Hex of Steel

ADDED • Edition time stat for maps. It will simply count how long it took to create a map in the editor. Just a useful stat I guess since it has no real use. But at least you will know how long it took you to make this or that map. • Delete unit brush in map editor. 1 = tile painting. 2 = water freeze. 3 = season change. 4 = unit removal. • New country: Iceland. Doesn't have any unit though, it's purely a placeholder the Europe 39 map. • Land mines for Switzerland. • New toggle in the units editor: Display only modded units. Will hide all base game units from the list. CHANGED • Multiplayer / Chat compatibility --> 7.5.3. • Increased painting accuracy when using the draw feature in game (x2 accuracy). • Using same keybind for 'Next unit' and 'Sleep' will now execute in the reverse order (first sleep, then next unit, instead of the other way around as it was before). • Several new campaign scenarios have been updated to be playable with manpower and upkeep settings. • Changing the way backups are made when resizing maps in the editor. Instead of creating a copy and working on a copy, the game will now generate a backup file (file name + backup) and the currently open scenario will remain the active / base one. All you have to do is delete the backup file if you don't need it anymore. • VPs to be held are now properly saved and restored when resizing a map in the editor. • Ships are now allowed to move across harbour tiles (if they are not at war with the owner). • Added Iceland as part of Europe 39 standalone scenario (so that Germany doesn't gain control over Iceland when they capture Denmark). • Removed +100% manpower hardcoded USSR modifier. • Optimized clouds system. They are now faster to process by 2.5 times. • Optimized AI play time where I could (was lagging a bit due to excessive Resupply() calls). On average it is 2 times faster now. FIXED • Strategic bombers could bomb convoy route tiles. • Adding one tile up when editing a map would add a minimum of 2 tiles. Same for adding one tile to the right. Same for removing 1 tile. • Game would play both video sound and custom music in the main menu at the same time. Now, if a video is being played, the custom music won't be played. • USA / Canada landing before allowed date on Europe scenarios (like from 1943 and onward for example, AI would start landing in France). • Add unit to reserve event action was not working (it could never be saved/setup in the editor). • AI ships would stay stuck near neutral or not at war with ships (sonar signals) when it should have just moved on. Same with planes. • AI going broke because of upkeep and buying too many units in some cases. • Supplies quantity calculations were not working with bridges (not counted as walkable tile). • Construction engineering policy and any other policy that influenced turn production of units were not working (not changing the production turn amount).

ADDED • Mountain tile now got a summer version (without the snow). CHANGED • Huge amount of campaign scenarios updated to support both manpower + upkeep settings, as well as general balance. Actually, I think I finished revamping all 'Western' scenarios, all that's left to update now would be the Pacific ones. • You now can (as a Neutral) send units to other players. • AI will no longer purchase drop tank for its planes on small scale scenarios (waste of money). • Extra recruitment time for: Political units (SS/Guards), Mech. / Mot. options. FIXED • AI would deploy anti tank obstacles in victory points. • AI could waste its movement if it could kill a unit that was on an adjacent tile to him. • Europe 1939, Italy should have owned Rijeka and Zadar (Balkans/Yugoslavia). • AI engineers moving out from rivers when they should have stayed to help allies cross. • AI not using pontoon bridges or engineers to cross rivers. • When purchasing new units while the reserve panel was open, it would not refresh its content. • If the unit you have selected was taking supportive fire, its stats would not be refreshed (selected unit stats shown on UI). • More research points policy was broken, upon losing the policy, the extra research points would not be removed. • UI size issue with transfer panel (cumbersome and couldn't always display all of the needed information). • AI would often waste artillery attacks by moving more than 1 tile when it could have moved just 1. It will now move only 1 tile if it doesn't need to move closer to be able to fire at the enemy. • ZiS-3 had too high stats. • UI volume slider in game would not be set to its actual value when opening the UI. • Your own armour obstacle would prevent your own armoured vehicles to move on the tile. • When having the possibility to kill more than 1 unit, AIs bombers would not prioritize destroying the most valuable target. • AI would place down many launch sites near each other (too close to really be worth it). • Stalingrad 1942 standalone scenario would never end. • Reaching max commander rank in campaign (20) was impossible. Therefore unlocking the associated achievement was impossible too. • In map editor "hold VP" button would not properly work when setting the tile for a member of the Comintern faction (would work fine for Axis and Allies though). • When a unit was granted a hero which provided a +1 visibility bonus, it would actually act as +2 visibility.

