Patch 3!

[Relic]

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/55220

Wooh! :2thumbsup:


Hi guys,

Update 3 for Empire: Total War will be available to download later tonight. In the mean time, below is a list of all the major fixes included with the release.

Many thanks,

Mark O'Connell
(aka SenseiTW)

CRASH FIXES
- Fixed crash when disbanding generals unit.
- Fix for crash on trying to merge ships from port into ships next to port.
- Fixed rare crash relating to boarding.
- Fixed crash to do with reinforcing armies.
- Fixed crash on revolution video attempting to play.
- Fixed crash for double clicking on sinking ship on campaign map.
- Fix for crash on merging units but moving into fort before army arrives.
- Fixed several crashes related to rakes.
- Fixed crashes relating to battles when running Czech or German versions of the game.
- Fixed crash on moving army into region of faction player has military access and then cancelling military access.
- Fixed crash on trying to exchange ships between 2 fleets.
- Fixed crash on spamming move orders to puckle guns locked in melee combat.
- Fixed hard lock on inviting host to their own MP game.
- Fix to prevent loading of mod causing crash post patch.
- Various end turn crash bugs fixed.
- Fixes to crash bugs relating to completion of revolutions.
- Some fixes relating to merging and disbanding.
- Fix for several crashes in land battles.
- Several crashes relating to attacking cities fixed.
- Several load save game crashes fixed.

CAMPAIGN
- Armies now placed correctly on battlefields in relation to campaign.
- Fix for nearby ships sometimes not being included as reinforcements for battles.
- Fix for incorrect numbers sometimes showing on trade routes.
- Units with limits on how many can be recruited now show how many are available.
- Various fixes relating to rakes and infiltrating.
- Fixes relating to problems moving armies/merging into army's right next to settlements.
- Various trade bug fixes.
- Fix for moving agent from settlement moving army instead of agent.
- Fix for several bugs relating to military access and armies being in regions.
- Fix for tattered flags appearing on fleet/armies even when at full strength/fully repaired.
- Fix for sallying out armies breaking siege at times even when losing the battle.
- Fix for bugs relating to capturing ships on returning to campaign map from naval battle.

LAND BATTLE
- Improvements to path finding have been made.
- Some fixes to units not garrisoning buildings.
- Fort gate ownership made clearer with faction flags appearing at the gatehouse.
- Fix for problem relating to artillery unlimbering after being ordered to limber.
- Fix for puckle guns moving on their own in some circumstances.
- Fix for big slowdown in unit movement on some battle maps in the Road to Independence episodes.
- Fix for missile cavalry not reloading when out of combat.
- Jaegers now have muskets instead of incorrect rifles, Prussian Jaegers keep rifles.
- Quebec episodic land battle fixed ground type in deployment area
- Fix for unrealistic numbers when ending a land battle by quitting on the battle results screen.

NAVAL BATTLE
- Several fixes for ships clipping into each other.
- Improvements to boarding have been made. Crew is more fluid in attack and more resolute in defence. Men survive long fall and officers join in the boarding attack.
- Crew uniforms improved to make identification of the crew type and faction easier.
- Defending ship is not allowed to fire cannons anymore during boarding procedure.
- Improved naval grouping UI and group movement made.
- Improvements made to ship collisions to reduce chance of ships getting stuck.
- Fix for sail damage not being shown when volumetric effects turned on.

MULTIPLAYER
- Various fixes for joining games/game lobby issues.
- Fixes for problems relating to spectators being kicked/locking up on other players joining games in certain instances.
- Long riflemen and winged hussars removed from early era battles.
- Fix for insufficient funds always showing on unit cards even when enough money is available.
- Player name is now displayed on unit tooltips.
- Team chat is now displayed in a different colour.

AI
- Basic fix for AI being unable to move army by fleet.
- Aggression of factions in campaign improved, as well as tweaks to diplomacy.
- Improvements to campaign AI relating to its waging of wars, recruitment and movement of armies.
- Improvements made to battle AI to make it more reactive, use buildings better as well as squares and rakes.
- Siege battle AI improvements made.
- Improvements to naval AI to make it bunch up less, its use of galleys and long range units such as bomb ketches.

MISCELLANEOUS
- Delete save game button added to save game list.
- View replays button added to single player Play Battle menu.
- Various sound fixes and improvements.
- Various incorrect text messages fixed.
- Fixes to various graphical glitches with display of walls.
- Fixes made for stuttering videos.
- Fix for several game option settings not being saved correctly, including settings such as floating flags.
- Fix for unit voices/attack confirmation being heard for all units in an alliance instead of just for the player's army.
- Armour and shield values are now added into melee defence value shown on unit cards.
- Lots of other small and minor bug fixes.

BALANCING
- Land unit recruitment cost in campaign has been increased, with higher cost on higher difficulty level.
- Ship recruitment and upkeep costs have been increased in campaign.
- Various balancing and cost adjustments to improve multiplayer land battle balance.
- Ship costing improvements made for both campaign and multiplayer.
- Economic tweaks have been made to campaign to reduce amount of money made in later part of campaign.

EXTRA NOTE:
- We are aware of an issue with community created maps that results in a crash when someone without the map tries to join the game. This crash will be fixed in the next patch.
- Further work is being done on improving AI Naval invasion behaviour and this will be included in the next upgrade patch.
- Please also note that this update is save game compatible but you should start a new game to see all of the benefits.

Edit: I see Lemur beat me to this by 8 minutes on the daily thread..

[ncbeach]

with austria not having a long range unit... i expect the mp scene to change quite a bit.. grenzers are good... but not good enough to make up for not having range and not having horse regiment..



i always wondered why usa was the only faction to get long range unit in early... but instead of taking it away perhaps it would be better off giving all factions range... early will be for cav spammers and campers... not a great decision imho...

[TinCow]

- Defending ship is not allowed to fire cannons anymore during boarding procedure.

This alone will cut my naval losses in half.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Woohoo!
Servers are too busy to handle my request.

Steam is awesome.

[Negative]

I wonder if they fixed the bug that causes artillery to keep firing when it's told to cease fire? (With fire-at-will turned off and often changing its aim to fire into your own troops.)

[Megas Methuselah]

Jaegers now have muskets instead of incorrect rifles

??????


Long riflemen and winged hussars removed from early era battles.

Oh nvm. I guess they wanted to get rid of ALL rifles in the early-era battles.

[Mailman653]

Awesome, naval invasions! That will deffintely make campaigns more interesting now.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Other changes:
All European line infantry have now +3 extra defense. For Marathans and Ottomans this is a little different.

[Zajuts149]

Wow! looking at that list, I see stuff that had to be patched in STW. Was nothing learnt on the way, or did Sega put a gun to their head? Damn I'm glad I didn't buy ETW.

[Megas Methuselah]

All European line infantry have now +3 extra defense.

They already had much too high a defence value as it was.

[Jack Lusted]

Be aware with melee defense shield and armour values are now also counted in the value shown on the unit card. The actual melee defense stat itself has not really changed for most units with this patch, though the values are being looked at for future balance patches.

[Slaists]

Be aware with melee defense shield and armour values are now also counted in the value shown on the unit card. The actual melee defense stat itself has not really changed for most units with this patch, though the values are being looked at for future balance patches.

hey, Jack, just wondering if inter-AI diplomacy will be looked at at some point? i did not see anything about it in the patch list. currently, the AI does not seem to be able to make peace with other AI factions. once two factions are at war, they're at war still 50 years later despite both factions not doing anything to each other.

[Jack Lusted]

There are going to be constant AI improvements and updates with every patch. We're well aware of the issues relating to the campaign AI and making peace and its being worked on.

[FactionHeir]

Something not mentioned in the patch notes among other things are naval click crash and defeat an army that was targeted by another army crash. Also things like grenadiers forced to reload after using grenades, light infantry needing to reload before planting stakes or AI actually going to make peace with each other.

Its slowly getting there though, which is good.

Btw, my own personal bug list:
http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/52462 (beware, its huge :wink:)

[JAG]

If the AI naval invasions are now working and are relatively OK, I will start playing the game again, haven't touched it for 3 weeks due to this. Been waiting for this patch, nice one.

[Slaists]

hmm. people who have the patch already are reporting 0% tax (regardless what rate they set the tax at). how could something like this have slipped by beta and in-house testers??

--

it seems, more and more people are reporting the same thing. darned... i forgot to put steam in offline mode this morning.

:wall:

[Beskar]

hmm. people who have the patch already are reporting 0% tax (regardless at what rate they set the tax). how could something like this have slipped by beta and in-house testers??
--
it seems, more and more people are reporting the same thing. darned... i forgot to put steam in offline mode this morning.

