Rome 2 Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such (patch 17 live!)

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Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai

Seems to be commonplace. I've seen it suggested to script AI factions in how they develop. But it seems CA is taking the 'dumb down' route...which has its advantages, it seems. It's going to be a delicate balancing act to keep development challenging for the player, yet doable by the AI..

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AI factions fare much better if you play Rodious' MODs. When he nerfed the squalor and food shortages from later level buildings it helped the AI build up real armies that didnt either starve off or attach you with a full stack made up of mostly skirmishers.

Only downside so far has been the AI can build to the point they drop like 15 to 20 stacks on you when the civil war starts. Of course, from what I read most good players saw this as a positive and enjoyed the challenge.

I am not exactly an amazing general, so I might not fare as well with a 20 stack civil war uprising. Although i would love to have 1 really solid army with a mix of good infantry and a mix of ballistas and onagers and camp one side of a bridge and fight the 20 stack uprising that way.

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Originally Posted by andrewt

I disagree. The level 4s need to be an upgrade from the level 3s, which need to be an upgrade from the level 2s. Take Carthage's fishing port line, for example. Level 2 gives 6 food. Level 3 gives 8-9 food with a 4 squalor penalty. Upgrading Temple of Tanit from level 2 to level 3 ups the bonus from 4 to 8 public order at the cost of 4 food. You've essentially lost 1-2 by upgrading both level 2 buildings to level 3. I've destroyed every single level 3 fishing port I've captured to rebuild to level 2.

The farm line gives 6 food at level 2. It used to give 18 food for 12 public order at level 4. Now it's 18 for 10. It could be 18 and 8 after this patch. The net food vs public order has to go up with each subsequent upgrade. Otherwise, what's the point. It used to be not worth it to upgrade past level 2. Now, it's worth it.

In the current game, a lot of the upgrades are just not worth it. The player is smart enough to not upgrade most of the buildings. The AI isn't. I've noticed that many factions are losing their troops to food shortages because they keep upgrading the stuff that isn't worth it.

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No, they dont need to be an upgrade in every situation ever, because if they are then there is no point in civic macromanagement at all, since every single decision is a no-brainer. Then there's no macro game. Also known as Shogun 2.

You are not addressing squalor vs public order as a factor in this, or public order as a resource. To use the example of the fishing port: Level 2 gives 6 food. But what if you need 3 more to sustain a commerce-focused edict-province (like Siciliy+Southern Italy)? Then you build a lvl 3 port. This increases squalor by 4 in the province of the port. This is bad if it leads to instability. But what if I have, say, +2 public order from researches and +4 from a temple, giving me a total of, say, +5 public order in said province? Now its a clear upgrade, because I lose nothing - but this cannot be done in every single province you own, because edicts are finite and certain province specializations leave less public order to be messed around with. I am transferring +order (that I have in surplus, thus it is a resource) to +food, and then food for, lets say a Temple of Mercury for a +ROI play. But I have to make some decisions as to when, why and for what.

We have 2 clear advantages of having a drawback to structures:
1. I have to manage my macro-resources beyond "low food=bad".
2. This puts a natural dampener to how economy spins ridiculously out of control as your faction grows large, keeping some sort of challenge in the lategame. This got much worse after the first patch, but luckily this patch seems to only affect the main line of structures, which admittedly was kind of weak. Now it has some merit for upgrading.

It is crucial if you want any sort of macro-game in Rome 2 to keep a tension between food/squalor, income and public order, because if every building has a net +food-to-squalor or +order-to-food, the macro-game becomes both explosively unstable (as in, all buildings are then overpowered and need significant tuning down in +income and +order) and decisionless. This is also why buildings such as the Colloseum need a cap of 1 per faction, because they completely break the game by existing. I am certain I could increase my faction income by more than 50% by exploiting +order buildings with no drawbacks and thats either a design flaw or a game bug. Either way its game-breaking.

The fact that the AI cannot manage this is a flaw on the AI that needs fixing. It doesn't beckon a trimming down of the game's potential unless there is absolutely no way of making the AI play around this system.

Holy crap, the MP Campaign turn time fix is amazing!!! I can finally play a coop campaign with my friend XD

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Originally Posted by Sp4

Holy crap, the MP Campaign turn time fix is amazing!!! I can finally play a coop campaign with my friend XD

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Progress baby, progress.

Patch looks pretty good, lots of great stuff here. Will have to look after this and see if it's available in beta yet.

I share the concerns about further squalor-vs-food balancing. I think they're giving up some economic challenge to the player. As already pointed out, however, I think their intent is to help out the AI, particularly the small 1-2 region minor factions, so that they can at least support a decent-sized stack or two.

Tried to play with Patch 3, and it took a giant :daisy: all over my rome. CTD when loading up a save game. I tried to start a new campaign, and it took 6:48 to load. After that it was a giant lag fest; switching from province to another would make the game hang for 10-15sec.


:turtle:

Yep, I haven't had a good experience this afternoon with Patch 3 either. Nothing nearly as drastic as Spoonska reports, but campaign map lags with every location shift, during both my turn and AI's. Thought it was going to CTD a couple of times. Also, the province panel doesn't scroll with mousewheel any more, have to do it manually with the scroll button. One of the patch notes stated that provinces would now be sort-able by food production; I'm not seeing that. I'm also not seeing any of the squalor/food rebalancing either. Kinda feels like pre-patch2; I'm not seeing any of the features mentioned in notes, and stability has taken a step backwards.

Problem is, now that I've opted into the Patch3beta on Steam, I can't see any way to back out of it and revert to Patch 2.

EDIT: Never mind. It appears that somehow R2 wasn't fully closed. Rebooted computer, and got the "NONE - Opt out of all beta" option in the appropriate pull-down menu, which hadn't appeared before.

Im not having any of the problems that you guys are having with beta patch 3. While Im not sure if the pounding that I just took from the AI was as a result of the new beta patch or mods, but still, my hopes are climbing for this game.

I would avoid the 3.0 Beta. Campaign map performance in creased however I noticed significantly longer load time to start the game and a battle took in excess of 8 minutes until I decided to kill it. I haven't had this issue previously.

The game occasionally locks up for 15-20 seconds. So far only happened in MP campaign.

This beta3 patch is a big improvement.
If only the game had been delayed a month & come to market like this, with extra improvement to come.

Still a couple of kinda nasty passive AI habits: I have found in the unwalled town battles it forms up nice defensive perimeters in the intersections, but it'll then sit there passive.
But if you move a unit out of line, AI suddenly kicks in & moves to attack the perceived weakness. Once its moving you can generally shift your unit back into line.

Unit behavior in combat is better & combat somewhat slower.

I'm starting to get a hang of the squalor/food mechanic & the reduced values seems to help me make rational choices, seemed impossible to upgrade before but now I see a path via public order -> food -> economy.

Thing that bugs me is in city battles if you play on after enemy is shattered then most of the time the game seems to not notice once enemy all leave the map/all captured (or I've been having one or two soliders get stuck somewhere I haven't been able to find) -> have to sit out the timer.
Still suffering rather from enemy generals/admirals surviving battles where everything else got killed & their units severely mauled -> they come attack again next turn.

Playing Normal difficulty AI diplomacy seems maybe nicer (or just started getting scared of my Spartans as I've expanded...), have managed to even have some turns of complete peace.
Seems this CAI is inclined to recognise when its beat/suffered significant loss & offer peace vs previous TWs where it would fight indignantly to the last no matter how much I wanted to let them live.

Downloading the Rome II patch 3 beta and will give you a hands-on as I restart my Roman campaign.

Changelog:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Disclaimer: There are one or two known issues with the beta that we are looking to resolve before rolling this out further, with ALT-Tabbing and changing game resolution. We are aware of these issues and there is no need to report them in our patch feedback threads.

