 ║╔═╕╔═╗╦═╗╔═╕╦ ╦  ╦═╗╔═╗╔═╕╔═╗╔═╗╒╦╕╥ ╥╔╦╗║ 
═╣║  ║ ║║ ║╠╡ ╞═╡  ║ ║╠═╣║  ╠═╣║ ║ ║ ║ ║║╨║╠═
 ║╚═╛╚═╝╩═╝╚═╛╩ ╩  ╩═╝╙ ╜╚═╛╙ ╜╙ ║╘╩╛╚═╝╜ ╙║
═════════════════ Beta 1.0 ══════════════════
══════════════ End of the Road ══════════════
══════════════ 31 August 2023 ═══════════════

This is the largest, and FINAL MAJOR UPDATE for Codex Dacanium: Terra (formerly known as War of the Eight Continents), which marks the end of regular Codex Dacanium: Terra development. While bugfixes may still be released to correct remaining vanilla and new bugs, no new feature additions are currently planned.

Beta 1.0 contains a variety of changes, especially to the game's code, that greatly overhaul many of its mechanics, and fixes a variety of bugs left in the code of vanilla Age of History.

Both the stable Alpha 1.3.6 code, and the more experimental Beta 1.0 code are included. Alpha 1.3.6 code is based on Alpha 1.3.5, with bug fixes from Beta 1.0 included, while Beta 1.0 includes all new features added by the end of CD: Terra development.

This version, using the new Beta 1.0 code, will ***ABSOLUTELY BREAK*** your old saves, as it contains a large number of major, game-breaking changes that make old saves unplayable! Alpha 1.3.6 code should work on old saves as usual, but ***WILL NOT*** work with saves made while using Beta 1.0 code.

╔════════════════╗
║  INSTALLATION  ║
╚════════════════╝
Place the "Codex Dacanium Terra" folder anywhere you want, then execute "WotEC.jar".

 ║╔═╕╓ ╖╔═╗╔═╗╔═╕╔═╕╓  ╔═╗╔═╕║ 
═╣║  ╠═╣╠═╣║ ║║╒╗╠╡ ║  ║ ║║╒╗╠═
 ║╚═╛╙ ╜╙ ╜╙ ║╚═╝╚═╛╚═╛╚═╝╚═╝║ 
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
═══ General ═══

- Converted several variables, notably population and economy, to 64-bit (long) variables, thus allowing realistic populations to be depicted correctly (to my knowledge, this is the first AoH mod EVER to do this)

╔════════════╗
║  GAMEPLAY  ║
╚════════════╝
═══ AI military behavior ═══

- Significantly increased the potential frequency and number of units involved in AI naval invasions
- Changed province danger level calculations to attempt to fix AI recruitment issues

═══ Alliances ═══

- Removed the restriction on civilizations sending alliance requests to friendly civs already in alliance, allowing AI-created alliances with more than 2 members
- Removed arbitrary maximum province limit on civilizations sending alliance requests
- Changed the probabilities for a civ joining an alliance, civs are 6x more likely to join an alliance with a friendly civ already in it
- AI civilizations can now leave alliances if average relations are too low, if AI aggresiveness is over 5%

═══ Buildings ═══

Enhanced many vanilla buildings:
- Increased fort levels from 2 to 8, castles and fortresses are level 4 and 5 respectively
- Increased watchtower levels to 3, level 1 can reveal armies in level <= 3 forts, level 2 in level <= 5 forts, level 3 in level <= 6 forts
- Increased farm levels from 5 to 8, highest level gives 105% growth bonus
- Increased library levels from 3 to 5, highest level generates 1 research point per 100 people
- Increased workshop levels from 3 to 6, highest level gives 100% production bonus

═══ Military overhaul ═══

The combat system in Codex Dacanium: Terra has been completely overhauled. In vanilla Age of History, numerical advantage has absolutely no effect on combat, only attack and defense modifiers. The outcome of a battle, and casualties, is determined by the relative strength of the defender's army to the attacker's, after adding defense bonus minus the attack bonus (or vice versa).

