Rome 2 Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such (patch 17 live!)

[easytarget]

Yes, I had this happen repeatedly in a coastal town in CIG.

[CaptainCrunch]

Yes, I had this happen repeatedly in a coastal town in CIG.

Aww hell... Lemme tell ya, CA will hear about this!

[easytarget]

Yeah, one for me falls under the heading of something I've posted nearly a dozen posts on at the main forum: agent spam.

There are simply way too many allowed to the AI and as a result I had 50 or more of them running around in my game, it's not that I can't deal with them, it's the fact that they made agent actions cost money that's broken. Either set a limit like Shogun 2 which didn't have this problem, or make the action not cost anything, but the Rome 2 design is as wrong headed as you can make agents in a TW game.

So far CA at 12 patches has kept their head on this issue firmly up their bum, and as a result I've stopped playing R2 entirely. If they can't be bothered to fix it after being told repeatedly for 6 months about it, I can't be bothered to play the game. So I've just gone back to other CA works where they obviously cared about their work product more than they do today.

FYI, in order to stop that agent spam on the coast I had to take out the cities they were flowing out of since there was no direct way to flip or kill them as they were hanging out on the coast line where no action could be taken against them.

[Jarmam]

Yeah, one for me falls under the heading of something I've posted nearly a dozen posts on at the main forum: agent spam.

There are simply way too many allowed to the AI and as a result I had 50 or more of them running around in my game, it's not that I can't deal with them, it's the fact that they made agent actions cost money that's broken. Either set a limit like Shogun 2 which didn't have this problem, or make the action not cost anything, but the Rome 2 design is as wrong headed as you can make agents in a TW game.

So far CA at 12 patches has kept their head on this issue firmly up their bum, and as a result I've stopped playing R2 entirely. If they can't be bothered to fix it after being told repeatedly for 6 months about it, I can't be bothered to play the game. So I've just gone back to other CA works where they obviously cared about their work product more than they do today.

FYI, in order to stop that agent spam on the coast I had to take out the cities they were flowing out of since there was no direct way to flip or kill them as they were hanging out on the coast line where no action could be taken against them.

A way to get around this problem is to use a Steam mod that deals with it. There are a few available - some limit the AI's "allocated funds to agents per turn", and some remove them altogether. Neither is necessarily optimal, but it can address the issue in a pinch.

Because this is an issue. I get that revolts by faction-rebels should mean something, and I am even ok with a single town-faction being able to field 2 stacks of units in 5 turns or less. But by far the most annoying thing is the fact that they can *also* field 2-3 agents that constantly get respawned. This is unbearable in a Seleucid campaign, where the entire eastern alliance-block of 6-8 factions will inevitably join up to stomp on you. Send your stacks of units all day, but the *swarm* of agents this produces is beyond frustrating. I'm getting used to not relying on having a general in any large defensive fight ever, since he is inevitably wounded or killed pre-battle. Every time. All game long. Only counter is to field him with 1 of each agent type - but then who's gonna resist the onslaught of sappers? I've already repurposed the aristocrats from tax-boosters to assassins solely because of this issue.

Yawn.

[CaptainCrunch]

...FYI, in order to stop that agent spam on the coast I had to take out the cities they were flowing out of since there was no direct way to flip or kill them as they were hanging out on the coast line where no action could be taken against them.

Yeah, normally that would be my approach... but since it was a Roman spy in this instance what I've done instead is put agents in play to buff the city's security until I get them to sue for peace. Not that it works all that well... AI agents can still pull off successful missions even when the odds are only 30-40%! Little fakers. I agree with you, the system is annoying.

I often try and help Rome in my campaigns so they can expand and become powerful 'til at least mid-game. Then it's party time... salting of the earth style

[Hooahguy]

Patch 12 went live today.

[Slaists]

Not sure I am happy about the ammo nerf they implemented. I think, horse-archer nations should have the old tech bonuses (+50%) not the reduced one. Otherwise, horse archer armies become kind of useless as they run out of ammo quickly.

