(If AutoUpdate does not work, you can download the patch for the Slitherine version directly from here)
Manual:
- The .PDF manual has been revised to take account of all of the rules changes since the game was first released.
- Shooting: Shooting POAs altered to give armour, especially heavy or full armour, more effect against non-gunpowder weapons. Details in Shooting section below.
- Stakes: See Stakes section below.
- Narrower Maps for some AI defending scenarios: See below.
- The CT modifier for infantry testing for losing an impact close combat vs lancers who are knights/men-at-arms in open terrain is increased from -1 to -2. The existing Epic Battle scenarios have been rebalanced where needed.
- Heavily armoured and Fully armoured knights' movement increased to 14 AP. (VMD adjustment has been adjusted accordingly to keep their chance of catching evaders largely unchanged).
- Allowed unmanoeuvrable units to make a single square diagonal move if the only reason for being unable to do so is the cost of turning 45 degrees. Previously there was code to allow this for units out of command range, but not for naturally unmanoeuvrable troops. This resulted in the anomaly of knights in bad terrain having more options for movement if out of command range than if in command range.
- Extra deep units of Heavy Weapon can now also form square.
- Mixed units of Offensive Spearmen and Heavy Weapon are treated as 100% Offensive Spearmen for their own POA, but partially cancel the first 50 POA of enemy armour advantage in proportion to the % of Heavy Weapon, and large units get
- Overlappers bonus in Melee against smaller enemy units.
- Shooting damage table attached below.
- Handguns have close range of 1, long range of 2.
- Shooting POAs altered to give armour, especially heavy or full armour, more effect against non-gunpowder weapons. Altered values highlighted in chart below.
- These balance changes have been made primarily to benefit knights, who were previously somewhat over-vulnerable to shooting by crossbows and light foot. Mounted Bow POAs have not been adjusted as horse archer armies already struggle vs balanced feudal armies with spearmen, crossbowmen and knights. The rationalisation for the differential between foot and mounted bows is that most non-longbow foot bows were relatively weak self bows, whereas most mounted bows were powerful composite bows. Dismounted cavalry, despite having those bows, would not be expected to shoot as well in battle on foot as they would on horseback due to less experience. Bow-armed Janissaries will be Superior, so will shoot better than other foot bows anyway. We are aware that horse archers shooting at extreme range were unable to pierce the armour of mounted knights or barded horses, but we deem that to have been shooting from outside effective range – which the rules ignore anyway. In line with our top-down (rather than bottom-up) design principles, getting the right overall effect for the matchup between horse archer and Crusader armies trumps other considerations.
- Stakes were a type of portable obstacle used by Longbowmen in English and some other armies from 1415 AD on, mainly for defence against mounted men-at-arms. They are purchased as part of the cost of the unit.
- A unit with stakes can emplace them to cover the front of the unit on any turn after the Deployment phase. (The latter restriction is to prevent stakes from being emplaced and then the longbowmen unit behind them being replaced by another unit type. Because the AI does not redeploy units after its initial autodeployment, this restriction does not apply to the AI). Emplacing stakes uses the unit’s entire AP allowance, but does not preclude a free turn before or after. Like other field fortifications, stakes cannot be placed by units on slope squares (because the models don’t look good on slopes), but can be placed at the top of a slope.
- Stakes can be lifted again by a unit on the same square that has itself already placed stakes. (It does not have to be the same unit that placed those particular stakes). This uses the unit’s entire AP allowance but does not preclude a free turn before or after.
- Stakes give “Protection” but no Cover, +100 POA Protection bonus in close combat for missile foot defending against mounted troops, and +25 POA against other opponents. Combats across stakes do not count as in “Open Terrain”.
- Heavily and Fully Armoured foot attacking enemy behind Stakes are treated as in Rough Going. Hence they will be Disordered. (Note that this effect is not applied to Mounted MAA because their effect vs archers behind stakes is sufficiently modelled without it).
- Unlike other field fortifications, discontinuous stakes do protect against attacks from 45 degrees to their front.
- Unlike pre-prepared field fortifications, stakes do not cancel the normal terrain type of the square.
- Earth Banks have the same effect as Wagon Laager and Felled Trees field fortifications.
- Hastily Dug Pits have the same effect as Ditches.
- SP Quick, Custom or Campaign Battle “Enemy Defending” scenarios vs the AI, where the AI army list (before troop selection) is at least 55% non-light infantry (or artillery) with FF, should now be played on narrower maps, to make the tactic of
- riding round the end of the fortifications more difficult. This represents the defenders picking a suitably narrow position to defend – in MP games it is up to the defending player to find a suitable position on the map to defend. Cavalry armies with a small number of infantry with FF should use normal width maps, even when they are the defender in an SP Enemy Defending scenario.
- Other SP Custom or Campaign Battle scenarios where the AI is likely to deploy its archers behind stakes, will also default to using a narrower map. Because of the sequence of program flow, the decision to use a narrow map has to be made before the AI actually picks its units from the army list, so there will be occasions when the AI uses a narrow map but does not place stakes (because it has not picked enough units with stakes to make that sensible), or uses a normal width map and does place stakes.
- There may also potentially be anomalies when allies are used, because the current algorithm only uses the main army list to determine FF and Stakes statistics.
- The narrower width for such battles in the Custom Battles setup can be over-ridden using Advanced Options to adjust the map width.
- Very Narrow maps will not be used anyway if the terrain is set as Steppe, Desert or Plain. Unfortunately, because of the way the program flows, this exception cannot be applied to battles where Steppe, Desert or Plain terrain has been chosen as a result of Pot Luck terrain selection. However, in such cases there will be 5 spaces on either side of the enemy FF to allow outflanking.
