Creative Assembly Feedback on the official patch 1.02. [Archive]

RickooClan

05-05-2007, 10:51

Hi everyone, I would like to start a thread collecting some quick feedbacks from the official 1.02 patch.

Before i start the game i expect much of the content will be similar with leaked patch 1.02, as the fix/feature list are "exactly" the same. (or at least i cant spot any different yet)

I have then start a new game base on patch 1.02 with a clean reinstallation. I started as French on VH/VH.

1. Sally out in Siege.

You can easily set this up with french on VH as the Scilian will attack Marseille on turn 6. The passive AI bug have been completely gone compare with leak patch 1.02. The AI will no longer stupidly holding their siege equipment.

I try to march my archers and attacking their infantry line. The AI respond with 2 cavalry charging up, with 1 spear supporting. While my cavalry and infantry march up to my archers, the AI cavalry withdraw back to their formation.

A very promising respond from the AI so far!! :2thumbsup:

2. Effectiveness of Pike units

I seriously doubt if any change/fix have been made on this area compare with leak patch 1.02, and this sounds like true.

I do some testing on Scotland noble pikeman, Swisspikeman on DFK and the outcome is pretty much the same with leak patch 1.02. Seems like we have to mod accordingly to suit our game style or the like.

3. Other issues

Base on the pike test i have further assume the bugs we found post leak patch 1.02, had not been fixed if they are not on the fix list.

One of the most annoying bug remain for me will be the flooding bug which will permanently damage the province. Therefore i suggest we have to disable flooding by mod before starting a long term game.

uanime5

05-05-2007, 16:51

JFC

05-05-2007, 17:14

Forward Observer

05-05-2007, 20:52

I haven't heard anyone mention this, but so far the patch does seem to be game save friendly. I resumed playing my saved Eygptian campaign and there doesn't seem to be any ill effects yet.

However, while I have only limited knowledge of modding, I am not sure whether I would expect any major mod to function correctly with such a large patch until the one has had a chance to review and/or correct it to make it patch compatable.

I am also not sure if I like the new battle dialogue---especially when fighting a seige assault. I fought one such assault against the Turks, and once inside the walls, as the battle ebbed and flowed, I must have heard the same "winning" dialogue alternating with the "losing" dialogue about 15 times. I wanted to tell my over anxious "color" man to simply shut up until the battle was won or lost.

Cheers

Lusted

05-05-2007, 21:00

I find it suspicious that the official patch seems designed to prevent unofficial mods from working.

Well mods do work with it, i've already released a 1.2 compatible version of LTC.

gardibolt

05-06-2007, 01:23

My 1.1 saves work great.

Vices and Virtues seem especially active; I'm getting long lists of traits. Nearly everything I do gives me Dread (winning a battle seems to do it all by itself), and my King got a special message awarding him +5 Dread for some reason I am unaware of. There seem to be more opportunities for role-playing characters here (though I'm unclear about how one is to get a Chivalrous king, since I have only managed one Chivalry point, which I received when I only occupied Riga instead of exterminating or sacking, and probably 20 Dread points among my family members from battles and use of assassins.

Siege AI is much better, both attacking and defending. AI archers shoot from the walls, then when I reach the walls, if I have a larger force they head back to the square. When I try to sally when I am besieged I am no longer able to sucker the AI into coming into range of my archers and towers (though not quite staying out of range of my trebuchets). So a sally requires actually going out to fight. Much, much more active flanking by the AI in general. I lost two battles out of 12 last night, playing on M/M, which I'm quite certain I would have won handily in 1.1.

Cannon/ballista towers are indeed fixed. Huge cathedrals produce bishops. Not earth-shattering points, but I'm glad these annoyances were taken care of. I could never remember whether it was citadels or cities that had the towers screwed up so I inevitably bungled them.

The shield bug being corrected results in battles lasting significantly longer. I haven't really checked out the 2H in detail though; maybe tonight.

I'm quite pleased with this patch.

Gorm

05-06-2007, 01:59

I am happy with this patch. The biggest change is in diplomacy. Unless you ignore a faction for a long time, you can have a steady alliance. Sure, you may get someone backstabbing you, but not as often as with the previous patch. Keep 'em happy with a gift now and then, even if you just give them map info.

Merchants work better now. Acquisitions really work now.

Princesses start with good charm.

There are also some new graphics, eg. when a guild is offered.

~:cheers: A good patch!

sapi

05-06-2007, 03:05

Agreed :yes:

The diplomacy changes are my favourite part of the patch, tbh

RickooClan

05-06-2007, 05:26

Just find a possible bug in patch 1.02.

Incorrect Numerical battle odd in pre-battle screen.

First of all i spot the bug by the following VnV trigger:

Trigger battle3Dread_PickingOnWeak
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition WasAttacker
and WonBattle
and BattleOdds > 1.5
and PercentageEnemyKilled > 50
and not Trait BattleChivalry > 0

Affects BattleDread 1 Chance 100

I have find out in one occasion, even the battle odd shown was 3:2 in the pre-battle screen, i keep picking the Winning First trait after battle. [I have made sure i didnt trigger anyother thing which gain battle dread]

Then, i edit the trigger and test the battle again:

Trigger battle3Dread_PickingOnWeak
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition WasAttacker
and WonBattle
and BattleOdds > 2.0
and PercentageEnemyKilled > 50
and not Trait BattleChivalry > 0

Affects BattleDread 12 Chance 100

And now, even the battle odd shown is still 3:2 [battle odd = 1.5], and the new trigger of this VnV is 2.0, i still get 12 battle dread after the battle.

And if you look at the battle-odd colour chart closely [The Blue-red ratio bar], you can notice that it does not match the numerical figure shown.[eg. 3:2]

I have try some other battle and i have seen even the colour chart is on a 3:2 ratio, the numerical figure shown is 1:1.

I am not too sure if this bug is exist before patch 1.2 or not. (and hopefully if someone could check this out in their game and see if thats the case too)

rookie7

05-06-2007, 05:29

Sorry for the piggy back post, but I have a small/dumb question. During a battle, you can change the speed of the movement from 1.0, 2.0,...then 6.0. What happened to 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0. How do I change to those speeds?

Thanks, and sorry for the dumb question.

RickooClan

05-06-2007, 05:40

You can hold "shift" and click on those arrow icon to make 0.1 adjustment.

Sometimes i will make it to speed 0.2 to watch the guys fighting closely and thats cool! :beam:

Xehh II

05-06-2007, 06:08

So, is the actual official 1.02 patch out?

sapi

05-06-2007, 06:09

Yes.

Xehh II

05-06-2007, 06:22

So, where can I get it and how big is it?

Zim

05-06-2007, 06:27

So, where can I get it and how big is it?
Here, among other places:

http://www.gamershell.com/download_19011.shtml

And very big, something like a gig I believe. On the thread for the patch on the twcenter site Lusted said that part of the reason for the size is a lot of new sound files.

Takes a while both to download and install (don't worry is the install bar seems to stop moving for a while, nothing's wrong), but it's very well worth it. :2thumbsup:

Deus Le Volt!

05-06-2007, 06:45

Hello all!

I just finished my first campaign with the new patch. I played as England on Medium/Medium.

I think they did a great job, the "Grand Campaign" plays like a different game. I married into an alliance with France in turn 4 and they never betrayed me. Even Denmark was friendly for a while.

I have to say the AI diplomacy is much better when it comes to ceasefires. I never understood why they wouldn't want the war to end when I've got 2 full stacks marching on their last territory.

Are Billmen usually included in the list of the "2H bug" ? I thought they were fairly effective.

I like the way it displays every trait your characters acquire now.

One of my generals did get a trait I'd never seen before. He went off on the crusades and ended up conquering all of Asia Minor, but in the span of about 10 turns he went from "Henry the Crusader" to "Henry the Cuckold."

There was a trait progression that started with "Problems at Home" and went all the way up to him being a "cuckold" with -4 authority (and included a line about men passing water in his shoes after having relations with his wife). Embarrassing for such a hero, but worse for the Turks, who were utterly destroyed by him.

I thought that made sense since he was away from home for so long. But then his son came of age with the "A Little Odd" trait and I got really worried.

...Anyways I have to say great job on the patch.

Quickening

05-06-2007, 12:05

Yep I agree that the patch is a vast improvement. It's just a shame that the taste for Med 2 has been very much tainted since I bought it way back in December. I feel Ive pretty much played it to death already (200+ hours now) and at the moment, have no inspiration to really play the game much which is a shame.
There are still problems of course. Pathfinding in settlements is still annoying. One of the weirdest things that still happens is that two or three troops from AI formations appear to get stuck beside a building while the rest of their formation is christ knows where. The AI is still as hit and miss as ever at assaulting settlements and I'll still often find myself fast forwarding for ages while the AI struggles to get its troops up siege towers and ladders.

Im actually now starting to think that Medieval 2 was just too ambitious for the technology available. I think this is as good as it's going to get really.

Bob the Insane

05-06-2007, 14:24

I did notice one improvement in the AI assaulting a multi-wall fortress. When it took the outer wall and I had dropped my archers back to the second ring, once my guys where safely behind a closed gate the AI brought it's army own army inside the settlement but kept them all really close to the outer wall and out of range of the inner towers and archers. It then pushed it's siege engines forward. My archers took care of them so then it advanced it main force in column (general at the rear) with the constructed items, Ram and Ladders... I thought this might lead to excessive casualties for the attacking force, but actually it seemed to do a pretty good job of screening the ram and ladder carriers from the towers and archers...

I also noted that in assaults and sallies the main force it based substantually further from the walls than before, but if it has no siege engines (catapluts and the like) then it places a single unit and ram a close as it can and rushes them for the gate...

Finally I had a spy opent he gate for a AI assault. That was scary, troops all over the place with not chance to deploy and the AI attacked immediately charging through the gate. I won the battle due the second ring of walls which I managed to pull my troops back to thanks again the the sacrifice of a unit of DFK at the gate and the enemy having no heacy cavalry to ride them down, just HA which I forced into melee at the gate. Once I got my longbows on the inner wall and billmen and last DFKs inside the inner gate things where in my favour again, but onle because of the force composition. Fortunately the Mongol horde does not come with spies as that would be really scary...

One item i noted in the AI assaulting behavior, it will clear each ring of defenses of your soldiers, even routers before it switches to assaulting the inner ring(s)...

