How about some news on the SP patch contents to spice things up?! ;o)

[+DOC+]

Mwhahahahahah gwan gwan gwan...

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

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=MizuDoc=

[eat cold steel]

Oh alright, new stuff:
Royal knights and such upgradable.
Rebellions tweaked, no ultra advance troops, but expect more lesser troops.
Tweaked fleet AI.
Keys to toggle enemy/own/spies/armies pieces.
Brother of a King shown as sons if he didn't come of age before succession, fixed

Already mentioned stuff:
"Loyalty traffic light" fixed.
Fleets escaping from a sea battle.
Multiple famine in the same region in the same turn.
Crusade path finding.
Win2k/XP crash.
Made the siege time of castle longer.
Cap the number of artillery in a rebellion.
No more income from besieged region.
Trible support cost for besieging army.
Extra cheats

Things that will not be in:
Sorting of lists.
Multiplayer campaign. :P
Playable fleet battle.

That's all I can remember off the tp of my head.

[Arkatreides]

Wow, nice! Thanks!!!!

Shame about the lists though, but I understand that that could require extra coding. I am a programmer myself and know that sometimes trivial things take long to implement. Still perhaps for the expansion ... http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

Again, thanks a lot!

[Arkatreides]

Oh, one question though: What about the valour bonuses from ugraded buildings and special regions?

[Kraxis]

Yes, that is important.

I thought that would get corrected along with the Swiss unit bug.

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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[+DOC+]

hehe remember this is just from the top of ECS's head and is by no means a readme! Many thanks for the brief update. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

On that note, http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif i take it that V & Vs will now update on the traits as they are awarded. Some of them don't update correctly, quite often they don't update until a new V or V is awarded.

Bring it on! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

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=MizuDoc=

[This message has been edited by +DOC+ (edited 09-16-2002).]

[Austaro]

Howbout making the game playable for many of us who have choppy framerates and crashes in battles?

Why can I never find an offical yes or no as to whether CA can/will do anything about this?

Thanks,

Austaro

GeForce 4 MX400
Soundblaster 5.1

[+DOC+]

i hope the rebellion tweaks are optional, i personally love thrashing or being thrashed by the advanced rebellions... http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

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=MizuDoc=

[GilJaysmith]

Quote Originally posted by Austaro:
Why can I never find an offical yes or no as to whether CA can/will do anything about this?
[/QUOTE]

GeForce + SoundBlaster = trouble on the PCI bus. Not MTW-specific.

My home server has a GeForce 4 and PCI Audigy 5.1. I turned antialiasing off, turned sound quality down to Low and turned off hardware mixing, and haven't had any problems.

We don't know anything over and above what's been said on the tech forums.

Gil ~ CA

[Soapyfrog]

I have problems with specific maps.

Some maps are silky smooth, others are too choppy to be playable. Doesn't seem to have anything to do with the amount of terrain or flora on the map, or weather for that matter. I am already playing with no anti-aliasing, low sound quality and no hardware sound.

For example, I fight a battle in Mercia, it's perfect. I fight a battle in Northumbria, it's choppy. Wessex and Wales... no problem... Scotland... too choppy... and so on.

I tried upgrading and downgrading my GeForce3 drivers. Not sure what else to try.

[Kraxis]

Ups! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

Didn't see the "that is all I can remember at the tp of my head."

Well, I still hope those things will be corrected.

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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[Austaro]

Thanks for the reply.

umm, pardon my complete computer illiteracy, but can someone tell me how to turn off anti-aliasing? Will this effect any other games/programs?

Thanks

Austaro

[Austaro]

Soapyfrog, ditto that...I think choppiness is related to amount of units in the game?

Example, in the Historicals I can play Bannockburn without a problem, but Hastings is awfully slow for me.

Austaro

[Soapyfrog]

# of units does not seem to be relevant. I've had very choppy battles with 5 or 6 units, and very smooth full blown 32 units battles.

Does seem to be location spcific though.

[+DOC+]

i agree with ya soapyfrog, i get slow down on specific maps, usually ones with hedges...!?

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=MizuDoc=

[Red Inquisition]

Maps with more hedges and buildings will have a higher framerate. The polycount will be higher too.

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***Metalpriest***
"Bringing the Faith of Metal to the boyband Heathins"

[MajorPain]

Why extra cheats, I still have bad memory from especially MI with people cheating.

[Kraxis]

My God, are we going to have such a discussion again...

