The Daily Update at the Com

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Copied this from the Com. They have started a thread telling us what they are doing.

April 8th:


Just thought I would make a post about where things are, where things are going and what we plan on doing.
First off, we are going to support Empire for a long time. The first game play patch with both a lot of fixes and balancing/economic changes as well as more is in testing, and then the cycle of hot fixes then game play patches will begin again. At the moment every programmer is focused on fixing bugs.

What balance/economic/other changes will be in the first game play patch?
Quite a lot really. Unit balancing has seem some general tweaks across the board to improve it. Unit costs have changed for both multiplayer and single player.
For multiplayer there are now separate costs for early and late era so that units better reflect the techs available, and units such as mortars and rocket ships have had big cost increases and light infantry have had their cost increased a bit as well.
For single player, unit costs have increased on normal, even more on hard and even more on very hard so that on very hard units cost 4x their upkeep cost. Bigger ships have had their cost increased and all ships upkeep costs have increased.
There have also been general economic tweaks to prevent the huge sums of money that were possible in the late game, and so to increase the challenge of the game.
As for the other changes, we've added in a delete save game button, a button to allow you to view battle replays from the single player Play Battle menu, improved ship grouping UI and other things.
There are also of course AI improvements and yes naval invasions though they may be rare for now.

What you going to do after that?
Well we are going to carry on fixing and improving the game. The AI (both battle and campaign) will see continuous improvements, multiplayer will see improvements, there will be more balancing improvements, and some nice free stuff you'll be hearing about in due time.
From a personal perspective as someone working on unit balancing, the next game play patch after this one will see some big improvements in terms of diversification of different unit and artillery types. The game play patch after that one will see improvements to naval battle balancing.

So what are you getting at?
We are going to carry on supporting Empire for a long time. We are going to carry on improving Empire. You'll see more as things get done.



Jack.

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/53425

[Smellycat]

"There are also of course AI improvements and yes naval invasions though they may be rare for now."
ahem what?
so France and Great Brittain will get to india how? or attack each other how? I am shaking my head in disbelief here. what does RARE FOR NOW mean?

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Jack Lusted at the Com

There were bugs preventing naval invasions that have been fixed for next patch, however balancing the priorities of them against other things will take more time hence why for now they will likely be rare but occuring after the gameplay patch, but improving more over time as we continually improve the AI.

[johnhughthom]

I am shaking my head in disbelief here. what does RARE FOR NOW mean?

Perhaps it means as rare as they were in real life....

[Smellycat]

naval invasoion just means transporting troops by sea, thats not rare

[johnhughthom]

naval invasoion just means transporting troops by sea, thats not rare

Well perhaps nations ferrying troops between their own regions wasn't(to me that is the main issue, not naval invasions of enemy territory), but you know how CA usually work. They go from one extreme to another, I was worried the next patch would suddenly see random three or four unit armies landed on your territory a la BI.exe for RTW or M2TW where you would see Portugal land armies in Wales every campaign. I am very pleased they intend to change it slowly and not go for a massive overhaul.

[Slaists]

Well perhaps nations ferrying troops between their own regions wasn't(to me that is the main issue, not naval invasions of enemy territory), but you know how CA usually work. They go from one extreme to another, I was worried the next patch would suddenly see random three or four unit armies landed on your territory a la BI.exe for RTW or M2TW where you would see Portugal land armies in Wales every campaign. I am very pleased they intend to change it slowly and not go for a massive overhaul.

Well, come to think of it: the only purposeful AI naval invasions I have so far seen in TW games took place in Stainless Steel mod of MTW2...

All the vanilla game invasions usually involved some AI's units (or lone faction heirs) being shipped to some obscure lands and left there to wander (or sit) aimlessly...