:wall:

Yes, I got that bug, I was about to report it now. I thought "I know, I will start a new game! I will play as Russia, so I can observe the Naval units in action".

So I put it as VH/VH like I do, then I noticed that I was basically bankrupt, so I thought "oh, must be more expensive, I will go Easy/Easy to cancel out the costs" and still no money.
https://img520.imageshack.us/img520/3928/givememoney.jpg

Way to go, my game is actually now broken when it worked reasonably well before. :no:

[Hooahguy]

downloading the patch now....

[Slaists]

Yes, I got that bug, I was about to report it now. I thought "I know, I will start a new game! I will play as Russia, so I can observe the Naval units in action".

So I put it as VH/VH like I do, then I noticed that I was basically bankrupt, so I thought "oh, must be more expensive, I will go Easy/Easy to cancel out the costs" and still no money.
https://img2.imageshack.us/img2/3928/givememoney.jpg

Way to go, my game is actually now broken when it worked reasonably well before. :no:

hey, since you have the patch already, would you mind starting up a small faction (prussia) game? lusted mentioned in another thread that owning many provinces in a single theater would set the tax income very low... going by that logic, prussia should be alright at the start.

anyway, having zero income just because a faction has many starting provinces (like russia) is plain stupid imho...

[Jack Lusted]

Yes, I got that bug, I was about to report it now. I thought "I know, I will start a new game! I will play as Russia, so I can observe the Naval units in action".

So I put it as VH/VH like I do, then I noticed that I was basically bankrupt, so I thought "oh, must be more expensive, I will go Easy/Easy to cancel out the costs" and still no money.
https://img2.imageshack.us/img2/3928/givememoney.jpg

Way to go, my game is actually now broken when it worked reasonably well before. :no:

Quick question, have you modded your startpost.esf at all or installed any mods that might change it.

[Beskar]

hey, since you have the patch already, would you mind starting up a small faction (prussia) game? lusted mentioned in another thread that owning many provinces in a single theater would set the tax income very low... going by that logic, prussia should be alright at the start.

anyway, having zero income just because a faction has many starting provinces (like russia) is plain stupid imho...

No, it is the same. No tax income for Prussia either.

[Slaists]

Quick question, have you modded your startpost.esf at all or installed any mods that might change it.

Imperial Splendor does change startpost.est. Judging by download statistics, a boat-load of people have that mod installed.

[Beskar]

Quick question, have you modded your startpost.esf at all or installed any mods that might change it.

No, only mods I did have was unlocking the minor factions (it is pevergreen's mod on this site) but I restored it to the unmodded files before this patch was applied on sunday.

[mmk]

No, it is the same. No tax income for Prussia either.

Strange. I have the new patch installed (and the 4 turns per year mod).
Initial tax income for Prussia on M/M = 3814
Second turn (without building anything or adjusting anything) = 3842

[Jack Lusted]

No, only mods I did have was unlocking the minor factions (it is pevergreen's mod on this site) but I restored it to the unmodded files before this patch was applied on sunday.

Interesting, it looked like it was mods that was causing this problem. Are you sure you went back to the normal file. Can you check to see if your startpos.esf has todays date on it to see if it was updated by the patch.

[Beskar]

29/04/2009 18:86 (it is 20:29 at the moment)

Well, all I can say is that I was sure. Is it possible to download the working startpos.esf alone some where then?

[Jack Lusted]

Best way to be sure is to delete the patch.pack and startpos.esf in your Empire folder, then go to Empire in steam right click then properties > local files > verify integrity of game cache.

[Vlad Tzepes]

Hey Jack, I'll briefly go off topic to say it was nice meeting you as a GB captain in my US campaign, though I would have expected the in-game Jack Lusted to be a six-star general. ~:wave: (and if it's you the one Jack Lusted on Flickr, I love your work).

Now that my game is patched, I go try the new version. Thanks for all your hard work there at CA.

[Beskar]

Best way to be sure is to delete the patch.pack and startpos.esf in your Empire folder, then go to Empire in steam right click then properties > local files > verify integrity of game cache.

Sorry Jack, I was hoping for the best, but it is still actually not working. Deleted both those files then did that verify integrity of game cache.

[Jack Lusted]

(and if it's you the one Jack Lusted on Flickr, I love your work).

It is not, and I did not know there was someone with my name on flickr either.


Sorry Jack, I was hoping for the best, but it is still actually not working. Deleted both those files then do that verify integrity of game cache.

This is on loading a new campaign right? you sure you don't have any mod packs installed and being run when you load the game?

[Beskar]

This is on loading a new campaign right? you sure you don't have any mod packs installed and being run when you load the game?

Only uncertainty was the startpos.esf but since that's now been deleted and replaced by steam through that method you said. I am certain.

[Jack Lusted]

Only uncertainty was the startpos.esf but since that's now been deleted and replaced by steam through that method you said. I am certain.

Do you have any files unpacked?

[seireikhaan]

Jack- My empire game is no longer registered on Steam after the patch. The game is utterly and literally unplayable. I would very much like a reason as to why this would happen.

[Beskar]

Do you have any files unpacked?

I don't. Only modifications I had were to the startpos.esf file from the vanilla extended mod. The second part of that mod was done through that .pack mod launcher, but I am only booting up the game through Stream icon.

[Jack Lusted]

Jack- My empire game is no longer registered on Steam after the patch. The game is utterly and literally unplayable. I would very much like a reason as to why this would happen.

I would suggest reporting that problem to Steam.


I don't. Only modifications I had were to the startpos.esf file from the vanilla extended mod. The second part of that mod was done through that .pack mod launcher, but I am only booting up the game through Stream icon.

Could you try deleting the .pack files that came with the mod just to be sure.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

I loaded an old save game that had a naval stack I couldn't interact with. Still couldn't. The changelog didn't specifically mention it being fixed, but I hoped it was perhaps part of some other fix.

So, this one not fixed or does it work normally in newly started games? At this point, I really don't want to start another campaign only for it to be ruined yet again X turns in.

[Beskar]

I would suggest reporting that problem to Steam.

Could you try deleting the .pack files that came with the mod just to be sure.

I done that, and am I re-doing stratpos.esf and patch again at this moment. Will edit this message when that is completed with the results that the game is working right, which I hope it does.

Edit: LOL.. the game is just crashing the desktop now, just before the Sega intro. Deleting and re-verifying to get files....

[AggonyDuck]

Jack- My empire game is no longer registered on Steam after the patch. The game is utterly and literally unplayable. I would very much like a reason as to why this would happen.

Try to launch the game through other means. Try right clicking on a friend of yours that's playing ETW and choose 'Launch game'. That should start it. Once you've managed to get it run once it will appear again. (atleast that was the case for me)

[t1master]

did the patch address the ability to play with modded stats online, and give us some more maps to play, or an editor?

[joe4iz]

Moving one ship off of a trade node stack then nerfs the remaining trade ships and renders the entire stack unmovable...still. I just did it by accident again.:embarassed:

[Ritterkreuz]

Well I am an extremely happy camper! :beam: The end of turn bug I was experiencing (CTD when the AI was thinking at the end of turn) which had ruined my two campaigns is now fixed, meaning that I can now continue on (I've only tried one of them so far).

I am now bankrupt, however, as the increased unit costs appears to be ruining me, but that can easily be addressed and is of course the price to pay for save game compatibility. I am simply blown away that the improvements are save game compatible - many thanks!

Very early feedback as I haven't had a chance to get back into the game yet, but very positive signs so far.

[Beskar]

Now my game has stopped working all together. Awesome.

[Tillan]

Moving one ship off of a trade node stack then nerfs the remaining trade ships and renders the entire stack unmovable...still. I just did it by accident again.:embarassed:

Duely noted - Is that in a saved game, or a fresh campaign?

[Vlad Tzepes]

Early feedback from me as well:

Visual - noticed new path lines (?) in naval battles, not sure about what extra meaning they have, if any.
Audio - I like the new cannon/mortar sound effects in battle. Minefields give a bigger bang when exploding. Musketfire seems to be now synchronized.
Gameplay - shorter lag when clicking/selecting fleets, no CTD yet (was my major CTD reason until now).
Structures now more expensive to build/upgrade (I hate inflation :clown: )

This was on an old GC as France.

Looking good for now, back to game :2thumbsup:

[Monsieur Alphonse]

First impressions after the patch

Playing the Brits:
The AI is now way more aggressive. Central Europe is one huge battlefield. The Prussians seemed to be destroyed having only Brandenburg left but have now destroyed Saxony and have four regions. The Native Americans are now very aggressive, maybe even to aggressive because they almost destroyed the Thirteen Colonies. Both the Iroquois and the Cherokee attacked in the same turn the Thirteen Colonies. Because they were unable to keep what they captured the USA have just appeared and have three regions. The Hurons attacked me as usual but can no longer deploy lots of stacks. It seems that recruiting lots of stacks and going on a rampage is no longer possible.

