Greetings all!
Shortly, we'll be releasing the first of our slightly revamped monthly updates in the BBA cycle, which we're terming 'War Effort' patches. This is to distinguish between hotfix material and major updates, and to get everyone accustomed to a certain process and expectation. As per usual, we're going to run a short open beta on these changes before they're pushed to the live build.
As you read the patch notes, it may become evident that we're tackling some different stuff to our usual maintenance patches. While the usual bugfixes and balance are present, we're also extending these updates to include the addition of changes to older content. We have not yet settled on a defined scope or cadence for these 'War Effort' updates, but it is our intention to continue providing small upgrades to older country content that we may not revisit for some time, in one way or another. We'll be making selective use of the suggestions forum here, as there are often productive threads on these matters.
While the content changes are something we've wanted to tackle for a while, these patches give us a great opportunity to react to the general balance situation with relative speed.
What We Want From This
To summarise, you can expect monthly updates to contain a variable bucket of the following sort of things:
- Bugfixes
- Small QoL tweaks and changes
- New gameplay perspectives and focuses for some countries with older content
- Gameplay balance changes
- Career profile balance changes
What This Is Not
In the spirit of expectation control, there are a few things you can expect these updates not to contain:
- Large changes to major systems
- Non-fix changes to key calculations (combat, production etc)
- Feature level implementation
This is partly to ensure that mod support during these small updates remains manageable: we will reserve larger changes for major version iterations.
Why Open Beta?
The context behind our use of open beta branches is often misunderstood. We use these as an extra step to verify the changes we have made in a public setting, and to give mod teams a chance to adapt to any upcoming changes. An open beta will often transition to the live branch without any intermediate changes - this means we were satisfied with the integrity of the changes we made. We don't use feedback on open betas to get more changes and fixes in, unless there has been a regression from live content introduced in said beta. This does not mean such feedback is of no value; if we consider such feedback valuable and achievable, it may be added to a future monthly update.
Patch Notes
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# Balance
##################################
- India now has access to a new focus and series of lengthy decisions which allow the offset of the Agrarian Society national spirit
- Imperial Associates can now become spymaster of their faction
- Manchukuo focus 'Hoankyoku' now grants a free Spy Agency if unbuilt, and a national focus granting +1 free operative slot
- Two new one-use war support decisions added, which simulate the effects of radio and film industry propaganda
- One new focus added to Romanian air section: 'White Squadron'
- Air supply mission cp cost has been reduced by 75%
- truce period after kicking a country from faction increased to 60 days from 30
- Hungary's Support Urbanization focus now grants one civilian factory in addition to the three building slots. Institute for Industrial Techniques now requires one of the prerequisites, not both.
- Hungarian spirit 'Invite Foreign Investors' now grants 10% research speed in addition to previous effects.
- Hungary now receives 2 uses of the 25% doctrine cost reduction from the 'Mobile Corps' spirit, from 1
- Default occupation law is now set to Military Governor, from Civilian Oversight
- AI is somewhat less likely to blow the suez canal without reasons
- Soviet NKVD advisors are no longer omniscient beings - enemy spy detection chance reduced to 0.2% base from 5% base
- Italian 'Air Innovations' focus now grants a 50% research bonus, from 75%
- Italian focus 'Reggianes Exports' now grants 1x 50% bonus, from 2x 75%
- Italian Focus 'Citta del Aria' now grants 4x 25% bonuses, from 3x 75% research bonuses
- Italian focus 'Standardization' now provides 1x 75% research bonus, from 2x 75%
- Italian focus 'specialization' now grants 2x 50% research bonuses, from 3x 50%
- Italian focus 'Incrociatori Leggeri' now provides 2x interdiction cost reductions, from 3
- Italian focus 'Incrociatori pesanti' now provides 2x 75% cost reductions for fleet in being, from 3x 75%
- Italian Cruiser Sub and Midget Sub focuses now grant 1x 50% cost reductions, from 2x 75% cost reductions
- Italian focuses 'Navi da Battaglia' and 'Caccia... Cacciatorpprs... never mind' now provide 2x 50% cost reductions, from 2x 75%
- Italian focus 'Redirect Alfa Romeo production' now grants 2x50% research bonuses for light aircraft, from 2x 75%
- Italian focus 'thermojet research' has been made less powerful
- Czech Communist focus 'Communism with a Human Face' now grants 3% Recruitable Population from 2%
- Czech focus 'War College' now grants -100% Field Officer Promotion Penalty
- Czech focus 'Air is Our Sea' now grants -15% fighter production cost, from -10%
- Czech focus 'Equal Access Guarantee' no longer reduces heavy tank production cost, but reduces light tank production cost by 15%, from 5%
