Destiny of the World News

Tuning
[List]
Based on player feedback, increased Difficulty for levels higher than Sergeant. This won't affect games already in progress.
Updated AI for mid-to-later war years for greater ally cooperation, and cross theater operations
Reduced shore bombardment damage, but added a small morale reduction for the target unit.


Changes:

• Finland map now has a lighter color. It was previously the same color as Germany. This will make it easier to distinguish between the two countries. Note: this will only take effect in new games. Old, saved games will have the old colors.
  

Bug Fixes:

• Difficulty: Game was incorrectly giving player difficulty bonus for countries that were still neutral when playing Axis vs. Allies Mode. For example, if you were playing as USA before Pearl Harbor, you would have incorrectly been given a bonus until you were at war.
  
• Difficulty: Game was not correctly giving bonuses in Axis vs. Allies Mode.
  
• Shore Bombardment ground defenders were able to damage bombarding ships.
  

New Functionality:

• When disbanding a ground or air unit, you can now optionally move the troops, tanks, and aircraft to your replacement pools, instead of recovering resources and manpower.
  

Changes:

• Streamlined the animation on the Game Over Screen replay.
  
• Changed background image on Game Over Screen.
  

Bug Fixes:

• Disbanding units did not return the correct amount of metal to the resource pool.
  
• Bomb load for rockets was higher than intended. Value was for whole unit of 10 rockets instead of per rocket. Rockets caused more damage than intended.
  
• Rocket range was not being computed correctly. Targets should now be correctly identified and should be reachable by the rockets.
  

The main new features of this release are two new game modes: Play-by-Email (PBEM) and Hotseat.

With both new Multiplayer Modes, you play against a human opponent instead of the computer AI. Both multiplayer modes use Axis vs. Allies Mode. Meaning that one player will control all of the Axis Countries, and the other will control the Allies.

In PBEM Mode, The first player enters his orders normally. When he clicks the End Turn Button, the game is saved automatically, and the game will display a message box identifying the name of the file that needs to be emailed to his opponent.

When your opponent receives the email, they save it to the DOTW Multiplayer folder on their computer, and then load the game into DOTW. They player their turn normally, and then send the file to player 1, and so on.

Hotseat mode is similar to PBEM mode, except both players play on the same computer, and no email is required.

Multiplayer is still in BETA. You may encounter some bugs (please report them if you find any), but the game should be fully playable.

I hope you enjoy!


New Functionality:

• Save files are now compressed to save space. The game will still load old save file format files, but all new saves are compressed and take up much less space.
  

Changes:

• Game Over Screen changed to show flag of winning faction instead of player country.
  

New Functionality:

• AI Historical TimeLine: This is a new game option that will force the AI to more closely follow the historical event timeline for major events. Optional game events will also always fire (e.g., Norway, Greece, etc.). You can use this new game option if you don't want the AI to progress faster than events occurred historically. With default game settings, the AI will pursue its goals as quickly as possible.
  
• Axis vs. Allies Mode moved from Beta Status to General Release
  

Bug Fixes:

• In Axis vs Allies mode, when difficulty level other than sergeant, player's allies incorrectly receive transport penalty or bonus.
  
• Force Size Editor: Additional convoys and transports weren't being added to player forces.
  
• Production screen didn't check that you had researched rockets to level 3 before allowing you to build them. The rockets built were non-functional, but the game should have prevented you from trying to build until you had researched level 3 rockets.
  
• Countries that start as neutral (USA, USSR, and Italy), could not initiate trades with their future allies until they had formally joined the war. Now they can initiate trades while they are still neutral.
  

This release of DOTW includes a new game mode: Axis vs. Allies Mode. It's still in Beta, but if you want to give it a try, it's included in this release.

When you start a new game, you will still be able to play as a single country. However, there will be a new "Control Alliance" option on the New Game Screen that will allow you to control every country in your alliance.

For those of you who like total control, this mode is for you.

You can also use this new mode to play the game "hotseat" with friends, where you each control an allied country on the same computer.

When you start a game in this new mode, you will see a new Country Control Button next to the Information Panel that will allow you to cycle through all of the countries you control, and enter orders, production, trade, espionage, and research for every country in your alliance.

The Country Control Button will show the flag of the Country for which you may currently issue orders. Each time you click on the button, it will select another Country in your alliance. You can switch to each Country by continuing to click the button.

For example, if the button shows the UK flag, and you wanted to enter orders for France, you would click the button until you saw the French Flag displayed.

You can cycle through your Countries as many times as you want, prior to ending your turn.

But you must enter orders for every Country in your alliance before clicking the End Turn Button. After you click End Turn, no more orders can be given for that turn.

Tuning
[List]
Increased French War Weariness morale slightly


Changes:

• Added airfield to Midway Region
  
• Added crossing arrows to map between Sevastopol and Krasnodar
  
• Added messages when troop replacements, air replacements, tank replacements and repair points are completed, to the messages panel.
  
• Previously, at difficulty levels higher than Sergeant, the game would not provide starting Production, Trade, Research or Espionage plans. This was intended to create additional challenge, but actually just created additional annoyance, since you had to recreate the plans manually. This has been changed so that you still get starting plans that you can use as a template. This should reduce "busy work" at game startup at higher levels.
  

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed map error that allowed movement between Tegucigalpa and Belmopan
  
• Fixed map error that allowed movement between Phoenix and Gallup
  
• Fixed error when major country defeated, and colony regions were transferred to an ally that was still neutral (e.g. USA). Region was flagged as Allied or Axis, which didn't match faction of recipient.
  
• Fixed error where Pearl Harbor Message was still displayed, even though USA was already at war (had been attacked early).
  
• If Japan attacks Thailand early, Thailand surrender event will now be properly cancelled.
  
• Unit Specs Report was not displaying the correct Land Attack, and AirSea Attack values for aircraft
  
• Fixed bug with game over screen not displaying