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1.09q Changelog

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1.09q Changelog

from Elemental Forums

*** 1.09q was released on 12/07/2010 ***

 

Changes:

1. Crash fixes.

2. Fixed the issue where gildar modifiers weren't getting applied to the tax rate (so merchants, markets, etc were useless in most cities).

3. Fixed an issue where faction ability bonuses were being reapplied with every reload.

4. Fixed an issue with Magnar's inefficient trait (it was giving a construction bonus instead of a penalty).

5. City level 5 pop requirement lowered from 1000 to 750.

6. Hedge Walls/Wooden Walls city level requirement reduced from 3 to 0.

7. Forts and castles city level requirement reduced from 4 to 3.

8. Fixed bug caused by going into the options menu from cloth map mode.

9. Campaign fixed.

10. Alchemy returns 25 gold for 25 mana (no maintenance, just a straight conversion).

11. Fixed an issue with teleport that caused them them to walk back to their previous destination.

12. Fixed bug where the creatures, NPC, and minor race AIs were being set to "Novice" instead of the world difficulty

13. Fixed bug where every major AI faction had its difficulty set to the world difficulty, and overriding it in the choose opponent screen didn't actually override it in the data.

14. Modified crystal spawns from techs so they are within 12 of the players capital instead of 20.

15. Modified mine spawns from techs so they are within 12 of the players capital instead of 20.

16. Modified food spawns from techs so they are within 12 of the players capital instead of 20.

17. Added an additional food spawn to the food spawns from techs (bees and an orchard instead of just bees).

18. When you hover over the build button for a resource you dont have the right tech for, it will now tell you exactly what tech you need.

19. Updated Empire gold mine and lost librarys to require techs like the Kingdom versions.

20. Lowered defense values slightly.

21. Fixed an issue where units can be immune to all damage (show as resisting damage).

22. All players start the game with 5 materials.

23. Order of Draginol tech now correctly spawns a random shard (it didnt do anything before).

24. Traveling Boots are available for all unit models.

25. Fixed an issue that was keeping higher level creatures from spawning.

26. Added in some late game magical equipment that you can buy in the shops:

- Cloak of Thwarting : +5 dodge
- Sword of Wrath : 65 attack +6 accuracy +1 combat speed -10 constitution
- Arielle's Shield: 5 armor +15 hp
- Shield of the Sovereign: 5 armor +5 magic resist
- Yithril Bow: 18 attack +2 combat speed +10 accuracy

27. Added some additional debug logging to help gather info on crashes that have been eluding us.

28. Fixed bug where the players graph that shows up in the bottom right context area (when nothing is selected), would be out-dated if a player died, showing values from the turn before they died and not being updated to show that they now have 0 population, etc..

29. Fixed bug with Kingdom Report showing dead players in 2 places.  The first was in relations section of the kingdom report for a player, lists dead players.  The second was that every player had a kingdom report page even if dead.

30. AI is more likely to build command posts (and therefor be able to build groups of units).

31. City ZoC's adjusted:

City level 1: 1-3 (was 1-3)
City level 2: 3-5 (was 3-5)
City level 3: 5-7 (was 5-8)
City level 4: 7-9 (was 12-15)
City level 5: 9-12 (was 15-18)

 

Known Issues (with 1.09p):

1. There is currently no way to target a unit in an army for a strategic spell (without breaking him out of that army, which is a pain).

 

38,543 views 102 replies
Reply #51 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Wintersong, reply 43
Case 1: Tech spawns stuff that may or may not appear in your land.

Case 2: Resources are hidden and need a tech to make them appear to your eyes... they may be in your territory or they may be not.

Only difference, is that with Case 2, the enemies cannot see/use the resources until they get the techs. With Case 1, they can see/use them (depending on spawn) and plan accordiingly to the situation (and later add more resources with their own tech).

 

I get the feeling that I'm totally missing yer point. For that, I'm apologize.
End of Wintersong's quote

The problem with having all resources spawned at the beginning of the game is that then you can't build cities on those tiles, so you'd get a message about needing to build on an empty tile (which it would look like), and it would suck if we let you build on those tiles but then destroyed the improvement.  

