PC Gamer 3.5/1997-08_Disc_3.5.iso/patches/3r1_38.zip/PATCH.TXT

Text File | 1997-04-24 | 19KB | 450 lines

Greetings!

This is the 1.38 update to Third Reich PC. To install this update,
at the A: prompt, copy all the files in this zip to
your Third Reich directory (usually 3R).  Answer yes to the
questions about overwriting.

Below is a history of the updates to the game, and what each has fixed.

v1.38

- Fleets were not being properly reset (marked as unused) at the beginning
of the next turn, and thus were unable to be used for interceptions.
Fixed.

- The US box is now a supply source for the Allies, if both Paris
and London are in Axis control, even if the US has not entered the war.

- Italian armor was being allowed to exploit in support of German armor
attacks, even if Italy had a pass option on that particular front.

- US brps were being incorrectly added to the Allied total in
the Spring of 42, not in the beginning of the Summer 42 turn.

- If you did an attrition against the AI, and their losses were more than
what were available on that front, it would turn control over to the human
player. Fixed.

- Fixed a problem with trying to enter a hex controlled by an ally
of an enemy causing a DOW loop.

- Corrected a problem that would occassionally occur where the computer
would try to use move an out of supply unit onto an invasion fleet,
if the invasion was on the hex next to the out of supply unit.

v1.37

- When active Minor Allies were taken by the Allies, Germany would have
the brps deducted immediately, instead of being given one turn to try to
retake them.  Fixed.

- Germany and Italy were not being allowed to Dow Sweden.

- If the Allies SR'ed through Suez, it was only charging 1 SR instead of
2.  Also, if Gibraltar was in Axis hands, the program would not allow the
Allied player to use the Suez route.  Both fixed.



v1.36

- Russian units in Eastern Europe were being eliminated if Germany
recaptured Eastern Europe.

- If the Allies take Rome, and German instead of Italian units retook
the capital immediately, Italy would still fall. This has been changed,
so that Germany can retake Rome, and prevent Italy from falling.

- AI Improvement: The nations of Turkey, Lebanon-Syria, Palestine,
and Spain have had their priority increased for the Allies when there
are Axis units present in them, or at war with them.

- Greek units in the hex directly West of Athens were incorrectly
being marked as out of supply if in an enemy ZOC.

- German air units sent to the Murmansk box were being eliminated, with
the program stating that they were not in an Airbase.

- Enemy units adjacent to Gibraltar were incorrectly preventing SR's
through Gibraltar.

- Hex A66 was improperly designated as a city hex, allowing Russian air
to relocate there when overrun.

- When The Ai had to remove more ground units lost to attrition than it
had on that front, the program  would turn control over to the human player.

- Minor country fleets(Sweden, Spain, Turkey), were not able to be moved
during the minor country turn, once they had been placed.



v1.35

- The AI tried to make an empty hex armor attack, and then exploit
from it, even though it was adjacent to an enemy unit, causing it to
get stuck in a loop. Fixed.

- The program was allowing Replacement units in ports with fleets
to be selected as units for Sea Transport. Fixed.

- If the Axis conquered Russia before Minor Ally activation, and
Germany had units in the minor allies, they would incorrectly
be eliminated at the end of the Spring 41 turn, before Minor Ally
activation.

- If Britain and France were conquered, and the Axis Dow'ed Russia,
the Russian brps were not being properly added into the Allied total,
causing the turn order to be incorrectly determined.

- Rule 31.5(Airborne units don't count towards stacking limits), is
now working properly.

- A two-front SR with fleets through Gibraltar that was aborted would
free up the fleet in the originating port, but the fleet in Gibraltar was
not being unmarked. This has been fixed.

- The mouse cursor will no longer erase a square on the Choose a Setup
menu.

- A lockup would occur if multiple air factors were designated as DAS in
the same hex that they were based in, after the combat phase.  This would
occur for both the human player and the AI.  Fixed.

