Today we're dropping the fourth patch for Axis & Allies 1942 Online. Thanks to our community for sharing their great feedback as we continue through early access development!

There will be a brief outage from 10 - 11 a.m. PT on October 2, 2019 to implement the patch.

Read on for patch #4 details!

NEW FEATURES AND IMPROVEMENTS

• Automated Landing of Fighters in Noncombat Move Phase

- We've added a new button to the Phase Confirmation popup at the end of the Noncombat Move Phase which allows players the option to land any unlanded Fighters automatically. Choosing this option places any Fighters and/or Aircraft Carriers needed to land planes safely to move to the required zones / territories; any Fighters requiring a mobilized Aircraft Carrier will be moved to the necessary Sea Zone.
*Please note: these moves will not always be the most strategically optimal, but will help unblock any players who are confused about Fighter Landing requirements.

• Windowed Mode and Automatic Screen Resolution Sizing

- We’ve implemented the ability to set the window size of Axis & Allies 1942 Online when in Windowed mode to specific 16:9 resolutions (1280x720 - 3180x2160). This should provide a much better game play experience for those looking to play in Windowed mode or on a non 16:9 aspect ratio monitor (Ultrawide).
*Please note: this feature is only available when playing in Windowed Mode.
Axis & Allies 1942 Online should also remember your last screen position in Windowed Mode when the application is shut down.

• Improved Error Handling and Bug Submitting

- We’ve improved our automatic bug submission with some new features that will help us track down issues faster. Players now have the option to include their PC specs and a screenshot of the game when submitting a ticket within the game.

• Changing Commander Names and Emails

- Players can now change their Commander Names and Emails associated with their accounts from within the game. No more separate Service Desk tickets! Both fields can only be changed once every 24 hours, and emails will now need to be verified on account signup and email change. If you are unable to verify your email due to a typo, we will still be accepting Service Desk tickets to manually reset an associated email account. Please note that players will not receive any email notifications until they have verified their email account after signup or changing their email. Existing customers who do not change their email will be unaffected.

• Map Note Tip Text

- We’ve added some additional tips to the Map notes panel that explain how to leave a Map Note, and how to guide any Computer teammates by using Map Notes to tell them what to aim for!

Rules Implementation

• Automated Stranded Fighter Landing/Crashing

- We have implemented the automatic landing and/or crashing of stranded Fighters in the ocean when their accompanying Aircraft Carrier has been destroyed while defending during the Combat Phase. Fighters will now seek out a valid landing zone within 1 space of the current region (prioritizing Aircraft Carriers over territories). If there are no valid landing zones, the Fighter(s) will crash into the ocean, and the event will be logged in the War Diary.
This brings the game closer to the Axis & Allies 1942 Second Edition rules-as-written: "Stranded defending fighters also land during this phase [non-combat move]. These are carrier fighters whose aircraft carrier has been destroyed in combat or fighter interceptors whose original territory is now under enemy control. These fighters are allowed movement of up to one space to find a friendly territory or carrier on which to land. If no landing space can be found, they are lost."

BUG FIXES

• Various reported issues surrounding the Retreat Action.
  
• Transports can no longer be selected to take hits after a Battleship has taken a single hit.
  
• Moving Tanks through one territory and into another will no longer result in a crash.
  
• Combat will no longer freeze when sending 10 Fighters into battle against 10 ships.
  
• We’ve removed the bug caused when a player joins a slot the AI was attempting to join.
  
• AI Fixes: We’ve fixed a number of issues with the AI that would result in the AI crashing and not being able to start back up.
  
• Crash when accessing the Game Settings screen in Hot Seat mode.
  
• Crash when attempting to end the Purchase Phase as any power.
  
• Several issues that were a result of the client computer becoming desynced from the server instance.
  
• Automated Blitz paths causing issues when blizting or moving out of Karelia S.S.R.
  
• Fixed issue where Japanese Turn Summary would appear over the victory screen, regardless of observing player allegiance.

WE LAUNCHED!

Since the July 31st launch we’ve seen players from all over the world join the battle to relive the game they know and love— or take the plunge and play Axis & Allies for the first time. We’re incredibly grateful to our awesome community members who are essential to the game’s development through Early Access.

In this retrospective I’ll be sharing:

• Some of my favorite visual highlights
  
• A brief discussion of server issues
  
• An overview of our plans for the near future…!

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WAR STORIES: SCREENSHOTS
First up - some levity! These maps and screens tell the story of your victories and defeats.

