Current News Thread

[Lennartos]

Hi everybody,

as you pretty much all have heard we have been delayed due to several administrative difficulties. (and also one faulty release candidate)

That doesnt change that we still have a great game in development here, and we hurry up to get it done asap.

As the new target horizon is 1st Quarter of 2010, we plan to use a little piece of
the additional time available to us to get a new small feature in. We will soon open up a pool were you will be able to cast your vote on three possible additions.

We apologize for not taking all your spare time this holiday

Best regards,

Your AoD Dev Team

[Lennartos]

Hi everyone...

The last RC had a lot better reaction from Paradox.
However as everyone else but us has gone on holidays, we have used the time to really polish up some extra nice features.

Lets start with a first glance of our new launcher:
Wyk1ng is still working on the graphis, so this is propably nor how it will look in the end.



We have also been working on giving the GUI an overhaul especially for large screens... How many new things can you spot? ( there are some new, never mentioned before)
Work in progress:

[wyK1NG-]

i have added an updated "washed-out" design for aod.
i mainly removed the yellow tone in all of the iface pics
and tried to give it a more ww2, grey/white/bright tone.

[wyK1NG-]

We delivered the RC as said in the last dev diary @ 18.January 2010. The game is ready and done, and its now up to paradox and gamersgate to decide when and how to release it. If it was after us devs, you guys had the game already by yesterday.

[Lennartos]

Hi there

Just a little tech rambling
If you have read the last DD, you would know that i have been looking into the gains by switching to C# MONO platform instead of C++.

Besides of the Cross plattform gain, one of the reasons i wanted to check it out is to make the game more flexible and moddable, and over the last couple of days i have made quite a bit of sample code and experiments and found an excellent solution.
If we base a system on MONO, we now have the option to dynamically compile external files into the game... basically that means for the modders that they will not only have scripting support, but the ability to change and expand the code of the game anywhere we want to give them access to.

For example that would allow:
Total exposure of the AI - now lothos and others would be able to rewrite the AI from scratch, look at what is supposed to happen and write debug code to see what exactly happens in the code.
Also they will be able to add new AIs / plans.
(There are currently 14 AIs and 12 plan types)

Imagine what the community would be able to do with such a feature


ok... back to work

[Lennartos]

Hi everybody

"Gold" status has now officially been confirmed.
February the 23. has been officially set, and there might just be a slim possibility of one more good news for one group of players to come. (calm down - its nothing you will have to pay for )

Also I am glad that johann approves of our changes. ( i think that is actually a big thing coming from the guy who ortiginally designed it)

As previusly mentioned, the past 2 years where at times a rough ride (and full of steriotypical events like me having grown a fullbeard typing away here down in my dark cellar), but also very educational.
Making the game was pretty fun and the most interesting part was to make design decisions that worked and implementing them and seeing ones ideas become a reality.
We where very priveleged to have paradox as a publisher, and you as a community to help us when we where in need of help like the techteams and translation.

I really hope - in fact i am almost certain - that you will like what we have done, and may it be a blessing on your otherwise gray day.

[wyK1NG-]

Community contributions which have been, as a whole and partly, added to the first patch :

- Hungarian Leaders & Ministers (Kunadam & Friends)
- Revised Russian Tanslation (Billy)
- ACIP 1.1 (Leonaru)
- Technological Teams v1.3 (Cardus,Pioniere,Simon1397,Maj. von Mauser,etc. )
- Minor Graphics Mod (TeutonburgerW)

Every contributor whom has send me his Gamersgate Account name a few weeks ago, please check it! The gift package has been distributed!

Greetings

Philipp // wyK1NG

[Lennartos]

Patch 1.03 is now officially out.

Gamersgate was the first, the others will be ready soon.

Gamersgate Link to 1.03

Known Issues with the patch:
Logistics are calculated each hour instead of each day, so users may experience lower performance than 1.02. (according to tests thats about 30% slower speed)
We are working on releasing 1.04 as fast as possible with a totally new logistical calculation method.(much faster than 1.02/1.03)

1.03 ChangeLog:

Secial issues:
New loader for steam customers - steam doesnt want links / commercials to external sites
Fixed leader / tech images for impulse version.
Parts of the Minor Graphics Mod (TeutonburgerW)
Speed increased in peacetime.

New features:
Feature #607 - Shift-click in convoi menu
Mission window now selects new target if province target is invalid (switching from area to province)
Mission window now allows to select provinces from map - more restricted mode but still very neat.
All scenarios now start with auto-assigned leaders at the start of campaign
Added historical Brigade picture possibility for all brigades
Even though its practically a bugfix: Flickering Gone
Auto Promote leader - leaders in units now preferred for all types of units.

AI:
Front AI: Solved the SuperStack issue
Front AI: Now correctly understands the stacking penalities
Front AI: Not as afraid of forts as it once was
Auto Promote leader - leaders in units now also preferred for air and naval units.
Parts of the Minor Graphics Mod (TeutonburgerW)
Auto production now also takes current unit consumption into account when setting sliders.
Auto production now reserves enough stock for units instead of fixed 2000
Ships reduce supply drain when resuppying at port when country has too low supplies.
(players who thought they could run a constant 500 supplies stock when their ships stock alone could stock 2000+ always got a nasty surprise before this)
Admiral AI now more active - should give you more of a fight.

