"Sunflower" (patch 1.2) released! [checksum: bb23]

[fredos386]

So im a minor nation player since majors are too easy and get boring fast. Usually minor nations start with close to no navy and not much dockyard either. I used to do the +3 (i think) dockyard focus before going into the industrial branch. Then would have my 4-5 dockyards do CLs only from 36 to the 40s... so that in years like 42+ i could have a decent CL fleet and then i could compete against majors. Now that CLs have been nerfed, is there any way to still have a chance to succeed vs majors or i have to give up on army and build dockyards? I know minors competing on the see wasn't supposed to happen but it was fun, if minors now have to build dockyards instead of military factories that means minor players will have to choose between owning the sees or the ground right? From my own tests DDs only they die way too fast, can't replace them. Same with subs, and CL still win some but a battle with 20CLs fleet that used to wipe out the ennemy now run away with 14 losses, ouch that means game over. So overall, what would you suggest me to do to still have a chance on the ground and at the sea at the same time with minor nations.

edit: Also many nations start with 2 tech slots, meaning they can't invest so much into researching ships, they are forced to go with one, if they pick 2 then something else will suffer greatly... So what to do?

 

[Tisifoni12]

Another thought about the Polish Navy which in my current game, in September 1941, is still anchored in the Baltic off Danzig. If not run for the UK, if not surrender vessels to Germany, then neutral Sweden is the place to go.

 

[malkys]

I fired up an a-historical game with Germany, after weeks not playing the game.
First off: Great work by PDX! You guys fixed a ton of stuff in a way that you can literally "feel" when playing.

The naval game feels way more balanced IMO. However it seems that fleets can run away easier? My Navy in the eastern sea and eastern north sea was busy fighting single DDs or SS from already defeated countries like Denmark or Poland, without killing them. I think it's not really a bug but more a thing of balance, because the enemy was able to run away over and over again. Of course I should set up a faster fleet composition to hunt them down. Just wanted to share this.

Frontline/ground battle AI was really improved a lot. However the AI still leaves gaps in the front. Not empty provinces in the first place, but provinces that get "obviously" the wrong priority. For example: AI France had very big stacks of troops at the Maginot Line against me, while I was only having 1-2 divisions per province at that part of the front. When I defeated the Netherlands and Belgium with a much bigger force (strong infantry divisions mixed with tank divisions and mot infantry etc), the AI didn't shift troops from the easily defended Maginot Line to stop me in Benelux. It only sent a very small force against me. That way I could easily stomp them in northern and north-west France, while they had a big force idling around next door. It looked like the AI once formed a defence against my initial setup at the Maginot Line and just didn't review the situation later.

 

[SteelVolt]

@SteelVolt: I don't think this qualifies for a bug report, but any chance you can look at the AIs obsession with motorized divisions that was reported in the beta thread, before you move on to whatever the focus for 1.3 may be? The most obvious case are the Soviets, who upon starting a new game will immediately start training mostly motorized divisions and even convert their existing tank divisions to motorized. And then their factories are mostly building trucks. A problem with this is how bad motorized divisions are: Generally 12 or 14 width motorized only with little support, theoretically that should change once SPART arrives, but I've not seen that happen yet.
As a sidenote, I see countries stay on "toaster economy" way too long, e.g. soviets only switching to war economy in 1940, after they are at war with finland and germany. Same thing for France/UK/Nat. Spain.

It can for some countries move to medium tanks via motorized. What is needed there is specialized AI template design scripts for each major. Prio wise I am not sure I can get the time for that at the moment, as scripting and testing takes a lot of time. I would absolutely welcome modding and/or suggestion scripts in this area.

 

[Havebeard]

Somebody owes y'all a good bottle of 18 yr old scotch!

Thank you for the kind words!
Please make this happen. Plenty of scotch drinkers on the team

I don't want to misquote him, but I believe @Havebeard mentioned something about a deep-rooted, fanatical hatred of the British people and state.

Not my words. (???)

Hahaha
Funny, but untrue!