[CaptainCrunch]

I'm not gonna update to this patch for a minute, does anyone know of a guaranteed way to stop Steam from updating other than starting in 'offline mode'? I know for a fact that disabling auto updates through the game properties often doesn't do it. Not to mention that now that option is locked on my Steam console for some damn reason.

[Myth]

They finally fixed the bug with temples of war not granting multiple stacking bonuses. Now you can finally do what I said in my guide and train super soldiers! Especially as Rome or Sparta. Rome can get legionaries with 5 chevrons out right off the bat. The maximum for Rome appears to be:

+ 1 from the faction bonus
+ 2 from Major temple
+ 3 from 3 minor temples
+ 3 from Armidoctor

So 9 chevrons for fresh legionnaire recruits for Rome. And the bonus morale will be sickening.

[Jarmam]

"Raiding will no longer cause negative happiness."

...

wat...?

I would understand if they tuned the public order penalty to the size of the raiding force (ie -1 per unit, instead of -20 per army). Removing it is mindboggling. Does it mean... I can raid... my own provinces? To reduce the upkeep of my army?

wat?

[al Roumi]

I'm not gonna update to this patch for a minute, does anyone know of a guaranteed way to stop Steam from updating other than starting in 'offline mode'? I know for a fact that disabling auto updates through the game properties often doesn't do it. Not to mention that now that option is locked on my Steam console for some damn reason.

Nope. As far as i know even disabling the auto-updates prevents you playing the game once steam knows it needs a patch. Along with the fairly regular patching (and it's effects on current campaigns), this has actually discouraged me from consistently playing R2 - particularly as I was living somewhere with terrible interweb.

[Ars Moriendi]

I'm not gonna update to this patch for a minute, does anyone know of a guaranteed way to stop Steam from updating other than starting in 'offline mode'?

Block Steam in firewall. It's the only guaranteed way to stop the updates (I had the same problem a few months back).

[Hooahguy]

Patch 14 beta is now live!

Supposedly has a ton of siege AI improvements, and Im pretty excited to see these changes in game!

Patch notes

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Technical and performance improvements:


Battle


-Unit ‘stuttering’ in battle has been improved.
-Improved reflections in rivers on the battlefield.
-Ship reflections now appear correctly in battles.
-Fixed a crash in large scale multiplayer battles containing over 14,000 combined soldiers in total.
-Fix for a crash which occurred when selecting reinforcements on the minimap during battle replays.


Campaign


-Reduced the game's memory usage in Campaign modes, and when saving Campaign games.
-Fixed a rare crash which happened when placing the mouse over a building in the construction queue.
-Rare Campaign crash fixed, which triggered shortly after battle results were displayed.
-Fixed a crash which occurred after an un-walled port assault in Hannibal at the Gates campaign.
-Fixed a very rare texture crash when moving the camera around the campaign map.
-A rare crash which occurred after declining to fight a battle as a reinforcing army while the camera was still moving on the Campaign map has been fixed.


Battle AI improvements:


-Significant improvements to attacking siege AI’s use of siege engines, allowing them to better co-ordinate assaults through breaches and gates while also reusing previously docked siege vehicles.
-Improved AI's ability to re-start siege assault tactics after responding to units sallying out of a settlement in a siege battle.
-Fixed an issue in the attacking siege AI which could cause individual units or small groups of units to split off from the main force and attempt to burn the city gates elsewhere.
-Improved the Battle AI's usage of artillery to breach walls in siege battles.
-Made a range of improvements to battle AI pathfinding in settlement battles.
-Fixed an issue in a specific Egyptian city map variant which caused the AI to ignore siege equipment and always opt to burn down the gates.
-Fixed a bug in the deployment system which could cause the attacking siege AI to deploy far away from the city, sometimes facing the wrong direction.
-Fixed a bug which sometimes prevented the attacking siege AI from recognising existing wall breaches from previous battles in the same campaign turn.
-Introduced evasive manoeuvres in defending siege AI for units defending walls which are under enemy bombardment and are likely to collapse.
-Fixed an issue in the attacking siege AI where AI units would sometimes be assigned incorrectly to siege vehicles, or multiple AI units would be assigned to the same siege vehicle.
-Improvements made to the Battle AI's evaluation of task priority in settlement battles, enabling it to better direct attacks against higher concentrations of enemy units, as well as co-ordinate more effectively with reinforcements.
-Fixed a bug in siege battles when the player was defending, which caused ally AI armies to become idle in certain situations.
-Improved AI's wall targeting in siege battles, to prevent it from attempting to dock two siege towers on the same wall segment, for example.
-Enabled the Battle AI to better co-ordinate attacks in settlements through multiple breaches, gates or streets simultaneously.
-Fixed a rare crash bug which occurred when an AI general's bodyguard unit is completely killed while the rest of the army is entering the breaches in a siege battle.
-Introduced better co-ordinated attacks from multiple directions in minor settlements as well as some fortified settlements.
-When a unit under Battle AI control is changing formation, due to being attacked on multiple fronts, it will now take more consideration of its facing, to avoid presenting the enemies its back or flanks.
-Fixed issues where AI's naval reinforcement units became unresponsive after splitting up into multiple groups upon disembarking.
-Battle AI will now use melee units in addition to missile units to defend settlement walls when useful.
-Fixed issues with battle AI's sally out behaviours in settlement battles.
-When defending a settlement against bombardment from naval artillery, battle AI is better able to attempt to avoid casualties.
-Improved AI deployment logic for several settlement maps.
-Occasionally units given move orders on the battlefield would remain stationary for a while before moving. This has now been reduced.
-Fixed an issue which sometimes allowed the attacking siege AI to command their siege towers into settlements.
-Fixed issues in the attacking siege AI in naval siege battles, which caused some disembarked units to go idle.
-Battle AI is now more likely to pick up siege equipment, when it's been dropped by other units being killed.
-Fixed a bug where the Battle AI was incorrectly determining whether it had sent a unit to pick up a piece of siege equipment.
-Fixed a battle AI issue in which it would move to capture courtyards with victory points but fail to actually take the capture points due to its placement of units within the courtyard.
-Battle AI made more aggressive when attacking unfortified settlements to avoid losing due to timeout.


Campaign AI improvements


-Campaign AI is now more likely to defend settlements instead of running away. This should lead to bigger and more frequent battles.
-Improved Campaign AI siege behaviour - Campaign AI now tends to maintain sieges longer and construct more siege equipment against major settlements when besieging.
-Improved Campaign AI building repair behaviour.




General battle improvements


-Units on the battlefield now blend / fade out when they get very close to the camera, to avoid clipping / seeing into the unit models.
-Improved siege vehicle docking, to reduce the chance of ladders rotating back and forth indefinitely, when attempting to dock against a walls in siege battles.
-Battle replays now save and replay the weather as it was in the battle being recorded.
-Fix for capture points sometimes being connected to the wrong buildings in some battles with multiple capture points.
-Improved the combat behaviour of flanking enemies while attacking in formation, so the units are more concerned with attacking the flank of the enemy unit, rather than drifting to the front of the enemy, and potentially nullifying the flanking attack.
-Units can now fire at animal handlers once they've released the dogs.
-When the player selects multiple siege vehicles and attempts to dock them on a wall, only one will be given the order. The player must now manually order siege vehicles to dock on a settlement wall.
-Battering rams will no longer cause collision when they are destroyed.
-Units now more effectively pick up battering rams that have been dropped while they were attacking gates.
-Improved how units move through wall breaches:
-Individual men will not attempt to walk through solid fort walls as their unit passes through a breach.
-Fixed cases where units ordered into settlements via a breach would not move.
-Siege vehicles are less likely to get stuck on small buildings and rocks outside of a settlement, becoming inactive.
-Reduced units from climbing siege ladders in single file, up one side of the ladder.
-Fix for units ignoring docked siege towers in favour of ladders and captured gates where the siege tower offered a more appropriate route.
-Attackers can no longer see defenders in multiplayer land/naval battles during the deployment phase.
-Fixed a bug where units in defensive stance were not reacting correctly when attacked in melee and therefore not performing as well as expected.
-Increased cost of Indian Armoured Elephants.
-Cavalry will no longer be able to push through enemy units without experiencing losses.
-Balkan General units will now have the expected melee attack value in battle.
-Units will no longer continue to target and attack an enemy unit if they lose visibility of it.
-Improved pathfinding for large attacking AI armies in unfortified settlement battles, so the army does not become idle when attempting to reform.
-Adjustments to morale mechanics to limit certain defender exploits.
-Units will now look further for targets when on walls, to increase melee engagement.
-Capture points have been removed from custom coastal battles.
-Stopped AI controlled units getting stuck and spinning in one spot after disembarking in the medium Alexandria battle map.
-Fixed a Greek minor port map, to prevent ships from going through the shore when disembarking.


