Avalanche 1.12.5 OPEN BETA - By Blood Alone - Checksum 18aa - UPDATED

[Arheo]

Greetings all,

Today (and hot on the heels of our latest live patch), we're releasing an early open beta for the 1.12.5 patch for By Blood Alone. This update will be slightly more wide-reaching than previous updates, and contains some more chonky changes to core player issues, including cohesion and AI peace conference behaviour.

In addition to this, the open beta period for 1.12.5 is likely to run longer than our previous open betas, and will receive some incremental updates until we're happy with the state of it - so don't expect this to go into the live branch for a little while yet. As always, your feedback is valuable to us - please use this thread oir the bug report forum to indicate any issues if you're playing on the branch, I'll try to check in regularly.

Important
As usual, with open beta branches, you may encounter some instability. There is a current known issue with hotjoin crashes in some cases, we'll resolve this in the next iterative update to the open beta.

Savegames should be fully compatible between 1.12.5 and prior sub-versions.

Update: the open beta was updated on October 28th with a few more fixes, the new checksum is 18aa. Check out the new patch notes below.

Spoiler: Patch notes - Part 1

##################################
# Balance
##################################

- Minor tweaks made to further railway/infrastructure focuses that were a bit weak, or were unchanged in the last iteration
- Changed certain Italian Balance of Power Decisions from being available only one time to once a year. This should give players more leeway with the whole balancing act
- Songgotu Zhanshan is now an economist for MAN to avoid a double Captain of Industry for MAN
- Stopped medium and heavy flame tanks from being paradroppable
- Reduced values for some modifiers in Swiss National Spirits, including Spirit of Saint Bernard.
- Reduced values for the modifiers in swiss Weapons Designer and Popular Dictator traits.
- Made it less likely for countries to accept Swiss demands for territories.
- Influencing Cantons decision in Switzerland is now slightly more expensive and less likely to succeed.
- Cohesion settings should no longer result in unit clumping for the AI, and provide a much more stable frontline situation for all orders with less relocation, but may have slightly more overall movement than before. [GD note: from a design perspective, cohesion now works significantly better than previously; feedback particularly appreciated here]
- Changed the Yalta conference to make it better interact with the new Peace Conference Format.
- AI peace conference beahviour changed significantly when taking land for themselves. This is now much mroe distance based, and should result in more cohesive borders. [Iterative change #1]
- Peace Conference AI is now slightly more self-aware about contested bids. They will early-out of contests in some cases as an effort to reduce point wastage and to create more cohesive borders. Several defines added to control this behaviour. [Iterative change #2]

##################################
# Stability & Performance
##################################

- Fixed a crash during hotjoining on Mac.
- Reduced the size of the flags texture so the game works on GPUs with 8k texture limit

##################################
# UI
##################################

- Airbase tooltip will now aggregate airwings of the same type, country and mission to make it more readable
- Glow effect is now shown when you can afford a BoP decision
- The game will now prevent incompatible saves from loading when continuing from the Launcher

##################################
# Modding
##################################

- Added has_completed_custom_achievement trigger and debug_custom_achievements console command
- More configurable AI behavior in peace conferences (through defines)

