Welcome to Allied Corps beta 3.
We are getting closer to the release. In this post I will describe what changes this beta includes, and what to look our for.Allied Campaign
In this beta Allied Campaign is of course complete. All scenarios are playable, both in campaign and scenario mode. Due to artistic reasons we had to remove one entry point, and so we are now down to five (one for each year):
- Desert 1940 (tutorial)
- Crete 1941
- Torch 1942
- Sicily 1943
- Normandy 1944
We suggest that you continue playing your existing campaigns from beta 2, not start new ones, because we want to achieve good coverage of all scenarios - not only the ones at the beginning of the campaign, but also later ones.
So, what to look out for?
- As usual, please post any impressions about the individual scenarios in their respective topics.
- We have not yet had a chance to revisit unit stats, but we are still collecting any piece of feedback related to units in this thread. Please post any unit-related suggestions there.
- The briefings will be locked any moment now. If you see any serious errors, please report them now.
Multiplayer maps
In this beta all multiplayer maps planned for Allied release are included. Four maps you know from the previous beta have been updated:
- Battle of Britain
- Frozen Spring
- Sonnenblume 43
- Temporal Advance
In addition to these, you can now enjoy four new maps:
- Fortress Helm
- Red Alert
- River Rapid
- The Void
You should be able to login into Multiplayer using your Slitherine forum login and password. The beta uses test PBEM server, so you will not see your "normal" MP games in the UI. Playing MP games takes time, so please do not put off these games till the very last moment! You can easily play MP in parallel with your single player campaign. Play your turn, and while you are waiting for your opponent's response (which can a while), you can continue beating the AI.
Please post all feedback in our Multiplayer thread.Engine 1.20
In addition to new campaign, this beta allows you to play any past content which is installed on your PC. Wehrmacht campaign, Afrika campaign and all the DLCs are playable in this beta. Game engine has been upgraded to version 1.20, and a number of game rules were tweaked and changed. Check out this thread for details.
Compared to beta 2, beta 3 does not change any rules. We wanted to give you more time to play around with changed gameplay, and decide what works and what does not. Very soon we'll need to make final decision: which novelties stay and which have to go. Any feedback on this will help a lot.
New Allied skin
At last, the new allied UI skin has arrived. We have not only reskinned all controls, but also have included allied versions of all graphics (campaign selection images; medals and heroes in unit list; victory images; difficulty icons etc.). If anything is still missing in new skin, please let us know!
Other changes and bug fixes
- Victory screen now includes an additional option to change game difficulty and other settings, like Weather, Supply, Fog of War and Undo.
- Some missing animations for new units (rangers, Calliope, rocket launcher) have been added. Also, battleship animation has been fixed - it no longer fires backwards.
- Wrong images in the Library has been fixed.
- A few changes and fixes in replays:
-- Movement and attack zones of the unit no longer shown.
-- CTD when quitting replay fixed.
-- Replays should work properly when loaded from mid-game.
- Russian translation of all briefings is included.
New modding options
We wanted to give our modders some new useful options, so a few have been added to the editor.
- Hex action
- Param action
- Unit action
- Unique units
- Copy button for actions - can be used to quickly create several similar actions by copying and then editing them.
New actions in particular are very powerful. I hope you will love them. UI should be pretty self-explanatory, but feel free to aks if anything is not clear.
Unique units option only works with auxiliaries. You can declare any aux unit "unique" by checking "Unique" check box in unit params. Such unit is "shared" between scenarios in a campaign, and if it is killed in one scenario, it will not appear in the future ones. This mechanic works for both player's and AI's units. So, an especially powerful AI unit could make several appearances in the course of the campaign, but if the player manages to destroy it, it will not appear again. The game uses unit name to determine instances of the same unique unit in different scenarios. When unique unit is destroyed, the game will remember its name, and next time unique unit with this name appears, it will be removed from scenario.
What's NOT included yet
There are several things which are not in this beta. We will fill these gaps in the next betas. But for now, the following is missing:
- A few art pieces here and there are still missing, in particular scenario images shown when you are selecting a scenario from the list.
- New tiles and map visual polishing. While the maps are fully functional, no effort have been made yet to make them look pretty. This is the final graphics task on our list, and it is not done yet.