- Czech Fortification focuses (left side) now grant significantly more army experience (10-30 each, from 5 each)
- Czech Hungarian Line and Polish Line focuses now take 35 days to complete, from 70
- Ethiopia: Cost to invite to executive council reduced to 100pp from 150, cost to integrate is now 3% stability, from 150pp
- Indian Focus 'Rhani of Jhansi' now provides a commander of level 5, from 3 (with associated skill increases)
- Indian focus 'Navy Funding' now provides 50 naval xp, from 20
- Indian focus 'British Army Support' now grants 2 uses of the 100% research bonus for support technology from 1 use, and 30 army experience, from 20
- Indian focus 'Lions of the Great War' now provides 30 army experience. The spirit granted by this focus now also provides 5% war support
- approximately 2 million people have been returned to Mozambique
- Romanian focuses 'Invest in the IAR' and 'MALAXA' now grant 3 of their respective factory types, from 2
- Romanian focuses 'Ground Support' and 'Air Defense' now grant 2x 50% doctrine cost bonuses, from 2x 25%
- Romanian focus 'Air Superiority' now grants 2x 50% cost reduction bonuses, from 2x 25%
- Romanian focus 'The Armored Division' now grants 2 armored units, from 1
- Warscore from taking a province for the first time increased by 50%
- Garrison Manpower lost per resistance attack reduced slightly
- Small Bomb Bay now has -15 agility, from -20. Bomb Locks now have -20 agility from -15
- Several ai modifiers have been added to the 'Protect Czechoslovakia' triggered event in the Hungarian focus tree, and a tooltip has been added to indicate what you can do to make it more likely to succeed
- Non-strategic materials module now decreases production cost of airframes by 7.5%
- Manchukuo focus 'The Two Emperors' now reduces the Low Legitimacy malus by 20% war support and stability
- Slightly reduced manpower requirements again for lower tier occupation laws
- Timed peace stackables (resource rights + war reparations) now only cancel when at war with the receiver, rather than when at war with anyone.
- The USA now has a significant peace cost reduction for puppeting Japan
##################################
# UI
##################################
- Hovered state highlighting is now used in construction and deployment mapmodes
- You are once again able to click and shift-click to set the priority on production line elements, using the priority frame indicator
##################################
# AI
##################################
- AI will now pick somewhat more interesting military spirits
- Slightly adjusted thresholds for AI using occupation laws, towards a more severe approach
- If Czechoslovakia is at war with Germany, Germany should now wait a while before declaring war on Poland
- improved air role ratios for countries AI
- Gave the AI an extra layer of though process behind taking states in peace conferences. Added several key areas of interest, and reduced their general interest elsewhere.
- AI contesting other AIs in peace conferences should now resolve their conflicts based on a combination of relative power and map aesthetics
##################################
# Modding
##################################
- Added pc_turn trigger for peace conferences
##################################
# Bugfix
##################################
- Italy can no longer claim territory or the subjugation through decisions of a Balkan country if they are in the same faction
- If Italy tries to join the Stresa Front and has any wargoals on a faction member, they will be removed before Italy can join the faction
- Prevent CTD for observer when someone hotjoins
- Fix crash when putting the focus on an Edit text box and closing the screen by using the Escape key
- World Threat will now correctly build and decay from the fabrication of claims
- Fixed inconsistencies with BoP impact in Italy when losing/retaking core states.
- Switzerland now correctly updates best democratic allies when another country changes governments
- Former Presidents of the Swiss Confederation are now available as Councilors again after 1950
- Generic versions of Switzerland generated through Peace Conferences don't inherit Switzerland's systems or Focus Tree anymore.
- Indian civil war will no longer give you 0 units if you complete a civil war focus while Free
- Herzegovina is now transferred to Croatia if the appropriate event option is selected by Germany
- Cairo is now required to form Arabia, and is appropriately cored by the same decision
- Forming the ottoman empire without BftB now grants a core on Cairo. Cairo is now required and cored for the respective decisions in BftB
- Constantinople and Amasya are now cored by the Form Persia decision
- Ticino is now cored by the HRE decision
- Forming Byzantium without BftB will now appropriately grant cores on Constantinople and Amasya. Victory in Egypt and Tunis now requires and grants core on Cairo
- Forming Macedonia now requires and grants cores on Istanbul, Amasya, Van, and Cairo
- Decision alert should now show again if available decisions are present
Shortly, we'll be releasing the first of our slightly revamped monthly updates in the BBA cycle, which we're terming 'War Effort' patches. This is to distinguish between hotfix material and major updates, and to get everyone accustomed to a certain process and expectation. As per usual, we're going to run a short open beta on these changes before they're pushed to the live build.
