Right, time for a Wargames update. Because of its hugeness, I've split this post up into several sections:

0) Patch Updates
1) Important notes
2) Roundup of new features
3) Update list (Long)
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0) Patch Updates

Since release, a patched up version has been uploaded. Its not critical, but unless you are one of the guys already hosting, you'll still want it. It fixes two things really, the first is Spying, which my update didn't quite work out (spying, and thus nuking becomes impossible); the second is simply a medal missing from the Medals Ministry. The Eastern theme also has additions regarding the Ancient Era and Hydroelectric Plants.

* Fix: Removed Spy feature, as I realised it caused spying to not work at all (and thus, unable to nuke).
* Fix: Total Conversion now has its icon online and a box in the Colourful Medals Ministry (something I forgot).
* Change: Additions to the Eastern theme:
- Research, Schools, Barracks, Smithy, Hospital: Era 1 same as Era 2 (basically, yellow roof instead of red)
- Towns: Era 1 (Partial) (New roof)
- Hydro: Eras 7-11 (Full) (Slightly different design).

There might be another quick update, but not tonight, if anything else comes up.

1) Important Notes

Ok, so first, a lot of this needs testing, some quick 2 country testing was done this week to ensure things like Attacking and nuking still works. What I really need is _feedback_. If there is ANY problems, bugs, issues, mistakes, crashes then please report it (you can post in this blog or bring it up on the forum). I'm assuming there will be at least one problem, so the more feedback I can get asap the quicker I can produce a patched up version.

2) Roundup of New Features

This version brings about a LOT of changes and new features. The most obvious is the layout. You can change this with a variety of colours through the menu. Nuking has some extra features, a graphic like attacking, numbered nukes when clicking. Changes to Ministries include new ones for Medals and progress space-wise. Importing is added to the Trade Ministry. War is harder, you now have an enlistment pool, which increases with time.

New buildings include Blacksmiths act as early factories, GM Farms are improved Farms, and Recycling Centres have extra benefits. New Destroyers fill up the technological gap for ships. Alliances have new features, such as automated leadership position when the leader leaves. The Alliance list now includes a simple pie chart for the largest alliances.

Other changes include resources needed being listed when buying Buildings and Units and some other message changes. There is some graphic changes, and an experimental building option allows you to switch from a Western style of buildings to an Eastern at name creation (still in the works, just some of it is different right now!).

3) Update List (Long)

I hope nothing in this is doubled over:

* Fix: Reentry research happened to be the wrong end. Extremely minor.
* Fix: Attempted to fix issues relating to new building code.
* Fix: Minor issue with start up image fixed.
* Fix/Change: Due to the nature of changes in Medals, Guest keys shouldn't tick spam with certain medals.
* Fix: When commercials were removed, it didn't always compensate for the extended range added in a previous version.
* Fix: Factories would come up blank on the map in the Industrial Era, even though they are required to build an Industrial unit. On startup, the icon wouldn't appear on the building tab either, fixed.
* Fix: Clicking other things in midstream of 2 clicking would cause problems, sometimes crashing or causing blank spots to appear. It now takes note of your action so it doesn't get confused and finishes it all the way as intended.
* Fix: An apparent bug regarding the hosts key leaving the game causing some error messages, hopefully fixed.
* Fix: Attacking via ID would not remove the whole screen, preventing you from placing your land unless you clicked cancel and pressed "no", fixed.
* Change: For high money producers, more money will be converted over to Million notes.
* Change: Enlightenment and Future era research finally has icons, although its a bit lazy. Sorry.
* Change: 6 New flag designs for Canton flags, national flags that include these types are Australia, the US, Republic of China etc.
- Currently blank or starred with stripes, hope to others such as crosses for Greece at another time.
* Change: Major change in terms of interface, the bottom bar, used for stats has been pushed out of the actual map section and is now on the regular interface.
- This leaves the "map" with more space, handy for ministries as well that was starting to fill up.
* Change: Thanks to the extra space, resources on-screen are displayed up to 9 digits, rather than the previous 6. Power goes up to 999 too.
* Change: Various methods used to cut out unneeded code, hopefully improving speed.
* Change: Few changes to some building icons for more flavour.
* Change: Industrial and Modern Era Research icon changes.
* Change: Army limits created. Your new max army is half of your total citizens, so with each town, you can have a maximum of 100,000 soldiers. Before you could theoretically convert your entire population into citizens.
* Change: Approval rating changed to reflect new buildings.
* Change: Ship changes, due to new ships.
- QandR costs from 150,000 to 175,000 and metal cost from 750 to 900.
- Daring costs from 175,000 to 250,000 and metal costs from 1,000 to 1,250.
- Sheffield costs 250,000 to 450,000 and metal costs from 1,500 to 2,000.
* Change: Unless this was somehow a feature from before, the land you gained from attacking would always be -1 of whatever you actually managed to destroy. Should be the same now.
* New: Attempted to make a better interface, with colour...
* New: Ministry of Space Exploration gives you the low-down on all your space research levels.
* New: Launch Man into Space Research. The Next stage, you will need to use Life Support this time.
* New: Nuke image in the output box, similar to those in battle for extra flavour.
* New: Warning message added at beginning of game.
* New: When starting a game, it asks if you want to host/play alone or join. If you want to join, it stops the game and opens the hub page.
* New: 5 Colour themes to pick from "Bog Standard Green", "Rustic Red", "Sea Blue", "Farmville Yellow" and "Charcoal Black".
- Only the first 3 are available to non-subscribers. Select from the Options menu.
* New: Importing added to Ministry of Trade, this means you can find the resources you want much easier. If there are no resources of that type currently being exported, it turns grey.
* New: Ministry of Colourful Medals gives you a graphic list of medals you currently have (and blanks the ones you have yet to get).
- It is also colour coded by AceMedalTable difficulty, Green for Easy, Blue for Medium, Red for Hard, White for Very Hard.
* New: In the Ministry of Economy, your production buildings is split between "Primary" (raw production) "Secondary" (manufacturing) and "Tertiary" (services) sectors.
* New: The bar at the bottom will display research costs when you put your mouse over it.
* New: Defencive buildings have a chance of surviving attacks.
* New: In regards to units, you have to wait for your enlistment pool (a 2,000th of your population per turn, or 100 per town) to grow in order to recruit these men. The pool can get as high as a 20th of your population (or 10,000 per town).
- This means that if you wanted to fill up that one towns max of 100,000 soldiers, you'd have to fill up the pool 10 times, or 1,000 turns in total. Of course, reaching 100,000 soldiers is faster with more towns.
* New: New Buildings:
- Blacksmith: Early Factory available right from the first era, represents 1/10th of the power of a factory, (factory power required for building units now).
- Genetically Modified Farm: Upgraded farm for modern era. 300 (600 at full agriculture upgrade) food instead of 200 (400).
- Recycling Centre: Gives an extra wood and metal point per town, useful up to 100 recycling centres (so don't be building more than that). This means that for 100 towns, with 100 recycling centres, you'll get 10,000 wood and metal per turn.
-- Also note that you need a metal mine and a forest for each of these recycling centres. So if you have 50 Recycling centres, 30 forests and 10 metal mines, you'll only get the effect of 10 recycling centres.
* New: The building help will now give you the helpful default costs and power usage, as it does already for unit stats.
* New Units (Destroyers):
- Destructor: Industrial Age ship, cost 90,000 metal cost 300. Attack 300, Defence 150, Barracks space 60.
- VandW Class: Interwar Age ship, cost 150,000 metal cost 750. Attack 600, Defence 300, Barracks space 134.
- Zumwalt: Future Age ship, cost 750,000 metal cost 3,500. Attack 1,650, Defence 1,250, Barracks space 140.
* New: Centre button allows you to choose co-ordinates on the map your currently on (either your own, or anothers) in case there are things you need to find quickly.

