ok - have finally, finally (after a year-ish) started the tutorial scenarios - im very impressed, and so far it seems to be very immersive and an excellent game (for my tastes) - before i invest serious time into the game why is it so cursed and is the forgotten 'AGE' game that noone wants to talk about?
Now with EU3 i had a vague idea of what i wanted to do! Is there a national tutorial/guide anyone knows of, if not to just get me through the first few turns - essential decisions and why and blah blah blah
I think it's the turn time processing that turned most folks off. Well that and it'll take the rest of your life to see end game.
yeah, turn times i can live with - if a truly excellent game is hampered by long wait times - its still a truly excellent game - so there wasnt actually anything game breaking, crap AI, poor gameplay - just waiting times?
I remember I had commented on this when looking at one of mid-term betas. But then my PC was from 2007.
One nice thing about games which are plagued by performance problems is that they rapidly get better with age given how rapidly hardware advances.
Still a fair amount of bugs with Japan.
The economic system is pretty wonky.
The game is very unbalanced and 8 times out of 10, AI controlled Britain will win the game before you can even get started.
Quote from: undercovergeek on May 20, 2012, 11:31:02 AM
ok - have finally, finally (after a year-ish) started the tutorial scenarios - im very impressed, and so far it seems to be very immersive and an excellent game (for my tastes) - before i invest serious time into the game why is it so cursed and is the forgotten 'AGE' game that noone wants to talk about?
Has anyone actually finished a long campaign? Back then, even the devs have not finished a full campaign and many of the stuff break down (gameplay, balance, events) as you near endgame because of lack of rigorous testing.
Didn't they promise shorter campaigns with later start dates at some point?
Even considering the long turn times, it's got some serious depth to it.
The current problem is that there have been numerous bugs found since the last update (1.2), not to mention the devs have added some extra features in their off-time (better diplo interface for instance). The thing is.. Paradox has moved them on to working on Napoleon II so there won't be any more patching done for awhile (although a couple buggy beta updates were posted).
I also hear that AGE's long-term bug squashing guy is gonna be working on PrON before long so even if the devs aren't gonna be getting back to it soon, there will still be bug fix updates coming down the pipes. I hope sooner rather than later, because I really want to start a serious long-term campaign but I've been afraid to with a few of the more annoying bugs that could alter some gameplay results.
Quote from: Nefaro on May 21, 2012, 08:38:07 AM
Even considering the long turn times, it's got some serious depth to it.
The current problem is that there have been numerous bugs found since the last update (1.2), not to mention the devs have added some extra features in their off-time (better diplo interface for instance). The thing is.. Paradox has moved them on to working on Napoleon II so there won't be any more patching done for awhile (although a couple buggy beta updates were posted).
I also hear that AGE's long-term bug squashing guy is gonna be working on PrON before long so even if the devs aren't gonna be getting back to it soon, there will still be bug fix updates coming down the pipes. I hope sooner rather than later, because I really want to start a serious long-term campaign but I've been afraid to with a few of the more annoying bugs that could alter some gameplay results.
exactly my reason for the session this weekend - desperate to get my teeth into it, but should it be now................. now?................ and now?
BTW, has ANYONE seen a 'do this on day 1 because, then this, then this, if a is this do b, because c will happen if you dont' kind of tutorial AAR?
I found this one quite useful:-
http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=65261
And this one for the larger campaign
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?541878-PON-GC-Prussia-Defiant
brilliant thanks for that
Good news posted yesterday!
Quote from: PhilThib
We shall be working most of the coming weeks on a PON patch and possibly new game stuff... stay tuned
http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?24679-PON-latest-news
Quote from: Nefaro on May 26, 2012, 09:25:30 AM
Good news posted yesterday!
Quote from: PhilThib
We shall be working most of the coming weeks on a PON patch and possibly new game stuff... stay tuned
http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?24679-PON-latest-news
wow - ok, ill put it back on the shelf for a couple of weeks then!
A couple of weeks??! More like a couple of months!
Still, this is good news. I'm under no illusions they'll be able to do much about the turn time, but it sounds like there's still plenty of improvements that can be made.
Guess I'll go back to waiting... *wistful sigh*
Quote from: tgb on May 21, 2012, 06:18:59 AM
Didn't they promise shorter campaigns with later start dates at some point?
I seem to recall they did design and release some shorter campaigns with more limited date ranges (including an American Civil War version)... {checking} Yes, Gamersgate has that campaign and a Spanish-American one and a Franco-Prussian one, each about US$3.00. ACW is obviously the longest war of the three. (SA one year or less; FP two years or so.)
Yes. Play PON short campaigns without economic management and it becomes the AGE game that we all love. :)
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on May 20, 2012, 03:53:08 PM
Still a fair amount of bugs with Japan.
The economic system is pretty wonky.
The game is very unbalanced and 8 times out of 10, AI controlled Britain will win the game before you can even get started.
Turkey as well. I can get to a specific year and it saves and drops me out of the game. I have pretty much given up on the game. The time investment is substantial and then you get a big robust slap in the face for it.
Each patch seems to break something new.
