View Full Version : What is 103 about?
Hi everyone,
I have read about 103, is this a patch to patch over v 1.02 of STW:WE?
and What the heck is MP anyway?
Domo Arigato Cats.
I have read about 103, is this a patch to patch over v 1.02 of STW:WE?
and What the heck is MP anyway?
To answer you last question first: MP is short for multiplayer.
1.03 is an unofficial patch for the "Mongol Invasion" expansion and the Warlord Edition of the game. It was made by the fans and not by CA. It does not adress any bugs, but instead changes the stats of the units as to better balance the gameplay.
I was not present at the time, but I understand that after the release of MI many fans felt dissappointed with the MP gameplay. The official 1.02 patch did not solve this. Muskets were too strong, cavalry to weak. MP became "shoot and rush" instead of "maneuvre and flank", like it used to be in S:TW. Therefor, a couple of fans created a community patch that would return the balance back to the original game. This patch was called 1.03, and affected the Japaneses unit only. I don't know if the patch is still used (Drisos will know), but I don't think so, as it was hardly used even when it came out. Most players prefered to stay with the original stats or perhaps didn't even know there was an alternative.
There is also an unofficial 1.05 patch to balance the Mongol units, which have been neglected in 1.03. This patch is the work of one man though, and I understand it is not entirely balanced.
Hello again Hellas1,
well I think ludens explained all to you. people are now playing 1.02 in multiplayer (MP ~;) ). I never seen anyone use 1.03... well I guess it was used sometimes a while ago. but I'm too new to know about that.
basic reason we play 1.02 is that we like it. what ludens said about musks and cavalry sounds infarmiliar to me... maybe the 1.02 stat was changed sometime? otherwise why do we like it? weird...
:bow:
ps: Ludens, good to see you again in Sword dojo. after you was one of the first to welcome me, I haven't seen you around sadly.
Shambles
08-29-2005, 11:42
The muskets really are to powerfull in v1.02 But we over come this with the maximum 4 of same unit rule,
The problem with the 1.03 stats and the other stats is that Not to many people know of them, Also people were having difficulties installing them, as they needed to be placed in a certain directory, And people were told to back up there origional stats files, Which can seem intimidating for newer players or people who arent 100% computer literate.
Toga had made a stats swaper, ( a little exe file that helpfully allowed you swich between 1 set of stats to the other "needed 1.02 isntalled")
But its not unusual for stats or mods made by fans to be abandoned for mp purpouses,
If the vast majoraty of people dont use the mod its difficult to get enough suport for it,
And without enough suport, When you arive in the foyer with v1.03 and every 1 els has v1.02 It wont take more than 10 mins for you to go and change back to v1.02 so you can play a game.
Where as it wouuld take considerably longer for you to explain to othere people why its worth there time and effort to go find this file download it and install it then restart there game and come back,
Its just the way things go with this sort of stuff.
ShambleS
But its not unusual for stats or mods made by fans to be abandoned for mp purpouses,
If the vast majoraty of people dont use the mod its difficult to get enough suport for it,
And without enough suport, When you arive in the foyer with v1.03 and every 1 els has v1.02 It wont take more than 10 mins for you to go and change back to v1.02 so you can play a game.
Where as it wouuld take considerably longer for you to explain to othere people why its worth there time and effort to go find this file download it and install it then restart there game and come back,
Its just the way things go with this sort of stuff.
Very true, sadly. But then, most MP players don't frequent the forums, so how could they know about unofficial patches?
ps: Ludens, good to see you again in Sword dojo. after you was one of the first to welcome me, I haven't seen you around sadly.
Thanks. University kept me away for some time. Anyway, the Sword Dojo has been way too quiet for my liking. One of these days I may go back to S:TW for the challenge. I played one custom game last month, and the A.I. scared me simply by the way it advanced in formation. I got roundly trashed in that battle. R:TW has made me rusty. ~D
One of these days I may go back to S:TW for the challenge.
