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Elemental v1.09 change log

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Elemental v1.09 change log

from JoeUser Forums

We expect to make this available either this evening or tomorrow.  Here’s what’s new:

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----------- Elemental v1.09 Change Log  -----------
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* Gameplay / Balance *
+ AI sovereigns take more care about where they are doing their attacking
+ Added code so that AIBasic is smarter about attacking units in cities
+ ‘Equipment Cache’ goodie hut now hands out cloth armor, instead of the patchwork armor that should not be in the game anymore
+ You can no longer train *groups* of Dragons, Catapults, or Giant Demons
+ New option: Players can choose not to have monsters spawn
+ New option: Players can disable minor factions
+ Loot given by monsters increased
+ Fixed bug where some AI-controlled caravans that had already established trade routes would wander off those routes while delivering their stuff at a city
+ Fixed a bug where caravan pathfinding through territory owned by anyone other than their owner would still have a penalty, even through caravans can always move freely through any territory
+ Changed dynasty kids to determine their essence based on the BASE essence of their parents (ignoring equipment, player ability bonuses, etc.)  This should keep kids from double-dipping from things like player-wide essence bonuses and keep their max mana at more reasonable levels
+ fixed several armor and special ability xml issues (that were either pointed out on the forums or that I discovered while fixing others)
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* Battles *
+ The starting side in a tactical battle is now chosen randomly. The attacker and the defender have an equal chance to go first. This is a short-term change. In the longer term, we are moving to an initiative system (individual units moving based on their combat speed rather than each side taking a turn together).
+ Added shorter animations for bow attacks and spell attacks
+ Fixed a divide by zero error in spell damage.
+ Fixed some logic to determine whether or not a tactical unit was moving.
+ Added code to make sure a unit cancels its destination when it skips a turn.
+ Added some additional checks to skip turn logic in tacatical battles to stop a turn from being skipped in the middle of other actions.
+ Fix to be sure ranged attacks don't always do max damage in tactical battles.
+ Fix to experience display for battles, and fixed a bug where auto resolve was only rewarding experience for killing the leader unit.
+ The AI does not take its first turn immediately after the window loads. This will prevent cases where the AI takes its turn before the window finishes rendering.
+ Fixed a spell type tag for Quicken (now shows up in Tactical Battles)
+ Fixed an issue where a single unit might lose its mana after attacking and killing a defending team.
+ Added the UsableInBattle tag for item types, will help to determine if an item should be displayed during a tactical battle. This defaults to FALSE.
+ Items in a tactical battle will now properly stack in the UI.
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* UI *
+ NEW! City List window which can be brought up via a tab on the kingdom screen
- this will list all your current cities, along with vital information about resource, training, and building being done there (ie: it's a city spreadsheet)
+ New icons hooked up for sovereign talents
+ Got rid of trailing decimal zeros for the global resource pool tooltips, to clean up the display of resources that are always integers
+ Fixed bug where the global resources for a player didn't refresh when a city was lost through razing until the next turn
+ Tweaked the spell info card to get the stats to show up in the grey bar at the bottom of the info card, and to support multiple text entries of varying sizes
+ Item Shop now shows change in Combat Speed, Defense, and Attack for the highlighted item
+ Message Box input field now limited to 20 chars
+ Made auto-select next moveable unit code not select caravans
+ Fixed City HUDs clipping at the end (now they all get rounded edges)
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* Performance / Stability *
+ Moved clean up code around so that game within a game cleans up better
+ Fixed mem leak in Trigger Manager, city wall nodes, destination and selection cursors for destroyed objects
+ Removed code in CTreeGraphic that was causing a leak on Win7-64.
+ Fixed big leak in DecalGraphicGraphicManager where every decal in the game was leaking on Win7-64bit when starting a new game within a game
+ Fixed leak in CUnitSceneViewWindow (which is used on lots of screens)
+ Fixed random crash in kingdom screen with the filling of the Lore Book
+ Tile Designs now flush out the graphics for their "base graphic" (the one that the graphic instances use to render) once the instances for that base graphic are released
+ Fixed crash if a spellcaster ever had to cancel more than one enchantment at a time from losing 2 or more available enchantment slots
+ Fixed memory leak in UnitAnimationHelper that caused unit gfx to leak after the unit was destroyed
+ Fixed memory leak in TreeGraphic that caused tree batches to leak on game within a game or destruction of the forest object
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* Bug Fixes *
+ Fixed bug where mini map would sometimes not update itself after starting a new game from within a game
+ Hooked up renaming cities and units to use events (for MP)
+ Fixed cheat flag bug where you could go into the enchants tab for any unit and cancel their enchantments, whether that unit belonged to you or not even when cheat flag was not used.
+ Fixed bug where destination cursor would disappear if the unit it belonged to was off-screen
+ Added support for Resource modifier types in unit ability bonus options to be taken into account in what resources a unit always provides, without needing to be stationed in a city
+ Fixed Bug When reload a game with Wild Shard Improvements, the game now properly relinks them to their resource hoards (fixed issue where destroyed shrines would not regenerate shard resource)
+ Fixed particle effect render order on main map screen for better visuals
+ Fixed graphical bug where mounted units in an army did not scale properly
+ CalculateAbilities now uses champions for ability modifiers (this fixes NPCs that should give bonuses but didn’t, such as ‘Royalty’)
+ Fixed bug where the NPC AI player would spawn new NPCs based off of the unit types of dynasty kids.  This would cause champions wandering around with the same name, and with baby portraits if they hadn't grown up yet.
+ Attacking cities or lone improvements while in attack cursor mode now works properly in all cases
- hooked up the cursor to change to the crossed swords at the right time for cities/improvements when one of your units is selected
+ Fixed comment in CityLevelUpBonuses.xml that caused malformed xml
+ Fixed merge error in QuestUnits.xml for Talax
+ Fixed end tags in CoreCityWalls
+ Fixed game modifiers and ending tag after Magnar_Staff in CoreSpecialWeapons.xml
+ Fixed end tag for Thumb in SpecialUnitProps.xml
+ Fixed comments in UnitSoundPacks.xml
+ note: thanks to ‘kenata’ and ‘heavenfall’ for helping us hunt down those above XML issues down and pointing us to some cool data checking tools