##################################
# Bugfix
##################################

- Minor loc fix for concessions to monarchies for Switzerland. Used to say "Concessions to Swiss Monarchies", now "Concessions to X country (German)" Monarchies
- Added a variable to whichever nation that cedes Bessarabia to Soviet so it shows up correctly in news events
- Fixed typos in Guarantee events for Switzerland.
- Fixed minor comment in Guarantees event for Switzerland.
- Adjusted "Side Active" condition for Balance of Power so it's more accurate.
- Added tooltip for Political Advisor Adolf Furrer so it's clear he can unlock an extra Research Slot
- Fixed typo in one of the Italo-Ethiopian war events
- Improved tooltip in Italian focus All Roads Lead to Rome so that the way wargoal targets are picked is more intuitive.
- General Cedillo is now agian a leader of the Mexican revolt
- Grand Council of Fascism will now actually oust Kings or Christian Democrats in the form of the National Military Junta, if Balance of Power is low enough.
- Fixed old newsevent not having a dynamic loc for the USSrs name
- Slight loc fix changing 'Embargos' to 'Embargo' in the League of Nations embargo event.
- Added conditions for entering peace talks between Italy and Ethiopia, as well as events, and loc, and other things concerning the peaxe conference.
- Fixing missing Modify Government alert for a political advisor can be assigned.
- Salvador Abascal now has a portrait if you have MtG enabled
- Puyi now gets nationalist symbol correctly
- UK shouldn't be able to give Turkey Levant states that they no longer own.
- Germany no longer ignores Switzerland after they've stopped being neutral.
- Fixed trigger not showing appropriate requirements in Human Torpedo decision.
- Suppress the Mafia decision will no longer show infantry equipment requirement twice.
- Italy's Focus 'Negotiate Claims' will be bypassed if certain criteria is met. Certain events will also be skipped, if the criteria isn't met.
- Fixed Germany granting territories to Switzerland in Fascist Path
- Added extra tooltips for expansion focuses in Switzerland
- If France is faction leader, all its allies will join them in the Stresa Front with Italy
- If Italy declines Germany's offer to assassinate Mussolini, Germany won't be able to ignore that rejection and go ahead with the assassination anyways. Also, if the Balance of Power is active for Italy, Mussolini's side will be switched out to the King's.
- Typo fix for BBA_ethiopia_anti_colonialism_events.4
- Fixed bad texture conversion on DX11 when using R8G8B8_UNORM, R8G8B8_UNORM_sRGB and X1R5G5B5 formats
- Ivan Smirnov, Ivar Smilga and Aleksander Shlyapnikov now gets released out of prison if they are still alive and hasn't been released yet when completing Return Democracy to the party
- You can no longer use the "No Garrison -> Kurdish uprising -> Annex" exploit to fast remove Kurdish separatism faster than normal
- Turkish puppets can no longer pick the "invite to alliance" focuses and break free from their overlord that way
- Remade some checks that only checked for "puppet" subject type to include all subjects for Turkey
- Italy can no longer claim the throne of Montenegro if the controller of said state is at war with Italy.
- AI should now respect the equipment_production_min_factories AI strategy even when there is no need for the equipment type
- It's no longer possible to see certain Balance of Power Decisions before finishing the required National Focus for Italy
- Paradrop orders without enough assigned transport wings now display how many wings are missing on the order instance (map arrow) tooltip.
- Scrambled carrier airwings that can perform naval strike or kamikaze mission will prioritize them over air superiority and interception unless they are fighter or interceptor airwings.
- Fixed missing localization of equipment categories fighter and CAS, displayed in a naval combat tooltip and probably in a few other places too.
- Fixed issue where Vorarlberg wouldn't be a core of the Holy Roman Empire when formed by Germany.
- Fixed an instance where the Italian AI would always decline Ethiopian territorial expansions if Ethiopia went up to a satellite via the focus tree
- At the end of peace conference, for new puppets, calculate the right type of puppet
- Songgotu Zhanshan and Megata Toshiro are once again Manchurian advisors
- Tooltips in Northern and Southern Italian designers now specify the need to complete the focus New Industrialization Program to improve them.
- Fixed issue with Italy completing two mutually exclusive focuses when failing on mussolini's missions to conquer North/South Ethiopia and withdrawing from Ethiopia at the same time.
- Turkeys join alliances focuses now bypasses if in faction
- Fixed missing core in the Siberian union that created a weird gap
- Losing non-cores as Italy will now only reduce BoP if the value is below 30% towards the Grand Council. Losing a core will now reduce 15% BoP instead of 20%.
- King Vittorio Emanuele III will no longer get the crown of Albania if he abdicated or died.
- Pressure government decisions will no longer show up if the target country already has the same ideology and is in faction with the sender.
- Focus Topple Amhara Rulers will no longer be available if ideology is not Fascist or Non-Aligned. The Ethiopian characters that become the country leaders of their respective puppet countries will become the leaders of both Fascist and Non-Aligned ideologies.
- Added tooltips in Swiss Focus Tree to notify when the Absolute Neutrality and Swiss Citizen Militia Decision Categories are disabled.
- If a subject of Yugoslavia controls Dalmatia and Italy demands those states, Yugoslavia will get to decide the fate of those states - not the subject nation.
- You can no longer hire several advisors of the same type
- Fix potential OOS on hot-joining caused by data on executing air missions never being written to the savegame.
- Fix CTD when leaving a game where an air group for whatever reason contains a faulty airwing reference.
- Fix potential OOS on hot-joining a second time without restarting the game, caused by erroneous reading of daily port strike limits from the savegame.
- Fix OOS involving interception missions targeting an enemy airwing that's passing through a region, where both the enemy's mission region and the interception region updates on the same hourly tick.
- Ceding Bessarabia is now properly showing the former owners name in an upcoming news event

