Slitherine

And I am one of the shadows, hah! Still think that this is one of the best modding works ever. Glad you are still developing it.

Any feedback is, as always, greatly appreciated!

So, what's the state of the next 5.3 update:

- there's still something up with AI deployment causing crashes as reported by KOB, usually this happens ONCE very early in SP games and then never again (after reloading the autosave everything is fine again). Still,of course, I want to fix that issue before releasing V5.3
- as of now my new routines for AI for correct front deployment, using artillery and attacking capitals are working FORMIDABLY GOOD! So good that France surrendered in 1915. Okay, I maybe a little bit TOO good for my own taste.
- the Turks are storming into the Caucasus like crazy, I'd rather have them attack the Suez: needs more looking into
- the naval AI is a bit too aggressive too with German BBs and BCs launching suicide attacks against the Royal Navy in the Channel early in the game
- besides those minor quibbles it's working quite good

I'm quite convinced once I'm done with the CP AI I'll be able to fix that "Entente AI going all Italy" issue too.

Stay tuned!

the Turks are storming into the Caucasus like crazy

There should be massive logistical penalties for attacking through the Caucasus, enough to be discouraging

Zombo wrote:

the Turks are storming into the Caucasus like crazy

There should be massive logistical penalties for attacking through the Caucasus, enough to be discouraging

Well, the rules for logistics in CTGW are rather lacking. So, what do you propose in this case?

Zombo wrote:

the Turks are storming into the Caucasus like crazy

There should be massive logistical penalties for attacking through the Caucasus, enough to be discouraging

Technically, unless my understanding of WW1 is flawed, the Caucasus front should be the largest front the Ottomans have to deal with.

The Russians had up to a million men operating there & the Turks three hundred thousand. Logistic troubles didn't stop the Russians from capturing Trebizond & Erzurum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasus_Campaign

Meanwhile the other fronts in Sinai, Palestine, Gallipoli & Mesopotamia featured far smaller armies (though probably of a higher quality & better equipped).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinai_and ... e_Campaign
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallipoli_Campaign
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamian_campaign

I think we have an issue where the Russian AI was originally doing something pretty "stupid" (putting large forces in to the Caucasus even when the main Eastern front was on the verge of collapse) HOWEVER that "stupid" thing was pretty historical!

If there are a million Russians in those Mountains then the Turkish presence/fixation on that front no longer becomes an issue?

Well, the rules for logistics in CTGW are rather lacking. So, what do you propose in this case?

maybe just a serious effectiveness hit for Turkish units operating in Russia beyond the Caucasus ( aggravated by winter)

the reverse, of course, should be true for Russians, although possibly to a lesser extent (so that the historical Yudenitch offensive is not prevented)

I was thinking about applying a slight randomization on starting units strength, since in my opinion it's not very realistic/historical to have every single land unit at peak strength when a nation joins the war.
Let's hear about what you think of this:

- all leaderless Army/Cavalry or Reserve Corps have a 33% chance to start at unit strength 9 and a 17% chance to start at unit strength 8. Every unit will be checked separately.

Robotron wrote:I was thinking about applying a slight randomization on starting units strength, since in my opinion it's not very realistic/historical to have every single land unit at peak strength when a nation joins the war.
Let's hear about what you think of this:

- all leaderless Army/Cavalry or Reserve Corps have a 33% chance to start at unit strength 9 and a 17% chance to start at unit strength 8. Every unit will be checked separately.

It's a certainly a good way to immediately show a new player that this is a "new game" & that the old rules may no longer apply!

If it's simple for you to do & there's no chance of it causing MP bugs, then go for it.

Robotron wrote:I was thinking about applying a slight randomization on starting units strength, since in my opinion it's not very realistic/historical to have every single land unit at peak strength when a nation joins the war.
Let's hear about what you think of this:

- all leaderless Army/Cavalry or Reserve Corps have a 33% chance to start at unit strength 9 and a 17% chance to start at unit strength 8. Every unit will be checked separately.

Hi guys. After a long absence from CTGW I'm now back. I will soon download last 5.21 update in order to resume the testing of the game.

This idea of randomising the strength of starting units is quite a good and realistic one.

Cheers!

V5.3 is almost finished.

After dealing with the "problem child" of CP AI I'll just have to apply the same changes to the Entente AI so the dreaded evacuation of the French front in favour of Italy will no longer happen.

In the original script the AI was told to move every Entente unit available in a radius of 7 hexes around Verdun to the area around Cetinje as long as the AI/player front strength ratio in that 7 hex area around Verdun was above 1 no matter whether the AI was actually able to reach Cetinje or Serbia did not already surrender.

"Strength" is an arbitrary value for units as defined in the units script. For example Reserve Corps count as 7 "Strength" while Army Corps count as 14 in vanilla CTGW.

This rather lackluster definition will be changed in 5.3.

Stay tuned!

This is a very good job you are doing to the game.

Seeing how much you are progressing about the AI, I wonder how far you could go trying to change the map. I miss a much more accurate WW1 map, regarding borders, etc. Could we get rounded borders instead of the current ones?

Also, to include historical unit names would be cool either.

Changing the map is impossible, this has come up many times before and is simply not feasible since the map file cannot be altered: it is "read only" and nothing can change that.

Hexagons for the map are mandatory, so no "rounded" borders. Besides you would need to completely rewrite the whole game since the hexagons are a integral part of the game.