The last patch (1.02d or something like that) screwed up rebellions and faction discontent. I was playing as Japan and started seeing discontended US Confederates showing up in Kyoto.
Austria had a bunch of upset Boxers running around Vienna.
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on June 01, 2012, 11:29:39 AM
Each patch seems to break something new.
The last patch (1.02d or something like that) screwed up rebellions and faction discontent. I was playing as Japan and started seeing discontended US Confederates showing up in Kyoto.
Austria had a bunch of upset Boxers running around Vienna.
This is the current issue that keeps me from starting a campaign. I'm pretty sure it's been broken since these small beta updates started (at the least).
Now that they'll be working on it, I have more faith in firing up a new campaign before long, after some of those issues are fixed.
Patch 1.03 released.
I've only gone through a few turns with it but it is a lot faster. Takes between 45 seconds and 1 minute to process a turn for me now.
QuotePERFORMANCE:
* AI will calculate less extensively a few things in some theaters of operations distant from the player (increasing its speed slightly).
* AI will cache more paths calculation, speeding it up moderately.
MILITARY FORCES:
Recruitment:
* Units changed to ensure proper regional recruitment for subnationality forces (e.g., Russia, Commonwealth) - full compatibility with previous DB and saves.
* Reserve units (tag with *Mobilize* at the unit level) built normally by the player and disbanded when the nation is at peace and not under threat (no strong nation with poor relationships toward you) will now return their value in conscripts and officers originally paid into the pool.
Maintenance:
* Revised upkeep costs for units, all is WAD. Ships cost a lot on purpose (historical).
Replacements:
* New code that detects better possible replacements used by units (should solve all GIN/IND cases).
MOVEMENT:
* Revised when AI are dormant, fixing a bug preventing minor nations (even if controlled by players) from being able to pathfind correctly (hopefully!)
* You can now disembark troops from a fleet trapped in ice to an adjoining land region you have the right to enter.
COMBAT:
* Land bombardment against offshore ships toned down. Naval bombardment effect increased.
Combat Report:
* More precision about who fights whom in the battle log.
Sieges:
* Besieged forces will now take attrition hits every turn, in proportion of their number and how the siege roll went (anti over-crowding rule). Check the tooltip in the stack window (encircle icon) for information about over-crowding.
* If too many breaches accumulate, then a surrender roll is always possible (whatever the presence of a depot, super elite troops, etc.)
* Rebels faction will now assault when possible.
* In siege, the besieger will spend a quarter of his battle usage of ammo per turn of siege (plan to have supply trains for a long siege), and will suffer -50% to his siege value if he can't afford that. For the besieged, the spending will be 15% per turn, with a -35% siege value if there is a lack of ammo.
* A too low cohesion can make a stack call off an assault; aggressive leaders will have a tendency to force the troops though.
* Fixed a bug where a lone sneaky leader could prevent a siege actually commencing, even if a siege indicator was shown.
Retreats:
* If an attack is called off without routing (aka AutoRetreat), the attacking forces will revert to defensive posture but won't retreat into another region.
* A retreating army can now split static units (abandon them) to escape better.
MTB Warfare:
* Exported and modified 6 variables for 'Maritime Trade Box' warfare (a bit more damage against merchant ships).
SOCIETY AND POPULATION
Loyalty Bug:
* Creeping loyalty bug most probable cause fixed.
* Depending on the National Identity attribute, some loyalties in each country will be attrited away and given to owner. If you have suffered from the loyalty bug, you can bring up the console and type 'CleanupLoyalty'. On next turn processing, odd loyalties will start to be removed as described above but 100 times faster. In MP, only the Host needs to use this command.
PRODUCTION AND ECONOMICS:
* All structures previously had to pay upkeep before production. Structures upkeep and production are now 'intermixed'. This will make it easier for players and AI to run their economies and avoid unintended structure shutdowns.
* You now get the history (past 12 turns) of the transactions in each merchandise, in the F4 window when moving the mouse over the commerce & transactions band of icons. May improve further.
* Added a craftsmen production increase to many existing Techs that multiply craftsmen production over the course of the game. These increases depend on the resource availability and internal production (more resource availability = less craftsmen production). The purpose of this is to help maintain economies over time, especially minor nations.
* When a businessman emergence event triggers, you'll also get some precious merchandise in 'exchange' of the capital spent - message in the message log.
Structures:
* Fixed structures to get the transport efficiency of their owner, not the owner of the region.
* Fixed sugar cane and sugar beet sync problem (sugar3 structures were activated before sugar2 and created an update problem).
Foreign Investment:
* Structures built in foreign lands cost more in capital funds (+100%, modified by a faction modifier named 'ForeignInvestMod'). Depending the nature of the host country (i.e closed trade, etc.) this modifier will be different. Host country is the one possessing the city if any (it can be a tribal).
* Foreign investments in your country now yield extra taxes (based on production value and your corporate tax rate). If taxation is too heavy, foreign businessmen can protest (lowering your relationship slightly) – this shows as a message just before the national market sales summary.
* Experimental & Major change: you can now place railways in foreign regions. The host country will end up owning the railway (and bear associated costs).