Spoiler: Patch notes - Part 2

##################################
# Balance
##################################

- Adjusted base org values for ship types
- Reduced org bonuses for some ship classes in doctrines
- Medium and heavy batterys attack and peicing adjusted, bb and bc armour no longer increases visibility and have higher armour values
- Increased xp spend cut off for legacy land equipment upgrade
- COMBAT_DAMAGE_SCALE_CARRIER returned to 5 was 1, NAVAL_STRIKE_DAMAGE_TO_STR decreased to 1 from 2, NAVAL_STRIKE_DAMAGE_TO_ORG decreased to 1.5 from 2
- Air combat COMBAT_DAMAGE_SCALE increase from 0.25 to 1
- SHIP_TO_FLEET_ANTI_AIR_RATIO increased from 0.2 to 0.25, ANTI_AIR_POW_ON_INCOMING_AIR_DAMAGE increased from 0.2 to 0.25, ANTI_AIR_MULT_ON_INCOMING_AIR_DAMAGE increased from 0.15 to 0.2
- Removed multiply stats ic cost and AA from Ship AA modules, increased base AA attack to replace them
- Reduced base Heavy hull costs slightly,all treaty battleships should now fit within treaty limits
- ENG now starts with 36 BB hull researched, nelson class now obsolete at 36 start
- Slightly improved Fascist/Neutral approach to beating overseas countries

##################################
# Stability & Performance
##################################

- Fixed rare CTD during GUI initialization in DX11
- Fix CTD caused by incorrect parsing of persistent AI strategy

##################################
# AI
##################################

- Improved ENG BB ai templates
- AI no longer treats obsolete equipment as best available equipment
- AI ENG will now try to build at least some KGV class BB's on time
- AI ENG now wants to build slightly higher ratio of BB's

##################################
# Modding
##################################

- Reworked how ai_strategy unit_ratio is used to calculate and set build_airplane values. See common/ai_strategy/documentation.info for details.
- Added a list of all active ai_strategy entries to the imgui view ai_strategy.
- When retrieving a list of equipment icons or 3D models from the equipment graphic_db to display in the tank or plane designer any duplicate entries will now be removed.

##################################
# Bugfix
##################################

- Switzerland will now seize the gold reserves of countries it enters war against.
- Added bypass for Swiss Focus 'Trade Agreement with Germany' for when Germany is not fascist, and it will not be completed if Switzerland is at war with Germany
- Added bypas to the Swiss focus 'Withdraw from the League of Nations' for when the League of Nation has already been disbanded.
- Fixed issue where Switzerland would not have a Viable European Fascist to complete Fascist Path.
- Set the correct population in the Swiss Plateau state in Switzerland, and adjusted the population in other states.
- Fixed first loading screen background flipping immediately as GUI is being loaded
- Increased AI weight for Japan to abandon the naval treaty in early 1937.
- Fix crash on Leader details screen, officer corps tab, when the player clicks on an advisor role to give to a unit leader
- Switzerland no longer gets "Breach of Neutrality" event when the Absolute Neutrality category is not present or when the hostile country is in a faction while not being the faction leader.
- Switzerland will not be able to offer trading gold with countries they're at war with.

 

[BubblesZestje]

- Ivan Smirnov, Ivar Smilga and Aleksander Shlyapnikov now gets released out of prison if they are still alive and hasn't been released yet when completing Return Democracy to the party
- Turkeys join alliances focuses now bypasses if in faction

Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooood stuff. Just to be safe tho, does Turkey's alliance focuses check for Turkey being a puppet?

 

[Gort11]

- AI should now respect the equipment_production_min_factories AI strategy even when there is no need for the equipment type

Interested to know what this means exactly.

 

[GSP Jr]

Outstanding, love the batas, great for us modders to try and stay ahead of the changes.

 

[CraniumMuppet]

Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooood stuff. Just to be safe tho, does Turkey's alliance focuses check for Turkey being a puppet?

It was scrambled out from the patch notes by mistake, seems the way we fetch patch notes does not always like multilines, but added it back. The missing fixes were
-Turkish puppets can no longer pick the "invite to alliance" focuses and break free from their overlord that way
-Remade some checks that only checked for "puppet" subject type to include all subjects

 

[Arheo]

Interested to know what this means exactly.

AI strategies that set a minimum number of factories are no longer removed or downscaled if the AI doesn't feel it needs the equipment (rare, but occasionalyl happened)

 

[Steel_Viking]

Excellent work here!

As a side note, any chance we could see a fix for the duplicate 5 year plan for SOV when on historical branch? This issue was resolved for the alt branches, but persists on Stalin’s branch.

 

[Terracos]

Reduced values for some modifiers in Swiss National Spirits, including Spirit of Saint Bernard.