* New Medals:

- The Earth is Blue: Get your human back from orbit in one piece [M].
- I have the Power: Create a surplus of efficient energy from all sources [M].
- Rivers of Blood: Win 500 Battles [H].
- 9801 The Magic Number: Get 9,801 Land [H].
- Total Conversion: Convert all your farms to GM farms (requires a starting age BEFORE Modern Era) [E].

Subscriber Features:

* Fix: Turning the research messages back on, would display the same message as turning turns on. Copy paste whoops!
* New: The list of Nation flags now includes Central Asia and East Asia.
* New: "Farmville Yellow" and "Charcoal Black" themes are subscriber only through the subscriber menu.
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SINCE LAST PUBLIC TEST:
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* Fix: Another attemptted fix for the host leaving.
* Fix: The Genetically Modified Farm would say "Commercial" instead of its correct name when clicked.
* Fix: A bug meant that those nuking as a non-alligned member against another non-alligned member would count as an ally, fixed.
* Fix: Another bug with Nuking meant that clicking anything in the top 10 rows would cause problems, fixed.
* Change: When building buildings, if you don't have enough of a resource, it'll tell you how much you need.
* Change: When building units, if you don't have enough of a resource, it'll tell you how much you need.
* Change: Some minor changes to some of the return messages to user actions and other, invisible number crunching.
* Change: General improvements to displays, should run faster.
* Change: Some minor graphical changes to some icons, with other, unused icons removed completely.
* New: Alliance List now displays a piechart of the top 3 alliances, other alliances and then non-alligned.
* New: When a leader leaves their alliance, a random person of the highest possible rank will replace them, rather than it being left empty.
- This means if nobody in the alliance has been promoted, then anyone could become the new leader. If there is 2 Commanders, then one of them will get it.
* New: Split the Buildings into "Economy" and "Military", two categories for future use. When new buildings come it would have overfilled the screen. Works just like the unit ones.
* New: Unit costs, including space, factories and resouces are displayed at the bottom with its name.
* New: Building costs, including Wood, Power use and Uranium are displayed at the bottom with its name.
* New: When selecting Nukes, it displays how much of each you have.
* New: When Spying, the number of land is displayed on the list IF it is lower than yours. The cost is actually mentioned when selecting one on the option of whether to spy on it or not, or in the output box if your cash is too low.
* New: Building styles. An "Eastern" themed design, pickable at the start of the game. There is also a Random option. New icons include:
- Forest: Eras 1-11 (Full) (New trees)
- Research: Eras 1-11 (Full) (New trees, roofs on 2-3)
- Government: Eras 1-11 (Full) (Like Castle, but different, 6+ has concrete)
- Schools: Eras 1-6 (Partial) (New trees, roof on 2)
- Castle: Eras 2-11 (Full) (Total conversion)
- Barracks: Eras 2-3 (Partial) (New roof)
- Smithy: Eras 2-3 (Partial) (New roof)
- Hospital: Eras 2 (Partial) (New roof)