Memnoch

05-06-2007, 20:56

My 1.1 saves work great.

Is the patch retroactive then?

Omisan

05-06-2007, 22:29

While the patch is supposed to add more commentaries for the "battle narrator". In my case, the patch made him completely silent. Which is a good thing I guess.

Wikiman

05-07-2007, 09:32

The vanilla game works. The mod I was making no longer works. The Long Road Mod I have asks me for a password everytime I load it or end a turn, and does not let me fight battles (I have to auto-resolve them):furious3: .

I find it suspicious that the official patch seems designed to prevent unofficial mods from working.

Believe me there is nothing in there that deliberately prevents mods from working, quite the opposite, we added functionality so that you can launch mods from the launcher and released information on how to set this up this for mod builders. In patching the game, this undoubtedly breaks peoples mods all over the place, but with there being no standard way of modding this game unfortunately this was unavoidable.

If you are autoresolving and you are being asked for a password, it sounds like you have enabled hotseat mode somehow. Hope this helps.

-wikiman

dopp

05-07-2007, 10:02

Vices and virtues are vastly improved. Most inconsistencies and typoes have been addressed, more positive trait triggers have been added (as compared to vanilla where a large percentage of positive traits could only be gained at birth), princess traits and triggers have been expanded, and many triggers revised. It is easier to get traits such as Just and Upright (previously incredibly rare) from the presence of 'moral' buildings (churches etc), which will block out most of the negative traits. On the whole, the system makes much more sense now as compared to the relentless moral corrosion in vanilla. A few bugs/typoes remain but I applaud whohever revised the VnVs for v1.2. The only issue I might have is that the three 'corruption' triggers were not altered, which heavily punish a player for being too successful/rich, but the system as a whole is tremendously more consistent and thus fun.

darsalon

05-07-2007, 10:06

Yep I agree that the patch is a vast improvement. It's just a shame that the taste for Med 2 has been very much tainted since I bought it way back in December. I feel Ive pretty much played it to death already (200+ hours now) and at the moment, have no inspiration to really play the game much which is a shame.

I think that's my problem at the moment. Played up until Feb when the 1.2 patch was originally supposed to be due out and stopped, waiting for it. Now it's May and it's quite tough to get back into the game for me. Having had a quick go with the Egyptians on a short campaign (an alternative faction for me) the AI does seem to be better though so I'll do my best to persist. I'll start again as them with a long campaign and see how it goes.

Empirate

05-07-2007, 13:54

Great work on Update 2, CA!
I especially like the new diplomacy, which actually seems to work this time around. The AI faction will often bite off more than they can chew, picking fights against superior odds and so on. Now, you can decisively hand their butts to them once or twice, after which they're usually very much OK with an armistice. I was able to break a French siege on Metz (playing HRE) without having to attack; the AI army withdrew when my relieving army showed up. I pressed my advantage, gave chase and destroyed the offenders. Then I laid siege to Reims. Two turns after I had taken it (thereby destroying a large part of French forces in the northeast), a French princess knocks on my door and offers a ceasefire. I haggled her up to a tribute of 1600 for 7 turns, map info, trade agreement! This was never possible before Update 2! A similar thing happened to me when the Venetians wanted a piece of me, and I beat one smaller and one large army in the field - they sued for peace and have since remained carefully neutral, picking other fights instead. Great!

Doug-Thompson

05-07-2007, 21:23

I'm thoroughly pleased so far:

1. Getting into a city with a rookie spy now has some element of risk: 25 percent chance of getting caught or greater. If you don't want to risk your spy early on, "opening blitz" strategies are riskier. Sieges take more planning and thought. As a cavalry nut, I was forever rushing around and taking major fortifications with spies and horses in 1.01.

This really impacts the balance and the challenge. I'm still a "blitz opening" player, and I'm still not in much danger of losing, but it's a real and effective change.

2. Diplomacy and related behavior is seriously improved. Playing as the Moors and beating the stuffing after the Portugese, they very sensibly accepted a ceasefire and have stuck with it after I drove them out of Lisbon. I've also been able to dissuade factions from attacking me by putting armies in sensible defensive postitions and watched my would-be invaders retreat from my territory. You still have the one-turn naval blockade from one faction, but there appeared to be some logic to it.

3. Spear units and religious fanatics are worthwhile now.

4. Straggling is much less of a problem, and so is chasing routed units. I haven't had that much of a problem getting a cavalry charge, either.

5. I've had no problems with installation, crashes or slowdowns. I have an AMD/Nvidia processor/video card configuration and installed 1.02 over 1.01 with no mods.

6. With the obvious fixing of the shield bug, infantry battles take longer. Even if an infantry unit is getting crushed, it takes a while to kill or rout it. A "holding action" is now possible, allowing you time to make maneuvers, reinforce and use combined-arms tactics that require some time.

Jambo

05-08-2007, 12:18

Furious Mental

05-08-2007, 13:03

That is lame. It's only when every settlement is a huge city or a citadel that the AI actually consistently fields armies of decent soldiers, and the sooner it happens the better.

Daveybaby

05-08-2007, 13:57

That is lame. It's only when every settlement is a huge city or a citadel that the AI actually consistently fields armies of decent soldiers, and the sooner it happens the better.
Alternatively: One of the reasons the AI doesnt field decent armies early on is because it (not unreasonably) spends all of its cash upgrading cities/castles, since the rapid pop growth means they turn up too often. Once the cities are all maxed out it can then afford to buy decent units.

So increasing the gap between city upgrades should mean that the AI doesnt spend so much cash upgrading, and so will field better armies consistently throughout the game.

Jambo

05-08-2007, 14:48

That is lame. It's only when every settlement is a huge city or a citadel that the AI actually consistently fields armies of decent soldiers, and the sooner it happens the better.

Err, it works for the human and AI...

Since there's now a longer period between when one can upgrade the castle levels, this affords both the AI and human more time to build the other structures. Previously with the super fast growth, while the AI would be busy building other structures, the human would just tech up the castle level which is arguably the most important structure for troop quality (they give DFKs and cavalry). I found myself sometimes being able to tech up to the citadel almost straight after teching up the castle, and then I'd have all the top end troops at my disposal way before 100 turns and while the AI was busy building markets, etc....

Slaists

05-08-2007, 15:12

Doug-Thompson

05-08-2007, 15:18

Re: Population growth

I have to agree that the rate change is a good thing. I'm running into a lot more knights and armored sergeants than before.

gardibolt

05-08-2007, 17:59

Ran into a passive siege AI last night I'm afraid. Defending Acre as England against the Timurids, 1.2 M/M unmodded, not unpacked. The Tims attacked me, but then just sat there until the timer was nearly out, even though they had siege towers, rams and artillery elephants. They did shoot a few cannonballs at a wall, giving it 23% damage, but then stopped.

I finally sent some men out to get them off the dime, but time ran out before anything actually happened.:inquisitive:

speedofsound

05-08-2007, 18:16

madalchemist

05-08-2007, 18:32

The patch is a vast improvement, though princesses' charm is still too low compared to other agents or the game using the princesses' triggers Olmsted gave in the .com forum.

I'll try to insert them in addition to those of the 1.2 to see if our poor girls get 3-4 charm easily.

One thing I couldn't do is to make ancillaries transferable. I went to export_descr_ancillaries and set to Transferable 1 what was Transferable 0; unfortunately no ancillary can be moved (but probably i made mistakes during the modding process), and the general whose ancillary is to be moved says "I can't go there" and such.

Edit: I forgot to tell the Pagan Magician was still bugged, had to mod it after having seen half of my gen had it

alex9337

05-08-2007, 19:10

I am playing my first campaign with the 1.2 patch, as the English.

Installation was a snap. Did a complete uninstall of everything, re-installed vanilla 1.0 game, then patched to 1.2, no problems whatsoever.

Love the changes, almost all of which have been noted here prior. Now, more than ever, this is my favourite game to play.

TinCow

05-08-2007, 19:14

I have an AMD/Nvidia processor/video card configuration and installed 1.02 over 1.01 with no mods, and have seen no real problems except one: I no longer have tooltips on the campaign HUD, construction window, etc. Every time I want to verify the cost/time investment of a building, I need to right-click. It's a small problem, but not having them makes the game extremely tedious. Has anyone experienced this? Is there anything I can do to fix it? I never had any graphical issues with the game prior to 1.02.

As for gameplay, I echo the sentiments that this patch is a vast improvement. Much better in nearly every respect.

The game has problems if you install 1.2 on top of a 1.1 patched game. Uninstall the game and reinstall a fresh copy, then apply patch 1.2 on top of it; there is no need for patch 1.1. Your saved games should still work (just make sure they don't get deleted in the uninstall!)

andrewt

05-08-2007, 19:19

My favourite unexpected change is how population growth in cities and castles has been reworked in 1.2. It's now much slower meaning you now actually have to upgrade farms and town houses in your settlements to prevent them from stagnating. Previously, the farm upgrades were completely unnecessary and huge cities and castles were everywhere by the mid-game. Thumbs up.

There's still a few battle-map AI idiosyncracies that CA could perfect and there's definitely some stat rebalancing required, but otherwise it's a first rate patch.

I didn't know this was a change in the patch. I was just wondering why I needed to move chivalrous generals around, especially to castles, to help them grow. I just thought it was because Turkish lands have smaller base farming levels. I did have to build farms all around and still had to do the general trick.

I think it works well in cities past 6000 population, since they grow too fast after it hits 6000 before. The 2000-6000 is still a huge bottleneck, however, and many of my cities sit idle for lots of turns having built everything. 1000-2000 is slow, but not as bad as the 2000-6000 wait.

I think castles might need a bit of adjusting as well. Hitting the last two population caps seems too slow. I had to use chivalrous governors to not have idle time with them. Though I was suppose part of my problem is I'm playing the Turks right now and the infantry line of buildings doesn't seem to be good for them. That's partly why it seemed so slow to me. I still built them when I had nothing else to build, though.

Goofball

05-08-2007, 21:13

Two questions:

1) Do pikes still become useless because they switch to their swords immediately upon contact with the enemy?

2) Are 2Handers fixed?

Doug-Thompson

05-08-2007, 21:18

Two questions:

1) Do pikes still become useless because they switch to their swords immediately upon contact with the enemy?

Don't know yet.

2) Are 2Handers fixed?

Yes, in the sense that they work correctly, but they aren't so hot for the price

Now that the shield bug is fixed, other infantry is just as good or better.