I dont like that, it was so much fun playing with 100% trickleback. Wonder which else got nerved, having over 40 25-width mountaineers was also impressive and them having over 100 ORG.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

That was surprisingly quick. Still no decision notification, tho

 

[abca]

Kindly Balance Navy now, Light Cruisers are going to be meta, And, Light attack is way too powerful. And, why are light attack doing so much damage to armored capitals!? I hovered over the capitals to see the sources from which they received damage, Light attack was like 60 to 70 % or even more. Rest were torpedoes. Earlier, it was light attack heavy cruisers. Now, its is Light attack, just light attack. Refit your capitals to have maximum light attack. You don't even need Armor. You just need light attack. And, Light cruisers are most efficient. Because they can become veterans and still survive but, destroyers can't.

Also, in a later test, I paired equal number of CL with BC without destroyers and CL won despite BC having 2 secondary batteries.

I might be one of the first to say about this on forums. But, its very much known for a very long time. Also, more people are realizing this. This guy can also verify it to you:

And, this the old video showing it had been thee for a very long time:

 

[C0RAX]

Kindly Balance Navy now, Light Cruisers are going to be meta, And, Light attack is way too powerful. And, why are light attack doing so much damage to armored capitals!? I hovered over the capitals to see the sources from which they received damage, Light attack was like 60 to 70 % or even more. Rest were torpedoes. Earlier, it was light attack heavy cruisers. Now, its is Light attack, JUST LIGHT ATTACK. Refit your capitals to have maximum light attack. You don't even need Armor. You JUST NEED LIGHT ATTACK. And, Light cruisers are most efficient. Because they can become veterans and still survive but, destroyers can't.

Also, in a later test, I paired equal number of CL with BC without destroyers and CL won despite BC having 2 secondary batteries.

I might be one of the first to say about this on forums. But, its very much known for a very long time. Also, more people are realizing this. This guy can also verify it to you:

And, this the old video showing it had been thee for a very long time:

More changes to the navy are on the way they just didn't make it into this beta build, putting things in all caps also won't make changes come any quicker. The process is in motion, and it will take the time it needs.

 

[abca]

More changes to the navy are on the way they just didn't make it into this beta build, putting things in all caps also won't make changes come any quicker. The process is in motion, and it will take the time it needs.

Sorry for inappropriate behaviour. I have made every thing small so that someone else might not get upset.

 

[BubblesZestje]

Question, could the requirement in Administrative Reforms for Aleksey Rykov to be alive be removed? Or a bypass added to it failing that, rn the right opposition can be locked out it's focus tree and creating/joining factions since that gamerule only changes with International Revolutionairy Marxism.

 

[Limyx826]

Quick check for a few stuffs in the new beta. The NATO symbols still not fixed, the tank research page still have scaling issue, the decision is available notification is still gone. While trivial in nature, still hoping the team will fix these bugs, especially the decision notification one as that is quite vital.

Also is it possible to add into the database for pre-existing foreign equipment license agreement for nations that have foreign equipments but haven't research any related tech to produce any equipment. I found out that it is impossible to reinforce the air wings in Switzerland as they do not have aircraft researched beforehand and rely on French and Dutch planes.

 

[hoho96]

thanks for the new beta guys^^ finally getting the AI Cohesion fix is much appreciated. Looking forward to what comes next

 

[Razgriz13]

I have a question: Why Paradox prioritized for carrier planes a fuction over the plane type instead of the mission gave to the plane? Example: A fighter with guns and bomb locks will only be fighting vs planes, but it could fight ships if the option was selected. Is it a performance thing?

 

[Timmysoboy]

The new wing sizes makes it nearly impossible for smaller countries to send air volunteers because they cannot hit the minimum required amounts of plains. Is this something the team will look into changing, or should I expect that this is how the game will continue to function?

 

[Alexander 'The Grape']

More changes to the navy are on the way they just didn't make it into this beta build, putting things in all caps also won't make changes come any quicker. The process is in motion, and it will take the time it needs.

Thanks for the iteration, already looking forward to testing out the new Carriers. Being able to have Navs that also have good air attack in exchange for low range and high cost is going to be a great design challenge for the Air Designer, and open up new strategic options.

Other than the positioning changes being underwhelming due to admiral traits and low impact, and the underperformance of BBs/BCs, the overall navy experience is much better, and I look forward to further iteration.

The changes to AA alone has opened up lots of new tactical possibilities, and I've had a ton of fun playing as naval focused nations in single player and multiplayer alike.

One thing that hasn't received much attention is the UI. I was playing with a newer player the other night and trying to help him figure out how to do simple things like merge navies into one stack and assign missions properly was really difficult. I feel like the Naval UI could really do with a pass to help with reducing the number of clicks needed to do simple things.

