Hex of Steel News

[h3]ADDED[/h3]

• Adrian Cole, Frank Berryman, Stanley Savige to Australia (commanders).
  
• Konstantin Lukash to Bulgaria (commander).
  
• Bert Hoffmeister and Jean Victor Allard to Canada (commanders).
  
• Charles de Gaulle, Jean de Lattre de Tassigny to France (commanders).
  
• Ferenc Szombathelyi and József Heszlényi to Hungary (commanders).
  
• Mario Roatta to Italy (commander).
  
• Hugh Dowding and Keith Park to UK (commanders).
  
• Aaro Pajari and Jarl Lundqvist to Finland (commanders).
  
• Wladyslaw Anders to Poland (commander).
  
• Radu Korne and Emanoil Ionescu to Romania (commanders).
  
• Bai Chongxi and Chiang Kai-shek to Nationalist China (commanders).
  
• Nie Rongzhen to Communist China (commander).
  
• Alexandros Papagos to Greece (commander).
  
• Shunroku Hata, Hideki Tojo, Takeo Kurita, Mitsuru Ushijima to Japan (commanders).
  
• Karel Doorman, Christiaan Boers to The Netherlands (commanders).
  
• Howard Kippenberger and Leonard Trent to New Zealand (commanders).
  
• Otto Ruge to Norway (commander).
  
• Gösta von Stedingk and Helge Jung to Sweden (commanders).
  
• Danilo Kalafatović, Milorad Petrović, Dimitrije Živković, Vladimir Cukavac to Yugoslavia (commanders).
  
• Enrique Líster to Spanish Republic (commander).
  
• Stasys Raštikis and Kazys Skučas to Lithuania (commanders).
  
• Johan Laidoner and Aleksander Tõnisson to Estonia (commanders).
  
• Jānis Balodis and Krišjānis Berkis to Latvia (commanders).
  
• Rodion Malinovsky to USSR (commander).
  
• Toggle store menu keybind (none by default).
  
• Toggle reserve menu keybind (none by default).
  

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]

• Multiplayer compatibility version --> 7.7.10.
  
• AI playing smoother (improved code performances, should lag less when it plays).
  
• Big code refactor of a lot of the code.
  
• Upon capitulation, you would be getting all of the land of the player you just conquered. Now, if some of this land originally belonged to your allies, or to neutrals, it will be given back to them, and you will only keep the territory of your enemy (that you just beat).
  
• Increased cost penalty when buying units from another player (25% --> 35%).
  
• Purchasing units from other players will no longer transfer the extra you're paying as part of the penalty, this will prevent any cheesing/exploit or money generation.
  
• Made all air commanders ground commanders. May cause issues in your save files where they will occupy an air slot but move as a ground unit.
  
• Availability year of all units to be 1935.01.01 if they were available before.
  
• End availability year of all units to be 1947.01.01 (if their end use date was 1946+).
  
• Reworked all commanders stats for all countries.
  
• Bulgarian commanders counters.
  
• German commanders counters.
  
• When historical focus is ON, AI minors and allied with germany will transfer what they capture to Germany (basically, if Slovakia captures territory in the USSR, it will transfer it back to Germany).
  

[h3]FIXED[/h3]

• AI not flanking anymore.
  
• Armenia as part of USSR geography issue on Europe scenarios.
  
• On Europe '39, USSR turned Neutral through events after the end of the Baltic States invasion, if you were at war with it as Germany and started a very early Barbarossa, you would lose all progress and troops would be sent back home.
  
• Weather particles small issue during season change, when both rain and snow would appear on the screen and one would not go away.
  
• AI doing suicidal bombing runs with its strategic bombers.
  
• P-61 Black Widow too OP.
  
• Some stats not being updated for units after they have been changed in the editor when starting a new scenario (fuel).
  
• In the map editor, when setting painting tiles, the manpower value would not be directly set (only after reload of the map).
  
• Unit sleep status not being saved on turn 1 when the unit was on a VP tile.
  
• Units stats not being updated when opening a map in the map editor, which could lead to some issues down the road if you are actively modding the game.
  