While this does not cause major issues in vanilla AoH, as combat bonuses (penalties) are very small there, Codex Dacanium: Terra has attack/defense modifiers that, added up, can go up to over 100%. In this case, either the defender (usually), or attacker (very unlikely!) takes *negative* casualties.

In Beta 1.0, the combat system works completely differently:
- Attack and defense bonuses now multiply the total attack/defense modifier, instead of adding. This massively amplifies the effect of multiple bonuses. In addition, terrain defense bonuses amplify fortification and entrenchment bonuses. For example, a 100% terrain defense bonus with a fortress (30% bonus) and maximum entrenchment (20% bonus) will result in a defense modifier of 2 * (1.3 + 0.3) * (1.2 + 0.2) = 4.48.
- After all attack and defense modifiers are applied to both armies, the army with the smallest relative strength has its strength further divided by the square root of the relative difference between the two armies.
- The casualties of the winning army are determined by dividing the strength of the losing army and the winning army, then multiplying by the number of the winning army's units.

As no subtraction is involved in calculating battle casualties, the possibility of negative casualties is avoided.

═══ Graphics ═══

- Added background images for the loading screen, which can be modified by changing Menu_BGx.png
- Changed the way attack and defense modifiers are visualized, to reflect multiplicative combat modifiers in CD: Terra (instead of +10%, modifier is instead 110%)


══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
╔═════════════════════╗
║  CONTENT ADDITIONS  ║
╚═════════════════════╝
- 2 new scenarios, 1 full-map (Day of Resurgence), 1 regional (Chen unification of the Zuan lands)
- Minor changes to other scenarios
- 25 new civilizations
- 10 new formable civilizations
- 36 new leaders (special features)
- 32 new cities

══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
╔════════════╗
║  BUGFIXES  ║
╚════════════╝
Vanilla Age of History was released with a large number of bugs still present in the game, some of them nearly game-breaking, and eventually causing significant slowdown and possibly even crashing the game due to the buildup of non-existing alliances, forever wars, and other bugged game mechanics.

- Fixed a bug that prevented civilizations from sending another peace treaty if first one was rejected, resulting in "forever wars"
- Added code to clean up the list of alliances by removing alliances that have no existing civilizations

╔════════════╗
║  NEW BUGS  ║
╚════════════╝
The overhaul of combat casualties has created a handful of new bugs:

- Civilizations don't recruit units even if their capital is under imminent threat of occupation (partially fixed)
- Civ unit count is reduced as if vanilla combat system was still in effect, leading to potential 0 units displayed despite a nonzero number of units

These may be fixed with post-release bugfixes.

══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
╔═════════════════════════╗
║ ALPHA VERSION CHANGELOG ║
╚═════════════════════════╝
Alpha 1.3.5 (Have you heard of all the other elves?):
- 4 new scenarios, 3 full-map (Middle Bronze Age, Late Bronze Age and Modern Ethnic Groups), and 1 regional (Mahaarim Rebellion)
- Changes to other scenarios to reflect updated lore
- 22 new civilizations (mostly Daelmahaarim and Yaenmahaarim)
- 12 new formable civilizations
- 21 new leaders (special features)
- 26 new cities

Alpha 1.3.4 (Unstable Confusion):
- 2 new scenarios (Raakan Reconquest and Invasion out of Time)
- Minor changes to other scenarios
- 8 new civilizations
- 5 new formable civilizations
- 66 new leaders (special features)
- 53 new cities

Alpha 1.3.3:
- Quick-action shortcuts (PC only), toggle with Z key
U to build farm
I to build fort
O to build watchtower
P to build port
H to build workshop
J to build library
K to build armory
L to build supply camp
- 2 new scenarios (Reign of Chaos and Neue Elvonin Ordnung)
- Minor changes to other scenarios
- 7 new civilizations
- 2 new formable civilizations

Alpha 1.3.2:
- 1 new scenario (Sunrise Maedaria)
- 18 new civilizations
- 5 new formable civilizations
- Added missing flags for Alpha 1.3.1 civilizations

