2nd Patch Fixlist

[guyfawkes5]

This has been released by CA at the .com today and although it may have been posted elsewhere at the .org, I thought I'd give a link here with the multiplayer community in mind.

Link to TWblog

Primary features for Update 2:

1) The Launcher
2) Fully implemented Hotseat mode
3) Cinematic Editor
4) Battle Editor (now fully functional)

Resolved Bugs/Issues:

AI
• Units do not clump together when told to complete a 180 degree turn.
• Janissary Musketeers now fire consistently.
• Enemy AI army formations in bridge battles now allow their own artillery to fire.
• Enemy cannons do not fire at unbreakable walls.
• Grouped archers out of ammo will attack enemy units in melee combat when ordered to do so.
• AI does not deploy outside of enemy gates.
• When defending an enemy settlement with multiple exits, taking your army out of the side/back door does not make it easier to defeat the enemy.
• Siege AI is not passive.
• Cavalry can now charge a spearman army.
• General's bodyguard unit now marches correctly outside castles.
• AI now effectively assaults 2nd tier of a Fortress.
• Sallying AI army now reacts properly to being assaulted from 2 sides
• Attacking Siege AI concentrates on taking the settlement rather than chasing down units outside the settlement.
• Generals are now more effective at chasing down routing units.
• Enemy AI reacts to being bombarded with Trebuchets while inside a settlement.
• Siege AI now more difficult to defeat if player places missile units outside the walls.
• AI controls it units more effectively in a Citadel
• AI artillery more decisive in its positioning
• Remaining AI army now advances to use siege equipment
• AI Cavalry can now flank a Spear Wall
• AI now responds to missiles when sieging settlements
• AI now crosses bridges to attack
• AI responds more quickly to gates that have been opened by Spies (while sieging).
• Units do not break formation when chasing routers
• Enemy AI effectively attacks when player's units in a settlement square
• Enemy AI now utilises spare rams
• Improved enemy AI response to stakes
• Shortened Siege attack timers
• Enemy AI will no-longer send out General's bodyguard on a suicide mission while defending

Crash
• Soft-locks in MP Lobby no-longer occur
• Host random hangs fixed
• Resolved issue with client CTD when host ends game that client is joining
• Auto-resolve Siege battle hangs fixed
• Siege tower catching fire no-longer causes random hangs
• Random hangs after loading Campaign save game

Pathfinding
• Battering Rams no-longer stuck in gates
• Ship movement area fixed
• Ram crew no-longer stuck between rams
• Northern European Castle terrain fixed to allow docking of towers
• Improved use of ladders
• Southern European Fortress wall fixed to allow docking of towers
• Improved the way units use Way-points
• Siege of Setenil slow-down tweaked
• Units no-longer become stuck on canyon walls on 'Canyon' map
• Units do not ascend/descend invisible ladders
• Units do not get stuck on Siege towers
• Cavalry pathfinding improved when sallying out from a Fortress
• Bridge battle pathfinding improved (units do not constantly reform)
• Citadel and Fortress paths fixed so that units can avoid assaulting inner walls
• Breach pathfinding tweaked

Combat
• Enemy spearmen do not charge with raised spears
• 2H axemen attack tweaked, inc. Attacking Cavalry
• Defending units can no-longer enter a siege tower as soon as it docks with the walls

Camera
• Camera height does not drop under bridge in River Po Custom Battle map.
• Camera does not drop below water's surface in Palm Beach, Andalusia and Italian Wars map/scenarios.
• Camera does not show the underneath of a bridge when General is killed on the bridge