Have you guys thought about adding more National focuses tree, that are made by moders? For Example Better Canada, Czechoslovakia Expanded (Nation Focus + Historical Information Mod), Gud, Konge og Fædreland - a National Focus mod for Denmark, Lords of Winter - Finland Focuses, Minor Nation Sprites (tech trees icons and names for some countires), National Focus Project (Focus tree for Canada, Swede, Persia, Greec, Yugoslavia, Australia, Netherlands and China), Portugal Total Rework, Romania - The Turning Point, Star and Crescent, Viva España - A National Focus and Overhaul Mod for Spain. Please, It could improve gameplay so much.

I've looked at a lot of focus tree mods. Most of them have balance issues or other issues. They are certainly a good source of inspiration and some have interesting ideas.
In general we would prefer adding more than just a tree when fleshing out a country.

I still see a generic portrait. Could you please fix this?

No. It's supposed to be generic. It was empty before. It's not as if it's an important portrait and art isn't free.

Better yet, the Newfoundland Flag, because it looks awesome, and well, Newfies are too!

Neeewfiiiiies! 90kg of pure fluffy happiness!

 

[JohnnyG29]

We don't recognize Alaska and Hawaii! No, but serious. I personally don't know if intended or not. But since this was the flag during WW2 it might very well be.



Wow... First I would like to ask where I speak of the English flag? I Said SWEnglish flag. In Sweden we have an expression for poor English called "Svengelska" (literally Swenglish). It was a joke. And if you analyze the English language in the game, you'll probably find that it is more American English than British that is being used.

I quote from your changelog where you mention this:

"Replaced english flag with american in launcher for language selector"

That is what I was referring to, and thus my original points are still valid.

Thank you for your time.

 

[Tisifoni12]

The naval game feels way more balanced IMO. However it seems that fleets can run away easier? My Navy in the eastern sea and eastern north sea was busy fighting single DDs or SS from already defeated countries like Denmark or Poland, without killing them. I think it's not really a bug but more a thing of balance, because the enemy was able to run away over and over again.

remaining naval elements from defeated countries should either run for an allied nation's port, e.g. Polish, Danish or Norwegian for the UK, Greek for Alexandria, or sail to a neutral port to be interned, possibly in the hope that the neutral nation might become an ally at some point. Alternatively they might surrender their vessels to the victorious occupier or scuttle them, though these might not be preferred options.

The same could be applied to ships caught far from home that don't have the range to get home. For example Italian vessels in the Red Sea / Arabian Gulf with East Africa under allied control have no port to return to within range. They could surrender or scuttle, but perhaps would be more likely to seek internment in a neutral port (Oman, Yemen, Saudi ?)or head for somewhere that might fall under Axis control, e.g. Madagascar or Portuguese East Africa / Mozambique.

 

[Conde Sandokan]

Great work!!

 

[srfcboy]

I'll share my problem, I noticed in 1.1, and that has not changed in 1.2.


I am German, I managed to beat the USSR (with lots of countries, France, Romania, Japan ...)

When comes the turn of the negotiations, although the Romanian territory is very course, I request the creation of Ukraine.

Negotiations happen, Ukraine is created, but the problem is what is fragmented, as the latter now encroaches on new territories won by Romania.

Thus Kiev is separated from the rest of the country by Romanian regions!

I decide to ask Romania to cede territory to me, then I give back to Ukraine to not make a country.

The Ukraine is now a country in one piece.

But after a day, it is the turn of the Russian Empire, which became fascist, who gets the territories that I had taken to give to Ukraine, what crap!
The capital of the Russian Empire in Moscow, and they have a fragmented piece of territory on the other side of the country!


I therefore request that is corrected to 1.3, if possible, when creating a country, it is not fragmented pieces in 1000, quit that some other countries will lose earned regions through conquest.

Red = Russian empire
Dark blue = Ukraine ( with fragmented district everywhere ! )
yellow = Romania

 

[tom_jones]

It can for some countries move to medium tanks via motorized. What is needed there is specialized AI template design scripts for each major. Prio wise I am not sure I can get the time for that at the moment, as scripting and testing takes a lot of time. I would absolutely welcome modding and/or suggestion scripts in this area.

