NEWS-2.6.0-beta2

__NOTOC__
= WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 2.6.0-BETA1 =
As well as bugfixes, beta2 brings a substantial revision of the Europe WWI scenario, the "sandbox" ruleset showing off new engine features, and a number of UI improvements in the Qt client.
== Server / General ==
=== Changes affecting players (supplied rulesets) ===
* Savegames created from scenarios could fail to save map resources. 
* Client/server communication could fail when the client discovered a tile with a text label that was too long. (This could be locale-dependent; it showed up in the Russian localization.) 
* Fixed server crashes caused by AI ferry passengers dying. 
* The cost to buy "small wonders" (such as the Palace) was unintentionally twice what was intended. (This was a longstanding issue.) 
* Capturing a unit did not count for cancelling the capturer's fortified status, nor for unitwaittime. 
* The 'sandbox' ruleset from Git is now included. This is a place for developers to experiment with and demonstrate new engine features, without regard to game balance or savefile compatibility; sandbox games started in this version may not load into future releases (even minor 2.6.x releases). 
* The "Europe 1901" scenario has been replaced with a newer version (and is now called "Europe 1900 WWI"). The changes are described on the forum. 
* Some updates to the "large Earth" scenario. Notably, players now start with their first city built. 
* The tutorial scenario's message about city growth to size 13 referenced a nonexistent event type. Possibly this was causing "lua error" messages. 
* When loading a savegame from 2.5 or before, the set of victory conditions was not preserved. 
* Fix an assertion failure when auto-arranging city workers in tricky situations (while trying to invoke last-ditch measures). 
* Minor nation tweaks. 
=== Changes affecting other rulesets / modders ===
* The city_size_change Lua signal is now emitted after the size change in all cases, is no longer emitted when city growth turned out to be prevented, and can cope with the signal handler destroying the city. 
* The values of Lua variables could fail to be loaded from savegames, if some of the saved variables referenced game objects (units, cities, etc). In some cases this was locale-dependent. 
=== General ===
* Sped up shared vision transfers; this helps particularly when loading savegames. 
* Various internal changes which should only affect developers. 
=== AI ===
* The AI now values science more than gold. 
* The AI is now more motivated to try for a space race victory. 
* The threaded AI's worker units could build fruitless roads. 
* Fix autosettler bugs:
** Autosettlers were not acting on their desire to build road networks and prevent climate change. 
** Autosettlers didn't get around to doing activities of marginal benefit, even if they had nothing better to do. 
** Autosettlers were overvaluing roads on hex maps, and built them in odd patterns for no good reason. 
== Clients ==
* The "Turn Done" button is now disabled in fixed-length gameplay, since it serves no purpose. 
* Messages from the server operator (/wall) now default to causing a pop-up dialog, for new client installations. (Such messages can be used for instance to warn of server shutdown; without this setting, it was not possible to see the message after the server disconnected.) 
* Trying to load a savegame from a ruleset with a preferred_tileset (such as the 'civ2civ3_earth' modpack) using the -f command-line option caused error messages and a quit ; in the Qt client, the same would happen with the savegame dialog. 
* Bugfixes to the Gtk3.x clients:
** The Windows build crashed when browsing for savegames. 
** When zoomed out, unused parts of the map view could fail to have a black background. 
** The minimap didn't update often enough. 
** Trouble and console warnings with middle-click popups, tooltips, etc. 
** Less laggy animations in the Gtk3.22 client. We hope to bring this to the Gtk3 client too. 
* Bugfixes and other changes to the Qt client:
** It was not possible to select spaceship parts to build in cities. 
** The client could segfault after displaying an early error message (such as a tileset loading error). 
** Changing research unintentionally closed the research dialog. 
** Keyboard shortcuts for the city dialog: left/right will change cities, up/down will change production of the current city. 
** Diplomatic treaties can be accepted or rejected with the keyboard. 
** Double-clicking on a server name will now connect to it. 
** The city worklist tooltip now shows more information. 
** Themes can now affect dialogs' title bars. 
** Other cosmetic tweaks. 
== Tilesets / Art ==
* Tweak the position of the patrol icon in the Hexemplio/Toonhex tilesets. 
== Help / Documentation ==
* Miscellaneous improvements to in-game text and user documentation. 
* Miscellaneous changes to developer/ruleset docs. 
* Invisible changes to assist localization. 
== Translations ==
* Updated translations:
** Complete translations: French.
** Incomplete translations: Finnish (100% core, 91% nations, 100% ruledit), Polish (>99.9% core, 100% nations, 100% ruledit), Catalan (>99.9% core, 99.9% nations, 100% ruledit), Russian (99.9% core, 99.9% nations, 100% ruledit), British English (95% core, 100% nations, 100% ruledit), Spanish (84% core, 97.4% nations, 18% ruledit).
== Build/portability ==
* Do not insist on a 'tolua' command; it is not needed when building from a tarball. 
See NEWS for older lists of changes.
Category:NEWS