Reply #52 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting CariElf, reply 51


The problem with having all resources spawned at the beginning of the game is that then you can't build cities on those tiles, so you'd get a message about needing to build on an empty tile (which it would look like), and it would suck if we let you build on those tiles but then destroyed the improvement.  
End of CariElf's quote
We suggested solutions to this problem, though. And there are others you might come up with, but the current system is quite bad in my opinion.

 

You may be running into the invulnerable unit bug.
End of quote

I wasn't; I managed to inflict light damage after using an arcane weapon spell. And I can't cast that spell on every single regular unit - It's not up to me to compensate for underwhelming weapon damage.

Start11 - Customize the Start Menu and Taskbar in Windows 10/11.
Reply #53 from Elemental Forums Top

Notice that Travelling Boots has been fixed but weren't there also a few of the cloaks etc in the same situation?

Reply #54 from Elemental Forums Top

What about double clicking on city instantly opening and then closing the build menu?

Reply #55 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Werewindlefr, reply 52

Quoting CariElf, reply 51

We suggested solutions to this problem, though. And there are others you might come up with, but the current system is quite bad in my opinion.
End of Werewindlefr's quote

I saw one person make a suggestion in this thread:

Quoting Alstein, reply 48


Case 2a) Player when they try to build on the tile, discovers the resource

Case 2b) Player when they try to build on the tile, destroys the resource unknowingly (they never find out it was there)

Case 2c) Player whenn they try to build on the tile, cannot

Case 2d) A random selection of the above.
End of Alstein's quote

2b-2c are essentially what I said, and I don't particularly like either option.  I don't really like 2a either, because if you can't see it without the tech, why should you suddenly see it because your pioneer stumbled on it?

Maybe we could put an unknown tile marker on the spot, but you'll know it's a resource and you'll camp at that spot until you can find out what it is.

I'd personally rather just make the existing code work better.  If the resources actually spawned near you, you get a more direct benefit from the tech than if you just are able to know what certain kinds of resources are once you research a tech.

 

Reply #56 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting econundrum1, reply 50

Is it possible to have resources spawn at the begining of the game in a future patch, and the techs only reveal them, Civ-style? I mean... it's kind of weird to have techs *create* resources all over the place. I know it would require quite a bit of code change, but maybe for 1.2?


As someone has said if they where in position at the start of the game how do you stop people building other things on them. And from a player perspective there is no visible difference if they spawn at the time or just become visible. In both cases they appear on the map from the players point of view and in both cases the in character explaination is that you discover them once you have the right tech spot and use them...
End of econundrum1's quote

This is not exactly true. With random distribution, you are not gauranteed the resource within X number of tiles of your capital. You may have to fight for it. Having said that, I understand the problem with building on the resources before they're revealed.

Reply #57 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm very excited about 1.1.  I think that Elemental has definitely broken the fun barrier.  Which brings me to my question.  I was enjoying playing with 1.0.9p until I ran into two bugs.  The invulnerable unit bug, and the taxes not being effected by multipliers bug.  These make me feel like I don't want to start a new game until 1.0.9q.  So I'm hoping that 1.0.9q comes out soon so I can get back to playing, testing, and really enjoying this game.  So please release it soon, so you get more feedback from people like me.

Reply #58 from Elemental Forums Top

same here... 1.0.9p was fun until i ran into too many bugs, now i've stopped playing.  did you see my post on the endless supply of goodie huts?  the goodie huts were out of control.  i also still have unprotected pioneers going through my territory during war time.  ugh, i thought that was fixed too.  the fact that loading the game generates a bunch of game objects that weren't there when i saved it bugs me too.  i wish they could somehow protect the integrity of the world between saves.

Reply #59 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting CariElf, reply 55


I'd personally rather just make the existing code work better.  If the resources actually spawned near you, you get a more direct benefit from the tech than if you just are able to know what certain kinds of resources are once you research a tech.

End of CariElf's quote
And then you lose part of what makes the game fun: fighting for the rare resources. I mean, those ventri iron and crystal shouldn't be given fairly to each players.

I personally think there's no redemption for the existing code: the principle itself is flawed. The solutions named "2a, 2b, 2c" aren't perfect, but they all have one gigantic advantage: they provide a reason to fight over those resources. In the end, they provide fun, they provide gaming, imperfect as they are.

