Jun 9, 2020

Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg - Alexandr

Update 1.10

Patch notes:

- Fixed the crash when using the V-1 Flying bomb with the HQ skill. (Reported by [PBS]mmtt and others)
- Fixed the 3rd tutorial not working properly. (Reported by: "MatthewT")
- Fixed: now you cannot discard the equipment if the unit have already attacked this turn (instead of not being able to acquire). (Reported by: "MatthewT")
- Fixed crash when finishing the Tobruk operation (Reported by "Jurand36")
- Fixed Air recon triggering civilians on Crete to become Conscripts (and failing secondary objective). Now only ground unit's presence can turn them into Conscripts. (You have to attack civilians in close combat to disarm them peacefully, before they had time to take arms)
- Fixed towed artillery not having Sluggish (negative) skill. (It gives the unit attacking it in close combat First strike) So, now tanks of Infantry attacking Artillery from the adjacent hex will have an advantage. At the same time, your Artillery will also become more vulnerable to enemy attacks. (Note that the unit acquired before the update will not have this skill until the end of the campaign. Enemy units will have it only when you start the new operation) (Reported by: "Doctrine")
- In Battle for Moscow operation: Changed USSR Regular units posted around Kremlin into Guards units.
- Stalingrad operation: 1) Fixed Conscripts not crossing the river. 2) Adjusted soviet airforce behavior. 3) Fixed one of the objective counters.
- Fixed all Armored trains and Assault guns not damaging infrastructure and not being able to attack Mines.
- Removed embarkation button for armored trains.
- Added series for recon units staring with Sd. kfz. 231 and up to Puma. So now Recon units are cheaper to upgrade.
- Removed the extra "Colonel" rank in the campaign (not operation) victory/loss screen.
- Fixed tanks defeating the enemy Forst in close combat getting Overrun only after a certain delay.
- Fixed not being able to disembark from air transport in a hex in which another aircraft was located (under the aircraft).
- Sea transport no longer has a Level tab.
- Fixed "tick" (got this hero) and "skull"(hero was killed) icons on Heroes tab not working properly.
- Fixed not getting + x prestige notification when destroying an enemy ship,
- Fixed Infantry having incorrect current move points count right after selling the ground transport.
- Fixed Wolfpack and Tank onslaught skills abuse: you could use it to attack with aircraft instead of tank/sub if you had both tank/sub and aircraft in one hex.

We would like to express our deepest gratitude to all players who actively offer us all sorts of invaluable feedback. We encourage you to keep doing so. Together we can make an even better game.

We look forward to both reading more feedback from you guys on our Community hub and adding more polish to the game. See you soon!

With best regards
Starni Games development team

Jun 7, 2020

Update 1.09

Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg - Alexandr

Update 1.09

Patch notes:
- Fixed the previous update mistake (with random generation set to 0 and incorrect lethal-nonlethal damage distribution) We are sorry for our mistake. We plan to add the randomness setting in the future. (Huge thanks to "jurand36" for noticing the problem and pointing that out to us)
- Fixed crash on Crete secondary objective (about civilians). However, there are still some issues remaining with that objective: air recon triggers civilians to become conscripts (should be only land units) and autosave missing this objective. We are working on these issues and will fix them in the upcoming updates. (Reported by: "dragoon2008", "Legatus", "polinich-il")
- Rebalanced Crete: reduced the number of noncore aircraft units, but it now has a higher level and overstrength.
- Fixed "Esc" button not skipping cinematics and character speech in Headquarters.
- Fixed "tick" sings on Heroes ready for assignment sometimes disappearing.
- Changed Victory points cost of "Heavy air transport" ability from 300 to 400 points.
- Changed trophy tank on Leningrad from KV-1 to KV-2 (as was originally intended). (Reported by "Doctrine")
- Changed enemy forces flags in the 20th operation.
- Stalingrad operation: 1) fixed unit counters in some secondary objectives; 2) Soviet Command posts now summon Conscripts instead of Regulars; 3) fixed pointers.
- 20th operation: 1) added SS-troops; 2) changed civilians' behavior; 3) changed Tiger to Koenigstiger in secondary objective; 4) fixed pointers.
- Kursk operation: 1) fixed secondary objectives giving only 95 points (instead of 100); 2) added pointers.
- 19th operation: added pointers.