General Campaign improvements


-Fixed a bug that made Vigiles units disappear from garrisons in Campaign modes.
-Fixed an issue with undestroyed transported armies were being destroyed on the campaign, if their transporting army was destroyed in battle.
-Faction’s fame levels can go up and down, but you could never return to fame level 0. This has been fixed.
-Fixed an issue where in some situations, after sacking a settlement, the game would re-issue an order to sack the settlement again.
-Grand Campaign map snow now appears correctly on settlements in the North East of the map.
-Added some missing localised audio to the start of the fly camera fly over at the beginning of the Hannibal at the Gates Campaign, when playing as the Arevaci faction.
-Campaign AI will no longer pick galleries siege equipment.
-The Duty Calls event in the prologue campaign will now trigger correctly, preventing a progression blocker.
-Thracian Warriors added to Odrysian Kingdom garrisons.
-Upgrading certain buildings will no longer remove units from available recruits pool.
-Objectives requiring specific buildings will now trigger correctly after the building is constructed.
-Edicts will no longer remain active in provinces that are shared with a client state if the faction stops being your client.
-Resynchronisation has been sped up in Multiplayer Campaign mode.
-A congratulatory message in the Grand Campaign, which incorrectly triggered when winning a battle by ambushing and AI, instead of successfully defending against an ambush has been fixed.
-Swapped the bonuses for the "Votive Offering" and "Feast" barbarian festival campaign events.




Usability Improvements


Battle


-Siege vehicles will now correctly line up with bastions when docking.
-When a player commands a group of units to enter an enemy settlement with multiple ladders docked, the units are less likely to all focus on climbing the same ladder.
-Units will no longer clip through / walk under the terrain near a gate in a Barbarian City map variation.
-Fix for un-reachable bastions in Barbarian city maps.
-Fixed a gap under a gate in the Carthage (large) battle map.
-A map where ships would sail across the land while attempting to disembark has been fixed.
-Improved deployment zones and collision placement in several battle map variations.
-Fixed a floating river in Eildon battle map.
-Improved collision around battlefield town tiles, to make units navigate around them more effectively.
-Tooltips will now show up when placing the mouse over barbarian ports on the battlefield.


Campaign


-A progression blocker has been fixed in Multiplayer Campaign mode, when pressing "end turn" at the exact same time as the turn timer reaches 0:00.
-"Ally under attack" interface in Campaign modes is now clearer when both attacker and defender are the players allies.
-UI fix for when an AI unit attacks the players faction, the retreated during a Campaign end turn sequence, which caused the auto resolve window to pop up and close immediately.
-When the campaign tactical map is opened at the same time as pressing the end turn button, the campaign camera will no longer get locked in place / be un-movable when the turn ends.
-Solved an issue that caused false desyncs after a resync had been performed in multiplayer.
-Fixed an overlapping tooltip text when hovering over an enemy agent on the Campaign map.




General


-A New system has been put in place to handle when a player disconnects from a multiplayer game. Instead of causing a draw, this judges which player is in a better position upon connection loss. Draws are now much rarer and more representative of the battle conditions.
-Sound settings changes in the options menu, now take effect when saved, without the player having to re-open the sound options menu.
-Fixed Quick Battle disconnections which occurred when entering the lobby.
-Fixed a crash caused by Steam not running.

[hoom]

Definitely siege improvements.
Its not a match for a person but much more of a threat than it was.