I mean, removing one of the main motivator for interaction with the other civs because of a small issue that will happen quite rarely and isn't worth losing sleep over is a bad trade IMO.

 

why should you suddenly see it because your pioneer stumbled on it?
End of quote
Simple: because the tech doesn't make you discover the resource's usefulness. You don't need someone to tell you iron is cool, or that food is a good thing. You just learn where to look for it.

But even when you don't have the tech, when you start digging, scouting, and mapping to lay down the foundation of the city, you end up seeing those resources no matter what.

 

 

Edit: Oh, and another issue coming from that tech: now, you don't want to eliminate a neighboring AI too quickly, because you want it to discover the tech so it can spawn ventri iron and crystal. Yet more cheese.

Reply #60 from Elemental Forums Top

There is a tactical combat bug at the moment that lets you move and attack with melee and hen gain additional action points. Say you have 1-2 action points left and you click on an enemy 2 spaces away your unit will move and instead of stopping will attack and will still be left with remaining action points allowing for chains of attacks.

Also I don't know if it's just me, but combat loot seems fairly low for mid range creatures like trolls.

Reply #61 from Elemental Forums Top

25. Fixed an issue that was keeping higher level creatures from spawning.
End of quote

All Right! I was really worried about this. Glad to see it fixed, I wasn't even sure anyone was working on it. It was my biggest gripe by far with this version. Now we all get to be swamped by troll armies! Or mobs led by Elemental Lords! The joy. At least we get new items to even the odds. On the topic of Elemental Lords there should be a quick cut scene when they spawn for the first time, that would be awesome.  The other stuff looks awesome as well. 1.09q looks almost done.

:grin:

 

Edit: Wait a second it just updated again... You people are still at work? It's being released today. I'm actually overloading with happiness.

Reply #62 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Werewindlefr, reply 20

20. Lowered defense values slightly.

 

Uh.. it's been changed to "slightly". Seriously, I don't get it. With the major changes made to the game, how can values which were already completely inconsistent still make any sense and be relevant ?

I mean, it's not like I'm the only one thinking this. And it's not like it's not obvious: if you rethink your system as deeply as you did, if your probability curve has been changed, you need to forget about *all* the current values and restart from scratch. I mean, there never *were* good values to begin with ! At some point, you guys need to sit at the table and design this stuff from the ground up with a clear idea of the scales involved in mind and how previous game tackled that issue. AoW 1 and 2, MoM, Battle for Wesnoth. Civilization. Hell, FfH2, that I've heard some people in the dev' team know a little bit , which I still play regularly !

I come off as a bit aggressive on this issue, but for several people here (and on other forums), this is a critical issue and a deal-breaker. To use an example similar to the one I've used in another post, if you switch from D&D D20's system to Chaosium's d100 without changing the value of the modifiers and roll difficulties, then nothing will make sense. And right now, this is kind of what's happening with Elemental.

What people like me are expecting isn't a slight change to armor values*, it's a total reassessment of every piece of equipment, based on a guideline of what the scale should be and what are the expected effects. And before changing any piece of equipment, you need to have this scale decided somewhere.

I remember Frogboy saying that going for quality and quantity should both be options that work to some extent. Well, as it is, and even with small changes to armor values, this will *not* happen.  

 

I have high hopes for this game, but I think it's important to get those fundamentals right. Some people might not care, but some others do. It's not about perfect balance. It's about not having numbers all over the place which don't fit a big picture.

 

*I mean, seriously, they're not a "bit" broken, they're totally off. Almost everything in this game is because there's no scale. Look at Civ IV and V: technological advance never made units suddenly vastly superior to others. They provide a significant advantage, but nowhere near the levels Elemental reaches.
End of Werewindlefr's quote

 

ALL of the numbers for attack and defense throughout the game were re-evaluated when we first adjusted the combat and stat systems in 1.1.   And by re-evaluated I mean exactly what you are saying we should do: we all sat down and came up with new systems for all of these core concepts that scaled properly and could be balanced.  

As such, these 'slight changes' are us trying to make sure our current system is tuned to be balanced.  We are also trying to build in more feedback to the player about likely outcomes in tactical battles with the new included damage ranges, average damage per hit and hit chance on info cards when you attempt to attack an enemy unit.  