Cheetah

05-08-2007, 21:29

Two questions:

1) Do pikes still become useless because they switch to their swords immediately upon contact with the enemy?

If you want to fight it out vs sword and shield infantry then forget pikes as they will lose. However, pikes are far from useless as they are more or less the only inf type that can take cav charge head on with minimal casualties. (and even compared to S&S inf they had advantages such as: most the pikes are cheaper and much easier to retrain)

2) Are 2Handers fixed?

There is a difference between 2Handers and 2Handers.
2H axe units work (fight) properly and can kill cavs. Even though they wont beat DCK or perhaps even DFK but since they are cheaper (and for example for Egypt the only choice of heavy melee inf) IMO they worth their price.
On the other hand most of the 2H sword units are not cost efficient as they will lose to S&S infantry and cost more.

Yun Dog

05-09-2007, 03:40

I think this is a very good patch and makes some significant improvements to the game for which I am grateful. :2thumbsup:

Now we just need to get the pathfinding and unit cohesion fixed, particularly in settlements (castles/citys) where because of the game design you end up doing alot (if not the majority) of the fighting, because this is just horrible - I would even prefer having a blank square surrounded by walls. Even those little flags around the town square mess things up. GAH!!! :furious3:

Fußball

05-09-2007, 04:30

In reply to 2hand swords. 2hand swords are neutered due to high cost and high upkeep for something that will be shredded head-on by swords. IMHO this needs serious tweaking as all zweihänder are incapable of keeping up with S&S units, mainly knights. Unfortunately now I will just use them for flavor and for flanking. By the time you get them you usually have the money to spend on anything anyway.

Tschüß!
Erich

rookie7

05-09-2007, 04:55

This is my first time playing the total war series, so my "senses" might not be as kean as most of you guys'. Here are some problems I see with update 2.

1. I send my calvary after the routing units, but some time, the calvary still circling about the units and not doing anything. Most of the time, though, they get the job done. Does anyone experience this? Is this normal?

2. Sometime when my general wins a battle, this window pops up:
http://img168.imagevenue.com/loc344/th_81281_traitdecrease_122_344lo.JPG (http://img168.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=81281_traitdecrease_122_344lo.JPG)

See the discrepancy there? The title says trait decrease and feels unappreciated, but then the explanation says he's happy and his loyal has increased.

3. I haven't had much luck with diplomacy like you guys. A few turn after the above picture was taken, I took London from the English which left them with only Nottingham left. I sent a ceasefire offer their way but they turned it down. Same with the Milan. After taking Bologna, Florence, and Rome from them, they only have Ajaccio left (yeah...that tiny wooden castle south of Genoa). A ceasefire was offered but they turned it down. :wall: So, I didn't see much improvement except new features in diplomacy. I'm still at war with all of the neighboring factions. Does anyone experience this?

Something I find interesting...the Papal State was left with no home when the Milan took Rome. After I captured Rome from Milan, the Pope asked me to return Rome to him, but I declined. :yes:

Foz

05-09-2007, 05:16

Concerning the growth changes:

On one hand, it improves some aspects of things. Certainly as someone mentioned chivalrous generals become more desirable when previously they were not as necessary. Also, the AI will definitely build more/better troops if it is stripped of the ability to upgrade settlements because they have no upgrades left. However, with the previous growth rate I was already often having all upgrades complete and waiting for the next population level to hit. York is an example of a settlement this ALWAYS happens to, and I can tell already that the slower growth will annoy me a LOT. York is barely over 1000 pop and already nearly out of things to do in my one campaign. Not only will I be frustrated continually by my empty building queues, but I find that I too have more free cash now since it takes so much longer to get to any expensive buildings to sink my cash into. On top of that, the game will be stuck for quite sometime at a poor tech level due to the dreadful population progression castles now have. These shortcomings make me feel that slowing the growth, while obviously somewhat effective at solving the problem of AI recruitment, is the wrong answer to this problem.

The real problem, as someone earlier pointed out, is not that the AI upgrades its cities too much; it is that it has no surplus cash left after doing so to get and keep decent armies around. Slowing growth makes things better whenever the AI runs out of upgrades, but that will not happen for some time in the early portion of the game. Thus the more natural and better answer is economic in nature, since the problem is economic. Put simply, get more cash into the AI's hands.

Numerous plans have been discussed by Orgers already to accomplish just that, and generally they produce consistently good results from the AI. Included are:

- modifying king's purse to higher amounts so factions are granted more funds each turn
- using console commands to grant AI factions money
- using the game's own triggers/monitors to add money

I have played around a lot with the king's purse myself, and even granting myself the same advantage I give the AI (i.e. not cheating against myself at all) I find the AI benefits from the added cash infinitely more than I do. Presumably similar AI building is going on, but the AI is sending stacks around now that are actually sometimes capable of destroying the groups I have in the field (not saying they do so, just that they're no longer obviously inferior in quality and/or quantity). That never happened before I tweaked king's purses to higher amounts. Of the other suggestions, one that sounded good was a plan to give each non-human faction 1,000 florins per settlement it controls each turn. However, that plan promotes the bloating of an advantaged faction since it receives more aid as it conquers. It also means each settlement the human captures deprives the AI of some of its aid - also not what I want. Economic features (like trade and taxes) could be improved, but again that would cause more of the juggernaut faction phenomenon since it's settlement-based, and has the extra disadvantage of making the human even more powerful as his/her faction grows. Raising the king's purse since it's a flat rate per faction keeps the factions on more even footing, grants them the needed spending money each turn to field respectable armies, and I feel it represents the best solution to the problem CA appears to be trying to address with the growth changes.

Having said that, does anyone have a 1.0/1.1 descr_settlement_mechanics.xml file laying around? I assume the growth changes were made in there, but I think in the wipe/reinstall/patch process I wiped all my copies of files from previous versions. I don't know if I'll stick with the old version, but I at least want the option since I'm pretty sure I'll get a game I like better w/ that file and the changes I've been discussing here.

sapi

05-09-2007, 09:31

@rookie7

#2: Since the 'unappreciated' line of traits, which give negative loyalty bonuses decreased, the net change is actually an increase in loyalty and so the description is correct

Jambo

05-09-2007, 10:46

@Foz

I fail to see how there's any downside to reduced growth rate at all. In my 1.2 campaigns I'm now finding that the tech tree is a perfect fit to the 225 turn timescale of the campaign. I now find myself building early units during the early stages, mid units during the mid stage and late units and gunpowder units during the late game. Previously under 1.1. I was finding myself able to build upgraded walls long before I'd even considered building the other structures associated with the previous tech levels. When many of your units are linked to the wall structure, as is the case with castles, then this can render much of the other structures moot (e.g. stables). Not only that but farm upgrades could be completely ignored, and if built could often cause you bother later on with squalor. Antwerp for instance had such a high base level that building upgraded farms was a definite no-no.

Under 1.1 the AI of course failed to see the advantage of just teching up the castle structure, and of course would deviate into the less critical structures like markets, etc. As a result you're running around with high-end knights and dismounted knights when the AI's still got various militia types guarding their markets...

If you're having trouble knowing what to spend your money on because you've build everything you can then I suggest you up the ante a little and give the AI some of the bonuses you suggest. I use AI money scripts and a campaign AI garrison script and everything I build has to carefully weighed up and most of my settlements still have plenty of things to build...

Daveybaby

05-09-2007, 11:33

#2: Since the 'unappreciated' line of traits, which give negative loyalty bonuses decreased, the net change is actually an increase in loyalty and so the description is correct
So the general isnt actually not feeling less disunappreciated?

Jambo

05-09-2007, 12:24

So the general isnt actually not feeling less disunappreciated?

lol, double negatives are a wonderful idiosyncracy of the English language - but triple (or could even be 4 or 5!) negatives.... wow. Talk about a brain fuzz. :wall:

sapi

05-09-2007, 12:40

So the general isnt actually not feeling less disunappreciated?
:laugh4:

CA should pop something like that in next update and watch the chaos :grin2:

dopp

05-09-2007, 13:54

Two questions:

1) Do pikes still become useless because they switch to their swords immediately upon contact with the enemy?

2) Are 2Handers fixed?

1) Yes, same as before. I'm still confiscating swords post-patch.

2) The 2hand bug is fixed. Balance is another matter.

pike master

05-09-2007, 13:58

feudal dismounted and other sword and shield infantry are way overpowered.these units should be obsolete compared to two handed units like english dismounted knights and swiss guard.

Vladimir

05-09-2007, 14:45

:laugh4:

CA should pop something like that in next update and watch the chaos :grin2:

So would that prompt a message:

CA +1 Dread

:skull:

Tran

05-09-2007, 15:09

I have question about difficulty level:
Is the medium level difficulty (both campaign map and battlefield) in 1.2 actually harder (but still logical, e.g: diplomacy AI) compared to very hard in 1.1? If that's the case, is it correct to assume that very hard in 1.2 is way much harder than very hard in 1.1?

Jambo

05-09-2007, 15:13

So the general isnt actually not feeling less disunappreciated?

I've been trying to work out the meaning of this one all afternoon and my brain's melted. I think we need a cryptologist in here to solve this literary puzzle...

Daveybaby... please enlighten us! ;)
:laugh4:

FactionHeir

05-09-2007, 15:15

Basically means "So the general is actually feeling less appreciated"

Moah

05-09-2007, 15:22

So the general isnt actually not feeling less disunappreciated?

Okay. :dizzy2:

Let's see, count up the -ves...

So the general isnt (-)actually not feeling (_) less (_)dis (-)un (-) appreciated

:juggle2:

Two - = a + so a "quintiple negative" is actually a basic _ve (it goes _, + , _ , +, _)

:book:

So he's yes, Davy he's feeling unappreciated...

:idea2:

Doug-Thompson

05-09-2007, 15:29

Re: unappreciated

Grammatical confusion aside, this is a good a place as any to set out the basics of this trait.

A general ususally gets the "feels unappreciated" trait when he's, well, ignored. Left idle and so forth. This drives his loyalty down.

One cure is to put him in charge of a battle he can win. There's always some bandits that need killing, for instance.

Once he gets into action, he fells less neglected. The "feels unappreciated" trait is lessened and his loyalty rises back toward it's original level.

helmeteye

05-09-2007, 15:57

I am playing my first game on 1.2 official. I didn't use the unofficial because I played Galactic Civ2 while I waited. 1.1 was too bad for me to play.