I like that idea!!! ~:cheers:
The authors of 1.03, shipped the new stats with a bat swapper that allowed selecting either official 1.01, official beta 1.02 or fanmade 1.03. There were 3 different flavours of this distribution: exe, self-extracting zip and zip. They also contained the required DLL to allow running in XP.
Problem with the zip version, is that Microsoft has a logic differing from other toolsmiths. Extrating the zip to the root STW folder worked fine for all known zip tools, except XP's built in one. XP zip adds another directory which has the same name as the zip file, and puts the zip content in there. The swapper quits working then, and as none of us had XP during release, it took a bit to figure out why it didn't work for some.
As the official EA server acting up more and more and RSW made a neat tool to run a foyer/matchmaker server your own, a bat file to swap between the official EA server and a fan hosted one was released too.
The muskets really are to powerfull in v1.02 But we over come this with the maximum 4 of same unit rule.
This doesn't really correct the problems with v1.02. You can see this because v1.02 was designed for 7k koku, and yet everyone plays it at 10k. That's because guns get too many kills per volley which causes units to rout too easily, and they are achieving this in 3 rank mode with only 1/3 of their guns firing which effectively increases their ammo by 3 times more than was intended and increases their rate of fire by a factor of 3 as well. As far as I'm concerned what this means is that, if you win the shootout, you win the battle, and you can win the shootout between 4 gun units by a large enough margin to shoot down the entire enemy army in 30 seconds of unreturned fire from the enemy's 4 guns. I can't tell you how many players I saw hunting for the edge of the maximum open fire range with their guns so they could get in that 30 seconds of unreturned fire, but it was a lot of player who did it. Fire at will does not automatically cause a unit to open fire at max range, so you cannot leave your gun units unattended at all. Clever players would make a diversion off to the side, and when you came back from attending to that your guns were shot to hell and all you could do then was rush your melee units into a withering fire. The gameplay came down to being an expert with those 4 gun units.
Players increased the koku to 10k to boost the morale of their units with upgrades so they can have some chance of not routing under fire. That causes a problem with yari ashi which then have to be eliminated from the game which removes a very important unit from the gameplay. Another issue is that the defend value of guns is too high which means that, even if cavalry reaches the guns, it has difficulty beating them in melee when the guns are in hold formation. HC and NC were supposed to be able to frontally charge and defeat guns at 7k koku.
The other major issue with v1.02 is that the flanking tactics are messed up. This happened because CA improved the network code which speeded up the game. Some players on the team that made v1.02 wanted to slow the game down so that they had the same level of control they had in STW, but the only thing there was time to address were the movement speeds of the units. So, infantry was slowed down, but the fighting speed wasn't slowed down. Therefore, infantry lost it's ability to flank before the combat of the fighting units was resolved. This necessitated keeping cavalry moving fast so there would be a flanking aspect to the gameplay. Unfortunately, that makes the game very difficult to play and also overpowers the cav somewhat relative to the much slower infanty. The resultant gameplay of STW/MI v1.02 is nothing like original STW.
Just A Girl
11-09-2005, 12:22
So do you think more veterans would play if we Used the 1.03 stats?
or maby if we used the v1.01 stats from the stat swaper?
if we make it so that the lil tournie's I run Requier you to use a certain Stat, It should not be to difficult to get all curent stw players to use Whichever set of stats that work the best,
Im prety shure if any 1 knows Which stats would be the best its going to be puzz3d.