• AI would deploy some of its new commanders too close to existing commanders.
  
• AI would perform unit swapping with human controlled units.
  
• Partisans spawning right after a country capitulated.
  
• Wrong deployment tooltip rule for coastal batteries.
  
• Game was not unloading from RAM mods after they were removed or deactivated. Basically, you could load the same mod 10 times and it would be loaded as new every time and the old data would not be purged. Only a game restart fixed it.
  

[h3]REMOVED[/h3]

• Mr. Hitler as a German commander.
  
• William Stevens New Zealand commander.
  

[h3]ADDED[/h3]

• Amount of HP healed is now shown on the supplies tooltip (which shows how much it will cost in manpower and in cash).
  
• Capitulation conditions for your nation in the objectives panel. If there is any capitulation event targeting you, it will be listed in there.
  
• Map editor: Possibility to edit any level of any unit placed on the map by directly typing it in the appropriate inputfield.
  
• Missing heroes icons for some countries (Baltic States for example).
  

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]

• Multiplayer compatibility version --> 7.7.9.
  
• AI will now perform actual unit swapping (two units side by side) when in need of it.
  
• Units with their range stat = 0 can only fight in their own tile now.
  
• Bunkers stats and way of fighting. They could be used offensively, and were way too OP for that. So now, I have given them 0 range to make them defensive units only (cannot be used to attack), and they have their stats decreased as a whole, soft damage from 40 to 35, hard damage from 40 to 30, ammo from 25 to 20, armour from 70 to 50, but they got their HP go from 100 to 150 to compensate.
  
• Urban tiles terrain modifiers tuned down a bit (Villages = 30%, Towns/Harbours = 40%, Cities = 50%).
  
• One or two units graphics.
  
• Units damage bonus by each new level of veterancy has been increased to 5% (instead of 4%).
  
• Optional setting 'repeated attack penalty' now changed from 15% to 25% penalty.
  
• All heroes icons are now actual historically accurate medals.
  
• Veteran store option is now much more expensive and is a % of the unit's cost, no longer a flat rate for all units.
  
• When your nation is not at war, you will now earn 50% less income.
  
• Upkeep of units when not at war is now 50% cheaper instead of 75% cheaper (basically 25% more expensive than it was before).
  
• Upon capitulation, you would be getting all of the land of the player you just conquered. Now, if some of this land originally belonged to your allies, or to neutrals, it will be given back to them, and you will only keep the territory of your enemy (that you just beat).
  
• Increased cost penalty when buying units from another player (25% --> 35%).
  

[h3]FIXED[/h3]

• Ironman tooltip not following mouse position.
  
• Entrenchment lvl 5 staying even after you disabled the policy.
  
• AI unit swapping issues.
  
• Priority issue in the damage calculation function, where veterancy would be applied only after armour modifier was applied.
  
• AT units now providing supportive fire against all infantry instead of just mech. infantry (regression).
  
• Clicking on a unit in the map editor would automatically set the unit's forced custom name to be unit name + number.
  
• AI not purchasing enough units / stopping the purchase of new units after some time when realistic manpower option is ON.
  
• AI stopping purchasing units even though it could buy more (upkeep/cash in bank ratio).
  
• Some AI artillery suicidal movements.
  

[h3]ADDED[/h3]

• KV-1 M1939 (heavy tank) to USSR.
  
• Piaggo P.108 (strategic bomber) to Italy.
  
• New setting: No prototypes. Disables all prototypes (hides them from everywhere).
  
• New keybind: Toggle AI speed (Fast/Slow). Useful when you want to speed up or speed down the AI's play speed (default is NONE, you will have to set it to something yourself).
  

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]

• Multiplayer compatibility version updated to 7.7.8.
  
• Renamed KV-1A into KV-1 M1940.
  
• Renamed KV-1B into KV-1 M1941.
  
• Renamed KV-1C into KV-1 M1942.
  
• Europe scenarios: Alps area.
  
• Europe 1939: Germany geography.
  
• Europe scenarios: Eastern Prussia area.
  
• Europe 1939: Reduced USSR income.
  
• Few units graphics.
  
• Reduced repair cost for certain ships (otherwise it was not even worth repairing, buying a new one would be basically cheaper).
  
• Reworked repair cost for tanks/armoured vehicles.
  
• Reworked repair cost for planes (bombers being now a tad more expensive than fighters to repair).
  
• AT units will now provide supportive fire against mechanized infantry.
  
• AT units now have double damage against mechanized infantry.
  
• Improved hospitals policy now doubles the max heal/repair rate (instead of doing +50%).
  
• Swapping two units position will no longer reset the entrenchment level to 0, but instead only lose 1 level.
  
• Tanks now take armour from infantry into account.
  

[h3]FIXED[/h3]

• Europe 1939 and above: Italy getting its historical reinforcements when playing with historical focus OFF.
  
• Europe 1939: Hungary missing its Carpathian territory from the first Vienna Award.
  
• Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement on Poland capitulation applying when historical focus was OFF.
  
• Loading scenario UI element not showing when selecting a scenario.
  
• Low fuel (critical) never showed as red, but as yellow.
  
• Several units availability production date.
  
• Settings: Clicking on categories did not play any click sound.
  
• Upgrade menu: Issues with buttons.
  
• Neutral country diplomacy issues on scenario start.
  

Hello there!

Not that many of you asked for this, I even initially rejected the idea, but I thought that I could also just make it optional.

So, here it is, the latest v7.7.7 now has cloud saving support (SteamCloud)!

This means that you will have an easier time having access to your save files through different machines, but not only! I have fully enabled cloud gaming support (GeForceNow and others).

You can now fully enjoy playing the game on there as well!

Quick note 1: The new optional cloud saving system is NOT AUTOMATIC. It basically adds a new button to save to the cloud, ONCE. It will not automatically and periodically update the file or anything. The saving system still works like before, so you still need to manually perform saves, it just offers you to save to the cloud too.

Quick note 2: If you click the new 'save to cloud' button, a save file is still generated on your computer, and is uploaded to Steam Cloud. You can use this as a backup if anything. So you're not losing anything in the case something goes wrong (this is Steam we're talking about!).

Quick note 3: Steam Cloud is shared across the DEMO and the full/paid game. Thanks Steam for allowing this.

Not much more to add, quick link to version 7.7.7 changelog if you're interested to read it if you didn't yet: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1240630/view/4617965876704471626

Have a good week-end everyone :)

Cheers

Val

[h3]ADDED[/h3]

• 76 mm divisional gun M1933 to USSR.
  
• 76mm M1927 to USSR.
  
• B-17D Flying Fortress to USA.
  
• Steam Cloud saving support (optional, temporary 10 max save files support).
  
• New toggle: Offline PBEM when hosting a scenario offline. Will lock some features to prevent cheating when playing with several people, but offline.
  

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]

• Multiplayer compatibility version to 7.7.7.
  
• Attacks against units in train transport are now doubled (essentially making units moving in trains very vulnerable to external attacks).
  
• AI will now back out with some of its units if they cannot deal enough damage at the frontline but some others can and would perform better in their place and are nearby enough to take their place during the turn (improved much more after an additional update, it's as good as it gets).
  
• Few units graphics.
  
• Added 5 more turns to Op. Market Garden as it was impossible to complete.
  
• Added more major VPs to German side on Stalingrad 42 standalone as you could complete the scenario very quickly by using some very specific strategy.
  
• Nukes now disable tiles for 15 turns.
  
• Reworked a bit the standalone scenarios menu.
  

[h3]FIXED[/h3]

• AI healing its units right at the frontline instead of attacking (unit with 90%+ HP not in need of urgent healing).
  
• When AI had the choice to attack two targets with same damage dealt but a difference in retaliation damage received, it would not take into account the retaliation damage received and could end up choosing targets that would deal more retaliation damage.
  
• AI could sometimes deploy its commanders at the frontline where there were enemy units.
  
• AI artificially increasing its available (limited) manpower.
  
• AI AA would not stay in defensive mode and always move out.
  
• AI freeze when trying to spawn units that are tiles (trench, factory...).