ADDED • First of new Fictional scenarios. People often asked for small scenarios, unfortunately, the game doesn't feature really many small scale scenarios. To solve this issue, I have started working on designing new small scale scenarios (max 30x30) to fill this gap. The downside of this is these scenarios are completely made up, they are not historical in any way, they are fictional. • From the map editor, you can now control the amount of entrenchment for any given unit on the map. CHANGED • Multiplayer compatibility -> 7.5.1. • Screen resolution setting. Instead of displaying a list of pre chosen (by me) resolutions, now the game will automatically generate the list of all resolutions supported by your screen. This is better since I could not keep track of all resolutions used by all screens in the world, and this will also help unclutter the dropdown since you will be shown only useful information. • In the map editor, the HP modifier for unit on scenario start is now properly indicated as a %. • The weather icon in the game's UI now only indicate the current turn weather, instead of the prediction for next turn. If you want the forecast, you now have to place you mouse directly over the icon to get the full forecast. • Many, many campaign scenarios rebalanced. and updated. • In the map editor, for the 'Spawn unit' or 'Add unit to reserve' event action, you now have full access to the units store to pick what unit you want to be spawned (previously you only could pick a country and a name, now you have full customization available). • Sleep state data of units turned into a more data friendly format, unfortunately this results in a complete loss of original data upon loading your save, so for one turn you will have to set them again. • AI will now properly flank when its path is blocked by enemies or friendlies and an alternative path is available. • Commanders and recon bonus now is scaled with HP of the unit receiving the damage bonus. So, if your unit is at 10% HP, it will be getting the bonus scaled by HP amount. • Supply routes going through enemy territory will be applied a great penalty. • The game will now look for all folders and files inside the local Maps folder. This means that if you are working on some campaign, you may now create a dedicated folder for it. The game will recreate the hierarchy in the standalone scenarios UI. FIXED • Potential AI freeze. • Tile info UI lying to you when you picked the 'Minimized destruction' policy. It would show you a constant +50% income although it was not applied (even on not destroyed tiles). • AI units would try to move (and run the calculations algorithm) even though they could not (action points = 0, because they repaired during the turn). Small (?) waste of performances. • Supply route could move through territories that was not allied or at war with the player (example, German's supply routes going through Switzerland). • AI would deploy buildables in enemy victory points. Leading to impossibility to capture it.

All current saves remain compatible with the new system, you have nothing to worry about, you can just keep playing, everything is automatically converted, as always :) ADDED • -15% damage penalty during bad weather (for all units), except for planes if the All Weather Policy is enabled. • Weather forecast system. • Possibility to edit the weather table of any scenario using the map editor (forecast accuracy, accuracy loss, how many turns in the future, and percentage of bad weather for every month). CHANGED • Multiplayer compatibility -> 7.5.0. • Reworked the weather system from the ground up. The new system now makes more sense, and is more accurate as a whole. The percentage of bad weather is now applied to the whole month, and no longer to every single turn. It also scales to the speed at which days go by. • AI order of playing its units changed a little, now, on top of being played in the order it currently is played, it will also be playing its wounded units first. This should have for effect to unclutter the front with wounded units, and to have fresh troops going to the front right away instead of having fresh troops behind waiting for nothing by playing before the wounded ones first. Hope that made sense :) • Another AI movement/positioning change, it will now move weak units right after they play, instead of waiting a full 1/2 turn. This will free space for stronger units as well, instead of them staying behind and waiting for their turn. Basically, AI is doing something close to swapping now. FIXED • One instance of AI unit stacking (due to destroyed bridges). • Another instance of AI unit stacking (due to overrun setting + Fast AI setting). • In some cases, tile data could not be updated when snow fell/melted.

