Hex of Steel News

- Added : 18 units to Canada.

- Change : I am still working on performance and optimizing the game, and today, I come with GREAT news ! Remember when it took 1 minute and 3 seconds (I just timed it in 3.0.3) to load the Europe map ? Well, it now takes … TWELVE SECONDS. This is a 8.6 times speed difference. So, yes, maps will now open / generate 8.6 times quicker :) I am NOT kidding !! Just try to open the Europe map for FUN hahaha.
- Change : All artillery units in the game have been restat. Artillery was WAY too deadly. I want artillery to be used as a support weapon.
- Change : Unit attacked by artillery won’t retaliate anymore.
- Change : Ammo and fuel loss is now based on the damage of the stats of the unit. Having a bigger gun will create more attrition.
- Change : All artillery units now ignore any armour.
- Change : Terrain defense modifiers have been lowered. 20 bonus was way too much for a forest.
- Change : All infantry damage has been lowered.
- Change : Coastal batteries are now more expensive.
- Change : Cap recon bonus damage to +5 per type. Meaning, having 3 recon planes above your enemy won’t give a +15 damage bonus anymore. It will only give +5 for ALL recon planes, and if you have 3 recon ground units, then it will also be capped a +5 damage. So, you can have +10 max, by cumulating both ground and air recon, but not more.
- Change : Artillery won’t retaliate anymore if attacked at close range UNLESS the artillery is of tank type. This is so that SPGs will retaliate if attacked, but field guns won’t.

- Fix : Destroyers would take damage when hunting submarines. And since subs are quite powerful, it would make hunting them impossible.
- Fix : Italian CAS planes didn’t have the CAS white look (explosion).
- Fix : AI not attacking when it could/should.

- Added : 18 units to the game Ordnance QF 2-pounder 3.7 inches QF AA Mk. II, 37mm M1939, 155mm Long Tom, AB 41, AB 43, Aichi D3A1, BM-8-24, Crusader Mk. III AA Mk. I, GAZ AAA 4M, GAZ MM 72K, Ki 49, M3A1 Stuart Satan, panhard 178 1940, Ram tank, Type 90 75mm, YaG-10 (29-K), ZIS 43.

- Change : Hide everything about mines (all stats being displayed, will just be the HP left.)
- Change : Pz IV G H J stats (more hard damage).
- Change : Ju87D stats (nerfed).
- Change : Sped up the AI’s turn (You’re welcome, you’re welcome).
- Change : AI will now be more aggressive.
- Change : AI will not clutter its harbours anymore (having tons of units around a harbour waiting to embark).

- Fix : You could open the order of battle before ending your turn, then ending your turn and it would not close itself. Meaning you could peek on your enemy’s units :)
- Fix : AI instance freeze.
- Fix : AI would not always prioritize healing if it was in a situation of danger.
- Fix : You could send empty messages in the multiplayer chat.
- Fix : Auto road placement near city was not working.
- Fix : AI not attacking when it should/could.
- Fix : Forgot to add AA in the Order of Battle.
- Fix : AI engineers not staying on the river when they had units that wanted to cross.
- Fix : AI units not crossing over their engineers on the rivers and stacking around.
- Fix : Store basket UI.
- Fix : On mobile the map editor menu UI was not so well.
- Fix : On mobile you couldn't change the amount of players on a map.
- Fix : 200 / 200 HP were too big to be shown at the bottom UI on PC.
- Fix : AI paratroopers could drop around an empty VP.

- Change : I finished my unit optimization. I doubt I can do better in this section because I removed everything that was causing any performance issue from the code, so, yeah :)
- Change : Made unit changes to the Kursk43 campaign scenario in the German campaign. There were WAY too many elefants, panthers and tigers. Not enough Pz IVs.

- Fix : HUGE performance issue on big map.
- Fix : NATO ships were mirrored.
- Fix : Possibility that unit's from another human player in multiplayer would unlock achievements for you (during retreat/retaliation etc). Very small chance, but still, it could have happened.

Hahaha, you thought I would be celebrating on my side, watching how many copies I would sell today ? Absolutely not ! I have been preparing this patch !
You are a true dev, or a businessman, not both ! (I am both, but I have more of the dev side hahaha).

- Fix : Ground units could damage planes if there was a recon unit next to them. Such a stupid bug ….
- Fix : For some reason sometimes the end game stats wouldn’t generate by themselves you would have to click on one of the filters.
- Fix : AI freeze instance.
- Fix : AI bar moving forward and backward a little bit sometimes.
- Fix : Kharkov43 map was .. weirdly glitched.
- Fix : Defense of Stalingrad in the USSR campaign was won automatically because they were the only one to have a major victory point.
- Fix : Slight UI fix with the end of game statistics panel.
- Fix : Leningrad 41 German campaign scenario had an invisible Sherman M4A3.
- Fix : Issue in naming with a winter coast tile.
- Fix : Optimization issues with lot of units on a map. On the Europe map it was unplayable.
- Fix : No upgrade would be shown on the units on the board (almost).
- Fix : XP earned with attacking was very small.
- Fix : Destroyers didn’t retaliate to submarines.
- Fix : Submarines could attack naval mines (They would always do 0 damage but it would show the red target).
- Fix : Planes couldn’t resupply on an airfield tile. Only adjacent (god knows why!).