Finally one thing to note is that because of how we do tactical combat our damage model and combat systems are tuned to be a hybrid of TBS mechanics and RPG mechanics.  This does lead to more instances of units being completely outclassed in a battle by other units (which is generally more of an RPG element) then other TBS games.  It also keeps the game from falling into the 'guy with bow managing to kill a tank' problem that can ruin immersion for some players.  We are of aware, however, of how blatantly un-fun it is to feel like you have NO chance to kill an enemy, so its very much a balancing act.  

Generally our most common culprit for these situations is armor values that are too high, thus we are tweaking them.  We also had a bug that was causing damage reduction to be applied inconsistently, this has been changed in this build and should make combat results a bit more reliable.

Reply #63 from Elemental Forums Top

is that a typo or are you really releasing Patch Q today?  i might have to wait and play Civ 5 some other day.

Reply #64 from Elemental Forums Top

If they do release it today will it mess up my old save? I can actually finish a game now and want to.

Reply #65 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting FatNonFree, reply 64
If they do release it today will it mess up my old save? I can actually finish a game now and want to.
End of FatNonFree's quote

Yeah, you shouldnt trust old saves.  But you dont have to update.  You can keep playing your old game and patch when your done.

The big reason we are pushing tonight is we have updated the debug information to give us more details around some of the crashes you guys are experiencing.  so that if we get crashes tomorrow we will have a better handle on where they are coming from.  Also we have fixed quite a few crashes so we want to get those out of the way.

 

Reply #66 from Elemental Forums Top


- Arielle's Shield: 5 armor +15 hp
End of quote

Bring the whole good old Arielle armour, please! :pout:  I can only use some parts right now. :P

 

Patch for yesterday? Are you sure?

Reply #67 from Elemental Forums Top

Sorry for having been a bit aggressive. My main issue is the following: a weapon of a given tech level will give a lot of "blocked" results on an armor of exactly the same tech level. Broadsword against light plate, for instance. Mace against leather, although it's still okay-ish. Longsword against heavy plate.

Broadsword's tech line is: equipment, weaponry, cutting weapons.

Light plate's is : equipment, armor, light armor.

"Blocked" results, in my opinion, are way too frequent. I would think that full damage mitigation should only happen for armor that's much higher in efficiency than the weapon. So a light plate giving "blocked" results against a spear most of the time wouldn't bother me. But against a broadsword, or even a short sword (only one tech level lower) ? It should be rare, maybe exceptional, since that's what dodge is for; otherwise, it kind of makes the game a lot less fun, because it isn't very fun when all you're getting are absorbed blows even though your weapons are decent.

In 1.09p, it did feel like I was just fighting panzers with a pointy stick.

 

 

Derek, I hate you. I'm supposed to be working tonight. I've got a presentation to prepare for tomorrow. If my advisor's angry, I'll tell him it's your fault.

Reply #68 from Elemental Forums Top

The frequency of patches for this beta is amazing!

Great work you guys!! :thumbsup:

Reply #69 from Elemental Forums Top

Yeah, looks like another excellent patch coming up.

 

PS:  Make sure you don't release 1.1 until after final exams  :)

Reply #70 from Elemental Forums Top

Hahahha I live in London Ontario.

http://winnipeg.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20101207/more-snow-for-toronto-101207/20101207/?hub=WinnipegHome

Guess what I'm doing tomorrow, while the University is closed!

Reply #71 from Elemental Forums Top

In regards to the discussion of when/how to spawn new resources.  Maybe all the resources should just be spawned at the beginning of the game and be fully viewable from the get-go... then researching the techs simply let you build improvements on the resources... isn't that the most simple, realistic, and strategically fun way to do this?  Why have hidden resources at all?

Civilization has hidden resources (horses, coal, oil, uranium) and lets you just build whatever in those tiles.  They work around the 'city being built on a hidden resource' by just making it so that the resource automatically becomes "improved" if there is a city built on it...  I really don't like that about Civ, and would be thrilled if Elemental just got rid of hidden resources altogether.  I don't understand their appeal.  I would be curious to hear reasons in favor of hidden resources...

