Black ICE 12 Major Changes Terrain rework: Too many terrain changes to actually list. Terrain should be now more accurate although there might be some inaccuracies or simplifications for the sake of the gameplay. Added new terrain types: swamp highlands hills woods/forest/jungle/desert/arctic mountain woods/forest/jungle/desert/arctic Tweaked terrain modifiers for all units, technologies and leader traits Experience and Training system rework Went back to the old system with a few tweaks aiming at properly simulating decline in troops quality as the war progresses. In order to achieve that we: removed branch specific training laws tweaked repair rate of units for each training law brought back “Starting Experience” as measurement of training and unit quality tweaked experience gain from combat tweaked Repair Rate bonuses from event, strategic modifiers and ministers Training laws do not give direct bonuses - they trigger strategic effects over time added option to get starting xp instead of vet HQ/elite HQ/BC/aces for events spawning them IC efficiency nerf to attempt preventing unit numbers going out of hand in late war Added “tech decay” similar to the one affecting unit stats meaning that IC efficiency won’t snowball later in the war tweaked bonuses from techs and certain event/strategic effects reduced base IC efficiency tweaked cost of buildings New GUI Reworked every tab (diplo, production etc.) Updated textures for backgrounds and buttons Moved things around to be more accessible and easier to read Reworked province screen Updated textures for almost every piece of it Everything is aligned properly now and clearer, bigger fonts New textures for unit tabs and leader selection General many Ostfront tweaks to go well with new IC/training systems. Important note here. Make a save on June 22nd. Play it, let me know if it was too easy or too hard so I can adjust the values. Those changes will be save compatible, are easy to implement and once done you can simply restart from that save. SOV leaders rework: New pictures for… thousands of them Added new traits: Russian Liberation Army Red Fleret and COastal Army Soviet Air Forces and Air Defence Added event with NKVD leaders purge reverted event spawned ships to be built in queue like any other unit tweaked the triggers for the second vienna award so it fires on a historical date also tweaked Romanian joining axis event so player can decline it Moscow and Leningrad will remain lvl10 forts in AI vs AI scenario Winter Offensive won’t happen with Barbarossa modifiers still being in place reworked Bank for International Settlements events. They're the same for minors and majors now and give the option to pick investment into one of three areas: IC, LS and money. tweaks to minister types: insignificant buff to insignificant layman nerfed smiling oilman money buff for old general money laissez faires capitalist removed money penalty from theoretical scientist research specialist money penalty replaced with LS penalty technical specialist now gives higher LS bonus but also research eff penalty reduced money penalties on science specialised ministers and increased benefits from events military entrepreneur now gives small Unit Repair bonus school of psychology starting xp bonus is back school of mass combat now comes with small starting xp penalty added tiers to tank/air/naval producer effects based on IC and availability of resources increased money cost of education laws Added some IC to SOV removed effects killing JAP in AI vs AI scenario tweaked SOV purges increased weather buildings effects SOV now gets temporary fort attack bonuses to allow successful winter offensives removed Churchill as science minister reduced threat from combat (caused some weird things in test games) added TP penalty for ITA after Operation Husky Communism now has lower CG demand Heavy Industry CG penalty reduced tweaks to difficulty settings Removed no modifiers difficulty option split starting PER convoy raiders added UK bribes for Spain neutrality decisions removed "industry prepares for war" decisions police buildings are now much cheaper puppet master now also gives LS bonus removed Blitz effects - it was stupid and player could do nothing to stop it practically removed naval limits for sea leaders SOV leaders now have xp gain bonus instead of penalty removed Training Grounds ITA now starts with Strike Commando tech (Frogmen) ROM starting navy is now historical 7 new ministers for JAP, historical ultranationalists with natsoc type, played varying roles irl both in politics and behind it added ITA convoy raiders Adriatico and Barletta to starting OOB added Ramb ships events for ITA (convoy raiders) added ITA-SOV trade agreement effect Italian military academy at Modena event will now spawn a training base but less IC Italian historical arm divs (131a, 132a, 133a) will now have mot engineers and regular art as standard, AI versions will have arm brigades as standard but player will have to upgrade manually from larm. 133a Littorio will also have med art as standard for AI XVII Corpo now