A sea of green:


Hoarding Units:


When a Strategic Bombing Raid wasn't very strategic:
- Three bombers attacked an industrial complex
- 1 plane survived doing 1 damage


THE SERVERS ROLLED A SIX

We're absolutely aware our launch to Steam began with some considerable stability concerns, so we're especially grateful to those of you who've stuck with us. Upon release, our server infrastructure was simply not up to the task of hosting the influx of players. We faced server-side issues right from the start, including:

• Disconnect / reconnect loops
  
• Server side latency
  
• Online AI errors and disconnects

We'd made several assumptions about how to handle simple events like disconnects, without proper consideration for the servers failing as hard as they did. Although we’ve since patched up most of the issues, you can be sure we’ll continue to work on major networking and server improvements throughout Early Access.

Thank you to everyone playing the game, providing feedback, and sticking with us through the hurdles.

Here are a few ways to get in touch (and hear from us):

• Service Desk
  
• Facebook
  
• Twitter
  
• Steam Forum
  
• Newsletter Signup

WHAT'S NEXT?

Back in August we introduced some major player-requested features and fixes:

• Streamlined Combat Board Experience
  
• Alternate starting condition: The Larry Harris Gencon v3.0 variant
  
• Added animation and visual control options
  
• Performance and networking improvements
  
• Over 200+ bug fixes

Looking to the future, we'll continue to keep the Axis & Allies community at the heart of our development plans.

Here are a few of the features we plan to include in future development work:

PLAYER PROFILES

• Keep track of your wins and losses
  
• See which power you play the most
  
• Review previous games

UNIT MOVEMENT & ARROWS

• We hear you loud and clear - there are too many clicks and the movement arrows get pretty confusing (...and it looks like spaghetti).

- We plan to refine unit movement reduce the number of clicks needed to move unit stacks
- We have a plan for how to represent unit movement in a much clearer way that should reduce the confusion (and no more spaghetti).

MATCHMAKING

• We want to speed up the time it takes for players to get into a game
  
• We're working on a system to match players searching for games together
  
• We also plan to include a ladder system that matches players based on skill level

GAME NOTIFICATIONS

• We're looking into ways we can notify you that it's your turn, aside from email

FIGHTER, AIRCRAFT CARRIER AND TRANSPORT IMPROVEMENTS

• We agree it's not always clear how the rules for these units work (especially if you're new to the game)
  
• We're taking steps to make the UI and visuals for these units more clear.

BETTER AI

• We're working on getting our robot players up to snuff - but you are tough competition.
  
• We have a few ideas how we can make the AI more challenging contenders.

BUGS, POLISH, STABILITY

• As always, we're prioritizing work on the stability of servers, improving the speed, and overall polish to the game.

AND MORE!

We currently have a ton of content in the Early Access pipe. While we've been releasing content patches with fixes and features about every two weeks since our launch, we now plan to focus on a few larger changes to the game. Expect a slight slow-down in our patch schedule as we'll have our heads down to implement these awesome features. We'll be sure to keep you updated on our progress (the newsletter is a great place for this).

I want to thank all of you for having patience with us as we work through these growing pains. It didn't all go as planned at launch, but we appreciate your feedback, reviews and commentary on the game so far. Keep posting feedback and suggestions. We're listening!

Sincerely,
Cody Ouimet
Producer, Axis & Allies 1942 Online

We're launching a new patch for Axis & Allies 1942 Online today. Thanks to everyone for your feedback and support as we continue to develop this Early Access title.

This patch focuses mainly on fixes, rather than features, but stay tuned for a development update from game producer, Cody Ouimet, later this week!


Features

• File support tickets in-game: If you receive an error while playing, you can now send us a support ticket in-game. This will also give us a copy of your saved game, which will speed up our ability to identify and respond to issues

Bug Fixes

• Removing Abandoned Games from the Lobby: We'll now remove games that are more than 7 days old from the lobby area.
  
• Fixed Fighter and Aircraft Carriers: Fighters must have a valid place to land during the non-combat move. There were a number of errors with enforcement of these Fighter / Aircraft Carrier rules that we've polished for this Patch.
  
• AI Fixes: We've fixed several issues that were causing AI to crash.
  
• Menus and Scrolling: We resolved a number of issues where elements in the menus or pop-ups were not displaying correctly.
  
• Server and Infrastructure: Numerous server fixes to reduce latency and increase stability.
  
• Tutorial 4: Resolved issue occasionally causing a crash in the final combat of Tutorial 4.

Hello commanders!

We're deploying another Hot Fix today to improve server stability and performance.

Note: ***There will be a brief outage at 12pm PDT to perform the update.***

Today we're launching our second full patch for Axis & Allies 1942 Online. Thank you to all the avid strategists down in the trenches sending us feedback on our Early Access game!

