Kull
08-24-2014, 18:45
There's a number of features and/or hardcoded limitations in M2TW. They may seem like "bugs" - but there's nothing we can do (or else we built it this way deliberately) - when you see them, that's just how it is. Team members are encouraged to post others here. I'll assemble them in this opening post for handy reference (if nothing else, when some obtuse noob reports one of these, the rest of you can respond - probably quicker than a Team Member can):
1) Chariot/Elephant archer javelin crews do not turn when shooting/hurling. It looks ugly, but the M2TW animations for riders of this animal (and a chariot is just a different sort of M2TW elephant) do not allow for upper body pivoting.
2) Taxation rates are not controllable in "camps". We used M2TW castles for this settlement class, and they don't allow manual change to taxation rates. Conversion to "city-style" settlements is eventually possible, so live with it until then (I'd argue it's a pretty accurate representation of the informal nature of pastoralist admin structures, anyway)
3) Elephant vs. Elephant is inconclusive. Yes, they can't kill each other. Just don't do it. And if you think armies composed entirely of elephants should be able to slaughter one another, I'd love to see the historical proof.
4) Roman city E-W gates can't be entered. This is a bug we hope to fix, but for now, it is what it is. Don't report it. We know.
5) The "minor settlements" (PSFs) don't have walls. These are intended to be open fields where battles between armies take place. There's more than enough siege warfare as it is. Imagine that there's a town just beyond the range of visibility (most ancient battles happened outside some city or town, hence the historical name of the battle. Think of this as that).
6) Battles at "minor settlements" (PSFs) still go through the siege process. True. The game thinks these are forts, even if they aren't. And it assumes all forts have walls, even when they don't. If it takes an extra turn to get the battle going, think of it as getting force dispositions in place for battle the next day. Pretty common historically, actually.
7) The AI army sallied from the "minor settlements" (PSFs) but won't move toward my forces. True. It's technically a bug (the AI thinks there are walls, but can't find the gate so it just sits there), but the reality is, YOU initiated this open field battle. Thus you SHOULD BE the aggressor, and not relying on some gamey siege mechanism to get an advantage. And do NOT exploit this siege glitch to actually place AI units under siege in these PSFs. You are violating the whole reason for them being there in the first place. Or rather, go ahead and do it and screw up the quality of your game. Somebody who does this probably uses cheats anyway. A pox on them.
8) I have to wait one turn and build siege equipment when attacking "camps" without walls. True. The game thinks all of these are castles, and even when they don't have walls, the game is incapable of handling that fact. "All Castles Have Walls!" Minor issue - but it's hardcoded. Everything else works fine (and the sally mechanism DOES work here, thanks to the wonderful efforts of makanyane to defeat the hardcoded limitations. KEY POINT: You must build at least one Ram! The underlying code thinks these are castles and will let you build ladders and towers as well, but both are useless. The game will CTD if it sees you trying to assault a walled level 2 or 3 camp with only ladders/towers.
9) My fleets can't move past Gibraltar into the Atlantic Ocean. Other than down the small amount of North African coast. Impassable "ocean" terrain blocks movement to the north and west. In both directions and for all classes of ship. By design.
10) My faction doesn't have a Family Button. By design. For historical reasons, the M2TW "teutonic system" is used by several EB2 factions (mostly barbarians): Aedui, Arverni, Arevaci, Boii, Lugia, Lusotannan, Pritanoi, Sweboz, and Koinon Hellenon. If you must have families, there are 19 other factions to choose from. Given the reaction to lack of families in R2TW, this will probably prove controversial - that's fine, discuss it elsewhere (NOT in this thread). And don't report it as a "bug".
11) Cities have all this open space that my troops can't walk through. Those giant open areas? They aren't open areas. Those are the portions of the city reserved for temples, blacksmiths, govt buildings, etc. It was a minor miracle that we were able to bring the base-level DBM settlements into EB2. What we did not have was anybody who could bring in the various buildings that will grow into the afore mentioned structures. So not a bug, but a potential feature (some day).
12) Units hold spears upside down. A required condition of the "overhand spear" animation. It has to do with how the overhand animation works versus the underhand. For the underhand, spearpoint is on top, and rotates down and forward. The wrist orientation does not change (you can test this yourself, holding an imaginary spear). For overhand, the spearpoint is on the bottom and rotates front and up. Again the wrist orientation doesn't change (you can try this too), and that is the key.
Stand there with your imaginary spear and try to get a top-point spear into an overhead stabbing position without letting go of the spear in order to change your grip. Just not possible. And because spears are part of the unit model (not something separate like an arrow), the hand--wrist--spear connection can't change.
13) Barbarian/Nomad/etc Rebel leader has Greek Portrait. Only affects those who are placed on the map via script. Portraits of scripted leaders will always appear as Greeks. Not a bug.
14) The game CTDs after I click __ faction icons on the faction Selection Menu. This is an M2TW bug. There are reports claiming that it can be fixed, but we haven't been successful doing that with EB2. Just don't click a ton of different faction icons and you won't get this CTD.
15) The game CTDs after I go from the Custom Battle Screen back to the Campaign Map (or vice versa). This is another M2TW bug. No known fix.