The games feels a lot smoother now, although there is still some stuttering on the campaign map. I have almost 1.5 times more FPS now.

One negative thing. the Hurons wouldn't accept peace when almost defeated and are now history.

[Mailman653]

I had the no tax problem, followed Jacks advice and deleted my startpos, verfiy game integrity, loaded up saved campaign and no tax problem solved! Awesome! In my next campaign instead of editing the starpos to enable four turns per year I'm just gonna mod the save file using the ETW Turns editor.

BTW, I do have several texture and sound mods runing plus the BSM light mod. I also had the Darthmod but I disabled it pending the new post patch version.

[Dayve]

Check out naval battles. Ships firing in the background sound like thunder, it sounds absolutely amazing. I can't get enough of naval battles with those new sounds.

[Beskar]

Deleted and re-downloaded patch and stratpos.esf file 2 more times, it just ctd's on start-up. It seems like this patch ruined the game for me.

[AussieGiant]

Played for 3 hours as Prussia on h/m vanilla game.

Much, much, much better.

[Grumfoss]

Really pleased with my game so far, everything seems to be playing well. I had a bit of a shock when I saw my estimated income.. I was nearly bankrupt. Ho hum i'll have to use some of those expensive units to take some regions.

I have also noticed that all my player stats are reset is this correct (please forgive me if this has already been covered)

[Dogfish]

So far I am enjoying the changes. The AI is much more aggressive, and there seem to be more small scale battles instead of fewer full stack battles, which is good. I'm noticing that it is going to be much more difficult to win the game now... :beam:

Back to game...

(20 turns in, GB H/H)

[seireikhaan]

Weird... the game is back, all of a sudden. :inquisitive: Steam likes to tease me, I guess.

[FactionHeir]

Deleted and re-downloaded patch and stratpos.esf file 2 more times, it just ctd's on start-up. It seems like this patch ruined the game for me.

Delete the contents of your The Creative Assembly folder in your User Data directory. Except save game folder that is. That fixed a few of my problems a few patches back.

Not getting the newest one yet until there's confirmation everything works.

[joe4iz]

Duely noted - Is that in a saved game, or a fresh campaign?

saved game.

Also any income is pretty much gone, but in reading the notes, I guess that is to be expected. I had to get rid of all of my garrison units (I only put two units in any one capitol anyway), so that was annoying to say the least. I am only operating 3 combat stacks of any degree size anyway (only one is a full stack). Went from making 30k per turn to making 500. Even with me controling most of the trade nodes and having trade agreements with every major power and most of the minor powers.
Somewhat annoying....


Annoyed by the overly aggressive AI now also. The 'AI' was unreasonable before and has gotten even worse now.


But hey, at least it did not crash to desktop!:inquisitive:

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Well, it ran once, CTD-ed and now it won't start up. Deleted the game, manually removed any remnants, and still CTDs on start up. Seriously PO-ed now. :help:

[A Very Super Market]

I don't think you should play a saved game with the new patch. Lots of gameplay stuff has been changed around.

[Slaists]

I would suggest reporting that problem to Steam.

Could you try deleting the .pack files that came with the mod just to be sure.


Well, on my part: the game post-patch runs fine (no zero tax issue). On the same note I wanted to state the following before my mind gets clouded by any negative stuff.

So far, played a few turns as France (on H, just to test what's going on). It's WONDERFUL! The campaign AI does all kinds of "stuff" now... Wars are happening left and right and even the barbary pirates have started to raid my trade ports in earnest...

As a highlight of the day: the pesky Dutch declared war on Spain (hoping to take Belgium). I guess, they did not expect France to join. Anyway, France (me) is besieging the capital in Holland. The Dutch sally. There is a small Spanish outfit in the nearby town, but the do not join the fight. "Cowards!" I think to myself...

I soundly defeat the Dutch, but... alas, a few battered militia units escape. Siege continues. What do you think, happens on the Spanish turn? They attack the town with their small outfit that refused to fight the big battle. Even with me backing out of the battle they take the city!

Sneaky Spaniards! ...

I say: it's a wonderful patch! Great work CA! Great work, Lusted!

[Beskar]

Delete the contents of your The Creative Assembly folder in your User Data directory. Except save game folder that is. That fixed a few of my problems a few patches back.

Not getting the newest one yet until there's confirmation everything works.

Haha! That actually has seemed to have worked. Big big thanks FactionHeir.

Edit: No tax problem either, everything working perfect. If you two weren't guys, I would kiss you.

[Skott]

I cant wait to get home and try things out. I hope the CTD issues are gone for good! :smash:

[seskins]

Geez, I went to continue my campaign from yesterday and went from +40,000 louis or whatever to -35,000. Had no idea I had downloaded and installed update. Not sure I like STeam downloading auto like that. Love the game though.

[nafod]

Well, on my part: the game post-patch runs fine (no zero tax issue). On the same note I wanted to state the following before my mind gets clouded by any negative stuff.

So far, played a few turns as France (on H, just to test what's going on). It's WONDERFUL! The campaign AI does all kinds of "stuff" now... Wars are happening left and right and even the barbary pirates have started to raid my trade ports in earnest...

As a highlight of the day: the pesky Dutch declared war on Spain (hoping to take Belgium). I guess, they did not expect France to join. Anyway, France (me) is besieging the capital in Holland. The Dutch sally. There is a small Spanish outfit in the nearby town, but the do not join the fight. "Cowards!" I think to myself...

I soundly defeat the Dutch, but... alas, a few battered militia units escape. Siege continues. What do you think, happens on the Spanish turn? They attack the town with their small outfit that refused to fight the big battle. Even with me backing out of the battle they take the city!

Sneaky Spaniards! ...

I say: it's a wonderful patch! Great work CA! Great work, Lusted!

Just so you know, the event you just described occurred often prior to the patch. In fact there are a few threads complaining about this behaviour....

[Ethelred Unread]

People will complain about anything it would appear. Seems perfectly reasonable behaviour to me.

The next thing will be a load of posts complaining that the AI is too aggressive on VH/VH.

[anweRU]

The next thing will be a load of posts complaining that the AI is too aggressive on VH/VH.

Judging from other posts, the AI is far too aggressive on any setting now. I was hoping for a more intelligent AI, not a more suicidal one. Based on my hour or so of playing a VH French campaign I had in progress, the AI is simply now even more suicidal. And the NA factions are going on a rampage. They were bad before, now they are ridiculous. There is a NA DoW on me and at least one other colonial power every turn.

On a positive side, at least the Barbary pirates have come back to life in the Med. They used to get blasted out of the sea in the first couple of turns, then remain stagnant for the rest of the campaign.

I'll have to start a fresh campaign to see if the NA factions will be affected by the changes in recruitment costs. The fact that even the Pueblos had three full stacks already before the patch hit might have something to do with their current rampage.

[Beskar]

Geez, I went to continue my campaign from yesterday and went from +40,000 louis or whatever to -35,000. Had no idea I had downloaded and installed update. Not sure I like STeam downloading auto like that. Love the game though.

That doesn't seem like too much fun to me.

[Graphic]

i always wondered why usa was the only faction to get long range unit in early... but instead of taking it away perhaps it would be better off giving all factions range... early will be for cav spammers and campers... not a great decision imho...

It's because the US campaign starts in 1783. Early US campgin = late GC.

[Prodigal]

Someone else, in this or another thread, has pointed out a very important point.

The game's not called Happy Fatty Trader, its called total war, the AI in any setting should be going at it hammer & tongs.

That aside, very, very happy with the fixes my two bug bears have/are being tackled.

[Graphic]

The games feels a lot smoother now, although there is still some stuttering on the campaign map. I have almost 1.5 times more FPS now.

What driver version are you running?

[Beskar]

LOL, this is amazing in a way.

Foreign policy = Far Easier
Home Management = Harder

I am playing on a Russia game and everyone is Friendly with me or above, apart from Barbary States. Everyone is at war at each other and killing each other, so when I have to fight, I can easily defeat them. Because of this, I am not getting massive territorial expansion penalties like I used to get which used to be a massive thorn in the side.

Problem is, all my home regions seem far more prone to revolt, which I can handle and I used to handle things like this easy by just lowing the tax slider however, with the changes in tax, I am also getting far less money per province than I used to anyway.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

What driver version are you running?

