DerekPaxton DerekPaxton

1.19 Changelog

1.19 Changelog

*** 1.19 is a public beta ***

*** 1.19 was released on 1/27/2011 ***

 

Changes

1. Fixed memory leaks.

2. Reduced memory consumption (especially in the late game) by releasing unneeded textures instead of retaining them indefinitely.

3. Raze city no longer requires a tech and is available right off the bat for all of your cities.

4. Prestige penalty for multiple cities has been broken out in the Other category on the city screen (instead of being a part of the base prestige number).

5. AI is more careful with their sovereign.

6. In the city breakdown the amount of buildings is listed (so it will say Study x3 if you have 3 studies in that city).

7. Fixed bug where conquered cities that had caravans that called that city home would end up with messed up caravan counts.

8. Fixed a bug where player ability penalties on resource production weren't actually being taken into account.

9. Fixed the effect of the "Call of the Titans" spell, which gathers all your unstationed units and transports them to a specified tile.  It will now skip units without an attack (ie. pioneers, caravans, boats).

10. Fixed bug where particle glow effect would remain on the map after getting a goodie hut until you hit the turn button.

11. Fixed delay in tactical battles with mounted archer units.

12. Fixed bug where sometimes particles would remain on the map from a destroyed factions cities.

13. Added a new game option to adjust Movie volume.

14. Removed the city idle dialog, replaced with a report item notification in the event list.

15. Pioneers/sovs cannot build/found cities in other people's territory

16. Since spells are capped at level 5, you are no longer given the choice to keep going up in spell level once you reach that max.

17. Disabling Janusk advice does not disable his creation in the game.

18. Custom sovereign starting appearance is randomized (so you don't start with the same model every time).

19. You are now able to select a tile under a unit without moving the unit.

20. Limited improvements (like the faction specific Beacon of Hope) won't be counted as being built until they are completed.

21. Fixed Titan's Breath (thanks to Heavenfall and Kenata).

22. Fixed an issue that was keeping the AI from casting spells in tactical battles.

23. Balanced resource placement (more variety, better distribution).

24. Added a blue highlight representing the range of a spell when in spellcasting mode on both the strategic and tactical map, so the user can see how far they are allowed to cast the spell

25. Added tooltips that hover underneath the spellcasting cursor that explain why a spell can't be cast on that tile (with no tooltip shown if it is a valid target)

26. The strategic map spellcasting mode now uses the same wand cursors (with support for an invalid cursor) that the tactical map mode uses

27. Fixed a bug in spellcasting where non offensive, defensive, or terraforming spells were now checking that the spell target was valid when deciding if the spell could be cast.

28. Fixed the Fallen Ambassador (so it now correctly gives diplomatic capital).

29. Removed the Refined Diplomacy techs.

30. Added gold as a tradeable resource for fallen and changed horses to wargs for them.

31. Added the champion ablity "Diplomatic" which gives +1 diplomatic capital per turn.

32. Hooked up a list at the top of the city HUD to show the enchantments that are currently on that city.

33. Fixed a bug in the main city context wnd where it would use the AI's cached version of the battle rank for display, causing it to often not match the city HUD and other screens.

34. Fixed a bug where dispelling Guardian Ward (and any other spells that involved a city-target summon modifier) would not kill the summoned unit.

35. Fixed a bug where killing a unit summoned on a city would not cancel the enchantment that summoned that unit, keeping the spell from being cast on that city again.

36. Fixed lighting on shields in unit design screens (so they won't appear black anymore).

37. Fixed an issue that caused units to lose their custom portrait after a few turns.

38. Units now fade out when they get killed on the main map.

39. Units now fade out when they get killed in tactical battles.

40. Fixed a bug where improvements in FOW still played their particle effects.

41. Added a info button where spellbooks are displayed (such as on the custom sovereign screen) that will show all the spells that spellbook gives.

42. When improvements are auto-upgraded they no longer make the upgrade noise (which can be deafening when a bunch do it at once).