Plus stuff like when you grab a bunch of units & tell them to get up ladders they actually split properly between the ladders!

[Slaists]

Have not had a serious siege defense yet, but on the campaign side, it seems, the AI will hand it to me through attrition (Junia, legendary, started with patch 14.0): my allies (Illyria, Syracuse, Athens, Sparta, Egypt) are crumbling everywhere and one barbarian after another declares war on me. This is around turn 40. CA must have done something more than enhanced the siege AI.

I also see new factions strive (ones that previously typically did not do that well). Veneti expanded fast (took out Dalmati, Daorsi, Illyrians). Arverni made it into Northern Italy within the first 15-20 turns just to succumb to a blitzkrieg by Volcae who usually do not do much. All of Northern Alps and a good part of Dacia is already under stable (green happiness) Suebi control, etc.

Fun time...

[Sp4]

Whee, they're putting an actual siege AI into the game.

[Myth]

Wow, never seen the Suebi blob so much unless we are talking some Confederation forming.

[Slaists]

Wow, never seen the Suebi blob so much unless we are talking some Confederation forming.

Nope, no Confederation just proper Suebi. Funny though, Suebi finally made it into Northern Italy and their two stacks there were filled mostly with club infantry and spear levy. Guess, that's what they had been using to win their way across Germania.

Celts have formed a confederation in Dacia though and succeeding in beating Suebig back there (no wonder given the numbers of club infantry they fielding).

[The Outsider]

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that patch 14 apparently went live today. By the looks of it nothing has been changed since beta. If there's still interested in knowing.

[Hooahguy]

Yeah, nothing seems to have been changed. Kind of a short beta period, if I remember things correctly.

[Hooahguy]

Ok so Patch 15 which includes the new emperor edition is now in beta!

The change notes:

The headline changes in this beta are:

• Politics and civil war improvements
• Overhauled building chains
• Special regions
• Campaign balancing changes
• Land battle changes
• Naval battle balancing changes
• Politics and Civil War Improvements
• Civil wars no longer inevitable, instead they are now based on your level of support. Based on your support you can end up having a high, medium or low chance of a civil war occurring each turn. You’ll get warning messages when you reach those levels (currently a few bugs related to that). When a civil war occurs, all the generals and admirals not of your family will go over to the civil war. As will any agents in their armies and the regions their standing in. All other agents and regions then have a chance to join the civil war faction.
• Multiple civil wars can occur through the course of a campaign. There are now political support effect bundles. Based on the support for your party you will get an effect bundle that affects your faction. Very low support and you’ll get penalties to morale, public order, research. Very high you’ll get big faction wide bonuses but you’ll also run a higher risk of civil war occurring.
• Political action costs reduced.
• New effect bundles based on your Imperium level that increase political action cost and political incident occurrences, as well as giving your party more support each turn past level 4 Imperium. The effects of technologies that reduce political action cost have been increased.
• Effects of political promotions improved to give gravitas per turn and better bonuses.
• The first level political promotion no longer has any requirements so even basic statesmen can accumulate gravitas and contribute to the political game. Core general skills also give gravitas per turn. Want to keep politics balanced? Make sure generals from all the parties are fighting and gaining skills.
• The effects of wives have also been increased.
• New effects from Imperium that increase political action cost and political incident frequency as you gain more power. You will also gain more influence for your party automatically as you get bigger, making it harder and harder to avoid civil wars. So now it is perfectly possible to avoid civil wars if you manage politics right. You do that via actions, getting promotions or by having generals win battles and skilling up. But as the game goes on and you expand it will be harder and harder to avoid civil wars.

Overhaul Building Changes
The Aim

The aims for these changes are simple:

• Provide more building options for all cultures and more interesting building combinations.
• Make resource regions more important.
• Improve the balance of the late game economy.
• Balance food/squalor so buildings can be upgraded further.

THESE CHANGES DO NOT APPLY TO EXISTING SAVE GAMES

In order to not break/soft-break save games, the new building changes are only available when starting new campaigns.

Universal changes

These changes affect all cultures.