- To further represent the defender picking a suitable position to defend, in SP Custom/Campaign battles where narrow maps are used for an AI defensive position, in Frozen, North Europe, Mediterranean and Tropical maps, terrain is added to either side of the map at the level of the fortifications. This terrain is mountains in mountainous maps, marsh in marshy maps, and forest in other maps. The extra Marsh and Forest terrain has a 50% chance on each flank of being impassable.
- Historical Campaign system now has a NARROW command that allows the designer to force a campaign battle to be set up on a narrow map, and a NOTNARROW command to force it to be set up on a normal width map. These commands over-ride the default conditions above.
- We have added LODing (Level of Detail coding) for more distant terrain objects (Not unit models). This really isn’t needed on more powerful machines, and hence its effect on FPS will be barely noticeable for many users. However, it should significantly reduce the drop in FPS that some people with slower systems have been experiencing with North European and Frozen maps with significant amounts of wooded terrain.
- You can alter the viewing distance at which LODing is triggered by adjusting the slider in More Options in Settings. The default value is 700. We recommend starting with that value, but if you are still getting significant FPS drops on large North European maps when you zoom out, you could try reducing the value.
- You can also turn LODing off completely if you have a fast system that does not seem to need it. This will save up to 4-5 seconds when first loading a map. You should not turn off LODing if your system has performance issues – the most obvious effect of which is poor mouse responsiveness.
- Turning LODing on and off does not take effect until a battle is started or reloaded.
Other Graphical Changes: - Improved shader rotates tile overlay normal maps, smoothing out a lot of the visible joins in hill slope tiles.
- Improved shader coding for shadows. (Start closer to feet).
- Fixed the AI for two situations where a mainly cavalry AI army might refuse to attack at all in a player defending scenario where the player has field fortifications.
- Improved AI deployment of FF: Largely prevented front line units from deploying with FF just behind a hill, with enemy able to attack from uphill.
- Epic Battles modules and Campaigns are now listed with the default module at the top, followed by other base game and DLC modules in alphabetical order, and user content modules (asterisked) at the end.
- Proximity cohesions tests now specify in the Combat Log whether they were due to seeing a unit rout or a general fall. Also Army Panic tests in Ambush scenarios are now reported correctly as such in the Combat Log.
- In view of several improvements to their effectiveness Heavily Armoured mounted knights units cost increased by +2 if Superior or better, +1 if Above Average. This is similar to their costs when the game was first released, but they are now considerably more effective (less vulnerable to shooting, AP increased to 14, Enemy infantry suffers -2 impact CT modifier in open, ZOCs no longer prevent break offs), so we deem that the previous cost cut is no longer justified.
- Cataphracts and Byzantine Klibanophoroi reduced to Heavily Armoured in FOG2 Medieval and Time Warp for consistency with Medieval armour ratings. Cost adjusted (-2 per unit).
Polish knights and strzelcy are depicted in wedge formation. This is purely a visual depiction and does not affect combat in any way. - New distinctive textures from Miguel Sales (toska) for Byzantine Heavy Lancers (Late). Also revised textures for Best-Equipped Druzhina. Many thanks Miguel.
- Added one unit of Teutonic Knights to Crusader 1155-1291 list.
- Scots now use Pits instead of Ditches when they deploy Field Fortifications.
- Ghaznavids now use Earth Banks instead of “Felled Trees” when they deploy Field Fortifications.
- Fixed LONG and LAT parameters for later Khwarazmian army list.
- Increased storage area for unit predeployment in map border. This is necessary for Large armies to fight on Very Narrow maps for Enemy Defending scenarios, otherwise the previous storage area was exceeded and units were culled from the lists so the available maxima in game did not match the number in the preview.
- This also means that people who use Advanced Options to play very large battles on narrow maps should no longer see a discrepancy between the army list preview and the actual number of units available in force selection.
- Replaced Feudal German list with Austrian list in 5th stage of Frederick II Hohenstaufen campaign.
- CustomCampaignTemplate.txt updated. (Use as template for user-created custom campaign CustomCampaign.txt file)
- Added possibility of Ambush (Enemy). Ambush (Own) was already a possibility in Sandbox Campaigns in v1.2.5.
- Added “FFPits” (effects the same as Ditches) and “FFEarthBank” (effects the same as FelledTrees and WagonLaager). These can be used in the Editor and are also used by appropriate army lists. There are several variants of each.
- There are also “FFEarthbank_slopeleft” and “FFEarthbank_sloperight" objects, for use on slopes in Editor-created scenarios.
- Added “Stakes” object, which is the normal object used for stakes.
- Added “StakesDiagonal” object which can be used in the editor if you need diagonally placed stakes in a scenario. They will only work correctly with the 4 cardinal orientations produced by the R key. They won’t work correctly if any other rotations are used.
- Army Panic tests in Ambush scenarios are now reported correctly as such in the Combat Log.
- Fixed bug that prevented a flank charge by newly arrived flank marchers from counting as a flank charge.
- Fixed issue of Fortress garrison comprising different units in the two games of a Siege Relief mirror match.
- Made SouthernEurope (Mediterranean) HeavyWallB object work correctly.
- Floating arrow removed from Dismounted Lithuanian Cavalry routidle animations.
- Fixed “thick arrow” in firing animations for Nomad (Cuman model) Cavalry, Nomad (Cuman model) LH, Armoured Lithuanian Cavalry.
- Fixed name that appears in MP Lobby for later Khwarazmian (1232-1246) list.
- Fixed issue with fortress garrison Bombard deployment.
- Made bolts show when light bolt-shooters fire.
