Patch hoax (move along - no need to read this thread)

Moderator edit: It seems thiis links to a hoax thread. No point wasting time reading this thread. A new thread will be opened if there is any genuine news on the patch.

http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...ID=10741.topic

Quote:

---

-Crossbow units will now stop firing at steep angles. This has proven to cause them to virtually waste their ammunition in some cases.

---

So putting them on the walls for castle/city defense is futile?
Once the enemy is close enough to the walls he's save?
Will archers be able to shoot down from the ramparts?
Wasting ammo isn't good but the fix is weird. ~:confused:
Or is it a misunderstanding on my part?

R'as

Holy cow!!

Click the button to see the issues covered:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Issues (hopefully) taken care of include:

-The “slow-motion-bug” that saw some infantry units losing due fighting/movement at vastly reduced speed has been completely corrected.

-AI will now react to prolonged missile fire more “intelligent”, depending on the AI army general’s command rating.

-During siege battles, once an AI spy has succeeded in opening the gates, at the beginning of the battle the AI will rush its heaviest units towards the gates. This should guarantee much more challenging siege battles. Be prepared to sweat.

-Unless the unit originally manning a siege tower/ladder is routing or fully engaged in combat on the walls, the AI will no more consider this siege tower a viable access point into the settlement, thus “crowding” and the associated lag during some siege battles will be effectively prevented. This issue is also connected to the AI not moving on from outer defences to inner walls during a castle siege, which has thus likewise been dealt with.

-AI will now react to flanking manoeuvres more “intelligent”, depending on the AI army General’s command rating.

-Merchants will now always produce the appropriate amount of Florins, taking into consideration distance to capital even after loading/reloading a game.

-Mostly during VH setting, the AI sometimes used to defend their most valuable settlements with only a tiny number of troops. This has been corrected.

-The triggers and scripts for cavalry have been amended in order to give players a good chance of a good charge while retaining some sense for realism. Likewise, pursuing fleeing enemies with lowered lances has been enabled for some units. However, this is a work-in-progress, and the final outcome will be heavily influenced by the community’s reactions to the new mechanism, as we always try to stay in touch with your opinions.

-Missile units will now always fire on the target they are ordered to fire at while “fire at will” is switched off.

-Melee units wielding two-handed weapons will now engage cavalry correctly.

-Missile Units ordered to charge the enemy will now do so correctly.

-Some minor issues concerning graphical bugs with some ati cards have been corrected. A full list will be posted in the update’s readme.

-Crossbow units will now stop firing at steep angles. This has proven to cause them to virtually waste their ammunition in some cases.

-Units that can fire in ranks will now stop re-reforming after taking casualties by enemy missile fire. Also, an issue where reforming soldiers kept bumping into each other after every volley has been taken care of. Happy annihilation.

-Crusading armies that do not reach the target settlement in time or until another faction’s crusade has taken the settlement will now simply disband. Family members in those “lost crusades” will have a chance of being either captured and ransomed or reappearing in one of the original crusading faction’s border cities within a few turns after a crusade is disbanded.

-Jihads can now only be called by the Imam with the highest piety rating in game, and only if his piety rating is equal to or above 7. This amendment was made to prevent the Turks from conquering most of Byzantine within the initial 3 turns.

-The AI will now take into consideration its own power and current situation more accurately when negotiation a ceasefire or an offer to become a vassal.

-Finally, the CTD caused by battling Timurid Elephants that had taken losses in previous battles has been fixed.




Issues that will be taken care of in a future patch:

-Further balancing of cavalry charges.

-Melee units sometimes „spreading out“ to engage enemies are a known issue that is rooted deep within the combat mechanisms. In fact, as far as battles on crowded grounds (e.g. within castle walls) are concerned, this is more of a feature. However, this may need some more balancing in the future.

-Voice castings for the Aztecs and Danes will be reconsidered.

-Siege equipment sometimes not firing at enemy units, although they are in range and no obstacles are in the way. This issue is hard to replicate, and under investigation. Stay tuned.

-Population growth rate is under observation.

-An option to expel another faction’s troops from territory controlled by the player will be added to the diplomacy interface. Likewise, an AI factions reliability rating will go down upon transgression if it is a) allied with another faction, but does b) not have military access granted.




