patch wishlist

There's a patch wishlist over at the .com already, I figured we could start one as well. Let's keep it as constructive and specific as possible so it may actually be helpful.

Here's a few to start with:
- passive battle AI
- pope --> several reports re how (when two catholic factions are fighting) the pope seems unable to identify the tresspasser (i.e. the faction attacking you first), then gets mad at you. This happened in MTW I as well and is very disturbing as it messes up the otherwise interesting impact of his Holiness on the strategic gameplay. I think its only the 'who-started-identification-mechanism' that needs fixing, so this may be doable in a patch.
- diplomacy/alliances/cease-fires. Although this was supposed to be fixed, there are some mixed reports. Several players reported the AI unwilling to accept a cease fire on generous terms, despite being almost wiped out. Also, whether alliances are respected by the AI seems random. This may be related to specific factions, as a lot of the problems in this respect were reported by people playing the HRE. The AI attacking 1 or 2 turns after accepting a cease-fire/alliance is also still there :no:
- to borrow from another thread: add the ' get of fmy land' demand in diplomatic relations. It shouldn't take much as the pope does seem able to pick it up if you taking a strole over your (catholic) neighbour's lands...

I'd really like your relations with the Pope and the Papal States to only suffer if YOU start the war. Venice has attacked me three times (Byzantine Empire), Hungary once, but yet when I attack a Venetian army that's besieging one of my cities, my relations with the Papal States drops. I'm going to get a crusade called against me before long at this rate. Oh well, guess I'll have to conquer west instead of east.

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Originally Posted by parcelt

pope --> several reports re how (when two catholic factions are fighting) the pope seems unable to identify the tresspasser (i.e. the faction attacking you first), then gets mad at you. This happened in MTW I as well and is very disturbing as it messes up the otherwise interesting impact of his Holiness on the strategic gameplay. I think its only the 'who-started-identification-mechanism' that needs fixing, so this may be doable in a patch.

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The rest of the stuff i agree with but i think this is deliberate. The Pope will intervene to stop nations from getting destroyed. For example, if you are the HRE and The Danes attack you then they wont get a warning. The Pope knows your big enough to handle them. If you retaliate by invading Denmark, The Pope will go nuts at you, even if the Danes started the war because you are a far bigger nation. he knows that without his help you will crush them.
If The Pope always opposed the faction that attacked then this would lead to exploitation of the AI. Players would just goad smaller nations into attacking in order to get The Popes backing.

I'm hoping for the OPTION for limited_ammo to be re-introduced back into the game. Removing OPTIONAL configurations from a game seems like a step backwards, instead of forwards IMHO.:wall:

Apparently there is a bug with replays. They do not always play back correctly, this always seems to happen when a new total war game is released and always seems to be fixed within the first patch or 2. Hopefully fixed before I get the game for xmas *crosses fingers*

I wish they would reintroduce flaming pigs to scare those elephants:laugh4:

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Originally Posted by NightStar

I wish they would reintroduce flaming pigs to scare those elephants:laugh4:

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Dude, over here! I have my own private concrete bunker over here, quickly, hide! If you don't get inside soon, you probably won't survive the backlash. Quickly man, your life and the lives of all your pets are at stake!

I'll second the "Get off my Land" and an intelligent :laugh4: Pope.

I would also like the lag when the AI only has one ladder left when sieging to be fixed, and, please put sea battles in :yes: lol.

Hi,

Things I would like patched/changed

1. Slight AI tweak; So far I've really enjoyed the games Battle AI, it does seem far superior to RTWs, however sometimes it does just stand there and allow your missile units to destroy them, I'd like that to be changed.

2. Get off my Land!

3. I'd like to see the return of dismounting units prior to battle. It really annoys me when I can't use my Knights in seiges because they refuse to get off there horses. I'd even like it if repeated use gave you traits that lowered your chivarly as this wouldn't be considered 'fair' fighting.

4. I wanna be able to play every faction from the start without having to edit a file.

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3. I'd like to see the return of dismounting units prior to battle.

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:yes:

get rid of merchants alltogether as it makes the game tedious. The game is turning into one of those terrible civ games.

"Get off my land!" diplomatic option, or a reduction in the AI's tendency to stand armies about in your lands. Having sizeable allied armies plonked next to many my settlements is not pleasant.