Nvidia 182.06. I have been running this one from the start although CA stated that this one was not tested. Since my performance was OK and I didn't have a lot of CTD's, I never installed a previous driver version. On campaign map I have an average of 60 FPS with a lot of options on ultra etc. My battles seem to look better and run smoother.

My specs:
Intel E 6600
Nvidia 9800GTX
Windows XP
2 GB Ram


@Beskar

I haven't seen the easier foreign policy. Where I usually started a GB campaign with buying Ceylon from the UP in exchange for Rupert's land, today that didn't work. My long lasting trade with Maratha was stopped by them. I don't know why. My be they didn't like it that I wanted to trade with the Mughals as well. Now I am not trading with any one in India :no:.

Questions
1. Has anyone had a small faction willing to accept a peace deal? I usually had to destroy them to get rid of them. At the moment I can't even make peace with Prussia (a major faction), although we are hardly fighting.
2. Has anyone seen that peace was restored after years of fighting between two AI factions?

[Graphic]

Nvidia 182.06. I have been running this one from the start although CA stated that this one was not tested. Since my performance was OK and I didn't have a lot of CTD's, I never installed a previous driver version. On campaign map I have an average of 60 FPS with a lot of options on ultra etc. My battles seem to look better and run smoother.

My specs:
Intel E 6600
Nvidia 9800GTX
Windows XP
2 GB Ram

Before you replied I got excited and went to see what it's like on the latest official drivers. It does seem a fair bit bet better. I clicked the shiny ULTRA button, then went and made a custom battle with 2 full armies. It was playable, if choppy. Before that would have been a total mess I think. I'll go back to custom settings though...HDR in ETW is actually pretty annoying and distracting.

[crpcarrot]

Deleted and re-downloaded patch and stratpos.esf file 2 more times, it just ctd's on start-up. It seems like this patch ruined the game for me.

i'm sorry but you mods reuined the game for you CA is not resposible for how you mod your game

its a wonder that Luted was was helpig you saolve the problem if it was any other developer they would have jsut told u to reinstall from scratch.

[anweRU]

The game's not called Happy Fatty Trader, its called total war, the AI in any setting should be going at it hammer & tongs.

Yeah, and CA is doing the exact same thing it did with METW2. Force the player to become a blitzer. My METW2 games used to last into the 150 turns or so, but because I wanted to build up my regions. I would get the requisite 45 victory regions before the Mongols came. Entirely because of AI DoWs on me.

As for the current patch: My income in my current VH French campaign went down from 16K / turn to 7K / turn due to increased upkeep and reduced tax income, something I can live with. The techs have been rebalanced, which is fine.

The AI is more aggressive - to its own peril. The Iriquois are no more. The Cherokee will provide a challenge - having taken Florida and Upper Louisiana. Will it make the game more enjoyable? Nah, just another dozen or so repetitive battles.

The Barbary states are more active as I mentioned in my prior post, again stupidly suicidal. A two-ship stack raided my trade lanes. I forgot about it, being preoccupied with the Iriquois - and it was destroyed by a full-stack Papal fleet.

A pirate fleet from Windward isles blockaded Martinique's port - I destroyed it with one of my two naval stacks in the Carib, then blockaded T&T with the other one. Two turns later a single pirate fluyt blockades Martinique. :wall: I quickly captured it with my fleet @ T&T (1 5th, 3 6th, 1 xebec, 1 sloop), and sent it to a trade theater. Thank you CA for a never ending supply of free fluyts! :thumbsdown:

So, to recap: More aggressive doesn't mean more intelligent. I have hopes for the promised re-balancing with the next patch, but they are not very high.

[Darth Venom]

Two things I like to add to the already mentioned things:

- The nerfed economy came as quite a nasty surprise. I loadad up my very late game (~1830) Prussian campaign and my income went from +300.000/turn to -50.000/turn with taxes on minimum everywhere. I assume that new campaigns will be much more difficult economy-wise on vh.

- In the same campaing the Marathas had been offering me trade rights + 30.000 payed by me every turn for 30 years or so. Now they keep pestering me but their money demand has gone down to 1.000! Which seems more reasonable.

[crpcarrot]

maybe you should try aplying at a different setting before generalising which everyone a lot of the complainers seem to be doing.

[Darth Venom]

The Barbary states are more active as I mentioned in my prior post, again stupidly suicidal. A two-ship stack raided my trade lanes. I forgot about it, being preoccupied with the Iriquois - and it was destroyed by a full-stack Papal fleet.

A pirate fleet from Windward isles blockaded Martinique's port - I destroyed it with one of my two naval stacks in the Carib, then blockaded T&T with the other one. Two turns later a single pirate fluyt blockades Martinique. :wall: I quickly captured it with my fleet @ T&T (1 5th, 3 6th, 1 xebec, 1 sloop), and sent it to a trade theater. Thank you CA for a never ending supply of free fluyts! :thumbsdown:

So, to recap: More aggressive doesn't mean more intelligent. I have hopes for the promised re-balancing with the next patch, but they are not very high.

In regards to the Barbary States and the Pirates this behaviour seems pretty much correct to me. They are there to pester and annoy you! Would you rather have them leave them a 4 brig fleet in port or go out and raid trade routes / attack ports ?

[anweRU]

They are acting no differently than land-based AI attacks of 1-2 units raiding farms, etc. It is annoying, but doesn't make the game challenging. In the case of the pirates, the AI knew I had a much more powerful force within half a move distance, blockading its port.

It would have been more challenging if: (i) the pirates recruited more ships and tried to lift my blockade on T&T, or (ii) sent that lone fluyt up north, and blockade my trade ports up there, which are currently defenseless.

Lets face it: we all know the AI blatantly cheats, and is not affected by fog-of-war. It uses its knowledge to a limited extent - e.g. when pirate fleets appear from nowhere to attack a weak stack of ships in the middle of the ocean, far from any trade lane, at the start of the game. If it is going to cheat anyway, why can't it use its knowledge to plan a more effective strategy?

[Beskar]

*the message with more spelling errors than correct*

What are you even talking about? It was because the new patch damaged the userdata folder in my case which was fixed when I deleted it and the game made a new one.

[Prodigal]

So, to recap: More aggressive doesn't mean more intelligent. I have hopes for the promised re-balancing with the next patch, but they are not very high.

True, the AI's never been very intelligent, but pre patch the game became tedious alot faster than I'd expected based on all the previous games.

The massive mood swing is a good early move, we've only had two months of patches, & this is the first with serious tweaks in, admittedly too much aggression has the potential to become boring too but at least something will always be happening.

The whole AI is tricky, so far the AI has appeared to generally build balanced armies, some cav, heavy on the troops with supportin arty, rather than simply churing out stacks of cannon or militia. I'd be happy if they finessed the diplomacy and put in some randomly generated intelligent objectives for each faction, & they worked toward those goals allying with factions that could best help achieve them.

[Lemur]

Well, I've noticed that the AI is no longer hell-bent on raiding your territory, which is a welcome change. I remember having a full stack army outside of Norway, and Denmark made a runner with its four-troop stack, abandoning the city so that it could raid Sweden. The imperative to raid, raid, raid was paramount! No more. Now the AI seems to make sure that it can actually defend itself before launching suicide raid parties. I call that an improvement.

[nafod]

It also seems trade functions more on a supply vs demand then previous, where it seemed to focus more on your proportion of available resources.

I control all but one of the Ivory trade nodes, and Ivory is trading at 15. I never saw it this low pre-patch. Spice and Sugar are also around 13. Highest are Tobacco and Cotton at 19 and 20 respectively.

[anweRU]

@ what difficulty level? I'll need to load some of my old GB & UP campaigns to see how they changed.

[FactionHeir]

Two things I like to add to the already mentioned things:

- The nerfed economy came as quite a nasty surprise. I loadad up my very late game (~1830) Prussian campaign and my income went from +300.000/turn to -50.000/turn with taxes on minimum everywhere. I assume that new campaigns will be much more difficult economy-wise on vh.

- In the same campaing the Marathas had been offering me trade rights + 30.000 payed by me every turn for 30 years or so. Now they keep pestering me but their money demand has gone down to 1.000! Which seems more reasonable.

That's a pet peeve of mine with ETW:
The AI bases its demands on your total treasury and income. So the richer you are, the more they want from you. And if you are too rich, then the demands get to a certain level where they want say 200k, but at the same time are programmed to reject all your offers above 200k with "Your money smells".

Things should have a set value, not be based on how much money you have really. I can't see why when I have 24000 the AI will sell me the breeding tech for 23500 but when I have 50k, they will demand 48k for the same tech.

