[v3.1] Back to Basics for v2.602 - New version release! (2013-03-24)

[AGameAnx]

So, you guys want an experimental AI patch?

Keep in mind that if you install this, you won't be able to play with people who haven't installed it. We're getting a little bit all over the place now with the patches. I'm sure we'll compile a full patch for you soon again, but for those people who enjoy playing vs AI, this could be a nice treat.

Changes:

* Expert AI now has more resource bonuses
* Expert AI now has 1.1 health
* Hard AI now has almost same resources as Expert AI had previously
* Allies (both Americans and Commonwealth) have 10 more initial population cap - 55
* AI now handles unit priority from fuel/manpower ratio calculations differently. This completely fixes the problems with AI floating resources
* Normal AI has more resources (between old Normal and Hard)
* Improved AI attack logic slightly
* Improved AI cover priority logic slightly
* Improved MG, British HQ and other ScAR controlled unit behavior

This is by no means final and I might have screwed up quite a lot of things with AI because I've done a lot of changes today. But I've had an absolute ton of fun just now, it was super challenging and extremely back and forth for whole 45 minutes, until I finally decided to simply stop playing.

Download: AIPatch (2012-06-17).rar
To install, extract it to your Company of Heroes folder.

@Jagdpanther
I've tried a few things to improve performance too. For maps with markers, it'll remove a few additional markers (this is for issue I've described before, regarding targets.ai file calculations being too expensive). Additionally, the grid cell size is a bit larger and safety area is slightly smaller. These are absolutely tiny changes, but perhaps they'll help a bit if you have trouble even in smaller maps that have our AI markers.

[Jagdpanther]

But I've had an absolute ton of fun just now, it was super challenging and extremely back and forth for whole 45 minutes, until I finally decided to simply stop playing.

Me too, I couldn't get a result.

Btw. you shouldn't see my ai "stress tests" as a script problem. It is for me only a test how resistent and stabil it runs, even with heavy game settings. I like those improvements.

The last map I played was one with 2 bridges. Both get destroyed, but the ai wont repair one. Could you tweak this a little bit?

[AGameAnx]

Ah yea, people were reporting AI not repairing bridges for quite a while now. Sure, I'll tweak it. But AI has to have engineers nearby to repair them, too, which sometimes can't be achieved. This is yet another thing which relic should have scripted on their own. But it's ok, I'll just add some demand for repairing broken bridges, it should be fine on most maps.

As far as stress tests go - the problem is, I don't know how to optimize it without sacrificing precision and/or functionality. I suppose I could perform updates slower. Otherwise I can't even space out the script execution - it's all done in 1 big loop. The only thing I can think of doing is splitting unit control and HQ control, but that part of the script is probably not the part which is lagging. When I scripted this script I've already combined as much as I could into most precise actions as possible. I was still expecting more lag - to be honest I don't even get much lag and on larger maps I always got fps problems anyway. So it was hard to tell and I was surprised it worked this well as it is. But sure, I'll look into this. You're right that it's a problem.

[Coupe]

AGameAnx, I hate to be a pain but even after the patches I still get a crash to desktop when I try to open a saved game. Is this something I'm going to have to live with ?
I hope not, It would sure be a shame not to able to save games.
Thanks for all the hard work though.
Coupe

[AGameAnx]

Well I still haven't taken a look at it. Sometimes certain things take longer than others. This particular thing would be very difficult to fix at all, and this patch was mostly done by Celestial, in just a week or something. I'll take a look at it in the next week or so, hopefully we'll fix it in the next patch but I wouldn't make promises right now.

[steven2212]

after i install the ai patch,the ai seems not to attack any more,they just go around,still produce unit but not attack.i try some map,but it's still the same??? everyone notice that ??

[seb4771]

steven2212: because war is over (joke inside)

[AGameAnx]

AI patch was supposed to improve this. What difficulty AI do you play against? The only way I could envision this happening is if you played vs Normal or Easy AI.

[steven2212]

i played vs expert AI !! before i install a patch,the ai attack more than now.they r just standing around and not trying to attack my HQ.

[AGameAnx]

Oh, so did they push you back all the way to HQ and then stopped? That's actually a known bug. I thought I fixed it but maybe I didn't. If AI attacks you all the way to HQ then it's still good. You should probably just leave the game if it pushed you back all the way to HQ.