43. Auto-upgrades won't spam the event list with the "new building" messages.

44. When casting a targeted spell on an army (such as imbue champion on a stack with more than one valid target) a dialog is presented to allow the player to pick the unit he wants.

45. Fixed an issue that kept AI champions from being able to cast spells in tactical combat.

46. Players can now earn achievements in single player mode if auto-login is enabled.

47. Fixed a bug with lifesteal that caused the caster to lose hit points.

48. Fixed some bugs in tactical AI code that were causing it to think enemy units were friendly units.

49. Added code so that AI units will try to cast a heal spell on themself before resorting to trying to escape.

50. Added code so that the AI can determine the best spell to use based on AI xml weights in the spells themselves.

51. Added AIData and AIPriority tags to all spells, so we can tweak how much the AI cares about them.

52. Min defense on armor has been removed.  Previously armor never absorbed less than half the units defense value, now it has the possibility to absorb the full range (though weighter to the high end).  So every attack can do damage.

53. Increased the casting cost for Return and Teleport.

54. When a pioneer founds a city, any remaining units in its army are now automatically stationed in the new city.

55. When a sovereign founds a kingdom/empire, the popup explaining what they are doing now includes a checkbox asking if the user wants to station their sovereign in the new city, where if they choose to not have it selected, the sovereign moves to an adjacent tile like before

56. Fixed a bug with units getting stationed over end turn not showing up in a cities context, and ensuring the new city founding behavior shows the most updated city context when all the shuffling of units is done.

57. Fixed bug where, when founding a city, you could see the pioneer either die on top of the city while it was being built, or the pioneer's graphic would stick around for a turn if in cloth map mode when the city was built

58. The events for "improvement built" and "unit finished training" start out temporarily expanded, for a short period of time.

59. Faction Power Wnd entries now have a tooltip telling you how each player feels towards you.  (ex. At War, Neutral, etc..).  Also, if you are at war with them, an AtWar icon will be displayed.

60. Unit info cards reworked to show more meaningful data, have the data fit better, etc.

61. Fixed Grip of Winter and Greater Grip of Winter to correctly apply a chance of taking effect (previously they always caused the victims to lose their next turn).

62. Added an event list entry when there are enemy units in your lands.  Clicking on the event will cycle through the enemy units in your lands.

63. Added a new tactical Air 1 spell, Wind Shield.  Gives all allied units +5 dodge vs ranged attacks.

64. Removed the Blink spell.

65. You can now recruit Janusk directly from his opening dialog (instead of him talking to you and then sometimes running away).

66. Empire can now claim refugee camps.

119,128 views 254 replies
Reply #176 Top

I still don't get why tactical magic doesn't have a spell skill rating ala MoM. Just have it be based of off intelligence, and suddenly int becomes a bit more important. A 25 int could mean 25 mana pts could be used in combat, in the case of a 1:1 ratio, for example.

Reply #177 Top

An interesting thing to do would be to tag the web effect on the end of blink, so cooldown for 3 turns and you can't move either!

Reply #178 Top

Quoting luketan, reply 160
I wonder how many fun spells or features have to be killed due to AI issues,,
End of luketan's quote

 

As much as need i hope!

 

Im really tired of games like FFH2 which the AI just can't handle!

Reply #179 Top

One idea for blink- have it randomly teleport the target whenever they take a blow over 50% of their remaining hp.

 

 

Reply #180 Top

Derek, could you please make a small change for us modders ? We've lost the possibility of changing base hit points (in CoreUnitsStat.xml - changes there have no effects) and Unit Quality/Group attributes (CoreUnitQualityTypes.xml/CoreUnitGroupingTypes.xml). If I'm not satisfied with the current state of the game in terms of balance, it doesn't matter so much as long as I can mod it. But currently, some basic properties are not accessible from the game, although they previously were. Please restore the ability to change those basic attributes.