We are aware of the current issue with the 3rd tutorial and are working on fixing this new issue.
Apart from fixes and polishing, we plan to make a bit bigger update next week, which will also add a bit of new stuff (equipment etc.) Also, we look closely at all the feedback from you guys and will do our best to implement the best suggestions at some point.
On a side note, there was a request for us post the full list of scenarios, so we will post that tomorrow.

We would like to express our deepest gratitude to all players who actively offer us all sorts of invaluable feedback. We encourage you to keep doing so. Together we can make an even better game.

We look forward to both reading more feedback from you guys on our Community hub and adding more polish to the game. See you soon!

With best regards
Starni Games development team

Jun 5, 2020

The Russian government has stopped the Blitzkrieg

Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg - Alexandr

Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg was banned in Russia by the Roskomnadzor decision effective today. We apologize to all the players from Russia, who no longer can purchase the game or open our Store page.

Yesterday, we got a letter from Valve informing us of the formal Roskomnadzor’s (a Russian government body charged with legislative power to ban any content without the court decision or public hearings) request to stop the distribution of Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg in Russia. As we understood, by Russian law the ROSCOMNADZOR decision is enough to ban any game or other content in Russian segment of the Internet.

As lawful entities, both we and Valve had to comply with the Roskomnadzor’s decision.
So, now the game is not available in Russia in the Steam store. However, it is still available in the GOG.com store, creating unequal competition. Additionally, the number of illegal downloads in Russia (i.e. torrent etc.) has surged dramatically. So, what was the purpose of Roskomnadzor’s actions, and did they succeed in their efforts? That is open to debate.

We want to be fully transparent about the situation, so here are the charges that were filed against the game. (The exact law or its paragraphs that we supposedly infringed, was not specified)
Here are the abstracts from the Roskomnadzor official request and our commentary on them:
[the game] “has clear signs of the rehabilitation of Nazism” (c) Roskomnadzor letter
“the game forms a loyal attitude towards Nazism and war criminals among the participants, belittles the exploits of the Soviet people in the struggle against Nazi invaders and is actually aimed at reviewing the results of the Second World War.” (c) Roskomnadzor letter

First of all, regarding the alleged “Nazi propaganda”. All party members (Hitler and Goering) are presented as negative characters and they make progressively more criminal moves the longer the campaign goes, so we are sure that closer to the end of the game the player will most likely be fed up with them. The scene everyone is talking about is only 75% into the game (many mistakenly think this is the ending video, however, it is said in description to the said video on YouTube that it happens 75% into the game) Moreover, Hitler is killed by the Resistance just a couple of operations later, and Goering becomes your enemy at the end and you storm Berlin to get rid of his criminal rule. In the end, both Hitler and Goering are dead and the new non-nazi government is formed in Germany, and the main character announces “There will be democratic elections and all power will not be concentrated in one hands!” etc.
The game has gone through the denazification process - all symbols that could violate the law were replaced or changed in such a way that they conform with the law.