spawns with arm att instead of larm att removed Operation Zet LS penalty ROM now can leave Axis after Vienna Diktat Added event for ROM to ask to join Axis Removed Japan Death effect Added new ship names for POL, CHI, BRA as part of our Patreon/contributor rewards (thanks to tigeriii, MarinePhil1 and BlackBaron) Units and combat Balance Artillery is now split into 3 separate CA groups: Light Artillery - Artillery, Rocket Artillery and Pack Art Heavy Artillery - Medium and Heavy Artillery Mobile Artillery - SP Artillery and Rocket Artillery Hiryu construction added as a decision (removed from starting production queue) rebalanced AA values for ships to make them more in line with historical use of ships nerfed Mot/mech infantry combat stats mot inf is now faster than mech inf Kampfgruppe are now separate CA group and serve as an HQ Kampfgruppe are now permanent buffed armor brigade buffed armor battalion nerfed assault guns tweaked speeds of trucks and halftracks added ic/days penalties to some events that were missed historical SS divs will spawn around historical dates ski brigade is SF CA group now nerfed CVs speed HARM defensiveness buffed halftracks now give toughness/defensiveness armored battalions (LARM, ARM) are now Direct CA group amphibious armor is now Armor CA group infantry tank is now Armor CA group armored engineers are a bit faster Unique SS brigades have terrain modifiers tweaked based on their combat history (small bonuses, flavour mostly) Anti Air brigade now gives decent (for its cost) SA Heavy Anti Air tweaked (those changes are also simulated in mixed support): added “artillery like” effects for terrain increased SA tweaks to Engineers (those changes are also simulated in mixed support): lowered toughness increased defensiveness good defensive terrain bonuses low offensive terrain bonuses in easy terrains retains good fort/river/urban attack tweaks to Recon (those changes are also simulated in mixed support): very high toughness low defensiveness very good terrain attack bonuses related techs now also give terrain attack bonuses on top of movement bonuses tweaks to mixed support brigades: mixed support brigades are now Support CA group Mixed Support Brigade: Artillery changed to Heavy Artillery with tweaked values Rocket Artillery changed to Light artillery buffed or tweaked all other options Motorized Support: Anti Tank changed to Tank Destroyer old choice between HAT and TD is now between HAT and MTD buffed or tweaked all other options (mot.supp is actually good now) Armored Support: reduced base AP value and re added it to certain options tweaked speed effects - now it’s slower than motorized support reduced armor bonuses Technology buffed Blitzkrieg doctrine kesselschlacht tech now gives mobile/inf/mobile art CA bonus Auftragstaktik tech toughness bonus increased brigade command structure tech CA bonuses increased divisional command structure tech now increases HQ CA buffed air support techs kampfgruppe tech CA bonus increased tank crews training tech bonuses increased buffed pakfront defense tech - small direct fire CA bonus and higher other bonuses panzerkreil buffed added law or minister requirements to certain techs added casemate/turret vehicles technology (triggered by an event after researching some techs) Hedgehog tech is now unique ENG technology T-34 tech now comes with small casualty trickleback penalty Tiger tech has now 2 levels added new techs: Fletcher class, Independence class, QF17pdr, SAS, Motobomba removed range penalties from air techs Dual Purpose Guns is now required for more techs tweaked SOV starting naval techs to be historical ITA CL tech will start 1 level higher to align with the ships of that class in construction at game start Localisations for gun layout techs Models/Graphics/Sounds added missing class of NOR DDs AI/LUA …… GER AI will build more INF Map…… Bug Fixes……
Black ICE 12.0.2 Patch Notes Bug Fixes Fixed heavy IC (by turning it into a triggered modifier using off-map IC) Fixed the industry-info technologies having the wrong values Fixed a time traveling technology Fixed “USA_TO_SOV_LL_THREAT” decisions being visible to SOV player
Black ICE 12.0.3 Patch Notes Major Changes General Added a decision/event to remove military access between faction members since that causes issues with limited wars Models/Graphics/Sounds Added names for newly built Soviet destroyers AI/LUA Disabled licencing of marines from countries that have special AI balance techs Utility Added org regain modifier to country info Map Changed province names in Czechia/Slovakia (@pospanipas) Added port and manpower to Haifa Added/expanded British Middle East oil production/refining Added some manpower to Chinese coastal provinces near Shanghai GUI/GFX Overhauled all country skins and topbars Bug Fixes Fixed 2 small typos in German division names Fixed multiple broken event units Fixed the RM Aquila launch decision Fixed event pictures for RAMB III, IV Fixed the Soviet invasion of Poland events immediately peacing out with Poland Fixed armor category models not being displayed properly