Reply #181 Top

Quoting Werewindlefr, reply 180
Derek, could you please make a small change for us modders ? We've lost the possibility of changing base hit points (in CoreUnitsStat.xml - changes there have no effects) and Unit Quality/Group attributes (CoreUnitQualityTypes.xml/CoreUnitGroupingTypes.xml). If I'm not satisfied with the current state of the game in terms of balance, it doesn't matter so much as long as I can mod it. But currently, some basic properties are not accessible from the game, although they previously were. Please restore the ability to change those basic attributes.
End of Werewindlefr's quote

I'll check it out.  But it won't be in tomorrows release. We are locked and in QA at the moment.

Reply #182 Top

Agree with CHiZZoPS re spell skill     (not re capitalization  :)

Reply #183 Top

Quoting CHiZZoPs, reply 176
I still don't get why tactical magic doesn't have a spell skill rating ala MoM. Just have it be based of off intelligence, and suddenly int becomes a bit more important. A 25 int could mean 25 mana pts could be used in combat, in the case of a 1:1 ratio, for example.
End of CHiZZoPs's quote

Great idea. I really miss the way MoM handled this. E:WoM could go even better by tying it to int like you suggest, so every battle could have different max mana.

Reply #184 Top

Quoting CHiZZoPs, reply 176
I still don't get why tactical magic doesn't have a spell skill rating ala MoM. Just have it be based of off intelligence, and suddenly int becomes a bit more important. A 25 int could mean 25 mana pts could be used in combat, in the case of a 1:1 ratio, for example.
End of CHiZZoPs's quote
Well... simple: it requires some extensive(-er) modifications to the game, which are outside the scale of this update.

 

I'm with the devs on this one, it's just that I don't understand why we can't get a quick and dirty fix (that works *well*) with cooldowns, since they're already implemented,

Reply #185 Top

I'm with the devs on this one, it's just that I don't understand why we can't get a quick and dirty fix (that works *well*) with cooldowns, since they're already implemented,
End of quote

I don't know the reason ofc, but I think I've got one.

There is currently no way in the game, to make the AI able to use this spell sensible. Blink has some very narrow uses (mainly to attack certain units too far away or to escape) which the AI can't detect. On the other hand, there is plenty of uses for it that don't make sense and are bad. As far as I understand the way the AI decides on spells, it's not possible for it to detect those circumstances in which blink should be used.

This means, blink would remain as a spell that only the player can use. Thus, even with a cooldown, or other restrictions, blink would be an advantage only to the player and never for the AI. Imo, good game design recognizes issues that an AI is unable to cope with, and solves that by designing the game in such a way  that those problems don't appear in the first place. In this case it means removing the spell blink, which is a player only advantage against the AI.

Reply #186 Top

If the tactical AI is too incompetent to use spells, then perhaps some additional resources / programmers should be assigned towards the tactical AI!

It is ridiculous to make the pool shallow in fear that the retarded AI is going to drown. The logic behind teleportation is not difficult. Hell, I just played a $10 indie game where some of the enemies teleport and they do so just fine.

Reply #187 Top

Well yeah.

Design process for a spell should be:

- What use and effect will it have on the game

- Is it meaningful to cast it for the player in certain situations and which are those situations

- Can we make the AI cast it in similar situations

Implemention should be:

- Graphics and effects and sound for the spell

- Actual mechanic coded

- Integration in the AI (ie. make a subroutine which decides when it's viable)

 

This last part most often gets overlooked or is sloppily done. And is also the hardest. As far as I can tell in Elemental, when the big spell revamp happened, design was done in a more or less sensible way, but implementation never really got to the AI stage, since until a patch ago, the AI wouldn't even cast spells in tactical battles anyway (or at least, only a tiny few).

Ie. the AI isn't designed and the game doesn't have the APIs to make spell casting intelligent on part of the AI. This works with spells that do damage, give some bonus etc. since even a random casting of those spells is more likely to produce a beneficial outcome (even if very inefficient or tiny)then not casting it. It doesn't work with complex spells like blink, teleport and similar ones, because the amount of possible ways to cast them wrongly greatly outnumbers the number of casts in which they help.

