BUG-FIXER, an unofficial patch for Rome: Total War

[cruix]

Actually, it's pretty much compatible with stand-alone version of his formations.

yes, but in his full mod with which the supposed full benefits of the formations can be realized, he also modifies files like export_descr_units and descr_model_battle and so on. I'm personally not a big fan of adding/removing units from the game, since that's usually where the incompatibilities come in.
I just thought that since you were compiling bug fixes from various souces, it might be an option in the future for you to include the guy's AI "fixes" too.

[sunsmountain]

I disagree, no need to make the game harder for those who just want their bugs fixed. A lot of my friends find Rome: TW challenging. I'm not one of them, so i have to mod to make life worse for myself, but think about the majority...

For those who wish to know more about DARTH VADER (username at www.twcenter.net) mod, go here:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=27942

LorDBulA (or Borsook as he is named here at the org) also made a mod, see:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=45871

[cruix]

thanks sunsmountain for the LorDBulA link, I will definitely take a look.

However, I disagree with what you said about making the game "harder". Let me put it this way: Have you ever been

- charged by AI archers without them firing a single shot?
- charged by a single AI unit with the rest of their army standing about 10 feet away getting shot at?
- blockaded by a ridiciously weak fleet (say, 13 men left on one single longboat) when you have one or more stronger fleets within one turn of said blockade?
- attacked a city manned by similarily understrengthed army which a normal player would have readily retrained? (and it is clear that the AI has both the money and facilities in the city to retrain?)

correcting stuff like this shouldn't be considered making the game "harder", although it de facto makes the AI better. But rememeber, better AI also means you get AI reinforcements and allies that don't actually suck and a better gaming experience overall. I mean, if the AI was somehow only sending stacks of 20 peasents to attack you throughout the entire game, I'm sure you'd have long givenup tactical battle and just autocalc'ed your way into uninstalling the game. While the currently somewhat goofy AI isn't quite that bad, it's the same idea.

I'm sure everyone on this board has their favorite composition of 20 unit stacks that they take into battle knowing it will most likely crush anything the AI throws at it, even when outnumbered. This in turn makes tactical battles almost a chore since you more or less know how/what the AI is going to do and hence what you're going to do. While this is almost certainly a good thing, just think how much more enjoyable if you went into every battle not knowing if it'll be a heroic victory or crushing defeat? (or maybe not so much variance in the outcome, but something less certain as war is?)

You gotta give your said friends more credit if they're new to the game. I'm sure they won't find it so chanlleging after going at it for more than a week or two, unless they get so bored that the game gets uninstalled first.

[player1]

Well, the thing is that standalone 6.5/6.6 darthvader formations are really all what is needed to get better battle AI. And bug-fixer is compatilble with it.

Other darthvader changes are pretty much unit, battle and campaign balancing (which, of course, could or could not lead to better AI), something out of scope for a mere bug-fixer (which should represent "vanilla" in best sight).

[IceTorque]

My sig says it all.

[Kourutsu]

So bottom line...
Is the patch safe!? Will it screw my computer in horrible ways!?

[player1]

MUAHAHAHAHA!!!


Just joking.
Patch is ok, it even makes a folder with backup of original 1.2 files it replaces, so you can revert back if needed.

[player1]

Version 1.6 is out.

New in this version:
-Changed price of Barbarian Cavalry Mercenaries that are recruited in Gaul from 450 to 800, since it was too low, and to make it in line with prices in other regions
-Added anti-traits to some traits to prevent weird or impossible combinations (added BoringSpeaker as antitrait to Rabblerouser in v1.6)
-Increased values awarded to many traits in birth triggers, so it's actually possible to gain those traits by birth (added tweak to AssassinMaster trait for eastern factions in v1.6)
-Added Strategic and Tactical skills into Academy trigger, since their description heavily implies academic learning
-included Integration Guide in the readme, for those users that like to mix and match various mods

[SMZ]

just wanted to tell you, your work is very much appreciated - I'm really glad somebody did something like this

[Kourutsu]

Another thing, does this fixer change the game that the developers made? I see that you have changed unit sizes, stats, and devolopment in this fixer. Since this fixer is un-official I don't assume these are fixes the developers wanted to make.