Balance:
Espionage Toned down quite a bit
- Changed Espionage Calculations
Naval Combat now more decicive
Land Bombers vs Ships effect toned down a little
Bug #757 - National Ideas re-balanced

Database:
Typo in Australian Tech Team file
Minor ;-error with Finnish Leader file.
Bug #755 - Events target wrong tech teams
Replaced ä/ö/ü upper and lower case versions with corresponding ae/oe/ue
Korea Scenario: Korea now correctly has military control over USA
Bug #751: Kashmir's flag is broken
Bug #750: India and Pakistan have their Historical Info text swapped
Bug #749: Tooltip for building nuclear power plants is wrong
Bug: Israel 1948 Scenario crash when event 6026 fires. (was a missing } in scenario file)


BugFixes:
Combats duration is now correctly send across MP games. (minimum combat retreat time now working)
Ships supply usage fixed when in port (before they used more stock in port than when at sea)
Bug #331: Leaders can die Without Dying(until reload)
Bug #765: Events can mistakenly impose "currently taking office" delay on ministers (minister replaced by himself gave delay)
Bug #764:Assassinate Minister mission always targets Head of State/Government.
Send Expeditionary force button - tooltip added
Bug #768: Redeploying troops don't need salaries/affect daily decrease in manpower
Bug #766: Forest penalty text shown when attacking a plains province
Bug #768: Redeploying troops don't need salaries/affect daily decrease in manpower
Bug #766: Divisions receive the forest penalty when attacking a plains province
Bug #763: Revoltrisk in core provinces that were occupied by enemy
Bug #761: Paratroopers lost after winning a battle if org < 50%
Shared country Slider Fix
Losses are now correctly being assigned to the division builders nation and not the current commanding nation.
Bug #702: CVLs Show Without CAGs in the Statistics Ledger
Bugfix: Civiwar Annex related CTD fixed
Bug #687: Loss of Skill to Inactive Techteam Happens to Sleeping Teams
Bug in 1944 Scenario: 5 provinces go to france from GER due to USA->FRA giving provinces
Bug #748: CTD when clicking on the province buildings tab. (and no buildings availible)
Bug #572 : Suez Crisis battle scenario does not end
Bug #745 - Wrongly spelled Australian ships
Bug #734 fixed. Statistics now display properly in German Version.
Bug #740 - Foreign IC modifier is backwards for ideas and ministers
Support #714 - Updated Display for Province/Area/Region
Fixed trade Convoy exploit (rounding error)
Fixed CTD when clicking on the detailed convoys list after reload but before 1 hour of gametime has elapsed.

[Lennartos]

Some news from the working front.

1.04 is progressing nicely -
-All the new features are in. (more on that in a later thread)
-New totally integrated (read: much faster) logistic alghorithms are in.
-Savegame file speed improved ( 7 secs -> 5 secs ) - i also hope this solves the issue with some users who have abnormally long savegame times. (now enforcing a 4KB large buffered mechanism, instead of relying autobuffering while writing)
- Some small bugs fixed
- New Loader that works under linux and has some more advanced features like UAC support

We are currently working on balancing touches - with focus on land combat (especially looking at hard units like ARM)

With a bit of luck we can begin beta testing on monday the 19.

[Lennartos]

104 has today been shipped to paradox for Q/A

[wyK1NG-]

1.04 Released. Grab it from the Portals. Loader will be updated.

Also www.aodgame.com has gone online.

[Lennartos]

New Review Found: (spanish)
http://www.warphammer.net/revision/arsenal-of-democracy
Rating: 9/10

Very Bad english translation:
http://translate.google.dk/translate...l-of-democracy

[Lennartos]

Currently working on the 1.05 patch - maily AI

Some issues with the invasion AI have been resolved - should now be much more consistant and deliver the force it had prepared.

currently im working on the front AI...

teaching human wave and exhaustion tactics to the AI..
Currently its too obsessed getting enough odds to actually winning the battle in the first try.
So in 1.05 you should see a lot of continuus attacks with less force, to tire out invaders that have ESE problems.. Until the odds are good for a frontal assault...

This should help china and USSR immensly - as they are just too defensive at the moment (they cannot win with the current odds - so they wait - and this only makes GER/JAP stronger)

[Lennartos]

Well after some modification of AI files and events, things look a lot brighter for china.

But the CHI / JAP balance is very fragile.
Just by tweaking fixing CHI research and build priorities somewhat makes JAP unable to get more than a few provinces deep.

But if japan suddenly manages to reach nanking, CHI looses too much IC and becomes too weak to supply its own troops and maintain any kind of offense - so they sllowly collapse due to japan slowly pushing them(mostly around middle 40).

I think i will try to finish the depletion aware front AI first, as it propably will rebalance things a bit, depending on how deep (and hence low ESE) the japanese get.

