Slitherine

Ave!

Version 1.3.4 is released today. You can update via the launcher program, via My Page on the Slitherine website, or directly from here.

Fixes
Amphora Fabrica fixed
Forced march decision fixed
Administrative Burden was always greater than expected, because it also factored in the income of the new turn
Fix to a message about slave dispatching
Fix to a minor bug cancelled interception
Fixed a few typos

Quality of Life and UI improvements
Loading game is three times faster than before. Can now load really late-stage games much more easily.
Clicking on a trade good in the trade panel will show it specifically on the map.
Unit Maintenance cost shown in detailed tooltip
RGD button bounces until player clicks on it once or plays a decision.
Conversion chance is shown in the ethnicity tooltip (if absent, then the ethnicity is made only of slaves)
Added more shortcuts: overlays now mapped to 1 to 7 then SHIFT 1 to SHIFT 7. Can switch between region and province with CTRL-SPACE
100% healthy units will have a bright green triangle on the Unit Panel, different to other healthy units (66-99%)
Added a message when a new herd is given to nomads’ nations
Provincial capital shown in the region panel.
Fix in overlay 'free building slots' where idle regions not part of a province would never show

Various rules change or improvements
Distance is now a factor when checking who trades with who
If you have two identical main capital/palace buildings, then one will be removed, even if you are within the limit of the number of capital regions.
The last possible mission will still deprecate now, removing the oddity of seeing a negative turn number.
Ships can't be deployed on land
Ships are now ignored in case of land battles but don't prevent exporting to FOG II
Population boom event restricted to regions with 75+ loyalty
Increase in combat stat from decision 'motivate troops' factored if exported to FOG II
Modifier added to a region will reset the current timer if the modifier was already present (previously the new one would be ignored)
In transactions, AI will value a region which is one of its objectives more highly
Persian usurpers in the DLC campaign won't have access to Immortals anymore
Persia staging tweaked.

Setup and data changes
Immortals have money Inc +50% but are not national unique anymore
Units exported in FOG II now get +5% quality and +5% cost if they have an equipment (armorsmith etc.)
Kartli fortress bonuses (special unique fortress for Kolchis) were wrong
No more Celts as provincial units in Galatia when playing Campaign 550 BCE
Epiteichismata can be disassembled
Carthaginian Sacred Band fight centered in all terrains
Elephants deployment revised in bad terrain
Fix to elephants recruitable in Epirus region
Hellenes friction: Penalties toned down depending of number of owned regions for Athens and Sparta
DLC: Egypt now has Egyptian names for generals

Compatibility
Compatibility with games in 1.30+ version: Full
Before this point, most of the features would work, but we don’t recommend continuing multiplayer games.

We hope you enjoy these improvements and do please let us know what you think.

Vale!

Pocus,

I don't see my address space fix, but I assume it made it in.

Going to check it now.

Thanks.

This:
Loading game is three times faster than before. Can now load really late-stage games much more easily.

Is the fix for issues for very late-stage games. I can now load on both PCs your troublesome saved game and the one of Callaghan. Same for Pip, the Archon Lead Dev.
I can't tell you specifically what he has done to fix this issue, increase addressing or any technical solution, as Archon is made of 2 layers, one is the base engine coded in C++ (his task), one is the script engine, where I'm coding the gameplay, AI and UI.
If you need more details, perhaps Pip can provide them, but he is quite busy as you can guess, Archon is used by several development studios, and each is customized to their needs.

I know I got the update, since my overlays keys have changed.

But:

(1) Saves hangs up

(2) Next turn hangs up

(3) Anything with trade goods hangs up

You sure that the right code got into the build? I've seen this happen before with source save systems where you accidentally revert in a build; especially when you have different branches.

The load is faster, until it hangs while playing.

Trade issue is identified indeed, sorry about that. For the saves still hanging up, the Archon developer is on it.

Pocus wrote: ↑Mon Sep 14, 2020 8:46 am Trade issue is identified indeed, sorry about that. For the saves still hanging up, the Archon developer is on it.

No problem. The reason I love you (I mean in a professional sense) is not because your code is always perfect, but you always fix everything. I think it was the first ACW game that got 16 patches. People ask why they should buy a game coded by Pocus? That is why. Even years later, you are striving for perfection. Not just the removal of bugs, but better mechanics for better play. (That was 16 patches 3 years later and not a penny to buy a DLC as a code fix as some companies like ____________________ often do. That's integrity and pride in one's work.)

The last two or three posts confused me. Should we go ahead and update or wait until the developer fixes the issues mentioned in the last few posts?

Nimrod 9th wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 4:59 pm The last two or three posts confused me. Should we go ahead and update or wait until the developer fixes the issues mentioned in the last few posts?

Bump, would also like this info.

Until Pocus is along this is what I know (not a beta) ...

If you get large enough (I don't mean province wise; I have been bigger; I am not sure what resources; might have been POPs), the game will simply freeze up in terms of turn processing. Please note that this happened to me on turn #494 of 500. I think I was only one of two players to create this situation. So, it is quite possible to play many complete games and not see it. Empires is a 2 level implementation. There is Archon (Slitherine's proprietary game engine and then a game shell built on top of that) like Empires or Field of Glory II. The resource management bug is in Archon and is being worked on.

The trade bug is an issue that caused the game to hang up when displaying the trade overlay or click on a resource. Again to my knowledge, this is a very late stage thing. Pocus has debugged and fixed this prior to v1.3.4, but it crept back in. Software is coded by checking out pieces of code out of repository and checking back in when done. A build is when the latest versions are pulled and assembled into an EXE. It is often done like this on larger projects with many programmers to keep 3 people from all working on the same code at the same time; like 3 people rewriting the same chapter of a book. Sadly, sometimes, when you go to build an EXE, old bugged code gets pulled out instead of the latest fixed code. This appears to be what happened with the trade bug ... it happens. But to the best of my knowledge, this is also a late game issue and probably won't bite you.

If you are not on Steam, I would say back up the current version, and you are probably safe to start a new game with the upgrade. If you are on Steam, you really have zero choice. But will probably be sailing in safe waters.

BTW, it is not a matter of bugs being introduced, but bugs not being fixed.

You don't escape these two bugs by running 1.3.3.

You do get a few new features by running 1.3.4.

I don't believe the bugs are problematic for most people indeed. One is an issue with the new feature introduced in 1.33 in the trade panel (clicking on a trade good will activate a filter on it on the map; just don't use the new feature )

The second is some games can't auto-save at the very end of the game length, turn 495 or so, but this is not systematical. I have seen several times games reaching turn 500 with the score panel.

By the way a work around would be to not auto save if the last few turns are problematic, if no other solution can be found.

Having gotten bitten by both and struggling to find a work round for hours ... I am hesitant get started again.

Any chance we might just get a quick 1.3.5 bug fix patch for those sufferer - "lock up phobia"?

Thanks.

Pocus wrote: ↑Tue Sep 22, 2020 2:34 pm By the way a work around would be to not auto save if the last few turns are problematic, if no other solution can be found.

I didn't think it was possible to turn off autosave - have I missed something?!?