Im also aware that Most of the old stw players now play MTW and a stw mod (if they want to play shogun) or they play RTW,
But i hope that some times. they may find it in their hearts to come play some shoggy,
Many players don't like to use custom stats and some can't get them to work. We got a very good response to the current CWC Knights of Valor tournament for MTW/VI using the official stat with some rules imposed to improve the gameplay. One thing you could try for STW/MI v1.02 is to eliminate the muskets and play at 7k koku. That gives an average of 437 koku per unit which is plenty to build a 16 unit army. Once the muskets are out of there, the other units can make better use of their individual capabilities. The YA is important in driving off cavalry due to its high footspeed, but would not be a super unit because its lower morale will be in a range where it cannot operate independently without great risk of being routed. It's boarderline, but I think playable without restricting the YA at 7k. You still have the arquebusier for a gun unit, but it's outranged by archers, has a slower firing rate and can't shoot in rain; up close it's still devastating. This means archers will rise in importance, but they are very vulnerable to cavalry an have to be protected. The archers are very dangerous to ND, WM and YA. YC and CA can also be hurt by archers since their higher armor is offset by being a larger target.
I could come by and play some games using these rules, but I can't get there before 21:00 GMT on weekdays. I might be able to find some other players to bring with me, but they run WinXP and have had some problems running STW/MI.
PaolinoPaperino
11-10-2005, 00:58
Sorry Yuuki,
but if you remove completely the musks you will have some unexpected counter effects as well. At the moment I can think these:
-without musks, and with few chances to be able to use properly arque... the ricochet will be something to be ignored(archers secondary damage provided through ricochet/scattered fire is almost insignificant);
-the armyes would be compact and first and second line almost attached, making front cav charges on missiles a suicide as now;
-the missing ricochet will encourage the use/abuse of orgy units..
do u remember it?
http://www.totalwar.org/patrons/sd/Pao1.bmp
- no musks... means Kensai really tough to be killed.. so hon 0 Kensai would become a standard and a nightmare.. even at 7k.
Wouldn't be useful a rule such as max 2 musks (7k battles) and nothing else?
Just A Girl
11-10-2005, 01:57
I also run xp, but now i have the game installed on a fat32 drive i login 1st time 98% of the time and second tme the other 2%
- no musks... means Kensai really tough to be killed.. so hon 0 Kensai would become a standard and a nightmare.. even at 7k.
Wouldn't be useful a rule such as max 2 musks (7k battles) and nothing else?
Yes the kensai is a problem, and guns are the counter unit for it. I wasn't able to balance the kensai in Samurai Wars, which doesn't even have the battlefield upgrades of STW/MI, so I removed it from SW multiplayer. The truth is the unit isn't suited to the battle engine.
The rest of the units all have counterunits other than guns although guns are useful against the naginata infantry. So, I don't think there are any cheap rush armies. The monk rush of original STW certainly doesn't work in STW/MI, and neither do all cav armies or all sword armies. All this stuff was very carefully tested in v1.02. The guns were all set as well at power 3 and approved by 5 of the 8 beta testers, but got changed to power 5 on the last day and there wasn't time to fully test the new guns.
The back kills (ricochet) of guns is a very interesting aspect of the gameplay. I've come to believe that it contributes a lot to dynamic gameplay because it means that gun units have to move out quite far in front of the army to skirmish where they are vulnerable to cavalry. Unfortunately, back kills were not perceived to be beneficial by most players back in the days of original STW. The STW/MI v1.02 beta team made it an objective to reduce the range of the back kills, and I figured out how to do that. However, the back kills in STW/MI v1.02 are now insufficient and the infantry can stand too close behind the guns to set up the gameplay dynamic that existed in STW. In Samurai Wars, we returned the back kills to exactly what they were in STW, and as a result the skirmish phase is a lot more dynamic.
Archers can have infantry in close support, but archers are less effective than muskets and they have low armor so counterfire can be effective in neutralizing them. I suppose a compromise would be to play with 2 muskets max, and maybe 2 kensai max as well.
The last time I played a 2v2 in STW/MI v1.02 with the 4 musket max, no ashi, 10k rules it was no contest because our opponents knew every small bump on the map and simply by placing their muskets on those bumps won the shootout quicky. The outcome of the battle was determined by the first 2 minutes of shooting. There was no need to melee because they simply shot down the rest of our army since charging into those guns was a sure loss. There is no need to play out positions like that. You might as well resign after the first 2 minutes and play another game.