- If you lent Italian units to Germany during the SR phase, then when Italy
has 0 SR's left, if you aborted one of those Lent unit SR's, Italian SR's
would go negative, giving Italy unlimited Sr's. Fixed.

- If a Lent Italian unit was used in battle, it would lose it's LENT
status.  Fixed.

- Russo-Allied Cooperation rules were not implemented in the game, so that
British units could stack with Russian units.  Unfortunately, US units
could not.  That has been fixed.  This fixes the problem a few people had
who would get the message about Russo-Allied cooperation, which would crash
the game.

- Units in a port that participated in an attrition, would be able to be
used in a sea invasion force incorrectly.  Fixed.

- If you had air units designated to attack a fleet in a port hex, that
you also attacked during normal combat with ground units, if the outcome
was attacker eliminated, the program would incorrectly eliminated those
air units along with the other attacking factors.

- Occassionally, you could designate an attack, either during normal or
exploitation combat, on a hex containing DAS.  If you selected units to
attack, then deselected them and hit Done to cancel the attack, the DAS
would fly back, then you could re-attack the hex, without having to deal
with the DAS.

- A BH in Paris after France fell would inadvertently be marked as a Vichy
unit, preventing the Axis player from removing it. Fixed.

- A unit in a Pass option front adjacent to an enemy unit can now be moved
into an Offensive or Attrition front properly.

- Germany will no longer be penalized for falling below the 45-factor
garrison in Russia multiple times per turn; only once per turn, per the
rules.

- Germany will now no longer be given Eastern Europe without taking Tallinn.
This was causing Russian air units to stay there, even if German units
were moved into Tallinn.

- A problem when USA entered the war, where the US would be at war with
Germany, but Germany would not be at war with the US on the DOW list. Fixed.

- The AI would try to use British and French sea invasion fleets to the
same invasion hex in violation of Anglo-French rules, causing an loop.

- Armor units assigned to sea invasion would incorrectly be allowed to be
used as exploiting units in other armor attacks other than the invasion
hex.

- Fixed a problem where the AI would attempt to to use naval units in a
sea invasion in an attempt to retake Paris.

- Removed the "Waiting for User Input" message in a game with no computer
player.

- AI Improvement. British units will deploy to defend in front of Paris in
Fall 1939.

- AI Improvement. Restricted when British air is allowed in France. Fixes
a problem with the AI wasting sea escort to move air units from Britain
to France.


v1.34

- Fixed a problem that would occur with hex control of hexes occupied by
units of a conquered country.  (For instance, if France had units in Italy,
and was conquered by Germany, the hexes in Italy occupied by French units
would revert to German control, not to Italian control).

- Fixed the "There are air units not in an airbase or city" bug.
This would occur if you intercepted an invading fleet in it's port hex,
and there were air units in the same hex.  The air units would be incorrectly
transported to the invasion hex, and if the invasion hex did not contain a
city, you would get the message. Clicking No on the dialog box would revert
control of the Computers' units to the non-phasing player.

v1.33

- If Russia was conquered, the Allies would choose a Hold Objectives
strategy, causing the AI to not make any invasion attempts of France.

- A problem wherein the US and Britain would be out of sync in their
front options on the Western front, preventing invasions.

- British infantry will now be allocated to invasion factors instead of
to minimum defense factors.

- The British AI would place replacement units in ports; this would cause
Britain not to invade, since there were insufficient ground units in ports
to attempt invasions with.  The AI will now SR the replacement units
elsewhere, leaving room in the port hexes for ground units to use in
invasion attempts.

- Vichy Airbases may now be SR'ed.

- Several problems with the Overland Lend-Lease route have been fixed.  This
caused various problems, including crashes during or immediately after the
SR phase.

- All German Subs in the Murmansk box will return to Germany during the
YSS.  This will prevent them from being stuck there.  They will need to be
reassigned back to the Murmansk box each year if you wish to keep them
there.

- BRP losses that have to be divided between Britain and the US are now
done in BRPS, instead of subs(it said brps but the number was 1/3 what it
should have been was multiplied by 3 afterwards).  The resulting losses are
no longer quartered a second time.