So far I really like the 1.2 patch and have run into only one bug so far. I am playing England on vh/vh and was allied with France and Scottland when they bug appeared. I am in early game less than 15 turns. I was besieging Bruges of the Danes with about a half stack army and Scottland was with me with about a half stack army, though their stack had depleted troops, when a unit of French balista, my allies, attacked. That isn't the bug because I figured there may be a diplomatic reason for them to attack. The bug was during the actual battle. I noticed that during the battle me and the Scotts lined up our troops side by side, I sent one unit of archers or crossbows, can't remember which, to deal with the balista unit. The bug appeared after the balistas fired two or three shots at my missile unit. Balista quit firing but it said it was firing. That was the bug.

atheotes

05-09-2007, 19:34

I am liking the reviews :yes: ... I think it is time to go and get M2TW finally!!! :2thumbsup:

doombringer

05-09-2007, 19:42

overall the tweaks and changes make it a lot less annoying to play, but does anyone know where i access battle editor,
as this is (supposedly) included in the patc but not on the menu

Kobal2fr

05-09-2007, 19:47

Whacker

05-09-2007, 20:16

Kobal2fr

05-09-2007, 20:36

Meh. A dog which stops defecating in your bed, but still does it on the rug is "closer to what's ideal", if you take my meaning :). I see you're still raving and ranting about units scattering all over the place. Ooooh yes, I see you. I'm watching you... all. the. time. MUAHAHAHAHAHA !

Kidding aside, I agree that what I've been reading so far has been absurdly positive so I just might sit through 3 hours of install and 3 more to dl that huge patch when I'm done kicking Macedonian butt, hastati-style.

Of course, those CA bastards just HAD to go and change all their VnV triggers so I'd have to read them all up. Again. And introduce three typoes for each bug found and fixed. Again. And spending more time tweaking this and testing that actually playing. Again.

I swear, who in the world goes out and just *fix* things ?! Uncaring is what they are.

Still, I'd really like to know wether that peculiar bug got squashed before I really get my hopes up. It was the smallest of things, but I couldn't stop obsessing about it and getting angry when I noticed its effects... anal retention at its best :laugh4: .

Deus Le Volt!

05-09-2007, 21:00

I'm not sure if this is new or not, but I noticed when the cpu's stationary units reform (due to losses from missile fire), they tend to clump together in the middle of the formation before they spread back out.

Not an altogether bad thing, as I've been able to land some lucky catapult rounds right in the scrum. It just seems to me that if they were reforming, the units on the right would stay on the right side, the left on the left, and so forth.

But after a week of playing with the new patch, I have to say again it's a vast improvement.

On a history note, someone (I forget who, but thanks!) posted a picture of the battle of bannockburn here last week, and I had to look it up:

http://www.braveheart.co.uk/macbrave/history/bruce/banseq.htm

An interesting story about the effectiveness of pikes in these types of battles.

I also noticed how much the terrain factored in. Has there ever been any exploration into types of terrain causing units to fight differently? (I mean, besides mountains making it impossible to fight a proper battle.) The scots dug pits around their lines to keep cavalry from flaking them.

Tamur

05-09-2007, 21:23

hi Kobal2fr,

Namecalling isn't going to help too much. Please keep the comments aimed at the game, not the individuals.

Foz

05-10-2007, 00:13

Kobal2fr:

Yes, yes, YES! It if fixed!!! Antitraits correctly decrement the appropriate trait now instead of destroying it to 0 every time. It's amazing how big a difference it makes, too. That plus the addition of some actual ways to get positive traits means the VnV system is much improved in 1.2. Spies are rebalanced, many of the bad triggers are fixed... it is a relative paradise, all things considered.

Kobal2fr

05-10-2007, 00:45

I'm afraid I went and ruined a perfectly decent pair of boxers. That's settled, then. In the immortal words of Jesus Christ : I'll be back.

@Tamur : what, isn't dark sarcasm taught in the classrooms anymore ? Was I being like raiiiiin on a wedding day again ? And is there no song in the whole world about antiphrase ?
Now, English isn't my primary language, but I do believe I was praising our esteemed coders for, you know, actually listening to players, fixing stuff, making things work better etc, all kinds of things which in some extreme and far-fetched cases might be construed as a positive.
Oops, I did it again :sweatdrop:.

:clown:

Shahed

05-10-2007, 01:59

LOL ! Tros adulte, c'st pas genial non plus mon PETIT !

Welcome back.. now get to work ! :p

FactionHeir

05-10-2007, 16:06

OK, I'm going to have to say that the official 1.02 patch simply sucks.
Why?
Because I cannot even get it to run.
What I did today:
Deinstalled my medieval2, deleted medieval folder, removed all reg entires associated with "sega" or "medieval", rebooted, reinstalled fresh, rebooted.
Then patched 1.1, rebooted, then patched 1.2 (noting that the updater tells me that even though I got 1.1 installed that my version is 1.0)
Patching took ~30 mins (better than the 10 mins I had when the patch first came out) and rebooted.
Instead of running the game, I unpack the traits file to check the actual version, and its a 1.1 trait file.
Great, didn't patch.

So....I uninstalled again, deleted the folder, deleted the same reg entries and reinstalled.
This time after reinstall I rebooted and patched to 1.2 right away instead of to 1.1 first.
Rebooted after 1.2 was installed (took 30 mins again) and checked traits file. This time the traits file was a 1.0.

So what does that tell me? Medieval2 is still unpatched with only a few 1.2 files thrown in (the ones that were included in the patch, i.e. the exe and the launcher)

Right. Rant stop. Still, I can't play 1.2 because the patcher won't let me. That in itself is a big let down if you bring out a patch that does not work even if all instructions are followed. Are you checking for something else when patching that I'm not aware of, CA/SEGA, that keeps breaking the patching for me?

Skott

05-10-2007, 18:57

This is a post I made earlier of how it went for me...

I live in FL and I used the East Coast server on Gamershell. At the time it had a 72% usuage at the time but I didnt have a problem. Took a bit less than 30 minutes to DL it all. This was about 9:00 AM EST Yesterday(Wednesday 5/9/07).

I was running the LtC mod prior to the new patching (was using patch 1.1) so I did a clean reinstall back to M2TW 1.0 to play it safe (took maybe 12-15 minutes) before DLing the patch and applying it. I went straight from clean 1.0 to patch 1.2 without a problem and everything is working good so far.

Okay I been playing a English campaign just to test things out and to use the game to unlock the other factions like CA intended. So far two things to gripe about.

1)I dont think the cavalry charges are much better than patch 1.1. Knights are still walking up to the enemy instead of charging and their pathing is still sucky on the battle map. When I was using the LtC Mod the charges were working much much better.

2)I learned long ago to keep my generals outside of cities/forts to keep the bad traits from happening. I'm doing it this time as well just because its a forced habit now. Problem is that the beginning of every turn I keep getting a trait decrease message for my generals. In the past it was just once in a while but with 1.2 its happening every single turn. Very odd.

Anyway those are my two biggest gripes so far but I need to test it alot more first. After I finish this English campaign I'll probably go back to Lusted's LtC Mod. I really like it and I want to see how it well it works with 1.2.

Lusted

05-10-2007, 19:40

Make sure you get 2.3 as its designed to work with the new patch.

Skott

05-11-2007, 02:22

Yeah, I will. I just want to go through this one campaign first to see how Vanilla 1.2 is compared to vanilla 1.1. Been awhile since I played a vanilla campaign and I can tell you one thing. I sure do miss LtC Mod! Superior to Vanilla 1.1 and 1.2 IMHO. Cant wait to try the new LtC 2.3 :yes:

Miles Sueborum

05-11-2007, 02:31

Hm - is it just me or are dismounted feudal knights now even more powerfull than before? I can be wrong, but if I remember right following Units were able to beat them under equal conditions: dismounted Huskarls (chance seemed to be 50:50), Obudshaer, Swordstaffmilitia, German Two handed Swordsmen, Viking Raiders when fully armored...
None of them is able to that any more...
So there is for many catholic factions no real reason to upgrade their infantrybuildings anymore since dismounted feudal knights are the best heavy infantry they'll ever get...

dopp

05-11-2007, 09:02

This is due to the shield bug being fixed, making them a little OP. They have a solid attack, fast swing animation, good armor, a massive 6 shield bonus (they are much more heavily armored than any cavalry unit in the game) and can still dance around the enemy with 8 defense skill (all sword units get +3 'parry' bonus).

I usually nerf them with -2 attack, -3 defense, -2 shield (to match their mounted stats). For what is essentially a makeshift unit (note that it's 'dismounted knights' and not 'foot knights'), they pwn dedicated heavy infantry many tiers and eras beyond them, including pikemen, zweihanders, halberdiers, sword and buckler men and billmen.

econ21

05-11-2007, 09:11

So there is for many catholic factions no real reason to upgrade their infantrybuildings anymore since dismounted feudal knights are the best heavy infantry they'll ever get...

Yes, this screams out to you from the stats and tech tree, doesn't it? Ever since the stats were first leaked, it has been obvious that DFKs are incredibly powerful (just looking at the att + def as a crude measure of power). Moving from militia to DFKs is a massive upgrade in power, but then there are no more infantry upgrades.

I am not sure it is that much better for cav. The mailed => feudal upgrade is very questionable, given the loss of speed. And some of the later heavy cavalry suffers from losing their shields.

I would hope CA look at this issue across the board for 1.3 (there are issues with the Byz getting their Vards so early). If you are going to have a tech tree, you need to give an incentive to climb it.

Jambo

05-11-2007, 14:00

Yes, this screams out to you from the stats and tech tree, doesn't it? Ever since the stats were first leaked, it has been obvious that DFKs are incredibly powerful (just looking at the att + def as a crude measure of power). Moving from militia to DFKs is a massive upgrade in power, but then there are no more infantry upgrades.

I am not sure it is that much better for cav. The mailed => feudal upgrade is very questionable, given the loss of speed. And some of the later heavy cavalry suffers from losing their shields.

I would hope CA look at this issue across the board for 1.3 (there are issues with the Byz getting their Vards so early). If you are going to have a tech tree, you need to give an incentive to climb it.

Indeed. DFKs straight out the box rule the roost and there's absolutely no need to build expensive upgrades to reach the later DCKs or Armoured/Noble Swordsmen. The later units only have one better armour and by that time in the game many of your DFKs will be coming out with upgraded armour anyway.

