Get the Commander: Europe at War v1.06 Demo off WP (128mb)

Starting midnight April 21st through May 5th, Commander – Europe at War will be available for $49.99 as a boxed version – a savings of $10 - and $39.99 as a digital download – also savings of $10!

David Heath, Director of Operations at Matrix Games, said “With the lightning speed of blitzkrieg tactics, Commander – Europe at War has invaded and occupied much of my free time! This fun grand strategy game is thoroughly addicting and with a brilliant interface and easy learning curve the game is well suited for veteran wargamers and newcomers alike.”

Commander: Europe at War allows the player to command the armies of the Axis or the Allies in World War II. With only two goals at hand - survive and conquer, the player is charged with building and commanding the combined air, land and sea forces of his side. Advance your research to the cutting edge of technology in order to best your opponents and either conquer or liberate Europe!

Commander: Europe at War is easy to learn and elegant, but deep in strategy and hard to master. Players will find themselves glued to their chairs from the beginning when all mayhem breaks loose across the continent with the invasion of Poland in 1939. Research new technologies, manage your manpower reserves, improve your industry, husband your oil supply and manufacture armies, fleets, and bombers to use all available strategic and tactical might to bring about victory. Commander - Europe at War includes realistic combat resolution that models supply morale, terrain, leadership, equipment, training, strategic weapons and fog of war. To capture the immense scope and distance of WWII, Commander - Europe at War includes 6 epic scenarios with different starting points, including the famous Barbarossa campaign, D-Day, the battle for France, and finally the Grand Campaign that will let the player refight the entirety of the Second World War the way they see fit!

Changes in v1.06

Performance

• Frame rate has been increased by ~30% when moving units!
• Improved loading times
• Selecting units on map is faster

General

• Units can now exit the transportation loops placed on the loop hex itself, in case all the adjacent hexes are occupied. Subs that do this become instantly visible on the map to prevent exploits when placing hidden subs on loop hex and blocking it
• Convoys and transports no longer receive experience
• Bristol has been replaced by Cardiff and positioned one hex NW, and it gets a Sea Port
• Sub technology difficulty is now 15 instead of 20
• It is no longer possible to view enemy units max tech level
• Allied convoys now unload at Scapa Flow instead of Cardiff
• Naval units now have Zone of Control (ZOC) penalty that increases the movement cost by 4MP per hex in a ZOC
• UK convoys now reroute to Canada as soon as London falls to Axis
• Syria when Annexed by UK now starts with a corps, a fighter and a battleship
• Research progress % is now shown more precisely i.e. for each 1% reached
• Garrison units can no longer be transported at Sea
• Air units now gain as much experience as normal units, not halved as before

Bugs

• Fixed where experience icons did not appear in non English versions.
• Fixed allowing tactical bombers, fighters and carriers to sneak peak on a enemy unit in the fog of war, hiding on a resource hex
• Fixed fog of war being off for transports under certain conditions
• Fixed fog of war where subs could still spot from their previous location after the convoy move started

Multiplayer

• Fixed reassigning a leader not working on both machines
• Fixed sub surprise attack combined with unloading convoy cargo was not completed in the correct sequence
• Fixed a unit was stacked on the same hex bumping into sub and client+host did not resolve same combat
• Fixed RANDOM_ENTRY was not the same on both machines
• Fixed the wrong leader was sometimes recruited on the other machine

Data File Changes

General

• Upgrade Minimum Cost - decreased 4->3
• Africa Loop Turns - decreased 2->1
• Allies Winter Suffer - decreased 2->1
• Efficiency Regain - Increased 130->145
• Efficiency Loss Casualty Factor - decreased 55->45
• Efficiency Loss From Unload - increased 12->15
• Efficiency Loss Lack Supply - increased 3->10
• Commander Reassign Cost - increased 2->7
• Max Labs - decreased 13->10

Technology

• Switched Infantry fixed defences L2 with L3, giving corps more early benefits
• BB now get ASW advances on L2, L4, L6 so a bit later than before
• BB and DD now misses L3 surface ships instead of L5.
• Infantry AT is now +1, +1, +2, +1, +1, +2
• Tank Destroyer is now +1, +2, +1, +2, +1,
• Strategic Operations L3 now give land spotting +2 instead of +1
• Industry tech is more powerful +9,+9,+9,+6,+5 instead of +7,+6,+5,+4,+3
• Organisation tech difficulty changed from 55->50
• Strategic Operations L1 now gives some extra movement

Terrain

• Capital Attack Efficiency now 65%
• Sea Port Attack Efficiency now 50%

Unit

• Air units now have land spotting 5 instead of 4
• Transports now have movement 17 instead of 14
• Subs now have land spotting 0
• sub,DD,BB cost -10
• strategic bomber cost -5
• tactical bomber cost +5
• carrier +1 naval combat
• Air units now have slightly more movement

Scenarios:

• In 1939, 1940, 1941 USSR has more armour and less corps around the Urals and their air units no longer start near the front line
• In 1939, Egypt starts as a separate country who joins the Allies in 1940, which effectively limits UK forces from moving out of Egypt and leaving it empty
• In 1939, France start with more Garrisons (Lyon, Cherbourg, Brest)
• In 1939, German starting PP is now 20 instead of 60
• UK and France start with 5% higher war effort
• UK Sub replaced by a Battleship
• In 1939, 1940 Italy starts with a fighter near Rome instead of a Tactical Bomber up north
• French sub removed
• USSR off-map production reduced slightly in all scenarios

Map:

• Belfast is added as UK city on Ireland.
• USSR cities redistributed so that Stalingrad is worth more and some eastern cities worth less.
• Bergen Sea Port worth less, Iron Ore Route worth more
• Hex (78, 6) now Rough, Hex (78, 7) now Mountain
• Norway Iron Ore Route is removed and its production value is put into Oslo city instead
• Palermo is now a Fort instead of City

Changes in v1.04

Fixed a bug with Yugoslavian emblems on inner zoom
Fixed a bug with transportation loop units being alive despite surrender of their nation
Sentry function added for units, hotkey 's'. Sentry units are removed from the queue when Pg Up and Pg Dw are used to cycle through units.
Units can now be named by clicking their names.
1939 scenario units are all now named.
Technology : Carriers now progress further in naval combat and less in air combat
New Nations (like Algeria) now get Garrions instead of Corps as units
Map/Scenario : Oil field size was shifted slightly from Iran over to Iraq.
Iraq now joins Allies late in the war.
German corps start in Finland.
Allies now have slightly more troops in Egypt.
One UK carrier switched place with a Mediterranean Battleship.
Labs are now slightly cheaper to build
Naval repair rates are now lower than other unit types
Fixed a crash bug where the AI tried to move units that were no longer on the map.
Fixed a bug where minor countries (like Romania) kept their oil instead of sending them to the faction oil pool
Fixed a bug where naval units could repair despite country being out of resources
Fixed some drawing routine bugs that caused graphic glitches
PBEM, fixed a bug where tech advances were not shown in the turn summary
PBEM games cannot be saved manually anymore - instead uses the autosave on end turn
The autosave for non-PBEM games no longer overwrite the save from which you loaded, it creates a new file
USSR winter event now is registered but not in effect until DoW, so if invading USSR in spring mud is still there
All toggles (such as Nato Symbols) now remain unchanged when loading a save
The zoom level now switches to the mid zoom when ending your turn on every game mode
Quality and Survivability now have the tooltip text colours for tech increases on the purchase screen, unless they have a manpower penalty
Windowed mode is now stored in settings.txt file so you can start the game up windowed by default
War entry dates are now randomised and can be controlled from the scripts
Winter duration can now be set in the general.txt script
Air units now also follow the same rule as ground units when deciding if a rail move is possible
Some tweaks to the scenarios, Allied have slightly more troops in Egypt. Some neutral countries have slightly less troops
The Force Pool now has a reorder function, clicking the first unit will put it way back and push other units one step forward in the queue
Oi Fields now generate 4x instead of 3x in oil production, providing more incentive for conquest of enemy oil
Terrain : Entrenchments are now slightly more powerful
Unit : Carrier now has a shorter range and get less range tech upgrades. Naval units now take more time to build
Tech : Anti-Tank Guns, Tank Destroyer and Close Air Support are now more early bloomers. Armour +1 oil cons
AI, fixed a bug where the AI deployed land units into a sea port
AI now focuses more on protecting conquered capitals
AI now tries to secure a conquered Capital surroundings before planning their next invasion
AI now only feel threatened and try to protect Cities from ground units and transport, so air and navy no longer cause over reaction
AI transports now try to move as close as possible to the destination before unloading
AI now uses the new transport rule where a ship on port does not prevent loading
AI will now retreat from Sea Ports that have been taken over by enemy
AI Axis now use a broad front when invading USSR, picking interim Cities to conquer and sending units out on the flanks
AI will now buy labs more slowly, to prevent a scenario starting with AI spending all its early turn cash on labs
AI will now build slightly less Armour and slightly less Air

Changes in V1.04 Editor

Forts are now loaded through scenarios so no need to recreate them again
Country war entry dates can now be set in scenarios
You can now manually set which side starts a scenario
You can now name units

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Please note saved games are not compatible.

WARNING TO ALL MODDERS:

Since v1.04 and the v1.04 editor have so many changes to them they are not compatible with previously modded scenarios. If you have any old custom made scenarios then you need to delete them from your data/scenario folder else game will try to read them and fail (crash on startup before main menu). If we can avoid this kind of problem in future we will as we don't want to ruin any of your hard work!

If you have any probelms with the patch or editor please make your comments on the Commander forum at http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=18

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