V1.32

- During Fleet movement, if you selected a fleet in a 2-front port,
selected a destination port, then clicked on a hex in the other
front, the game would crash.

- If the human German player DOW'ed and attacked the Minor Ally countries,
(Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania), the hexes occupied by German units would not
change control, and if the Minor ally capital was taken, it was not being
recognized as conquered.

- Fixed a problem with Intervention.  If Russia did not take Eastern
Europe in one turn, Germany was able to move units into Eastern Europe and
intervene without Declaring war on Russia.


- The Axis AI would occassionally try to move minor-ally units in
violation of the Minor-Ally restrictions, causing an infinite loop.

- Fixed a rare problem with the AI selecting ground units for sea invasion,
when the port hex and the invasion hex were adjacent.

- Fixed a supply problem with French units in Lebanon.

- Fixed a problem where the Allied AI, after re-taking Paris, tries to
make additional attacks that are illegal according to the rules, and gets
stuck in a loop.

- Fixed a minor Ally setup problem.

- Fixed Allied AI at Hard level, so that now, US will SR to Britain or
France, and attempt invasions at 1-1 odds if it is unable to get attacks
at 2-1(previously, if it could not get 2-1 odds for an invasion, it just
wouldn't attempt any at all).


V1.31

- Fixed problem with game recognizing DOW and attack on Poland.  It was
caused by a general problem in the game where attacks that came ONLY
from the Northwest were not begin recognized correctly.

- Now loads games that crash on loading because of Vichy Airbase problem.

- AI will now take Eastern Europe in one turn as it should, no matter what
the difficulty level.


V1.30

- A German Airbase counter is no longer sufficient to garrison the
minor countries.

- A problem that would occur after Vichy was deactivated.  The dialog
box to roll for Vichy deactivation would continue to appear in every
construction phase for the rest of the game, even after it was already
deactivated.

- Fixed a problem wherein Italy would try to take different Front options
from the Germans.

- Will now let you select Airborne units to attack a hex, even if
over-stacked.

- Beefs up the US AI quite a bit.  Previously, they would not attempt ANY
invasion attempt unless they could get at least 2-1 odds.  They will now make
attempts at 1-1 odds, if they can't get anything better.

- Occassionally, the human player would be given control of the Brp grant
phase for the computer player, being asked whether to abort the grant or not.

- Added 2 additional difficulty levels, Hard and Master.
Hard level gives the AI 2 times the force pools, and doubles the added brp
levels and growth rate from Difficult level. So, if at difficult level the
AI was given 1.2 times the brps, at Hard they will get 1.4.

Master level gives the AI double the Brps.  The non-favored side has normal
Brp level and Force Pool, but gets zero growth rate.  The AI is also given
4 times the Force pool, with the following exceptions for Britain and Italy:
-2 times the Naval factors.
-8 times the Air and ground factors

- Added hotkeys that would make a PBEM game possible.  Shift-Q controls
the Allied AI, and Shift-W controls the Axis AI.
To play an email game, you start the game normally, setting it up for 2 human
players.  When the phasing player gets to the Voluntary Destruction phase, he
hits the appropriate key to turn on the AI for the other side.  When he gets
to his SR phase, he hits the same key to toggle the AI off.  Save the game,
then send the saved game file to the other player.  When they get to their
voluntary Destruction phase, he hits the appropriate key to turn on the AI for
the other side, then hits the same key during his SR phase to turn it off, then
sends the save to the other player.



V1.22

- The lockup during the computer SR phase when running in Win95

- Loading saved games when there is only 1 save available.

- A problem that would occur during Vichy unit setup if no ground
units were available to be placed in the Capital.

- The problem that occurred when France conquers any minor country, then
falls, the hexes went to Germany(as they should) but Germany did not get
the country, or the brps. (they now do).

- The British defense of England was beefed up a bit.

- At the Challenging and Difficult level will have more Allied units
defending against Axis units in Finland.

- In the last turn of the '39 scenario, the AI cannot launch invasions. The
Ai now understands this, and will not attempt to do so.