A couple exceptions: in vanilla RTW, Carthage used to land forces to take Corsica. but that was scripted I think pluse - unless destroyed, Carthage would land a force (to be destroyed by Romans) in Corsica every other turn... The other exceptions that I noticed were in MTW2: Byzantines would consistently land forces in Crete while Sicilians would go for Tunisia and western Greece. Again, these invasions were most likely scripted.

I hope, CA does something more creative with ETW in this department.

[al Roumi]

I am pleased to know what they are working on at least, and an indication of their appreciation of what is or isn't a priority. I personaly hope CA are dealing with what we see as a priority first, and what they see as easy to do second. No one wants to big issues to be un-touched and carried over throughout various patches.

[Fisherking]

No update yet today! ?????????

Maybe they forgot.

[Fisherking]

Here is todays

May 6th

Hi Guys

We've worked on improving the multi-threading in the game for multi-core processors and made many optimisations that will also help out single core machines. You will see the benefits through increased frame rates particularly in land and naval battles.

SFX loading has been made asynchronous, so heavy disc access is reduced to a minimum. This was causing program execution blocking when multiple sounds were being requested at once across pack files.

Various optimisations have been made to reduce the campaign map turn times.

Windows error reporting included. This will help us greatly in eradicating any existing crashes after the release of this patch. It will require users to make sure crash report logs are sent to us via the windows dialog box.

Cheers

The Shogun

[TB666]

Ah the windows error reporting sounds good.
Hopefully it should fix the remaining crash bugs for those that have them.

[Fisherking]

Here is the update for today.

June 30th:

Technical fixes are ongoing today, and we're looking at the list of priorities for the next patch. It looks like it will be a big one, but more on that as it develops.

Today I'd like to share a short story about the multiplayer campaign Sensei and I are currently fighting.

We started as Prussia and the United Provinces, with Sensei playing the Dutch, world power.

We initially built a strong network of trade and alliances, however this soon dragged the Dutch into trouble. Several of their allies declared war on one another and bitter recriminations at lost agreements ensued. As the tiny state of Prussia I was intent on building good relations with my neighbours and focussing on a strong economy in order to build the mighty Prussian war machine to its zenith, before unleashing it into Europe.

A combination of pirates and Barbary raids soon began to take their toll on Sensei's Dutch fleets and we were left with little in the way of Naval power. In this weakened position the Swedish, who had conquered much of what was Danish territory undertook a daring raid against Senseis remaining fleets. Sinking a small contingent of trade ships bound for the indies was a declaration of war.

Pulled into a fight with an enemy so close, I provided Pruissian military might whilst the Dutch fleets efectively blockaded the Swedes channel and disrupted their trade income. After a combination of a swift land grab and such income destruction the Swedes sued for peace and the first co-operative war for us was over.

Our economioes began to grow and neighbouring nations eyed us with greed.

Bearly two years later the Austrians declared war on Prussia and moved a massive army to the outskirts of Brandenburg. I managed to hold the Austrians off, but was left with little more than a garrison force in my capital region. Sensei dilligently signed an access agreement with money I sent him and marched an army via Saxony into Austrian territory.

As I surged forth to beat back the Austrians side by side with the Dutch forces, we rode out onto the battleifeld against their cities together. A glorious day as Dutch cannons pounded the walls of the Austrian defences and Prussian troops flooded the gap to engage the Austrians in brutal hand to hand combat, their most beloved method of fighting.

Fresh from our victory over the Austrian city, we felt a chance of demanding peace. Our war effort was overstretched and economies suffering badly.
In a heartbeat Courland invaded from my north east and sent a massive force into Eastern Prussia.

Stretched thin in the south against the Austrians, Great Britain broke its alliance and trade agreements with both the Dutch and my own, Prussian, forces. Within moments it had begun sinking the remaining Dutch fleets and blockading Amsterdams port.

With Eatern Prussia in reach of aggressive Courland, Great Britain at war with the Dutch at sea and a resurgent Austria on our southern doorstep our campaign is in a very fragile place...