Secondly, regarding the “reviewing the results of the Second World War”. We did say in the game description from the very beginning that it had the alternate history elements and would allow the player to see the outcome of the war should the German army be more successful than it was historically:
“While we strive for historical accuracy, we also allow you to explore various “what if’s” and see what could have happened should the German Armed forces be even more successful in their struggle for dominance over the European continent.” (c) Store page
Consequently, we do not claim any of the following: “USSR did not win the war”, “German troops have taken Moscow” etc. We just make a fictional scenario to let the people see what could have happened if they did. We think that the negative reaction from some people is a clear indication that we succeeded in showing all the adversities that could befall us all if that were to happen. Which can actually be considered to have an “anti-nazi” effect and serve as a condemnation of their actions. Or at the very least regarded as a fictional scenario. There is a number of similar works of art and entertainment such as “The Man in High Castle”, “Red Alert”, and many more.
We often get criticized that the game only presents the German side. However, we already did the US Pacific and Japanese Pacific campaigns in Strategic Mind: The Pacific and plan to make USSR and Allied perspectives in our future projects. So, we just need more time and resources to present the WW2 events both real and alternate history from every major participant perspective. Also, there were other games before, like Panzer Corps 2 where only the German campaign was available, with alternate history elements

Thirdly, regarding the “the game forms a loyal attitude towards Nazism and war criminals” accusation. There is a wide-spread misconception in the Russian press, who obviously did not play the game nor examined the Store page, that “Hitler is the player character”. In fact, you play as Franz Halder - a German officer who was not tried by the Nuremberg tribunal, and who was imprisoned by Hitler’s regime on 23 July 1944. Moreover, “In 1961 he was awarded the Meritorious Civilian Service Award for this work. This award was bestowed by Major General Edgar C. Doleman on behalf of President John F. Kennedy. Halder thus became the only German to be decorated by both Adolf Hitler and an American president. (He had received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross from Hitler in 1939.)” © In the actual game Halder often opposes Hitler and argues with him. At some point, Hitler even dismisses him from his position. The rest of the officers even get arrested, as Hitler doubts their loyalty.
Thus, we think these accusations are completely unfounded.

Lastly, we would like to point out that with accusations being so vague and open to multiple interpretations, the issue is left unclear both for us and any other developers and literary any new game can be banned with some rather vague and ill-informed accusations.

To sum up, we would like you to know that we see no real substance to these accusations, and they seem very vague to us. We have let you know our perspective. Additionally, Steam user reviews are very positive, and we do not think that would have been the case had the game contain real nazi propaganda (unless the 83% of Steam users are nazi supporters, which would have been even more far-fetched). We want players all over the world, including the Russian Federation to enjoy our games. We stand firmly on the principles of freedom of speech and freedom of creation (to the point it conforms with the law, of course). We would not want to create a precedent of the case where the game can be prohibited without solid proof of it violating the law and without reasonable consideration. We are worried that games might get banned by mistake or by the willful actions of some government officials.

By Russian law, both we and Valve had to comply with the Roskomnadzor’s decision.

Still, it seems to us that the actions of the Roskomnadzor lack logic and consistency. There is no detailed explanation as to which law was broken and by what episode (the only thing they mentioned was “a parade of Nazi troops on Red Square in Moscow reviewed by Adolf Hitler, who was recognized as an international war criminal by the sentence of the International Nuremberg Tribunal.” (c) Roskomnadzor
Secondly, the game is still available in the GOG.com store, so that creates an unfair market for the game in Russia.
Thirdly, that decision makes players in Russia (who want to play the game but cannot do so legally) think about illegal methods of getting a copy, i.e. promote piracy.
Finally, such actions, without solid consideration or investigation of the case, lead to the infringement of the customers’ rights in Russia.

We regret that it has come to this, but that is what happens when an important decision (about the game with over 100 hours of gameplay) is being made after watching a 30-second-long video on YouTube.