16) The Game CTDs when I select one of the Tutorials. Unfortunately the Tutorials were never finished. Maybe some day. For now, we'll add warning text about this as part of the first Patch.
Edit: This is a living thread, so periodically we'll add new items to the list or expand upon existing explanations.
1) Chariot/Elephant archer javelin crews do not turn when shooting/hurling. It looks ugly, but the M2TW animations for riders of this animal (and a chariot is just a different sort of M2TW elephant) do not allow for upper body pivoting.
2) Taxation rates are not controllable in "camps". We used M2TW castles for this settlement class, and they don't allow manual change to taxation rates. Conversion to "city-style" settlements is eventually possible, so live with it until then (I'd argue it's a pretty accurate representation of the informal nature of pastoralist admin structures, anyway)
3) Elephant vs. Elephant is inconclusive. Yes, they can't kill each other. Just don't do it. And if you think armies composed entirely of elephants should be able to slaughter one another, I'd love to see the historical proof.
4) Roman city E-W gates can't be entered. This is a bug we hope to fix, but for now, it is what it is. Don't report it. We know.
5) The "minor settlements" (PSFs) don't have walls. These are intended to be open fields where battles between armies take place. There's more than enough siege warfare as it is. Imagine that there's a town just beyond the range of visibility (most ancient battles happened outside some city or town, hence the historical name of the battle. Think of this as that).
6) Battles at "minor settlements" (PSFs) still go through the siege process. True. The game thinks these are forts, even if they aren't. And it assumes all forts have walls, even when they don't. If it takes an extra turn to get the battle going, think of it as getting force dispositions in place for battle the next day. Pretty common historically, actually.
7) The AI army sallied from the "minor settlements" (PSFs) but won't move toward my forces. True. It's technically a bug (the AI thinks there are walls, but can't find the gate so it just sits there), but the reality is, YOU initiated this open field battle. Thus you SHOULD BE the aggressor, and not relying on some gamey siege mechanism to get an advantage. And do NOT exploit this siege glitch to actually place AI units under siege in these PSFs. You are violating the whole reason for them being there in the first place. Or rather, go ahead and do it and screw up the quality of your game. Somebody who does this probably uses cheats anyway. A pox on them.
8) I have to wait one turn and build siege equipment when attacking "camps" without walls. True. The game thinks all of these are castles, and even when they don't have walls, the game is incapable of handling that fact. "All Castles Have Walls!" Minor issue - but it's hardcoded. Everything else works fine (and the sally mechanism DOES work here, thanks to the wonderful efforts of makanyane to defeat the hardcoded limitations. KEY POINT: You must build at least one Ram! The underlying code thinks these are castles and will let you build ladders and towers as well, but both are useless. The game will CTD if it sees you trying to assault a walled level 2 or 3 camp with only ladders/towers.
9) My fleets can't move past Gibraltar into the Atlantic Ocean. Other than down the small amount of North African coast. Impassable "ocean" terrain blocks movement to the north and west. In both directions and for all classes of ship. By design.
10) My faction doesn't have a Family Button. By design. For historical reasons, the M2TW "teutonic system" is used by several EB2 factions (mostly barbarians): Aedui, Arverni, Arevaci, Boii, Lugia, Lusotannan, Pritanoi, Sweboz, and Koinon Hellenon. If you must have families, there are 19 other factions to choose from. Given the reaction to lack of families in R2TW, this will probably prove controversial - that's fine, discuss it elsewhere (NOT in this thread). And don't report it as a "bug".
11) Cities have all this open space that my troops can't walk through. Those giant open areas? They aren't open areas. Those are the portions of the city reserved for temples, blacksmiths, govt buildings, etc. It was a minor miracle that we were able to bring the base-level DBM settlements into EB2. What we did not have was anybody who could bring in the various buildings that will grow into the afore mentioned structures. So not a bug, but a potential feature (some day).
12) Units hold spears upside down. A required condition of the "overhand spear" animation. It has to do with how the overhand animation works versus the underhand. For the underhand, spearpoint is on top, and rotates down and forward. The wrist orientation does not change (you can test this yourself, holding an imaginary spear). For overhand, the spearpoint is on the bottom and rotates front and up. Again the wrist orientation doesn't change (you can try this too), and that is the key.
Stand there with your imaginary spear and try to get a top-point spear into an overhead stabbing position without letting go of the spear in order to change your grip. Just not possible. And because spears are part of the unit model (not something separate like an arrow), the hand--wrist--spear connection can't change.
13) Barbarian/Nomad/etc Rebel leader has Greek Portrait. Only affects those who are placed on the map via script. Portraits of scripted leaders will always appear as Greeks. Not a bug.
14) The game CTDs after I click __ faction icons on the faction Selection Menu. This is an M2TW bug. There are reports claiming that it can be fixed, but we haven't been successful doing that with EB2. Just don't click a ton of different faction icons and you won't get this CTD.
15) The game CTDs after I go from the Custom Battle Screen back to the Campaign Map (or vice versa). This is another M2TW bug. No known fix.
16) The Game CTDs when I select one of the Tutorials. Unfortunately the Tutorials were never finished. Maybe some day. For now, we'll add warning text about this as part of the first Patch.
Edit: This is a living thread, so periodically we'll add new items to the list or expand upon existing explanations.