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* Modding *

+ Tile Editor: Fixed bug where large silhouette figure would render in the middle of a tile design when placing pedestrians
+ Map Editor: when using the creature placement tool, defaults to giving the creature a random wander radius, which can be changed with the tool's third spinner in the bottom left corner
- Also changed the wander radius 0 item to say "Don't Wander" instead, does what the default used to do, cause the unit to not even go into auto-patrol mode
+ Added new data def type, CSpellResourceCost, which can be used in spell def xml to specify resource costs on casting a spell, as well as any persistent maintenance costs if this spell is an enchantment
- <PerTurn> tag used in the SpellResourceCost xml object to say whether the cost is deducted at time of casting (Per-Turn is 0), or if it is a continued maintenance cost that exists as long as the spell is in effect through an enchantment (Per-Turn is non-zero)
- Note: maintenance resource costs can only be per-turn if the spell is an enchantment; there's no one-time cut to per-turn resource production from an instant, non-enchantment spell
- Here's an example of some xml to put in a spell def, making this spell cost 5 metal immediately when cast, and having a maintenance cost of 1 material per turn until the enchantment is cancelled:
<SpellResourceCost>
<Resource>Metal</Resource>
<Amount>5</Amount>
</SpellResourceCost>
<SpellResourceCost>
<Resource>Materials</Resource>
<Amount>1</Amount>
<PerTurn>1</PerTurn>
</SpellResourceCost>
+ MODs folders now creatured for the user in their My Games/Elemental folder
+ Fixed Bug: Quests read in from XML (after loading the Data.zip) no longer override QuestDefIDs
+ Images and models now read in from the Mods/GFX folder properly
+ Mods are now enabled by default in Prefs.ini
+ Overlay: Implement tile upload/download

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* Multiplayer *
+ Added code to prefer a random map that supports the max players
+ Cloud saving/loading enabled
+ AI opponents enabled
+ Added handling for if firewall is turned off
+ Added check for if player is disconnected before starting turn timer when the end turn is requested
+ Added check to prevent player from going to multiplayer menu if it's still checking for an update

We are still deciding whether we are going to flag multiplayer as “beta” or release for this build. It’s a subjective call but given recent events we are tending to try to be extra careful on this determinations so that the unwary do not encounter unexpected behavior.

183,901 views 86 replies
Reply #76 from Elemental Forums Top

The AI haven't gotten any significant work in yet, Brad said he's working on it for 1.1 with the new magic system. Having said that, I hope SD saw my comment on some other thread about adding a value to skills and spells that boost the combat rating of units that can use them. Right now the combat rating system completely fails to adjust for skills and spells.

 

As for the Prince/Princesses. It's because they prevented them from become champions that you can hire, but didn't prevent them from spawning, so they spawn as NPC monsters instead. Based on one of the support devs they have already tracked it down and fixed it. Whether it's completely fix is another matter, heh.