No company will ever make MP cheats, it is cheats along the lines of .icantstandalltherebelsandneedhelp. (I think that was ECS's or Gil's idea http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif)

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[insolent1]

Eat Cold Steel, i'm just wondering are you going to make foot knights available to build with the patch. I've been using the mod so far & have found the Feudal Footknights to be very weak so far I have only seen one incident where they actually proved themselves. That was when 40 valour 3 fought 100 feudal sergants downhill & killed about 50 - 19 losses but i had to send an archer to help them mop up the sergants. The chivalarlic foot knights are good but the feudal foot knights need some tweaking. So do the feudal men at arms as now I just bypass them & go for chivalarlic men at arms as they are much better. But they still suffer terrible losses when fighting lower valour spear units.

Is the AI building priorty been tweaked at all as i've finished 3 campaigns so far & have still not have to face any serious troops apart from some turks & some feudal/chivaliric knights left over from rebellions Is the building destruction rate been addressed as that was always one of my biggest hates with Shogun/MI & now MTW.

[longjohn2]

Knights have horses. If you couldn't afford a horse, you weren't a knight. Therefore foot knights, are only included as dismounted knights.

[noodle]

ECS & Gil -

What about the split difficulty level for strat map and battle. I seem to remember you saying before that this was something that pretty much everyone thought was a good idea but you were unable to change it as it wasn't an area of code that you were familiar with. Could you pass it on to those who are... pretty please.

[insolent1]

Longjohn, I don't mean to sound insolent or anything but why then did you include the foot knight bonus in ille de France. Knights did have horses but a lot the time you are not sure if u should dismount them before the battle. Maybe if u could dismount them during the battle it would be a lot more useful ie a gang of spearmen charging your mounted knights, they laugh & get off their horses and then the chop up the spearmen & get back on their horses. I relise that this would be hard to animate & probably hard to program but so far I and many others have found the dismount feature useless as its quite hard to tell how a battle is going to. Still its a class game

[moldndecay]

Quote Originally posted by GilJaysmith:
GeForce + SoundBlaster = trouble on the PCI bus. Not MTW-specific.

My home server has a GeForce 4 and PCI Audigy 5.1. I turned antialiasing off, turned sound quality down to Low and turned off hardware mixing, and haven't had any problems.

We don't know anything over and above what's been said on the tech forums.

Gil ~ CA

[/QUOTE]

My friend and I each have a GeForce 4 MX. I have been running fine but he updated his drivers to the latest ones and couldnt play the game. Choppy and laggy as all get out. It would slow down to the point of locking up. He them down graded back to the drivers from the cd and it works as advertised.

[Kraxis]

Quote Originally posted by insolent1:
So do the feudal men at arms as now I just bypass them & go for chivalarlic men at arms as they are much better. [/QUOTE]

Sorry insolent, but that is simply wrong. Feudal MAA are much better for the money.
Try and look up my thread where I compare them.
Basically the Chivs are only 1 better in attack and 2 better in Morale for 125 more florins.


------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[Nick Marcus]

A rather serious issue that no one seamed to care about in its own threat: when you shoot boulders with trebuchets and mangonels towards arrow towers, they go right trough them. Hopes this gets fixed.

[Xiahou]

Love the changes for seiges... they make castle assaults alot more appealing. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[Bowzerdawg]

Greeting Eat Cold Steel, for the mass rebellion part, can we have the rebels keep the advance troops depending on what the situation is if it’s a religious rebellion? I converted the majority of Sicilians into muslims, the Sicilians (my allies) were conquered by the Italians and I sent a bunch of Imams to convert the Sicilians. After awhile when the majority become muslims, I sent a bunch of spies to cause a rebellion on the Italian conquered province. The Italians were too busy fighting my Turkish generals and army to re-conquer Sicily (I was attacking Naples). The result was the Sicilian muslim rebels had 3 companys of hashin (not sure of the correct spelling) the battlefield ninja equivalent. My emissary was stationed there, and he was able to bribe them to join us. Now I have 3 hashin that can act as bodygaurds to my king and my best generals.

[oZoNeLaYeR]

thx ECS, Austaro, go to your 3d Graphics properties, in WinXP, right click on your desktop, click on properties, then click on settings tab on ur top right, click Advanced, then u should see your Gefroce 4 MX400 somewhere on the top right click on it and you'll see antialiasing somewhere around there.

[deejayvee]

Quote I thought that would get corrected along with the Swiss unit bug.[/QUOTE]
Don't fix that!! That's my favourite bug!