[Babblearossa]

That's a pet peeve of mine with ETW:
The AI bases its demands on your total treasury and income. So the richer you are, the more they want from you. And if you are too rich, then the demands get to a certain level where they want say 200k, but at the same time are programmed to reject all your offers above 200k with "Your money smells".

Things should have a set value, not be based on how much money you have really. I can't see why when I have 24000 the AI will sell me the breeding tech for 23500 but when I have 50k, they will demand 48k for the same tech.

That's called charging what the market will bear, try pricing the same meal in aspen co. and cleveland oh. Or san francisco vs. detroit, in my not-so-nice SF neighborhood that has gang shootings 2 bedroom house is 800k - 1.5 mill, in detroit it's 30k - 130k. Or the special cut rate price of windows for china, 66 vs. 200. It's not fair but it's realistic.

[FactionHeir]

Sure, but you can't do the same thing to a rich AI. Only they can do it to you.

For instance try selling it trade rights, a region or techs. You won't get more than 10k at most, while you'll be charged at between 10-100x the rate if you try to buy the exact same thing regardless of relations.

[Veresov]

The new patch seems to have fixed the game enough for me to get past the first turn. Empire did shunt to desktop but a reinstall seems to have fixed it. I am up to turn 25 without an ctd, a record.

I have seen some bizarre behavior with the battle AI. It seems to like shuffling units back and forth. Is that new behavior or old? I am also seeming the AI doing a lot more melee than I would expect for the period. I have no idea whether this is new with the patch or not.

[FactionHeir]

Anyone got news on navy crashes yet? (The click to crash one)
Does it still occur if you get any of the movement increasing techs? (Basically almost any fleet would insta crash if it had top gallants and was in north america, especially if it also had an army loaded in it - regardless of turn number)

[Graphic]

http://screenshot.xfire.com/screenshot/natural/e74793e073b5e522b26b13f2581fa25dd96b9b3a.png

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Well, I've noticed that the AI is no longer hell-bent on raiding your territory, which is a welcome change. I remember having a full stack army outside of Norway, and Denmark made a runner with its four-troop stack, abandoning the city so that it could raid Sweden. The imperative to raid, raid, raid was paramount! No more. Now the AI seems to make sure that it can actually defend itself before launching suicide raid parties. I call that an improvement.

I have seen quite the opposite. Denmark kept raiding Norway instead of capturing it. It was totally undefended!. Since Sweden declared war on me (GB) I captured Norway while a Danish stack stood nearby. I think that the AI still is yo keen on raiding. When I captured Sweden, they send kept raiding their own towns instead of preparing to recapturing it. This was the same during the Indian wars in North America. Raiding and leaving your cities undefended. I finally saw a naval invasion. Sweden landed an army in a fishery and marched up to Stockholm. Very good AI you are learning the trade. To sad for them my army was already in Finland which was undefended :oops: and Sweden was no more.

I think that the AI is lacking a purpose as to why it is declaring war. It should have a goal: "lets start a war and capture region X. If this succeeds we will call it a day and if it fails will ask (or beg) for peace." At the moment the AI is declaring war without a plan. France attacked me in North America and kept sending raiding parties. Only after a some turns they send an small invasion force. By then it was too late and although they had some initial success they lost all their Colonies because I was able to reinforce my army there.

I am now in the year 1750 and my income isn't near as high as it used to be. The AI is also struggling for money because it isn't sending stack after stack against me. Sweden had two stacks and some minor ones when I invaded. When I destroyed the Cherokee they had only minor stacks and France had mainly Natives defending New France. It seems that the AI has problems upgrading its armies because Sweden still had demi-cannons while it could field twelve pounders.

And to quote Cato: "And the Crimean Khanate is still alive"

Edit: @Faction Heir. I had never CTD's while clicking on a fleet. The game would freeze for a while. It is still doing that but it isn't as bad as it used to be. Clicking on a fleet in heavily contested waters like the Channel is no longer causing a coffee break. So may be it is fixed for you.

[FactionHeir]

Thanks, can you try at some point to put a fleet near the carib or a bit east and/or north of that? Small army, 3-6 ships, all 3rd or higher rate. Best to have several of this same set up in the area and then click on them, and then (if you survive that) select a single ship in the fleet.

Make sure you got top gallants and all the other movement enhancers for ships ~:)

[Grumfoss]

I have found a small problem with naval battles I think.
I have been putting my fleet into a double line and then grouping them. this works fine until one ship was pretty damaged so I tried to take it out of the group and get it out of harms way. However once I clicked to remove it from the group the whole group disbanded and when I tried to reform the group it ended up with all of the ships taking off in random directions no matter where I clicked them to move. The only way I could get them to go in the right direction was to click on each ship in turn and give it directions.
I have also noticed that AI ships fire so much faster and seem to be much more accurate. Has anyone else seen this since the patch?

[Fisherking]

Look all the economic changes have gone too far!

And it is not only at the higher difficulty setting!

Last night I loaded up a game set on E.

I had just sent about 6 stacks and strong fleet into India in 1775. I had been making 105000 per turn for about 4 turns.

What do you think I was making after the patch?

-56000! And of course with the AI aggressiveness upped the next turn Russia, a long time trading partner declared war. After destroying the fleets which interdicted my trade and needing troops in the new area, but not daring to build them… I was now netting -66798 and that was after taking two regions in India.

Started two new campaigns as GB. One Easy and one VH. The AI was a bit more aggressive in the VH but otherwise all was the same!

[FactionHeir]

Glad I didn't patch then :grin:

IMO the only thing that would have been needed was cut the income bonuses from the enlightenment techs by half across the board. Reducing tax the more regions you have is downright silly, since you should get more taxes if you have more regions, not less. There's already resistance to foreign occupation to slow people down.

[Belgolas]

Just want to say the this latest patch fixed a lot of problems and I am pleased!

[Belgolas]

Thanks, can you try at some point to put a fleet near the carib or a bit east and/or north of that? Small army, 3-6 ships, all 3rd or higher rate. Best to have several of this same set up in the area and then click on them, and then (if you survive that) select a single ship in the fleet.

Make sure you got top gallants and all the other movement enhancers for ships ~:)

I have never ever had problems like that and I have had ships all over the ETW world with armies on board. I have had barely any crashes except going into a battle from the campaign map.

[Miracle]

I must say I am pleased with this patch; the inclusion of armour and shield bonuses is most welcome.

Of course there are still some issues left but it's fairly safe to say the storm has passed.

[Babblearossa]

Look all the economic changes have gone too far!

And it is not only at the higher difficulty setting!

Last night I loaded up a game set on E.

I had just sent about 6 stacks and strong fleet into India in 1775. I had been making 105000 per turn for about 4 turns.

What do you think I was making after the patch?

-56000! And of course with the AI aggressiveness upped the next turn Russia, a long time trading partner declared war. After destroying the fleets which interdicted my trade and needing troops in the new area, but not daring to build them… I was now netting -66798 and that was after taking two regions in India.


I think the patch is bugged on loading saved games and sets them all to VH for the troop costs.
right clicking on a line infantry of a late frenchy H/H game lists 'im as costing 1150, first turn recruit cost on a VH/VH game is only 1100

Haven't started a real new game post-patch but I agree they seem too extreme, how can upgrading a textile mill for 8000 ever pay off if I'm only making the same as I was before?

to rescue my game I ditched all unessential fleets, and cut the ones I have in 1/2, that balanced 30,000 worth of debt fwiw/ymmv

[Darth Venom]

About the click-on-fleet CTD:

Is still exactly the same as it was before. Same lag, same crashes in the Channel, Newfoundland or the Carribean.

Looks to me like this issue wasn't addressed. Although I have only tried old saves so far, no new campaigns.

[Graphic]

That's probably why that problem is still there. The save data still contains old code. Seriously guys, START A NEW GAME before mentioning bugs you think still aren't fixed! :)

[anweRU]

Recruitment and upkeep costs are the same in Hard and Very Hard, in new games, as mentioned by Fisherking in the thread he started.

Up until now, I had suffered onto 2 CTDs, in my advanced UP campaign, in the 6 or 7 weeks that I had been playing the game. Post-patch, I got my first CTD on turn 1, just disembarking a single unit out of three on a naval stack. Repeatable too.

And CA's fix list is incorrect. Boarded enemy ships still fire broadsides into my boarding ships.

PS: Said battle was a turn 1 naval battle of GB vs Pirates. I combined the two naval stacks near the Bahamas, and attacked the pirate fleet with fluyt-brig-sloop. Not only did the boarded ships (sloop and brig) fire into the boarding ships, they also fired into ships passing by.

[al Roumi]

Post-patch, I got my first CTD on turn 1, just disembarking a single unit out of three on a naval stack. Repeatable too.