Not only that, but as you so rightly surmised, the combat difference between DFKs and everything that's come before is the complete opposite. Almost single-handedly they render all previous infantry units redundant and the gulf between them and non-christian equivalents is also rather enormous. So far, what I've done to balance things out a little is reduce the attack of DFKs by 3 and the defence by 1, but it's also true to say that all S&S infantry have rather bloated stats.

Kobal2fr

05-11-2007, 14:26

Maybe some tweaking could be done about that shield bonus, now that we know it actually works ? What I mean is : all troop types that have shield get +6 out of it, from Armored Sergeants (with large kite shields) to Sword&Buckler Inf (with, well, bucklers, obviously)... Maybe giving all pavises +8, all kites & similar +6, all small kites (like the ones DFKs have) +4 and bucklers +2 would change things a bit ?

Of course, it wouldn't do a lick of difference for underpowered 2handers, but it might un-über dismounted knights a bit.

Didz

05-11-2007, 14:36

Just had my first post 1.02 crash to desktop.

I was zoomed in tight watching my cannon crew return to their guns ready to fire into the last of the English Knights clustered in the centre of the town square of Leon when the screen just went black and I got the dreaded 'fatal exception' message.

Not sure if this is a game problem or a graphic's issue as for some time now I have been getting scrobing graphic effects flashing across my desktop when I log out of either MTW2 or RTW. I usually manage to get rid of them just by switching my screen resolution down to 1024 and then back up to 1280 again.

Not sure if there is any link but you never know. Graphic Card is an NVIDIA GeForce FX5600 driver is version 6.14.10.9371 dated 22/10/2006. Which I think is the latest one thats MS certified.

crpcarrot

05-11-2007, 15:25

playing at muslim factins i quite enjoy the challenege of beating uber DFK's. when u see them coming at u u know u need to do soemthing special to beat them. its a noce feeling to see them run :D

an earlier poster mentioned getting negative traits all the time. its something u r doing in your game amte maybe they are feeling un appreciated cos now every time u are leading an army into battle gives a town etc u get the appreciated trait so maybe them wandering around in the wilderness is doing the opposite.

and the crash bugs are probably to do with system specs or bad downloads u cant blame the patch or CA for that.

the only bad thing i see since 1.2 my pc seems to tske a long time to recover from M2TW. ( being a nontechie i dont know how else to put it) everything seems to slow down for a while after i quit the game which didnt happen before 1.2.

there still are problems but i am loving the patch.

Slaists

05-11-2007, 15:36

Indeed. DFKs straight out the box rule the roost and there's absolutely no need to build expensive upgrades to reach the later DCKs or Armoured/Noble Swordsmen. The later units only have one better armour and by that time in the game many of your DFKs will be coming out with upgraded armour anyway.

Not only that, but as you so rightly surmised, the combat difference between DFKs and everything that's come before is the complete opposite. Almost single-handedly they render all previous infantry units redundant and the gulf between them and non-christian equivalents is also rather enormous. So far, what I've done to balance things out a little is reduce the attack of DFKs by 3 and the defence by 1, but it's also true to say that all S&S infantry have rather bloated stats.

Note that 1) shield protection is supposed to work only from the left side and partially from the front: so, the total defense we see for DFK's tells just part of the picture. the later better armored, but shield-less units might have better all-around protection than DFK's. 2) DFK's have higher upkeep than armored swordsmen; thus, at least in this department armored swordsmen appear to be a professional natural replacement for DFK's.

econ21

05-11-2007, 15:43

Note that 1) shield protection is supposed to work only from the left side and partially from the front: so, the total defense we see for DFK's tells just part of the picture. the later better armored, but shield-less units might have better all-around protection than DFK's.

IIRC, brandybarrel of FAUST fame was pretty emphatic that the shield benefiting the left/front thing was true in RTW but not M2TW.

2) DFK's have higher upkeep than armored swordsmen; thus, at least in this department armored swordsmen appear to be a professional natural replacement for DFK's.

I think we are including armored swords alongside DFKs as rather overpowered S&S units. Armored swords are essentially DFKs at a lower upkeep, but you get them at the same stage of the tech tree (and I think are England only).

Foz

05-11-2007, 16:45

I think we are including armored swords alongside DFKs as rather overpowered S&S units. Armored swords are essentially DFKs at a lower upkeep, but you get them at the same stage of the tech tree (and I think are England only).

Yes, England only. The Armored Swordsmen ATM make England absolutely ridiculous as soon as you get a fortress. You crank out the barracks upgrade, and presto: oodles of dismounted knights everywhere. As you mention, they have a cheap 150 upkeep, which just ensures you'll be able to keep spamming them and rarely have to worry about paying for them. I think the idea is supposed to be that England pays for this feature by sacrificing any sort of reasonable spear unit, but DFK-type units currently stand up to cavalry too well for the lack of a good anti-cav unit to really be a significant enough drawback to provide balance.

This is due to the shield bug being fixed, making them a little OP. They have a solid attack, fast swing animation, good armor, a massive 6 shield bonus (they are much more heavily armored than any cavalry unit in the game) and can still dance around the enemy with 8 defense skill (all sword units get +3 'parry' bonus).

Do you mean the parry bonus is figured into their stats, or that it's applied by the engine? Either way I don't think I've heard that tidbit previously. What other cool stuff do you know about the stats system, Dopp?

speedofsound

05-11-2007, 21:10

The game has problems if you install 1.2 on top of a 1.1 patched game. Uninstall the game and reinstall a fresh copy, then apply patch 1.2 on top of it; there is no need for patch 1.1. Your saved games should still work (just make sure they don't get deleted in the uninstall!)

Ah, wonderful! Many thanks, m'man.

Caelus

05-12-2007, 05:31

Well, I just got it working today, and decided to play a game as France (a combined-arms faction in my view) to test it out.

I’m very impressed with the effect the fixed shield bug has on the tactical game play. Spearmen can actually stop a cavalry charge now! I’ve also noticed that now that cavalry have their own shields, they actually hold up longer. This is good since I would get annoyed taking huge casualties when charging a unit from behind, or some other not-high-casualty-producing activity. Today I charged an enemy force (consisting of mostly spear militia and crossbowmen) from behind in a city square, with a unit of 40 general’s bodyguard. After two charges the enemy was destroyed, and I only lost 3 cavalrymen! That is what’s supposed to happen under circumstances like that, instead of huge losses to my cavalry which was the common result in version 1.1.

The AI does certainly seem to be improved. I actually lost 2 battles in a row tonight! An event I don’t think has happened since STW. The computer sallied three (maybe it was four) times when they were not on their last turn (they were not about to starve). This indicates to me that the computer will now sally if it thinks it has a good chance at winning, instead of waiting till the last minute when they are horribly weakened. The computer would sally immediately before, but only when it had a huge numerical advantage. When it sallied tonight, I had sizable forces present.

In addition I’ve noticed a definite improvement in the computer’s overall handling of battle. It was attempting flanking and rear attacks. It was also more prudent in its use of cavalry, ruining my plan to skewer their horses with my spearmen. :shame:

dopp

05-12-2007, 11:01

Do you mean the parry bonus is figured into their stats, or that it's applied by the engine? Either way I don't think I've heard that tidbit previously. What other cool stuff do you know about the stats system, Dopp?

In their stats. If you run through the Faust and Fusil list you'll see that almost every sword-armed infantry unit has very high defense skill (notable exception is Trebizond Archers). This includes archers but not pikemen. By 'sword' I mean A) has a sword graphic as a primary or secondary attack, B) has an attack of around 11-13, and C) has a charge bonus of 2-3. It's very consistent. Every sword-armed infantry unit has +3 defense skill more than equivalent units carrying other weapons.

Take Longbows, for instance. Most longbow units carry AP maces and hammers to brain armored numbskulls. They have 1-3 defense skill. But Retinue Longbows buck the trend by carrying swords and have 6 defense skill. Now look at DFK vs DEK. DFK have insane 8 defense skill because they carry swords. DEK are numbskulls, carry big slow 2handers and have defense 5.

Look at the defense skill of foot units across the board. Green milita have 1 defense skill. Decent troops have 3 skill. Hardened professionals have 5. Elites have 6. Sword units buck the trend. They START at 6-7, then go on up to 8 or even 9. That's a really high number for what is normally considered a secondary weapon, and swords are such good weapons already (fast animation, high attack, leaves one hand free for a shield, free duck under spear walls).

I went through and laboriously dropped all sword units by 3 defense skill. Now my (buffed) halberdiers can actually maintain equal kill rates against armored swordsmen.

Vladimir

05-12-2007, 16:39

Overall I'm liking the improvements on the battlefield. The passive AI bug from MTW (yes, the first one!) is gone an I cannot exploit the AI stupidity towards getting hit my missiles. The slow unit response time is annoying but good. I can no longer do a flight of the bumblebee with my cavalry, I have to be more careful how I use them and don't have so much of an unfair advantage.

Skott

05-12-2007, 22:51

I started a French Campaign with the LtC 2.3 mod now and I'm liking it very much. Certainly better than vanilla 1.2. Kudos to Lusted! ~:thumb:

alex9337

05-13-2007, 15:59

I am still in the middle of playing my first 1.2 campaign as the English. The only mod I have done is change the turns to .5 years, matching the aging of my family tree.

I gotta tell you, I may not be much of a computer techno guy and I have never delved into the "guts" of the game, examing stats, etc, but I just love the fixes in this new patch.

I am being attacked by multiple factions with really good units, ie, chivalric knights, xbowmen, top-o'-the-line cavalry, etc. This is wonderful, makes it a real challenge!

thoroughly enjoying the working traits and the fixed spies and assassins too. Great job, CA!

darsalon

05-14-2007, 14:03

I am being attacked by multiple factions with really good units, ie, chivalric knights, xbowmen, top-o'-the-line cavalry, etc. This is wonderful, makes it a real challenge!

thoroughly enjoying the working traits and the fixed spies and assassins too. Great job, CA!

I posted earlier on this thread that I was finding it difficult to get started. Now I have and I'm impressed. Am playing as the Seljuk Turks and got to Constantinople by 1110 on the vanilla 1.2 game with the only game change being changing it to 0.5 years per turn and displaying the years. By 1120 I have had to withdraw from there as I've been hit by 4 crusades + 2 full stack armies of hungarians all arriving at pretty much the same time in the area. Second to that the Egyptians have decided to try and attack me near Jerusalem giving me a difficult 2 front war to deal with. Am leaking cash like a sieve and I'm finding feudal foot knights to be extremely tough to fight as well.