 

Oh, and the armor visuals behaving oddly issue sounds awfully like you have a mod that's causing a conflict. Usually this is what ends up causing this behavior.

Reply #77 from Elemental Forums Top

I dont use any mods.  Am I the only one that see thats the Trogs, Urxen, and Magnar people defualt units are wearing human armor that doesn't fit so their arms and chest pop through it, and looks all shitty?

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #78 from Elemental Forums Top

Thanks for this Update. The game is much faster now. The last thing in battles that bothers me atm is that the death sequences are to time consuming. Otherwise it looks nice.

Reply #79 from Elemental Forums Top

Are movement paths anywhere in the near future? 

I really hate right-clicking to send a character somewhere only to find that they are taking the wrong route, or the terrain is rougher than I thought and they stop in between turns in a bad location or even that I accidentally had the wrong character active and sent it halfway across the world from where I wanted that character to go because I thought I was moving a different character, etc.

Movement paths showing where the character will end up each turn for longer moves with a chance to confirm (or cancel) the move before they just go running off would sure be helpful.

Reply #80 from Elemental Forums Top

Yes please. Sometimes i want go around a city that belongs to anoteher faction and my units just walk into the zone of influence of said city. And since i play normaly on the clothmap its sometimes not clear if my units can walk over a coastal tile thus its very ambiguous ifmy unit will use thatpath or not.

Reply #81 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Heph_, reply 80
And since i play normaly on the clothmap its sometimes not clear if my units can walk over a coastal tile thus its very ambiguous ifmy unit will use thatpath or not.
End of Heph_'s quote

I've been experimenting with that and while it's a crude method (understatement FTW), it works. =P

Reply #82 from Elemental Forums Top

+ Fixed bug where the NPC AI player would spawn new NPCs based off of the unit types of dynasty kids.  This would cause champions wandering around with the same name, and with baby portraits if they hadn't grown up yet.

 

This is hapening in the current game I am playing after updateing to this ver.

here is my save game. http://drop.io/rrfrxh3

Reply #83 from Elemental Forums Top

Nice to see the bug where cities would randomly rename and color themselves to other factions has been fixed

Scratch the ABove turned up again the moment I encountered a third faction

BUT

Game still not playable as the "Out of Memory" error STILL happens (Im running Vista 64bit).

Reply #84 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm gettting less OOM errors with every patch, but, yea, still getting them, and I'm on a 32 vista.

Reply #85 from Elemental Forums Top

Yeah, my cities are being recolored/named as well, and I'm getting out of memory errors prolly every 100-200 turns.  Also, during combat my units will occasionally get hung up whenever you tell them to move or attack.  The animation will occur but they not actually move and the combat system will freeze.  My only other option at that point is the auto-calc the battle and usually results in me loosing units that I would not loose otherwise. 

Actually, I just got a OOM error and that's why I came to the forums instead of playing yet another turn of this pretty cool game.  I was reluctant to get this game and in spite of the errors and quirks it's very nice and was an awesome surprise.

I am patched to 1.09

win vista

3gb RaM

Nvidia geforce 8800

quad core processor

Reply #86 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Xiries, reply 53
Tactical Battles in Multi play would be nice, the quick battles kinda remove the ability to use focus fire and down the more important targets. This would allow you to take a stack into a losing battle and still possibly kill/harm a unit or two of importance to you as to remove them from future battles. I realize that this could result in longer waits, but prehaps limit the fight via timer,<auto resolve at end of the timer> and only player vs player battles , not random monsters or quests. Also allow the players not paticipating in the fight to watch it while they wait. If people cant deal with that , then they are probably too impatient to be playing a strategy game in the first place?. At any rate, thanks for the cool game, and the patches.
End of Xiries's quote

They should allow a TC option in MP and allow options on how we run it. I personally never ever ever use Auto-Resolve in ANY GAME no matter how fair it is. Why you may ask? Because it is simply not fun AT ALL. And I know a few friends that have the same opinion. So when we play these types of games we want the full Tactical Combat option we have in Single Player. We don't give a rats ass how long it takes to play the game. We do this all the time in AOW:SM and we have a blast.

My Friends and I will not play MP until it has TC in it because it simply is not worth playing if there is no TC.

AOW:SM my all time favorite Fantasy TBS game would not be worth playing in my opinion if it did not have Tactical Battles.

I don't even play any CIV games anymore because I have come to love TC so much that the game without TC is just boring.