SLITHERINE NEEDS INFANTRY TO TEST NEW COMMANDER'S PATCH PUBLIC BETA ANNOUNCED

Slitherine announced today it will start a public beta for the recently developed patch 1.03 for award winning strategy game Commander: Europe at War. The game, which has earned critical acclaim from specialist press all over the world is now enriched with fixes, tweaks and a much improved AI to allow players to be even more immersed in this fantastic strategy experience.

Iain McNeil, Director at Slitherine declared: we are commissioned to improve our games over and over, even after they are released. For this reason we stress the importance that the user keeps making comments on the games in our forums and take in great consideration these comments. This patch has been hard work and it is the result of our passion in supporting our fans even months after the release of the game.

Patch 1.03 Features

- 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

The patch can be download from: files/ceaw/patches/ceaw_v1.03_beta.exe

The patch releases alongside an updated editor that makes use of some of the new features in the game.

Changes in V1.03 Beta 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

Beta Editor V1.03 can be downloaded at files/ceaw/editor/ceaw_editor_beta_1.03.exe

[About Slitherine] - Slitherine Software UK Ltd. is a privately funded and independent UK developer and publisher. It launched the Slitherine Strategies brand in 2002. Through this brand Slitherine is dedicated to bringing highly playable and approachable strategy games to the mass market. Slitherine Software is uniquely placed to deliver due to its experience within the industry and also the wider gaming community.

[About The Kameleon Project]- The Kameleon Project is the brainchild of Slitherine Software, itself an independently funded developer. It has been created to assist other independent developers to bring their games to market. Slitherine supplies marketing and PR support, external production (music, sound effects, box art etc), game design, technical support, pro-forma documentation, sales and negotiating expertise and in fact anything needed to progress the development of the projects, allowing the development team to concentrate on what they do well, make great games. The first release from the Kameleon Project is 'Commanders - Europe at War' from Firepower Entertainment and DoubleThink Studios.

For Press Enquiry, please contact : press@slitherine.co.uk