After i have finished the AI, and it still keeps beeing a problem,i might be releasing a preview of 1.05 together with a support thread to help find a good balance point to the jap / chi war.

[Lennartos]

Hi there - some updates:

After the above mentioned FRONT AI changes the 1.05 AI look really promising.
JAP/CHI Fight is a bit slower than historical (nanjing in ~41) , but they are really fighting hard and bitter - and CHI doesnt go down before 46 (if the US fails to make any progress). Japan also has capacity to invade phillipines while fighting CHI - so thats a big step forward...
So besides the late nanjing it looks really good.

USSR still seems to be pushed too far in lategame - its historical to 42/43 - germany is bogged down after the first big push, with only slow gains each year - but then instead of pushing germany back slowly, it still looses moscow in ~44 and breaking down to bitter peace 45/46.
The garrison retreat bug has of course also been fixed, so the USSR has more fighting force left in lategame.

Also we used a few days to optimize 1.05.
Honestly I cant feel much difference on my Intel Q9450 - 33 sec / month in 1.05 compared to 36 sec / month in 1.04...
But on some older systems it speed up by 30-40% - this has been done by reducing memory acesses and making smaller cache buffers to reduce the limiting memory acess times.


So future AI tweaks that needs to be adressed before 1.05 release:
1) USSR doesnt use scorched eart yet to a sufficient degree - this would reduce GER IC, and will make horrible losses on german front in winters
2) the allied bombing effect is still a bit too weak / doesnt seem to target national IC enough.
3) AI seems to use too little IC on repair of units and provinces.
4) Transport AI needs to be aware of the dimension of "Time" - so it plans ahead and knows when a transport is ready where and when - instead of only reacting to immidiate needs.

We also have a announcement regarding the AOD team:
Konio - a code security expert and robotics engineer has joined the team.
He has been helping on the 1.05 patch and the optimization phase.
And beleave me, you will see a lot more of in the future

[wyK1NG-]

Progress made in 1.05 development :

We are currently testing 1.05Alpha2

Changelog so far :

Asian Area Colors Fixed (more colors for regions + areas)
Fixed Transport issue where transport fleets where moved around while unloading divisions.
Fixed Issue where invasion AI would become inactive to to targetting country that can be invaded, but province that cannot be acessed.
Shore Bombardment now per default 16 days.
Fixed Region / area Color issue
Improved naval retreat rules
Slider Control Improved - now they all work with buttons as intended
Province MP affects revoltrisk
CombatList now shows military controlled combats
New Front AI - making smaller attacks if it can
Fixed Garrison retreat bug
Changed Unit resupply method - and exportet values to misc
partisan now have bigger effect on ESE
Unit can now go out of supply even if in capital area
Latest Balancing proposal by Andy
Bug 651, retooling should be possible even if no manpower is available
Bug 667 : Synthehtic Oil/Rare can be kept at the deployment queue until needed for no TC cost. - Also added TC cost to other prov improvs
Fixed Bug 678 : AI seems happy to assign its worst Admiral to its best and most important fleets.
Fixed bug # 722 - when you deploy naval units with multiple brigades the unit shows in the deployment-pool only with one attachment.
Fixed bug #728 - AI can ignore redeployment delay when auto-assigning attachments.
Fixed Bug 730 - AI ignores garrisons when making army detection estimates
Fixed bug # 810 - Military control causes foreign units to appear as the controller model.
Improved Timer Tick accuracy
Fixed Small memory leak when division dies
Small Optimizations (Air AI + Province update)
AI now uses min 10% on repair of provinces
AI now uses scorched earth
You cannot repair province engaged in combat
Air AI now prefers national IC

As far as i can say, speed improved also very very nicely compared to 1.04

Stay tuned for further news on 1.05 patch

[Lennartos]

Ai now builds infra, and you can in the AI files now specify prioritized provinces.
Fixed Support # 948 : Newly-created countries get 10 free convoys.
Fixed Support #939 - Increased maximum player name length
Fixed Support #940 - Increased maximum chat winodw length
Coup chance now more tied to dissent. Exported coup chance increase per dissent point to misc.txt
Assigned specific default sprites to air units.
Scorched Earth doesnt destroy province with active combat.
Arid Attriction reduced
Bug #874 Minimap is still active when tab is opened
Fixed bug 903 - French leaders defecting to Vichy doesn't fire

We are currently testing Alpha 3.. beta is close.

[wyK1NG-]

AoD Development Blog got online today.

You can visit it @ http://bl-logic.dk/blog/

[wyK1NG-]

Closed Beta for 1.05Beta2 started.



1.05Beta2 is online for testing at Beta Tester FTP.

If everything runs fine and the version is without really major errors, public beta test will begin.

[wyK1NG-]

Lennart and I attended the Gamescon 2010 in Cologne.
We met there with Paradox and discussed further development.

You can grab current insights into that topic at our development Blog:

http://blog.bl-logic.dk

Stay tuned.


Best Greetings,

wyK1NG // Philipp Karl Friedrich