Congratulations to Myrin, who was the successful Winner of this round, and wins a Year of Subscriber features to Wargames and Wargames 2.
You can see the full results on this page:
http://aceblokeswargames.wikispaces.com/contestround
I will be doing more contest rounds in future with Subscriptions to be won, so look out for them in future.
For now though, I'm currently hosting a new round with a major update to Wargames. See bottom of post for all the changes.
Research, Politics and Alliances have all had some major updates. Research wise, there is two new types, one for ports to increase trading sizes, another for upgraded towns to receive more money. Most research in general has been lengthened out time wise as well as prices to compensate for the fact that its been far too easy up till now. In addition, researching some general stuff is now a requirement to advancing through each era. Its currently set to 3 per era, and this is backdated in the event of a game set beyond the Ancient age. Era research is no longer delayed by researching other things, so there is greater incentive to research before going to the next era.
Alliances can now have a colour set by their leader, and this influences a couple of things such as the Alliance list and the Pie chart of largest Alliances. The alliance leader can also resign from his position and give it directly to someone he chooses without having to leave alliance. He can also promote and demote users who are not currently logged in the game, before it was a requirement.
Politics is by far the most major feature this time round. Before, there was a big colourful box when making a country and you could select an ideology which meant absolutely nothing in game terms. Now each ideology has a pro and con, giving you the option to specialise. What ideologies you can pick is based on your Head of State option, a King can't access the same ideologies as a President. You can change both your head of state and ideology one at a time by committing a Revolution through the research menu. While in a revolution (lasts 250 or 100 turns, depending on your choice) you get all negative effects including no research, but afterwards you return to your new ideologies pro and con. Each one is explained on-screen so you can see the benefits.
In addition to this, there has been various balancing and fixing, including more money in general for upgraded towns, and slightly eased education so you need less schools as well as some slight increase in some building costs. The Ministry of Trade now lists how many goods you can transfer at once with your ports, and a separated Industry Ministry has data on your Sector breakdown (originally in MoEconomy) and also what production buildings you have and your total unit production space for each. This Ministry will be expanded in the next update.
I've also gone some way of cleaning up the game in general, there is some new graphics in places as well as removing various annoying windows at login. I've improved the look of zooming by expanding it out a bit further.
* Fix: It was possible for Sea or Air units to kill Land units in Naval or Aerial Combat, fixed.
* Fix: An unintended change left the attack window unsizeable, fixed.
* Fix: Mercurius helicopter unit for future era was incapable of inflicting or receiving kills, fixed.
* Fix: It was possible in some cases for joining an alliance to reset your unpun countdown back to 100.
* Fix: Anti-Aircraft units were incapable of inflicting or recieving kills as well as not being listed in MoW.
* Fix: Attempted fix to stop some medal messages from spamming while waiting for byond site to respond.
* Fix: Having negative Air/Heli space resulted in inability to build non-air units, fixed.
* Fix: Some minor formatting errors in country and alliance reports fixed.
* Fix: It should now be less likely (and hopefully impossible) when an alliance leader leaves his/her alliance to not get a replacement from the current membership pool.
* Fix: Helipads and Airspace would be constantly buggy and causing wrong numbers for the amount of free space fixed.
* Fix: When more than 500 million is converted to notes automatically, it'd wrongly list 500 only, fixed.
* Change: It should now be possible to press enter when attacking on the input box.
* Change: Slight changes to battle code, making it shorter and easier to update in future.
* Change: Moved religious units so it doesn't hide Disband army.
* Change: Researching building/resource techs no longer increases the time of eras.
* Change: The basic 4 resource research for Food, Wood, Metal and Oil is now ten times more expensive and take at least twice as long.
* Change: Various changes to the other resources/building techs to cost and time.
* Change: When asked if you want to change your research mid-way, it'll come in a normal switch popup, rather than a list pop up.
* Change: Slight change to some building costs as balancing: Turret: 2,500 (+500), Market: 10,000 (+4k), Commercial: 50,000 (+40k)
* Change: Increased the base rate of cash gained from upgraded towns by 50%.
* Change: Slightly decreased the level of schools - towns ratio for A and B grades, making it easier.
* Change: Improved the look of zooming out by making the range slightly larger.
* Change: Improved the look of the after battle window by using one complete table for units rather than one for each side.
* Change: You can now promote and demote all users in an alliance, not just the online ones.
* Change: Switched the rather arrogant message for the 1st login Medal to something more neutral.
* Change: Splitted the research panel into two, copying the other existing sections so the new revolution research can fit in.
* Change: Removed the Medal list pop up at login.
* New: Researching some of the basic building/resource techs is now required before going up an era.
- 3 per stage, this is backdated in the event of a later start era, so starting at Early Middle will require 6, not 3 research.
* New: Alliance Colour option in the leader's Ministry of Foreign Affairs allows a unique colour to be displayed in the alliance list pie chart and the alliance say icon.
- This applies to the Crusades and Cold War gametypes too, now these 5 sides also get special colours.
* New: Pass Alliance Leadership is another Alliance Leader command, which allows them to pass the position of leadership over to someone they select, while remaining in the Alliance.
* New: Enlightenment era now has a Georgian style look for the hud borders.
* New: Trading research increases the transfer of goods.
* New: Commercial Tax research increases the amount of money made from upgraded towns.
* New: Ministry of Trade now lets you know how much you can trade at one time.
* New: The new Ministry of Industry allows you to view industry related information.
* New: Political Ideology has now been transformed. What Head of State you decide on effects which of the 4-6 out of 9 ideologies you can pick from.
- Your head of state option also defines your title, as listed in the Players Online tab.
* New: Political Ideology now has a pro and con for each type, except Centrist which has none.
* New: You can 'research' a different head of state or ideology to switch benefits or title, however suffers a revolutionary period of all cons and no research ability.
* New: New units for Americas region: B29 Superfortress and Convair B36 act as Americas region bombers.
* New: Total number of trades and the new revolutions now listed in leaderboard next to total land and pop density.
* New: 6 New Medals:
- Billionaire: Make a million million (US trillion) in trade [Hard].
- Rocket Punch: Use a Conventional Missile [Easy].
- Nuclear Genocide: Kill 25 million people with a nuclear weapon [Hard].
- Right of Conquest: Win 2,500 battles [Very Hard].
- Democracy: Start as a King/Queen, upgrade to President [Easy].
- Revolutionary: Go through 11 Revolutions [Medium].