I had that too on a new game -it white screened before windows told me it had stopped responding.

[Maleficus]

So the stuttering videos have been fixed? That's funny, I've not had this problem at all since the previous patch so I'd assumed they'd been fixed then.


Of course, they're stuttering again now......


Why on earth do CA bother to make these patches when for evrything they fix, they break something else?

I would expect people who make games for a living to know what they're doing.

[joe4iz]

New game.
Fleet invasions of the port no longer show the army after you unload them. You have to back the fleet out for the army to appear.

[maestro]

I have also noticed that AI ships fire so much faster and seem to be much more accurate. Has anyone else seen this since the patch?
Yeah. DOn't know if it's just perception, but the AI seemsd to get off a lot more volleys for each of mine now :inquisitive:

[Discoman]

I brought it up in another thread and I think the economy system is bugged.

When playing as Sweden in a campaign I noticed that the revenue of my cities (https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b322/Discoman44/emptw-20090501-093025.png) wasn't showing up in my economy tab. (https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b322/Discoman44/emptw-20090501-093029.png)
If you look at the cities' income you'll notice the amount of money greatly exceeds the upkeep costs of both the Navy and Military. Also it should be noted that those are only some of my cities, not all of them. Shouldn't I economically making coffers of money per turn?

It's like the game is back to MTW2 or RTW times where there is only taxes and trade, the entire region wealth system isn't being included, rather its being shunned and its discouraged in investing in region wealth. Is this a bug with patch installation or with the patch itself? Although some of you seem to be enjoying this level of difficulty, I'm pretty sure CA never intended for this to happen.

Edit- Math Time!
If you add income for the regions (is it including tax?) listed we get a wopping 116,186 per turn!

Now added to the already listed income of 60,025, you get 176,221.

Then minus the expenditure of 55,200 and I should be making a profit of 121,011 per turn.

[Marquis of Roland]

More sound problems here. I am playing a battle where I have a full stack and the AI has 2 line infantry only. Everything going well while shooting explosive shot, but switch to carcass shot, right after the sound effect, fps dropped to below 10 and game CTD 20 sec. later. Fought a full stack on full stack battle on the turn before with no lag and no CTD. Reloaded and fought same battle again without using carcass shot, and everything was ok.

[Graphic]

I brought it up in another thread and I think the economy system is bugged.

When playing as Sweden in a campaign I noticed that the revenue of my cities (https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b322/Discoman44/emptw-20090501-093025.png) wasn't showing up in my economy tab. (https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b322/Discoman44/emptw-20090501-093029.png)
If you look at the cities' income you'll notice the amount of money greatly exceeds the upkeep costs of both the Navy and Military. Also it should be noted that those are only some of my cities, not all of them. Shouldn't I economically making coffers of money per turn?

It's like the game is back to MTW2 or RTW times where there is only taxes and trade, the entire region wealth system isn't being included, rather its being shunned and its discouraged in investing in region wealth. Is this a bug with patch installation or with the patch itself? Although some of you seem to be enjoying this level of difficulty, I'm pretty sure CA never intended for this to happen.

Edit- Math Time!
If you add income for the regions (is it including tax?) listed we get a wopping 116,186 per turn!

Now added to the already listed income of 60,025, you get 176,221.

Then minus the expenditure of 55,200 and I should be making a profit of 121,011 per turn.

I may be wrong, I don't remember how it was pre-patch (never bothered to examine it closely), but perhaps you're only supposed to get your cut thru taxes. Increasing region wealth would increase the amount of gold that a 22% tax (or whatever) would grab for you.

I'm not good at math, so try this: for each region, calculate how much of the region wealth the tax is (like Vilnius, find out what 20.8% of 6920 is) and see if all that equals the tax revenue listed in the national summary.

[Relic]

Wow. Thread did very well.
I have had no CTDs since!

Whoopity, Whoop, Whoop to that!

[Discoman]

I may be wrong, I don't remember how it was pre-patch (never bothered to examine it closely), but perhaps you're only supposed to get your cut thru taxes. Increasing region wealth would increase the amount of gold that a 22% tax (or whatever) would grab for you.

I'm not good at math, so try this: for each region, calculate how much of the region wealth the tax is (like Vilnius, find out what 20.8% of 6920 is) and see if all that equals the tax revenue listed in the national summary.

I think you're right and I think it's silly that it advertises the income in such a way that you really don't know how much you're getting by just looking at what's on the map. I'm not sure how it worked in the patch prior, but considering I could pay for 3 armies with just Paris I presume you got all of the region wealth + taxes.

[anweRU]

Prior to the patch, you only got the taxes, not the region wealth. The patch seems to have made changes tax income, but it still is tax income.

[Slaists]

Prior to the patch, you only got the taxes, not the region wealth. The patch seems to have made changes tax income, but it still is tax income.

The region wealth is the base for taxes. So, if the region wealth is 1000 and your effective tax rate is 35% you get 350 from that region in taxes. It's the same before and after the patch.

Post patch: if the wealth of the region is increasing (buildings, roads, trade, humanitarian techs, etc.) you will see your tax intake go up as long as you're not expanding too fast effectively lowering the tax rate.

[Veresov]

Finally able to play, however I am still getting an occasional CTD. The game is actually fairly challenging with the economic model and I am pleased.

Whats up with the complaining and moaning about the game now being too hard? This balance is rather nice and I like the fact that it forces you to make serious decisions in the game.

[Karash]

I like the new econ changes so far.

However, I didnt like how the British AI decided to take 8 units for a boat ride to the horn of Africa for some tradelane action. Pretty dumb.

[joe4iz]

Finally able to play, however I am still getting an occasional CTD. The game is actually fairly challenging with the economic model and I am pleased.

Whats up with the complaining and moaning about the game now being too hard? This balance is rather nice and I like the fact that it forces you to make serious decisions in the game.

Some of the complaining and moaning has to do with changing the rules half way thru a campaign. I found it very annoying. Basically, it plays like a different game.
It is frustrating to have 20 hours in a long campaign and have to rework your entire campaign. Things such as old enemies who were pacified, have no direct conflict with you and are valuable trading partners suddenly are throw out the window.

Improvements made to all of your capitols and regions don't mean anything etc etc..

I am playing a new game but between the proir CTD problems and then to have the extra aggravations thrown in is plain stupid.

I do not recall reading lots of posts about how easy the game was or was not. I read lots of posts about CTDs. While the patch has addressed those, and I AM grateful, I was not having any of those until they patched the game the first time.

Now I fight more smaller battles which I would charactirize as skimishes instead of any kind of big battle.

The AI still acts stupidly. For instance, as GB , I was at peace with France who had his hands full with Prussia, (UP is out of the picture), Savoy, Sweden, Austria, Hannover etc etc.. So after I load the patch, what is the intelligent thing to do? They declare war on the best trading partner they have, me. It took me 20 years worth of gifts etc just to get them to be on indifferent terms with me. So as I was broke, I took the half stack of units I used to garrison my capitol , unloaded them and ran in and captured an unoccuppied Paris. End of France.

I was never rich enough to buy any provinces so it's not like I had money hand over fist or anything.

[Quickening]

Sorry this thread is rather confusing. Has the patch broken the game or improved it?

[Quickening]

Hmm when the release of this patch was announced I turned Steam on to let it update which it did. Now Ive turned Steam on again and it's downloading something else. Anyone know what?

[maestro]

Hmm when the release of this patch was announced I turned Steam on to let it update which it did. Now Ive turned Steam on again and it's downloading something else. Anyone know what?

[-]May 1, 2009 - Empire: Total War Update Released

Updates to Empire: Total War have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Crash Fixes


Fix deployed for error with greyed out background and no interface selections being possible when clicking tick box on Failed to Join Game message in multiplayer

:2thumbsup:

For me, whilst there's still a few irritating bugs, the game has vastly improved with the patch. Aaaaand, I've not had a single CTD :idea2:

[anweRU]

For me, whilst there's still a few irritating bugs, the game has vastly improved with the patch. Aaaaand, I've not had a single CTD :idea2:

I've had two CTDs after the patch. Considering that I had only two CTDs during the previous 6-7 weeks, I'd say this is not an improvement. So our experiences diverge.

Same CTD bug (unloading only 1 army unit from a fleet, when there are several units loaded) is being reported by others in the patch 3 bug list thread as well.

[Babblearossa]

Hmm when the release of this patch was announced I turned Steam on to let it update which it did. Now Ive turned Steam on again and it's downloading something else. Anyone know what?

right click the game in steam and pick 'update news', shows the patch notes. the latest is a small fix for multiplayer only.