Controls
• Drag Deploy functionality tweaked
• RTS camera functionality tweaked

Graphics
• Princess character now greyed out upon death on Family tree
• Venice battlemap ambient building placement tweaked
• Fixed issue with trees disappearing when panning camera
• Added paths to doorways in Southern European Large City
• Added paths to doorways in Southern European City
• Fixed minor lighting issue in Southern European City
• Fixed misaligned platforms in Southern European Large Town
• Tweaked Crusade Army banner
• Fixed texture gaps and unwelded verts on Middle Eastern Huge City buildings.
• Fixed incorrect Tower Path in Mesoamerican City
• Fixed path through wall in Mesoamerican City Wall
• Fixed floating buildings above the battle map in Aztec Gold Scenario
• Fixed floating spikes in Mountain Redoubt scenario
• Added correct image for Paladin ancillary
• Fixed grey reinforcement area that states that 'This army cannot fight in night battles' even though the current battle is not a night battle.
• Added correct image for Aztec Rebel - Native Archer
• Added correct image for Aztec Spearmen
• Fixed floating torches in SE Citadel courtyard
• Garrison quarters no-longer change to Town Guard when in Construction queue
• Armoury building image in construction queue no-longer changes to an armoury
• Fixed issue with Trebuchets sometimes disappearing when zooming in close
• Fixed maps have the winter option but don’t have winter texture on the battle map
• Night attack selection tick and reinforcements do not disappear if user selects night attack option and then views enemy army details.
• Fixed officers not animating while riding
• Removed trees in the water in The Battle of Otumba.

Deployment
• Units can no-longer be deployed on inaccessible sections of wall
• Fixed deployment issues with Southern European Wooden Castle on either side of the main gate.
• Units no-longer deployable in buildings in Mesoamerican City

Collision
• Ballista collision improved
• Southern European Citadel gate collision improved
• Middle Eastern Gatehouse collision improved
• Issues with units getting pushed into areas that can't be deployed into.
Battle Editor/Cinematic Editor
• Numerous issues with both editors fixed and improved so that they can be released for public use.

UI
• Mission scroll hotkey added
• Financial Details hotkey functionality and tooltip added
• Reveal/Advance advice hotkey functionality added
• Battle Tutorial Dismiss advice functionality added
• Magnifying glass added to Disaster Strikes scroll
• Princess appears correctly on family tree
• Chat Window errors fixed
• Family Tragedy scroll triggered correctly
• Console text appearance tweaked
• Now possible to launch game from autorun launcher
• Fine Grain time control added (accessible by holding Shift and clicking + and - on battle UI)

Audio
• Movement_Embark speech now triggered correctly
• Allies breaking through gates of citadel now triggers correct speech
• Battle ending in draw when timer runs out now triggers correct speech
• Campaign Map interface sounds added
• End Turn sound now fades out nicely
• Win/Lose music is now representative of the Faction
• Enemy King killed speech now triggered
• Enemy Reinforcements arrive speech now triggered correctly
• Player Army Tired Battle Event Speech is now triggered.
• Player Army Half Gone Battle Event Speech is now triggered.
• Enemy Army Half Gone Battle Event Speech is now triggered.
• Player Under Attack Idle Battle Event Speech is now triggered.
• Player Winning Combat Battle Event Speech now triggered correctly.
• Player Losing Combat Battle Event Speech now triggered correctly.
• Leaves Fleet speech now triggered correctly.
• Player Tide Of Battle Up Battle Event Speech now triggered correctly.
• Player Tide Of Battle Down Battle Event Speech now triggered correctly.
• Muslim Enemy General Killed Battle Event Speech now triggered correctly.
• Christian Enemy General Killed Battle Event Speech now triggered correctly.
• Allied General Captured Battle Event Speech now triggered correctly.
• The "spy infiltrated our settlement" audio/speech is now played when "Start battle" is pressed during cutscene
• Correct region music plays when loading a saved campaign game.
• Added sound trigger for planting archer stakes in ground.
• Clicked-on characters on the Campaign Map no-longer stack their audio response if clicked multiple times.
• In the Historical battles, Battle of Otumba and the Battle of Hastings the music speeds up when you attack
• Other minor audio tweaks also carried out.

Personally, multiplayer-wise, I'm the most excited about the hotseat option although I'm not sure on how exactly they would implement it, although I doubt battles between human players are possible. The fix of the two-handed bug is much appreciated, although I don't see any mention of the shield bug in there.

Opinions?

[Puzz3D]

I don't see any mention of the shield bug in there.

That is a concern and no mention of improvement of lag in big battles either, but I know that the RTW v1.2 readme omitted many of the fixes made in that patch.

Thx for posting the list.