• Resource chains – have been renamed and their effects improved to make them more important.
• New amber resource chain – appears in some regions in German. Amber will not be a tradeable resource, but the chain will provide a good amount of income.
• Removal of military equipment chains apart from siege engines. Weapon and armour upgrades now come from iron regions. New horse resource chain added to buff cavalry units which is also exclusive to some regions.
• Universal minor industrial chain now only has mine line of buildings. This change has been made because of other chain changes for each culture that have added more industrial focused buildings.
• Splitting of industry and culture income types into manufacturing/mining and entertainment/learning respectively. This is taken advantage of with many of the new building bonuses. For example Gold resource chain gives mining income, and the Roman goldsmith lines gives manufacturing income and a bonus to mining income for the province.
• Garrison units now come from the core settlement building, ports and military chains only. The core settlement chain garrisons have been improved and all now include at least one good quality unit.
• No longer any difference in port and religious chains in major/minor settlements.
• Coffee machine now works.
• Negative bonuses now apply from level 2 in a small form so you can see what those are earlier
• Food penalties removed from lowest level core settlement buildings.
• Number of religious chains has been reduced for all factions so the remaining ones can provide better bonuses.

Barbarians

• Province capital core chain now splits at level 4 into 3 options which allow you to focus the speciality of a province more.
• The minor settlement core chains in non-resource regions now splits into 2 options at level 4 for the same reasons as above.
• New Warrior Lodge chain added for province capitals. The goldsmith building line and tavern building lines have been moved here and a new proving grounds line added. This chain provides income/happiness along with providing buffs for your units.
• Artisan chain split into artisan and craftsmen chain.
• Artisan chain has bronze workshop, new coin maker and new horn maker lines. Bronze workshop line provides recruitment of all melee/spear infantry.
• Craftsmen chain has clay pit, brine distiller and woodworker lines. Woodworker line provides recruitment of all ranged infantry/siege units.
• Both of the above can be built in major and minor settlements. Changes should keep the barbarian flavour of recruiting from diverse chains, but having recruitment focused onto a few lines instead of being so spread out as it was before.
• New minor sanitation chain added, has 2 lines that can be upgraded to level 3.
• Storage pit line now provides a replenishment rate bonus for the province.
• Research chains moved from agriculture to commons chain.

Eastern

• Province capital core building splits into 2 at level 2: the Royal and Satrap lines. The Royal will be more expensive once costs are added in.
• The minor settlement core chains in non-resource regions now splits into 2 options at level 2: trade and garrison lines.
• Infantry military chain merged into one line to make infantry recruitment simpler.
• New military buff chain added, with ranged and cavalry upgrade lines which go to level 3.
• Industrial chain adjusted so it has 3 lines: adobe, new weaving, and new mint ones.
• New water chain, using existing windcatcher and fountain lines, available in major settlements only.
• New town centre chain added for minor settlements. It has trade and game field lines.
• New tax chain added for minor settlements. Splits into tax and road lines. Focused on tax and agent bonuses.
• Herding and granary lines added to agriculture chain. Granary line gives replenishment bonuses.

Greek

• The minor settlement core chains in non-resource regions now splits into 3 options at level 2: farm, market and civic lines.
• Military buff chain now only goes up to level 3.
• Industrial chain adjusted to the following 3 lines: amphorae, goldsmith, mint.
• Granary line added to agricultural chain, gives replenishment bonuses.
• New town centre chain added for minor settlements. It has trade and gymnasia lines.

Roman

• Province capital core building splits into 2 at level 2: the civic and garrison lines.
• The minor settlement core chains in non-resource regions now splits into 3 options at level 2: farm, market and civic lines.
• Military buff chain now only goes up to level 3.
• Industrial chain adjusted to the following 3 lines: amphorae, goldsmith, mint.
• Granary line added to agricultural chain, gives replenishment bonuses.
• New town centre chain added for minor settlements. It has trade and theatre lines. Special Regions

A new thing that has been introduced are special regions.Effectively regions now have effect bundles that give them certain bonuses. Currently Roma, Carthago, Pella, Pergamon, Antioch and Baktra have these effects. Rome for example gives +2 recruitment slots in that province for owning it and +15% to all income. Carthago has a bonus to commerce income.
Other Campaign Changes
Alongside the extensive building changes are a bunch of other balance changes for the campaign.