I'd think what needs a look first is why some countries like the USSR are producing motorized as roughly 50% of their ground force (which, when you have 500+ divisions is massive drain of resources) if they're running the generic script, which doesn't seem to have anything that'd call for it? I mean, the unit_base for the motorized is something like 5, vs ~70 for regular infantry. So why is the AI going so nuts with it from the start, long before it researches any techs which could possibly skew that

(also, unless something is severely broken 'it can move to medium tanks via motorized' doesn't explain why the AI would eliminate all its tank divisions altogether and not move to these medium tanks even though it's sitting on completed research for them for years and years, which is what the USSR at least does)

 

[KaeI]

Can we hope that World tension is rebalanced, particulary for Civil War? In my game France have a civil war between democracy and fascist, the war end democracy win and now world tension is 100% in 1938 and all countries start to join allies. Sure, a democracy victory in a major countries must cause a huge fear of invasion when Germany (me) didn't even make anschluss yet and other fascist countries are calm, Italy give up claim in slovenie and dalmatia.


This didn't need a full patch wich will take week, just a hotfix.

 

[Wesen]

I'd think what needs a look first is why some countries like the USSR are producing motorized as roughly 50% of their ground force (which, when you have 500+ divisions is massive drain of resources) if they're running the generic script, which doesn't seem to have anything that'd call for it? I mean, the unit_base for the motorized is something like 5, vs ~70 for regular infantry. So why is the AI going so nuts with it from the start, long before it researches any techs which could possibly skew that

(also, unless something is severely broken 'it can move to medium tanks via motorized' doesn't explain why the AI would eliminate all its tank divisions altogether and not move to these medium tanks even though it's sitting on completed research for them for years and years, which is what the USSR at least does)

I think what SteelVolt said helped me figure out what's happening. It's not that they are moving to medium tanks via motorized, it's that the game matches the historical motorized division to the light tank template instead of the motorized template. So when the AI converts its tank divisions to motorized divisions its trying to upgrade to a better tank template and all these motorized divisions it trains are also supposed to be tanks. This would also explain why the soviets do start building tanks (and replacing motorized divisions) when they get to medium armor. I've been working on a template design script for the soviets and they're now building light tanks from day 0, so that's something at least.
Still can't get the Italians to transition out of their horsie-tanks to sensible light tank divisions. Of course this could be a lot easier if I actually knew what all the variables in the scripts are supposed to do (and if they work as intended now...)

 

[tom_jones]

I think what SteelVolt said helped me figure out what's happening. It's not that they are moving to medium tanks via motorized, it's that the game matches the historical motorized division to the light tank template instead of the motorized template.

That's possible, but there's still two issues with this -- the combined unit_base for motorized and tanks vs regular infantry is at best something like 35:65, not 50:50, meaning there seems to be large over-production still. Second, and more important, if the AI thinks this

makes a better match for "tank division template", to be eventually upgraded, than this

then it needs its head code checked, no excuses.

(both of these are starting templates)

 

[Malickhoi]

Thanks guys for the patch and for all the hard work you've put into this.

There are a lot of improvements compared to 1.1, but still I think there are areas where this could be further... well, improved.

In my latest hands off game with patch 1.2 as Haiti, tag in/out of countries during pause :
- JAP gets kicked by CHI, as soon as the war breaks out. It turns out JAP loses 75% of its army even before June 1940, where they have around 20 divs and 250k soldiers on the field. They seem unable to train and deploy new units, because of lack of equipment. And send kamikaze missions on the Chinese coast that get quickly wiped off.
- Even Italy landed a few divisions in Shanghai in 1940. That's a bit far from Rome. Specially as Rome has been taken by the Brits a couple of times since the beginning of the war.
- GER builds no less than 15000 PzII before September 1939. That's right, 15k panzers. This is completely crazy. However, the AI decides to throw away the Light Tank div template for the Medium Tank one, except that they throw away nearly all their light tanks, while they don't have medium ones ready...
- SOV does not build any tank and seems to deploy mostly motorized divisions before June 1941.
- SOV declares war on FIN, which joins the Axis immediately, provoking Barbarossa as early as April 1940.
- GER invaded Benelux while Poland was still fighting. Not an issue though, specially with 15k panzers to spare.
- GER builds between 2000 and 3000 fighters and various CAS, TAC etc.., which is good. However, they do not use them. Why : the entire Luftwaffe is based in Okinawa to help their JAP ally. So the army has no air cover during Barbarossa.
- JAP builds some fighters and various amounts of other CAS, TAC etc.. which is good. However, they do not use them. Why : the entire Japanese Air Force is based in the Balkans, to help their GER ally. Err... what if everybody keeps his own planes to begin with ???
- In general the AI seems reluctant to use its airforce to conduct offensive missions over enemy territory. However, over empty seazones, it actively hunts gulls.
- USA is neutral, but still sends a few divisions as volunteers all over the place. Would be nice to have a rule other than just World Tension to regulate lend-lease and volunteers, like some form of internal approval of the Congress / Senate. The return of politics.