Is there an official fixer?

[player1]

There is no such thing as offical fix, otherwise it would be a patch.

Only stat changes I introduced are those that I would consider/guess they would want to make, if they made another patch. Like removing shield bonus for bedouin archers (since they have no shield). Or chaning pontic phalanx unit size to 60 (since it has exatly same name as greek units, plus unit flavor text talks about 8 row deep foramtion, impossible with original 40 unit size).

Or Spain getting Long Shield Cavalry available (otherwise they have 2nd level stables empty).

I tried keeping arbitary changes too minimum, so it would still look like totaly unmoded game (plus fixes).

[Kourutsu]

Wait...did you make traits hereditary!?

[Kourutsu]

I'm not saying its bad or anything...

[player1]

Wait...did you make traits hereditary!?

Check the readme for details (I listed there all changes).
I didn't change any hereditary related triggers, compared to vanilla game.

[Joe_Nvidio828]

awesome dude. im gonna start a game with 1.6. I havent played since 1.47 or something. should be sweet. i'll take special notice of traits . good work.

[Ludens]

I have been downloading Bug-fixer since version 1.2 so it is high time I said thank you to Player1. I currently have version 1.6 (off course) installed and I've had a lot of enjoyment of the changes made to the game.

However, I did notice a few oddities. Recently, a grandson came of age with both good attacker and indifferent attacker traits. Is this going to cause problems?

Also, and this is really bizarre, mercenary cavalry in Gaul still cost 450 denarii in an ongoing Julii campaign, while the descr_mercenary file list them as costing 800. Any theories?

Lastly (and I don't know if you've fixed this), my faction heir Marcus "the Honest" at one point got the first trait in the deceiver line: 'sometimes his falsehoods are spotted as such'. Must be a really specialised kind of honesty.

Anyway, thank you again for making this fix and I hope shall continue working on it after BI.

[player1]

However, I did notice a few oddities. Recently, a grandson came of age with both good attacker and indifferent attacker traits. Is this going to cause problems?

Are you sure it's not Hesitant Attacker trait?

The reason why I ask it that both GoodAttacker and BadAttacker (which first level is Indifferent Attacker) are two way antitraits, so if you have one you can't get another.

In case of IndecisiveAttacker line of trait (which part is Hesitant Attacker), you can get it if GoodAttacker is already generated, but not if it is other way around.


It would be good if you could list in what order and what traits that general had after the birth.


And anyway, it should not casue the problems, since after a while, like if general gets more points in goodattacker, other trait will get "dulled out".

[player1]

Also, and this is really bizarre, mercenary cavalry in Gaul still cost 450 denarii in an ongoing Julii campaign, while the descr_mercenary file list them as costing 800. Any theories?

I haven't tested this one, but could it be possible that only at start of the campaign, is descr_mercenary.txt consulted and after that mercenary cost is saved in saved games, so can't be modified for ongoing campaign.

Just theory haven't tested it yet.

[player1]

Lastly (and I don't know if you've fixed this), my faction heir Marcus "the Honest" at one point got the first trait in the deceiver line: 'sometimes his falsehoods are spotted as such'. Must be a really specialised kind of honesty.

Well, the reason I haven't tweaked this one out (yet), is that DeceiverVirtue is roman-only trait, that is usually gained when faction leader is ordering a lots of spying, assasin and bribery missions.

On the other hand Upright line of traits (including honesty), is usually gained by those generals that repeatedly refused the bribes.

So, here is the problem.
If I made them as anti-traits, it could happen for a Deceiver character to lose his deceiver levels if he resist bribes (even when he gained the Cunning nickname).

Other way around should be not possible since honest characters have proper nogoingback level to prevent it.

Still, when I think about it, only faction leader can get higher levels of Deceiver trait, and thus should not be bribable.

So, I need to investigate this thing, since AI diplomats are bribe crazy (trying bribes that almost always fail, though a good way to get honest generals), to see if leader can get Honest trait if around enemy diplomats.


EDIT:
Confirmed, AI diplomats can even try bribing Faction Leaders and Heirs (they get loyal or trusty trait). Of course, it always fails.