And you know what, that's great. The game is providing a good challenge and I'm having to reconsider my options for what to do. Not had that at all with the previous versions. Thumbs up from me :2thumbsup:

Slaists

05-14-2007, 14:15

IIRC, brandybarrel of FAUST fame was pretty emphatic that the shield benefiting the left/front thing was true in RTW but not M2TW.

I think we are including armored swords alongside DFKs as rather overpowered S&S units. Armored swords are essentially DFKs at a lower upkeep, but you get them at the same stage of the tech tree (and I think are England only).

Well, before 1.2 came out, there was a thread dealing with the shield bug (I think Carl and Foz were the starters of the thread. could not find it now). One of the fixes proposed to the shield bug was to dump all its value into armor while zeroing out the shield protection value. A suggestion from a CA person was to rather put half the shield value into armor, the other half into defense. This way the unit would get "average" armor defense of the shield (unfortunately, from all sides) counting the intended front/rear/side effects.

If I read the CA suggestion correctly, there is a built in difference between the shield defense received from front/side/rear.

Daveybaby

05-14-2007, 14:31

dopp

05-14-2007, 15:19

Hey there !
Do you know if they fixed the antitrait code ? Don't know if you remember me, since I abruptly quit playing (and coming here) around the time we noticed them not working as intended at all, and we were planning to duplicate all triggers to work around the fact that gaining a point in an antitrait made the opposite trait go back to zero at once instead of getting -1.

Hey, welcome back. Antitraits are... erm, funny. I'm experiencing wierdness with some of them. They don't wipe each other out like pre-patch, but I'm getting things like 'Understands Trade' (GoodTrader) and 'Incompetent Trader' (BadTrader) traits on the same character, or 'Fair in Rule' (StrategyChivalry) and 'Mean Ruler' (StrategyDread) on my king. More testing is required.

Otherwise, they did a pretty thorough review of the traits system and fixed up quite a bit of stuff. Things to watch out for:

1. Not having a market in a town is 100% chance of BadTrader for the governor every turn (!).
2. Not having a town center is 6% chance of Unjust for the governor every turn.
3. Generals stuck on a boat will pick up drinking and arse (sodomy) easily. Watch out for those American expeditions especially. No more cryofreeze cruises for generals.
4. A princess can become a HumbleWoman or PretentiousWoman depending on your treasury level. PretentiousWoman leads to WifeIsBitch.
5. Not having an academic building of some sort in a town gives any character there a 4% chance of Ignorance (since not every faction gets academic buildings, and they require pretty high population to build, this may be a little unfair) per turn, which is fairly high.
6. Being outside a settlement for no good reason is a little chancy now, with several bad traits waiting to be picked out. Don't stay still for too long.
7. Having a church/mosque can help keep your characters on the straight and narrow with Prim and Upright. Lots of positive traits waiting to be picked up if you have the right buildings built.

Foz

05-14-2007, 17:39

Thank you Dopp, that is amazingly useful. I had noticed the rash of bad trader going around in the early game but have been too lazy to look at the new EDCT, lol. I did notice prim and upright a lot too, and they are GREAT at nipping those bad traits in the bud.

2. Not having a town center is 6% chance of HarshRuler(?) for the governor every turn.

I'm guessing the question mark is because you don't understand what HarshRuler would have to do with the town center?

If so, then I think the implication is supposed to be that the town hall series represents, among other things, the chance for the people to be better represented and possibly also the implementation of a judicial system. Depriving the people of that could be viewed to be an intentionally harsh act perpetrated by a ruler trying to keep the people down. At least, that's what I get out of it.

You get 100% of the Shield defense at the front, and 50% at each side (nothing at the back).

Defence Skill you get 100% at front and at each side, nothing at the back.

Armour defence is 100% all round.

How did we come by this information?

Lusted

05-14-2007, 17:46

brandybarrel got it from CA Oz i think.

gardibolt

05-14-2007, 17:59

Moah

05-14-2007, 18:23

"3. Generals stuck on a boat will pick up drinking and gambling easily. Watch out for those American expeditions especially. No more cryofreeze cruises for generals."

If I were stuck on a boat for 20-30 years, I'd take up drinking and gambling too. :laugh4:

Gambling, yes, but where are they getting the drink? The rations of ram are going to be limited on a journey to america ( a couple of barrels among 800 troops), and the Aztecs haven't invented banana daiquiris yet.....

dopp

05-15-2007, 00:24

I'm guessing the question mark is because you don't understand what HarshRuler would have to do with the town center?

No, it's for I-can't-remember-exactly-atm. The trigger is settlement-without-law, so it's pretty clear why you pick it up.

Edit: It's Unjust you can pick up, and the two traits for staying on ship are drinking and arse (a bit illogical, the last, since you can always bring women along).

Rozanov

05-15-2007, 11:58

quoth Moah:

The rations of ram are going to be limited on a journey to america ( a couple of barrels among 800 troops), and the Aztecs haven't invented banana daiquiris yet.....

assuming you mean rum and and not ram (sheep memory?), there wouldn't have been any rum on the first ships to cross the atlantic from europe.

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum

(OK back to the patch discussion..)

Ciaran

05-16-2007, 09:21

You get 100% of the Shield defense at the front, and 50% at each side (nothing at the back).

Defence Skill you get 100% at front and at each side, nothing at the back.

Armour defence is 100% all round.

Plus defense skill only counts in melee - high defense skill won´t save your skin when shot at.

Kobal2fr

05-16-2007, 14:01

No, it's for I-can't-remember-exactly-atm. The trigger is settlement-without-law, so it's pretty clear why you pick it up.

Edit: It's Unjust you can pick up, and the two traits for staying on ship are drinking and arse (a bit illogical, the last, since you can always bring women along).

Gah ! Women ? On me here ship ?! Thar be bad luck, matey ! :pirate2:

assuming you mean rum and and not ram (sheep memory?), there wouldn't have been any rum on the first ships to cross the atlantic from europe.

True, but there wasn't any freshwater either, because it doesn't keep well at all, and (at least crossing the Atlantic) a refill from the nearest river was not an option. At sea men had to drink beer or watered down spirits/wine and hope for the best, because 1) they're boiled during the distillation process, killing any pre-existing germs, 2) alcohol itself kills many bacterias and 3) if you have to spend six months in the sole company of hundreds of sex-crazed unwashed illiterate sailors, you'd rather be drunk :laugh4:

dopp

05-16-2007, 16:31

Speaking of ships, the game just got a little harder, because the AI invades by ship all the time. Naval superiority, inland reserves and watchtowers along the coast are all essential to prevent opportunistic attacks on your territory. Any nation that borders on water must take this new vulnerability into account.

I do wish the AI would pull a few generals off governing towns and put them to leading armies, because after going into all the effort to pull off a strategic 'hop' down the coast, boldly leapfrogging the enemy border defense with a full stack of elite troops (reminds me of the Malaya campaign), the lack of a decent commander usually results in the expedition's failure (it might even go rebel as captains are set to be fairly disloyal).

Foz

05-16-2007, 19:31

Yeah, you would think the AI might be able to use some sort of routine to allocate generals (especially dread generals) to lead large stacks of troops instead of just sit in towns. Certainly the dread generals at least would help out troops stacks far more than they usually help out settlements, and I'd go as far as to say that 3/4+ stacks should always have priority to get a general over any governorship duties, even if it must be a chivalrous general. If one exists, the stack should have him.

One possible reason it doesn't go that way is if the devs are worried about family members being allocated to such duties and consequently being lost in silly attacks. Such behavior, if family members were used, could easily deplete the royal family and end factions well before their other resources are exhausted. Even so, you wouldn't think it would be very difficult to simply exclude members of the ruling line from being used like that...

dopp

05-17-2007, 00:03

AI priority seems to be governing first, with extra generals being allocated to field command. A 50%-50% split is probably a better option. For one thing, governing is not that much safer than field command, because sitting in a town with only your bodyguard invites assassins (number of troops in a stack influences assassination chances the most for generals).

This is one area where I wouldn't mind a little more AI 'cheating'. The AI should get even more 'man of the hour' and 'adoption' events if it is low on family members (say enough to fill all settlements plus a few field armies), to ensure that most armies are properly led. My entire current campaign map is filled with 'King Rodrigo' vs 'Captain Nobody' decisive battle markers, which just makes me feel like a bully. When my spear militia start beating dismounted feudal knights simply because of the general's bonus, I feel really bad for the AI.

Kobal2fr

05-17-2007, 01:07

Hey, welcome back. Antitraits are... erm, funny. I'm experiencing wierdness with some of them. They don't wipe each other out like pre-patch, but I'm getting things like 'Understands Trade' (GoodTrader) and 'Incompetent Trader' (BadTrader) traits on the same character, or 'Fair in Rule' (StrategyChivalry) and 'Mean Ruler' (StrategyDread) on my king. More testing is required.

Otherwise, they did a pretty thorough review of the traits system and fixed up quite a bit of stuff. Things to watch out for:

1. Not having a market in a town is 100% chance of BadTrader for the governor every turn (!).
2. Not having a town center is 6% chance of Unjust for the governor every turn.
3. Generals stuck on a boat will pick up drinking and arse (sodomy) easily. Watch out for those American expeditions especially. No more cryofreeze cruises for generals.
4. A princess can become a HumbleWoman or PretentiousWoman depending on your treasury level. PretentiousWoman leads to WifeIsBitch.
5. Not having an academic building of some sort in a town gives any character there a 4% chance of Ignorance (since not every faction gets academic buildings, and they require pretty high population to build, this may be a little unfair) per turn, which is fairly high.
6. Being outside a settlement for no good reason is a little chancy now, with several bad traits waiting to be picked out. Don't stay still for too long.
7. Having a church/mosque can help keep your characters on the straight and narrow with Prim and Upright. Lots of positive traits waiting to be picked up if you have the right buildings built.

Can't believe I skipped over that one. Sorry, dopp, really. And yeah, I noticed the trait/antitrait coexisting thing too sometimes, but it's fairly rare as far as I know.