See attached save game, if that's of any help.

Hope Torch will solve at least some of these
I'm sure we're on the good track, so keep going.

 

[Nunatak73]

I fired up an a-historical game with Germany, after weeks not playing the game.
First off: Great work by PDX! You guys fixed a ton of stuff in a way that you can literally "feel" when playing.

Frontline/ground battle AI was really improved a lot. However the AI still leaves gaps in the front. Not empty provinces in the first place, but provinces that get "obviously" the wrong priority. For example: AI France had very big stacks of troops at the Maginot Line against me, while I was only having 1-2 divisions per province at that part of the front. When I defeated the Netherlands and Belgium with a much bigger force (strong infantry divisions mixed with tank divisions and mot infantry etc), the AI didn't shift troops from the easily defended Maginot Line to stop me in Benelux. It only sent a very small force against me. That way I could easily stomp them in northern and north-west France, while they had a big force idling around next door. It looked like the AI once formed a defence against my initial setup at the Maginot Line and just didn't review the situation later.

I saw the same thing in my first game with Germany post patch. Except France did not shift over ANY forces to cover the Belgium area. Allowing me to rush to Paris, and swing back and encircle the remaining forces on the Maginot line.

 

[MaydayVII]

Hello!
English is not my native language, so sorry for bad explanation. We, me and my comrades, find some problems.
1. We cant make a piece without a totally defeat or a capitulation of one side of war . We want to make a "White peace" - when you territories be the same like before war.
2. Speed problem. We playing 15 at the third speed. And some times few guys had a sync problems and we should play at the second speed. This problem was when they open national focuses. We have bed internet in our countries, so if you can make something with this, make this.
3. Can you make a "Request Lend-Lease" button?
4. Party support should be depend of your population. Because now CONGO can change ideology of USA, and USA CANNOT protect against this (except special guys and focuses, but on the the other side there can be FIVE CONGOS!).
5. More national focuses.
6. ARMORED TRAINS!!!

And here is screenshot, which show that this is not only my opinion.

 

[Meglok]

It can for some countries move to medium tanks via motorized. What is needed there is specialized AI template design scripts for each major. Prio wise I am not sure I can get the time for that at the moment, as scripting and testing takes a lot of time. I would absolutely welcome modding and/or suggestion scripts in this area.

@Invader_Canuck @tommylotto , the AS crew, and the BICE crew might be able to help you out.

 

[henzington]

I actually had a 40 division British invasion while i was busy in France as Germany. It didn't get far but it was by far the largest invasion i had see the AI pull off. I still took back the port and wiped out all the whole invasion but still.

 

[SteelVolt]

(also, unless something is severely broken 'it can move to medium tanks via motorized' doesn't explain why the AI would eliminate all its tank divisions altogether and not move to these medium tanks even though it's sitting on completed research for them for years and years, which is what the USSR at least does)

Actually, given that I know how the code works; it does.
It is possible it is not the only issue, but given that was the only major change to that system when SOV started going motorized crazy, it seems likely that both my guess about the error is correct enough that the proposed solution would improve the situation a lot.

 

[nuttex]

Here's a minor thing that I noticed with this patch - it's no longer possible to skip the current music track by putting the volume slider all the way to zero and then back it up. Was that intentional? I actually used that a lot to skip certain tracks.