[Lusted]

The fix list is not complete, i've talked to Caliban and not all the features/fixes are listed there.

[guyfawkes5]

Will the shield bug be included in those? Can you give any hints or do CA have your hands tied? :)

[Lusted]

I've got my hands tied for now, i'll hopefully have some info in regards to the shield bug soon, and hopefully i'll be able to share it(should be able to from what Caliban has said).

[Paolai]

they said 99% the list is complete, and I wonder if a bug so important is on this 1%. The click behind bug vs pikes also. Balance fixes none...

[Lavos]

• Soft-locks in MP Lobby no-longer occur
• Host random hangs fixed
• Enemy spearmen do not charge with raised spears
• 2H axemen attack tweaked, inc. Attacking Cavalry
• Drag Deploy functionality tweaked

This imo is all that concerns mp, not even a mention of cav being nerfed, even if spearmen charge make them more effective vs cav, that would not change a thing. Again, another patch for campaign players.

[ElmarkOFear]

Cav will be even more overpowered given there were tweaks to them mentioned vs. spears, but not the other way around. The only thing I see which will help MP is the 2-handed bug fix. Looks like another slap in the face for the ole MP community, which doesn't surprise me at all.

Combat: The main part of the game and the one most marketed to increase sales gets 3 fixes. I guess the battle engine must be almost perfect in the eyes of the CA/SEGA brass. :)

[Lavos]

• Cavalry can now charge a spearman army.
You mean this one? Its under ai fixes, but you never know...

[ElmarkOFear]

You will find that changes which effect the AI normally end up changing MP. They also put the Janissary musketeer firing problem, in the AI section, but this also affects MP.

Funny how there is no mention of ANY of the problems which Palamedes was gathering on MP battles and unit imbalances. All that work, some did, apparently was wasted. This is the main reason, I didn't take much interest in providing any input for the MP wishlist. Historically it is always wasted effort.

Either Palamedes was really only looking for changes which would enhance the SP campaign battles, or his intelligence gathering was ignored by those above him, who instead were using him to placate the MP community so it wouldn't be so boisterous in the forums.

The third possibility is he might not think the shield bug, the cav push through exploit, the uphill vs downhill problem, etc. . are not really problems at all, but something which only a small, insignificant portion of the MP community want changed.

I wonder which it is? I am hoping he was just ignored by the higher ups, and not a willing participant in keeping the MP status-quo.

[Carl]

Its under ai fixes,

Exactly, this deals with an issue where Cav won't charge a largely spearman army most of the time.

3 points to bear in mind:

1. this is only most of the things they've fixed, not all.

2. if they have fixed the shield bug then Cav will have been nerfed fairly hard, perhaps not as much as some would like, but definitely a BIG improvement over before.

3. Based on Lusted's comments regarding his discussions with CA, "tweaking Cav" means "reducing the overall power of Cav".


Lastly, part of the reason Mp is so under-supported IMHO is the current MP communities attitude toward's CA. f you don't believe anything they do will ever benefit you and are totally negative about everything, (and a large proportion of you are like that, weather you intend to be or not), theirs no point in putting any effort in trying to satisfy you as they're dammed if they do and dammed if they don't, so why not save themselves the time and effort and just ignore you. Whoever your being so negative about TW MP your never going to see new players think TW MP is worth playing so it means the majority of customers aren't going to be interested in MP as the MP player base isn't growing due to excessive negativity. The SP player base on the other hand is less negative and is thus growing faster and thus deserves more attention as that where the majority of the money is.

Until you lot actually start acting like TW MP is worth something and is worth playing then CA have no good business reason to put effort into MP, thus (from a business perspective), they shouldn't care about MP.

Only when the Mp community is positive enough to encourage a major growth in the MP community Will MP become important enough to be worth putting ANY time and effort into (again from a business perspective).

My point, you bring all your own troubles on yourself really and it's about time you remembered CA is in the business of making money and took that into account before complaining.

[ElmarkOFear]

hehe Optimism runs rampant in some.

Though over 6 years I have never been disappointed yet in thinking MP would be given the short end of the stick. It isn't brought on by the community's attitude, since most of us, for a long time, were very optimistic and active in helping provide CA with MP issues and possible fixes. Look at the Mizu's, they were even more involved than myself in trying to improve TW MP. The only way they found to do that was by making their own game mod. CA sure didn't do it and they will not now.

Plus, I have actually purchased and played the game online, which gives me a particularly good feel for the game's problems.

It was stated those were 99% of the fixes the patch addressed. I doubt the shield bug has been addressed, but will be pleasantly surprised if it is. I have seen CA ask about specific problems before, then completely ignore them come patch time. Excuse me if I am doubtful, but my doubt has been supported several times over the past 5+ years.

Being positive has never had any effect on encouraging CA to help the MP community, or even give us a small amount of consideration. As stated above, many of us were very positive, and supportive of CA and loved the MP community and gameplay. However, we soon found, and it was also stated several times by CA, that MP is not as important as the SP campaign and that MP was just an afterthought and not the main concern of the developers. Knowing this, how could anyone remain positive and think it would have any effect on CA's decision to ignore the MP community?

BTW: We ARE acting like TW MP means something. If we didn't care, we certainly wouldn't be here participating in discussions concerning balance and other problems. Many have left the game altogether (Almost an entire MP community to be exact between MTW and RTW). The few that remain, complain, but still hold a small bit of hope for the future of TW MP. It is slowly sliding into mediocrity, which is why we push hard to get changes made to keep the game interesting, varied, and fun.

So don't lecture others unless you first understand how their attitudes were formed. I think you will find yourself having the same attitude a few years from now if things remain as they have since the first days of STW.

I don't begrudge you your optimism, and I hope you don't become an old curmudgeon like we appear to be.

[guyfawkes5]

Just as a note: I removed several headings unrelated to the multiplayer aspect of M2TW, such as diplomacy. So there is slightly more to that list if you click on the link, but those only effect campaign.

[Puzz3D]

My point, you bring all your own troubles on yourself really and it's about time you remembered CA is in the business of making money and took that into account before complaining.

That's not true except the part about making money. The MP players who supported CA in the past were ignored in CA's quest to sell their product to a younger customer. They now have their younger customer base, but they also have disgruntled former customers who used to support them, and this happened because CA wasn't candid about the change in direction they were taking the series. When I said CA had changed direction after the release of the RTW demo, MikeB denied it. In a recent IGN interview for M2TW, Bob Smith is still trying to string along the former customers. As far as I'm concerned, the veil of secrecy that decended over the game starting with RTW was designed to conceal a degraded battle engine.

[Nikodil]

Only when the Mp community is positive enough to encourage a major growth in the MP community Will MP become important enough to be worth putting ANY time and effort into (again from a business perspective).

Well, the truth is they really don't have a clue about what online gaming is all about. They have an SP game that they made possible to play in MP mode, but have just scratched the surface of the possibilities of online gaming. Right now its rudamentary. A true MP experience a totally different beast. It would be a totally different product, with more emphasis on the interaction between people (both coop and competetive wise). And probably would require different revenue models too (hint, look at WoW, although I'm not saying that's the solution).

It's not the chicken-and-egg problem you make it sound. Not if you are innovative enough. But hey I'm an optimist, 'cause sooner or later someone will be, though it probably wont be CA.

[ElmarkOFear]

Well stated Puzz and Blue.

Blue, you still play Combat Mission? Or am I thinking of someone else I used to play PBEM Combat Mission games with? You may know me as UglyElmo.

[Lavos]

Lastly, part of the reason Mp is so under-supported IMHO is the current MP communities attitude toward's CA. f you don't believe anything they do will ever benefit you and are totally negative about everything, (and a large proportion of you are like that, weather you intend to be or not), theirs no point in putting any effort in trying to satisfy you as they're dammed if they do and dammed if they don't, so why not save themselves the time and effort and just ignore you. Whoever your being so negative about TW MP your never going to see new players think TW MP is worth playing so it means the majority of customers aren't going to be interested in MP as the MP player base isn't growing due to excessive negativity. The SP player base on the other hand is less negative and is thus growing faster and thus deserves more attention as that where the majority of the money is.