If not, I added this effect to make sure AI doesn't suicide units and attacks in waves. I'm also planning to further improve mobile artillery for AI which will make it quite a lot more better. I don't know why it wouldn't attack you, I didn't change much about that in the AI patch, only actually improved it a bit, like I said before.

[steven2212]

they didn't push a single waves.may be you should make them attacks in waves or something.they just stop attacking when i install this patch.i will reinstall to see then

[AGameAnx]

Very weird... Sorry that that's the case, I'll check it out and see if I can do something about it. In my playtests it worked very well and better than before, though.

[Celution]

Just for the kicks, are you playing a custom map? In any case, can you say which map you play?

[steven2212]

i played on Angoville,Langres,sturzdorf,that's all i remember

[AGameAnx]

Hmmm, all 1v1 maps. Could be something to do with that. Since AI usually fails on 1v1 maps I don't really test those much. I'll take a look, thanks

[bangalor44]

Just want to say thanks for the a.i. work.I play alot against a.i. because I change so many things I'm not compatible in mutiplayer which is fun too.I must say that Btb at this point is really good.The a.i is probably one of the best I've seen.For me its been a fight from beginning to end.Only one thing I've found sometimes in early game the friendly a.i armour seems a little clumsy.But the mid and late game its right on track.Great job guys thanks again.

[Coupe]

Good evening AGameAnx and Celestial, just wondering how things are going on the "save game" problem. Am I the only one having this problem??
It would be a shame for this feature to be taken out of this game, or any game with that feature for that matter.
Sometimes life just calls you away and you want to save what you have been playing for a while.

Don't want to be pushy or difficult, been playing this mod from the very beginning and love it. Just want the "save game" option back.
Cheers
Coupe

[jaylo138]

Coupe you're not the only one with this save game problem as i can no longer load campaign save games with this latest version of the mod, never had this problem before.

[AGameAnx]

Sorry guys. I'll look into it, but like I said, these things take time, this is a pretty complicated bug.

[Coupe]

jaylo138, thanks for the comment. I really thought it was something on my end, with no way of knowing how to fix it.

AGameAnx, thank you too for the reply. I can only imagine the complexity of writing the code. Good luck.

Coupe

[Nurbsico]

3rd degree burns... I'm back. Something is wrong with this mod!!! Horribly weak on the VP game. I can cap and destroy every enemy and loose nothing in exchange. I always win.

[AGameAnx]

I presume you mean AI. Was it a 1v1 map? I've figured out how to fix 1v1 AI already. But I'll take a look at VP game mode as well then, I was sure it worked but I guess I really didn't test it for a long time.

[Nurbsico]

Sorry for the crappy post Agame. But no, I've noticed huge VP weakness all across the board. And I'm one of those that rarely plays a 1vs1 skirmish so that can't be it. The latest issue was me getting a massive pounding by the AI in that they controlled almost 70%+ of the Vire River map (I was close to losing on HARD settings) and yet the AI did absolutely nothing about the last two or three blue VP points in its territory. Also. I had about 455 Vpoints and the AI had about 250 in a 500 victory point game. I basically just sat back and defended until the AI VP ticker ran out.

This can't be right, cuz I've seen this sort of thing occur on other maps as well. Seems like the AI is somehow blind to VP point games. [shrug]

But a big thumbs up in how you've managed to get the AI to behave far different then the normal behavior. I often have to wonder what my AI ally is up to cuz it doesn't do what I've been accustomed to. Looks to me like the AI does indeed play differently. And regardless of what others say, I kinda like how the AI can pause a bit to build up what seems like a massive rush force. Not perfect for sure, but when it works its down right dangerous and a game killer if you aren't paying attention. And for some reason, the AI does a way better job at defending itself. I've found myself worried about what I can't see in the fog of war. No more the trick to send in a few squads and wipe out a defender, cuz now, the defender(s) can wipe my squads out. Nice!

[AGameAnx]

Thanks. Sure I'll check it out. We had this problem before, actually, I was pretty sure I fixed it. I think it should be easy to take care of this. Hopefully we'll release something really soon to fix all the reported issues (most of them are already fixed)

[Nurbsico]

Forgot to mention I appreciate a simple archive of the mod as opposed to some sort of executable installer code. No need for installers at all.

[TheVole]

your site has been hacked btw, might wanna fix that...