[Swoosh So]

Id like to see an option for your ships to attack any enemy ship that enters the same sea area, It gets very tiresome sometimes having to drag and drop your ships every turn, sometimes 4 times a turn! apart from that i have no gripes


Swoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooosh

[Kraxis]

Hey DJV... Its me Tarrak. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

It is my favourite bug too, but a bug none the less.

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[Ckrisz]

Thanks for the list!

[Sparky]

Wow, nice list. You've obviously been listening to the community and are addressing some of the common whin... issues http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif . Many thanks.

[Saracen]

To the programmer, what about all the crashes for folks not on XP?

[solomani]

Quote Originally posted by eat cold steel:
Things that will not be in:
Sorting of lists.
Multiplayer campaign. :P
Playable fleet battle.
[/QUOTE]

Is there anychance of seeing these items via a patch or is it more likely for an expansion? or not at all? Thanks.

[eat cold steel]

Sorting of lists is add on material, I can't see us doing multiplayer campaign or fleet battle with the current engine.

We've only found one crash on win2k/Xp with fleets, those first turn/can't get in campaign crashes sounds like hardware related problem. Corrupted savegames problem has also been fixed.

[Arkatreides]

Woohoo!!!!

*dances and sings*

We are going to get lists
We are going to get lists
We are going to get lists

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Right, next question: When is the Add-on coming out? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

[andrewt]

Swiss pikemen is also my favorite bug. Especially after I managed to control most of Europe using the English, I decided to procrastinate conquering everything so I could build some in Navarre. Full metalsmith and armor upgrades make them very powerful.

I think you should allow ships to attack ships on adjacent sea zones because it's hard to guess where the ship is moving to next and you have to be in the same sea zone at the start of the turn to attack it.

Too bad about the sorting of lists having to wait for an expansion.

[dagdriver]

How about the AI strat pieces running all over the map because the AI knows when you try to assasinate them?
Come to think of this:
Why would a faction care that I send an assasin through it's country, when the assasin hunts one of THEIR enemies?


[This message has been edited by dagdriver (edited 09-18-2002).]

[eat cold steel]

The AI does not know about enemy assassins at all. You must remember that the the AI agents are doing their own missions too, for example AI emissaries are constandly on the move because they may be chasing a general they are trying to bribe. Priest types can be used to forge alliance too, but they do tend to stay in the same place for longer than other agents.

If an agent move out of a region just in time to escape your assassin then that's just bad luck. You don't see enemy assassins so you can't tell how many close runs your emissary may have had simply because you moved him just in time into a region with counter spies. You computer doesn't post on forums about human players escaping AI assassin! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

As for other factions killing your secert agents when you are not targetting them? Well they don't care what you are doing, all they know is there is a dodgy guy sneaking into their land, kill first ask questions later.

[Arkatreides]

Perhaps I would be possible to issue a warning if the assassin leaves you own territory. Most of mine seem to die not because they fail their mission but because they get caught.

[dagdriver]

Oh, the AI don't know???
Hmm, it's just odd, to Me it seems that muslim "priests" will constantly sit tight in sweden etc. preaching and preaching - without moving - until the moment you drop an assasin on them....

[Didz]

Do you think CA will ever come up with a PBEM version of the campaign game?

Its so frustrating not being able to play against other people.



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Didz
Fortis balore et armis

[Rosacrux]

I would like to second the MP campaign and furthermore I have to say that I ABSOLUTELY ADORE the idea of having lists we can sort out and check our empire with (which is essentials to all the empire-building freaks out there, including moi) even if we have to wait for the expansion to get them.

Actually, I would seize the opportunity and ask the devs if any preliminary list of a sort has been made for the expansion. What kind of expansion should we be looking for?

and since I've gotten so far... will the next incarnation of the Total War series be - please, pretty please and with a cherry on top - in the ancient era? Classical/hellenistic, maybe? With hetairoi and hoplites and immortals and legions and all that?

Please, tell me that it's on your "to-do" list...

[eat cold steel]

Trade route traffic lights added. Red for blockaded, Green for passage, yellow for neutral waters without your ships.

V&V giving bonus/minus at random time fix.

Buildings now correctly give valour upgrades.

[Arkatreides]

Thank you for the update. Those fixes/additions are much appreciated!

[Kraellin]

excellent, ECS,

the blockaded thing is a VERY nice addition! thanks :) what key or action activates this?

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Kraxis]

Good to see the buildings are going to give the correct Valours, that is nice (now I can get Valour 4 Trebizond Archers out of the 'Dojo', cool!).