“Issues” that are features and will not be changed:

-AI sometimes placing units in inaccessible areas - on top of mountains, for example - is not a bug, but a feature. Part of the problem armies had in defeating their opponent’s way into modern warfare was reaching entrenched positions. However, to prevent player-controlled and AI armies from fortifying their positions “ad infinitum”, it was ensured that defending armies can always be reached from at least one direction of the strategy map. It is up the player to find out which direction that is, though.

-Diplomacy has been the topic of one of the most heated discussions among CA members and up to now. Reports of long-time allies suddenly backstabbing the player keep floating around the forums in countless numbers. However, there have been equally countless accounts of similar incidents in medieval, as well as in modern history, and since AI factions also try to “win” the game, they will, according to their leaders characteristics and a multitude of other factors, choose to attack allies as well as long-standing enemies (just as most human players do, btw). Be on your guard.

-The pope will only excommunicate players that attack the faction named in the respective papal mission from outside of a settlement of the player that is threatened to be excommunicated. Example: Lets say you are Hungarian, and the pope threatened you with excommunication, should you attack the Polish. Now the Polish lay siege to one of your settlements. In case you now sally forth to lift the siege, this will be considered an act of mere self-defence, and not be punished in any way by the pope. Should you however use another army on the campmap to assault the besieging army, you will be considered “aggressive” by the pope and thus be excommunicated rightfully. To cut it short: the only way you are allowed to engage in battle with the Polish is by sallying forth out of a settlement besieged.

-Time progressing at 2-years-intervals is intentional, since 1-years-turns would have most players never seeing the invention of gunpowder or America. One possible solution to this issue would have been the introduction of different starting periods (as seen in Shogun, and MTW). Since this would have some severe impact on the game’s mechanics, we have no intention of changing this system as of yet. However, depending on public demand, this feature may be part of a future expansion.

W00T! Thanks for the news, Ludivico Sforza. I was about to use an un-official fix for the two-handed units, but since the patch fixes it, I'll wait a bit longer. ~:)

And darn you, Bob the Insane, I was about to post the list, but you have beaten me to the punch. ~:)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by R'as al Ghul

So putting them on the walls for castle/city defense is futile?
Once the enemy is close enough to the walls he's save?
Will archers be able to shoot down from the ramparts?
Wasting ammo isn't good but the fix is weird. ~:confused:
Or is it a misunderstanding on my part?

R'as

---

The problem was that crossbowmen had the tendency to to "aim high" if they didn't have a clear line of sight. This dramatically reduced the power of the bolts and it wasn't realistic either. So, from now on, crossbowmen will only shoot in a direct line.

How this affects sieges and crossbows remains to be seen.

Good news! I was about to start a French campaign but I think I can hold off less than 24 hours :2thumbsup:

Wow, amazing list of fixes. I never expected them to fix this much in such a short space of time. Nice work CA.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bob the Insane

-Crusading armies that do not reach the target settlement in time or until another faction’s crusade has taken the settlement will now simply disband. Family members in those “lost crusades” will have a chance of being either captured and ransomed or reappearing in one of the original crusading faction’s border cities within a few turns after a crusade is disbanded.

-Jihads can now only be called by the Imam with the highest piety rating in game, and only if his piety rating is equal to or above 7. This amendment was made to prevent the Turks from conquering most of Byzantine within the initial 3 turns.


[/SPOIL]

---

there goes my campagin strategies as ive really exploit both the crusades and jihads. in particular i did find it made the early game with the turks much easier.

im curious as to how the crusade disbanding thing will work. does this mean you can have only one crusade stack?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KARTLOS

there goes my campagin strategies as ive really exploit both the crusades and jihads. in particular i did find it made the early game with the turks much easier.

im curious as to how the crusade disbanding thing will work. does this mean you can have only one crusade stack?

---

Well you can only have one crusade stack at present can't you??

And once the Crusade is finished by another faction (before you) you no longer just get bonus and a long walk home. Don't send anyone on a Crusade unless you can afford to loss them!!