Taxes:
*Greatly increased chance for tariffs to hurt relations with other factions (based on tariff level). The chance is only based on amount of money taxed by tariffs.
DECISIONS:
* Regional decisions now can't be played in a region yet to be unlocked by the scenario.
COLONIAL AFFAIRS:
* Colonial decisions 'Gunboat Diplomacy' and 'Naval Demonstration' have been significantly toned down in the CP they can give (their advantage is to be effective in one turn), plus they can now trigger a revolt in 10% of the cases. Don't spam them!
* All Colonial decisions had their money/capital cost upped by 50%.
* Decisions that change the status of a colonial area will broadcast a message to the world each turn they are running (so that players can play a contest stake more easily).
DIPLOMACY:
* New diplomatic item: Degrade Relationship. By applying various diplomatic pressures (legitimate or not) you can slightly degrade the relationship with the country of your choice.
* Fixed issue with others' nations scores not appearing in Objective window.
* Lending support to another nation now always gives a 6 turns CB against aggressor against supported nation. This CB don't cost prestige anymore if you declare war (to help your protégé)
* Reworked the wording of some diplomacy items.
* All CBs between two nations are deleted when they go to war.
* Cost or gain of prestige from treaties/diplomatic entries is obtained only if the diplomatic entry deprecates naturally (example temporary CB aborted by war don't cost prestige anymore).
* Duration listed in the tooltip, diplomatic window, is now the number of turns remaining.
* An interface bug in the Diplomatic window prevented the cancel of some entries.
CRISIS:
* Defensive treaty prevents the use of any crisis agenda that can declare war or mobilize against the other country.
* You can't use Mobilize agenda in crisis if you are at war with anybody
* You can't use Mobilize or Ultimatum agenda if under a peace treaty with other nation (as this would lead you to a war while under peace treaty)
* Ultimatum dominancy value reduced from 175 to 150.
* Partial mobilization dominancy value reduced from 350 to 300. Crisis control changed from -10 to -15.
* Contest Stake regional decision has been reworked and should trigger much more reliably. Remember though that its aim is to trigger a crisis, with the stake being the colonial area in contest, and that no crisis can ever happen between countries with 25+ relationship.
MAP CHANGES: [applicable to ongoing games]
* Moved Niger colonial capital to the proper colonial area (it was present in Mali)
* Added a MTB connection for East Persia and North Balkans.
UNITS AND COMMANDERS:
* Added some force pool changes to some late game units to increase their capacity later in the game.
* Fixed bug of a leader removed from his parent unit, corrupting the unit he is in.
* Fixed China (and other minor nations) problem of not being able to use their Junks ships because of early updates that made obsolete the unit too early in the game. Can't be applied to ongoing games, if the tech already triggered.
* Leaders killed in battles while embedded in an unit (corps commander e.g.) won't cause recombination problems anymore.
UNIT MODELS:
* Models changed to include new Spanish army pictures (thanks to Xesco) - full compatibility with previous DB and saves
* GIN troops under GBR command reviewed and should get replacements as others troops now. [applicable to ongoing games]
EVENTS:
* Events files fixed for syntax errors or wrong region selection processes which led to absence of effects (12 files - thanks to Bohémond for doublechecking).
OTHER BUGS:
* Fixed an interface bug in the Diplomacy window that duplicated costs in tooltips.
* Fixed regression bug leading to 0 upkeep. No more happy hour!
* Negative numbers of colonial decisions are no longer shown in the interface:
* Factions created after game start have Terra Incognita everywhere: fixed once a turn is processed.
* Fixed oil1 and oil2 structures sync problem (oil2 could appear BEFORE oil1).
* Upgraded REB faction to Unstable for gameplay reasons.
* Removed the merElectrical requirement for Shipyard2 Structure (was required way too early).
* Added the RI_Electrification requirement to all techs that activate structures that require merElectricals to operate to avoid the early need of merElectricals when actually you do not produce that resource (and most probably other nations do not either).
Woohoo! Excellent news on the shorter turn times!
Also like the big list of fixes.
Hopefully this thing is squashed for good:
QuoteLoyalty Bug:
* Creeping loyalty bug most probable cause fixed.
* Depending on the National Identity attribute, some loyalties in each country will be attrited away and given to owner. If you have suffered from the loyalty bug, you can bring up the console and type 'CleanupLoyalty'. On next turn processing, odd loyalties will start to be removed as described above but 100 times faster. In MP, only the Host needs to use this command.
If not, at least there's a way to 'cheat' it out.
I also wonder how many people have made it to the late game enough to find all the faulty event scripts.. and actually report them, too. :-[
Awesome!
Gotta launch a game tonight...
Having trouble finding this 1.03 patch....do you have a link? Thanks!
Here's the AGEOD forum thread with info & link in it:
http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?25073-gt-PON-official-patch-1-03-and-readme-lt
Thanks nefaro....downloading now, looking forward to checking it out later.
Wow, that's one heck of an update. Time to download!
I seem to have forgotten a lot of the game mechanics. I can't seem to get the little sliders on the F4 screen to allow me to preserve goods for the local economy.