• Core income for all factions reduced from 3000 to 1500
• Playable factions get different bonuses to core income. Sparta gets 500 for example, Macedon 1000, Rome 1500. So overall Sparta will have 2000 (1500 base + 500 extra) and Rome 3000 (1500 base + 1500 extra).
• Post-battle settlement occupation options rebalanced.
• Iceni, Roman, Eastern and royal Scythian faction traits adjusted. Iceni captive reduction replaced with small negative to morale in enemy territory. Roman experience bonus for infantry replaced with +1 recruitment slot in all regions. Eastern experience bonus for missile units replaced with +25% ammo. Same for Royal Scythians.
• Besieger attrition reduced.
• Replenishment rates reduced.
• Biephi faction renamed to Apulii.
• Fixed inconsistent messages/outcomes for subjects (faction screen dilemmas).
• Fix for not all factions getting missions, subjects, incidents or dilemmas in all campaigns.

Land Battle Changes

• Units with precursor weapons can now fire at will when stationary.
• The pace of battles and combat has been reduced, and morale values adjusted so battles last longer and are more dynamic.
• Axe and shield animation set based on existing animations added to the game.

Naval Battle Balancing Changes

• Speed of all ships reduced.
• Ship artillery accuracy reduced.
• Transport ships ramming damage significantly reduced.

This is a ton of changes, this is crazy! Gonna have to wait on the beta though as it will break all my mods.

[rory_20_uk]

So, when will the game be ready for non-beta testing? Patch 20?

Good that things are bieng fixed... but conversely there are so many things requiring fixing...

[easytarget]

Anyone know what the 12.3 MB patch had in it today?

[Hooahguy]

Just an update to the beta patch:

General Improvements

Adjusted pike balancing.
Tweaked mercenary and auxiliary unit multiplayer caps.
Fix for Hoplite wall exploit.
Added mercenary Dacian spears to Odrysian multiplayer roster.
Halved based political action costs, but doubled the increases from Imperium.
Armies on ships will now join civil wars.
When deploying troops on a land battle with snow, the markers indicating where individual soldiers will stand are now displayed correctly in yellow instead of white.
Increased melee cavalry attack.
Light Peltasts and Bactrian Peltasts morale changed to 50.
Removed happiness bonus from military recruitment buildings.
Adjusted the stats for the branches of the Roman city, Eastern city and Eastern generic town chains to give more clear differentiation between the choices.
Fix for Epona religious chain for Iberians giving the wrong culture type.
Fixed an issue related to politics that could cause an end turn crash.
Improved Campaign AI army management and recruitment.

[Myth]

Not in front of the game atm. Can someone list ne new provincial bonuses:

"A new thing that has been introduced are special regions.Effectively regions now have effect bundles that give them certain bonuses. Currently Roma, Carthago, Pella, Pergamon, Antioch and Baktra have these effects. Rome for example gives +2 recruitment slots in that province for owning it and +15% to all income. Carthago has a bonus to commerce income."

And also, Roman upgrade buildings only go up to level 3 now, have the bonuses effectively been reduced, or only the building levels?

[Hooahguy]

I wish I could answer, I dont have the beta yet so I really dont know. Though according to the encyclopedia it varies. Some tiers go only to level 3, some go to level 5, others to level 4.

Also have no idea about the provincial bonuses. Cant find a list but they might be in the final patch notes when the patch goes live.

[Myth]

I'll play the beta tonight and I'll list what I find.

[Slaists]

What happens when you let generals swim down the cac river ;)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

luckily, the cac lover was from an opposition party; wiped their influence down to zero.

[Hooahguy]

Im at work so Im afraid to google what a Cloca Maxima is...

[Slaists]

Im at work so Im afraid to google what a Cloca Maxima is...

LOL, what does it sound like? ;) City's sewage