As you read the patch notes, it may become evident that we're tackling some different stuff to our usual maintenance patches. While the usual bugfixes and balance are present, we're also extending these updates to include the addition of changes to older content. We have not yet settled on a defined scope or cadence for these 'War Effort' updates, but it is our intention to continue providing small upgrades to older country content that we may not revisit for some time, in one way or another. We'll be making selective use of the suggestions forum here, as there are often productive threads on these matters.
While the content changes are something we've wanted to tackle for a while, these patches give us a great opportunity to react to the general balance situation with relative speed.
What We Want From This
To summarise, you can expect monthly updates to contain a variable bucket of the following sort of things:
- Bugfixes
- Small QoL tweaks and changes
- New gameplay perspectives and focuses for some countries with older content
- Gameplay balance changes
- Career profile balance changes
What This Is Not
In the spirit of expectation control, there are a few things you can expect these updates not to contain:
- Large changes to major systems
- Non-fix changes to key calculations (combat, production etc)
- Feature level implementation
This is partly to ensure that mod support during these small updates remains manageable: we will reserve larger changes for major version iterations.
Why Open Beta?
The context behind our use of open beta branches is often misunderstood. We use these as an extra step to verify the changes we have made in a public setting, and to give mod teams a chance to adapt to any upcoming changes. An open beta will often transition to the live branch without any intermediate changes - this means we were satisfied with the integrity of the changes we made. We don't use feedback on open betas to get more changes and fixes in, unless there has been a regression from live content introduced in said beta. This does not mean such feedback is of no value; if we consider such feedback valuable and achievable, it may be added to a future monthly update.
Patch Notes
##################################
# Balance
##################################
- India now has access to a new focus and series of lengthy decisions which allow the offset of the Agrarian Society national spirit
- Imperial Associates can now become spymaster of their faction
- Manchukuo focus 'Hoankyoku' now grants a free Spy Agency if unbuilt, and a national focus granting +1 free operative slot
- Two new one-use war support decisions added, which simulate the effects of radio and film industry propaganda
- One new focus added to Romanian air section: 'White Squadron'
- Air supply mission cp cost has been reduced by 75%
- truce period after kicking a country from faction increased to 60 days from 30
- Hungary's Support Urbanization focus now grants one civilian factory in addition to the three building slots. Institute for Industrial Techniques now requires one of the prerequisites, not both.
- Hungarian spirit 'Invite Foreign Investors' now grants 10% research speed in addition to previous effects.
- Hungary now receives 2 uses of the 25% doctrine cost reduction from the 'Mobile Corps' spirit, from 1
- Default occupation law is now set to Military Governor, from Civilian Oversight
- AI is somewhat less likely to blow the suez canal without reasons
- Soviet NKVD advisors are no longer omniscient beings - enemy spy detection chance reduced to 0.2% base from 5% base
- Italian 'Air Innovations' focus now grants a 50% research bonus, from 75%
- Italian focus 'Reggianes Exports' now grants 1x 50% bonus, from 2x 75%
- Italian Focus 'Citta del Aria' now grants 4x 25% bonuses, from 3x 75% research bonuses
- Italian focus 'Standardization' now provides 1x 75% research bonus, from 2x 75%
- Italian focus 'specialization' now grants 2x 50% research bonuses, from 3x 50%
- Italian focus 'Incrociatori Leggeri' now provides 2x interdiction cost reductions, from 3
- Italian focus 'Incrociatori pesanti' now provides 2x 75% cost reductions for fleet in being, from 3x 75%
- Italian Cruiser Sub and Midget Sub focuses now grant 1x 50% cost reductions, from 2x 75% cost reductions
- Italian focuses 'Navi da Battaglia' and 'Caccia... Cacciatorpprs... never mind' now provide 2x 50% cost reductions, from 2x 75%
- Italian focus 'Redirect Alfa Romeo production' now grants 2x50% research bonuses for light aircraft, from 2x 75%
- Italian focus 'thermojet research' has been made less powerful
- Czech Communist focus 'Communism with a Human Face' now grants 3% Recruitable Population from 2%
- Czech focus 'War College' now grants -100% Field Officer Promotion Penalty
- Czech focus 'Air is Our Sea' now grants -15% fighter production cost, from -10%
- Czech focus 'Equal Access Guarantee' no longer reduces heavy tank production cost, but reduces light tank production cost by 15%, from 5%
- Czech Fortification focuses (left side) now grant significantly more army experience (10-30 each, from 5 each)