[Pinxit]

Yes, I got that bug, I was about to report it now. I thought "I know, I will start a new game! I will play as Russia, so I can observe the Naval units in action".

So I put it as VH/VH like I do, then I noticed that I was basically bankrupt, so I thought "oh, must be more expensive, I will go Easy/Easy to cancel out the costs" and still no money.
https://img520.imageshack.us/img520/3928/givememoney.jpg

Way to go, my game is actually now broken when it worked reasonably well before. :no:

Dude. That is nothing to complain about. I on the other hand have something valid. I downloaded the patch, continued my swedish campaign (1781) and realised the economic system had changed so drastically due to the patch that I lost 35 000 per turn. I actually had + 25 000 per turn before the patch, and now I have - 10 000. My entire empire fell because of that. I had to get rid of four full stacks of my army so that I could afford to continue, and when I did that, everyone sort of declared war on me.

[Skott]

Sorry this thread is rather confusing. Has the patch broken the game or improved it?

As far as the bugs and CTD goes I think its an improvement but some people dont like how they changed the costs of buildings, units and the amount of money now made with trade and taxes. I guess its all in how you look at it.

[joe4iz]

Had my first CTD since installing the patch. 1740 time frame on a long campaign. This is genereally where I started to run into problems prior to the patch. Offloading troops into a friendly port and the game crashed when I clicked the units off the ship. Never had that happen before. All of my crashes were due to sealanes and second rates (or so it would appear).

[Skott]

I noticed when I want to hire a general or admiral now for one of my stacks it says I cant (there's a sentence saying why this may be because of) but it lets me do it anyway. Kinda weird. Anyone else run into that? Its not a problem as far as I'm concerned as long as I can hire them, which I can, but I didnt have this issue before the patch.

Oh, and for the first time ever the Barbary States offered me a peace treaty! They wanted 41,000 though but still they offered! Never had them offer in a campaign before. I like that. :2thumbsup:

[anweRU]

Here are a few observations 8 turns into a GB H/M campaign:

- The Artificial Intelligence is declaring war in a Non-Intelligent manner, in fresh games as well as old ones. As GB, I was surprised when Holland declared war on me at the end of Turn 7. I thought it was becasue I had Flanders. I reloaded the autosave, and re-tried. This time, Holland declared war on Courland instead. Huh? Apparently, we're back to the non-sensical wars of METW2.

- As GB (Hard/Medium), I'm somewhat behind where I was at the same turn. I can't blitz this time. I am not recruiting as many units so I can invest in my economy. I'm also constrained by the increased resistance, which is tying down my armies. Also, I couldn't unload Flanders to UP, like I did pre-patch, so I'm stuck with it. Hence, I have not been able to launch an attack on India.

- The Ottomans actually captured Moldovia back from the Poles, yeah! They lost Bosnia and Serbia to Austria, boo. But Bosnia's capital is under siege, I don't know by whom. I'll find out in a couple of turns (rebels or Ottomans). I don't see as many Turkish naval stacks - I think the Ottoman AI is finally recruiting land units, instead of useless ships.

- The AI is capturing regions, but losing them promptly due to the increased resistance & rebellions. Russia destroyed the Crimean Khanate by turn 3, but the Crimean Khanate re-emerged by turn 7! Sweden lost Karelia to rebels.

- The massive native stacks have not yet made an appearance. The Iriquois and Cherokee declared war on the 13 colonies on turn 1, but have not been able to capture anything yet. I just started to send military techs over to the 13, so I hope they'll be able to hold the line.

[Skott]

Another thing I have noticed. Every time I take a region that puts me next to a region controlled by a another faction that I wasnt next door to before, or not at war with, that faction now turns around and declares war on me real quick. Not sure if this is now a common thing to expect or just particular to my current GB campaign. I need to test it more to find out. Past TW games had this happen alot and ETW didnt do this until the latest patch. If this is going to be the common occurance then this will make it hard to stay out of wars. Good or bad depending on how one looks at it I guess.

[Fisherking]

Declarations of War now seem to be where they were in M2TW.

If they are indifferent to you then they will likely go to war.

Some my like this at the upper difficulty levels, but I was doing a post patch game set on easy to see how it goes.

There are some positive things to note in the game mechanics but I will leave that for later.

Right now the belligerence and aggressively of the other factions is over the top.

[AussieGiant]

It certainly takes me a moment to get passed the: "It's too easy and the AI isn't agressive enough."

To now:

"The AI is too aggressive and is not not behaving sensibly."

I mean for god sake, without outlining anyone's specific requirements set on the topic how is CA meant to magically "know" just what is too hard or too easy for everyone?

Maybe the difficulty settings are relevant now.

Anyway:

I certainly noticed a surprise which fits in with what Skott said. In my Prussian H/M Prestige campaign, UP and I traded for decades and were friendly, although they never took the offer to ally, which was interesting. Keep in mind I have never been allied with anyone in the entire campaign (year 1760) on Hard campaign settings.

So I finally took Hannover and gained a common boarder with them...bang they declared war on me and parked a nice well compiled army with a 5 star general just on my side of the boarder in Hannover...:balloon2: bastards :beam:

I'm on Hard...so it's been hard.

What can I say...maybe everyone needs to readjust their own skills to the definitions of what the words Easy, Normal, Hard and Very Hard mean.

[antisocialmunky]

The sense of things I've gotten is that Easy and Normal are both too hard and the AI seems to try and declare war ever X amount of turns on a neighboring faction that it doesn't like likes the least... which makes no sense.

Compare this to Civ 4 where diplomacy with AI is quite fun, rational, memorable, and easily 40% of the game.

[Discoman]

It certainly takes me a moment to get passed the: "It's too easy and the AI isn't agressive enough."

To now:

"The AI is too aggressive and is not not behaving sensibly."

I mean for god sake, without outlining anyone's specific requirements set on the topic how is CA meant to magically "know" just what is too hard or too easy for everyone?

Maybe the difficulty settings are relevant now.



Well it's annoying that intelligent diplomacy is advertised and is no longer present. I was playing as Sweden and had Persia and the Maratha Confed. declare war even though I was in very good standing with both nations. In the end it didn't matter because I ended up killing off both nations.

Also, if really weak nations are going to attack a superpower, they should really do it as an alliance rather than just one country. I mean the AI should know who's the enemies of their enemies and say, "Hmm if we both declare war at the same time we'd really stand a greater chance then doing it individually 20 years apart"

In example Mysore declares war on me, not after I take over northern India, not after Marathas declare, but only when they're the only faction left in India and they only have two places do they decide to declare war.

I guess the only reasonable way to fix what I'm talking about would be to make the "Enemy of my Enemy is my friend" attribute override the "Territorial Expansion" attribute.

[AussieGiant]

Well it's annoying that intelligent diplomacy is advertised and is no longer present. I was playing as Sweden and had Persia and the Maratha Confed. declare war even though I was in very good standing with both nations. In the end it didn't matter because I ended up killing off both nations.

Also, if really weak nations are going to attack a superpower, they should really do it as an alliance rather than just one country. I mean the AI should know who's the enemies of their enemies and say, "Hmm if we both declare war at the same time we'd really stand a greater chance then doing it individually 20 years apart"

In example Mysore declares war on me, not after I take over northern India, not after Marathas declare, but only when they're the only faction left in India and they only have two places do they decide to declare war.

I guess the only reasonable way to fix what I'm talking about would be to make the "Enemy of my Enemy is my friend" attribute override the "Territorial Expansion" attribute.

All good points Discoman. It does seem they have made a bit of a slap dash change at the moment, and there needs to be some fine tuning going forward in the next series of patches.

[Eusebius86]

Well it's annoying that intelligent diplomacy is advertised and is no longer present. I was playing as Sweden and had Persia and the Maratha Confed. declare war even though I was in very good standing with both nations. In the end it didn't matter because I ended up killing off both nations.

Also, if really weak nations are going to attack a superpower, they should really do it as an alliance rather than just one country. I mean the AI should know who's the enemies of their enemies and say, "Hmm if we both declare war at the same time we'd really stand a greater chance then doing it individually 20 years apart"

In example Mysore declares war on me, not after I take over northern India, not after Marathas declare, but only when they're the only faction left in India and they only have two places do they decide to declare war.

I guess the only reasonable way to fix what I'm talking about would be to make the "Enemy of my Enemy is my friend" attribute override the "Territorial Expansion" attribute.

I don't mind an agressive and expanionistic AI, but not on all difficulty levels. I just played a campaign on Easy as Austria, and every single one of my neighbors, save bavaria, declared war on me by turn 10. GB and UP even broke our alliances, after giving them gifts. The AI shouldn't be so quick to declare war and break alliances. Also, when the AI declares war, it is doing so in a stupid way. I reduced Poland to one poor territory, and forced them to make peace. They declared war 8 turns later, but only sent a 2 unit stack after me, when I had a 10 unit one right next door...

