Hex of Steel News

[h3]ADDED[/h3]

• FINALLY -> Possibility to re order players turn order in the map editor. This works simply, every player has an index, you can change that index to change the player order. That's it!
  
• New doctrine: Fleet in being. Damage bonus in naval combat, at the expense of higher upkeep/repair cost.
  

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]

• Multiplayer compatibility -> 7.3.9.
  
• Tanks (units in the Tank category/type) and all mechanized units (mech. option from the store) now will require -50% movement points when moving on Plain tiles.
  
• Embarking or disembarking on a destroyed tile is no longer possible (ships/trains/paratroopers).
  
• Reduced the amount of triangles renderer per hexagon and unit and flags on the map. I have reduced this amount of drawn triangles from 9M when zoomed out on Europe to a little under 2M. This translates as a direct +50% FPS boost (due to rendering being cheaper). It should work fine on more recent machines, I am not sure yet for older hardware, in the case it is worse on older hardware, please let me know so that I can reverse the change.
  
• You can no longer build bunkers in enemy territory.
  
• Rebalanced north african front in Europe 39 (standalone).
  
• Replaced the Counter Bomber graphics for something less visually distractive.
  
• On Europe scenario, with Historical Focus turned ON, Italy will no longer try to invade mainland France.
  
• Guadalcanal map changes (campaign).
  
• Sometimes AI would not pick policies in some categories.
  
• Reverted AA with 2 range to 1 range max.
  

[h3]FIXED[/h3]

• Notifications showing 'enemy got reinforcements' or 'allies got reinforcements' were not displayed as intended.
  
• In map editor, event action spawn unit issues.
  
• In map editor, tile update event action having issues when using another season than default 'Summer'.
  
• AI sometimes purchasing too many units even though it should not have because of upkeep, this would lead him into negative income because of too high upkeep.
  
• British AI would declare war on Iraq at the wrong date (before real life invasion).
  

Hello everyone!

Quick little post today to, first, wish you all a great Sunday (bit late), great beginning of a new week, and...

That I would love to meet with more of you during my livestreams!

In case you did not know, I am now going live on youtube on a weekly basis to play Hex of Steel

You can find my last series available on youtube (where I stream)

This last series of 7 episodes is me playing as Finland on the Europe 39 standalone scenarios.

These weekly streams are a time of exchange between the players, and me

If that's something that you feel would be interested it, seeing the dev playing its own game, or chatting with me, then please, by all means, join me!

Next week, we will be starting a brand new series, on that same Europe 39 map, but with improved events and setup. This time, as Romania!

That's all for me today :)

See you in the forums, or in the chat...!

[h3]ADDED:[/h3]

• New dedicated unit counter for bombers (to better identify them at a glance): Counter Bomber.
  Modders will need to update their mod to include the missing graphics.
  
• Clicking on a notification for a unit researched will now open the right category in the research panel.
  
• Level of the unit in the reserve.
  

[h3]CHANGED:[/h3]

• Germany's counters color. In case the new color is not something you like, I have made an official mod which will replace the new counters with the old ones: Old German Counters
• Belgium counters color (slight change in shade of yellow used).
  
• Turkish counters color (New Beige color).
  
• Hungary slight counters color (slight change in shade of green used).
  
• Romania slight counters color (slight change in shade of yellow used).
  
• France counters color (less bright/pale blue).
  
• USA counters color (slight change in shade of green).
  
• Japan counters color (Less orange, more yellow/orange/brown).
  
• Manchukuo counters color (slight change in shade of yellow).
  
• Finland counters color (closer to white, but still light grey).
  
• Type of the unit taken into account for dealing damage when the target is in a landing craft will no longer be 'hard' in 100% of the cases (except if attacked by ships) but will be the proper one used on land battle too.
  
• Tanks fighting on ice will take double damage (frozen sea / river / water tiles).
  
• Units on fortifications tiles will now get entrenchment too.
  
• Potential movement tiles on winter tiles (black shaded, should be more visible).
  
• Bunkers can no longer be built in enemy territory (not sure if it should be counted as a bug).
  
• Upkeep for planes (all) 3% -> 5%. Extra +0.5% for each loadout type.
  
• Upkeep for artillery 1% -> 3%.
  
• Rebalanced Khalkin Gol scenario (Campaign, Allies).
  
• Rebalanced Operation Weserunbung (Campaign, Axis).
  
• Increased ships purchase rate for naval powers (GB, USA, etc).
  
• Croatia will now be properly created upon capitulation of Yugoslavia in 1941 on Europe 1939.
  
• With Historical Focus ON, Germany will now buy 2 times more submarines.
  
• Higher purchase rate of ships for naval major powers.
  
• Updated the cost and turn production time for all coastal batteries (cheaper).
  
• Motorized or mechanized units are now banned from entering or moving through marsh tiles.
  
• Damage reduction for ships vs land targets when shooting at ranges > 1. For up to 3+ range, a 30% damage penalty will incur. For 2 range it will be a damage penalty of 15%. This is to simulate lack of accuracy on very far shots, and also to prevent ships 'cleaning' coastlines up to 3 tiles inland.
  

[h3]FIXED:[/h3]

• You could not deploy a pontoon bridge on a bridge tile (destroyed).
  
• French commanders units had the wrong flag (modern France flag).
  
• Big big data leak. Notifications for AI players were NEVER cleared. Just noticed this on turn 242 of my game, 11900 notifications stacked, never deleted from the game file.
  
• Upgrading a unit and having sent into the reserve, if there were two units on that tile, one of them would be come disabled/hidden forever.
  
• Landings could be performed on mountains or marshes, even for units that could not move on those tiles.
  
• Some units dealing unlimited damage in infinite loop on damage preview. FINALLY FIXED.
  