ADDED • 2 new river / bridge crossing (vertical river with bridge crossing going from left to right up / down). Comes for all biomes (Summer, Winter, Desert) with their destroyed versions. • 1 new road crossing (4 directions) for all biomes (Summer, Winter, Desert). • Courland '44 standalone scenario (Which was made live on Youtube). • Per player introduction - Victory - Defeat text in the map editor. A new dropdown has been added in the text windows to let you choose who will see what text. If no player is set, then it will be shown for everyone (default behaviour). • Color indicator to the two units indicator to know at a glance if the unit above/beneath is an ally, your own, or an enemy. CHANGED • AI engagement rules when defending a VP. • Capping AI planes purchases to be 1:3 ratio with ground units (active, units in VPs don't count, units taken into account are: Infantry, Tanks, Artillery, Ships). It still has the 'air supremacy race' going on, so, if the AI is seeing more enemy planes than his, then the cap will be bypassed and he will try to match the enemy's airforce. • Morale will now be capped based on the unit's current health. Badly damaged units will not be able to have good morale. • Rebalanced Khalkin Gol for the Axis (Campaign). • Minor UI improvements to briefing + victory + defeat text edition elements. • Rebalanced Siege of Sevastopol for the Axis (Campaign). • Some british artillery guns had wrong damage stats. • Some british artillery guns graphics. FIXED • Paratroopers could not longer blow up bridges. • Toggles in map editor did not have the same style. • Artillery price update did not impact 30+ damage arty. • Veteran star icon was shown in the reserve UI. • AI placing down many launch sites next to each other (too close). • Potential modding issues with units sound modding. • Two railroad bridge tiles graphics had railroads going over trees. • Soviet light bombers ammo stat. • Greek recon planes had only 1 visibility range. • Coastal battery took retaliation fire. • Camouflage policy gave +30% damage in all situations (broken).

ADDED • Several new tile variants for railroads (intersections with roads and intersections with railroads). • New policy: Mutual Support Pact - Deployment of units in allied territory is possible. • New policy: Strategic Flexibility - Get back 30% of spent HQ points after unselecting a policy. • New optional setting: Damage reduction over attack frequency. Since the poll for that new combat change was not unanimous AT ALL (50/50), I have no choice but to add this as an optional setting. It applies to both artillery, and planes. The damage penalty is 15% per unit attack on a same target. CHANGED • Multiplayer compatibility --> 7.4.2. • Policies effects changes: Superior Bombing Protection (upkeep for AA units doubled). Winter Equipment (+5% unit purchase costs). • Artillery cost, more expensive. • Bunker unit graphics. • Changed french 75mm short barrel arty to be 1 range instead of 3. • On paratrooper drop, instead of checking for direct adjacent neighbours, the game will now check a 10 tiles radius around the paratrooper drop (this won't affect the base game, the • change was made for mods which uses rocket AA for modern conflicts which have a range > 1). FIXED • Railroads were not providing a 0% penalty for supplies. They will now be used more often, as it is 'free of cost' to move supplies across railroads. • Entrenchment now being added every turn for all land units. • Wrong notification text generated when a city VP was captured but the city tile had no name assigned. • Drawings would not be displayed in multiplayer for your allies (Keep in mind they can only be erased by the player who drew them). • Camera would no longer follow the moves of units in real time multiplayer. • Early winter war initiated by USSR would still have Finland being thrown in its own faction and would result in forced redeployment of troops that were in enemy territory. Same thing about the Baltic States. • Some soviet light bombers had the wrong max ammo count. • When units (human controlled) were out of supplies (red/yellow icons) and auto supplies was ON, on the next turn the icons would still remain until the player selected the unit which forced a refresh of the counter. • 20 extra HP gain when veteran unit is deployed and attacking for the first time.