Improved path finding for units on walls. NB: So far I've only had units on the second tier wooden walls, so the issue may be unique to this wall kind. Attacking Caernarvon I had no end of trouble getting my units to move anywhere when they were on the wall; they stood stock still, or started going back down their ladders whenever I asked them to advance along the wall or attack remaining enemies on the wall. In the end I had to mass select all my infantry and order them to run to the ground inside the gate to get them up the wall, along to capture the gatehouse, and then down to the ground, killing Welshmen along the way. My casualties were hideous because so many of my units refused to engage, or ran about getting shot instead of moving a little along the wall to kill the longbowmen. :furious3:

When preparing for the same siege, I build 3 siege towers. I wasn’t allowed to attack because the game said I had no units capable of attacking walls. Eh? What else is the point of the siege towers? Admiring the view? I had to build some ladders and a ram before it would let me attack.

I'm having issues with my mailed knights and hobilars (probably carries over to more advanced mounted units too; I haven't played with any yet) using their lances. Sometimes they will use them when charging, others they won't. I'm still investigating, but it appears they don't like to use their lances if fighting in trees or a settlement. Is that working according to design?

Reduction in pirate ship stats so early ships are not so out classed. Later on I can afford to mob the pirate ships and rely on numbers to drag them down. By that point I have stronger ships and don't necessarily need to gang up on them. Early on I don't have good ships and I can't afford mobs. Perhaps having several pirate ship types? A weaker one which is there for the first X turns, a stronger one for the next X turns, and a stronger one still for the rest of the game.

Rebels early in the game spawn with advanced units. Chivalric knights when I still struggle to build mailed knights?! Armoured swordsmen when I'm considering myself lucky to have levy spearmen!? Gah! Either I have to leave them to wander my lands damaging my income, or I must build a sizeable army and watch most of it get minced killing them with weight of numbers. Again, in the early game neither is a good option as the resources to do either are not there. I'd like it if rebel spawns were somehow linked to the buildings present in nearby provinces, so rebel armies would become more advanced in step with the player, never far ahead and never left behind and so always (hopefully) a bit of a challenge.

Would love to be able to dismount knights again as per MTW. :sigh: Big change for a patch, I know, but I hate building foot knights separately and sorely miss the tactical flexibility granted by dismountable knights. Really hate. My suggestion would be to implement it in exactly the same way as in MTW: have the player select whether the knights fight on foot or on horse in the deployment phase and then remove the choice the instant battle begins. No animation is needed; have the unit fade out and the other style fade in to replace it.

Movement on the campaign map sometimes seems much too short. Currently my English diplomat is slogging his way across Germany at the fantastic rate of one inch per turn, and I'm zoomed quite close in so it's a short inch. It’s taking him many turns to cross one province; I despair of getting him back home before he dies of old age.

Some buildings do not produce the little faded non-flashing icon on the relevant section of the economy section of the detailed city overview screen when you put them in the build queue. For example if I put a farm in the queue a little faded icon will appear next to the farm income, and the tooltip will tell me what my new income will be once the building is completed. Ports don’t give it, or second and third level market buildings, or the merchant’s wharf. There are probably others I haven’t encountered yet.

Less lag in mp
Betetr replays
Weaken the uber Spanish musketeers in mp

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Originally Posted by frogbeastegg

Movement on the campaign map sometimes seems much too short. Currently my English diplomat is slogging his way across Germany at the fantastic rate of one inch per turn, and I'm zoomed quite close in so it's a short inch. It’s taking him many turns to cross one province

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That should be moddable shouldn't it?

Battle replays desync, I can confirm that. This is a must fix in the case of MP tournaments.
Do something that enables team battles in MP. Surely lag should be consigned to the past by now.
Improve the tactical AI. For all the hype, the AI even on VH is no real challenge

........Orda

Bearing in mind all of the modding going on in order to bodge the game turn rate back down to 2 turns per year, i'd like to see this actually built into the game as an option when starting a game, with building build speeds etc balanced properly and everything. So, when starting a new game, you'd get a tickbox to switch between a 'normal' speed game (i.e. what it is now) and a 'slow' speed game (for those of us that like to take their time).