With best regards
Ihor Tymoshenko
The CEO of Starni Games

Jun 4, 2020

Update 1.08

Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg - Alexandr

Update 1.08

Patch notes:
- Fixed the major issue with damaged infrastructure still transferring the supply further along the supply line to the next Infrastructure facility.
- Fixed a potential problem at Norway (operation Weseubung) with British troops not being able to land heavy units if the seaports were damaged or captured and remaining stuck at the sea. Now they have only infantry units. (Reported by "Steevodeevo")
- Fixed units not being able to board a transport ship in Big river. (This affected Stalingrad playthrough)
- Fixed: Goliath tracked mine can no longer be summoned in the Big river or Ocean hex.
- Fixed 210 mm Nebelwerfer not being counted as Heavy equipment
- Fixed bug: if an Infantry discarded an armored ground transport it was left with fewer move points then they should have had.
- Fixed potential abuse with Order of the Crown of Romania when every save/load added +1 Move point.
- Fixed the Demoralised flag sometimes not being removed after 1 turn.
- Added anti-aircraft fire animation for Soviet monitor river boats.
- Removed Russian AA gun that was mistakenly made available for acquisition in the 1.07 update. (Sorry for one of our employees' mistake)
- Fixed Sturmpanzer having the wrong movement type. (Reported by "Pvt.Freaky")
- Minor visual fixes in the Sea Lion operation.
- Fixed units capturing 100% of remaining enemy Ammo and Fuel when the enemy unit surrendered, instead of 50% rounded down. So, now to capture less Ammo and Fuel.
- Fixed: you can now equip 2 Nebelwerfers, but cannot activate both at the same time.
- Moved V-1 Flying bomb available date from 01 June 1944 (first combat employment) to 01 July 1943 (first successful military exercises). Now it is available for the last 3 operations (instead of 2).
- Added informational skill "Fighter aircraft" to all fighters extending their gun range versus air targets. (Nothing has changed gameplay-wise, but we hope this will make the rules more clear)

We would like to express our deepest gratitude to all players who actively offer us all sorts of invaluable feedback. We encourage you to keep doing so. Together we can make an even better game.

We look forward to both reading more feedback from you guys on our Community hub and adding more polish to the game. See you soon!

With best regards
Starni Games development team

Jun 3, 2020

Update 1.07

Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg - Alexandr

Update 1.07

Patch notes:
- Fixed Battle for Britain secondary objective (do not lose more than x aircraft) working incorrectly in the latest updates: it counted enemy aircraft as if there your aircraft so you could not complete it. (Reported by "Tim" and others)
- Fixed unit count in the Crete secondary objective with civilians.
- Fixed bug with not giving +50 experience instead of +10 when killing or capturing an enemy unit with a Hero. (Reported by "Testsubject")
- Fixed equipment with a limited number of uses not restoring when in the active service zone.
- Fixed bug: after learning the HQ skill providing the third equipment slot, if you upgraded towed artillery into self-propelled it kept having only 2 slots instead of 3. (Unfortunately, units that were upgraded before the 1.07 update will remain with 2 slots. If you upgrade them once again they will get 3 slots) Reported by "tr".
- Units can no longer equip more than 1 Molotov cocktail equipment.
- The player no longer gets messages about new objectives after he already lost the operation.
- Added 2 noncore fighter aircraft to your forces at Sea Lion operation to make the air combat more balanced.
- Fixed: you can now deselect the infrastructure by clicking on it again.
- Fixed: you can now close the Manual tab by pressing the "Esc" button.
- You can now see the name of the country on mouse over the flag in the unit Info screen.
- Command tank bonus no longer affects barricades.
- Fixed the "Trade agreement" global bonus remaining active even after the Barbarossa operation.
- Added "tick" sign in the hero list for those heroes who are already assigned, and "x" sign if the Hero has fallen in battle.
- If the unit has reached the level cap (5th, 6th, or 7th level depending on HQ skill), it no longer has notifications of the experience it got. (Since he obviously did not get any)

Note that due to technical malfunction we had to upload today's update twice. The first upload had a potential crash at Kharkov. Make sure you have the latest version before starting the Kharkov operation

We would like to express our deepest gratitude to all players who actively offer us all sorts of invaluable feedback. We encourage you to keep doing so. Together we can make an even better game.

We look forward to both reading more feedback from you guys on our Community hub and adding more polish to the game. See you soon!

With best regards
Starni Games development team