Reply #72 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting CariElf, reply 55

Quoting Werewindlefr, reply 52
Quoting CariElf, reply 51

We suggested solutions to this problem, though. And there are others you might come up with, but the current system is quite bad in my opinion.

I saw one person make a suggestion in this thread:



Quoting Alstein, reply 48

Case 2a) Player when they try to build on the tile, discovers the resource

Case 2b) Player when they try to build on the tile, destroys the resource unknowingly (they never find out it was there)

Case 2c) Player whenn they try to build on the tile, cannot

Case 2d) A random selection of the above.
2b-2c are essentially what I said, and I don't particularly like either option.  I don't really like 2a either, because if you can't see it without the tech, why should you suddenly see it because your pioneer stumbled on it?

Maybe we could put an unknown tile marker on the spot, but you'll know it's a resource and you'll camp at that spot until you can find out what it is.

I'd personally rather just make the existing code work better.  If the resources actually spawned near you, you get a more direct benefit from the tech than if you just are able to know what certain kinds of resources are once you research a tech.

 

End of CariElf's quote

 

As for 2a), simple random dumb luck.  I have no problem with the occasional random lucky positive event happening.  The reason you can't see it is because it's well hidden, not because it's magically invisible. I'd go so far as to say even bandits might stumble onto a resource.

 

2b could be solved by randomly, invisibly teleporting the resource to an unused empty tile perhaps?  the problem here is situations where a player with the tech sees it, then sees the resource teleport.  Maybe the resources become visible to everyone whenever a unit someone with the tech  sees it?

 

2c I dislike for the same reason you do.

 

My issue with your idea is that it doesn't solve the fundamental problem that those of us who dislike the current system are seeing, which is that there's no incentive to research the tech first.  

 

One idea to counter this: maybe keep things as is, but disallow or increase the costs of developing the resource until you research the tech.  Being first to research the techs grants a discount to building those resources, or a faction trait that gives a bonus to exploiting those resources.  The problem here is that the techs are slightly different from Kingdom and Empire, and I see problems with modded factions with this.  Another downside is that there is still moral hazard, though reduced some.

 

I'd prefer it if players got no benefit from not researching a tech- for players to get benefit for not researching something just seems counterintuitive to good game design.  This is why I think the existing code is just fundamentally flawed as a design concept.

 

Quoting TeamM, reply 71
In regards to the discussion of when/how to spawn new resources.  Maybe all the resources should just be spawned at the beginning of the game and be fully viewable from the get-go... then researching the techs simply let you build improvements on the resources... isn't that the most simple, realistic, and strategically fun way to do this?  Why have hidden resources at all?

Civilization has hidden resources (horses, coal, oil, uranium) and lets you just build whatever in those tiles.  They work around the 'city being built on a hidden resource' by just making it so that the resource automatically becomes "improved" if there is a city built on it...  I really don't like that about Civ, and would be thrilled if Elemental just got rid of hidden resources altogether.  I don't understand their appeal.  I would be curious to hear reasons in favor of hidden resources...
End of TeamM's quote

 

The hidden resources make sense in both games.  I wouldn't like the Civ 4 implementation in Elemental personally, but it makes sense in a Civ game.

 

Reply #73 from Elemental Forums Top

patch me!!!!!!!!!!

Reply #74 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Alstein, reply 48

Case 2a) Player when they try to build on the tile, discovers the resource

Case 2b) Player when they try to build on the tile, destroys the resource unknowingly (they never find out it was there)

Case 2c) Player whenn they try to build on the tile, cannot

Case 2d) A random selection of the above.
End of Alstein's quote

I actually like the way it is currently done (as it favors small empires over big ones), there is another solution to that problem:

Case 2e) Player when they try to build on the title, the (still hidden) resource get moved to an adjacent (or close) empty tile.

This would have only a minimal gameplay impact, I could only be abused by two human players, one being to see the resource, and the other not. Although I fail to see any point in abusing this mechanism...

Reply #75 from Elemental Forums Top

The more land you have, the more likely you are to benefit, so I think the reverse is true.  The current system favors large, resource-poor empires, which encourages ICS as well in a sense.

 

2e isn't a bad idea, though multtiple building= multiple moving= increase shot of something going wrong.