1. 100% ? That's harsh ! I suppose/hope there's a "And SettlementType = City" check or something, since castles don't have markets ? And speaking of that, did they add that kind of check to the BadTaxman one ?

2. Fair enough, I'd say. I seem to recall I did something like that in my old CherryVanilla file to make more use of the Lenient/Harsh Justice traits. Besides, Unjust is not that bad a trait.

3. Good :)

4. They did do a number on the Princess traits didn't they ? I'm getting a whole lot of princesses with unique traits like "Head Turner", "Humble Woman" etc... which is great. Though for some reason most AI princesses I find are still in the 0-2 Charm range (ie the "Wife is a wretch" zone)

5. Meh. But kinda realistic though - as most medieval lords really were ignorant bastards. Plus in my current Danish campaign, I've seen quite a few generals born Smart, which IIRC counters ignorance.

6. That's always been the case, no ? I remember you could pick up Feck, Cuckold, Ignorant and all that much easier than Hale and Hearty and Ascetic, especially in enemy lands. Plus, it's a "good" thing in that it kinda forces you to assault instead of sieging for 12 (well, 24) years.

7. Yeah, that one did puzzle, and then bug me. Hate to have a perfectly dreadfull fellow who'll flog his peasants for fun lose dread just cause he's got religion :) I actually had to extract the file and browse a bit to find out why my best sociopaths were picking up StrategyChivalry so much, setting me down the dark, dark path of reading the descr_character_traits file. I expect the file's unholy lure will take its toll on me soon. OOOoooh yes.

On a related topic, I'd say that the balance of things is now skewed in favor of Chivalry - a LOT of religious traits (and the stuff leading to them) give you Chivalry, and since Piety is Acumen... Same goes for Loyalty (but that can be worked around through "Feels Appreciated")

dopp

05-17-2007, 04:37

Possible problem antitraits: StrategyDread and Chivalry, BattleDread and Chivalry, BadTrader and Good, PublicPiety and Antheism. The antitraits system is decidedly unpredictable. Might submit it for bugfixing (again) if enough people have this problem. Maybe my modded file is causing problems, although I really haven't made that many changes to it.

1. Yes, walls (ie city) are a requirement. The 100% chance should maybe be 50%, but note that this is the only way other than random birth/adoption to pick up BadTrader in the entire game, and it is easily avoided by building the most basic market.

5. Meh, my concern is the high building requirement and also the rather high chance of triggering (4% is pretty high). Alchemist Labs are advanced buildings and I don't think they are common to all factions. A better building would be the town center line of buildings, which is also associated with learning (as well as justice)

6. Some new triggers double the chances of nasty camp habits outside. No longer are settlements the sole (or even the biggest) source of sin and corruption, so you shouldn't hang around aimlessly in the wild. Makes more sense.

7. Well, I generally like the new religion triggers, so now I let the hardened criminals led my armies (with much torture and massacre to build up their reputations) and the nice folks govern my settlements (unless there's a crusade brewing). Piety is pretty important, because a) it was very difficult to get before, b) it keeps the inquisitor away, and c) the population is religious, so you need a pious governor or there will be 15% religious unrest (or you'd eventually have to do without governors for the really large cities, which sort of defeats the purpose). There is definitely a tendency towards chivalry rather than dread on the strategy map. It's still much easier to be dreaded on the battlefield.

I didn't really change the files very much except for some (one, actually) minor errors. Only the evil corruption triggers disappeared to make room for some new governing traits.

Kobal2fr

05-17-2007, 05:23

Well, regarding 5), I'd like to see it as an organic progress, ie having a bunch of illiterate (sp ? Ironic isn't it ? I'm never 100% sure how one should spell that word) idiots in the 1200s, with the occasional exception, the enlightened soul ahead of his time, then gradually winding up with more and more smart fellows over the course of the game. Though maybe the Muslims ought to have smart fellows from the start, since their culture was the apex of science and culture for a long time ?
And while the gunpowder academia perhaps isn't ideal for that purpose, it is at least suitable for it. The town center... Well, when you reach a certain point you just HAVE to build that line of buildings to avoid rebellion, whereas Academia is purely optional and makes a definite "better governors" statement, ie setting your town on the road towards the Renaissance. I probably won't change that (although I'll prolly make Academias available to all factions, including no-guns Byzantium).

7) They certainly make sense, but being made aware of them certainly helps playing/planning :) CA really oughta have given more detail rather than merely stating "made changes to the traits" in the patch readme...

Agreed on the battlefield Dread front though, especially considering sieges and battles use the same traits. No one ever attemps an assault without an overwhelming advantage, and besides in a siege attack you're almost guaranteed to have to kill everyone (you might get the "End battle ?" popup if you rout every single unit, but that only happens in sallies and/or assaults on wooden walls...). And you can't really exclude sieges from the triggers, because 80% of all battles are sieges or sallies... Meaning the only definite way to make your lads chivalrous is to pwn brigands :sweatdrop:

Sure, you can make somewhat sure your general picks up at least one level of BattleChivalry by staging his first fight, but that's kind of useless if he doesn't pick any more levels in "real" battles.

Foz

05-17-2007, 05:32

7. Well, I generally like the new religion triggers, so now I let the hardened criminals led my armies (with much torture and massacre to build up their reputations) and the nice folks govern my settlements (unless there's a crusade brewing). Piety is pretty important, because a) it was very difficult to get before, b) it keeps the inquisitor away, and c) the population is religious, so you need a pious governor or there will be 15% religious unrest (or you'd eventually have to do without governors for the really large cities, which sort of defeats the purpose). There is definitely a tendency towards chivalry rather than dread on the strategy map. It's still much easier to be dreaded on the battlefield.

I didn't really change the files very much except for some (one, actually) minor errors. Only the evil corruption triggers disappeared to make room for some new governing traits.

LOL. You know why I'm laughing. :laugh:

I generally like the religion triggers too, it's nice to not only have some nasty VnVs, but also some reliable ways to help cure the wicked.

In regards to pious governors, do you (or anyone for that matter) have any info on how that mechanic (and the associated religious unrest) is behaving in 1.2? I seem to recall that piety randomly caused the unrest at various amounts both above and below 5, and with no apparent pattern as to which amounts gave unrest and which gave religiously calm citizenry. I'm kinda hoping they changed it to something that makes sense, like maybe 5% unrest for every point of piety under 5 the governor is... but I guess that's a pretty tall order. Here's hoping.

I also did notice the emergence of more clear domains for Chivalry and Dread. I have to say, I really like it. It always felt like Chivalry should be tied more closely with governing and Dread more closely with battles, but while the benefits pre 1.2 reflected that, the methods for gaining them did not. You could gain either one from either aspect of the game. You still can get either one from either place, but the balance is more like 3 to 1 (favoring Chivalry for governing and Dread for fighting of course) instead of even like it was. It makes it easier to get a guy the chivalry or dread that goes best with the job you're putting him to, and harder when he's doing the other thing, and as a result setting a general up for one role or the other feels much more like job training than it did before. Also the AI is apt to get better use of its governors, as they stand much better chances of gaining chivalry from governing. So not only does it make more sense and reinforce that chivalry and dread are each better suited to a given set of tasks, it also should help the AI. What more could we ask for?

dopp

05-17-2007, 10:37

Okay, I must be losing it, because CA in their wisdom did make a city hall (large city) negate the ignorance trigger. I still think the chance is a little too high for what is effectively a blanket trigger (maybe 1-2% would be better), plus there should be some way to block its effects in castles (library is only available to Scots and a few others).

Bullying bandits with generals is still more likely to result in 'Winning First' than in 'Fair Fighter' because you can only pick up BattleChivalry if the odds are fairly even, not more than 30-50% either way.

The religious unrest and piety relationship is as clear as mud to me. Hopefully someone will care to enlighten us.

I would like to groom a chivalrous general sometime, but my battles are always fought in the 'total war' style: relentless, efficient and with the complete annihilation of the enemy as the only objective. Too much Clausewitz before bedtime is bad for you.

brandybarrel

05-17-2007, 13:10

Hi guys,

I just want to clarify or confirm some things here regarding Unit Defence.

Unit defence as illustrated on the last page of the FAUST v1.2 or FUSIL v1.2 is the correct one for M2TW. This was confirmed in my communications with CA-OZ. The above posters are correct in the new interpretation.

Unit defence as illustrated in the FAUST ver1.1 is the correct one for RTW and based on statements made by Jerome Grasdyke (CA) here in 2004. Call me nuts but I did take notes.

Unbeknownst to me or the community, a change had been made for M2TW. I don't know when but it probably was with the release of the game itself and not Update 1.2.

Cheers, :beam:

Kobal2fr

05-17-2007, 13:24

Bullying bandits with generals is still more likely to result in 'Winning First' than in 'Fair Fighter' because you can only pick up BattleChivalry if the odds are fairly even, not more than 30-50% either way.

Gniii ? You can get "winning first" for winning a battle grossly in your disfavour ?

If not, it's fairly easy to achieve a good ratio by sending them alone against roving bands of not-too-teched brigands. With 2 HPs and ultra high stamina they're really panzers, plus being alone you can control them better and get a lot of solid charges. One of my generals managed to off something like 3 Town Militias + 1 Trebizond archers + 1 peasant + 1 Byzantine Cav all by himself in my current stint as Turkey. Ironically enough, the lad was a Coward (-3 Morale for all troops) that I had sent to die against an errant Byzantine army to get rid of him and take as many Greeks as possible with him to Hell (or whatever it is the Muslims have) :laugh4:

Foz

05-17-2007, 16:55

Gniii ? You can get "winning first" for winning a battle grossly in your disfavour ?

If not, it's fairly easy to achieve a good ratio by sending them alone against roving bands of not-too-teched brigands. With 2 HPs and ultra high stamina they're really panzers, plus being alone you can control them better and get a lot of solid charges. One of my generals managed to off something like 3 Town Militias + 1 Trebizond archers + 1 peasant + 1 Byzantine Cav all by himself in my current stint as Turkey. Ironically enough, the lad was a Coward (-3 Morale for all troops) that I had sent to die against an errant Byzantine army to get rid of him and take as many Greeks as possible with him to Hell (or whatever it is the Muslims have) :laugh4:

No I think you actually can't get winning first from battles grossly unfavorable to you, or if you can then only maybe 1 trigger of the many actually doesn't check for high battle odds. The Dread triggers check for battle odds above given amounts: like, above 1.5, above 3, etc. As I understand it, battle odds are always given with respect to the general's side who is using them for computation. So when you are disfavored 3:1 in a battle, the enemy generals will be fighting a 3.0 battle odds battle, but you will be fighting a 1:3 or ~ 0.33 odds battle, which should rule out most (if not all) dread triggers.