Maybe even have 3 options:

Fast Game : 2 years / turn
Medium Game : 1 year / turn
Slow Game : 2 turns / year

One other thing i'd love to see back in the game is the option to start a campaign in the Early/High/Late eras. It'd be really nice to be able to start a game in High or Late with their different initial layouts providing different challenges for each faction. That was one of the things that really increased playability for me in MTW.

Many points on my wishlist have already been brought out, but I'll emphasize them, wishing that we get the message through to CA :)

Fix These!

1: Cavalry charges:
- Knights sometimes don't take out their lances, even if they have plenty of ground to prepare the charge
- Sometimes they brace the lance for the charge, but then take out swords and halt to get butchered in melee
- Seems like head-on charges are most often succesful, flank charges or charging a moving formation seem to be quite impossible

2: Unit Cohesion:
- Lots of soldiers stay out of melee and wander around the field, even if there are plenty of enemies nearby to bash. There's a workaround for this: run the men through the enemy formation and engage when you're in the middle of the fight, but I'm sure this isn't intended to work this way
- When marching through small obstacles, the formations break and stay broken when the unit reaches destination
- Cavalry units wander around when charging or chasing routers instead of trying a disciplined charge. We've seen screenshots of cavalry being wandered hundreds of meters away from their formation

3: Diplomacy glitches:
- AI does not accept ceasefire even if they're on the verge of destruction and totally weaker than the player, vassalage is apparently not an option for the AI either.
- Defending yourself on your land shouldn't cause reputation hits or reactions from the Pope if you're already at war with the nation you're defending against
- Glitches in the negotiation AI, sometimes the AI gives strange counter-offers that are profitable to the player

4: Strange Campaign AI
- Sometimes some nations are very passive, not a big problem as mostly it plays OK. Some nations don't seem too keen on taking bordering rebel provinces, but that's quite random too, occasionally they're VERY aggressive :)
- AI doesn't defend cities well enough sometimes, makes things too easy for the player

Things that should be fixed by CA but probably can be modded (mostly minor stuff):

1: Trigger-happy unkillable inquisitors
- They seem a bit too powerful, but only a small nerf to their unkillability should be enough
- They aren't supposed to hunt down whole family lines, or are they? :)

2: Merchants a bit weak
- All my merchants have vanished when they've lost to a enemy merchant, is there even a chance they can survive?
- At early game merchants are useless, and in end-game they generate very little portion of your total income

3: Unit balance (minor thing really)
- Some strange stuff there, like trained soldiers having lower defense than peasants
- It feels like some factions have less units at use than they had in MTW1

4: Strange Rebels
- High tech units on early stages of game
- They seem quite passive, I've yet to see a rebel army attack my armies or towns


Stuff to add (these shouldn't be too hard to implement):

1: Titles! Come on they were already in MTW1! In MTW2 I feel like I can't really control my generals' loyalty too much

2: Dismounting. Like Froggie said, it was simple in MTW1, there shouldn't be any animation problems or stuff like that if it is implented? Dismounted Knights is a stupid name for a unit that doesn't ever ride a horse. And as it has been said, mounted knights are terrible in siege situations, why can't they get off their horses?

A huge unit size that is actually huge. Seriously if I wanted to play with unit sizes of 80-150 I wouldn't set the unit size to HUGE!!!

Simple diplomacy fix :

- makes it possible to get a ceasefire when you share a border with a faction. Right now its close to impossible (hence the confused reviews about diplomacy, I got confused myself at beggining but now I simply give away regions to make peace) even if they are being kicked in the ass/inactive for many turns (had portugal not attacking me for close to 100 turns and yet not accepting a truce)/busy with other nations.
Twice harder than not sharing would be fair, 100x is simply not.

- makes it more difficult to get a ceasefire when you dont share a border with a faction. The opposite as they would sometimes even give you their leader head on a silver plate.


For example by exchanging Antioch for Cyprus I managed to get three ceasefires in the next turn (hell they even gave me money). Sounds like an exploit to me (and the borders thing like a bug).
Also, AI doesnt even respect those rules right now. You can get neighbours to attack each others by suggesting crusades but they wont stay at war for more than a few turns.

Able to resist inqusitors, they are way overpowered!

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Originally Posted by Willbreaker

Able to resist inqusitors, they are way overpowered!