Alpha 1.3.1:
- Third Great War scenario updated to version 1.1a, with a new event branch for Elvonin Reich and Frosthaven event trees
- Minor changes to other scenarios
- 9 new civilizations (+6 ideology variants)
- 1 new formable civilization
- 1 new leader (special feature)
- 1 new wonder
- 13 new cities
- Changes to the AI code, specifically to its plundering behavior
- Other minor code changes

Alpha 1.3 Patch 1:
- Continent fixes, now disabling Maedaria won't turn sea provinces into a wasteland

══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
╔══════════╗
║ ENDNOTES ║
╚══════════╝
Well, it's been quite a ride over the past two, maybe three years. The first mod I ever made was T.O.R. Mod in 2020, which was the origin of some of the major countries now in CD: Terra, but has virtually nothing else in common aside from the shape ofsome coastlines. 

In May of 2021, I began to devise a concept for what was, at the time, at least a complete remake of T.O.R., probably even a wholly new mod. This mod's new map would incorporate a variety of new concepts, both in terms of realism and aesthetics. With map sectioning, the world's provinces could be grouped into regions, and then in turn into super-regions, allowing me to both make the map faster, and make it look more aesthetically pleasing. In addition, the biomes would be determined based on a combination of height and climate maps. In total, at the time the new map was supposed to have roughly 7,500 provinces.

On 12 June 2021, this mod finally received a new name: War of the Eight Continents. Twelve days later, the first demo of WotEC was released, containing parts of Maedaria with 551 provinces, four scenarios, over 150 civilizations and 21 formables, as well as several changes to the code, including tools to make adding civilizations easier. Soon after, the full map background was drawn, an update for the first demo was released, then I began drawing the provinces... and way overshot at over 13,000, especially in terms of sea provinces. After some cleanup in which thousands of excess provinces were removed, I began development of the second demo.

The second demo was set in the land of the Red Flowers, and was considerably larger in scope, with a map with 1,091 provinces and 15 scenarios, 619 new civilizations, 44 formables, increased maximum population, economy and up to 200% growth rates.

After the release of the second demo, I began working on the full WotEC map, which would take nearly a full month (thanks covid for giving me this much free time!), and end up having 9,427 provinces in the end - one of the highest province counts of any AoH mod. The subsequent task of developing WotEC's scenarios, civilizations and lore were themselves almost as big a task as making the province map, and lasted until early December.

On 6 December 2021, Alpha 1.0 of the *full* WotEC was released. Alpha 1.0 had 28 scenarios, almost 2,000 (1,939) new civilizations, 346 formables, 40 special features, and 1,405 cities - already making it one of the largest mods for Age of History.

Through 2022, eight updates (3 major, 5 minor) were released for WotEC Alpha, adding hundreds of new civilizations and formables, almost 30 new scenarios, making a number of changes to the code again, and a large number of special features. By Alpha 1.3.5 (28 December 2022), there were 55 scenarios, over 2,400 civilizations, 446 formable civilizations, 123 special features, and 1,792 cities.

In January 2023, I finally planned an overhaul of CD: Terra to add new, interesting mechanics and solve the biggest flaws of Age of History, particularly its combat system, which still amounted to little more than attrition warfare even in mods with heavily modified code. The Beta 1.0 overhaul, originally planned for May 2023, soon ran into problems, mainly due to the trouble I had with editing AoH's spaghetti code, which, combined with IRL stuff, probably led to a loss of motivation for developing CD: Terra further.

Undoubtedly, CD: Terra (formerly WotEC) has been by far my biggest mod, and one of the most ambitious AoH mods ever developed. Over the last two years, CD: Terra has evolved into a thing of its own, with a fully developed lore and highly detailed scenarios, as well as modified code, some of which is *still* only found in CD: Terra.

But, with IRL stuff still keeping me busy, and motivation to continue the mod falling, I have decided to cease further development of CD: Terra for the time being, except perhaps for major bugs that might occur with the new systems.

Even as CD: Terra comes to an end for now, I will continue posting new lore and responding to questions on the Codex Dacanium Discord server for the foreseeable future.

Best wishes,
Valixor