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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.

119,106 views 254 replies
Reply #201 Top

I want to make bastard children like in Crusader Kings.

Reply #204 Top

Just updated to 1.19beta...game gets stuck at splash screen (not responding. )

 

EDIT: nvm...got it

Reply #205 Top

Just patched the game, started it...

Error message that says: Failed to download data file blah blah, make sure that anti-vir, firewall, blah blah.

Yeah... my firewall is set to ask each time before it allows a connection, but there is no retry button on the message that it failed to connect. Also, each time the game starts, its checksum seems to change, so that my firewall see's it as a new type of connection. I have to deactivate the firewall to make it work.

Firewall is McAfee one.

 

So... also, what is this new thing you have to get logged in that requires an Internet connection? Why am I logged in under my forum handle now? Some info's about that perhaps? :p

Edit: I guess it's the achievement system hook up?

Reply #206 Top

Quoting Vandenburg, reply 205

So... also, what is this new thing you have to get logged in that requires an Internet connection? Why am I logged in under my forum handle now? Some info's about that perhaps?
End of Vandenburg's quote

 

1.19 is beta and beta means you need an (firewall free) internet conection to start the game - because of some autoreports, etc.. If the game left beta later on you can play it like before without internet conection.

Reply #207 Top

Quoting calmon, reply 206

1.19 is beta and beta means you need an (firewall free) internet conection to start the game - because of some autoreports, etc.. If the game left beta later on you can play it like before without internet conection.
End of calmon's quote

Didn't had that issues with other betas before, I'm actually pretty sure, it's to do with the achievement system now.

 

 

Bug:

Diplomat got added as a job, instead of a talent.

Achievements don't get updated instantly in the achievement list when you get them.

You still have to save and reload on your first turn, if you want to be able to build a farm instantly, since border updates are still not done when founding a new city. A reload fixes that.

Automatic pathfinding still doesn't know that forests costs 2 movement points to traverse.

Reply #208 Top

am downloading on three machines, flamer reports 1.91gb download,b3 reports 227.46mb, b2 reports 14.5mb, and all three were at verified 1.11, flamer is winxp 32bit, b2 & b3 win7 64 bit.

harpo

edit and destiny's embers survived on b3, but went into hiding on b2 and had to be updated to restore them, and flamer is still downloading

 

Reply #209 Top

I got the 14.5mb download and now the game won't start. Same problem as Vandenburg.

Reply #210 Top

I got the 14.5mb download and now the game won't start. Same problem as Vandenburg.
End of quote

Deactivating the firewall for the duration of the start up should solve it.

 

Bug: With the new stack mechanism... you can't group units anymore once a group has dissolved, you have to move an unit out of that tile and back in again. X(

Reply #211 Top

i cant even find an update available to me :/

Reply #212 Top

Quoting Mayjori, reply 211
i cant even find an update available to me :/
End of Mayjori's quote

Did you make sure that you have show-pre release version marked in the Impulse setup?

 

Edit: Just hat my first out of memory bug... on like turn 25 or so. Never had that last version. :p

Reply #213 Top

^ Christ.... an OOM crash that early... and you've never had it that bad until now?

Sounds pretty clear that the beta borked more than it improved.  DEFINITELY waiting longer before getting this one.... dammit.

Reply #214 Top

yes i have that marked

Reply #215 Top

Quoting Victor5, reply 213

Now I'm DEFINITELY waiting on this one.... dammit.
End of Victor5's quote

If you don't want to help BETA test the BETA build for possible crashes why would you download it at all?

Reply #216 Top

Because I already got an obscene amount of OOM crashes.  If I'm getting even more than before, I literally wouldn't even be able to PLAY LONG ENOUGH to test anything.  That's why.

Reply #217 Top

^ Christ.... an OOM crash that early... and you've never had it that bad until now?

Sounds pretty clear that the beta borked more than it improved. DEFINITELY waiting longer before getting this one.... dammit.
End of quote

  1. Debug Message:  - Ending Turn 50 -
  2. Debug Message:  Current Memory Usage: 1212820 KB

 

:p

Well, that's what betas are for, to find stuff like that. I've just seen that the debugger got activated again, I guess that oom crash could be because of it.

 

Bug: Just married Achievement doesn't seem to work with Janusk.

Reply #218 Top

Quoting Victor5, reply 216
Because I already get an obscene amount of OOM crashes.  If somebody is getting even more than before, I wouldn't even be able to PLAY LONG ENOUGH to test anything.  That's why.
End of Victor5's quote

That's my point.  If you're not willing to crash and post reports (which you don't seem to in spite of an "obscene amount of OOM crashes") then why would you even consider downloading the beta?  What's the point?

I don't get why people expect to play a beta and have things work right.  That's why it's a beta and not a release candidate or a full release.  The point is to play, test new mechanics and/or balance, find things that crash and/or are broken, and report the problem and the appropriate files.  In payment for that you get to try new things early and have a little more voice in how things shape up.  

Every time they post a big new beta patch we get people complaining how this beta is obviously "borked" 2 hours after the beta is available.  How dare they not test the beta on beta testers before releasing it to beta testers...   

Reply #219 Top

It is a "public beta"......and it would be an honor to crash then post or post the crash or whichever comes first.

o_O

Reply #220 Top

I see in CoreWorldResources.xml the new tag <MinPerPlayer>.5</MinPerPlayer>. Am I correct in assuming this spawns 0.5 resource hoards for every player? Is that a 50% chance for each player, or does 2 players guarantee 1 spawn?

Does it calculate how many were placed randomly, before placing additional resources using that tag? Or are those additional spawns, not taking into account how many were placed randomly?