Or short: The AI can't really cope with spells. There isn't time for the 1.2 patch to totally revamp the AI and implement APIs to make it possible to do so, so removing it is the best solution in terms of game balance in the short term.

I personally see issues like that as a failure in the design process, where complex mechanics of spells are often reduced to their mechanical integration in to the game (ie. the coding, graphics, sound, etc) but the much harder part, the AI for it, often gets put to a later part or even forgotten at all.

Also, I may be wrong, but you can easily write some scripts for such a spell as blink to make an AI use it somewhat intelligently (as in, can't reach enemy -> blink), but there aren't scripts like this in the Elemental AI, since it's not script based.

 

(PS. all of this is speculation on my part ofc.)

Reply #188 Top

 

  I would add that part of the design process is feedback on how well the design works.  We need to be open to cutting aspects that aren't playing out as well as imagined.  In a perfect world that wouldn't be required, but design is rarely perfect so if we find that something isn't working we make a decision if it is still worthwhile with changes, or if it is a flawed concept and is better to be out entirely.

  So it isn't as simple as design and implementation.  Iteration is a critical step too, and should probably be included in the process you outlined.

 And I know its unusual to be designing, implementing and iterating at this stage in Elemental's lifecycle.  But the original release of Elemental didn't live up to Stardock's standards, so thats why we are going through those stages now.

  I would also warn that these stages aren't fixed.  This is definitly a polish patch for Elemental, but it includes a little design, a little iteration and a little implementation.

Reply #189 Top

Heh, and that's why I'm not a designer. Yeah, iteration... since I've no real experience in designing stuff myself and in my mind my ideas always work out perfect, I totally forgot iteration. O:)

Saying it was a failure in design is a bit too harsh I guess. Design can often not work in reality, (1upt and CivV AI <X3 ) and being flexible enough to change ones design is an important thing. Hindsight is always 20/20 after all.

Reply #190 Top



66. Empire can now claim refugee camps.

End of quote

 

Finaly, the fleeing masses can be enslaved again! }:)

Seriously, I was waiting for this. It always seemed weird that the refugees remained ungraspeble for the fallen.

Reply #191 Top

Yay for #62! No more zooming out to cloth map every turn to see if caravans or resources are at risk. :grin:

Reply #192 Top

66=absolute win. Its these little changes that make me feel like I don"t even need new updates. But I suppose they aren't all just for me. 

Reply #193 Top

Will the new spell #63 have its own art and effect or will it recycle Blink's?

Reply #195 Top

Quoting stripe7, reply 194
When will this beta be out? Today? where can I get it?
End of stripe7's quote

Supposedly today. Also, unsubstanted rumours say hat Kaleb's sleep cycle will mean a release later this afternoon.

Or not.

 

Edit: As for getting it, download it via Impulse, by activating show pre-release versions in its options.

Reply #196 Top

I can´t se it on impulse... and yes I have been switching "show pre-realease" on and off ... like fiftyshive times

 

Reply #197 Top

Quoting -Ztoffe-, reply 196
I can´t se it on impulse... and yes I have been switching "show pre-realease" on and off ... like fiftyshive times

 
End of -Ztoffe-'s quote

Cause it's not released yet. Patience. In a few hours or so. ;)

Reply #198 Top

ooops sry... saw that the 1.19 changelog had changed from not realeased to something else. so I just ... thought.

thanx for the quick and hasty answer =). Had an idea that I might not be one of the choosen ones to play the beta (altough it says its open=P) as I bought it erlier this week. It is MOM reincarnated. I love this game. (MOM = Master of manure .... NO!!! magic)

Reply #199 Top

Would be cool if both Empires and Kingdoms could use Worgs and Horses. 

Reply #200 Top

I want my sovereign to have multiple wives.

I am multi-skilled and talented after all.

-.-