Technical and Performance Issues

Significant improvements to multiplayer campaign speed, which is now limited by the slowest players machine.
Frame Rate improvements on Campaign map on low spec Core2 Duo cpu’s in windowed mode.
Fix for lock-ups reported on loading into battle in DirectX9.
Frame Rate improvements on Campaign map across all configurations when setting Effects Quality to Low or High.
Fix for minor stutters & terrain rendering glitches on some gpu’s when rendering the terrain.
Fixed a bug in the Graphics Benchmark frame rate display that reported the wrong per-frame time.
LAN multiplayer modes are now accessible when Steam is in Offline mode.
Fix for graphics crash caused by changing the games screen resolution shortly after loading a new Campaign.
Fix for a crash when performing an agent action on a wounded/assassinated unit in Campaign modes.
Further campaign map optimisations.
Optimised fire and smoke effects on the campaign map (improving the frames per second on all graphics setting, especially during the late gameplay where all faction territories are revealed)
Fix in Multiplayer Campaign, after Player 1 offers diplomacy to Player 2, Player 2 made a counter offer, then cancelled the offer, which caused the game to lock up for Player 1.
Fix to prevent the games user interface from flickering when SLI is enabled.
Improved culling on the campaign map to prevent props (e.g. the pyramids) from disappearing when the camera was set to certain angles.
Improved the desktop icon for Total War: ROME II to support multiple resolutions.

Gameplay Improvements

When the player is attacked whilst in a minor settlement (not provincial capital), a new "Sally Forth" button is available on the pre-battle panel to fight the attackers in an open field battle.
All armies that are forced to retreat, and then are attacked, no longer have a *Baggage Train battle. It is a normal open field battle with any campaign generated penalties applied as before.
When an army in forced march is attacked on the Campaign Map, an ambush battle is now triggered, rather than a baggage train Victory Point battle .
Combined battles where there is no navy in the defending alliance do not have *Victory Points/Baggage Trains.
Combined battles where the defender has a navy will retain their Victory Point.
Victory Points have had their capture time increased by 3x their previous length.
Attacking AI is now more likely to prioritise taking Victory Points in Siege Battles / City Assault Battles.
AI controlled Agents are now more likely to act upon the player's settlements instead of standing around outside of them.
Fixed issue in battle AI which prevented siege assault groups from responding to nearby threats.
Fixed timing issue in battle AI which could cause the attacking AI in port sieges to stop updating.
Substantially reduced free hits from enemies in battles, when moving a unit through enemy units (without attacking them), so units can disengage with less penalty.
Smaller and depleted AI controlled forces are now less likely to survive auto-resolved battles in Campaign modes.
Cavalry can no longer capture Victory Points in battles while mounted. They can still neutralise the Victory Points if they were previously in enemy control, and capture Victory Points when dismounted.
The size / radius of capture points has been increased in Coastal battles.
Fix for some instances of passive AI during River Crossing battles, when the AI is defending.
Fixed issue which prevented reinforcement artillery ships deploying.
Fixed issue in Siege Battles where the AI attempted to use breaches and gates which they could not reach.
In Battles, the number of ranks now factor into bracing mass bonus for collision system, i.e. thin lines will make you lose your bracing bonus against cavalry charges from the front
Fixed chasing down of routers at the end of battles, so they engage in combat more often and can be killed more easily.
Satrapies can no longer sign peace treaties with the enemies of their overlord (but still able to automatically make peace if their overlord signs a peace treaty with the enemy) in Campaign modes.
Snow ground type now replaces grass in snow attrition areas of the battle map.
Units in Testudo formation will now respond to an order to attack city gates in a City Assault battles.
Men throwing torches to ignite gates in battles, now have less chance of failing to throw their torches and hit the gate, if ordered more than once to ignite the same gate.
AI houses can no longer secure promotions without first meeting the required age and rank in Campaign modes.
Removed old concealed by distance logic, that was incompatible with the newer visibility system. For example, units that are visible at range could look like they were hidden on their user interface, when they could be seen.
Pikemen can move out of melee when pike phalanx is active in battles. For example, If only one of the pikeman is attacked, the entire unit will no longer start to be unresponsive to orders.
Improved responsiveness of Siege Equipment when dropped and picked back up multiple times.
In Campaign modes, the number of siege equipment entries is now capped to be the length of the siege - 1
Further improvements to AI collision detection with Deployables in battle.
Units that charge while in formation (e.g. block formation) stop sooner on contact with the enemy, to reduce "blobbing" where units converge into a disorganised brawl.
Fixed bug with missile units on ships not firing on enemies reliably during battles.
Fixed bug with ship artillery not firing on buildings reliably in battles.
Fix for ships surviving on the campaign map after sinking on the battle map.
Fix missile ships getting stuck when targeting land units just outside of their range.
Reduced the chance of AI (enemy) reinforcements and the players reinforcements joining a battle from the same location and therefore engaging in combat instantly in battles from Campaign modes.

Balancing Changes

Hit points for all units have been increased in combat.
Melee defence has been reduced for most melee cavalry units and for some elite infantry units.
Reduced melee weapon damage in battles, and increased melee defence from shields.
Various trait effects are now working as intended.
Improved pike weapon damage balancing in battles.
Fatigue for running and being in combat has been increased in battles.
Further tweaks and rebalancing has been made to unit morale in battles.
Elite infantry morale has been reduced slightly during battles.
Experience level thresholds have been increased for units.
Special ability cool down times have been re-balanced in battles.
Building costs have been updated to reflect the changes in building effects in Campaign modes.
Morale bonuses from training and religious building chains have been reduced in Campaign modes. Instead, these buildings now give more varied bonuses to the units.
Cost of experience bonuses for Custom and Multiplayer battles have been reduced.
Squalor and food consumption have been rebalanced (reduction for higher-level buildings) in Campaign modes.
The Headhunt ability has been re-balanced in battles.
The charge bonus for Celtic, Briton and Germanic units have been reduced.
The masses of horses and men on the battlefield have been made more reasonable.
Reduced the mass of camel units in battle.

Usability Improvements

The Balance Of Power bar on the Diplomacy screen now shows the correct ratio, rather than just 50/50.
Improved the desynchronisation detection in Multiplayer Campaign mode, and players are now given a popup message when a desynchronisation has occurred, with the options to resynchronise the game to continue, or quit the game.
When the host leaves the team lobby in Quick Battle multiplayer mode, a new host is found.
Improved multiplayer compatibility between players who own the Greek States DLC and those who don't.
In Multiplayer Ambush Battles, if Player 1 clicks the "Start Battle" button, and the Player 2 waits for the timer to run out for the battle to start, Player 2 will no longer be locked into Cinematic Mode with limited user interface controls.
All battles now end 5 seconds after the victory is decided (This used to be 10 seconds).
In Multiplayer Land Battles, when deployment is over, enemy armies will no longer be visible, when they are supposed to be hidden, for a couple of seconds before fading out.
In Multiplayer battles, a player who has conceded defeat will now turn into a spectator. They can then exit the battle if they want to.
Fix for battle music getting paused while in slow battle speed.
When on the campaign map, if an agent is placed close to the edge of an enemy settlement as it expands (builds a building in a construction slot) the agent is now teleported out of the way of the expansion, so they do not become stuck within the settlement. If the agent was already stuck in an expanded settlement before this update, they will remain stuck, and have to be disbanded. This update will prevent this situation from happening in the future.
Slightly improve combat responsiveness and animations for formation attacks in battles.
Fixed bug with ship artillery not firing at all after using first-person mode in battles.
The Attacking Testudo can no longer be activated in melee during battles.
Battering rams moves out the way correctly after battering a gate down in battles.
The Tortoise battering ram animation has been tweaked slightly so it collides with walls better, at the point of impact when a wall is destroyed.
Multiple waypoints displayed for units in siege equipment, as previously only 1 was displayed.
Selecting Dismount on mounted units continuously during deployment in battles will move the units towards their last ordered position less after dismounting.
During battles, if a cavalry unit is ordered to move to a location, and then ordered to dismount, the men will now dismount but not continue to move to the previously ordered location.
The number of arrows is now correctly depleted when units fire whilst moving during battles.
Correct bonuses are now being applied to units from Workshop buildings.
Fixed bug with pike phalanx not getting back into pike stance after running.
Charge bonuses are now correctly applied to units recruited in certain provinces.
Projectile impact effects hitting units and buildings are now positioned more accurately.
Improved fire effects for buildings, siege vehicles and deployables during battles.
Improved some visual effects for during battles. Better burnt version of buildings with burning embers, and running water down roofs and vertical surfaces in rain.
Damaged visual effects have been improved on the campaign.
Fixed Briton Chariot unit attributes.
Fix for Scythian horse unit variation.
The achievements "Noble Master", "Spymaster" and "Champion of the Gods" now unlock sooner after their requirements have been met.
Fix for the Campaign map terrain disappearing when repeatedly toggling between the Campaign Map and Campaign Tactical Map.
Province level bonuses (such as edicts with food bonuses) are now taken into account in the food level displayed in a province overview in Campaign modes.
Settlement labels on the campaign map are now positioned more accurately and no longer get offset from the settlements.
In the Province panel in Campaign modes, provinces can now be sorted by their level of food production.
Several Eastern buildings now correctly consume food (instead of either not consuming anything or giving contradicting public order effects) in Campaign modes.
The Qanat building (in the Eastern agricultural chain) now produces a small amount of food in campaign mode.
The warning message that informs the player that they are not researching any technology when they press the "End Turn" button in Single Player Campaigns is now also displayed in Multiplayer Campaigns.
The players armies in Ambush stance will no longer move by themselves in Campaign modes, which happened on rare occasions.
Fix for user interface bug showing the wrong tax level on the Province Details panel when the "Tax province" button was ticked in Campaign modes.
Culture conversion coming from some characters now correctly shows up as "character" in the culture tooltip, no longer as "building".
In Campaign modes, the culture that Consecrated Grounds belong to is now displayed in their title, to make it clearer why they need to be converted.
The "Reduces slave population decline" icon in the information panel when placing the mouse over the "Slave Trader" in the Commons buildings section in Campaign modes is now displayed as green instead of red (as it's a positive affect).
The first building in the equipment chain (E.g. Workshop for Hellenic, Quartermaster for Eastern etc.) can no longer be bypassed by converting from another faction's equipment chain without researching.
Technologies are now required to create the Level 4 Jewelsmith building, to prevent an exploit.
Improved ship melee/ramming target selection in battles.
Fixed boarding mode button state issues when attempting to board a ship in battle.
In battles, men who have already boarded an enemy ship no longer jump into the sea once their ship has started to sink or back onto their sinking ship. (Men who remain on the sinking ship still jump into the water.)
Improved Advisor lip sync in various pieces of advice in Campaign modes.
Clicking the "Square" special ability as a unit is attempting to man a siege tower will no longer stick the siege tower to that unit in battles.
When an agent is selected in Campaign mode, and the player right clicks on a settlement to sabotage the enemy, the menu will no longer act erratically.
When the player had a subject to deal with in the politics screen and the subject had an infamy effect, this effect once seen persisted in being shown for all other characters even if the subject is dismissed. This has been fixed.
Fix for some misaligned text on a tooltip displayed when a settlement with a port is blockaded by an enemy, and the player selects the enemy and places the mouse over the settlement.
Improved small glitches with Campaign selection markers and Forced March visual effects sometimes being displayed in the wrong positions when units move.
Fixed some inconsistent ability names for General Skill Types.
In Campaign mode, Roman "Basilica of X" temples have now been renamed to "Precinct of X".
Tooltip regarding the "Armoured Siege Units" technology bonus effects on pre-siege vehicles (all variants of Galleries, Siege Towers, Ladders and Battering Rams) is now clearer.
Fixed the tooltip when placing the mouse over the Columns I, II and III for War Exercises, Warrior Code, Tribal Economy and Druidic Council technology trees in the Technology Panel in Campaign modes.
Two pieces of advice from the Battlefield Advisor relating to flanking were mixed up in Italian and Spanish. These have now been corrected.
Fixed a couple of instances where what the Battlefield Advisors was saying did not match the text displayed in Spanish.
Some steep terrain in a Greek Minor Port battle map has been levelled out, to stop ships from going under the beach when they disembark.
Improvements to the wall connectivity in a Greek Port battle map.
Boiling oil poured from gate houses in battles will look better where it intersects with the ground.
Improved impact animations when pig carcasses hit the ground when fired as poison rounds form artillery in battles.
While crossing rivers in battles, units footsteps now default to mud sounds instead of water sounds.
Fix for a small hole in the terrain in a Greek Minor Port battle map.
When the player is defending in a siege battle from Campaign mode, and the enemy partially capture a Victory Point on the battle map, then the player re-gains control of the Victory Point, the Battlefield Advisor will no longer say "Our enemy have lost a victory point".
Fix for the Battlefield Advisor sometimes referring to the players own reinforcements as "Enemy Reinforcements" during battles.
Added some localisation text and audio fixes for French, Italian, German, Spanish, Czech, Russian, Polish and Turkish.
Added Stonehenge back to the custom battle map at these coordinates 0.137, 0238 (Iska).
Fixed typo on 'Conscription' edict in English.
Improved culling of certain rocks on the battlefield.
Added French, Italian, German and Spanish localisation to the word "Settlement" in the Agent Action Panel in Campaign modes.
Various text and grammar fixes for the Campaign user interface.

Am doing same. I tried yesterday but performance declined....yet now I suspect that the patch somehow didn't install correctly, and in fact I was playing essentially an unpatched version. I'm not technically smart enough to rationally explain why I think that...just my observation of what the game was playing like. This time I'm going to install and then log off and close out Steam entirely, and verify neither Steam or R2 is running in Task Manager, to ensure both programs go through complete loading process. I have this feeling that R2 was still running in background last time and that's why the patch didn't "take".

I know this sounds like computer superstition that I'm trying to solve via the intellectual equivalent of voodoo.....but I have a hunch it's going to work.

EDIT: Nope, the chicken sacrifice didn't work. Didn't even get to really play myself much, as I tend to save games right before hitting "End Turn", so the first thing I went through was the AI turn aftering loading the campaign. I did look around first; still not seeing any rebalanced squalor-food values in any of my buildings (one of the patch notes), still cannot sort provinces by food production (one of the patch notes), and cannot mouse-wheel scroll in province list (loss of a previous feature).

I did play one battle which was rather strange in how it worked out. Bithynia (my ally) got into a battle with a stronger force from Mascat (our common enemy). I, however, was within reinforcement range with an even bigger stack. It was treated as an ambush battle, most likely because Mascat was in FM mode (which is now supposed to result in ambush battle vs vic point in Patch3). In any case....Bithynia and Mascat were the "primaries", while I was supporting Bithynia. Despite being ambushed, the Mascat guys quickly destroyed the Bithynians while I was marching in. I then proceeded to annihilate the Mascatis and won. So far so good. Upon exiting back to campaign map, however, the game froze...as if it couldn't decide who had won the battle; both of the "primary" combatants had been destroyed. I let it try to work itself out of the bog for several minutes; no joy, so I had to Ctrl+Alt+Del out.

I did see some positive improvements in the battle with cavalry, as mentioned in the Patch3 notes. They disengaged after charging much better than I'd seen before, and did a far more efficient job in cleaning up routers. Also noticed some small but nice graphic improvements during the battle.

My impression is that there is some sort of bug in Patch3 which can revert the game back to pre-Patch2 instability, specifically on the campaign map. Promised battle improvements seem to be present, at least as far as I can see. Looking forward to Patch3 going live, if they can work these issues out. Uninstalling Patch3beta again for now...I'd like to soldier on with it some more, but every turn carries a realistic chance of CTD or freeze. Having left that situation behind with Patch2, not going back to it.

Anybody else getting ctd with patch 3? I didnt have any problems before but i had to revert to patch 2. A tiny bit annoying!

No, but I do find it troubling I can no longer alt-tab out of the game.

Alt Tabbing is fine if you're running in windowed mode.

Orly? =P

The alt-tabbing thing is a known issue and will be fixed before patch 3 goes live. I started a new game as Rome. Here are my impressions with Patch 3 beta.

- Turn times near instantaneous. They only slow down for agent actions.
- The AI recruits a lot more armies and uses them. Sparta and Athen' declared war on me and the first time I tried fighting them + Macedon + a war in Africa I overextended and had to restart.
- My fight for Greece in the second game was a thing of legend. I held Athens with my Prima Legio Filii Martis and Legio I Italica versus impossible odds. There were two waves, one of Spartan elites outnumbering us 7000 to 5000. The second wave was of Athens' complete army, engaging right after we defeated the Spartans. The Athenians were even more in number and we - even less due to casualties. Both fights happened in the fields outside Athens, and I only won because i managed to consolidate my reinforcing armies and defeat the enemy reinforcements before they could merge. I also had Socii Equites Extraordinarii and Gladiators and those are the units that allowed me to chop up the phalangites, otherwise my legionaries would lack the damage to rout them. A unit of Royal Spartans made a vallant effort and managed to cleave through half a unit of pretorians while another two units had surrounded it.

After this fight came the war with Macedon and they had some scary armies - almost 3 full stacks. And they engaged me near Pella, but somehow used agent actions to cut off Legio I italica from reinforcements. Thus, outnumberd 3000 to around 10000 we lost both legions. I had to lick my wounds and raise 4 new legions in Italy before I came back and destroyed the Macedonians.

Meanwhile I had a bloody war up north with various Celtic tribes but now Cispalina is stable and bringing in money.

The re-balanced structures means that the trading ports eat food now, and that it makes more sense to make amphora factories once you max out your slots if you have at least 2 ports, and otherwise you make the brickworks in landed provinces.

Performance wise the game is great, I haven't encountered the stutterstep lag yet and the battles run as well as they can on my (slightly outdated) GTX 570. I plan on buying a new graphics card with 2 gb video memory so I can view full on 40,000 men battles at max details.

I'm going to buy a laptop (with Ram: 8GB and Graphic: 2GB), so by these patches can I play the game in high quality without any problems or bugs?

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Originally Posted by komnenos

I'm going to buy a laptop (with Ram: 8GB and Graphic: 2GB), so by these patches can I play the game in high quality without any problems or bugs?

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Assuming the laptop wll be at least a Quad core and the GPU is a dedicated card - not an "integrated" one you should be fine.

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Originally Posted by RawPower

Anybody else getting ctd with patch 3? I didnt have any problems before but i had to revert to patch 2. A tiny bit annoying!

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I have had rock solid gameplay w/ Patch 3.

For those having issues I strongly suggest the following:

- Right click on the Rome TW II icon in the Steam menu
- Select Properties
- Select Local Files
- Select Verify Game Cache

...as I suspect some files were corrupted or failed to d/l. The above will fix those problems.

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Originally Posted by Barkhorn1x

I have had rock solid gameplay w/ Patch 3.

For those having issues I strongly suggest the following:

- Right click on the Rome TW II icon in the Steam menu
- Select Properties
- Select Local Files
- Select Verify Game Cache

...as I suspect some files were corrupted or failed to d/l. The above will fix those problems.

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Y'know...I've noticed that button before, but haven't used it. Will give this a try.

EDIT: Don't really see much of a difference. Campaign map still feels more stutterish and glitchy than with Patch 2. That said, went several turns without a CTD or freeze, so I'll keep Patch 3 loaded. Hopefully the issues get resolved as Patch 3 goes live.

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Originally Posted by komnenos

I'm going to buy a laptop (with Ram: 8GB and Graphic: 2GB), so by these patches can I play the game in high quality without any problems or bugs?

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Laptops will always perform more poorly than desktop PCs.

For a 2 GB graphics card and a good processor you need a 1 KW power inlet, which you probably will not have. If you do, then you will have heat issues. Especially running graphics intensive games.

Also laptop processors are always weaker than PC processors, for heating and power consumption issues. Even if it says dual quad core, it will be worse than a PC counterpart performance wise. Laptops also have slower HDD RPM speeds due to the noise a 7200 or 10000 SATA drive makes.

My advice is to spend the budget you have on the best PC you can assemble, unless you plan on using that laptop as an actual laptop, as in move around constantly. If you are going to need it outside your room just once per month, just stick with a PC instead.

Here's an observation which may (or may not) be useful to those of you who've mentioned Patch3beta performance issues (as I did).

I completed first campaign earlier today, soon after loading the patch (3rd try). Interestingly, as soon as I started a new campaign, game ran smooth as silk on campaign map. I wonder if something in the earlier save files was somehow conflicting with the patch, whereas a campaign started running Patch3beta doesn't have the same issues.

I suppose it could be simply because there's far fewer units and other complexities in a new game...which might help explain why some of us were having problems with Patch3beta while others were not.

I started a new campaign as i got Patch 3. 120 turns in i have zero issues. I only had two CTDs which were easily fixed with just resuming my campaign as Legendary does its own saving.

I have CTDs every once in a while. It's made me paranoid, so I always hit the quicksave button =X

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Originally Posted by komnenos

I'm going to buy a laptop (with Ram: 8GB and Graphic: 2GB), so by these patches can I play the game in high quality without any problems or bugs?

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I have one... It doesn't play these games very well.
Even though computers have a graphic card with 2+ GB video ram, doesn't make them play games very well.
I bought a top line desk computer (HP) that had a 2 GB graphic card. It came out of the machine pretty quick, to be replaced with a GTX 660 card. If you hold both cards in your hands, it is self evident. The original card a geForce GT 630 fits in my palm, while the GTX 660 takes my palm and most of my forearm. It nearly didn't fit in the computer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hoom

Thing that bugs me is in city battles if you play on after enemy is shattered then most of the time the game seems to not notice once enemy all leave the map/all captured (or I've been having one or two soliders get stuck somewhere I haven't been able to find) -> have to sit out the timer.
Still suffering rather from enemy generals/admirals surviving battles where everything else got killed & their units severely mauled -> they come attack again next turn.

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Happened to me also. All though the battle didn't end when the timer ran out. I near pulled my hair out as this was a long and hard battle. However [ESC] and END BATTLE in the menu box gave me a decisive victory. I guess you can end the game anytime after the initial Victory and remain victorious.

@ Hoom:
You can use the "quit battle" button to exit the battle screen after the outcome has been decided and your victory will not be lost

Patch 3 is now live.

Ahh excellent, thanks :)

if you are spending less than 2500 you would be much better off with the desktop.

Patch 3 downloaded while I was at work. I noticed that it wouldn't allow me to use previous save games.


EDIT - actually I was able to pull up saved games and play them without issue. When I restarted my computer my saved games showed up again...

Apparently there was a small update for the beta patch today that fixed the alt-tabbing issue, among others:

Quote:

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This should fix the following:
• Fix for issues with ALT-Tabbing the game and changing resolution
• Improved camera stuttering / pausing when moving between settlements on the campaign map via the "Zoom to Location" buttons

We are currently still working on this performance issue as well as on other issues you have reported on the forums.

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http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...l=1#post815912

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JeromeBaker

Patch 3 downloaded while I was at work. I noticed that it wouldn't allow me to use previous save games. I still like using 4 turns per year, so when I went to look for my save game of a new campaign I started, it wasn't in the normal spot, but all of my previous saved games were there, but those don't show up in Rome 2 after the 3rd patch.

Did CA change where the save games are stored? Is it no longer user/name/appdata/thecreativeassembly...... ?


EDIT - new save games are stored in C:\Users\TEMP\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Rome2\save_games . I assume since CA changed directories that the 3rd patch requires a fresh campaign. Oh well, I was almost ready for civil war to start in my last one. At least now I know where I can alter my turns per year.

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Same for me... so I opted in on the patch again which updated the game (80.2 MB).
I am now running v1.3.0 build 7184.457555 which is better than any of the other versions I have played so far. Oh, and I am able to play saved games, whereas I wasn't able before... Didn't check the version.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Myth

Patch 3 is now live.

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Thats very good news, last night i opened Steam in my PC but it didnt start any instalation process, as with the previous patches.
How can i comfirm if the patch is downloaded??

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nearchos

Thats very good news, last night i opened Steam in my PC but it didnt start any instalation process, as with the previous patches.
How can i comfirm if the patch is downloaded??

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When you first start the game you should see these numbers "v1.3.0 build 7184.457555" in the top corner. That is the latest


New hotfixed corrected all of my new issues with Rome 2. Game is playing really well now!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spoonska

When you first start the game you should see these numbers "v1.3.0 build 7184.457555" in the top corner. That is the latest


New hotfixed corrected all of my new issues with Rome 2. Game is playing really well now!

---

Thank you very much

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spoonska

When you first start the game you should see these numbers "v1.3.0 build 7184.457555" in the top corner. That is the latest


New hotfixed corrected all of my new issues with Rome 2. Game is playing really well now!

---

well, if the patch is live, steam hasnt download it yet.
I saw yesterday at the corner of the screen, that the version is v1.0.0.
Ill wait and see.
Thank you again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nearchos

well, if the patch is live, steam hasnt download it yet.
I saw yesterday at the corner of the screen, that the version is v1.0.0.
Ill wait and see.
Thank you again.

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I think that there is an option to update automatically or not in the steam options. Maybe it is disabled?

Patch3 is still in beta. Unless you opt in the beta you won't see patch3.

Really? Steam has mislead me then because I got another big download that said Patch 3 and everyhting.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Myth

Really? Steam has mislead me then because I got another big download that said Patch 3 and everyhting.

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In the the official forum (link) they speak of 2 patches to the beta3 patch. But nothing of going live. Did you opt in for betas in Steam?

I'll log in soon and see, I haven't opted for any beta patches yet

My version is still v1.0.0

Edit - I also can't to opt into the betas. I see the option where it says to and it's a drop down box but when I click it nothing happens.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AntiDamascus

I'll log in soon and see, I haven't opted for any beta patches yet

My version is still v1.0.0

Edit - I also can't to opt into the betas. I see the option where it says to and it's a drop down box but when I click it nothing happens.

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Try restarting Steam, that might work.

It worked but I restarted Steam a couple times in the past days or so o.O

Maybe because there was no beta patch at the time? v0v It works now. Downloading beta 3 as I type

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ShadesPanther

I think that there is an option to update automatically or not in the steam options. Maybe it is disabled?

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Thank you, i didnt know that, il check it any way.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shaitan

In the the official forum (link) they speak of 2 patches to the beta3 patch. But nothing of going live. Did you opt in for betas in Steam?

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Im lost, since patch 2 steam didnt download any thing, do we know when this patch 3 will be live for sure?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nearchos

Im lost, since patch 2 steam didnt download any thing, do we know when this patch 3 will be live for sure?

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Unfortunately there is nothing official yet.

Just opt in for the beta, it's stable.

When I played the new beta it seriously slowed down my games. I'm going to have to look at the settings again but it went from running perfectly to just amazingly slow.

Haven't played under Patch 3 yet, but these 2 lines from the release notes seem like a potential problem to me;

Quote:

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"Attacking AI is now more likely to prioritise taking Victory Points in Siege Battles / City Assault Battles."

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Quote:

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"Substantially reduced free hits from enemies in battles, when moving a unit through enemy units (without attacking them), so units can disengage with less penalty."

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The AI already tries to zerg rush the capture points in settlements, much to its detriment. Substantially reducing a units' ability to kill them while trying to do so sounds like it could seriously marginalize your ability to protect choke points, especially when outnumbered, and might result in the AI just running right through your defenders and on to your city streets. Can anyone playing the beta patch confirm or deny this?

I see what they're trying to do, but how realistic is it to move a unit through an enemy unit without attacking it and not expect to take serious losses in the first place? Which also applies to disengaging a unit from combat that doesn't have a significant seed advantage over its opponent (cav vs infantry for example). Expect to take losses...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AntiDamascus

When I played the new beta it seriously slowed down my games. I'm going to have to look at the settings again but it went from running perfectly to just amazingly slow.

---

I had same experience when first trying Patch3beta, but two things pretty much cleared it up:

1. They did a quick hotfix to the patch that helped camera panning between campaign map locations.

2. Started new campaign. I didn't start new just because the patch, it was coincidental.

Between these two changes, running smoothly now...or, perhaps more accurately, at least as smoothly as with Patch 2. At first Patch3beta resulted in some game freezes and CTDs for me, but not any more.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bramborough

I had same experience when first trying Patch3beta, but two things pretty much cleared it up:

1. They did a quick hotfix to the patch that helped camera panning between campaign map locations.

2. Started new campaign. I didn't start new just because the patch, it was coincidental.

Between these two changes, running smoothly now...or, perhaps more accurately, at least as smoothly as with Patch 2. At first Patch3beta resulted in some game freezes and CTDs for me, but not any more.

---

At first Patch 3 (beta) made saved games slower but I didnt have CTDs. I ran a check to make sure the files were not corupted, messed around a bit with the graphic settings ( i think the biggest change I made was lowering unit detail to "very high", but on many of the other settings I actually upped the performance to higher end graphics), and for whatever reason I can play saved games with the Patch 3 beta and they run fine now....

Perhaps it was a hotfix, I am not sure.

It is better in battle now. But after one battlefield fight, the campaign itself slows down. I still need to fiddle with it.

So, I shut down R2 about an hour ago for some lunch and a little housework (gotta keep the Mrs happy...). When I did so, Steam started updating R2. I didn't catch the size of the update, but it took about 10 min or so, so wasn't super-tiny. The logical assumption is that this was Patch 3 going live. BUT...first, I already had Patch3beta loaded anyway, and I don't remember a download when Patch2beta went live as Patch 2. Second, when I look at the Beta tab in Properties, it's still reflecting Patch3beta as an option; I would expect this to disappear once Patch 3 goes live (just like Patch2beta did).

So...any idea what this little update was? Anyone else getting it today?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bramborough

So, I shut down R2 about an hour ago for some lunch and a little housework (gotta keep the Mrs happy...). When I did so, Steam started updating R2. I didn't catch the size of the update, but it took about 10 min or so, so wasn't super-tiny. The logical assumption is that this was Patch 3 going live. BUT...first, I already had Patch3beta loaded anyway, and I don't remember a download when Patch2beta went live as Patch 2. Second, when I look at the Beta tab in Properties, it's still reflecting Patch3beta as an option; I would expect this to disappear once Patch 3 goes live (just like Patch2beta did).

So...any idea what this little update was? Anyone else getting it today?

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Mine is updating too! Different iterations of the 3beta?

Yep, Steam is downloading a 22MB patch for Rome II right now, which must have been released since 0800 GMT, September 27th.

Seems to be a hotfix:

Quote:

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If testing over the weekend reveals no further issues, Patch 3 will go live early next week.

Meanwhile, Patch 4 is completing internal testing and will arrive into beta soon afterwards.

The list of fixes brought with by the latest hotfix for patch 3 BETA:

• Players and AI were unable to siege a city with a port, with a land army while the port was blockaded by a navy in an earlier Patch 3 BETA build. This is now fixed.
• Fix for a crash while loading into ambush battles from the Campaign map, where the player had AI reinforcements (reinforcements are no longer aloud in ambush battles). This crash was introduced in an earlier Patch 3 BETA build, and is now fixed.
• Fix for a pathfinding crash in battles, which was introduced in an earlier Patch 3 BETA build.

---

source

I hated not being able to take a city because like 1 ship was blockading the port and I basically had to go to war with them to get it lifted.

Yeah, quite annoying. So that's a good fix.

Kinda amusing their language implies this was only a problem with earlier Patch 3 beta, when in fact the blockade issue had existed since release.

EDIT: I don't see that they've fixed this at all. Still having same situation crop up in my campaign. Couldn't attack Paraitonion (held by Pergamum) last night because a 3-unit Egyptian navy was content to sit there forever blockading it. Didn't really want to go to war with Egypt at that stage, but was my only option to take the town.

Maybe I misunderstood the language of the "fix" above?

Did anybody see any change in the squalor and food consumption of higher tier buildings? I don't see any difference between patch 2 and beta patch 3.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by andrewt

Did anybody see any change in the squalor and food consumption of higher tier buildings? I don't see any difference between patch 2 and beta patch 3.

---

I haven't seen a difference either.

That said, I can't claim to have memorized the food/squalor costs of every Roman building (only faction I've played thus far). There may have been a minor change somewhere that I didn't notice. But I agree that a substantial "rebalancing" (not that I really think one was required) doesn't seem to have occurred.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by andrewt

Did anybody see any change in the squalor and food consumption of higher tier buildings? I don't see any difference between patch 2 and beta patch 3.

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They were changed from patch 1 to patch 2.

This hotfix finally fixed my ingame encyclopedia so now it has images instead of blanks, so that's good.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Myth

They were changed from patch 1 to patch 2.

This hotfix finally fixed my ingame encyclopedia so now it has images instead of blanks, so that's good.

---

Indeed, no question there were some changes in Patch 2, across many different building types.

The Patch3beta notes, however, also mention some food/squalor rebalancing. These Patch3-specific changes (if in fact there were any) are the ones which have escaped my attention. Perhaps they were global in nature and not readily visible by looking at building stats.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bramborough

Yeah, quite annoying. So that's a good fix.

Kinda amusing their language implies this was only a problem with earlier Patch 3 beta, when in fact the blockade issue had existed since release.

EDIT: I don't see that they've fixed this at all. Still having same situation crop up in my campaign. Couldn't attack Paraitonion (held by Pergamum) last night because a 3-unit Egyptian navy was content to sit there forever blockading it. Didn't really want to go to war with Egypt at that stage, but was my only option to take the town.

Maybe I misunderstood the language of the "fix" above?

---

My understanding of this fix is that in an earlier patch 3 beta release, if one of your own armies/navies was blockading a port, then another of your own armies couldn't lay siege simultaneously (and same for an AI army/navy blockade and siege combo). They've fixed this situation, just not the annoying situation you've described whereby we're unable to siege a settlement if the AI is blockading it, which unfortunately is still deemed 'working as designed'.

Why can't CA communicate on what is going on here?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Barkhorn1x

Why can't CA communicate on what is going on here?

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Patch 3 is now live


I can't tell what was in the Beta Patch 3 and what is new.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MadKow

Patch 3 is now live


I can't tell what was in the Beta Patch 3 and what is new.

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Yes, agreed and I do like this one:

Quote:

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•When the player is attacked whilst in a minor settlement (not provincial capital), a new "Sally Forth" button is available on the pre-battle panel to fight the attackers in an open field battle.

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You guys are confusing me. The ship blockading ports indefinitely thing was changed in like the first patch, so were the food and squalor things. Patch three is all about being able to leave towns and fight on battle maps rather than pre historic urban warfare =p

Oh and the MP campaign actually works now which is great until it stops working anyways.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sp4

You guys are confusing me. The ship blockading ports indefinitely thing was changed in like the first patch...

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Not for me it wasn't. Still seeing it. Has been consistent through all the patches, live and beta.

Playing on patch day seems to be bad luck for me. Just like with patch 2 I've had numerous freezes tonight, whereas I had none when I played a couple of hours last week. Maybe it's a problem with Steam where some hotfixes don't come through. Really frustrating to have the patch make it unplayable. Anyone else have similar experiences or is it smooth sailing for you guys?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ituralde

Playing on patch day seems to be bad luck for me. Just like with patch 2 I've had numerous freezes tonight, whereas I had none when I played a couple of hours last week. Maybe it's a problem with Steam where some hotfixes don't come through. Really frustrating to have the patch make it unplayable. Anyone else have similar experiences or is it smooth sailing for you guys?

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For those having issues I strongly suggest the following:

- Right click on the Rome TW II icon in the Steam menu
- Select Properties
- Select Local Files
- Select Verify Game Cache

...as I suspect some files were corrupted or failed to d/l. The above will fix those problems.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Barkhorn1x

For those having issues I strongly suggest the following:

- Right click on the Rome TW II icon in the Steam menu
- Select Properties
- Select Local Files
- Select Verify Game Cache

...as I suspect some files were corrupted or failed to d/l. The above will fix those problems.

---

Will try this, once I am home. Does Steam do this automatically from time to time?
I ask, because I didn't do this after the last patch, and while it froze a couple of times on patch day, it worked like a charm several days afterwards. I'm not sure if there were Hotfixes in between though. I'll keep this in mind though and it will be the first thing I try, if those problems crop up again.

Thanks!

As far as I know, Steam does not do it automatically.

Regarding the issue with the blockaded port and not be able to attack a city. I had the issue that my client state was besieging a land only capital city and I could not join the siege or initiate the attack.

Is this a common bug or maybe even intended?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shaitan

Regarding the issue with the blockaded port and not be able to attack a city. I had the issue that my client state was besieging a land only capital city and I could not join the siege or initiate the attack.

Is this a common bug or maybe even intended?

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The difference is that a land siege cannot go on indefinitely. First, a besieging army takes higher attrition losses than a blockading navy. Second, the city will eventually surrender if there's no sally-out or assault. Third, the AI appears to be much more likely to assault (as attacker) or sally-out (as defender) for a land siege than to execute these actions for a naval blockade. So...the situation resolves itself within a few turns.

With the naval blockade, there is no surrender turn-limit, the AI appears content to just sit out the blockade as either attacker or defender, and the low attrition rate allows them to do so for a very long time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bramborough

The difference is that a land siege cannot go on indefinitely. First, a besieging army takes higher attrition losses than a blockading navy. Second, the city will eventually surrender if there's no sally-out or assault. Third, the AI appears to be much more likely to assault (as attacker) or sally-out (as defender) for a land siege than to execute these actions for a naval blockade. So...the situation resolves itself within a few turns.

With the naval blockade, there is no surrender turn-limit, the AI appears content to just sit out the blockade as either attacker or defender, and the low attrition rate allows them to do so for a very long time.

---

A port settlement that is under siege from a land army but not blockaded wont suffer any attrition and as far as I know, it will be able to last forever as well or until someone blockades the port.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sp4

A port settlement that is under siege from a land army but not blockaded wont suffer any attrition and as far as I know, it will be able to last forever as well or until someone blockades the port.

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I meant attrition for the blockader, not the blockaded. Currently, attrition suffered by a blockading navy is far less than for a besieging army. Coupled with the fact that there's no surrender deadline like there is with a siege, means blockades can go on forever.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ituralde

Will try this, once I am home. Does Steam do this automatically from time to time?
I ask, because I didn't do this after the last patch, and while it froze a couple of times on patch day, it worked like a charm several days afterwards. I'm not sure if there were Hotfixes in between though. I'll keep this in mind though and it will be the first thing I try, if those problems crop up again.

Thanks!

---

They did in fact do a hotfix for patch beta 3 to allow alt-tabbing out. Don't know if it's common practice.

Patch 4 notes. (so far in BETA)

Technical and Performance Issues

• Further optimisation to Campaign pathfinding.
• Improved the performance of selecting units.
• Incremental performance improvements, reduced CPU bottleneck in a number of scenarios - further improvements pending in future patch.
• Fixed crashes occurring when entering battles, declaring war, and ending turn after changing the unit size in the advanced graphics options menu in Campaign modes.
• Fixed crash when placing deployables with a single click in invalid locations on the battlefield.
• Fixed rare crash in battles when unit banners were moving slowly due to low frame rates.
• Fixed an indefinite hang, when attacking Egyptian rebel army across the Nile in Campaign mode.
• Fixed crash in the ambush controller caused by incorrectly assuming that an are in an ambush battle was being loaded, when loading into a multiplayer land battle.
• Fixed crash occurs during AI turn cycle, after changing the unit size options while in Campaign mode.
• Fix for major performance issue caused by reinforcing naval units in certain circumstances.
• The Campaign game will no longer crash when selecting the "Province Details" panel after selecting "Raise Forces".
• Fix for crash due to transport ships erroneously being able to select shot types.
• Fix for crash when the game deleted the cached user interface panels, which would cause other panels to open and attempt to delete the cached panel again, when ending turn in single Player Campaign mode.
• Fixed Campaign lock up when a rank 2 or higher General dies, after selecting a replacement with the "Duty Calls" event, then selecting any other open event, and then attempting to open Diplomacy.
• Fixed a crash when rapidly clicking the fire button on the Polybolos unit in Frist Person mode.
• Fixed rare crash when selecting an active mission in the Objectives panel in Campaign modes.
• Fixed a rare crashing bug in the campaign when selecting units.
• Improved performance of drag-outs and holding space to show unit proxies, by no longer render ghosts for men and mounts, as they were too expensive to render. Artillery, ships and vehicles still have ghosts rendered.

Gameplay Improvements

• Improved AI construction logic. It now constructs more military buildings.
• Improved AI army compositions & unit quality. The AI uses better units and slightly less ranged units.
• AI research is more military focused at the start of the campaign.
• Slightly reduced the settlement defensive bonuses for the auto-resolver.
• Increased the willingness of the AI signing trade agreements and defensive alliance.
• The AI are now much more careful with constructing buildings that consume food or increase squalor. This has improved the AI's ability to fight food shortage problems.
• Added more restrictions on the AI running too often making them exhausted by the time they reach their opponents.
• Improvements to the AI defensive ambush behaviour.
• AI now have improved ability to place its forces appropriately to deal with simultaneous front and side attacks. This involves angling and bifurcation of its *line with appropriate units to deal with the players use of flanking or harassing forces.
• Fixed a bug where sometimes AI factions wouldn't generate a stance towards the player at the start of a Campaign, meaning they started the Campaign neutral to the players faction, and sometimes ask for peace immediately.
• When generating armies, the AI is now more likely to choose elite units when they have the funds to do so.
• Improved AI use of Pikemen in battles.
• Fixing bug where the AI will not know what do if river edge hint lines are present in a map without crossing hint lines. Also improving AI use of phalanx formation in river defence.
• Increased chance of AI making alliances in diplomacy.
• Slightly increased the effects of diplomatic events on relations with third party factions, and the AI remembers diplomatic events for a longer period of time.
• Difficulty can no longer be changed from the in-campaign game settings whist in a Campaign on Legendary difficulty.
• Deployed agents on the campaign map, no longer reset back to being un-deployed when they level up.
• Fix for missile troops sometimes firing in a "perfect" formation, rather than appearing natural and offset.
• Diplomacy improvements - Factions attitudes towards each other are now mapped with colours on the map on the diplomacy screen. When your faction is selected, it shows other factions attitudes to you, and when other faction selected, shows their attitudes to other factions. Also, the factors tooltip now works between two non-player factions by selecting a non-player faction and moussing over another faction.
• In Multiplayer battles, if the last remaining player in an alliance has a network timeout disconnection, the game will now be a draw.
• Fix for units pursuing enemies when reacting to melee (not for direct orders). *Units will no longer pursue enemies when reacting to melee.
• Fix for bug where units pursuing a routing unit could stop pursuing when the unit rallied even though they were still not in contact with the target.
• Made individual cavalry units breaking out of combat more easily, to reduce units getting stuck in brawls.
• Allied armies in siege battles now use separate default deployment lines so they don't deploy crammed into the same area.
• Reduced qualifying trait list for various "Mad" traits (such as "Not quite right" or "Unhinged") for generals in campaign modes.
• When a port is garrisoned in a port settlement, it is now possible to recruit units to the fleet.
• Units are now automatically assigned to siege equipment in deployment.
• If an AI faction offers an alliance to the player, it is no longer possible to offer satrapy status and have both active offers at the same time.
• Fixed the firing arch for African elephant units.
• The Loose formation button has been added for certain units in battle.
• Teutoburg Forest historic battle is now more tolerant to the general or other Roman forces wandering off the beaten track.
• The cap on Mounted Artillery pieces is now set at 6 per team / alliance instead of 6 per army.
• When a host decides to make changes to the game setup (e.g. add new player slots) in a multiplayer lobby, these changes are now more accurately displayed to the clients in the lobby.
• In Multiplayer Campaign mode, the "Show AI player moves" option is now reflected correctly for the client.
• Multiplayer Ambush battles can no longer be started with 2v2 (or greater) numbers of players. This battle type is now limited to 1v1 as intended.
• Whilst in a Campaign as Egypt, the "Defender of Alexandria" mission now requires the correct target to be completed.
• Various fixes for men being unable to disembark from ships in battles.

Balancing Changes

• Re-balancing for Transport ships.
• Enemies routing now have double the morale impact.
• The Form Square unit ability now gives a small increase to morale and a bracing bonus in battles.
• Re-balancing for the damage rate of fire on burning buildings and gates.
• The Charge timeout tolerance has been reduced so heavy units aren’t so good at chasing down skirmishers.
• Further reductions to Casualty morale penalties at lower levels.
• Flanking and rear charge morale penalties have been increased.
• Increase morale penalty for general death/fleeing.
• Increased effect of rear attack in melee.
• Reduced melee defence stats for most units, and increased shield melee defence values to even out the differences between units.
• Melee attack reduced slightly for most units.
• Increased melee defence for all shock cavalry units.
• Tweaked balancing of Hoplite units.
• Fix for Silver Shield Pikemen using wrong shield type.

Usability Improvements

• Players can now customise the emblem on their Generals and Admirals banners. 32 new emblems have been added. When you select a General or Admiral on the Campaign map, and click the "Details" button, players can select a new emblem via a new user interface.
• Switching graphics quality will no longer reset changes made to the "run in window" checkbox.
• Fixed issue in Multiplayer Campaign diplomacy, where both players had control over the accept/cancel buttons at same time, so they could (for example) spam the send offer button to result in multiple trade agreements with same player.
• Fixed user interface exploit which allowed the players in battles in Legendary difficulty, to pause battles and still issue orders to their units.
• The Maintain blockade button no longer appears on the pre-battle screen after attacking an enemy army and clicking fight battle.
• In Campaign modes, if an army is embarked on a navy and in a port (e.g. by capturing a port settlement with an army/navy) it is now easier to get that army out of the water and into the garrison.
• Fixed issue where if the player declared war several times successively in diplomacy in Campaign modes, some of the text on the declare war panel would go missing.
• Improved "Culture Details" interface when the mouse is placed over the "Culture" icon on a "Province Details" panel in Campaign modes.
• Slowed down scrolling with the mouse wheel on the Province tab in Campaign modes, as it was too fast.
• Prologue chapters are now unlocked as soon as the player plays them.
• Improved the progress bar above ships in battles when they are boarding each other.
• Fixed strength bar not being setup in negotiation screen of Diplomacy.
• The Banner emblems have been removed from the top of barbarian unit banners to make it easier to distinguish Generals and Admirals.
• The Cruel agent trait now has a positive icon instead of a negative one, as it has a positive effect.
• Improved responsiveness of the Technology panel user interface in Campaign modes.
• In Chat, remembered chat rooms are no longer re-created when they are not found. This is to fix the issue of lots of chat rooms being created, that only contain 1 person.
• There is now a faction flag for each alliance involved in battle on the loading screen when loading into a battle.
• Saving keyboard setups with characters such as "&, <, >," or ' " in the name is now supported.
• The list of save games in the Save / Load menu now loads faster, and prevent the player from over-writing files with the same name by prompting them when this is about to occur.
• Fixed issue when giving a double click move/attack order to a unit while dragging units into formation at the same time, which caused the drag-outs to get stuck to the cursor.
• Fix for a bug in the "Cloud" tab of the save menu. When closing the menu and re-opening it, the "Cloud" tab was selected, but the cloud saves weren't listed.
• Fix for a bug that allowed the player to use the "ping" function (which draws yellow arrows on the campaign map, when the player presses the [F5] key) in *Single Player Campaign, so it now only works in Multiplayer Campaign as intended.
• When there is a civil war during a Carthage campaign game, the emerging Adirim Loyalists' faction icon is now sown next to the settlement names of settlements owned by Adirim Loyalists, instead of the original Carthage faction icon.
• Fixed various missing texture issues on unit banners in battles for reinforcements, disembarking ships, and when had flags were off then turned on.
• The group morale frames on Unit Banners are coloured same as ungrouped units in battles.
• The "Attacker Direction" dropdown list has been hidden instead of greyed out in the Battle Setup screens for Custom and Multiplayer battles, when not applicable, to avoid confusion.
• Trample abilities effects on fatigue are now clearer in battles.
• In the Custom Battle setup screen, the Mare Ibericum battle map no longer remains selected when the player selects another map.
• The portrait of the selected character on the Character Details screen in Campaign modes no longer overlaps frame around the portrait.
• Fixed for land unit style category icons and tooltips sometimes being shown on ship unit banners during battles.
• Fixed subtitles on some tutorial videos in the Encyclopaedia.
• Fixed a bug where destroying one slave army would kill / make all the other slave armies disappear.
• Unit cards now scale horizontally to a certain limit, to reduce the likelihood of requiring double row of cards, which takes up quite a lot of space on the screen.
• The "Active Missions" button in the objectives panel now highlights correctly when selected.
• The description text for the second objective ("White India") of the fifth historical chapter ("Excelsior") of the Parthia faction now fits correctly in the text box in the Objectives panel.
• If the player uses the encyclopaedia shortcut while scrolling a menu, the scroll bar button will no longer appear on top (overlap) the encyclopaedia page.
• Experience levelling up effects on banners are no longer displayed when banners themselves are hidden, e.g. in Cinematic Camera view in Battles.
• The "Roma Captured" video now plays when Rome is captured on the Campaign map, when the player choses to loot or raze Roma.
• Fixed bug when making an Offer / Demand in diplomacy that would stop the diplomats mouth from moving as they spoke.
• Players can no longer select the Greek faction in Multiplayer Campaign mode with the arrow keys, when they don't own the Greek States Culture Pack DLC, which led to both players being returned to the main menu when loading the campaign.
• Having the "Add Offer/ Demand" window open in diplomacy, while breaking a treaty will no longer cause the "Add Offer/ Demand" window to remain visible.
• Players can now load a fleet or army on coastal and port assault battles, instead of only fleets.
• Fix for Socii units missing variations in battles.
• Added greaves to Carthaginian Hoplites units in battles.
• Fix for Chosen Spear and Sword band missing helmet variation in battles.
• Event messages that open automatically will now correctly open in order, one by one.
• Pressing the "Cancel" button when changing the Push To Talk key in the Voice Chat Settings menu now works as expected.
• The icon for glassware is now visible on the Hieron Ton Megalon Theon's building card.
• Better consistency between the attributes that are displayed on the recruitment user interface for Generals and the attributes of the General once recruited.
• Fixed tool tip on notification icon that appears on the "Details" button when units are available to upgrade.
• When entering the diplomacy screen for the first time in Campaign modes, the accompanying speech now matches the text displayed.
• Promotion level is now displayed on the Faction Summary and Faction Details *Panel in Campaign modes when a character is selected.
• Placeholder text no longer displays on the pre-battle user interface for one player, when a rebel army attacks the other player in Multiplayer Campaign mode.
• Pressing the Escape key while pacing the mouse over a construction options in the Settlement Details panel no longer leaves the construction options open while closing the Settlement Detail panel.
• Increased Cataphract armour, and strong version added for Royal Cataphracts units.
• Changed armour for Eastern Noble Horse Archers to Cataphracts.
• Fix for incorrect colouring of battle list entries.
• Clicking on the "zoom to location" button on event messages will now always take you to the correct location.
• Added in missing standard bearers to Spartan and Carthaginian infantry units.
• When an agent is with an army that is accompanying a fleet, separating the agent from the army now updates the user interface correctly, so that the agent no longer appears like it's with the army.
• Fixed missing text on the "Accept" button when offering diplomacy to another faction in Campaign modes.
• Fixed the arrows buttons functionality on various scrollbars in the Campaign user interface.
• When viewing the total number of army units listed in a merged fleet, in the top left corner of the unit panel in campaign modes, it now correctly shows the number of units instead of incorrectly displaying the fleet total.
• When a unit gains a rank during or after a battle in Campaign modes, there is now a "level-up" animation to highlight this.
• The red left and right arrows on either side of the settlement name in the left hand side of the screen when a settlement is selected on the campaign map, now toggle between settlements more effectively.
• When the Rhodes region is captured on the Campaign map, and under player control, viewing the Tactical Map will now colour the region correctly.
• The arrow to sort by Food Production in the Province panel in Campaign modes now sorts correctly.
• Switching between different forces on the Campaign map, while in the Details panel is open, will now update the stance button, so the changing the stance with this button will now set the stance for the currently selected force.
• When looking for an online multiplayer battle, the list of games available are in the Battle List window can now be scrolled with the mouse wheel.
• When exiting negotiations with faction in the Diplomacy panel, that faction now stays selected in faction list so the player doesn't have to scroll down the whole list each time.
• When placing the mouse over buildings that can be converted in a settlement in Campaign modes, the mouse now highlights the upgrades correctly.
• Fixed the sort by diplomatic status button in the "Known Factions" list in the diplomacy panel in Campaign Modes.
• In Multiplayer Campaign, when one player declares war on a faction and confirms this, the "Call your Allies to help!" checkbox is now hidden, as changing it after this point didn't do anything.
• While choosing an agent action in Campaign modes, the player can now see the current treasury status of the agent in the agent action panel.
• During all Quick Battle multiplayer games, when any player enters the deployment screen they are no longer shown as Rome for a couple of seconds while the game is set up.
• The expanded tooltip for client state in diplomacy now no longer always displays 0.
• Arrow keys can no longer be used to move artillery weapons in First Person mode, as this was not an intended feature.
• Fixed incomes from client states and satrapies not being shown correctly in diplomacy.
• Improved menu response to use of double-click when using the "Controls" menu under "Settings" in the main menu.
• In the Controls menu, if changes are made to controls and the Accept button is pressed, the save dialog appears automatically. If this dialog is cancelled, and the Accept button is pressed again, all control changes will no longer be discarded without warning.
• Fixed some layout issues with faction list in multiplayer campaign.
• Added hull upgrade icon to Unit Cards, and fixed upgrade icons not appearing in battle.
• Fixed the "Zoom to Province" button in campaign modes sometimes zooming to the last region within the province group, instead of the capital (main settlement).
• Removed the confirmation dialog when quitting a battle when the player had already won and was chasing down routers, to avoid confusion about what will happen (as the player has already won, quitting just ends the battle with victory).
• Text made more clear in the confirmation dialog when quitting a battle.
• The wider your resize the chat window the more rooms you can now see.
• The Escape key now works correctly with the "Lock Visibility" option in chat.
• Fixed issue where the cursor wouldn't update, if it had mouse over a text input box when transitioned between different areas of game, and stay as a text cursor within battles (for example).
• In the Defence of Campania chapter of the Prologue campaign, the "infinity symbol" is no longer displayed on unit cards when the units can be recruited.
• Fixed flickering graphics when the "downgrade warning" message appears on loading screens.
• Fixed issue where the shroud would disappear from the Campaign Tactical Map and Mini-Map when entering Tactical Map or moving a character.
• Fixed for rain being shown as an option for snowy regions in the Custom Battle setup screen, as it would just appear as snow in the battle anyway.
• Added tooltips to the left and right arrows in "Your Forces" panel in pre-battle campaign phase.
• Added some missing text for reinforcements on the pre-battle loading screen.
• Altered tooltip for Siege Turn Time and Fix for Order of Battle reinforcements tooltip not displaying.
• The text for "Shoa AI player movements" in Italian ("Mostra mosse dei giocatori") now fits correctly in the Multiplayer Campaign setup menu.
• Phase timers are now displayed as a ring around Ability buttons in battles.
• Added some text that was missing from the Faction Summary screen in Campaign modes.
• Added current ancillary card to the "Ancillary Gained" event message.
• The Province details button no longer remains selected after deselecting a settlement.
• Removed the sound effect when placing the mouse over blank / empty character options in the Family Politics panel.
• Update to the hyperlinks for '"Amies" in the Prologue Defence of Campania.
• The text for "Game Mode" in Italian ("Modalità di gioco") now fits correctly in the button in the Multiplayer Campaign setup menu.
• Some hyperlinks in the user interface in Campaign modes have been removed, as it opened a blank page in the Encyclopaedia.
• Fix for grammar errors in the subject dilemma text.
• Various localisation text and audio fixes in French, Italian, German, Spanish, Czech, Russian, Polish and Turkish.