Until you lot actually start acting like TW MP is worth something and is worth playing then CA have no good business reason to put effort into MP, thus (from a business perspective), they shouldn't care about MP.

Only when the Mp community is positive enough to encourage a major growth in the MP community Will MP become important enough to be worth putting ANY time and effort into (again from a business perspective).

My point, you bring all your own troubles on yourself really and it's about time you remembered CA is in the business of making money and took that into account before complaining.

Right after Rome was released, Kyolic and others back at .net, made a compleat list of what is wrong with it, every bug exactly documented and reported, for some things even easy solutions were presented. If I'm not mistaken even some of ca staff confirmed that they did or will look at that list. When patch later came, almost nothing from that list was fixed, not even very basic unit ballance fixes, all the work community put into bug report went to nothing. It's not that community is not positive, its just that all our experiences so far has been that ca simply don't care wether we report bugs or not.
It's not so with sp community, I seriously doubt that if some guys at sp forums would not cry that their billmen gets killed by french cavalry, there would even be a fix for that. I guess well have to start going into campaign forums and there complain that it's to easy for us to 'own' ai with click behind exploits to get a fix for that.

[Carl]

Perhaps in retrospect I was a Little harsh in my choice of language, my point was mearly that CA are in the business of making money. That means you have to expect them to do what makes them money.

You mentioned the drive to attract youngsters. Well of course they did and you where silly to expect anything else. By the time RTW came out the majority of potential new customers where also players of games like AoEII, AoM, RoN, C&C, Dune, and all the various sequels, expansions and clones their-of. Based on the descriptions I've got from people on how STW/M1TW played they had a far smaller unit selection and a very simplistic strategy map. To win customers over from those games they HAD to introduce a more complex system into both the strategy and tactical engines so as to create the necessary extra depth and variation through the game to allow them to compete. Expecting them to do any less is extremely silly, they are out to make money and the best way to make money is to capture customers from your opponent. You only try to hang onto existing customers when doing so will result in a bigger customer base than letting them go to accommodate new customers.

Clearly they felt that letting the people who liked STW/M1TW go was of lesser importance than grabbing new customers of the big names. They wouldn't admit you don't matter as that would discourage new customers, but the reality is you guys are expandable in CA's eye's because your not a big enough part of the customer base.

Much the same theory applies to how they handle MP importance. Since the number of people buying a TW game for MP AND SP is significantly less than those buying it just for the SP. Thus from a business perspective you aren't worth very much and thus won't be supported very well, thats just the way things are. The ONLY way you will change that is by encouraging people to play MP. Once a significant percentage of the player base starts playing MP it will be in CA's interests to actually support it since those who regularly play MP will represent a significant portion of their income all of a sudden. It then becomes very BAD practice to ignore you.

Thus my point was mearly that being negative all the time doesn't encourage new players to try MP, so your kinda shooting yourself in the foot doing it.

It's not the chicken-and-egg problem you make it sound. Not if you are innovative enough. But hey I'm an optimist, 'cause sooner or later someone will be, though it probably wont be CA.

I wasn't suggesting that, I was pointing out that so long as the community isn't being positive it isn't likely to get any bigger, and until it gets above a particular size they aren't going to try these innovative methods as they simply aren't a good idea from a business perspective.






Now don't get me wrong, I agree it's not nice, and morally it's wrong, I don't like it anymore than you guys do. I'm just explaining why they do something and why you shouldn't be surprised. I got over being surprised with companies business practices a long time ago thanks to GW . If you thought CA was bad...

[Carl]

As far as I'm concerned, the veil of secrecy that descended over the game starting with RTW was designed to conceal a degraded battle engine.

This is where you really fail to show any common sense Puzz, and it's why so many people tend to get wound up at you i think, (Stig for example), you've admitted yourself in your own posts that the new engine has far more variables than the old, and also has bigger variables where old variables remain, it's also better looking (never a bad thing business wise), overall a more complex set of battle mechanics is ALWAYS the definition of a BETTER engine. By admitting it's more complex than the STW/M1TW engine your refuting your own claim that it's a bad engine. If you could point out some factor that makes it literally impossibbile, (not mearly very difficult), to balance everything in the new engine then we might be inclined to agree with you.

