Here are the patch notes for Total War: ROME II - Patch 7 (as of 14/11/2013):
Known Issues
The objectives panel will show placeholder text for Ultimate Objectives and Chapter Objectives after opening another UI panel (e.g. selecting a unit, clicking Trade etc.
Global
Performance – Unit rendering performance on high spec gpu’s has been optimised, resulting in higher frame rates on EXTREME settings in most scenarios.
Extensive Frontend-UI tweaks and optimisations.
Battle AI improvements
Attacking siege AI now uses battering rams more frequently.
Attacking siege AI can now use all units to burn gates, and should not become inactive if it has only non-infantry units remaining.
Attacking AI is now more conservative with the use of its general when assaulting walls and gates, but can still use the general unit as a last resort.
Added safeguards against some rare issues which could cause the attacking settlement AI to become idle.
Fixed an issue in settlement AI which could result in units losing their attack orders, causing units to sometimes run past enemy units they were trying to attack, as well as causing defending missile units on walls to halt their firing orders.
Improved AI’s use of Use The Whip and Rapid Advance.
AI now targets war-dogs rather than their handlers after dogs have been released.
Eliminated unnecessary reforms in AI’s defence-line tactics.
Improved AI scouting behaviour.
Unit rebalancing
Increased damage for club weapons.
Increased melee defence for pike units.
Rebalance of all small-arm projectile damage:
-Javelins have received a boost to their armour penetration damage.
-All horse archers (incl. Royal Horse Archers) now have Heavy Shot.
-Some elite foot archers now also have access to Heavy Shot.
-Different types of bows now have different ranges.
-All bows now have some armour penetration.
Javelins have received a boost to their armour penetration damage.
All horse archers (incl. Royal Horse Archers) now have Heavy Shot.
Some elite foot archers now also have access to Heavy Shot.
Different types of bows now have different ranges.
All bows now have some armour penetration.
Rebalanced the following units:
-Naked warriors
-Ambushers
-Berserkers
-Painted ones
-Naked swords
Some missile infantry shields have had their missile block chance increased.
Tower projectile incendiary damage has been reduced.
Burning oil incendiary damage has been reduced.
Improved arrow tower damage has been reduced, and is now mostly normal damage instead of armour penetration.
Scorpion tower projectiles now have a smaller cone of effect.
Reduced incendiary hit points on all siege vehicles apart from burning rams which have both incendiary and normal hit points increased.
Removed shield wall ability from Falxmen, Thracian Warriors and Thracian Nobles.
General battle improvements
Increased battle-side hit points of all generals and officers.
Fixed issue in battle combat rules which failed to give the commanding general additional saving throws, making generals unusually vulnerable in harder difficulty modes. These saving throws have also been extended to non-commanding generals, making all general characters harder to kill in battles.
Fixed issue which caused artillery units to sometimes move forwards instead of firing when targeting a ground position.
Formed Attack button added for key disciplined units (eg Legionaries, Hoplites, Pikemen). Disciplined units are now better at keeping formation when fighting.
Improved existing unit formations.
Reduced “blobbing”, where units converge into a disorganised brawl
*Adjusted spacing of some infantry units to prevent units being too cramped.
Added blood effects on animals, for players who own the Blood & Gore DLC.
Fixed an issue where pikemen would ignore orders.
Fixed rank & file shortcuts which were not working correctly; and only ever resulted in wider units.
Telestration (drawing on the map) now works for spectators in MP battles.
Fixed issue where throwing torches at gates failed due to projectile simulation causing torches to bounce off the roof of the gatehouse instead of hitting the gate itself.
New guard mode mechanic: units will be in guard mode behaviour by default and hold their line unless they have a direct attack order.
Several improvements to how formed attackers adjust to one or more targets, encompassing different target widths.
New hiding mechanic: running will no longer reveal hidden units.
Behaviour improvements for disengaging units: Units pulling out of melee will now try harder to avoid combat and run to the ordered location.
New mechanic for knocked-down soldiers: Heavier units will take longer to get up after being knocked down.
Fixes and improvements to bracing:
- Formation depth and defensive formations now have the correct impact on bracing bonus.
- No bracing bonus when using loose spacing.
Elephant and chariot collisions are now less lethal.
Boiling oil no longer triggers when enemies are on top of a gatehouse.
Entities no longer warp in combat when two infantry units charge each other.
Avoidance-jittering eliminated when multiple units in formed attack overlap.
Prevented ships and drowning men from floating above the waterline in very rough seas.
Improved the framerate when multiple units pass under boiling oil.
Added option to disable left-click dragging move-orders.
Locked formation unit groups now correctly track moving targets when given attack orders.
Locked formation unit groups should now move at the correct speed in all circumstances.
Units now interweave less when moving a locked formation backwards.
Artillery units no longer move forwards to attack a building when their target is already in range.
Firing whilst moving now always fires at the target unit.
Reduced instances of ranged-unit stop/start movements when chasing a moving target.
Units no longer automatically attack their previous melee target after routing then rallying.
When gate capture points are neutralised, gates are now locked to all alliances and boiling oil stops pouring.
Units firing from walls can now be consistently halted.
Units firing from walls now fire with all ranks.
Rebalancing of entity/projectile/effect audio volumes.
Added new preset city and port maps to the custom battle/multiplayer map lists.
Removed situations where defenders could partially deploy units outside the city walls in siege battles.
Siege maps now have towers or gates linked to the correct capture points.
Changed capture point timer from 20 seconds to 30 seconds. Gates and towers now take 1 minute rather than 40 seconds to change from one alliance to another.
Added new minor settlements: 1x Persian port and city, 2x Egyptian cities, 1x Greek city.
Improved docking and landing points in several maps.
Added spectator icon for battle to make it clearer when people are spectating.
Cinematic camera now works correctly for units on buildings.
General technical/usability fixes across many battle maps (docking points, deployment zones, scenery placement, tower bridging-points etc).
Extensive battle-UI tweaks and optimisations.
Fixed several rare crash instances.
Aide de camp advisor has been enabled for multiplayer now.
Modified right click drag-outs, so when moving the mouse to the minimum drag threshold, and then back under the minimum drag threshold, the drag-out visualisation will no longer be hidden.
Campaign
Multiplayer campaign legendary mode saves now work correctly.
Campaign AI is now more focused on recruiting better units and constructing buildings that allow the recruitment of better units.
Increased number of Imperium thresholds from 4 to 7, rebalancing progression of military, agent and edict cap increases to match.
Campaign diplomacy: It’s now harder to sign trade & alliance treaties with AI factions, gifts now give a bigger boost to relations.
Added warning when the player is about to break treaty in Diplomacy which will result in player being treacherous.
Enemy/ally armies/agents are now shown on the Campaign Tactical map and not just players.
Fixed user interface animation issues in campaign, where in Multiplayer Campaign mode, animations would sometimes be in slow motion.
Added resource icons to the city info bar.
Added a small delay to update of the Settlement info panel, when moving the mouse off building icons to make easier to compare two buildings, without info panel flickering to province info in between.
Fixed setting for whether Unit info panel is shown in battle, which was being set incorrectly in campaign modes, leading to unit info panel being hidden in battle, without player ever minimising it.
Fixed campaign cycle buttons (which cycle between settlements) going in opposite direction, and fixed both buttons going in the same direction.
Fixed issue where if a unit was gifted in a group, the player could still control that unit via group they were previously in.
Fixed issue where current army emblem wasn't shown in list of emblems meaning once changed couldn't set it back.
When the player is defending in ambush, the attackers units are hidden because if they were ambushed they wouldn't know the details of the force they were up against.
Telestration (drawing) now works on the campaign tactical map for Multiplayer Campaign mode.
Added a vote-timer to the autoresolve panel buttons in Multiplayer Campaign mode pre-battle, so players know how much time is left to make a decision once the panel is opened.
Join Confederation option now appears as a diplomatic option when countering an AI’s diplomatic offer.
Added experience indicators on queued recruitment unit cards.
Multiple units can now be upgraded with better equipment, or retrained into better units, simultaneously.
When retraining units, UI now shows the unit a current unit will be retrained into, along with the cost for doing so.
Finance panel tax-slider now snaps to values, to make it easier to use, and to clarify that there are a finite number of levels.
Added notifications for when the other player saves in multiplayer campaign, so you know why the game is pausing.
Added filter-specific info to tooltips in the campaign tactical map (such as regional wealth values when on the region wealth filter).
Unit info UI now takes into account bonus HP for unit health stat, to fix incorrect values being shown
Unit info now shows the breakdown for melee defence and shield armour values on the tooltip.
Added vote timer to the pre-battle screen in Multiplayer Campaign mode, so players know how much time left to make decision once open this panel.
Unit info missile-damage display now working correctly (damage modifier was being applied to armour penetration damage, and breakdown wasn't taking into account the missile damage modifier).
Campaign radar map now follows the camera to improve navigation.
Client states and satrapies are now shown as allied on settlement panel. Also added an icon to show relationship of the factions owning the regions.
This was a minor patch delivered alongside the Blood Pack for Total War: ROME II, applying to all users.
Fix for terrain turning black during Campaign and Battles when changing the “Texture Quality” setting. This was listed as a “Known Issue” in the Patch 5, but is now fixed.
French and German campaign audio will no longer play very quietly (e.g. when selecting armies on the Campaign map).
Fix for the game failing to launch in some circumstances when running as a Windows Administrator.
The Public BETA for Patch 5.1 is now available! We have added the following fixes:
Fix for terrain turning black during Campaign and Battles when changing the “Texture Quality” setting. This was listed as a “Known Issue” in the Patch 5, but is now fixed.
Fixed French and German campaign audio from playing very quietly (e.g. when selecting armies on the Campaign map).
Fix for the game failing to launch in some circumstances when running as a Windows Administrator.
Please bear in mind that it is only the beta version of this hot fix, and that some issues might be experienced. This is why we would like to have your feedback on this patch.
Patch notes for Total War: ROME II Patch 5 (7765.464566)
Technical and Performance
Campaign
Improved Campaign AI decision-making speed when considering local forces prior to settlement attack
Fix to problem the AI interface received stances that were not up to date, when called to accepting a war declaration help request, or deciding whether to invite allies to a war.
Improved responsiveness of tabs in the Trade and Finance panel in Campaign mode.
Fixed a crash when loading an auto-save game.
Various campaign optimisations including: Fog-of-war update (improves frame rate when moving units, improves end turn times in games where the player has many allies) and Improved frame rate when lots of units are on screen.
Fix for rare crash when loading a Campaign save game.
Fixed various rare crashes during battles caused by unit card sorting.
Battle
The video memory footprint of battles has been reduced by up to 250MB.
Left-click and dragging units during battles is now more responsive.
Fix for slow down / performance hit when selecting AI siege equipment in the battle setup menu.
Gameplay Improvements
Campaign
Campaign AI now encourages factions to form allegiances more over time based on personality, perceived threat and existing balance of relationships the faction holds.
A new function has been added to the diplomacy screen, which allows the user to select AI factions, and then mouse over other faction icons on the map to display their relationships.
The chances of the AI betraying their allies has been increased, since it used to help them too often when a betrayal was a more appropriate action.
Allies that have made a decision to join a war, have that decision enforced at the Campaign AI to ensure consistency. E.g. To prevent Satrapies from joining a war and betraying their overlord at the same time.
Improved the AI’s consideration and use of payments in diplomacy
Garrisoned armed citizenry now reinforcing their army standing just next to the settlement they are Garrisoned in.
Fixed satrapies not recognising that they no longer have an overlord in some cases when they cease to be a satrapy.
Fixed a pathfinding data error that allowed paths to cross directly from beach to river on the Campaign map.
When a settlement is blockaded on the campaign map, a fix has been made to prevent the player from queuing more siege equipment in the construction queue than you are allowed.
Reduced the chance of AI armies standing close to the players army on the Campaign map in Forced March stance, allowing the player to ambush them.
Armies can no longer be garrisoned in a settlement and in Forced March stance at the same time, which led to an ambush battle outside of the settlement when it was attacked, and the winner not capturing the settlement.
When handing over a region in civil war, the armed citizenry in that region are now refreshed immediately, to prevent the player from recapture the settlement with no resistance from within.
During a multiplayer coop campaign, the client and host could both make decisions when attacked by the AI. However the user interface did not always display the correct choice. This is now fixed.
Rebels, Greeks and Gauls are now unable to capture the Bovianum settlement from the Samnites during the Prologue Campaign.
Objectives are now listed in The Invasion of Samnium chapter of the Prologue Campaign.
Converting an army in a port settlement to the port docks will no longer break it out of muster stance allowing it to recruit while moving .
Fix for Lode Stone technology not applying correct speed bonus to ships.
Battle
Improved gates so they don't open so prematurely for routers during battles.
Fix for Cavalry units not able to perform flaming arrow attacks on buildings.
Autonomous siege engines now have an ammunition limit during battles.
Fixed bug where routers appeared to walk in battles.
Added display of phase timers to Ability buttons in battles.
A unit tooltip will now display to indicate when units are withdrawing during battles.
Added a new Persian minor city battle map variation to the game.
Improved the in-battle AI's interactions with a Greek City battlefield.
Improved AI interactions with the walls in Hecatompylos (small) battle map.
Adjusted deployment zones in Greek Port (Antioch) map, to stop the defender from being able to deploy outside of the city.
Fixed a bug in the Antioch (large) battle map, that made traversable areas of the map untraversable to units.
Adjusted deployment zones in Carthago city map to stop the defender from being able to deploy outside of the city.
In Multiplayer, spectators can now see both the attackers and defenders units regardless of whether they're within line of sight (both in the battle itself and on the battle radar.)
Improvement for the timing in when pike men switch between pikes and swords during combat.
Re-jigged pike attacks slightly so that they don't end when the enemy run away, but instead, re-intercept.
Fixed bug in Ambush visibility which made unleashing war dogs invisible while the handler unit is hidden, causing the dogs not to be seen by the enemy.
Fixed certain capture points that were not assigned to the correct buildings in various siege maps
Smoothed out the deployment zones across all siege maps.
Fixed disembarking points in minor Barbarian port battle map, allowing units to disembark from ships correctly.
A wall piece that is partially underground in the small Barbarian City battle map has now been made to be un-dockable for siege equipment.
Fixed the collision on some large rocks in the Carthage battle map to prevent units from passing through them.
Balancing Changes
Campaign
Barbarians and Easterners can now also build military ports in minor settlements.
Increased campaign cap for the limited naval units, so more of them can be recruited.
Battle
Added new missile block chance for shields, and some new shield types added to enable better balancing.
Adjustments made to the Carthage chapter 6 difficulty.
Rebalanced the ranged damage effects for the Numidian Technology Tree.
Usability Improvements
Campaign
Agent success changes now reflects the fact that some actions (for example Assasination) require critical success to eliminate the character. A tooltip has been added to showing the sucees/failure precentage breakdown.
Fixed a bug in Multiplayer Campaign mode, where the player couldn't move their camera on the campaign map after spectating in another players' battle, if the player had the Overview Map opened before the battle.
Added faction icons to attitude / factors tooltip in Diplomacy to make it clearer whose relationship is being shown.
Added message events when a satrapy declares war on its overlord in Campaign modes.
Fix for Legendary difficulty auto-save occurring before dilemmas are decided in Campaign mode.
Fixed the cancel vassal diplomatic action which was not working correctly.
Fix for menus "sticking" when moving the mouse from a submenu button to the Encyclopaedia.
Fixed a number of formatting issues in the Multiplayer Campaign faction list user interface.
Durations are now displayed on effects in regions / factions where applicable.
Added experience and bonus icons to queued unit cards, so they are more consistent with recruitment and recruited units.
Fixed hull upgrade bonus icon not showing on recruitment cards.
When ordering an agent to perform an action against the enemy, if the player left clicks and holds on one of the action boxes, and then moves the cursor the action box will no longer disappear.
In Campaign modes, if the keyboard shortcut to end the turn is replaced by any other key, other than then default [ENTER], the new key will now end turn as expected.
Passive abilities are now coloured differently on the Unit Info Panel in Campaign modes to make them clearer.
Fixed duplicate faction icons appearing in Diplomacy, when war declared with satrapies.
Solved an issue that prevented the settlement looting panel from appearing, when Campaign Overview / Tactical Map was open.
The Forces tab in Campaign modes is now refreshed / updated faster in response to different actions taking place.
When returning to the campaign from a battle, besieging army's action points bar no longer doubles in length and extends beyond it's limit.
When an ally attacks a provincial capital in coop Campaign the other player will no longer be able to add and subtract siege equipment to the construction list during battle deployment.
Removed spaces between building upgrade icons in the Building Information panel to avoid info panel flickering in Campaign modes.
Improved the yellow selection highlighting on selected factions in the Campaign Faction Selection screen.
Added the option to delete key configuration files form the load key configuration dialog in the settings menu.
The "Battle Realism Mode" checkbox now greys out correctly when Legendary difficulty is selected in Campaign mode.
Consecrated Ground buildings in Campaign now show which culture they belongs to.
The "No Equipment Available" message on the pre-battle user interface in Campaign Mode is no longer displayed, if the player is the defender in a siege assault.
Added functionality to post-battle espionage icon so user can now see details about the conquered settlement.
Added missing tooltips to character skills on faction screen.
Fixes to the Campaign user interface to make objectives status text fit correctly within the available space.
When on the Campaign Map, if an Agent has no more action points and tries to perform an action on an enemy settlement, that action will become queued. If on the next turn the player captures that settlement that, upon ending turn the agent will no longer play the animation for the action on that now owned settlement.
When building Construction is paused in Campaign modes, a pause icon is now displayed to represent this.
Additional army names added for Germanic, Nomadic, Greek, Pontic, and Gaulish factions for more variety.
Fixed issue in the Prologue Campaign where the player couldn't declare war on the Greek States via move options and had to do it via diplomacy.
There is now a chance for Campaign characters to spawn with a wife in their household.
In Campaign, when selecting an opponent's settlement, then hovering the mouse over buildings in an owned settlement in the same province, the building information panel is now correctly displayed instead of being hidden.
Added an arrow icons to the Public Order entry in province dropdown, to indicate when Public Order is going up or down.
Solved issue that prevented the settlement button from being updated, when the province details panel is shown in the Campaign user interface.
The Conversion option is no longer displayed when the building is damaged on the Campaign map.
Fixed irrelevant attrition immunities being shown for ships in campaign on the Unit Info panel.
Remove misleading tooltips from unit cards in the unit exchange panel if they cannot be exchanged in Campaign modes.
Female character portrait / heads are shown when a "Subject Gains Notoriety" event occurs in Campaign, and the event involves a female character (e.g. the Vicious Words event).
Fixed a bug, where some Campaign Event Messages were automatically marked as read.
Dragging the mouse from a province owned by a certain faction, for instance Rhodes, into a sea region which they do not use, will no longer display their faction icon next to the contested status for the sea region.
Fixed un-openable event messages which sometimes appeared in Campaign modes.
Successful bribe attempt now shows correct family name on the message.
Mission event titles are now consistent between event messages and the event message list panel.
The correct cursor icon is now displayed when an Army at sea is selected and order to attack a garrisoned army in a port settlement.
The "opportune failure" part of agent action event messages will now only display for the faction that the agent belongs to.
After progressing through the Prologue from Chapter 1 to Chapter 3, exiting out of Chapter 3 at the start will no longer cause Chapter 3 to appear locked on the main menu.
Character Rank Up events now display the Character Type and new rank.
Fixed the window size of the games Launcher in certain desktop resolutions.
Fixed bug where placing the mouse over areas of attrition on the campaign map, would make the tooltip look like the area was an enemy.
Tooltips don't show ambush chance for fleets anymore.
Fixed tooltip height, when tooltips don't have any text in them.
Tooltip on Campaign map no longer stops showing ambush chance when placing the mouse over an attrition area.
Fix for number of available units is not displaying on mercenary recruitment cards.
Fixed an inconsistency with Silanus' name between Prologue Chapters. Throughout Prologue 2, Silanus was identified as 'Gaius Fulvius Silanus'. However during Prologue 3, he was identified as 'Gaius Silanus'.
Various minor text fixes in Campaign mode.
When the player doesn't have enough money to perform an agent action, and orders an agent to perform a certain action on an enemy, the list of options to perform will now be greyed out immediately, instead of only when the cursor is moved over the options.
Fix for incorrect hyperlink in the faction panel and incorrect tooltip on damaged buildings.
Battle
Added unit numbers to Unit Cards. These can now be enabled in battle interface options ("Unit Card Man Count" check box).
Added option to game settings menu to enable/disable aide de camp (Battlefield Advisor), so the player can now disable this panel from ever appearing.
Naval units are now grouped together depending on their unit type more often in deployment. This prevents them from colliding into each other so much at the start of a battle with large armies and large varieties of ships.
Fixing for invisible elephants making it appear like elephant riders were floating in the air during battles.
Fixed issue where dragging out units on the battlefield could get stuck on screen after deselecting the unit.
Chat toggle button is no longer greyed out in frontend when players set their state to "Ready" in a Multiplayer Battle or Campaign lobby.
Updated the Carthago radar image to better represent the terrain in the battle.
In a Multiplayer Lobby, when a team leader with one AI army on their team switches to the other side, the players Steam avatar no longer remains attached to AI army.
Fixed checkbox for "Battle Realism Mode", so it's no longer greyed out and un-ticked when the player has just quit a Legendary difficulty Campaign.
Fix for “Unit Size” option being reset to last saved setting when going hosting multiplayer battles.
Fixed the "Select All" functionality in battle setup screen ([CTRL]+[A] keyboard shortcut)
Various fixes for the Change Team button being in incorrect state in the battle setup menu.
The Battle HUD with double line Unit Cards will shrink to single line as units are removed.
The Spectator slot in a Multiplayer Lobby can be taken out of team 2 now if there is space there, and not on team 1.
Updated buildings on the radar map during battle for the "Armavir" battle map.
Improved boarding user interface in battles.
Added some user interface to remind player to use deployables during deployment, when they still have deployables un-deployed.
Reduced chance of siege towers moving away and leaving men behind if the user clicks to drop equipment, and orders it to be re-manned as troops are disembarking.
Added tooltips for ability effect icons on Unit Banners in battle, and made these icons larger.
Fixed transport ship icons not disappearing from their Unit Cards once the units disembarks
Fixed a large number of floating objects and clipping issues across a variety of siege maps.
Fixed floating buildings and battlefield props in an Egyptian Port battlefield.
Visually improved Greek Port battle map.
Removed some rocks from a port in the Antioch battle map to prevent ships passing through them when disembarking.
Changes made to the disembarkation areas in the large Carthago battle map to prevent ships from passing through the naval port buildings.
Adjusted beach landing / disembarkation areas in the Athenia battle map, to prevent ships going too far onto the land.
Adjusted beach landing / disembarkation areas in the Greek minor port battle map, to prevent ships going too far onto the land.
Known Issues
Changing the game's Texture Quality option during a campaign or a battle may cause the terrain to appear black. This can be avoided by changing this option with the Game Settings in the main menu, and will usually stop happening after starting the next battle or re-loading your campaign. This will be hotfixed in the near future.
The Mod Manager is currently only partially localised, so most compatible with English. We aim to localise this fully in the near future.
Here are the patch notes for Total War: ROME II- Patch 4 (version #7573.461942):
Technical and Performance Issues
Further optimisation to Campaign path finding.
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 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.
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.
Fix rare crash when AI initiated diplomacy with the player.
Improved stability when moving between the Campaign game and front end.
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 is 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.
Fixed terrain height melee bonuses, so attackers on higher ground have an advantage.
Fixed problem with slinger units being overpowered as their shots could hit multiple units and made balancing adjustments to other projectile types .
Fixed pike phalanx single-click and double-click attack behaviour. They will now try to maintain proper distance from targeted unit instead of running into them.
Made it much harder for enemy infantry units to move/push through a pike phalanx.
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.
Flaming projectiles are now set as default for naval artillery when available.
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.
Improved the visual arch of torches that can be thrown to burn down gates in battles. The distance / range that the torches travel was not changed, just the way they travel through the air is now more realistic.
Cinematic camera view in battles now works better with siege vehicles.
Disabled damage from rolling flammable projectiles that have landed on the ground (This does not include fireball deployables)
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.
"Army Destroyed" event message now displays the name of the army instead of the name of the general.
The "Food Shortage" event message no longer contains a list of provinces affected. This can still be reviewed in the Provinces panel.
Improved "Culture Details" interface when the mouse is placed over the "Culture" icon on a "Province Details" panel in Campaign modes.
Added event message for when units defect during a civil war in Campaign modes.
Rank up event message now contains the new rank for both characters and armies 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.
When attacking a door of a fort with a battering ram, the per cent of damage will now reach 100% when the door to opens, instead of 20%.
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 flags were turned off and 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.
Fixed issue where double clicking on a map in the map list in the Battle Setup screens (in Custom Battle and Multiplayer Battle modes) would make that map always remain highlighted as if it was selected.
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.
Fixed multiple issues surrounding certain events being fired at the same time as winning the game.
The movie player for Campaign movies will now correctly re-initialise its full screen state between queued movies.
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.
Fixed reinforcing armies unit banners sometimes appearing darker and missing their outlines on the battlefield.
Unit banners will no longer appear black when turning on unit flags in a battle after turning them off in the campaign map.
The expanded tooltip for client state in diplomacy now no longer always displays 0.
Fixed tooltips for incident event effects in Campaign modes.
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-clicks 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.
The resources icons in the Trade & Finance tab now fit in the user interface better when multiple (over 6) different types of resources are being traded.
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).
Fixed face animations and audio not working correctly in the diplomacy screen when declare war, and prevented adding new offers/demands from interrupting the face animations.
Text made clearer in the confirmation dialog when quitting a battle.
Addressed inconsistencies in the campaign Heads Up Display when selecting between enemy and friendly settlements and characters.
Added details of the effects to "Public Order" event messages.
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 "Show 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 "Armies" 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.
Fixed text clipping issues on building tooltips in Campaign modes in some languages.
Fixed text clipping on the campaign factors tooltip in some languages, now shows ellipsis to show text has been cut off.
Fixed possible cut-offs of text in the "Trait / Ancillary Gained" event message in Campaign mode.
Subtitles added to the Parthia Civil War video in Campaign modes.
Various localisation text and audio fixes in French, Italian, German, Spanish, Czech, Russian, Polish and Turkish.
Here are the patch notes for Total War: ROME II- Patch 3:
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.
Warning: Your current Save Games will work with Patch 2, but Save Games created or overwritten in Patch 2 will be incompatible with previous versions of Total War: ROME II.
Technical and Performance Issues
Campaign performance optimisations.
Campaign AI round time improvements (greatest effect during early game).
A new "Limited" option has been added to the "Show AI Player Moves" settings in Single Player an Multiplayer Campaign modes, this enables the player to see all movement of enemy factions, all movement within the players regions, and all movement within sea that the player has ports in during the AI turns.
Improved AI recruitment decisions in Campaign modes. Further improvements planned for subsequent patches.
Pathfinding optimisation on the Campaign Map.
Fix for "Level of Detail" distances scaling incorrectly when the "Field of View" is changed which reduces the chance of the "Intelligent Zoom" [N] key, causing "zombie like” low quality textures on unit faces in battles.
A new warning message has been added to loading screen to inform the player when graphics memory is running low, and the game is downgrading the players graphics settings. This can be overriden, allowing the game to use system memory for graphics (VRAM) by ticking the "Unlimited video memory" option in the graphics menu.
Increased the frame rate and reduced frame stuttering in battles on certain GPUs.
Improved compatibility for graphics cards with multiple GPUs.
Added earlier Multiplayer Campaign resyncronisation detection, upon loading save games which allows resyncronisation in more cases.
More conservative out-of-the-box graphics settings and resolution for DirectX 10 and 11 on Mobile GPUs
Improved the processing speed of the default deployment placement, reducing battle loading times on some battle maps.
Fixed battle crash bug caused by the default deployment placement.
Crash fix for when the player placed the mouse over a garrison force of a region in Campaign mode.
Fix for crash loading save games that were created on the "settlement captured" screen in Campaign modes.
Fix for a crash when holding the [SHIFT] and [CTRL] keys down, and selecting a unit card, when no unit cards where previously selected in Campaign and Battle modes.
Fix for crash caused by forming a Confederation in Campaign modes.
Some desyncronisations have been fixed in multiplayer city / port assault battles.
Crash fix for when multiple AI reinforcements arrive in a single player siege battle in Campaign mode.
Fix for crash when selecting Custom Battle mode after fighting several different Multiplayer battles.
Fix for a crash in 4v4 custom or multiplayer battles caused by the battle AI.
Fix for crash when cancelling a game request for a password protected game whilst in a Multiplayer battle lobby.
Fix some crashes in multiplayer campaign mode, when one player quit the game, it would cause the other player to crash.
Fixed a Multiplayer crash which happened when a client joined a lobby and was being allocated to the wrong slot.
Fix for a very rare crash when launching a new campaign.
Fixed rare battlefield loading lockup.
Fix for a rare crash caused by animal handlers in battles.
Fix for crash that happens when AI unit triggers raise banner special ability when no human units are selected in battles.
Gameplay Improvements
Reduced infantry run speed, charge speed and acceleration in battles.
The low level casualty moral penalties have been significantly reduced in battles.
Improved balancing for Food and Squalor in Campaign Mode.
Campaign AI is more likely to make a stand when defending its final settlement, but may still seek out another home, if they fear losing the final battle.
Encampments battles are no longer incorrectly merged with Coastal battles, which lead to forts floating in the air when a friendly navy reinforced an army in the Fortification stance.
Improved ship movement speeds in battles.
Shock cavalry run speed and charge speed have been increased in battles.
Increased flanking morale penalties.
Added icons to indicate activity in the Technology and Faction screens during a campaign.
Fix for the boarding/ramming button which showed the incorrect state in certain circumstances in battles.
Fix for a bug that sometimes made it impossible to exchange units between a transported land force and another land force on the Campaign map.
Fix for armies on the sea getting stuck in patrol stance in Campaign modes.
Fixed splitting an embedded army from a navy which sometimes caused the player to get stuck in the Prologue Campaign.
Some missions in single player and multiplayer Campaign have been fixed and now execute correctly.
When a settlement is captured via a siege battle, with a friendly naval fleet blockading its port, the ownership of the port is now changed correctly to the friendly navy fleet on capture.
Fix for AI taking inappropriate sized siege equipment into battle when the user changed the settlement wall height, via the map selection settings, in Custom Battle mode.
Fix for defending armies under AI control grouping together at the edge of their deployment zone, during Ambush battles when the player choses to wait before attacking them.
Improved AI and scripting in the Raphia Historical Battle.
Fixed a bug preventing the player from progressing in The Invasion of Samnium prologue chapter, if they had spent all of their funds before being instructed to recruit a General (and therefore having no funds to do so).
The Attribute increases for an agent accompanying an army now activate its associated effects on the general of that army in Campaign modes.
Improved AI collision detection with Deployables in battle.
In Multiplayer Campaign mode, one player can no longer cancel recruitment during the other players turn.
The order of events leading up to the Battle of Bovianum in the prologue have been re-scripted. The player now gets multiple turns to construct siege equipment.
Fixed issues with not enough time being given for certain advisor lines to play in different languages in the prologue.
Fix for units floating in the air while climbing siege towers in battle, when the tower is placed on a slope.
Attacking siege ladders will no longer clip through the gate house in the siege on Bovianum battle during The Invasion of Samnium chapter in Prologue Campaign.
The victory screen in Multiplayer Campaign mode now shows the correct title for both players.
The Basilica of Vulcan religious building now applies the correct bonus to recruitment cost reduction in Campaign Mode.
Added level indicators to the Sanctuary of Austro & Sanctuary of Fraujaz shrines in Campaign mode and the Encyclopaedia.
Fix for settlement expansion trapping / blocking units movement on the campaign map in very rare cases.
Improved the terrain in a small Barbarian city battle map.
Minor bug fixes for Roman and Barbarian siege battle maps.
During battles, players are no longer able to un-pause the game while in the options menus.
Usability improvements
In Campaign mode, exempting a province from tax will no longer incorrectly adjust the food number in the province info panel left side of the screen.
Improved multiplayer lobby discovery, reducing the chance of finding *multiplayer lobbies with the wrong battle type.
Removed the red tint from the sky in battles.
Fix for "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day" achievement failing to unlock when its requirements were met in some situations.
The "Quaestor" achievement should now unlock correctly, when completing the Prologue campaign
Fixed the inability to select the previous faction, when an army is automatically loaded due to a battle type change during battle setup.
Improved the clarity of stats displayed for Slaves Economic Effect when placing the mouse over "Slaves" in the Province Details panel on the Campaign map.
Fix for rare cases of broken save games in Campaign mode.
Fix for Campaign mode bug, where a hostile agent and the players' ship became stuck in the same position, with neither one able to move.
Fix for very rare agent pathfinding issue, which caused the game progression to become impossible in Campaign modes.
Removed the ability to loading the wrong type of units into a battle from a saved army pre-set in Custom Battle mode.
In Multiplayer battle setup, unit restrictions related to "Battle type" are no longer desynchronised between the host and client, so only the correct units can be chosen.
Defending armies in an Ambush Battle can no longer load an army containing *Fixed Artillery and other Siege Equipment.
Fixed the tooltip displayed when placing the mouse over the garrison in enemy settlements, while the settlement is under siege.
The Public Order "Change per turn" stat is now displayed as the sum of all of its "Contributing Factors" on the Province Info panel in Campaign mode.
Right-clicking on the Aggressive, Balanced and Protective stance buttons when Autoresolving a battle in campaign mode will now take the player to the Encyclopedia, where these stances are explained in more detail.
More detailed descriptions added to the tooltips for the "Occupy, Loot and Raze" buttons after successfully capturing a settlement on the Campaign map.
Improved icons for Province Effects in Campaign mode.
Fixed an error with uploading stats when a multiplayer battle was ended prematurely.
The "Force March" movement effect on the campaign map (looks like a whirlwind) are now correctly removed from the screen when the AI move their army.
Correction to the Assault Hexeres unit card in the Parthia faction during battles, which had no colour mask and appeared black.
The buttons to change pages in the Leaderboards menu have been fixed, so more players can be seen on the Leaderboards.
The Provinces list in Campaign mode can now be scrolled with the mouse wheel.
Units in a recruitment queue, in a province with its capital under siege, now have an "infinity sign" icon to indicate that the "turns to recruit" is infinite while the siege is maintained in Campaign mode.
In the "Controls" menu under the "Settings" option in the main menu, when the player modifies the keyboard controls, and saves them, the new name for these controls is now replaces the "Classic Total War" name.
Added a tooltip to say "Left-click to remove unit from recruitment queue" for units that are queued for hire in Campaign mode.
Added a tooltip to make ruined buildings more obvious in Campaign mode.
Added tooltips to "Weather" and "Time of Day" settings in the Custom Battle menu.
Fixes and corrections for text in the encyclopaedia have been made.
Minor text and grammar corrections in Campaign Modes.
Fix for some German text not fitting into the available text space in the campaign mode user interface.
Improved text formatting in the Objectives panel in Campaign mode.
Added some localisation text fixes for French, Italian, German, Spanish, Czech, Russian, Polish and Turkish.
Fixed some missing text on the Diplomacy screen in Campaign modes.
Added white outline to Armoured Legionaries unit cards in battle.
Should improve Campaign Map frame rate in the majority of cases for those people with high-end graphics cards combined with mid-range CPUs. Those people who have noted high frame rates in battle but single-figure frame rates during Campaign Map play should see a notable increase in performance.
Here are the patch notes for Total War: ROME II- Patch 1 (06.09.13):
Higher average frame rates with out-of-the-box settings (more conservative settings)
Fix for DirectX 10.0 Lighting issue reported - environment map wasn't being created leading to black reflections.
Fixed a sunken Samothrace temple complex world wonder on the Campaign map.
Fixed defender being able to create encampments when involved in a combined battle.
Added some localisation fixes to audio packs in French, Russian, Italian, German and Spanish.
Fixed lock up in Multiplayer Campaign battles when a desynchronisation occurs. Players are now notified of the desynchronisation, and the battle ends.
Fixed Multiplayer Campaign battle "overrun" prompt, which was not being shown to a player if they were a reinforcement and the other player was spectating.
Fixed corrupt loading screen when changing to fullscreen / windowed mode after a battle, and then going into another battle.
Fix for Multiplayer Campaign host being unable to move the camera in campaign, after reloading a save game on some rare occasions.
Safe guards added to prevent a very rare crash in coastal assault battles.
Fix for game lock up during end turn sequence / Celtic AI faction turn in single player campaign.
Improved AI use of walls on Athens large settlement battle map.
Improvements to Auto-resolve balancing in Single Player and Multiplayer Campaign modes.
Aligned ship unit upkeep costs with land units - made mercenary ships more expensive and non-mercenary ships cheaper.
Fixed slow turning rates for transport ships.
Improved civil war balancing in relation to campaign difficulty.
Fixed vehicle ground pipes, to prevent Siege Towers becoming immovable when they are left empty during the Deployment Phase of a Siege Battle, then units were moved into the Siege Tower when the battle has started.
Fixed bug when ramming sideways into moving ship, which caused the ramming ship stick to target and strafe along with it in battles.
Reduced the chance of Naval units sometimes clipping through the ground or harbours / ports during Port Assault battles when attempting to disembark.
Fixed issue where armies would be stuck in Muster stance and could not exit that stance in Campaign modes.
Fixed case where spies could get stuck on top of fleets in Campaign modes.
Fixed rare post battle lockup in Campaign modes.
Improved unit pathfinding in Barbarian village battle maps (fixed no go zones).
Fix for Multiplayer Campaign lock up when the player was reinforcing an AI ally who was victorious in battle, causing the player to become stuck with no victory / continue / exit battle user interface functionality.
Fix for cultural influence bonus from the Shrine of Neptune building
Fix for “Zone of Controls” of hidden armies being visible to both players in head to head Multiplayer Campaign mode on mouse-over.
Assorted minor fixes to city battle maps.
Fix for "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day" achievement failing to unlock when its requirements were met in some situations.
So i just finished a pretty long Skype chat with a friend of mine from and old mmo who coincidentally now works at SEGA. I'm not going to tell you who he is or what position he holds nor am I going to provide any verification of this claim in the form of progress reports, memos or any other kind of internal documentation as that is illegal.
What I will say to you is that he went into great detail on why Rome was released in the state it was in. The game was not ready and CA knew it was definately not even finished in the gameplay department. They had plans to implement all those missing features that caused the outcry: no family tree, guard mode, auto fire, unit formations. The game was completely rushed out in order to meet that deadline and I can tell you (again no proof of this but feel free to believe me or not) that there was a great deal of friction between the CA team and Sega.
It doesn't excuse the state of the game but at least I understand why the game is pretty much obviously half done. Also on the point of console port, he refused to comment so take that as you will.
I've heard that 'story' for like every game that came out since I started playing video games ^^
09-09-2013, 20:44
BroskiDerpman
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
Friction from CA and Sega over release dates was probably going to happen when it got moved back. Curse you Sega... Perhaps that is why the game looks like it's in a bad state for a full version as of now.
Though this might be fake and the game won't have half of the features from earlier TWs back.
09-09-2013, 20:47
Barkhorn1x
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
This does not surprise me. Now, the questions are:
- Will we get substantial patches that address those issues?
- Or will the patches address the horrible sore thumb stuff and we are stuck w/ half a fulfilled concept?
Time will tell.
09-09-2013, 20:51
Vuk
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
You know, I actually believe them. Often times greedy publishers will try to get developers to rush games out unfinished. That does not absolve CA of responsibility though. It is them making the game, and it is their responsibility to say 'no' to SEGA and not release them a working build to publish. It is their responsibility to demand more time to at least make sure that the game is in a working state before releasing it, even if it is not perfect. People expect the publisher to be unprincipled (they always are), but the developers should not be.
Grow some backbone CA. It is your reputation that is gonna take the hit, and if no one buys your next games, it will be you out of a job. Stand up for yourselves and your fans.
09-09-2013, 21:07
AntiDamascus
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vuk
You know, I actually believe them. Often times greedy publishers will try to get developers to rush games out unfinished. That does not absolve CA of responsibility though. It is them making the game, and it is their responsibility to say 'no' to SEGA and not release them a working build to publish. It is their responsibility to demand more time to at least make sure that the game is in a working state before releasing it, even if it is not perfect. People expect the publisher to be unprincipled (they always are), but the developers should not be.
Grow some backbone CA. It is your reputation that is gonna take the hit, and if no one buys your next games, it will be you out of a job. Stand up for yourselves and your fans.
Does CA own the rights to Total War still or can Sega or someone else just hand it off to another developer to make?
09-09-2013, 21:16
Sigurd
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
Well... that's it. I can't get any further than with my Roman campaign (at 226 BC). Every time I fight a battle I can't get back to the campaign map. I am thrown out to the main menu and the most recent saves (made several) will do the same. I can load older saves, but it kinda defeats the point when you just can't progress in the game. I even loaded an older save and didn't fight a single battle, just stayed in the campaign map and moved past 226 BC to 225 BC.. but as soon as I fight a battle (able to finish the battle), I get thrown out to the main menu when loading the campaign map.
Anyone experienced anything similar?
09-09-2013, 21:24
Lemur
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
I opted-in for the beta patches, but here's the question: If I leave Steam on all day while I work (which I tend to do), how will I know if/when the beta patch is applied?
So I sit down at my desk, and I open up the library window in Steam, right-click on the Rome II app, and ...
I meant ... on....the .org... You know what nevermind. I'll see myself out.
09-09-2013, 21:46
Lemur
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spoonska
I meant ... on....the .org...
I get it now, and I edited OP to reflect this very reasonable request. In fact, I'm going to sticky this, so's we all have a main place to discuss patches and hotfixes.
'Cause I think that's going to be a big part of our lives from now on.
09-09-2013, 23:08
CaptainCrunch
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
...If I leave Steam on all day while I work (which I tend to do), how will I know if/when the beta patch is applied?
In the upper right corner of the main menu the build number should change no? We're currently at V1.0.0 6858453644.
09-09-2013, 23:49
Suraknar
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
Bahhh....
The game has a few missing elements compared to previous ones but I think it is very playable and fun, and I am sure the rest will get irond out with patches post release. CA will not let the quality of the series that we have all come to appreciate go down.
And I think it is not worth it to be making a big fuss about it. Constructive Critisizm yes, but fussing will not serve any purpose.
Just my two cents :)
09-10-2013, 05:08
fallen851
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vuk
You know, I actually believe them. Often times greedy publishers will try to get developers to rush games out unfinished. That does not absolve CA of responsibility though. It is them making the game, and it is their responsibility to say 'no' to SEGA and not release them a working build to publish. It is their responsibility to demand more time to at least make sure that the game is in a working state before releasing it, even if it is not perfect. People expect the publisher to be unprincipled (they always are), but the developers should not be.
Grow some backbone CA. It is your reputation that is gonna take the hit, and if no one buys your next games, it will be you out of a job. Stand up for yourselves and your fans.
It might have been Sega asking CA how much time they needed for Rome II, and CA stating "we need X amount of time." Sega then provides that amount of time and creates their yearly budget with that in mind. CA can't finish it in time (I mean, how often do contractors finish on time... rarely...) and Sega says "no extensions, you told us you needed X amount of time and we gave it to you." Game gets released as is... in this case the blame lies solely with the developer.
Either way, it was a poorly managed by one or both parties and the result is an unfinished game. A company that has a reputation of releasing superior products soils it very quickly when they release mediocre products. In fact, releasing mediocre products is first step that many great companies take that ultimately leads to their failure. Rome II still has a lot going for it though if CA commits to the patches, and does more than fix bugs with them.
Finally, and I don't know if CA was responsible for this or Sega, but the marketing department had way too much money for all the fancy videos, that could have gone into more coders, artists, ect... those buffoons in rally point were a complete waste.
09-10-2013, 06:31
gedingradski
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
Quote:
Finally, and I don't know if CA was responsible for this or Sega, but the marketing department had way too much money for all the fancy videos, that could have gone into more coders, artists, ect... those buffoons in rally point were a complete waste.
- fallen851
Couldn't agree more. Waste of time and money and I think the over-hype kind of worked against them considering how disappointed many people are. They built up the expectation and grossly under-delivered.
This trend of releasing half-finished games and then fixing it via patches is a transparent money grab, which I think is even more on the nose after their boasting of how RTW2 pre-sales out performed the STW2 pre-sale. Yay... they made so much monies... congratulations?...
I hope it gets better, but I'm not holding my breath. EBII will probably be out and updated before this thing ever gets good ;-)
09-10-2013, 07:42
quadalpha
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
Their marketing materials actually lowered expectations on here, being the smart forum and all.
09-10-2013, 10:25
Myth
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
Look guys, everything that is not right in Rome II can be fixed with patches, so I'm feeling very confident. Lusted is an ex modder, he is one of us, the unwashed gamer masses. Paying attention to community feedback and lots of after sales support will get the game to the level it needs to be. Much better than Jay Wilson's "I FELT THIS IS THE WAY DIABLO IS MEANT TO BE PLAYED SO STFU AND GIVE ME MONEY!"
09-10-2013, 11:08
ReluctantSamurai
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
Quote:
Look guys, everything that is not right in Rome II can be fixed with patches
This is am not so sure about:book2:
I'm not a programmer type so I don't know if things like unit blob in melee combat, or the apparent lack of a meaningful family tree, and of course the brain-dead AI, can be fixed with patching. I'm surprised you've made no mention of the capture-the-flag fiasco...if that feature is not removed from field battles, I'm afraid you will never see any R2 AAR's from ReluctantSamurai:no:
09-10-2013, 11:23
The Stranger
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
Quote:
"Rome Wasn't Built in a Day"
But Rome 2 was...
:laugh2:
09-10-2013, 11:40
BroskiDerpman
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
Lusted is just one of those unit designers you can tell by it because of the balance in game. XD
Ok, ok...
One of the annoyances is leveling up armies and families, I like how Shogun 2 actually shows where you can go right there clearly.
Everything will not be fixed by patches, even Shogun 2 wasn't...
The game mechanics just look completely dull and what seems to be the ai blobing all it's units to rush the capture point. No point in one more turn, just want to get done with it.
09-10-2013, 12:00
Myth
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
Quote:
Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai
This is am not so sure about:book2:
I'm not a programmer type so I don't know if things like unit blob in melee combat, or the apparent lack of a meaningful family tree, and of course the brain-dead AI, can be fixed with patching. I'm surprised you've made no mention of the capture-the-flag fiasco...if that feature is not removed from field battles, I'm afraid you will never see any R2 AAR's from ReluctantSamurai:no:
Hmm, I had one field battle with a capture point but that was in the tutorial where the game made me fortify on the campaign map. When you fort up the game gives you a capture point to defend in your own fort.
I had one field battle versus 4 units in a heavily forested area and I didn't see any capture points, I won it the good old fashioned way and chased the remnants with my general. All my other battles were siege assaults, some of which I ARed.
As I play more of the game I'll give more insight, as I said
Quote:
Originally Posted by BroskiDerpman
Lusted is just one of those unit designers you can tell by it because of the balance in game. XD
Ok, ok...
One of the annoyances is leveling up armies and families, I like how Shogun 2 actually shows where you can go right there clearly.
Everything will not be fixed by patches, even Shogun 2 wasn't...
The game mechanics just look completely dull and what seems to be the ai blobing all it's units to rush the capture point. No point in one more turn, just want to get done with it.
Dude you haven't even played the game how can you talk about the game mechanics? I found nothing dull about the game and if anything, there is plenty of new things to discover before one can say they've mastered it to the level of R1 or M2TW. In the older games you didn't know at the start about how to read the city details view, how to plan your buildings, what is worth getting when, what resources and merchants do and so on. Rome II is more complex and better balanced as far as game mechancis go, and that includes SII and it's silly naval based trade nodes and how you can't start realm divide because trade is the only thing that gives you money to support your stacks.
The AI that I played against didn't blob, but was rather more defensive and harder to bait. I assaulted Syracuse and got minced to bits by hoplite reinforcements coming from the flank (I had not recruited enough units because I was confident and hadn't scouted the hidden stack that would reinfoce the city). Once I play 150 turns I'll be able to give better insight but I think overall Rome II is a great Total War game and a lot of the things that are annoying can and will be fixed.
09-10-2013, 12:03
BroskiDerpman
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
I don't need to play the game to know the game just like how I knew what Shogun 2 gameplay felt like before even playing it.
Watch Volound's Legendary campaign or some other and watch how the ai gets steamrolled worse than Shogun 2.
Oh in Shogun 2 farming, markets and such were my income the whole game, never trusted trade till late game with vassals.
Balance? Just no....
Ai does run it's units in a blob to capture a city's point.
To say the game is great and superior to the older TWs and mods is just quite strange.
09-10-2013, 13:13
Myth
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
I was not talking about mods. It's still pretty hard to play SS and all the free stacks the AI gets, not to mention if you turn on BGR. EB is a great mod but i have campaign map lag and I can't stand that. Anyway I was comparing it to the vanilla older games.
Shogun 2 I didn't enjoy that much because of the limited, small setting, because of the artificial realm divide mechanic, because all the units are the same and because some factions were nigh-on-impossible while others steamrolled.
The AI does and will get steamrolled, I know. Show me a TW game where you don't do that. In RTW I could get Greece and Sicilly as the Brutii, trigger the Marian reforms from Carthage and by the year 230 BC no faction on the map could stop my endless stacks of marian legionaires. How is that not steamrolling? In vanilla M2TW you can pick any faction and win the entire map with just generals and crusades/jihads if you want.
For me Rome II is interesting and entertaining and so long as there is a limit to my speed of blitzing the map and some benefit to keeping AI factions around (for a time at least), I'm having fun.
09-10-2013, 15:41
Jacque Schtrapp
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
Quote:
Originally Posted by Myth
Hmm, I had one field battle with a capture point but that was in the tutorial where the game made me fortify on the campaign map. When you fort up the game gives you a capture point to defend in your own fort.
I had one field battle versus 4 units in a heavily forested area and I didn't see any capture points, I won it the good old fashioned way and chased the remnants with my general. All my other battles were siege assaults, some of which I ARed.
Playing as Egypt, I was besieging a city in the desert when the owner happened by and decided to relieve the siege by attacking me. The battlefield is a desert map and it is me vs. an AI army and AI garrison which out number me about 2-1. I find the only hill around and put my army on top of it. Next thing I know, there is a timer counting down at the top of the screen and I lose the battle because I didn't sit in the dead middle of the map and defend some empty sand while allowing myself to be surrounded. Until that time, I didn't even know this existed. Quite possibly the dumbest "feature" I've ever seen in a TW game.
09-10-2013, 16:16
ReluctantSamurai
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
Quote:
Rome II is interesting and entertaining and so long as there is a limit to my speed of blitzing the map
There is a mechanism to slow down blitzing. I'm not sure it's the best way to do it, but according to some, it does work. Every time you capture an enemy town/city, you take a loyalty hit (there is a small discussion about the amounts in another thread) and if you just move your conquering army elsewhere, you have to deal with rebellion. If you capture multiple areas on the same turn, the % loyalty hit will stack.
I was besieging a city in the desert when the owner happened by and decided to relieve the siege by attacking me
:laugh4:
But what is not funny is that the capture point (flag) prevented proper deployment determined by army strength and terrain. A virtual game-breaker for someone who plays using maneuver to fight superior numbers....:no:
09-10-2013, 16:38
Spoonska
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
Another patch deployed on steam
Quote:
Patch 1.5 Contains one fix:
- Should improve Campaign Map frame rate in the majority of cases for those people with high-end graphics cards combined with mid-range CPUs. Those people who have noted high frame rates in battle but single-figure frame rates during Campaign Map play should see a notable increase in performance.
I'm hoping this helps me out. With last Friday's patch my Battle FPS went up but my Campaign FPS got crippled in many areas.
Edit: Also Patch 2 delayed till next week I guess
Quote:
We have taken the decision to move back Patch 2 slightly to increase the amount of fixes included in it. We will have more news on it later this week
Oh, okay, I see it now that I'm at the PC with Steam; 1.5 is a beta.
09-10-2013, 19:35
BroskiDerpman
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
Hoping the patches improve the game bit by bit to make the game go from what seems to be the general opinion of "ok" to an "this is a good TW game" Somewhat like Angry Joe's thoughts on Rome 2.
09-10-2013, 19:39
Lemur
Re: Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such
I think the extremely high quality of Shogun 2 is part of what makes Rome 2 such a bitter pill to swallow. CA demonstrated focus and competence ... and then didn't.