[Celution]

News Update #2

---

Greetings Back to Basics fans! Since the release of Patch v2.1 on June 15th of this year, we haven't really shown any work of progress to the public, but we can tell that we haven't stopped the development. The Summer has been really busy mostly for me (Celution/Celéstial). Due to the fact that we always work, test and play together, AGameAnx therefor wasn't able to work on patch v2.2 that much either.

However since I came back from my last holiday last weekend, we have fired up development again, both on AI and general gameplay. We once more have made tons of changes, creating a better overall balance for a smooth gameplay and a nicer game experience.


Fixes include the long awaited bug that Commonwealth HQ setup was bugged. Our custom script that controls the Commonwealth HQ trucks for AI required us to change the setup ability, which turned out to be buggy for the player. Therefore we reverted the HQ setup ability to how it is in vCoH.


Several big changes have been made to the Panzer Elite Scorched Earth and Luftwaffe Commander Trees, as well as that the Royal British Air Force and Royal Scottish Engineers have gotten a redesign. The changes make them more viable and/or balanced. So far, this patch is mostly focused around the Panzer Elite and Commonwealth, as they received most changes to their overall stats.


Right now we still have to redesign some unlocks in certain Commander Trees, improve AI on certain areas (it already has been made much smarter again without making it cheat) as well as playtest the latest changes, check for bugs and other issues before we can pack everything up and release Patch v2.2. If everything goes according to plan, this shouldn't be too far away from now!


Stay tuned, it's coming. AGameAnx and me would like to send out a big thank you for your patience and staying eager for further releases!

---

- Celution/Celéstial

[saukopf]

Great news! Will 2.2 add ucs text and need to translate?

[Celution]

Yes, that could be handy, however I edited a ton of vanilla values too, so it is very hard to detect those. But maybe it is good enough if you could translate all custom values like before, that at least makes it more playable. I can also change the whole chinese ucs file to English, if that would be OK?

[saukopf]

Only the whole finished english.ucs file is enough. I can use UltraEdit to find any change and edit. That is quite an easy job for me.

[Celution]

Yes, would be highly appreciated! I'll send you our .ucs file through PM!

[jaylo138]

Have you managed to fix the serious bug where save games made with the latest version ctd on reload.

[AGameAnx]

Have you managed to fix the serious bug where save games made with the latest version ctd on reload.

No. So far we're still focusing on core gameplay and core AI functionality. Our changelog is more than 220 lines already again, it's kinda crazy how many changes we do on a daily basis. We're even designing a few additional interesting game mechanics which take quite a lot of work from Celestial's side of things. I personally have completely rewritten a bunch of AI algorithms which once again significantly improves AI's performance on the battlefield.

The script which is most likely causing the crash is extremely complicated and still unfinished. Moreover, debugging CTD errors is extremely difficult and time consuming - there's literally no sign which is going to indicate where the error is coming from (other than rather useless warning logs). I'll most likely have to resort to poking and prodding in order to fix this type of bug, and each poke takes a full game restart, save and load. That actually takes like 5 minutes. Now imagine doing it 50 times in a row. Even more - this is not actually giving any trouble to ourselves as we play out our games fully and mostly in multiplayer, too. This bug actually went down our priority list extremely fast since it was requested, unwillingly.

I'll try to take a look at this bug before we release the next patch but I don't promise anything. We're sorry that it's causing you an inconvenience, we'd like to fix it as soon as possible, but we also have lives and our time is limited. I've been doing this much work only because I've finished uni and have been postproning looking for a job until a week back. Now I've already got interviews and test assignments, which isn't going to speed things up by any means. I really hope you understand how much effort we actually put into this mod and keep patient! Thanks!

[jaylo138]

I fully understand how much effort is needed. If you click on my signature (you might have to go to an earlier post) you will see that i am the singular author of The Squad Mod for Dawn of War 2, redone for Chaos Rising and about 80% done for Retribution.
I have edited textures, changed game code, slightly edited mission scar files etc. I started when DoW2 first came out, then there were no tools so we had to hex edit code and model files.

The bug may have gone down on your list but being able to save your game is a basic and important function. For anyone that needs to save, the game is now unplayable.
The campaigns are also now unplayable, as certain scenario mission maps are saved on completion to be loaded for later campaign missions. Obviously the missions just crash.

[VanAdrian]

@jaylo138

Mh that's not a huge problem mate.