Unit names can be changed by clicking on the unit description (for example "French Army Corps") to suit your own needs during play. I'll yet have to discover how to assign specific unit names from the game start.

Rejoice: V5.31 is out, and right in time for the weekend too! ^^

5.33 DOWNLOAD LINK:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1m0GF5 ... bMDfxQRN0D

This update was over a month in the making so it features quite a lot of new stuff:

Changes:

- added a "surrender" button FOR MULTIPLAYER that allows the player who is suffering from the replay crash bug - and therefore is unable to continue the game - to surrender the game from the MP panel.
Although the game then crashes, upon reloading said game is flagged as "over" and thus can be removed without the need to contact Slitherene staff and wait for them to remove the offending game.

- Rewrote the formerly random parts of the combat script to generate the flat average of the former die rolls, which seems to work quite nicely, at least in a SP scenario.

- Rewrote the "unit retreating" parts of the combat script AGAIN. If we now see the "phantom"-retreats again in MP I'll throw in the towel.

- Zeps at 25PP with LOS 6.

- made Armoured Trains quite a bit less cost effective (more MP cost and more maintenance per turn) after I saw KOB spamming those for defense purposes in the savegame he provided, which felt unhistoric.

- Namur now only manned by a Belgian small garrison.

- Schlieffen event will instantly unlock those neutral Belgian coastal hexes ("let the last man in line brush the channel with his sleeve").

- Armoured Cruisers are able to quick-retreat.

- all naval units with commanders are potentially able to quick-retreat.

- CP now have a one-time chance to draw Sweden into the war, following the very next turn Russia has DOWed but ONLY if CP have more INFLUENCE over Sweden than Entente and the event gets actually drawn. The whole "GERMAN-SWEDISH ALLIANCE" event was defunct in former versions.

- unexperienced Air Aces which attack enemy fighters or are involved in intercept- or escort-actions are likely to get wounded if more experienced Air Aces are involved.

- Luigi Cadorna will be unlocked much sooner to plague the Italians.

- Cadorna's suicide attacks always create 1 collapse point for Italy

- Barbed wire will be available a bit later.

- Britain will start with almost no artillery research.

- convoys no longer qualify as "kills" for unlocking of admirals

- ammo cost for BBs, BCs and Pre-BBs reduced to zero when attacking subs. Need to get rid of that misleading "-3 ammo" tooltip, but no clue on how to.

- surrendering minor nations (Belgium, Bulgaria, Romania, Switzerland, Serbia etc.) now cause 1 collapse point for each remaining major nation in corresponding alliances

- combat penalty for cavalry attacking Army Corps with "industrial warfare" upgrade extended to Reserve Corps.

- new choice event for Entente: "FORCE BELGIUM TO COOPERATE" if Belgium is still neutral. Available from 1915 if no German units in France or not enough French units in Germany. Allows both alliances to influence Belgium (normally not allowed), giving Entente a free headstart. Will anger Britain if still neutral (especially if " BRITISH WARNING TO GERMANY" was played) or anger neutral US if Britain is already at war.

- new event "ROYAL NAVY REVIEW": choose this before Britain joins to have all capital ships at peak strength and unlock "torpedo bulge". Else all capital ships start with 0-3 strength point less and suffer experience loss

- new event: "EXPAND ROYAL FLYING CORPS": spawns a British fighter, unlocks "armed aircraft tech" and has a small chance to spawn a British ballon corps.

- AI proper use of artillery instead of crazily shifting artys around...at least if there's enough ammo available and enemies are in range. There's a "fire plan" part to check for viable targets from top priority targets down to "just waste surplus ammo"

- AI proper use of aircraft...if there are any targets around

- AI proper assault of key cities (Paris, Warsaw, Belgrade...) if there are opportunities to take that city

- all leaderless Army/Cavalry or Reserve Corps have a 33% chance to start the game at unit strength 9 and a 17% chance to start at unit strength 8. Every unit will be checked separately.

- Serbian General Misic will be randomly placed at game start just to annoy the Austrians.

- new booms, bangs, screams and other bells and whistles

Enjoy and may your game run stable!

Cheers!

Bugreport

Bummer, that was fast.

Of course it was caused by a last minute change after the last playtest.

V5.31 (links updated)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=119K7q ... 9BV68y63RG

Thank you for fast update, Robotron.
Look at this please. Its not bugreport just comment.
In my game bulgarians lose whole country but did not surrender even in three turns.
AH lose half of manpower and Galicia also serbia(when it was alive) captured 4 AH sities, but AH have 129(!) morale.
Besides with dozens of free units for AI game now feels like zoomby shooter.
I'm not complaining and most likely will win by the end of 1916, it just looks fooly.
Maybe you went too far with bonuses for AI.

Whoops...ooookaaayyyy.....

I misplaced a "plus" where there should be a "minus"...will be fixed in a minute...

*edit*

V5.32
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vnt_v ... 1Bb-LWVPBA

All other links updated.

@Argentum: seems you chose the "difficult" setting? This mod is meant to be played on standard setting, as explained in the starting post. Choosing any other setting messes up the scripts.

No I choоsed a standard setting. By the way that with indestructible AI moral?

Just re-checked: that's per the normal rules since vanilla: AI factions only surrender if their morale is below zero even if they lost all their cities.

Might be worth changing

Crash