics.
Bugfix Commando Unit: if an attacking commando-unit lost, the country wasn't given to the defender.
Bugfix Camera Functionality: they file paths were not always correct on all platforms.
Bugfix Messages: messages of eliminated nations are not delivered anymore.
Bugfix Assets: prevention of negative food, wood, iron and stone.
Bugfix Auto-Deletion of Scheduled Events: some auto-started games from the event system would delete automatically in some cases due to mistakenly thinking the games were inactive!
Bugfix Display: Happiness/Inhabitants Growth was not displayed correctly.
Bugfix Parser: when parsing links and email addresses.
Bugfix Crashes/Modding: when increasing the grid-size, the editor & game would crash (should work now).
Bugfix Crashes/Modding: will now throw an error if an invent/estate definition is missing.
Bugfix Crashes: while selecting/hovering over links.
Bugfix Crashes: when showing game information that became unavailable ('null').
Quick Join (BETA!): There is now a [Quick Join] button which will auto-setup games for players! No more searching for games, just enter the pool and wait for enough players to join. Games will begin as soon as enough players are waiting in the pool. :)
Scheduled Events (BETA!): We now have scheduled events! We will kick it off with "Mayhem Friday". Throughout the day, we will have scheduled fast games every 3h! Other events TBD. Please note this is still considered a late BETA, so please be warned!
Diplomacy Exploit (Fixed!): the system limits a player to max. 1 diplomatic message to another nation (at a time). This prevents artificially inflating your happiness. If multiple mutual requests are accepted between 2 nations, only the first request is accepted and the second one will not be applied.
Leader Capture: will give the land & moneys directly to the capturer when it happens (not at the end of the turn).
In-Game Walls: please note that for tournaments & leagues the wall will now show the overall discussions (not just for that game).
In-Game Information: showing the tournament/league info also!
Joinable Games List: required ELO min & max rating for a game displayed also (if set).
Networking: slightly faster game listing (joined/joinable).
Admin Inbox/Pictures: there is now a "Save As..." function to save pictures. Some pictures are too large to display, so saving them to the hard drive first is the option to go.
Server: performance & deadlock improvements (DB).
Language RU: updated - Thanks :-D
Bugfix Food Decay: food does not decay anymore in the market/trading. Instead your non-market food is decayed instead. If you have no more food, only then is your market-food decayed.
Bugfix AI: does not ask to join war for nations that are already dead!
Bugfix Loading into Ships: loading into ships should now also work when the ship is in a harbor!
Bugfix for Background Daemon (Android/iOS).
Bugfix Editor/Modding: nation's flag icons if added manually are now requesting the correct dimension (was wrong!).
Bugfix (Admin): refreshing/updating a user account should refresh the display correctly (no double).
Bugfix Crashes/Editor: should report missing module.config parameters (NULL-nation/league) when updating creating a map.
Bugfix Crashes (Android): added "screenSize" to the AndroidManifest.xml to prevent the app from being destroyed during screen exit!
Non-Open Travel: there is now an option to restrict troop travel to only your territory/enemy territory. Please note that Scouts can still travel everywhere.
Leader Capture: takes wood, iron, stone & food as well (not only gold).
AI Bugfixes (for new map): building Harbors, Fishing Boats & Transport Ships now!
AI Bugfixes (for new map): fixed errors & slightly improved "intelligence" (assets distribution).
Mediterranean Sea (1.0.4): Balancing Wood -> ships cost more wood to build & also wood production reduced (was too much).
Diplomacy Exploit (fixed): 2+ players could switch between e.g. Ceasefires & Alliances continuously to artificially increase their happiness without any penalty. Additional happiness penalties added to prevent the exploit/cheat.
Smilies: "/emots" lists all the available smilies!
Smilies added (see /emots!) :-D
Tournaments/Leagues: a notification with the final standings will be sent to the owner/creator once a tournament or league ends!
Translation Keys: missing keys added (mostly for the awards).
Manual (in-game): updated (only a few parts).
Graphics: optimized (shrunk in size).
Bugfix: city building button was enabled even if there were not enough funds!
Bugfix: Tournaments/Leagues that have already started are hidden from the joinable games list!
Bugfix Crashes: while creating troops/structures.
Bugfix Crashes: resetting tile ownership for certain tiles crashed the game.