Togakure
11-10-2005, 20:12
With respect for all the detailed and valid information provided here, and all the work that went into providing the community with the best product possible, the fact remains that many players have been able to play v1.02 with the established controls (10K, 4 max, no ashi) and have a good time, again and again and again. I haven't encountered anyone in my two plus years of play who could win every time, or even close to every time (except perhaps Sasaki in 1v1, and I attribute that to his considerable talent and skill, not an exploitation of tricks and weaknesses in game design and the game engine). Granted, a great number of Shogun players had moved on before I arrived, but there were plenty still playing and having a whole lotta fun. 2v2 games are still a blast, and while it is true that players must consider the power of muskets and adjust their play accordingly, it is still possible to have exciting, challenging, and downright fun multiplayer games in v1.02.
v1.02's not for everyone. But for some of us, it's plenty good enough. Life itself is not perfect, and for the most part, we cannot change the nature of "the game." But we can adapt our attitudes and actions to make the most of it and still live great lives. I think the same applies to v1.02.
PaolinoPaperino
11-11-2005, 00:21
Ok, I will sugges than that change in our next games:
max2 musks & Kensai, 7k.
Let see how it works ..
ps: checking the previous list of pro/contra I've noticed the morale penalty has slipped out of my mind:
-without musks we could lose that -6, that makes a huge difference in melee.
Just A Girl
11-11-2005, 00:30
The part about placing muskets on Bumps is true...
but you can also place archers behind them rathere than on top of them.
This may sound daft as they loose range,
but archers shoot Over the hill where as muskets can no longer shoot the archers as they are safe behind the hill.
and then you can moove your lines back forcing the opponents muskets to come within archer range if they want to use them.
I also find if i play in bad weather "fog or heavy rain"
Its possible to allow your opponent to see you atempting fo flank them on 1 side so they turn their muskets.
Which allows you to attack them from behind or the side if you have planed it that way,
the back kills in v1.02 are still there, And due to the slower infantry, even though you can bring your infantry closer to your front line The muskets are still at risk from cav,
Some thing i noticed about musket kills and back kills is that cavalry seem to drop faster than infantry.
using 1 unit of 60 muskets 3 deep at awa vs the computer ( i was attacking) I found that fiering at the infantry caused. 1 infantry man to die, But 4 cav on his left 3 cav behind them and a futher 1 infantry man from a nother unit behind them.
Fiering at the cavalry made 5 cav horses die, then 3 more cav horses in a nother unit and again 1 infantry man each from 2 units that were also close,
All the ai units were standing still,
mr kenzai kicks ass, And im prety shure that in heavy rain he could get through the fire of 1 unit of muskets. although im also prety shure that 2 units of muskets would have him dead in 1 - 2 volleys. 4 units would kill him in the 1st volley,
arrows seem to bounce off him so no muskets at all would be prety suicidal.
And frontall atacks alone on mr kenzai seems to end up in him Decimating that uint,
I do like mr kenzai :) but i would never use him as my general. "i like to watch him go kick ass"
but geting back to the muskets.
If there on a hill and 4 units strong and theres no hills or trees to hide archers behind, They are almost impossible to beat.
Thats why i beleve terain selection to be one of the most importaint aspects of a mp game.
followed closeley by weather selection,
its probable that you all already know this,
But seeing as no 1 els said it... I did :)
-without musks we could lose that -6, that makes a huge difference in melee.
That's what allows you to play at 7k. On average you are 1 honor upgrade less at 7k than at 10k. The arques will be stronger at 7k than they are at 10k. I don't know what will happen with 2 muskets at 7k.