• Units in train (transport) would show damage for fighting back even though they would not fight back.
  

[h3]ADDED[/h3]

• Confirmation windows for the two new buttons on the unit's UI: Disband and Send back to reserve.
  
• Two new properties for units: 'Immune to winter damage' and 'Can attack ships'. I believe they are transparent enough so that I don't need to explain what these do!
  
• Cavalry to Manchukuo.
  
• Light infantry 43 to Sweden.
  
• AT infantry to Belgium.
  
• AT infantry and AT infantry 43 to Hungary.
  

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]

• Multiplayer compatibility -> 7.3.7.
  
• Updated manual.
  
• Reorganized the order of unit's UI buttons.
  
• Heroes list is now updated on a per hero generation basis, not anymore when the map is created. Very good change as it means it is fully dynamic now and you don't need to restart a new scenario to get the update for heroes.
  
• Engineers will now show mines near them (instead of them being invisible).
  
• Changed armour modifier/penalty taken into account for infantry. It used to be 5% for every infantry unit. It now is 5% for all AT units, and 10% for every other infantry units. It will make regular infantry less of a threat to tanks, and reinforce the use for AT units.
  
• Brought down the hard damage of MG only vehicles way down (from 15 to 5).
  
• Money reward when capturing a VP will no longer fire on every VP capture. It will only fire when the VP has been established (when the recent occupation timer reaches 0). So, if a VP is changing hands every single turn, no money reward will be granted. The occupation timer is the same as for deployment (cannot deploy until X turns have passed).
  
• Heroes icons, I have made some per country ones instead of the 4 generic ones.
  
• Armoured skirts policy now has a new downside: +5% armoured purchase cost.
  
• You cannot upgrade units anymore if there are enemies nearby.
  
• Changed weather probabilities for every month.
  
• Rebalanced Eastern Front 1941 (standalone).
  
• Experimental new combat modifier: Tank retaliation when attacked by TD or AT guns reduced by 50%.
  

[h3]FIXED[/h3]

• Heavy bombers destroying tiles while no one was on them would not benefitiate from the 'one more tile' plane move.
  
• Turning OFF bad weather from the game settings would result in preventing any season change.
  

[h3]REMOVED[/h3]

• Conversion of old events into new events. The new events have now been introduced for like 8 months, I have therefore decided to remove some old obsolete code. This will have no impact on scenarios that are using events and were made less than 8 months ago. As for current scenarios, it will have a positive effect on them since it will reduce the weight/size of each event when they are saved.
  

[h3]ADDED[/h3]

• I have decided to add 'generic' (non historical) heroes to most of base game countries. These heroes never existed historically, but have believable names. I have added 10 of these in each category (Air/Land/Naval) for pretty much every country. I decided to do that to give more incentive to play smaller countries which did not have heroes.
  
• New policy in the Field Modifications category: Improved AP shells. +30% damage vs armoured targets for all AT units. Ammo cost for supplies x300% for all anti tank units.
  
• Biome category for damage breakdown (northern countries getting bonus for fighting in snow).
  
• New combined arms 'mechanics'. Not really a mechanics, but a new damage bonus in combat. The damage bonus from this is maximum 10% of the unit's raw/base damage. So, if the unit has 30 base damage, it will add 3. The way this works is the following: Combined arms only applies to infantry and tanks. In order for infantry to get the 5% combined arms damage bonus, it must have an allied tank adjacent to it, and to the enemy it is trying to attack. For tanks, it's the other way around, they need an allied infantry. To get an additional 5%, you need to also be adjacent to an allied artillery. Combined, these will bring the 10% promised above.
  
• 2 new buttons on the main UI (left) of when a unit is selected. Redeploy and Disband. More available shortcuts than from the OOB.
  

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]

• Multiplayer compatibility version -> 7.3.6.
  
• Updated the manual.
  
• You can now see the ammo/fuel state of your allies (units).
  
• Downgrading a unit into a Garrison will no longer result in the unit being sent to the reserve.
  
• Yugoslavian counters graphics color scheme.
  
• Italian counters graphics color scheme.
  
• Denmark counters graphics color scheme.
  
• Campaign commander (you, player) rank now has a max rank cap: 15.
  
• Tanks / Cavalry no longer gets the terrain penalty when attacking FROM a defavorable tile, unless being attacked (in which case they are effectively fighting in that terrain).
  
• Damage bonus from hills is now only applied in defensive position, to further align the battle logic, same as above.
  
• Rebalanced Europe 39 (standalone).
  
• Rebalanced Winter War (standalone).
  
• Rebalanced Op. Edelweiss (campaign).
  
• Terrain modifier now only applies for the defender during battle, retaliation fire will no longer take into account and apply the attacker's hex modifier, since battle happens only in defender's hex.
  
• Since the attacker will now take more damage, I have enabled back the stacking of recon (air+ground) bonuses. You can now get both as an addition, instead of the best of the two. As a remember, it is +15% damage on base/raw damage for each (air/ground).
  
• The tank penalty now consists of 50% of the terrain modifier penalty instead of 100%. This change was made so that tanks would deal more than 0 damage when attacking cities.
  
• Buttons for actions on the left for currently selected unit that are unavailable for the unit (Such as paradrop for naval units) are now hidden.
  

[h3]FIXED[/h3]

• Romania annexations by Hungary and USSR were happening at the wrong date.
  
• AI level 5 units could reach 150 HP (if they were purchased with veterancy) instead of 140 max.
  
• You could deploy in marsh tiles units that could not move through them.
  
• If a plane had 0 max ammo (often recon planes do if they have no defensive weapons) then the AI would move to the closest airfield and stay there forever.
  
• You could spawn generals through events, and they would remain available to purchase in the store.