Stuff like automatically selecting all tasks forces in a fleet when I select the admiral, keeping the same repair/engage priorities when splitting off task forces, deselecting mission regions with right click, and trying to keep the same kind of UI as used for armies would go a long way into making it less cumbersome. Not sure if that's your department, but I do think it's important to think about the new player experience and not just the kind of players like me!

 

[Bambilambi]

Good work with the fast new beta patch! Front cohesion yay!

Quick tests shows carrier fighters doesn´t seem to work on scramble.

Edit updated test:
There is still a clear difference when on mission or on scramble mission for CV fighters.

220 advanced CF fighters on scramble (no mission on a carrier) doesn't defend.

Tried both vs 100 and 500 1936 nav bombers.
When on mission the 220 fighters can shoot down the navs. But that is in normal air battle.

When naval battle (naval bombing) occurs and the CV fighters are on scramble the Nav losses are usually 0 sometimes but rarely, 0-3 are lost.
When I after naval battle check in the air management windows those 0-3 are due to AA, not due to defending fighters. please fix!

Good luck with continued tuning

 

[Gort11]

Ran a hands-off game just now on the new patch. Played as Haiti with historical AI focuses checked, took no actions, ran the game until Barbarossa and then tagged around the majors to see how they're doing.

I saw that when Belgium capitulated, Germany no longer got all their African possessions, so well done there.

HOWEVER, in April 1940, Germany took over Vichy France, and got all their African possessions, meaning they ended up with huge numbers of divisions overseas fighting in Africa anyway. The British AI doesn't seem great at punishing this behaviour - they don't raid with surface ships when they really probably should.

Then in May 1940 Finland accepted the Soviet demands, and gave up land. Then in November 1940 the USSR declared war on them anyway! They then signed a white peace and no other land changed hands.

I didn't see anything else weird before Barbarossa, so I tag-switched around the various majors and here are the issues I saw:

Japan:

• Still building very high-level ports in the Caroline Islands, presumably because they've a large fleet there. Not as bad as last patch, though.
• They're focused on researching armoured cars and anti-tank guns despite not having any. Trucks would be better, or engineers, or AA guns, or radar, or naval guns.

China:

• Building 1936 infantry gear and artillery despite having 1940 tech, but deficits in both areas mean this may be OK.
• Not many ministers - all they have is war economy, mining concern, and a head of army and air force. Not sure where the political power's all going.

USSR:

• Army is still tiny, only 203 divisions, with 11 medium tank divisions in training. They did recently go to limited conscription, but it feels too late.
• Tank production seems better, 27 factories on medium tanks, 7 deployed medium tank divisions and 11 more in training.
• Very sparse politically, just limited conscription, war economy, and a head of army and air force.
• They haven't killed Trotsky, so still have -20% stability and -15% political power.
• They're running "The Golden Idol of Capitalism" propaganda which does nothing for them, and I can see they've been running "More Oil for the Motherland" despite having full oil stocks. I think the USSR has been running propaganda basically at random, despite having very little political power.
• They're very focused on researching armoured cars and anti-tank guns but they barely use them (a single factory on armoured cars, no anti-tank gun production and they're only used in mountaineer divisions for some reason)
• They've made four variants of inter-war armoured cars, a waste of 55 land XP.
• Lots of divisions are guarding the Eastern seaboard of the USSR, and out of the way places.
• Have not annexed Estonia.

USA:

• Researching armoured cars despite not using any. One of the only nations that actually builds anti-tank guns.
• They've neglected large airframes (none researched at all), despite needing them for dropping their nuclear bombs.

Germany:

• Resistance is through the roof, but they're running Civilian Oversight in all areas. This must be costing them a lot of manpower and equipment.
• For some reason they've made a Bf 109 D fighter which is like a Bf 109 A fighter, except with a third of the firepower. It's really bad but they only built a couple of hundred.
• They've made five variants of basic armoured cars, a waste of 160 land XP.
• Tons of divisions fighting in Africa, since they took over Vichy France in April 1940. They didn't get Belgium's African colonies this time, though!
• They're ignoring rubber synthetic research, despite having synthetic refineries and having to import rubber from Siam.

UK:

• Lots of radar research, but no radar stations except what they started with. I'd at least upgrade the one in Sussex and put one on Malta.
• Anti-tank tech is up-to-date, but they're still building obsolete anti-tank guns.
• Have spent 240 land XP making twelve variants of inter-war armoured car.

Italy:

• Resistance is through the roof, but they're running Civilian Oversight in all areas. This must be costing them a lot of manpower and equipment.
• Their main fighter aircraft has 6 air attack, just a pair of heavy machineguns.