[Dead Guy]

Well I have to say I'm pretty pleased with the changes, even though saying it's save game compatible is a real stretch, as many have pointed out. I went from earning almost 150k to -60k per turn after patching. I had to ditch nearly all my fleets, managed to keep about 2 stacks in america and maybe 3 stacks in India and maybe 6 stacks in Europe. The first turn Spain and Marathas declare war on me, I've been trading with them for the entire campaign. Quebec declared too. It was basically impossible to continue without retreating from an entire theater or something on that scale.

Starting a new campaign, however, works very well I think. Lots of wars very early but the alliances seem to hold, I like it so far. I think it's sad that the american factions always seem to join their protectors after at most 10 turns...

[loony]

In my last campaign as Poland (started after patch), the nastiest agressor is Courland. The bastards managed to get into a war with most of Europe and I have NO IDEA where they get the cash to fund all that. They have a full stack in sweden, another one running around moscow and the third one banging me in Vilnius :-(

[anweRU]

Some positive observations from my post-patch scratch H/M GB campaign:
- The minor factions are not super-powers anymore. By 1711, they seem to have enough units for a single full stack to defend their home countries. Wurtemburg & Savoy are not steam-rollering France anymore. And they have been able to defend themselves, so they haven't been nerfed too much either.
- France is still alive and kicking.
- The Native American factions are much more realistic. Still a tad too aggressive early in the game, but the 13 Colonies managed to protect themselves for most of the time, losing only the Carolinas and Virginia.
- I probably have conquered only half the provinces I did in my pre-patch GB campaign. I can fund only two full stacks, though I am slowly putting together two half-stacks (one each in India and NA) to support the main stacks.

Back to my pet peave about this patch: The AI is back to METW2 - all AI factions will declare war on you eventually, if you have a bordering province. Holland should not attack GB on turn 7; France and Spain breaking their alliances early on is plain silly. The AI should try some diplomacy first to get the province it needs for its victory conditions, as it tried to pre-patch. The pre-patch problem with AI diplomacy was that it was stuck in an endless loop, and there were no penalties for refusing an AI offer.

I would like to see the AI offers back, with relations worsening until they become hostile, then the AI declares war.

[AussieGiant]

That sounds similar to my H/M Prestige Campaign with Prussia.

Although when UP declared war on me I did have 14 provinces in central Europe and was clearly the biggest threat on the continent. So now that I think about it, it does start to make sense.

I also had about the same amount of military power as you mention and was far and away greater than any other single Empire.

[MikeV]

So the stuttering videos have been fixed? That's funny, I've not had this problem at all since the previous patch so I'd assumed they'd been fixed then.


Of course, they're stuttering again now......
Mine too ... I'd be happy if they gave us an option in the preferences.empire_script.txt file to disable them. :deal2:


Why on earth do CA bother to make these patches when for evrything they fix, they break something else?

I would expect people who make games for a living to know what they're doing.
Two reasons:

The quality standard for software is now the one from Micro$oft: "Crappy Is Good Enough." :tomato:
Game companies are full of wannabe Hollywood types :cool2: , game programmers are wannabe rock stars :thrasher: ... instead of competent software engineers

And it shows in the results. Makes you want to cry. :bigcry: Or at least take your money elsewhere. :yes:

"If you are a dee (programmer), please don't marry a dee (game company).
'Cause then your kids (programs) will be ... dee dee dee (http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=72779&title=dee-dee-dee-song)."

[anweRU]

Is it my imagination, or has the advancement of gentlemen been slowed down? Pre-patch, my gentlemen would get bonus research points rather fast. At the least, they would get the basic 1 point characteristic (factory master, armchair general, etc) when they researched a tech in the relevant area for the first time.

In my current post-patch GB campaign, my gentlemen have been, shall we say, rather slow learners. I have five of them, and the only one gaining anything is Isaac Newton, who will die of old age shortly (I finally reached the 31st turn).

[Marquis of Roland]

Is it my imagination, or has the advancement of gentlemen been slowed down? Pre-patch, my gentlemen would get bonus research points rather fast. At the least, they would get the basic 1 point characteristic (factory master, armchair general, etc) when they researched a tech in the relevant area for the first time.

In my current post-patch GB campaign, my gentlemen have been, shall we say, rather slow learners. I have five of them, and the only one gaining anything is Isaac Newton, who will die of old age shortly (I finally reached the 31st turn).

I noticed this too. I'm cool with that though, I thought research went too quickly before (and still does).

I also notice the opposite for religious npcs. They spawn with 6 to 8 stars. I never had a gentleman spawn with more than 4 (3 is the norm).

The game spawns more historical figures throughout the game now. As Prussia I got Kurt Christoph von Schwerin and Hans Joachim von Zieten as generals and Immanuel Kant as a gentleman, around the 1750's. Frederick the Great's nephew, Friedrich Wilhelm II, spawned in the 1760's.

[AussieGiant]

How do you get the historical General's again?

[MikeV]

without outlining anyone's specific requirements set on the topic how is CA meant to magically "know" just what is too hard or too easy for everyone?

Maybe the difficulty settings are relevant now.

...

maybe everyone needs to readjust their own skills to the definitions of what the words Easy, Normal, Hard and Very Hard mean.
I'd settle for them documenting what they mean: what parameter values change with each setting, what criteria the AI algorithms use, etc.
Like the preferences file parameters (https://forums.totalwar.org/wiki/index.php/ETW_preferences).

That way, we'd all know exactly how the settings affect the app. :idea2:

Some folks enjoy spending weeks or months trying to reverse engineer these things. I'd rather just read the design documentation. Then again, I'm a geek. :laugh4:

[AussieGiant]

You're just taking all the fun out of trying to find out MikeV :beam:

Certainly some basic explanation of what is different between each level of difficulty would help. But even then you are giving away various ways of beating the AI.

That would be bad for all those who say this game is too easy.

[MikeV]

You're just taking all the fun out of trying to find out MikeV :beam:

Certainly some basic explanation of what is different between each level of difficulty would help. But even then you are giving away various ways of beating the AI.

That would be bad for all those who say this game is too easy.
Well, to paraphrase a recent infamous US President: it depends on what your meaning of "fun" is :eyebrows:

For me, it's the opportunity to explore various "what if" alternatives. It's not unusual for me to use the same campaign to make one set of decisions, then back up 10 or 20 turns and try another (I tend to keep a lot of save files, :juggle: which also helps cope with the various & sundry CTD problems). But, that's just my approach.

Initially, I had hoped that E:TW would provide an interesting simulation of early Industrial Age warfare. Bugs aside, it turns out to be just a game: lots of eye candy, and a rather flaccid AI at both the campaign and tactical levels. Oh, well. :zzz:

[Marquis of Roland]

How do you get the historical General's again?

Well I started recruiting the actual General's unit instead of promoting from existing units for the extra command star but then I got Immanuel Kant as a gentleman so I'm pretty sure its because of the patch. You haven't gotten any historical characters yet in your campaign?

[AussieGiant]

Well I started recruiting the actual General's unit instead of promoting from existing units for the extra command star but then I got Immanuel Kant as a gentleman so I'm pretty sure its because of the patch. You haven't gotten any historical characters yet in your campaign?

No I haven't gotten any historical generals. At least I don't think I have. Do they spawn automatically or just when you recruit one from the recruitment screen?

[Marquis of Roland]

No I haven't gotten any historical generals. At least I don't think I have. Do they spawn automatically or just when you recruit one from the recruitment screen?

No, they didn't spawn automatically, they're just regular general units recruited in normal fashion, nothing special about them except they have historical names. I still get generals with names I don't recognize, but I only know the names of a few of the Prussian generals of that time, so I'm not sure whether some are just randomly generated or actually historical people. I think it might depend on the year you recruit.

I recruited a new general in 1776, and its frickin' Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben. I was LMAO. Well, I guess it could happen, the Thirteen Colonies didn't revolt in my game yet, so I'm guessing von Steuben decided to stay home? :laugh4:

What faction are you, Aussie?

[AussieGiant]

I'm also playing Prussia, that is also what gotmy attention when you wrote about it further up the page.

Ok so I'm doing things correctly. Sometimes I wonder if I can't see certain buttons and things going on in the UI.

Thanks for your help.

[Veresov]

The BAI seems out of kilter.

The AI seems to have forgotten how to fire their rifles and melee rush instead. Cavalry are riding right into those cavalry barracades and dying.