Several notable updates this time round. First and foremost, weather is now scaled. This affects movement for infantry and observation for pilots accordingly. Additionally, rates of sickness and damage to trenches during heavy rains are affected by weather scaling.
Another new addition is the addition of overall artillery upgrades.
This slightly modifies the ability of artillery as the game goes on, so that different nations have varying artillery capabilities.
Movement - Determines the movement speed of artillery units. Damage - Determines damage done to structures, as well as casualties inflicted upon infantry units in the open. Rate of Fire - Determines number of tiles attacked when bombarding an area. Since only a portion of an attacked area is actually hit per game tick, high rate of fire can provide an advantage. Range - Determines attack range of artillery batteries.
Also, a new popup that displays unit composition is now available from both the unit details popup when a unit is selected and the Order of Battle screen. For the most part it's just flavour, but you will be able to see artillery attributes from this popup as well.
Bugfixes/Changes:
Order delay is now shown in detail, allowing you to see the breakdown in how the distances of HQ units affects it.
Passive upgrades now take some time to be distributed to units in the field.
There is now a popup dialog that appears next to the unit's name when selected. This shows the weapons possessed by the unit, as well as any passive upgrades. This information also shows up when selecting units in the Order of Battle screen.
Passive unit upgrades, such as gas masks and helmets, are now determined per unit rather than instantly across the whole division when unlocked. This means it takes time to distribute them to relevant units.
Added an upgrade for steel helmets.
Fixed bug in which units from multiple scheduled orders would return to the same location regardless of where their targeted tiles were.
Command range of all units has been increased.
Base movement speed of all units has been increased.
Fixed crash when viewing status of reserve units from HQ screen.
Weather and fog are now scaled. This affects movement for infantry and observation for pilots accordingly.
Time of day and fog now causes a subtle overlay and color effect which might help with easily identifying both of these things.
Cancelling orders now works for moving units. Previously it would only cancel the unit's intended action, but not the underlying move order.
Enemy offensives used to lag the game dramatically, which forced me to stagger the assaults and stretch them out over unrealistic durations. I've tweaked the the pathfinding logic for enemy offensives so that enemy offensives are a lot more instantaneous.
Previously, artillery units would also charge during enemy offensives. This no longer happens.
Help text has been updated.
Thanks for playing!
Large Forests
Hi all,
As per request, I've added large-scale forests, as well as making the map much more populated in terms of houses and farms in general.
Most of the work I've done in the past week or so has been under the hood, so the updated terrain is the only change for this update.
Bugfixes/Changes:
More terrain variety and quantity to prevent the map from being so empty.
Large-scale terrain features now in the game.
Supply Priority
Hi all,
I've added the ability to prioritize supply types when delegating supply lines.
Other than that, just a bunch of quality of life changes and bugfixes, as well as the fixing of a memory leak which slowed the game to a crawl when run for too long.
Bugfixes/Changes:
Distance now affects damage from enemy attacks.
Enemy AI no longer launches more planes than it should based on its Aerodrome level.
Can now set supply type priorities for delegated supply orders.
Units now retreat to a nearby position after a scheduled order completes rather than going all the way back to where they came from. This is to avoid wasting time on continuous orders.
Fixed bug in which cohesion was being regained even when out of company HQ range.
Choking gas can no longer be unlocked without requisite Valour points.
Mining tools upgrade no longer appears on the Eastern Front.
Inactive exit button in the top-right corner of the pause menu no longer appears, since you must use the "Close" button to close the dialog.
Infantry weapons for Austria and Russia have been updated in the Order of Battle screen.
Fixed bug in which Supply Area delegated tasks were not properly refreshing themselves, causing units to endlessly supply fully-supplied units.
Fixed a rather serious memory leak that would slow the game down to a crawl after a few in-game months.
Fixed another rather serious memory leak that would slow the game down to a crawl during mass artillery bombardments.
Event log now keeps track downed pilots and low supplies even when not open.
Fixed potential crash when issuing orders without units selected.
Experience bars in the headquarters screen now have tooltips that let you know how much Valour is needed for each upgrade.
Fixed bug in which unit path highlights would disappear even with the movement information button in the top-right toggled on.
Fixed bug in which service time for officers was being recorded incorrectly.
Eastern front orders pop-up dialog now properly says AOK and Stavka for Austria-Hungary and Russia.