For those of you who will find such a tale interesting but not of merit for a daily update, we located and fixed a CTD on startup as a result of this and made improvements to the battle loading handling and have also identified an issue with battles causing de-synching, so the storytelling serves a purpose!

Kind regards,
Kieran

[Lemur]

I sincerely hope "big patch" doesn't mean a month or more before we see it. The Black Knight routine with the AI factions has pretty much killed my enjoyment of the game for now.

[sassbarman]

lol... black knight routine...i love it.

[Wausser]

I hope this hotfix comes very soon. Atm I can't play ETW longer than 5 minutes before it crashes, my screen turns black and the sound begins hanging.

[Husar]

I sincerely hope "big patch" doesn't mean a month or more before we see it. The Black Knight routine with the AI factions has pretty much killed my enjoyment of the game for now.

That's a great way to express it.

[Durallan]

Definetly, thats deserving of a

I have to say that watching that video for the first time in awhile and thinking of the black knight as the AI... you really cannot see it as anything but the AI against the player! lol, utterly hilarious and so true to fact (you've lost both your arms! Thats just a flesh wound... come on you pansy!) that it should definetly be called the Black Knight Routine!

on the latest update... are we playing the same game? it sounds so exciting there! not to mention an AI suing for peace?? lol I don't believe I've had my economy be stretched (to go in the red, then again don't play on vh) or lost my fleets intentionally (don't know whether I'm exploiting sea battles or just being smart) but if great britain had decided to ally with austria against both of holland and prussia because it seemed a better deal then okay, but it does sound a bit black knightish atm

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Today two updates

1 July:

Dear All,

A small update today, one of the more impactful fixes that went in was the AI now has the ability to properly garrison blockaded ports. Therefore on the campaign map when the AI has a port seized by an enemy it will now move troops in to push out enemy ships.
A behaviour that was too rare before.

Kind regards,
Kieran

1st July:

Hi guys,

A hotfix will be released later this evening for Empire: Total War that fixes the following:

•Land Battles - Fixed exit crash which could occur when grouping/ungrouping
•Grand Campaign - Settlement battle - Fixed instances of invisible deployable defenses
Thanks,

Mark O'Connell
(aka SenseiTW)

[al Roumi]

Here is the update for today.

Fresh from our victory over the Austrian city, we felt a chance of demanding peace. Our war effort was overstretched and economies suffering badly.
In a heartbeat Courland invaded from my north east and sent a massive force into Eastern Prussia.

Stretched thin in the south against the Austrians, Great Britain broke its alliance and trade agreements with both the Dutch and my own, Prussian, forces. Within moments it had begun sinking the remaining Dutch fleets and blockading Amsterdams port.

With Eatern Prussia in reach of aggressive Courland, Great Britain at war with the Dutch at sea and a resurgent Austria on our southern doorstep our campaign is in a very fragile place...

Hmm, sounds like the usual rabid AI.

[Fisherking]

Today's update is from Jack Lusted

3rd July:
Hi everyone,

Several topics on the forums have been issues related to sieges and battles in general. With 1.3, the battle programmers were hard at work on the multi-threading which resulted in the big performance gains many of you have seen. With 1.3 out, the battle programmers are now focused on fixing bugs and improving battle AI and siege AI in particular. There have already been improvements made to siege pathfinding, use of ropes, how the AI approaches the walls and attacks the centre. The battle programmers are also working hard on other priority issues in battles, and you'll hear more about those as they are fixed.

[Fisherking]

It is a pipe tomahawk, which was a popular trade item of the time. It is possibly also a metaphor for an ax... So what have they axed?

Does it mean that the next patch is not coming???

[Servius]

Hopefully it does not mean layoffs.

[Vlad Tzepes]

Maybe it's "bury the hatchet" with the players.

Or they just dug it up.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Well... I'm sure we have got plenty of volunteers to grind that axe.

[antisocialmunky]

Maybe its suggesting the best way of disposing of ETW.