Sasaki Kojiro
11-11-2005, 07:17
The biggest problem with the musket armies in 1.02 was playing on ironing, totomi, nagashima, and 4th for every game...people know those inside and out. I never learned all the bumps, but I know on totomi attacking that position in the center I would lose all my range units in a few minutes without making much of a dent at all. The musket games are quite fun though, but I enjoyed 1.02 low koku games and games on weird maps where your muskets where not much use.
1.03 7k 2 max was fun as well, but very limited as to what armies you could bring. I never got around to trying out 2 max monk and nag cav 1.03 games.
Just A Girl
11-11-2005, 07:36
i find totomi quite fair for attacking and defending on,
Its actualy my fave :)
I dont like the ironing board that much lol. or 4th k
but i like yotomo (i think) cant really have muskets their and use them to good effect.
I tend to like rolling landscapes like totomi but with a few trees as well, for an ambush or 2,
i never realy noticed a problem with muskets in my origonal shogun, v1.0 Not WE or MI,
So what was wrong with those stats, and why cant we just replicate those?
The musket games are quite fun though, but I enjoyed 1.02 low koku games and games on weird maps where your muskets where not much use.
If I want to play a shooter, I play a WWII game.
1.03 7k 2 max was fun as well, but very limited as to what armies you could bring. I never got around to trying out 2 max monk and nag cav 1.03 games.
Why were you using max rules in v1.03? I don't think it's necessary.
i never realy noticed a problem with muskets in my origonal shogun, v1.0 Not WE or MI,
So what was wrong with those stats, and why cant we just replicate those?
Nothing was wrong with the original STW guns except you could argue that they were somewhat weak. The designer of the battle system, LongJohn, had left Creative Assembly when MI was developed and somehow a +12 morale got added to all units in STW/MI v1.0 multiplayer, and the power of guns was increased from 4 to 16. Both of these changes were mistakes. Creative Assembly removed the +12 morale in STW/MI v1.01 after I determined the value by running tests. We didn't know what parameter had been changed in the guns because STW v1.12 stats are internal to the main exe so we couldn't look at them. The change to power 16 is a mistake because values over 8 have no effect. Since so many players were upset with the guns and with several of the new units in MI which were very unbalanced, Creative Assembly allowed a team of 8 community members to rebalance the game. Unfortunately, that team didn't agree on what changes to make, and also made too many drastic changes. As a result, STW/MI v1.02 is an unfinished stat because we ran out of time while making it.
We can replicate the STW v1.12 guns because I figured out the original stats by comparative testing. It turns out the only changes Creative Assembly had made to guns in STW/MI v1.0 was the power increase from 4 to 16 and making muskets fire in the rain. The v1.02 beta team changed the speed, accuracy and power in an attempt to reduce the range and proportion of the back kills, and we also changed the reload rate. If you want original STW v1.12 guns, just edit projectiles.txt and make these changes:
Note: Muskets don't fire in rain. Although that may have been a mistake in STW, I've left it that way:
STW/MI v1.02 guns:
Arquebus
{
0, 15, 4000, 230, 0.12, 8.0, 33, 1, 0
}
Musket
{
0, 15, 5000, 230, 0.17, 4.0, 24, 1, 1
}
STW v1.12 guns:
Arquebus
{
0, 15, 4000, 200, 0.07, 4.0, 30, 1, 0
}
Musket
{
0, 15, 5000, 250, 0.12, 4.0, 21, 1, 0
}
PaolinoPaperino
11-11-2005, 15:10
Why were you using max rules in v1.03? I don't think it's necessary.
Well... mine experience and Mime's on 103 are quite similar, both has approached the stat for the first time almost in the same period. I have found several logs of battles done in those months Yuuki, if you want I could mail them to you, so you will notice what we are talking about:
-almost all armyed with horses only;
-battles average lenght 5/7 min.
Well... mine experience and Mime's on 103 are quite similar, both has approached the stat for the first time almost in the same period. I have found several logs of battles done in those months Yuuki, if you want I could mail them to you, so you will notice what we are talking about:
-almost all armyed with horses only;
-battles average lenght 5/7 min.