This mod is very nice and include some things wich aren't even present in every other mods available. AGameAnx and Celèstial did awesome job, and as you seems to be a good modder on DoW2 you should know that it's very difficult to deal with SCAR code and such other AI files...

Their goal is to create a mod wich change the game, not a mod wich add content upon the vanilla game, if you want to play missions then play the original CoH, not BtB.

For the savegames, hell yeah it's annoying for people who did a great match and want to do it again haha, but improving a mod as they're doing right now include some compatibility risk with previous versions so i hope you understand and that it don't make you feel bad about this mod

just my 2cent here

[AGameAnx]

Well we'd like you to be able to play the campaign in BtB - we even edited a few missions, but nothing major. Whenever I play the campaign I still usually play the whole mission at once. I never ever use the save feature for this game for some reason, it's weird. One way or another, games usually take not longer than 2 hours, I guess it's not that difficult to arrange your playtime to have enough time for that.

This compatibility risk VanAdrian is talking about - at first this script which custom controls units didn't even use to work for multiplayer. Obviously we never published it in that state. However, I spent like 2 weeks programming it and I was almost absolutely sure that I'd have to throw that away, that was quite disappointing for me. But now that it's working well for multiplayer, I spent many more weeks to improve it already and this script fixes huge AI problems - team weapons running into you over and over, British HQs being brain dead. Having a bug of save games not working is a sacrifice we're willing to take for now, the time investment in making this thing work was way too great. The mod is designed with competitive mindset in mind as well, we want you to play multiplayer otherwise there's no great point in putting as much effort into balancing units as we do. And multiplayer doesn't even allow savegames.

Still, like I said, I would surely want to fix this as soon as I can. We want to provide a full package, great mod to enjoy for anybody. The problem is time consumption and the complexity of fixing CTD issues. In normal situations we usually fix reported bugs the same day they're reported. Fixing this bug, however, might take a full day of work, which is hard to afford at the moment.

[jaylo138]

My interest in this mod came from that fact that it was specified that it was fully compatible with the campaign. With this it stood out, as so many CoH mods arn't.
I'm not a multiplayer, i need a lengthy campaign with ongoing story to keep my interest. One off skirmish battles don't hold my interest.

I use an autoexec file to add options to hotkeys including slowing the game. My rig is high end so i have all settings on their highest and am a turtler, so i like to watch the game in all it's beautiful glory as well as play it.
Imho CoH still rules the rts roost.

As previously stated it's not just a time issue for campaign maps. A lot of early mission maps are automatically saved by the game when completed to be returned to for later missions. Currently they can't be loaded.

[AGameAnx]

You could disable the script altogether if you're playing the campaign. Simply go to Improved\Data\scar\scarutil.scar and put -- in front of import("aicontrol.scar") so it looks like --import("aicontrol.scar"). This WILL break skirmish British AI, but it may help crashes during campaign. Also, the campaign should AT LEAST work if you start the missions from the start, just like skirmish. I'll do some testing of it very soon, I just need to be done with something for my my possible future job

I am having difficulty understanding your point of view when you say 'lengthy and ongoing story' because campaign in Company of Heroes is mostly a big tutorial, unfortunately. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty great, but there's not much depth to it, the events don't vary, you barely have any choice. Playing skirmish battles, on the other hand, can always create a sort of unique story for you, if you're into that sort of thing. Sure it doesn't give you any kind of pat on the back with epic voice acting that oh you've just accomplished some plain and simple mission. But having real game problems to deal with, dealing with them with your friends and actually being able to fail is a much more exciting prospect for me. This is exactly why people love realism mods - even though they're not nearly as balanced, they give you a great feeling and you can pretty much feel like you're controlling real soldiers. We always emphasize that our mod is a combination of this + the balance. You should really try to give skirmish more attention, especially because our AI is much smarter than vanilla AI which pretty much breaks after 15 minutes of play. I've added randomness to things as well as made it look much more like a real player. You actually have to assign goals for yourself to hold that middle of the map properly or if you lose it - setup a defense with less resources but on smaller front which is both an advantage and a disadvantage. While your request is valid, it's actually a really small portion of the game and when I say this went down our priority list these are exactly the reasons for it.