Check out the full list of fixes and new features, including AI speed control, streamlined combat, and a brand new starting condition based on Larry Harris' Gencon 3.0 Variant for Axis & Allies 1942 Second Edition.

PATCH NOTES

AI ACTION SPEED CONTROLS
Control the speed of Computer Players' turns in your games. Slow them down to learn some basics from the Computer AI, or speed up the turns to get back to the action faster.

* Available in Options -> Settings -> Gameplay

STARTING CONDITIONS: LARRY HARRIS VARIANT
Larry Harris’ Gencon 3.0 Variant is now available to play! Simply create a new game to select between the out-of-the-box setup, or Larry Harris’ revised starting condition, which modifies the initial board layout for Germany and the UK. This starting condition is available across all game types and modes.

STREAMLINED COMBAT BOARD EXPERIENCE
This patch reduces the overall number of clicks needed to assign hits and casualties. We've also added ways to assign casualties to groups of units, as well as an option to disable the dice rolling animation from the combat board itself. Players can now access a more detailed Roll Log that will show the results from the entire combat instead of just the current round.

- Assigning Casualties
Casualties can now be assigned to individual units in a stack without having to manually select them from the slide out panel. Simply left-clicking on a stack of
units will now automatically assign hits to the units within that stack, one at a time. The slide out panel is
still available for aircraft and Battleships, and will appear when those units/stacks are clicked on. Right-
clicking on units with casualties assigned will now remove a single casualty from the stack

- Assigning casualties to a stack
Shift + left-clicking a unit will assign as many hits as possible to the selected stack. If this stack contains Battleships or air units, it will assign them intelligently (a single hit to each Battleship first
before assigning a second; assigning hits to lower fuel air units first). Shift + right-clicking a unit will remove all of the hits from the selected stack.

- Disabling Dice animations
Players can now disable the Dice Animations using the toggle found under the Attacking Player lane.

- Roll Log Improvements
The Roll Log will now show the results for all rounds in a single combat, and can now has some better sorting options for summarization. The new Roll Log will not work with combats retroactive to the update, but will work with any combats and games post-update.

OBSERVER MODE IMPROVEMENTS
When following another player in Observer Mode, any combats the player participates inwill now automatically open up. Players can now control the zoom level when following another
players actions.

GAME LOBBY AND CREATE GAME IMPROVEMENTS
When creating a new game, there is now an option next to the Start Game button that will allows players to have the game auto-start when the lobby is full. This is set to “On” by default.

SKIP THE BEAMDOG INTRO VIDEO
The Intro Video can now be skipped by left-clicking.

MAC TOUCHPAD CONTROLS
More intuitive touchpad controls have been implemented.

- Pinch to Zoom to zoom in/out
- 2-finger scrolling to pan the map

BUG FIXES AND OTHER IMPROVEMENTS

- AI will not process other game states after hitting an error in one game state
- Fixed crash related to "Purchased naval units should not exceed available sea deployment locations"
- Fixed crash related to "cannot retreat to sea_zone_5 as there are no retreatable units remaining"
- Fixed crash related to "Aircraft Carrier in sea_zone_56 with direct call to move Unit: You must use move Aircraft Carrier to avoid leaving behind
fighters that cannot move"
- Fixed crash related to "cannot read property 'addChild' of undefined"
- Fixed crash related to cannot read property 'commands' of undefined"
- Fixed crash related to "AI can deadlock when committing combat move phase"
- Fixed crash related to "Cannot read property 'dropTarget' of null"
- Fixed crash related to "Error in transport drop: transport has no path to region "philippine_islands"
- Fixed crash related to "Cannot do a combat roll for a roll target that has already rolled"
- Fixed crash related to "AI Error committing phase: Aircraft could be saved."
- Fixed crash related to "Error in GameController.cancelMoveUnit: Cannot cancel a move that has not yet been made"
- Fixed crash related to "AI Error in GameControllerAdapter.updateMapNote: GameController rejected with message: Error: Soft reload currently disabled: Original error: Game not found for id=5d56cda5a0060672af11946e."
- Fixed crash related to "Error: No meeting destinations for a fighter promised to land on an aircraft carrier"
- Fixed crash related to "Error in GameController.moveUnit: Could not move to sea_zone_5, it is not a valid move"
- Fixed crash related to "[object Object]" when double clicking to add computer to a slot
- Combat Board: Fixed gamebreak where player cannot assign hits, cannot finish battle, cannot continue game.
- Combat Board: Artillery/Infantry link should be in correct order when infantry is amphibious but artillery isn't
- Fixed: URE may fire for "Cannot read property 'index' of undefined" during combat
- Fixed bug that causes game to stall requesting player to assign damage when no troops remain.
- Fixed bug that let's player get stuck with return to combat button, but no combat present.
- Fixed bug causing a large portion of the map to go gray after a combat.
- Fixed URE fires for "Cannot read property 'usedStackCount' of undefined" when applying hits multiple to infantry during an attack.
- Combat Board: Animated banner should be dismissed by keyboard input
- Hit selection panel does not close when using enter to accept
- Stability: Clicking multiple times to amphibious assault, no longer causes more units than you brought to appear in the Combat Board UI
- Combat Board: Ships will appear as expected in the Roll 2 lane
- Combat Board: Fixed bug causing black screen when clicking on a bomber on the raid board
- Aircraft Carriers + Fighters: Fixed bug causing player to be unable to mobilize an ACC underneath a fighter in a sea zone
- Main Menu: Fixed bug causing game list to appear empty