But then you have to consider the problem with the stats of the Chivalric Men-at-Arms contra the Feudal Men-at-Arms. When the patch comes out I will have a choice of V1 Feudals or V0 Chivs, and that makes the Feudals better than the Chivs. Not just more costeffective but better overall (+1 to defence).

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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[DrNo]

Not sure about valour from building improvements, unless it's a special building that increases the valour of all units produced equally.
It it's done like STW a CMAA might be able to catch up with FMAA after a few battles if the unit hasn't died off, but the +1v FMAA would make CMAA pointless. Same goes for spear type units. The difference in unit stats would mean this simply won't work.
Would much prefer to see some random valour assignments of newly produced units to give some variety.


Is anything being done to change javelin units?
They can't engage ranged units because they move back out of range, and if they try to engage a melee unit, it either retreats or attacks again before javelins are thrown. The only situation I have used them is when the AI decides to sit there and let me throw my spears at them. Not good.

[Kraxis]

The solution is to up their range slightly, so that the range of their javelins is farther than the range of the skirmish.

As far as I know it is a unique problem with the Chiv MAA and Feudal MAA. The V1 Feudals are not going to be cought up to, as they normally get some Valours and other stats from the general. We end up with perhaps V4 Feudals and V3 Chivs, at that point they simply don't level very fast either of them, but the Feudals are still 125 florins cheaper and 1 better in defence (everything else equal).

At the very least give the Chivs their full shields. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[EDIT]
Actually the Feudals have another less obvious advantage. The shields are not counted into the AP equation, while the better inert Chiv armour is. Of course the shields only work from the front, but it is mostly my spears that get flanked and my MAA that saves them.

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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[This message has been edited by Kraxis (edited 09-18-2002).]

[+DOC+]

Quote Originally posted by DrNo:
Not sure about valour from building improvements, unless it's a special building that increases the valour of all units produced equally.
It it's done like STW a CMAA might be able to catch up with FMAA after a few battles if the unit hasn't died off, but the +1v FMAA would make CMAA pointless. Same goes for spear type units. The difference in unit stats would mean this simply won't work.
Would much prefer to see some random valour assignments of newly produced units to give some variety.


Is anything being done to change javelin units?
They can't engage ranged units because they move back out of range, and if they try to engage a melee unit, it either retreats or attacks again before javelins are thrown. The only situation I have used them is when the AI decides to sit there and let me throw my spears at them. Not good.[/QUOTE]

Absolutely, the only way to use units with javelins is to take them off skirmish so they can actually throw them.

The Ai is awful with short range skirmishing units ...



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=MizuDoc=

[Daevyll]

CA mentioned that for sieges, both the siege times and the support costs for sieging troops was increased, but did you also change the AI to take this into account when deciding whther or not to assault a castle?

The AI almost never seems to want to assault my castles, which is a real shame.
I would also really like it if your province wasnt as badly damaged when the besiegers havent yet taken your castle, so it becomes a bit more of an option (you could reasonably state that all military buildings like armourers etcetera are inside the castle walls anyway, so only things like imporved farmlands, border forts, inns etc would get destroyed).

[Kraxis]

Quote Originally posted by +DOC+:
The Ai is awful with short range skirmishing units ...
[/QUOTE]

I beg to differ. I have experienced to have Murabitin Infantry first flank me, then throw their javelins into the fight and then finally charge in. The reason I didn't do anything was because I was everywhere else and the AI fired into the melee with his archers, so I didn't notice the blinking arrows. I only saw them let loose the last volley of javelins and then charge in. Needless to say that unit was toast.

But still I would want the javelin units to have their range upped ever so slightly, just so they can thrown them without the enemy running away or they run away themselves. Skirmish is really nice for them, as they are often fast, and historically they did fall back (mostly) when faced with a charge.
So both are needed. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif


------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[DrNo]

Doc, even taking off the skirmish option(as I do with every ranged unit) the Javelins just don't get chance to throw unless the AI sits there(that needs fixing too see below).
The only effective way to use them is to get another of your units to engage the enemy unit in melee first. Good for taking out Generals and tough units.

So I would definetley like to see range increased 50-100% for Javs.

Going back to that AI prob you would think that using peasents or something to soak up the Javelin fire would be sound practice, but in a battle with the Turks where I had about 10 Jinette units plus additional melee units, the AI decided to let his Saracen Infantry and Janissary Heavy Infantry be the pin cushions while his Peasants were hiding back behind somewhere.

Perhaps a little mod needed to battle AI to distinguish between defending against Cavalry and Javelin Cavalry.