Reply #221 Top

The point is to play, test new mechanics and/or balance, find things that crash and/or are broken, and report the problem and the appropriate files. In payment for that you get to try new things early and have a little more voice in how things shape up.

Every time they post a big new beta patch we get people complaining how this beta is obviously "borked" 2 hours after the beta is available. How dare they not test the beta on beta testers before releasing it to beta testers...
End of quote

First of all, the last beta I did test retained many of its bugs into the public release.  Really though, how useful will it be if all I can report is more crashes over and over again?  I would not even be able to test the new mechanics or anything else you mentioned above.

Not to mention one of the key purposes for this patch was to REDUCE OOM crashes, hence my lack of compassion.  But I'm sure once I test this and confirm what I predicted, you'll calm down, right? :rolleyes:

Reply #222 Top

Quoting Heavenfall, reply 220
I see in CoreWorldResources.xml the new tag <MinPerPlayer>.5</MinPerPlayer>. Am I correct in assuming this spawns 0.5 resource hoards for every player? Is that a 50% chance for each player, or does 2 players guarantee 1 spawn?

Does it calculate how many were placed randomly, before placing additional resources using that tag? Or are those additional spawns, not taking into account how many were placed randomly?
End of Heavenfall's quote

It's not hooked up yet, but when it is it'll be  a ratio.  So 0.5 is 1 for every 2 players, 0.33 would be 1 for every 3, etc.  It's not likely to go above 1 per player.  :)

This will be in addition to whatever is placed randomly. 

Reply #223 Top

Thanks for info CariElf!

 

BUG

Someone left their Spellseed1.PSD in the C:\Program Files\Stardock Games\Elemental\Gfx\Spells build. 

 

And is it just me or did a whole bunch of fresh paintings and effects show up?  :drool:

Reply #224 Top

Regarding blink, I would think if you made it a random teleport within a 4 square radius (not diameter), that would add a risk/reward concept to it, and basically make it a last resort. 

Edit:  Noticed someone had same idea earlier.  Kudos.

As for the patch, I am curious, can we go backward in versions without reinstalling?

 

Reply #225 Top

Okay, started a game last night with the 1.19 beta and I have the following suggestions/observations as it pertains to my early game strategy. I was playing on Challenging World with all 8 races also set to Challenging.

My initial game strategy still works and I consider this an exploit that needs to be adjusted.

My game strategy is 'the Rush'. What I basically do is found my city and spend most of my initial gold on armor and a boar spear. My first Tech research is Warfare and my first Arcane Spell is Arcane Weapon. As soon as I build my first city, I start building a Pioneer and then a Caravan (because I have the x trait from the Sovereign setup).

I then wander around my position picking up anything I can. When I get Janusk, I add him to my party and outfit him with armor and a boar spear as soon as I have enough gold. I pick fights with everything in order to get experience and with that experience I add STR and CON to increase my attack and health points. Usually in the first 20 turns I add a 3rd hero and outfit him/her with armor and a boar spear as well.

Roughly around turn 40 I have met at least one or sometimes two AI factions. As soon as I get Arcane weapon, I cast that spell on every member (usually 3) of my party and attack the nearest faction. The AI faction is usually guarded only by the Sovereign and a spouce, or sometimes a peasent or two. My party which is usually at level 3 and have armor and boar spears easily take out the AI and I end up with 1 to 3 extra cities and another mana shard. If there is another AI close, I might or might not attack them as well, but I *always* take out someone in the first 50 turns. The AI is never prepared and it effectively doubles my empire. This tactic has never failed.

So how shoud the AI defend against it?

1. The AI should equip it's hero's from the store the same as I do on turn one or two and should check to see if the store has upgraded equipment. This should happen at the start of every turn for every 'hero' under it's command.

2. As soon as contact is made with another faction, the AI should start to build some guard units in every city under it's control and not peasents, but some type of unit with a defense as well as attack values.

However, even if the AI did that, there are two other problems which still would make this a viable strategy because the AI does not expect an attack in the first part of the game. The AI needs to research a tactical offensive spell as soon as it can and the AI needs to find a way to get experience for it's hero's in the same manner that I do. Even if the AI outfitted better, the fact that my party comes at them at level 3 or sometimes 4 while they are at level 1 puts the AI at a real disadvantage in a tactical battle.

Also tactical battle against a city is too easy, especially in the early part of the game. Suggestion: Allow excess popluation to be outfitted as levies prior to the tactical battle. The excess population would be equiped like peasents and grouped by 4. Any losses by the levies effects the factions population after the battle. This could be taken farther later in the game by having Tech reaserch that allows the levies to have better equipment although it will fight at a disadvantage (armor and weapons perhaps 1/2 effect).

Final Suggestion: For whatever reason, Stardock has been hesitant to remove the Equipment option when you create your Sovereign although I don't know of a single person that uses this because the point cost is prohibitive. I suggest that instead of purchasing equipment, allow the sovereign to purchase tactical spells or special abilities instead. The reason for this is obvious, the better/stronger the initial Sovereign is, the more likely they are to survive the an initial early game 'Rush' while adding some 'favor' to the game as well. I would recommend that these spells and/or abilities be randomly selected at the start of the game so you can't count on certain AI personalities to have certain abilities or spells. I would also recommend that IF the AI can't effectively purchase better equipment for itself at the start of the game, that depending on the level of difficulty, the game awards better equipment to these sovereigns at the beginning of the game. Nothing out of the ordinary, but at least some basic armor and a decent weapon. After all WE are going to outfit OUR Sovereigns with good equipment, the AI Sovereign at the very least should do that as well.

JMO.