[Coupe]

VanAdrian and jaylo138, thank you for taking up the cause for the save game problem.
This is not a pile-on to AGameAnx. We all think what you have done to the mod is incredible.
I have had my COH disk from the first week it went public, many of us have. I have four friends who play the same way.
We have dozens of maps, and like to revisit them with different settings, different factions, and played at different times of the day. I got home last night from work late, needed to wind down so I started
a skirmish. Great fun but the eye lids started to come down and I had to exit the game before I finished because I knew it would not save,,rats.
We all have different reasons for liking the save game option. I think many of us don't feel we have a voice in the matter. Many more still have had this mod since it first went public.
We all think this mod is the best, that's why we have stuck with it from it's beginning. All we really want is for you to consider putting the save game option a little higher on the to-do list.
Cheers
Coupe

[AGameAnx]

Well I'm really glad you guys are enjoying the mod this much, that's for sure! As I said earlier, I won't let this problem be completely unnoticed - it went unnoticed mostly because Celestial went to a vacation so our modding stopped for a while, really. I'll check it out as soon as I can. I just don't make promises because we're planning to release the next patch pretty soon but the bug could be extremely difficult to fix. I'll surely try though! And hey, we always say feedback is appreciated, so that's exactly what I'm gonna say now too. Thanks!

[Coupe]

We all thank you for the consideration AGameAnx, looking forward to the new project.
Enjoy your weekend.
Coupe

[jaylo138]

Thanks for your responses Anx but i'm not sure you understand the campaign. You said about campaign missions working from the start like skirmish, this simply isn't the case as the campaign doesn't work like that.
Here's an example.
One of the early british missions is the Carpiquet airfield where you use commandos for the first part to take various goals on one half of the map. You only stay on one half because of insta attack artillery bombardments should you stray.
You build troops, lay prepared defences before the artillery line and when the last point is taken the mission ends with map saved.
Part 2 of Carpiquet airfield is the counterattack by the germans with wave after wave attacking you. So this mission loads the previous map as it was when you finished it, this is just one example of the campaign retroactively using maps.
Therefore the campaign very much needs the savegame function, it's broken without it.

[AGameAnx]

I think you've proved your point. And I played the campaign numerous times.

I'll try to fix the bug when I can.

[Celution]

jaylo138, you are rather right about the fact that some missions go over in each other (like the 2 Carentan missions or the mentioned Carpiquet missions). However this progress is automatically saved once you finished the mission. You can continue with the next mission whenever you want, even if you play other missions in the meantime. Yet, we will definitely look into the problem of the save function.

Sorry for my absence in the past days, unfortunately my SSD broke down and I had to install Windows 7 around seven times this weekend to completely locate the problem and re-install everything I needed. Currently I'm running my system on my secondary HDD, but soon I'll get a new SSD delivered for free due to me still having warranty. I wanted to make some good progress this weekend, but because of this I haven't been able to do anything, plus on top of that that school has been rather busy.

Don't worry though, no progress was lost because we obviously have all files shared at all times so we can return work where we left it at Thursday. Planning to release the next patch rather soon because it contains very important gameplay fixes and bugs that in some cases really broke the game for players. I do not know if the save function fix is included at that point, otherwise it will be included most likely in the patch after that.

Thanks for all the positive comments, it surely keeps us motivated to keep working on the mod!

[AGameAnx]

Hey all,

I'm glad to say that the save game loading bug is now fixed!

Took me about half a day, but I've pinpointed the bug and with Celestial's help, we got the fix ready for you. We're even going to release it as a hotfix

Here's the fix: [link]
Install this archive to Company of Heroes\Improved\DataAttrib\attrib\ebps\races\axis\vehicles - it should replace two files. And that's it, it should work.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback on this,
Cheers.

[VanAdrian]

wow... attrib/ebps/races/axis/vehicles.... and this solve this huge bug ? just wow, i bet you had a very hard time to point out this and to fix this so i just say good job guys... no no no... awesome job guys !!

[Celution]

Yes, it turned out it was a attrib bug by my mistake a long time ago.. >.<

[jaylo138]

I've just done a quick test by starting and saving the PE campaign. The save reloaded without ctd, great job guys.
The saves made before the fix still crash, but that can be expected as they contain the corrupted data and it means i get to start the campaigns all over again which is no bad thing.

[AGameAnx]

Cool. You can use -unlock_all_missions alongside other launch options (-mod Improved -dev -unlock_all_missions) to be able to choose any mission in the campaign.

[mcdimm]

tried brits campaign (liberation of caen); the CP truck at the beginning will not be deployed and the mission just stuck