- Czech Hungarian Line and Polish Line focuses now take 35 days to complete, from 70
- Ethiopia: Cost to invite to executive council reduced to 100pp from 150, cost to integrate is now 3% stability, from 150pp
- Indian Focus 'Rhani of Jhansi' now provides a commander of level 5, from 3 (with associated skill increases)
- Indian focus 'Navy Funding' now provides 50 naval xp, from 20
- Indian focus 'British Army Support' now grants 2 uses of the 100% research bonus for support technology from 1 use, and 30 army experience, from 20
- Indian focus 'Lions of the Great War' now provides 30 army experience. The spirit granted by this focus now also provides 5% war support
- approximately 2 million people have been returned to Mozambique
- Romanian focuses 'Invest in the IAR' and 'MALAXA' now grant 3 of their respective factory types, from 2
- Romanian focuses 'Ground Support' and 'Air Defense' now grant 2x 50% doctrine cost bonuses, from 2x 25%
- Romanian focus 'Air Superiority' now grants 2x 50% cost reduction bonuses, from 2x 25%
- Romanian focus 'The Armored Division' now grants 2 armored units, from 1
- Warscore from taking a province for the first time increased by 50%
- Garrison Manpower lost per resistance attack reduced slightly
- Small Bomb Bay now has -15 agility, from -20. Bomb Locks now have -20 agility from -15
- Several ai modifiers have been added to the 'Protect Czechoslovakia' triggered event in the Hungarian focus tree, and a tooltip has been added to indicate what you can do to make it more likely to succeed
- Non-strategic materials module now decreases production cost of airframes by 7.5%
- Manchukuo focus 'The Two Emperors' now reduces the Low Legitimacy malus by 20% war support and stability
- Slightly reduced manpower requirements again for lower tier occupation laws
- Timed peace stackables (resource rights + war reparations) now only cancel when at war with the receiver, rather than when at war with anyone.
- The USA now has a significant peace cost reduction for puppeting Japan
##################################
# UI
##################################
- Hovered state highlighting is now used in construction and deployment mapmodes
- You are once again able to click and shift-click to set the priority on production line elements, using the priority frame indicator
##################################
# AI
##################################
- AI will now pick somewhat more interesting military spirits
- Slightly adjusted thresholds for AI using occupation laws, towards a more severe approach
- If Czechoslovakia is at war with Germany, Germany should now wait a while before declaring war on Poland
- improved air role ratios for countries AI
- Gave the AI an extra layer of though process behind taking states in peace conferences. Added several key areas of interest, and reduced their general interest elsewhere.
- AI contesting other AIs in peace conferences should now resolve their conflicts based on a combination of relative power and map aesthetics
##################################
# Modding
##################################
- Added pc_turn trigger for peace conferences
##################################
# Bugfix
##################################
- Italy can no longer claim territory or the subjugation through decisions of a Balkan country if they are in the same faction
- If Italy tries to join the Stresa Front and has any wargoals on a faction member, they will be removed before Italy can join the faction
- Prevent CTD for observer when someone hotjoins
- Fix crash when putting the focus on an Edit text box and closing the screen by using the Escape key
- World Threat will now correctly build and decay from the fabrication of claims
- Fixed inconsistencies with BoP impact in Italy when losing/retaking core states.
- Switzerland now correctly updates best democratic allies when another country changes governments
- Former Presidents of the Swiss Confederation are now available as Councilors again after 1950
- Generic versions of Switzerland generated through Peace Conferences don't inherit Switzerland's systems or Focus Tree anymore.
- Indian civil war will no longer give you 0 units if you complete a civil war focus while Free
- Herzegovina is now transferred to Croatia if the appropriate event option is selected by Germany
- Cairo is now required to form Arabia, and is appropriately cored by the same decision
- Forming the ottoman empire without BftB now grants a core on Cairo. Cairo is now required and cored for the respective decisions in BftB
- Constantinople and Amasya are now cored by the Form Persia decision
- Ticino is now cored by the HRE decision
- Forming Byzantium without BftB will now appropriately grant cores on Constantinople and Amasya. Victory in Egypt and Tunis now requires and grants core on Cairo
- Forming Macedonia now requires and grants cores on Istanbul, Amasya, Van, and Cairo
- Decision alert should now show again if available decisions are present
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