Installing the patch in an ongoing campaign

[Windwood]

Alright, I started playing the Danes in MTW back in December. I've conquered at least 70% or more of Europe. I'm really enjoying this.

Now the problem. I didn't learn about the patch for MTW until after I was fairly deep into my campaign. I really want to see this thing to its conclusion. However, I haven't installed the patch.

I was able to conquer as the Danes by pushing relentlessly against my borders. I have virtually no presence in the seas. Once I finish off what is left of my major enemies, all that will remain will be a couple of island locations that my armies cannot reach. In fact, all that is left of Novgorod, England, France, and Spain are their ships. I am assuming that I will eventually have to eradicate these remnants from the high seas. As I understand it, I really cannot do that unless I install the patch.

Is it possible to continue an ongoing campaign after installing the patch? Or, do you have to start over once the patch is installed?

This has been unclear to me.

[Westland]

You don´t need the patch to make ships that can go into the high seas. Btw, any island can be reached without going into the high seas. And you don´t have to fight those ships, if you destroy a faction all ships of that faction will disappear.
About installing the patch. I did not have any problems to continue my old game but I read that other people did have. So I suppose it´s better to be save than sorry if you really want to finish your current game.

[Windwood]

Thanks for the response. I guess I am a little confused here. It was my impression that the patch allowed for the player to actually win sea battles. I made a few vessels awhile back and started to establish trade routes, but I was constantly losing against other factions. I thought I had read somewhere that there was a bug in the sea battles that was corrected by the patch. Did I misunderstand something along the way?

Just wondering.

[VRViperII]

I think what the patch fixed in regards to naval battles was that the CPU would play cat and mouse with your ships, swapping fleets in adjacent zones so as to maintain occupation. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif
My Brother had this problem as the Italians pre patch. He couldn't invade malta to finish the sicilians because of naval presence, but he could not engage the enemy because they would just trade places with themselves. It seemd like the battles were never taking place. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif It took forever to figure out what they were doing. I have yet to encounter this post-patch, and I can guarentee that It doesn't work for the player now, but I belive it used to. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[Windwood]

So, basically, it sounds like it's best to be finished with the current campaign before I install the patch. But it also appears that I can probably finish the current campaign, including sea battles, without installing the patch.

Sounds like good news to me. I can finish what I started and then enjoy the benefits of the patch after that time.

Thanks for the info.