If you said you don't believes CA ever will put the effort into balancing the game and that it requires a very large amount of effort, then I'd agree.

[Lavos]

Just one question, how can more new players start playing mp, when first game they try someone takes against them all cavalry and in seconds, wipes out all their units? Or even when they play by some max8 cav rules, and his opponent units seams to kill more, just becouse he exploits some bugs?

[Carl]

Just one question, how can more new players start playing mp, when first game they try someone takes against them all cavalry and in seconds, wipes out all their units? Or even when they play by some max8 cav rules, and his opponent units seams to kill more, just becouse he exploits some bugs?

That why if you where good people you wouldn't exploit them, besides, with all the bugs fixed the balance isn't as bad as you make out, so long as nobodies abusive outside tournaments you'll easilly avoid those kind of situations IMHO.

[Lavos]

That just dont happen, if some thing is not forbiden people will use it, every time every game, and I'm not talking only about total war.

[Carl]

I know that it's why i raerly play MP for any game TBH. I'm just not the sort of person that can make use of every littile exploit needed to win, and I get fed up of losing eventually.

[Nikodil]

Well stated Puzz and Blue.

Blue, you still play Combat Mission? Or am I thinking of someone else I used to play PBEM Combat Mission games with? You may know me as UglyElmo.

That's me alright. And you're the one trying the burn-the-crops-tactics to smoke me out up Cemetary Hill ;) I still play CM occasionally, but is really awaiting the new Combat Mission Shock Force. Or rather the WWII version that is supposed to come out after that (in year 2017 or so). It's supposed to have multiplayer (with several players) and from what I recon it looks like it's going to be everything that the Total War seriers should have been but isn't.

[Carl]

Anyway, can we get back to discussing the path guys, before I get into trouble for derailing things. I wasn't trying to be offensive, i just found it annoyying the way so many of the M2TW MP community expect CA to what they want when they give CA no good reason to do so, (economiclly that is).

[Lavos]

Hehe, I bought the game what else they want, me buying some of their stocks? :D
Anyway, I still haven't lost hope for this patch, will be among first to get it and try some pope heavy spears army in mp. ;)

[ElmarkOFear]

And as stated before we have given them many reasons, but unfortunately they chose not to take them under consideration. Many of these bugs not only affect the MP, but also SP. That right there should be reason enough for CA to look into making changes, but they are not only not focused on MP, they also apparently are not focused on improving the battle engine. Instead, I think they have been side-tracked by graphical issues, which now take precedence over game balance and play issues. They have created an engine that is tied to animations, which has made making a lot of changes (which were simple to make with the previous engine) extremely hard to implement. This is another reason I do not think the changes I mentioned will not be made. CA didn't make them when they were presented before (and when making them was a simple matter), so what is the likelihood they will make changes when they are even more difficult to make?

I am not as much negative as doubtful.

But back to the list . . . .

Since there isn't much stated that will change MP in this list, the discussion is pretty much limited to a limited number of subjects. Actually this discussion should probably be moved to a non-MP forum since there isn't much stated about MP issues.

[Carl]

If the sheild bug has been fixed then your going to really do a good number o any Cav spammers then LOL. Put em in Schiltrom with the units slightly overlapping in a curves with the back of the curve filled in to a depth of 2 units. Then get some missile and have fun.

[ElmarkOFear]

Yup. The shield bug fix would go a ways towards helping spear units take on cav.

However, I have seen players use the push-through to overcome the schiltrom, especially since they normally can disengage with little to no losses. Plus, cav still has the major advantage because if you are in schiltrom your unit cannot move (or moves very slowly). :) I would rather see elite spear units be able to move and intercept cav and stand a chance of winning. If they fix the shield bug and it allows for this, I will be satisfied with the patch.

[Lavos]

No no Elmark, we moust be more manly, if they made the best possible multiplayer experience without any possible bugs and exploits, with every faction ballanced to perfection and still with all the units different. We must not go chearing around, we can only get a small hint of smile on our face, and say: Meh, it ok but we still don't like the colour of newbian peasant cavalry archers.