Fixed bug with small bars showing numbers, morale, supply, and readiness in pop-up dialogs with clickable lists of units. Previously, the maximum value of the blue numbers bar was set to the maximum value for a rifle platoon, which caused some confusion when units with lower maximum numbers, like artillery, were selected.
Thanks for playing!
Redoubts
Hi all,
Mostly just focused on refining what is already in the game and fixing some bugs, some of which were brought on by the changes I made to scheduled and automated orders last time round.
One major addition is the addition of larger-scale terrain features, like hills and high ground. This was made possible due to the expansion of the map. Note that these only appear in the Western Front campaign, as strongpoints and redoubts played a larger role in this theatre.
The player also starts with a second trench line on the Western Front to reduce crowding at the start. I tried to space things out a bit better when starting a new game, so hopefully it helps a bit with organization.
Bugfixes/Changes:
Added larger ground elevation configurations, and the enemy occasionally starts with redoubts.
Artillery battalion HQs now spawn near their companies.
Player now starts with a second trench line and second communication trench.
Cancelling orders or withdrawing units from orders no longer cancels everything.
Units performing scheduled orders set to repeat return to their jumpoff positions properly again.
Fixed potential crash bug when using gas shells.
Fixed bug in which units in blockhouses were not properly sighting and attacking approaching units.
Building trenches and comm. trenches using a painted target area now only builds them around the edge of the area rather than all over the entire area, which made no sense.
Fixed crash bug when assigning scheduled order to a target area.
Fixed crash when loading a new game on the Western Front after playing a game on the Eastern Front.
Tweaked pathfinding across rivers and reduced lag when crossing them.
"0th Division" should no longer happen.
Sunrise and sunset times are now different based on week. Western front is a rough approximation based on sun graphs from Brussels, Belgium. Eastern front is based on Krakow, Poland.
Thanks for playing!
Detailed Task Delegation
Hi all,
I've spent the last week or so tweaking some of the task delegation.
I've introduced a new popup in the Headquarters screen that allows you to customize task delegation. Each task is capped by the assigned officer's Organization rating with the exception of the air sorties, which must be upgraded at the Aerodrome. It is also worth noting that the AI will attempt to prevent crowding, so things like Rest orders will only be issued if there are open dugouts available.
This new popup should allow more transparency and granularity in the task automation, and will hopefully make it easier for me to add new tasks as I go along.
Another big change is that the Suppress Area and Charge Position buttons are now split into several buttons. This allows you to suppress area as before, but using different shell types with one click. It also means you can have multiple barrages going on simultaneously. This applies to Charge Position commands as well. Raids are now split into three types.
Intel raids are focused on grabbing prisoners. Units will retreat the moment they capture enemy soldiers.
Hold raids are focused on disrupting the enemy. Units will stay in place and attack passing enemy units until ordered back manually.
Assault raids are focused on hurting the enemy. Units enjoy bonuses to melee attack strength, as well as extra damage to enemy morale. However, units will also take more casualties.
Bugfixes/Changes:
Menu bar at top of screen has been reworked to allow more options with fewer clicks. New raid types are available.
Added stretcher bearing, drilling, and resting in dugouts to task delegation. Drilling falls under the Operations officer. Resting falls under Administration. Stretcher bearing falls under Logistics.
Automatic field kitchen construction now occurs closer to the front line.
The user now has the ability to customize some of the task delegation, assigning different priorities to each task. Note that normal restrictions, like crowding, still apply.
Fixed bug that would break pathfinding when crossing rivers after loading a saved Eastern Front game.
Fixed bug in which medical units weren't actually picking up wounded men and bringing them to dugouts/field hospitals.
Optimized the intense lag that would occur when using the Suppress Area command.
Selecting a unit in the Scheduled Order popup now selects the unit for real.
Obscured units, after being observed by pilots, now last longer to give the player a better idea of where units in no-man's land might be. Previously they were disappearing way too fast to be of any use.
Cavalry and tanks can no longer be obscured or made invisible/unknown to the enemy (although blocking of sight and attack lines against them due to elevation still applies).
Unit stun duration is now dependent upon the severity of the attack. For instance, heavy machine gun fire from multiple sources will stop units in place longer than a single gun.
Gas is now a lot more deadly without gas masks.
On/off buttons and sliders have been reskinned.
Thanks for playing!
Optimization - Mar. 14
Hi all,
After the large content update last time around I spent the last two weeks optimizing and refactoring to make the game a bit smoother. Hope it helps!