However, it's likely not going to get you chivalry if you go off attacking bands of brigands, even if you're outnumbered. IIRC Dread is generally tied to high odds AND attacking, while chivalry requires both low odds and defending most of the time in its triggers. The only surefire way I've ever found to gain chivalry in battle is to post a guy in a desirable settlement, and give him a small-ish complement of men to defend it. The AI decides to attack, you slaughter it, he gains chivalry.

dopp

05-18-2007, 13:18

Gniii ? You can get "winning first" for winning a battle grossly in your disfavour ?

No, but you cannot be the attacker if you want to pick up Fair Fighter based on battle odds. The other way to pick up Fair Fighter is for your general to kill 8 or more foes in battle.

The tendency for field command to favor dread rather than chivalry is because a) dread is easier to get than chivalry and b) gaining one trait line 'locks out' the character from gaining points in the other.

I'm really enjoying my nation's new vulnerability to seaborne invasions. Everyone hates me. Even nations I have never met before show up with their entire army from the other side of the world, just to have a go at grabbing some prime real estate in my empire.

Kobal2fr

05-18-2007, 17:11

No I think you actually can't get winning first from battles grossly unfavorable to you, or if you can then only maybe 1 trigger of the many actually doesn't check for high battle odds. The Dread triggers check for battle odds above given amounts: like, above 1.5, above 3, etc. As I understand it, battle odds are always given with respect to the general's side who is using them for computation. So when you are disfavored 3:1 in a battle, the enemy generals will be fighting a 3.0 battle odds battle, but you will be fighting a 1:3 or ~ 0.33 odds battle, which should rule out most (if not all) dread triggers.

However, it's likely not going to get you chivalry if you go off attacking bands of brigands, even if you're outnumbered. IIRC Dread is generally tied to high odds AND attacking, while chivalry requires both low odds and defending most of the time in its triggers. The only surefire way I've ever found to gain chivalry in battle is to post a guy in a desirable settlement, and give him a small-ish complement of men to defend it. The AI decides to attack, you slaughter it, he gains chivalry.

Hmmm. Safish still, as you only have to worry about that silly coin toss, 50% Dread, 25% Chivalry for fighting and killing 6 people.

Foz

05-19-2007, 00:08

Hmmm. Safish still, as you only have to worry about that silly coin toss, 50% Dread, 25% Chivalry for fighting and killing 6 people.
Right. The triggers are very deceptive in that regard: you have to think about it a bit to realize how disfavored Chivalry is simply because it appears second. The dread trigger obviously gives you a 50% chance to get dread. But then since the Chivalry trigger also misses half the time, you are correct that overall you get chivalry only 25% of the time, because the other 25% you fail to get anything at all. I wonder if the developers actually understood that they had done it that way. It would actually make more sense if you got chivalry automatically if you hadn't gained the dread, which would give a true 50/50 split and you'd always get one or the other... which is why it made me wonder.

sapi

05-19-2007, 01:34

As I've mentioned before, I think it's a coding/understanding error, as CA also got other percentage based calculations (such as adding the % of two spies to open the gates in a settlement) wrong.

For a true 50/50 you want the first trigger to have 50% and the second 100%...

FactionHeir

05-19-2007, 01:53

Foz

05-19-2007, 04:52

Care to look at 'battle3Dread_TotalAnnihilation'?

Gives you 2 BattleDread points instead of 1 too :)

No, not really. I was being lazy, which is why I didn't cite the file in the first place! :smile:

For the record I did say there might've been one trigger that didn't check for high odds, too... lol. I just didn't realize there are only 3 triggers that give BattleDread (aside from birth and coming of age, etc). So the 1-point one is for >3:2 odds attacking with at least 50% kills... and the 2-point is for < .95 odds, heroic victory, and >70% kills. Jesus I might need a flowchart to plan my generals' conflicts.

I have that right, don't I? The game file says "crushing" as the condition to meet, but I don't think I've ever seen the game use that term in display info, where it does use close, average, and clear. So is "heroic" on the display screens the same as "crushing" in the files? If there is a difference, then can someone explain what you have to do to get either one, and how exactly they're different?

In any case I'm happy to see generals can get dread in hard odds battles, cuz it would be annoying if I always had to have a superior force to keep a general moving toward dread.

It makes sense, too - I have to say, I'd be scared of the guy too if he mopped the floor with armies that should beat him.

sapi

05-19-2007, 04:59

I believe that 'crushing' = 'heroic' (if you get beaten in a herioc victory for the opposition, it's a crushing defeat for you)

Kobal2fr

05-19-2007, 05:46

I rather think that one's a bug/mistake and it really should be >0.95 instead of <

As in :
- >3:2 odds means you have willingly attacked with so much more guys it wasn't fair and the enemy didn't have a "sporting" chance (hence not chivalrous, hence dreadfull).

- 70% dead means you took active steps to kill more of the enemy than was strictly required (ie lots of archers, chasing routers down etc...), and the >0.9 plus heroic victory is there to ensure you didn't HAVE to kill so many people to win, whereas when you're outnumbered the enemy's morale is that better, takes more punishment to make them go away. The Heroic Victory part means you haven't lost a lot of your guys, so the fighting wasn't desperate for you and you could have just let the enemy go. The dreadfull part is in the killing, not in beating the odds. That's where chivalry comes from, not dread IMHO.

Both of these triggers oughta be disabled in sieges, where superior numbers are the only way to win, and where you can't do anything but slaughter every last one of them... But there also should be some triggers allowing for dread to be gained sieging soooo, any ideas ? :)

Durallan

05-19-2007, 06:59

I just thought I'd point out that after installing the official 1.2 patch and unpacking the files, that the traits file is exactly the same as the leaked 1.2 file.

used Beyond Compare 2 to compare the files.

Foz

05-19-2007, 07:04

FactionHeir

05-19-2007, 11:40

Both of these triggers oughta be disabled in sieges, where superior numbers are the only way to win, and where you can't do anything but slaughter every last one of them... But there also should be some triggers allowing for dread to be gained sieging soooo, any ideas ? :)

Disabling is easy using I_ConflictType, but I spent a lot of time thinking on what I would give for siege instead and didn't come up with anything. You can't check for destruction done during sieges and you pretty much have to kill everyone to win, as in the 3 mins of holding the square, its unlikely you can block off all entrances and at the same time not kill anyone coming through.

Durallan Yes they are the same.

CristianS

05-19-2007, 13:06

I'm playing with 1.02 patch since it came out and I'm satisfied with it. As many of you said, diplomacy is improved and a series of bugs are gone.

However, I cannot make ancillairies transferable as I did with patch 1.1. I modified export_descr_ancillaries, writing "transerable 1" instead of "transferable 0", but it had no effect now. I also used to give princesses a charm of 8 on birth, by modifying the trait "Iamprincess" from export_descr_character_traits, adding the line "Effect charm 8". This doesn't work with 1.02 patch either.

Anyone has any idea what I can do to get these to work again?

I should mention that I installed 1.02 over 1.1, but it worked perfectly.

Lusted

05-19-2007, 13:12

Are you using the file first command line?

dopp

05-19-2007, 14:17

Disabling is easy using I_ConflictType, but I spent a lot of time thinking on what I would give for siege instead and didn't come up with anything. You can't check for destruction done during sieges and you pretty much have to kill everyone to win, as in the 3 mins of holding the square, its unlikely you can block off all entrances and at the same time not kill anyone coming through.

Sieges were pretty much nasty, bloodthirsty affairs where no quarter was asked or given during the assault, so perhaps the rules of chivalry should not apply to them at all (ie, no chance of gaining chivalry or dread when defending against a siege).

CristianS

05-19-2007, 15:19

Are you using the file first command line?

No. I used it with patch 1.1, but now, although it allows me to play, I cannot see much of the in-game text (prices, unit descriptions, etc).

Now I'm using the normal M2TW shortcut.

FactionHeir

05-19-2007, 15:38

Did you use a mod folder by chance? That could be the cause of it. (Other than a botched install that is)

zarker

05-19-2007, 15:40

Only a small thing i know.

1.2 seems to have lost pop-up tool-tips of some button actions, for example the 'maintain siege' or 'assault' button descriptions. It also doesn't pop-up tool-tips when i hover the mouse over a unit in the recruitment window. Otherwise tool-tips work normally.

Any comment on this?

Otherwise i love this patch :D

FactionHeir

05-19-2007, 15:50

Kobal2fr

05-19-2007, 15:51

Actually the fact that 0.95 was the number used strongly suggests they meant to use < like the file shows. They select a number less than 1.0 to reinforce the fact that the odds are meant to be small, i.e. bad, and likely because it may be too easy to beat the odds if they are allowed any closer to even. If the trigger had really been intended to be for a favorable matchup, a programmer would use the much more natural 1.0 as the number, as it makes sense to read and doesn't include any part of the unfavorable odds, or else he'd use a higher number in order to cut off more gray area near 1.0 to require a noticeable advantage. 0.95 simply doesn't make sense at all if the symbol is supposed to be the other way since it would allow a slightly unfavorable matchup to count. I don't think there's any question that it is correct in the file, and almost certainly represents logic like I mentioned above: If a guy can absolutely crush you in a battle where you are the favorite, you should definitely be afraid of him. It's about reputation, not just slaughter, but certainly the slaughter helps a lot. So does tactical prowess, which is more or less what I'm saying this trigger is trying to bear out.

I'm sorry, but I don't see it that way. The coder could just as well have chose >0.95 to include "1:1 and upwards" (sure, he could have used >=1, but maybe he felt >0.95 was safer for some reason). IIRC the same thing happens with diplomacy, with reputation being checked >0.9 instead of >=1.

And while I agree that somebody beating the odds is impressive, I'd rather think getting Heroic Victories out of a desperate battle would make his men love him much more than the enemy would fear him. In fact, he probably would be less feared than respected, hence, Chivalry and command stars. Plus much of the Chiv triggers already rely on beating the odds, if it was meant to be scary it wouldn't be so.

Besides, just look at the trigger name : TotalAnnihilation strongly suggests emphasis on the killing part, à la "kill'em all, God will find theirs".