Well, if you both take all cav that's what will happen, but you don't have to take all cav just because the other player did. The requirement of at least 6 YS and some NI to stop all cav was a compromise on my part. The cavalry in v1.03 is stronger than I wanted it to be, and the guns are also stronger than I wanted. I'd be interested in looking at the logs if someone was trying to counter the all cav army with something other than all cav. However, v103 isn't the way to go because it's too much hassle to use custom stats.
Just A Girl
11-12-2005, 03:43
v103 isn't the way to go because it's too much hassle to use custom stats.
If i make it mandatory v1.03 stats for all my tournament's
"Which will have a prizes for the winner soon"
we may be able to get most players to use v1.03
Installation instructions can be posted With step by step screen shots of how to install them properly,
"they take a few minuets to make"
If it will help the comunity I dont see how this is much of a hurdle.
If i make it mandatory v1.03 stats for all my tournament's
"Which will have a prizes for the winner soon"
we may be able to get most players to use v1.03
You could do that, but my experience is that you always loose players when moving to a custom stat. The present STW community has chosen v102 as their standard, and I doubt any players from days gone by will come back just for a v103 tournament.
Togakure
11-12-2005, 20:16
What Puzz3D has said, immediately above, is true. However, you never know until you try.
The last large 2v2 tournament was sponsored by The Home of the Masterless/Kas and was a 1.03 tournament. We had 16 teams, 2 players per team--a total of 32 players. Granted, some didn't show for their games and lost by default, but we did complete the tournament (after about 6 months, lol). We saw the return of some players from the "old days," including Puzz3D and TosaInu (who, incidentally, eliminated Kas and me in 4 very fun games).
Though there are far fewer STW-MP players active now, the tourney you are proposing is 1v1 and only requires 8 players to proceed. You might be able to attract the requisite number, even if you use 1.03. I do think it would be important to develop and test an installer for the stat, make it available for download, and provide support for it. But I've seen your abilities and know that you can do this via your website.
Keep in mind that 1.03 is quite a different baby than 1.02. You may want to play a few (even a lot) of 1.03 games to see if it meets your expectations. One thing for sure--there are far fewer people familiar with it, so it will "level the playing field," so-to-speak. However, If someone who is familiar with its nuances participates (Sasaki, Pao, Puzz, et. al.), the rest will be at a considerable disadvantage against them unless they familiarize themselves with the differences in the stat and practice a whole lot.
:2cents:
Just A Girl
11-13-2005, 05:46
Im glad of your post toga,
things had taken a negative turn Atleast theres a shimmer of light in your words,
The bleak coldness of puzz3d's post had left me a little dissheartend.
and with the legal worys over the prizes the whole project, Was/is begining to look like a daunting task.
on a plus side thoug...
Im shure a Installation module can easily be made,
along with a suport page for each and every 1 of the most common stw porbs.
Including how to log in to fakeserver 1st time using windows xp.
(I already can due to installing a fat32 formated hard disk, and i will soon experiment with other methods)
I would realy like to see more poeple play this wonderfull game.
but im begining to run out of ideas.
:bow:
but im begining to run out of ideas.
I really appreciate your efforts to keep this here alive... and indeed it's very frustrating when it does not seem to work. but don't worry, for instance we had some 3v3's again last friday, and also some games on saturday. Anskar entered the foyer after a while of absence~:) and he can host as well... ~:)
Myself I've just found the UGLI boards and will try to help people there get on to server... Elmarko said he'd try!! ~:)
and I added some msn adresses lately... I found them on old websites etc and if they haven't expired in the meantime some stw vets might pop up in my msn~:) ~:cool: I noticed some had expired... but some didn't. one was taken by someone else ~:joker: I had a talk to some person which I have no connection to at any way.... but certain adresses I think would not be used by people not from tw... so I have some hope ~:)
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