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Lets not cry too loud so they don't get overnerfed ;)

It's interesting to have them ingame, they are just a bit too eager to burn everyone on sight. Maybe randomize the inquisitors' targeting AI a bit and make the inquisitors return to Rome and move around more and make the trials a bit less frequent, they don't need to trial EVERYONE in sight... or something like that.

Assassins should be buffed up a bit, at least against inquisitors, they're way too hard to kill if a level 10 assassin has only 12% chance to kill an inquisitor.

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Originally Posted by Daveybaby

Bearing in mind all of the modding going on in order to bodge the game turn rate back down to 2 turns per year, i'd like to see this actually built into the game as an option when starting a game, with building build speeds etc balanced properly and everything. So, when starting a new game, you'd get a tickbox to switch between a 'normal' speed game (i.e. what it is now) and a 'slow' speed game (for those of us that like to take their time).

Maybe even have 3 options:

Fast Game : 2 years / turn
Medium Game : 1 year / turn
Slow Game : 2 turns / year

One other thing i'd love to see back in the game is the option to start a campaign in the Early/High/Late eras. It'd be really nice to be able to start a game in High or Late with their different initial layouts providing different challenges for each faction. That was one of the things that really increased playability for me in MTW.

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Superb idea

.......Orda

When the AI punches a hole in your wall it should actually go through it, not head for the gate.
AI can't handle siege equipment and ends up standing at the bottom of the wall, thinking. And dying.
Boiling oil anyone?

I want my old "city view" feature back. :book: It was good to see your advanced strongholds, buildings and temples. I know that it's not so necessary but it's good. Especially with this great game engine. :book:

of missile units such as musketeer, and Arquibus, AI improvment. From MTW1, the missile unit has been made to shrewd on the flank of formation too much, so being shot from another line of missile units, it so much frequently chooses loose formation or change its direction much more than necessary, just when it's ok to take a counter shot for enemy firing. it comes from too sensitive response of this AI unit's to a threat on its flank. so it moves so much around that that can look shaken or disarray while it taking reponse to enemy shot.

just play custom battle with set all arquibus or musketeer on both side of player and AI enemy, then u can see only 6-7 arquibus lines able to crash down 20 the same AI unit lines in defence as well as attacking. i don't much expect this missle units AI improvment much though. But it can set to ignore some degree a threat on the flank of this sort of units. and it's better to show battle experience and game play. But they don't know that, just continuing to set this AI unit so much sensitve to the threat on the fiank.

the only available solution of this be 'guard mode' most of time so that it can't change the formation or moving direction so much frequently. but that they don't know is more problem.

- Bring back movements points remaining when right clicking on agents/army.
Very annoying to check everytime if unit has moved already or not.

- Of course, fix battle AI (hire Darth and Sinehuet :laugh4: ) and campaign AI.
After 40 turns playing Denmark, Scotland hasn't moved AT ALL. York and Dublin have not even walls... Entire nations just stall.

- Remove the crusade AI cheating : with a crusade army, you are supposed to rush towards the targetted town. In fact, I saw HRE take Antwerp, and France take Bruges with their crusade army. :furious3: Disgusting.
If you attack anything else than the target, instant excommunication !!

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Originally Posted by swell

- Bring back movements points remaining when right clicking on agents/army.
Very annoying to check everytime if unit has moved already or not.

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When a unit has used all of its movement for the turn it will change its posture. But i guess it would be nice to be able to see which units you havent yet moved that turn. Maybe holding the shift key or something could put a nice big glowing marker on any units you havent moved yet.

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Originally Posted by Little Legioner

I want my old "city view" feature back.

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I agree - it wasnt something i used much in rome, but it was kinda cool to see people milling around your city that werent actually trying to kill each other once in a while.

Seems weird to me that they'd cut it, since the game is basically running on the RTW engine, probably all that would be needed would be the UI button to display the view. Wonder why they took it out?

simply fixing all the Bugs in the Org, TWC and .com bug threads would be a major start. the game might actually be playable then

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simply fixing all the Bugs in the Org, TWC and .com bug threads would be a major start. the game might actually be playable then

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It's hardly unplayable atm is it?

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Originally Posted by Lusted

It's hardly unplayable atm is it?

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That depends on whether you would like to play MP

.......Orda