- Anglo-French Cooperation for Supply purposes will now work correctly.

- The Allies, as per the rules, must have a unit in mainland Italy for
Italy to surrender(it was counting Sardinia as part of mainland Italy
incorrectly).  When Italy does surrender, hexes controlled by the Allies
will no longer become German controlled.

- The Allied AI will now take Eastern Europe in one turn (as it should).

- The Allied AI will no longer try to move the Belgian units out of
Belgium when France Intervenes.

- Fixes a crash that would occur when Germany fell if Italy was still in
the war, the game would crash with the message that it could not find a
file with garbage characters for name.

- Fixed a problem where Russia would sometimes try to declare different
front options from the other Allies.

- Fixes various problems with the AI getting stuck in a loop trying to
supply units in minor countries when no valid route was available.

- Fixes a problem where France would try to attack hexes not adjacent
to Paris when Paris was Axis-occupied.

- A problem with the British AI trying to select additional fleets for a
sea invasion force when there are no additional fleets at the starting
port.

- Fixed the loop that would occur when a German Ai opponent went to setup
Vichy units the turn after France fell.  Also, to clarify the readme file
concerning Vichy units: Once Vichy units are setup, the German player is
NOT allowed to move or select them until Vichy has been activated. They
can, however, be SR'ed, and German units may stack with Vichy units.

- The "deselect unit" loop that occurred when Russia was moving it's units
in Rumania.

- Fixes a supply loop problem when Britain tried to supply out-of-supply
units in Spain, with no valid path due to ZOC of Axis Armor.

- Fixed a problem that would cause the game to crash when loading saved games
that occurred after the fall of France.  The game was incorrectly flagging
Bridgeheads and Airbases that were on the map as Vichy units.  NOTE - This
fix requires that you start a new game, or load a save BEFORE Vichy has
been setup.

- Fixed a problem where the human player would be prompted to answer the
question about supplying additional Axis units in North Africa

- Corrected the problem where Axis units in North Africa east of the Suez
would be out of supply, even when they could trace a land route back to a
source of supply.


Some have found the AI to be a fairly easy opponent to take on.  For a
tougher opponent, play the Difficult level, as that is the hardest level
to play against.  Expert level is not the most difficult level; it just
allows you to modify the BRP levels and Growth Rates at the start of the
game.

Other people have reported problems with the AI.  We will be fixing those
as we can get to them, tweaking the AI.  This is process that can take
some time, so please be patient.  Send any suggestions to [e-mail].

Loading Smartdrive will speed up the operation of the game by as much
as three-fold.


Many of you have experienced problems in doing exploitation movement and
chaining.  Section 5.46J of the Operations manual explains it, but below is
a more detailed explanation.

For this example assume we have 3 exploiting armored units, and we want to
create a 6-hex chain.  We'll assume for this example a line of hexes 1-7,
with the exploiting armor units starting at hex 1.


-Move the first exploiting armor(we'll call it A) it's 2 hex exploitation
movement.(taking it to hex 3).
-Select the 2nd exploiting armor(B), then select hex currently occupied by
the previously moved unit(A).  So, if A moved from hex 1 to hex 3, select
B and click on hex 3.  That will "jump" unit B to Hex 3, then you move it
it's 2 exploitation hexes, creating a 4-hex chain, with it ending up at
hex 5.
-Select the 3rd and final armor(C), and again, select the hex currently
occupied by the previously moved unit(in this case, unit B at hex 5). Click
on Hex 5, and after C "jumps" to Hex 5, move C it's 2 hex movement, ending
up at Hex 7, thus creating the 6-hex chain.


If anyone experiences "infinite loop" problems, such as the AI trying to
constantly do an illegal move, please send the saved game for the beginning
of that turn, along with an explanation of what the AI tried to do, to
[e-mail], so we can check into and correct the problem in a future
update.

If you have any comments/suggestions for the AI itself, please send them to
[e-mail].

Dan Walker
3R Playtest Coordinator
TAHGC