This update is a special one, because …. THE GAME IS ONE YEAR OLD TODAY ! Happy birthday Operation Citadel !
Damn. Who would have thought that after a failed kickstarter, with only 53euros collected, including 20 from my dad, we would be here today, with such a product for everyone to enjoy on any platform ! This is INCREDIBLE ! I’m seriously shocked to see how far we’ve come all together.
For those that don’t know, for the newcomers, it is my brother and I that are working on the game, we’re both student and working on it when we have free time. Many MANY players helped us with their feedback, suggestions, ideas, even with their own work to help make this game what it is today. Thank you everyone ! Thank you !

[h3]Additions[/h3]

• A new tile type ! COASTS. Those tiles have been added purely for graphical purposes (and oh BOY it looks good. Thank you for the suggestion @MaitreBongo). We added a whopping 189 tiles (all variants and biomes together) to the game ! They are of sea type, but make the map look better overall.
  
• Auto placement for coast tiles in the map editor. Just paint with a coast tile and they will be placed automatically :) You can easily create lakes and others with this, play with it !
  
• 5 new achievements : Watch your step: walk on a land mine. Safari (bronze, silver, gold): Destroy 1, 10, 100 of any Tiger or Panther or Elefant tanks). Statistics: Lose 100, 1000 units. Win Operation Bagration big scenario as the Axis and as the Allies.
  
• Legacy graphics option in the settings. Since all the counters have new graphics, and not everyone will like them, I still let you choose between the old ones, and the new ones !
  
• End of match statistics : Number of units bought per player, amount of money spent per player, and more (save compatible).
  
• 3840 x 2160 resolution setting (4K).
  

[h3]Changes[/h3]

• A COMPLETE UNIT GRAPHICS REVAMP, made possible by a single man @MaitreBongo ! He has been working on this for a week, and did everything himself, I will hold no credits for it since it is his work. He proposed to implement it into the base game, which I accepted due to the good looking counters he was making as a separate mod. THANK YOU !
• When managing your diplomacy with other countries, thanks to the code improvements I made this week I am now able to offer an instant FOW recalculation. Meaning, when you declare war on someone, or make peace with someone, the FOW will be instantly recalculated so that you don’t / or do see your opponent / ally territory. This is awesome :D
  
• LOT of code optimization, map generation has been improved by quite a lot. Slight freeze at the end of a turn should be gone too now. I really spent a lot of time (an entire day) just going through my code and optimizing anything I could.
  
• Updated campaign maps previews in the main menu, campaign section.
  
• Various UI changes / improvements.
  
• Small changes made to Battle of France 1940 and Italy 1943 quick game scenarios.
  
• Updated store trailer + screenshots.
  

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• HP of your core units weren’t set back to max when going to another scenario of a campaign.
  
• Broken V1 kill achievement (sorry for fixing it so late, but better late than never !).
  
• Ships ignored each other’s armor completely.
  
• Tooltip didn’t go away after you bought a unit.
  
• Custom campaign were broken.
  
• AI plane bug.
  
• AI only variable not being reinitialized after an AI vs AI game. Meaning you had to restart the game if you wanted to play a normal (non AI vs AI) game.
  
• Tooltip going over the resupply cost (yay, finally haha).
  
• Font looking bad on windows.
  
• UI in the main menu not scaling to screen (not taking all space).
  
• AI only games could unlock you achievements if it finished the map (Example: the Europe map).
  
• Notifications could be created more than once (for the same one).
  
• On mobile : Diplomacy panel / slots UI issues (part of it was hidden).
  
• On mobile, the potential damage window was right on your finger making it hard to see anything.
  

[h3]Removals[/h3]

• Lake tile graphics. It is not required anymore with the addition of coast tiles. You can just place a sea tile surrounded by land or any of the coast tile, they will be replaced by the correct tile upon map opening. No need for you to worry about anything ! :) (bonus: it looks better).
  

It is suggested that you toggle «NO ROTATION» in the settings if you are playing with the new counters, as well as reducing their size to a third of the total length of the slider. They are incompatible with rotation. I mean, you’re gonna notice it pretty fast haha. When your tank is gonna look upside down, you’re going to realize that :)

Now what ? Oh well … I don’t know. There’s still plenty to do ! The pacific campaign is far from being made, and there always is tweaking to be made, or new features to be implemented … !
Keep suggesting stuff, scenarios, units, I will take note and be working on it when I have time !
Please never stop to report bugs, YOU are making this game stable :)