That's an impressive sounding patch. Looks like I am going to have to restart my English campaign. The passive AI bug made the battles rather uninteresting. Fingers crossed it really has been fixed. I'll probably go M/VH difficulty, as I found the "all neighbours will attack you" tendency of VH campaigns a little over the top.

meh bunnies.

Random failed crusades were awesome. Wandering round trying to either get home or capture another city.

Good news! Judging by the issues that will be fixed with this first update, it seems by the time i get my computer working again, there will be not much bugs left to talk about. This might be a happy Xmas after all :yes:

Erm guys atm we don't know if this is a hoax or not as a unkown a person posted it.

Hmmm... seems that there's some fixing of things that really don't need it.

The disbanding of all but the crusading army that actually captures the focal city seems harsh, particualrly since at that point we're going to be potentially forced to ransom back generals if they don't randomly make it back home. It might have been a little unrealistic that one could join a Crusade the turn before another country conquers the city and therefore obtain a lot of cheap troops, but to lose a whole army just because its over? I could see the specific crusade-based units disbanding perhaps, but the ordinary troops should remain... after all, there's still more loot to be had from nearby cities. This will now steer folk to attack the extra cities first, but then you run the risk of someone else getting to the capital first and your troops disappearing... After all, we had to pay for the initial purchase price for the original eight or so units that were part of the initial crusade force, so shouldn't we be allowed to keep those? I've gone through enough hell sometimes to muster eight or more units together for a crusade while being attacked by all the rest of Europe just to keep the pope happy and now by the time I get that altogether, I can find them all vanishing?

The 'inaccesible placement' issue won't be touched and it does make sense that some forethought on the direction from which you attack someone on the strategy map should come into place. But what irritates me about this is that often you can SEE the path you'd need to climb in order to get up to where the AI is, but it's in the red zone or just off the map...something that would at best take a fifth of the full battle time to reach, so you're prevented from going there because of some invisible wall.:wall:

Did I miss the specific mention for the passive AI fix?

*smirks quietly at the CA bashers*

Awesome list of fixes. Good job, chaps !

Not sure I'm happy about the Jihad-calling change though - I've never seen the AI spam them ? So that's just restricting the player from using cheap tactics...

Nothing about Inquisitors either :shame:.

Guys, seems it is a fake :)
I was too happy to read it, but there is not an official (ca, mod, admin) word in that post so i think it might be just a stupid joke :(

Quote:

---

I caught an employee off his lunch break, that or he was just busy. When he finds out more he will deal with it.

If this is a hoax, the secretary certainly timed it good, when all the admins were asleep (including 99.9% of CA OZ).

---

this is from a moderator... so lets wait :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Derfel von Saljeth

Guys, seems it is a fake :)
I was too happy to read it, but there is not an official (ca, mod, admin) word in that post so i think it might be just a stupid joke :(

---

ergh...

You might be right though I hope not...

Well they are ALL going nuts over at TW.com and are fairly sure it's a hoax. No-one at CA (as yet) has made a comment which is making them all the more Conspiracy Theory ish. Loving how passionate people can be!

Well, as far as I know Australians don't spell "apologise" with a z.

This is a very good joke.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GFX707

Well, as far as I know Australians don't spell "apologise" with a z.

---

SEE WHAT I MEAN? IT'S A CONSPIRACY I TELL YOU!
Next people will be saying 'Who works in Oz at 23:00? It all seems very cloak and daggerish' Oh hang on..... THEY ARE!

Post was closed by a mod just a minute ago. Supposedly.

It's a hoax, the post at the .com forums has been deleted.

While switching from one page to the next as I read that post, response time went way down. I finally just clicked back to find this

Quote:

---

This is not an offical CA post - comments removed.

Edited by: BOFH at: 12/8/06 2:00 pm

---

That Rinsui dude should be tortured, ridiculed and perma-banned from every TW forum. Ever since the Tommy-gate incident over at the TWC, I have become very "picky" when it comes to false statements. And to top it all, I just went along with it.

Damn, that list looked so nice. ~:(

Losers like that should be shot.

Excellent news!

Just came to the end of my first campaign, so very good timing chaps! :yes:

Someone with way too much time on his hands. Let's not waste any more of ours. :closed: