Destiny of the World News

The major feature of this update is improvements to the map drawing logic. The logic used to draw move buttons and arrows was based on an early build of the game, and it was pretty inefficient. It contained a lot of unneeded logic which greatly slowed the drawing process. This also sometimes caused the game to appear to hang, because the logic consumed so many resources while trying to render each screen update. The drawing logic has been rewritten to only do the calculations needed. This should greatly improve performance when issuing patrol and strategic redeployment orders and should remove this source of "hangs".

New Functionality:

• Production queue tooltip on Production Screen now shows the earliest estimate-to-complete for each item in the queue. For example: "Infantry: Earliest ETC: 4 weeks. 2 Divisions"
  

Tuning

[List]
Changed starting unit deployment for China to give them a better chance against Japan
Increased Chinese starting food stockpiles. Decreased starting food stockpiles for other countries. All countries should start the game with 12 weeks buffer of food.
Decreased food production for China, France, Germany, and Japan.
Cash prices for trade goods have been increased substantially. Trades were so cheap that countries could buy everything on the market for very small amounts.


Changes:

• Production Screen: Changed default to repeat=no when building airbases or radar. There is no benefit to building more than one.
  

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed 5 units erroneously deployed in East China Gobi Desert. This is impassable terrain.
  
• Retreating attackers were intended to retreat to their starting region. They should do this now, when possible.
  

New Functionality:

• Added a flashing battle marker on the mini map, so you can see the world battle location more easily
  

Bug Fixes:

• Rebasing aircraft were unintentionally engaging in combat
  
• Naval combat was occurring between Japan and UK before Pearl Harbor
  
• Production Queue click-detection/tooltips in the Information Panel was misaligned by a few pixels causing the wrong item to be shown sometimes.
  
• Fixed error with RebaseAir command not allowing selection of distant airbases that are legal targets in some circumstances.
  
• Fixed bug where Units Report Select button (which zooms the map to the unit) couldn't find unit and went into loop, hanging the game.
  
• Fixed bug where movement arrows were drawn incorrectly when the movement arrow needed to be drawn exactly vertically. This happened in a few regions near Hawaii. Arrows should now be drawn correctly.
  

New Functionality:

• Unit Specifications Report - This report lets you compare the specifications for different unit types between all major countries. This lets you see how the latest researched units compare between each country. You may find this useful when planning attacks.
  
• Added Land Attack and Air/Sea Attack strengths to map region tool tips
  
• Stockpile row on production screens now shows net change from last week on tooltips
  
• Added a Cheat Screen. This screen will allow you to gain resources by entering a command. If you use a cheat, Steam Achievements will be disabled for that game. When you are learning a complex game, it can be frustrating to find that you've made a mistake which makes it impossible to recover from after you've invested a large amount of time in the game. It's up to you if you want to use this. You may also find this useful, as the game continues to be tuned. The screen is opened and closed by pressing the "~" key. The command format is resource 999. So, for example, "Cash 10000" would give you $10,000. The following resources can be specified: Cash, Food, Oil, Coal, Metal, Supply, and Fuel.
  
• Added a progress bar for the Factory Production. Toward the end of the game, it can take a little longer, so this will let you see a progress bar while it is processed.
  
• Your AI allies may, under certain circumstances, gift units to you. Added an alert message box to inform you when this happens and added gift details to the Messages Panel.
  
• When loading saved game, map will now center on your capital.
  

Tuning
[List]
Reduced factory cost for producing cruisers, battleships and aircraft carriers
Increased effectiveness of Mining Research. If you are short of resources, don't forget about this technology.
Reduced Metal requirements for Supply Production. It was using far too much of the country's metal as a percentage.
USA AI should be more aggressive with invasions
USA and UK endgame AI updated to more intently focus on Japan, if Italy and Germany have been conquered. Currently, too many forces are left idle in Europe and the Mediterranean.
USA AI was being starved by lack of ships against Japan. Increased production priority of ships that take longer to build. Production AI was too reactive. Going forward it should be more proactive, given the long lead times needed to build ships.
Adjusted German AI after USSR falls to better address new goals. More changes planned.
Increased effectiveness of unit-based AA fire. Region-based AA damage is unchanged.


Changes:

• Japan starts the war as a member of the Axis, however hostilities with the UK did not begin historical until Pearl Harbor. The AI has always honored this restriction, but the player could violate this inadvertently by attacking the UK early. The player can still attack early, however, the player is now given a one-time warning if they attempt to attack the other country prior to Pearl Harbor. If they don't cancel the offending orders, a state of war will exist between the two countries. These changes will let the AI fight back against a human player's early attack, and it will also warn a human player, who might be unaware of the consequences of early initiation of UK/Japan conflict.
  

Bug Fixes:

• French Tech Level 0 fighters had a data entry error on gun size. Gun size was off by a decimal point.
  
• Fixed message showing internal ID instead of display name of fleet in message panel.
  
• Chinese forces were allowed to retreat into UK territory prior to hostilities commencing between the UK and Japan. Normally this occurs after Pearl Harbor. Since the Chinese forces retreated into UK territory, the Japanese Player could not pursue them there without triggering hostilities between the UK and Japan. This has been fixed so China can't retreat into UK regions until after the UK and Japan are hostile.
  
• If land units attacked an enemy land region containing both land and air units, and all defending land units were destroyed, the defending air units could sometimes hold the region. This situation should have triggered a victory for the attacker. This should be fixed.
  
• Fixed AA Gun numbers for USA and UK land units. Data entry error.
  
• Radar was not being added to units when created or upgraded.
  
• Maximum aircraft field not entered for French fighters.
  
• Infantry Tech information missing artillery data on Research Details Screen
  
• In the original game design, a unit had to be 100% ready to be issued orders. This was changed to 90%, but there were a few places where it still used 100%. This has been fixed.
  
• Leader bonus value was displaying too many digits of precision on Battle Screen.
  
• Submarines encountering ship transports only fired their surface guns. They now fire torpedoes.
  
• Fixed crash bug on unit report where same division number from two countries was present in the same region.
  
• When attacked, troops on transports were taking casualties, but corresponding transports weren't being sunk.
  

Under Investigation The naval system is not currently playing the desired role. The current AI production process is being adjusted to be more proactive. Going forward, expect to see more naval activity.

Just wanted to touch base and give an update on where we are with the game. All of the planned features are now in the game.

I am still on the lookout for information that the player needs to manage their country. As I continue to test, and get feedback from players, I will be adding this to the game where possible.

As an example, I think one thing missing from the game is the ability to gauge the strength of the enemy troops. An area where this is most glaring is between Japan and China. Playing as Japan, it can be quite intimidating seeing those huge stacks of troops deployed against you.

In actuality, the Chinese divisions are much smaller than the Japanese divisions, and much more poorly equipped. To address this in game, I am planning two additions.

First, I'm going to add a Unit Specifications Report that will let you compare the technical specifications for a selected country's units and your units. For example, you'll be able to see exactly how one of your Armor Divisions stacks up against the enemy country's armor's number of tanks, troops, gun size, armor, speed, range, etc.

Second, when planning an attack, in addition to the current estimate of the number of enemy divisions you see in the tooltips, I am planning on giving you an estimated strength. The accuracy of this estimate will be based on the amount of espionage you are conducting against them. If you have no espionage teams assigned, you won't get an estimate. If you have 1 team, you will get an estimated range of strength of the units in that region. The more teams you have assigned to that mission, the more accurate your estimate range will be.

Look for those changes coming in the next update.

Going forward here is the plan for getting the game from Early Access to General Release.

I'm currently playing each country, to tune them and hunt for bugs. As I do so, I will be continuing to balance and tune the game. Concurrently, while I am manually testing the game, I am running automated tests where the AIs play games against each other, and then I analyze what happened in the game.

In case you're curious, when I run these automated tests, the game generates computer and human readable log files. A typical game will produce about 50,000 files, and about 2 gigabytes of data. I then load that data into two programs. One lets me graphically view the game, turn by turn, and the other lets me review grids and charts with details about Production, Trade, Research, etc.

I also review some of the files manually. For example, I can review in detail what each country AI was thinking or planning for each turn of the game and see where they get hung up or fooled. I can also review battle details for every battle which occurred during the game.

Anyhow, back to the road map. A big part of the remaining Todo's is balancing the economies. I think some production costs are too high. For example, large capital ships are using too much factory capacity. I plan on starting to tune their costs down in the next update.

I'm also adding the finishing touches to the AI. The Pacific War AI still needs some improvement, so I'll be focusing attention on that going forward. You will also see a little more variability in the AI between games.

Finally, I will be testing the game options (e.g., Spain joins Axis), and testing the game difficulty levels.

As always, I welcome any feedback you might have. I'm especially interested in any bugs you find, or in information you can't find in game to manage your country.

I think the game is in the home stretch, while I finish up the testing and tuning.

If you have any questions, feedback, bugs, or suggestions, please leave your comments in the Discussion Forums. I check and respond to them daily.

Thanks for your interest in DOTW. War is coming! :)

Dave
Fiddlyware

Tuning
[List]
Repair points used to repair coal, oil, or metal bombing damage have been reduced to one point per hundred damage. Costs of producing repair points was based on repairing factory damage. These resources were far too expensive to repair.


Changes:

• Strategic Bombing was very simplistic and predictable and was ignoring country's priorities. This reworks the AI to consider strategic target priorities as well as the value of the targets. It should also sometimes target a less valuable target to throw off defender response.
  
• Submarines in combat with surface ships may now disengage earlier from battle, if they aren't winning the battle. This may be adjusted further based on testing. Submarines were already harder to detect by surface fleets, unless there were also cargo ships or transports in the region. This is because submarines are more able to choose their battles. This new change reflects the advantage of submarines in being able to more easily break off combat when they wished.
  

Bug Fixes:

• There was a major bug with Repair Points, which allowed countries to use other country's Repair Points. They should now always use their own Repair Points to repair damage.