Bugfixes/Changes:
Rewrote underlying game logic to improve loading speeds and overall smoothness of game. Should no longer take as long to reload save games or return to the main menu.
Toggling the Underground and Ownership buttons at the top of the screen should be a lot quicker now.
Charge Position is faster.
Inverted camera controls for mouse wheel drag, so that moving the mouse up with the middle mouse button pressed moves the screen up. Previously, doing so would "drag" the screen up and move the camera down.
Fixed pathfinding issue with underground tiles.
Thanks for playing!
Hotfix - February 28
Hi all,
Just a small update with some bugfixes after the large update last time.
Bugfixes/Changes:
Fixed issue with Fog of War not working for trenches when starting a new map.
Fixed issue with map size getting messed up when reloading a save game from a different map type.
Fixed bug with scheduled wiring orders not repeating properly.
Fixed bug in which cursor would disappear when reloading a save game for some reason.
Fixed bug in which game would stop pausing during scrolling after reloading a save game.
Thanks for playing!
Eastern Front
Hi all,
The features for the Eastern Front map type are done. I've added the Austrians and the Russians into the game, with their own pros and cons. The Germans are also an option on this map type.
Biggest addition is the addition of rivers. I'll be adding more variations later on, but the core mechanics are present. To cross rivers, you must build bridges or pontoons. Pontoons build a lot more quickly, but are more easily destroyed. If there are no bridges available, units will ford the river, which incurs a large movement penalty. Artillery and cavalry units will ford the river more easily, but incur the same movement penalty, so it becomes important to plan ahead a bit with bridges and pontoons if large scale movement occurs.
Cavalry units are also added and become part of the default allocation of units when starting an Eastern Front map. The tradeoff is that tanks are no longer an unlockable upgrade on the Eastern Front map type. Cavalry have the ability to attack at range using carbines, but most notably they can also charge. Charging works like painting areas, except that cavalry units will attempt to follow the path you've drawn once it is confirmed. This will switch the selected cavalry units to melee attack mode.
Lastly, I've added marshes into the game. This is just another terrain type that heavily hinders movement and increases rates of sickness for units in it. Marshes do, however, conceal units, so it's not all bad.
Bugfixes/Changes:
Added marshes, rivers, and cavalry into the game.
Area paint brush can now paint paths when brush size is thicker than a single tile.
Fixed pathfinding bug in which units would always go to the front line, then run back rather than proceeding directly to specified position when told to move into open ground.
Fixed bug which prevented build orders from properly being issued when issued in succession.
Fixed bug in which Cut Wire order would randomly disappear.
Changed loading text to be more accurate.
Thanks for playing!
Update - Jan. 24
Hi all,
I'm starting work on the Eastern front map type, which will introduce the Russians and Austrians. It will also introduce marshes, cavalry units and rivers. This is a lot of work, so this update and probably the next will be relatively light.
I've added the farmland terrain type in the meantime. It doesn't add that much to gameplay, but I figured it's always nice to have more stuff in the game, especially since I was already working on terrain. Lastly, due to complaints about crashing when saving or loading, I took a few days to rewrite the save/load system to be less of a memory hog. I suspect this was a major reason for the crashing. Needless to say, previous saves will be made obsolete by this update.
Bugfixes/Changes:
Rewrote save/load to use less memory, which should reduce the amount of random crashes from doing so.
Added farmland terrain type. It will obscure and hide units, but offers no protection from attacks.
Fixed bug in which units were crowding on single-tile build orders.
Construction in general is quicker - I felt it was unrealistic to take weeks to build a communication trench, for example, when motivated troops were capable of entrenching within days.
Trenches are now quicker to build, but provide less protection from artillery. Conversely, reinforced trenches provide more protection, but it takes longer to reinforce trenches.
Thanks for playing!
Update - Jan. 7
Hi all,
Due to the holidays, I didn't get a ton done for this update. Mostly fixing a few bugs and doing a bit of optimization.
Bugfixes/Changes:
Fixed bug in which enemy AI supply units weren't working properly, preventing it from proper construction.
Reworked texture rendering so that map scrolling is a bit smoother at higher zoom levels.
Fixed bug in which delegating tasks to your Operations officer would lag the game.
Slightly increased the amount of starting wire for the enemy, but limited it to the first two trench lines.
Fixed tooltip in top menu bar - the red cross should say "Casualties Sustained".
Crowding should be automatically avoided when issuing build orders.
