Old World update #116

[The_J]

New update: https://mohawkgames.com/2023/11/22/old-world-update-116/

Headline changes

• Lower difficulty levels are now easier and a new lowest level difficulty added ‘The New’
• Many balance changes including nerfs to Persian UUs and Schemer leaders
• Kush now available on the Middle East premade map
• AI combat, strategic and performance improvements

Design

• New difficulty level added The New. Reworked AI penalties on lower difficulty levels.
• Passive AI will not capture cities from a player who originally founded them
• Persian Unique Units (Palton Cavalry and Cataphract Archer) now have a range of 1. This can be increased by effects which increase range (Hills, Marksman promotion etc).
• Reduced Schemer leader orders per war from 2 to 1
• Kush now available on the Middle East premade map
• Reduced Desert mapscript size to be in line with other maps
• Upgrading an improvement now also upgrades the specialist, if the existing specialist is less advanced than the starting specialist of the upgraded improvement
• Garrison getting pillaged no longer removes existing governor
• Autonomous rule now repairs damaged cities that cannot passively heal completely in a turn, even if it’s currently building something else
• Collateral damage (pierce, splash etc) formula simplified. This now does the percentage of the damage of a direct attack to the same unit, rounded up. This change increases collateral damage dealt in some circumstances.
• Tweaked a few trait inheritance outcomes
• Added new trait flavor text and changed some to only appear dependent on character age. Reduced the likelihood of vomiting and diarrhea when characters become severely ill.
• Tweaked tutorial events to make them less prone to cluster on the same turns
• Generals of tribal units now get XP
• Tribes now attack civilian units at a lower priority
• Former regents now get a trait giving +1 wisdom and keep their King/Queen Regent title
• In the Rise of Carthage scenarios, Balearic Slingers are now buildable on the islands instead of regular Slingers. Regular Slingers can upgrade to Balearics.
• Rise of Carthage scenario 4 starting city happiness boosted

Programming

• AI combat, strategic and performance improvements
• Improved retreat and target selection.
• Better AI coordination so it doesn’t get some units attacking a target while other healthy ones are retreating.
• Better AI awareness of power shift when it moves its units
• Improved AI evaluation of tiles for border expansion and buying
• AI exploration and wood chopping improvements
• Reduced AI fort spam outside of borders, especially for Kush
• Revised AI Settler movement to force march when it has excess orders
• Fixed the AI starting multiple Settlers at the same time, when it just needs one
• Fixed AI not viewing rebels of other nations as a threat when they actually are
• Fixed AI incorrectly estimating the cost of buying resources
• Fixed AI risky behavior of attacking too close to the fog of war without protection
• Fixed tribe AI movement bug
• Fixed Hittite AI chopping trees too much at the expense of exploring
• AI builds militia more frequently instead of festivals if it cannot build other units
• Minor Stun/Push AI optimization
• Minor AI exploration fix
• One AI cache per player, instead of one per game
• Units that require a non-buildable improvement are no longer considered a possible build, unless that improvement is present
• GOG SDK updated
• Added STAT_YEARS_REGENT
• Starting location resource placement order shuffled, so players later in the turn order don’t always slightly benefit from rare luxury placement
• Added Pharaohs of the Nile campaign source and XML to Reference folder
• Added effectCity bAutoBuildUnits, which is like the current autonomous rule, but builds units instead of projects and specialists

UI

• Alt+right mouse button is now a shortcut for improvement pings
• Mouse click no longer triggers when releasing button after drag
• Loading a single player game as a network game now allows AI player reassignment
• Dynasties are now shown and can be selected on the Choose Leader screen
• Added option to only use default dynasties for AI players
• Random nation now sets random dynasty for both SP and MP
• Dynasty dropdown with Pick Later will use the dynasty name if available
• Moved cycle button tooltips to right of cycle button UI
• Added border expansion preview for under construction specialists
• Added yields change from trade and tribute to war declaration effect tooltip and yield loss from connected cities to peace breaking effect tooltip
• Revised cloud game host control popup to be more consistent. Replaced general save button with individual action buttons.
• Improvement suggestions no longer take worker safety into account
• Reduced spacing in yield display for tile/specialist widgets
• Reduced tile text font and icon size
• Negative changes in happiness/discontent now shown using opposite yield color
• Added Deficit concept to Encyclopedia
• Event Browser: The New Entry button now opens a new event the Wizard

Bug Fixes

• Fixed events not triggering on clearing tribal camps
• Fixed bug with cloud games not updating correctly when exiting without completing turn, causing them to need to be rewound
• Fixed bugs causing replay data to get discarded unnecessarily
• Fixed Kush Unique Units not applying Zone of Control
• Fixed map script bug causing generation to sometimes fail on Desert maps with large number of players
• Fixed last page of Modio mods not displaying in install tab
• Fixed double folder names when mod name contains plus (+) symbol
• Fixed simultaneous mode non-dynamic turn timer length
• Fixed turn style and turn timer dropdowns in server host controls
• Fixed AI assert
• EffectUnit iActionsExtra are now applied immediately upon acquiring the effect
• Fixed a few instances where the number of tribes were miscounted
• Fixed the Sentinel dynamic tutorial triggering in the wrong player’s territory
• Fixed collection modification during enumeration
• Fixed reveal map division by zero when one of the players has been eliminated
• Fixed city sites not keeping track of original tribe upon being cleared
• Fixed tribe site visibility on the minimap when settlements are not city sites
• Fixed improvement construction time remaining not updating when worker goes on cooldown
• Fixed Spartan elimination event in Rise of Carthage scenario 2
• Fixed idle councilor reminder showing when no missions available
• Fixed Wonders being eligible for pillage by event bonuses
• Fixed Cognomens getting replaced with lower value versions in some scenarios
• Fixed critical hit icons not being immediately updated on ending turn or changing turn style in MP
• Tribe units now actively occupy empty city sites to convert them to settlements again
• City widget and culture bar update fixes
• Fixed city attack damage preview for adjacent effectUnits
• Nested link fix (affected anti-Melee, anti-Infantry etc links)
• Fixed some null references for tribal invasion AI
• Fixed leaderboard display in Pharaohs of the Nile scenario 6
• Fixed families of starting units in Pharaohs of the Nile scenarios 3 and 6
• Fixed issue with scenarios not getting unloaded correctly
• Fixed Map Editor not setting mapWidth and mapHeight values on loading a map
• A slot assigned to an AI when loading a MP game now gets full AI state
• Fixed an AI cache issue for of existing improvements outside territory
• Fixed no character UI issues
• Happiness/discontent bar sign issue fixes
• Fixed subject reordering breaking old saves
• Fixed out of range exception
• Fixed decision cycling sometimes not actually cycling
• Worker selection cycling UI performance fix
• Fixed client background task deadlock
• Text and event fixes