[player1]

Update:
I'll fix Decever vs Honest by making them anti-traits.

In same time I'll exclude faction leader and heir from refuse bribe triggers, since they should not be bribable anyway, and thus should not get any benefit from buggy AI proposed bribes

Should also fix a possible problem when deciever expert refuses bribe and gets worse in his job, since only good deceivers are faction leaders.

[Ludens]

Are you sure it's not Hesitant Attacker trait?

(...)

It would be good if you could list in what order and what traits that general had after the birth.

You are right, I confused hesitant attacker with indifferent attacker. I haven't got a save game of the year he was born, but at his nineteenth year (the intervening time spent at the Ludus Magna while an uncle ruled the city) he was:

• Outstanding speaker
• Good ambusher
• Confident attacker
• Hesitant attacker
• Philosophically inclined
• Skilled debater

In this order. The last two traits he may have picked up at the Ludus Magna, but he was both confident and hesitant attacker when he was born. I guess the 'hesitant attacker' line is a relic of the M:TW system where you would order an army to invade a province. The AI would often send reinforcement to the province during the turn so you faced a much bigger army than you anticipated. If you cancelled the attack, your army, which would have to march back and forth between the invaded province and home, would lose faith in it's leaders ability. In R:TW, where it is much easier to gauge the enemies strength and the AI cannot send reinforcements during the turn, this is not such a problem. But that's hardly relevant here. Sorry to get side-tracked.

I haven't tested this one, but could it be possible that only at start of the campaign, is descr_mercenary.txt consulted and after that mercenary cost is saved in saved games, so can't be modified for ongoing campaign.

Just theory haven't tested it yet.

That would be it. I started a new campaign as Gaul and after a number of turns the mercenaries showed up at the right price, however when I loaded my old campaign, hired the merc cavalry and pressed end turn until the unit reappeared, it was still at 450 denarii.

Well, the reason I haven't tweaked this one out (yet), is that DeceiverVirtue is roman-only trait, that is usually gained when faction leader is ordering a lots of spying, assasin and bribery missions.

On the other hand Upright line of traits (including honesty), is usually gained by those generals that repeatedly refused the bribes.

I see. In that case the description of the traits is misleading: the honest-trait should be loyal (thought there already is a loyal virtue) and the deceiver-line should be... realpolitiker or something similar.

[player1]

Version 1.61 is out.

New in this version:
-Fixed triggers for Foreign Dignitary and Foreign Hostage retinue members, so they will actually be awarded in foreign lands and not at home
-Fixed an error when following retinue members could become doubled: Dancer, Druid, Freeman Clerk and Judge
-Removed loyalty awards given to faction leader or heir when AI diplomat, by error, tries to bribe them, since faction leader or heir aren't supposed to be bribable
-Fixed a problem when assassins would never get any experience by doing sabotage missions
-In notification that assassin has gained experience, changed word "kill" to "mission", since now sabotage missions can give experience too
-Made it possible, for barbarian factions, to gain Warlord line of traits in battle, and not only Britons in Andrasta temples

[Macka]

Can you tell me how i can make the marius reforms to happen at their historical date, and not so early

[player1]

Well, that's tricky.

But since one of reform requirements is that in needs to be at least 100 turns in game to get them appear, if you set game to start at 160BC, they would happen at 110BC at earliest.

Of course, it's not much of a solution.

[Macka]

isn't it possible to higher the solution to 300 or sth like that?

[Macka]

isn't it possible to higher the solution to 300 or sth like that?

i meant requirement not solution

[player1]

nope it's hardcoded

[player1]

Small update in v1.62:

-Holding games in arena type buildings limited to Romans only, to prevent "THIS GAMES HELD TEXT SHOULD NEVER APPEAR ON SCREEN AND SHOULD NOT BE TRANSLATED!" message appearing when other factions try to hold games in conquered roman territories

[rs2k2]

hey, just wondering if bug-fixer was compatible with mundus magnus mod...

it seems like it should work fine except the mercenaries part since that's where the new units come in...

[player1]

There is also probably a problem with VnV system too, since it got tweaked in MM to add aditional bonuses to law and similar effects.

But you could be able to use it if you forgoe those tweaks.