Commander - Europe at War

Slitherine are pleased to announce an update to the free Grand Strategy expansion for Commander Europe at War. The 1.02 update adds a host of changes and fixes. This expansion was created by a dedicated team of fans who took the original game and transformed it in to something even better! The project was started by Borger Borgersen, Ronnie Runyan, Jim Potts, Paul Kirby and Tim Lynch nearly 2 years ago and has eaten up countless hours of their spare time. Since they started a team of over 15 people have become involved ranging from artists and manual writers to programmers and even guys working on a MAC conversion! The full credits list can be seen below. We at Slitherine are amazed at what a group of fans can do when they put their minds to it and would like to thank them for their dedication to building the Commander Europe at War community. All Slitherine have done is help them build it in to an installer and make it compatible with as many versions of the game as possible. The real work was all done by the fans. The expansion offers a whole new set of features, some of which are described below. Anyone with Commander Europe at War should grab this FREE expansion immediately and get playing. It add new ways to play and offers hours of replay value in single player and some great new features for multiplayer.

Fixes & Changes in v1.02

• Changed the expected entry date for Poland, who is pro Allied, to 9-1-1939. If not attacked by Germany, Poland will activate at the end of the Allied turn no later than 9-29-1939. If Poland activates then the Polish units do not suffer the 10% efficiency loss. If Germany; however, declares war on Poland then all Polish units suffer an immediate efficiency loss of 10%.

• Fixed a messaging bug where the owning player wasn't being notified when a minor ally activated on their own. The axis player was not seeing any messages when Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary or Finland joined the war. Similarly, the allied player wasn’t any messages when the USA and Free France activated. This is now fixed.

• Fixed a code bug that caused the game for some players to hang on startup when scenarios are loaded. For those players that experienced this bug this is a critical bug and prevented them from playing the expansion.

• There was a bug where the ownership of a airfield wasn’t changing when its adjoining fortress was captured. This is now fixed. Ownership of the airfield now changes at the end of the first turn that the airfield is not occupied. If the airfield is occupied at the time of its fortress capture then ownership is maintained by the side that lost the fortress until their air unit leaves the airfield. The air unit can be attacked by both the adjacent ground unit and one enemy air unit until it leaves.

• Made the expansion compatible with CEaW 1.12.1. Now, the Grand Strategy expansion should work with either CEaW 1.12 or 1.12.1. Also, Grand Strategy games can between played between players where one has applied the expansion over 1.12 and the other over 1.12.1 even though those same two players would not be able to play a standard game.

• GS version changed to 1.01 from 1.00. This changed was made in all 8 language file.

• Made a number updates and edits to the user manual.

• Fixed a bug that existed in the vanilla game that prevented the placement of a German unit inside of Vichy France at the fall of France if that unit was in a hex controlled by Italy.

• Syria bug. Syria not surrendering when Damascus falls is indeed a bug. The reason for the bug is that the primary capital of Syria belongs to France in the 1939 and 1940 scenarios. That means it's not set properly when loading the game. When Syria is created then the primary capital is not set. So it's without a capital even though it has one on the map. The surrender code checks for a primary capital. This bug has been fixed by defining Damascus as a primary capital for Syria when France surrenders.

• Initial weather was not random in the 1940 and 1941 scenarios (not starting in all fair weather). We noticed that I got the same weather every time the 1940 and 1941 scenarios were started. You always get fair central weather in February in the 1940 scenario and mud weather in February in the 1941 scenario. This bug has been fixed so you now get random weather based on the appropriate probabilities (i.e., chances) for February.

• Canadian weather. Changed the code so Canada (including UK controlled part of Canada) plus Greenland and Iceland are now part of the north weather zone.

• Convoy bug regarding Halifax. Rewrote the convoy code so New York port will be set as a destination if Halifax becomes Axis controlled.

• Convoys when UK surrenders. Changed the code so the convoys will become US and go to New York when UK surrenders (Ottawa falls).

• US make a Declaration of War (DoW) upon Germany when an Axis unit controls a hex in Canada (including UK controlled part of Canada). Added this code as well because we felt it's an omission to not think about what would happen if Germany landed in Canada. Now USA will automatically join the Allies by DoW'ing Germany if the Axis are so bold to land units in Canada.

• Fredericton garrison. Added the Fredericton garrison to all scenarios. The reason was that Canada is neutral until sometime in 1941 and that means the Germans can DoW Canada and land directly into Fredericton and get supply without the Allied player being able to stop it. The allies can't move units to Fredericton after England falls because the territory is neutral. So by adding a garrison here it means the Germans must fight for a supply source.

• Changed 2 hexes in Portugal that were incorrectly flagged as Spanish owned.

• Added the game turn to the mini-map and changed it so each major power has the same colour as their NATO symbol except for Germany, which is still blue because the grey/green colour is too similar to the background. Made a common colour for all axis minors and another common colour for the allied minors.

Original GS Expansion Feature List

• Country specific unit graphics and NATO counters, so all major and minor nations have a full set of unit images!

• Transport and sea invasion models, which are a function of technology. Allies limited by technology as to how many units they can have on transport ship at a time.

• New submarine warfare model that much more realistically models the Battle of the Atlantic

• New weather feature. Weather is random yet realistic and effects combat and movement encouraging warfare in good weather. Also effects storms at sea so naval invasions & combat in winter are much harder.

• New partisan model. Partisans now spawn in all conquered countries and force the axis player to garrison cities and resources as they did historically, which radically changes the strategies that work,

• Added a Blitzkrieg effect where invaded countries suffer a temporary efficiency loss, due to surprise.

• Added Russian Siberian reserves which are released when the USA enters the war

• More cities, ports, revised political boarders, updated/new terrain features (e.g., Persian Gulf), more forts (e.g., Gustav, Ostwell & Siegfried) and five naval transport loops (e.g., Kiel)

• Added an air base feature. They allow aircraft to refuel mid Atlantic in Greenland etc.

• Vichy France and Free France are both added as separate countries

• New victory conditions based on historical surrender date of May 8th 1945

• Historical Italian surrender, where Italy can surrender without Rome falling

• Updated rail model including the ability to degrade rail capacity through bombing.

• New African supply model that limits the number of units the Axis can maintain in North Africa

• Added traded oil (Germany & Russia) and iron ore (Germany & Sweden)

• Added Lend Lease to Russia through Persia

• Carrier air wings and fighters can be grounded to avoid unnecessary combat

• Limited the air attacks you can use per turn on a single target which means air power can weaken but not destroy ground units, making it far more realistic.

• Specially created 173-page highly polished Grand Strategy Expansion players manual

Grand Strategy requires v 1.12 of Commander Europe at War, but it supports the original game and the MILITARY HISTORY version. The Grand Strategy expansion sits alongside your existing install so after installing you either have the choice to run the original game or the Grand Strategy expansion. You can uninstall the Grand Strategy expansion at any time and will still have a fully working version of the original game. If you already have a previous Grand Strategy Expansion installed, just install this over the top. You will be able to continue any saved games from previous versions of the Grand Strategy expansion.

Get the original Commander Europe at War here – http://www.slitherine.com/games/mh_ceaw_gold_pc

Get the Grand Strategy expansion here - http://www.slitherine.com/files/ceaw/GrandStrategyExpansion/CEaW_v1.12_GS_expansion_v1.02.exe

For more details on the Grand Strategy expansion and design notes go here http://www.slitherine.com/ceaw_grand_strategy