ADDED • Several new tile variants for railroads (intersections with roads and intersections with railroads). • New policy: Mutual Support Pact - Deployment of units in allied territory is possible. • New policy: Strategic Flexibility - Get back 30% of spent HQ points after unselecting a policy. • New optional setting: Damage reduction over attack frequency. Since the poll for that new combat change was not unanimous AT ALL (50/50), I have no choice but to add this as an optional setting. It applies to both artillery, and planes. The damage penalty is 15% per unit attack on a same target. CHANGED • Multiplayer compatibility --> 7.4.2. • Policies effects changes: Superior Bombing Protection (upkeep for AA units doubled). Winter Equipment (+5% unit purchase costs). • Artillery cost, more expensive. • Bunker unit graphics. • Changed french 75mm short barrel arty to be 1 range instead of 3. • On paratrooper drop, instead of checking for direct adjacent neighbours, the game will now check a 10 tiles radius around the paratrooper drop (this won't affect the base game, the • change was made for mods which uses rocket AA for modern conflicts which have a range > 1). FIXED • Railroads were not providing a 0% penalty for supplies. They will now be used more often, as it is 'free of cost' to move supplies across railroads. • Entrenchment now being added every turn for all land units. • Wrong notification text generated when a city VP was captured but the city tile had no name assigned. • Drawings would not be displayed in multiplayer for your allies (Keep in mind they can only be erased by the player who drew them). • Camera would no longer follow the moves of units in real time multiplayer. • Early winter war initiated by USSR would still have Finland being thrown in its own faction and would result in forced redeployment of troops that were in enemy territory. Same thing about the Baltic States. • Some soviet light bombers had the wrong max ammo count. • When units (human controlled) were out of supplies (red/yellow icons) and auto supplies was ON, on the next turn the icons would still remain until the player selected the unit which forced a refresh of the counter. • 20 extra HP gain when veteran unit is deployed and attacking for the first time.

ADDED • New 'political map' overlay. At the push of a button, you can show/hide it. Combined with the keybind to hide units, you have full control over what's shown/hidden. It does not contain country names yet, I have thought about adding it but still cannot find any way to calculate where the name would be shown (for countries with colonies or with territories across sea). • New policy category: National Focuses. • Few new policies to go under that new category: Industrial overtime, Aggressive Propaganda, Military Scientists, Army Training, Resistance Suppression, Construction Engineering, • Commanders development program. Description is available in game :) The goal for this new category was to be more useful late game, to have something where you could have your • HQ points spent on a per turn basis automatically. Some of these policies do require a sacrifice of 1 HQ point per turn. • New other policies: Bigger command centers, Highlands experts. • Possibility to completely hide the in game UI by pressing F10 (+ new keybind). • Possibility to assign/change a country's ideology in the map editor. • AT infantry to Greece. • AA units to Turkey. • Basic AA and artillery to baltic states. CHANGED • Multiplayer compatibility -> 7.4.0. • Economy / Occupation policies and income modifiers did not work as intended when a tile was occupied (modifiers applied on wrong value). • Made policies lighter (data wise). Will make some late game save files a tad lighter/smaller. • Increased Commanders units upkeep by quite a lot when playing with policies ON (15 upkeep vs 1 upkeep). • Slightly changed the player slots setup in the map editor settings. • Now showing the max cap of HQ points in both the store and the policies menu. • Changed the 'map' button action to toggling the political map. I have disabled the old 'strategic' map. • I have removed the hardcoded 'Winter fighting bonus' for the Northern countries, and instead, made it free for them to pick the Winter Soldiers military tactics policy. • Political unit option no longer add an extra production turn. • Mountaineer unit option now adds an extra production turn. • Mountaineer option is now available for small AT guns and artillery guns. • Several buildings graphics (Coastal batteries, factory, refinery). • Supplies amount per tile penalty with complex supplies setting. • Estonia country revamp (geography) on Europe scenarios. • Latvia country revamp (geography) on Europe scenarios. • Lithuania country revamp (geography) on Europe scenarios. • Added missing naval convoy routes in Europe scenarios (other than 1939). • Reduced a bit the AI's purchase rate of commanders. FIXED • Tile info displayed with mouse hovering would not display the right amount of income production if the amount was modified in the editor (on a per tile basis). • AI buying too many AT infantry even when not needed. • Changing faction in the diplomacy menu did not provoke a refresh of the income summary. • Units with 0 movement points would not turn 'dark' once they had attacked (indicating they are out of actions). Example: Coastal batteries. • Newly deployed units would not be darkened unless selected and unselected (force refresh). • Units on small islands could not resupply if a single enemy was nearby. • Trench tiles if set as VP when captured would yield a 'no translation' notification.

ADDED • Nothing. CHANGED • Multiplayer compatibility -> 7.3.9. • Tanks (units in the Tank category/type) 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. FIXED • Notifications showing 'enemy got reinforcements' or 'allies got reinforcements' were not displayed as intended. • In map editor, event action spawn unit issues.

ADDED: • 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. CHANGED: • Germany's counters color. • 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). FIXED: • 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.