Hello friends!

We're deploying another Hot Fix today to improve the stability of AI players in Online Multiplayer games.

Note: ***There will be a brief outage at 2 pm PDT to perform the update.***

HOT FIXES FOR TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2019

- AI in Online Multiplayer games will take turns consistently
- AI bug fixes to reduce disconnects

Hi All,

Last week we launched Axis & Allies 1942 Online into Steam early access! Thanks to everyone who's been getting into the trenches already and providing great feedback.

The launch included some connection / speed issues, and the team has already performed a few hot fixes that went a long way to improving gameplay.

Today we'll be pushing out our first major patch focusing on performance and stability improvements.

*There will be a brief outage at 12pm PDT while we perform the update.*

Read on for more patch details!



PATCH NOTES FOR FRIDAY, AUGUST 9, 2019

Front-end Performance:
- Changed how renderer caches textures to reduce memory usages and increase rendering speed
- Changed how Steam Avatars are fetched to reduce server load
- Join Games list now has a refresh button so users can request an updated list manually rather than auto-updating
- Changed how in-game videos are handled to reduce memory usage
- The game now behaves better when minimized

UX Improvements:
- The Combat Summary now automatically opens when all combats are completed.
- If a player has not set up any combats in the combat move phase, the game will automatically skip to the non-combat move phase.
- Updated combat summary dialog styling
- Added Industrial Complex damage in combat summary totals
- Updated tutorial with a clearer explanation of infantry & artillery pairing

UI Improvements:
- Fixed misaligned and/or incompletely styled tool-tips on various screens
- Fixed text alignment on various screens
- Revised map art to better align region borders
- Revised main menu art
- Adjusted button positioning on game cards

We’ve got another Hot Fix for Axis & Allies 1942 Online coming out today. We’ll be implementing some updates that should reduce lag, increase stability, improve networking performance, and return the AI player option to online multiplayer.

We plan to release a larger patch later this week that should further improve game performance.

Note: ***There will be a brief outage at 1 pm PDT.***



HOT FIXES FOR TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2019

- Reduce lag
- Increase Stability
- Improve networking performance
- Return AI player option to Online Multiplayer

UPDATE: The AI Fix is going to take slightly longer than planned. AI won't be available in Online Multiplayer for a few days, as we address the root of the issue.

AI will still be available in Single Player and Hotseat Games. We expect AI to be back online early next week.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi All!

Today we're pushing out a hot fix for AI in online multiplayer. The dev team has fixed an issue that was preventing AI from joining multiplayer campaigns.

Note: ***There will be a brief outage at 2 pm PDT to perform the update. ***

Hot Fix:

Fixed bug preventing AI players from joining multiplayer campaigns.

Thanks everyone,

-Beamdog Team

Thanks to everyone for all the great feedback following our Early Access release of Axis & Allies 1942 Online.

We're listening and working to address the main concerns of online multiplayer stability and the gameplay speed. These are both caused by some server issues that the team is working hard to resolve - starting with a hot fix today and with further improvements in a patch next week.

NOTE: ***There will be a short outage Thursday, August 1, 2019 at 1 p.m. PDT to update the game with these hot fixes.***



HOT FIXES FOR THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 2019

- Server improvements to reduce disconnects.
- Improvements to gameplay speed caused by server lag.
- When you play offline (in Single Player, Hot Seat, or Tutorials) you won't be bumped out of the game if the server goes down.
- No more pop-up messages for offline play (Single Player, Hot Seat, Tutorials).
- You shouldn't get multiple copies of a newly created online campaign.