The Daily Update at the Com

[Hosakawa Tito]

Are they attacking the ships in the trade spots, or ships en route?

Yes they are. No more "home free" once your trade ships are on the trade spot.

[al Roumi]

yep! I've had to "re-calibrate" my UP starting strategy... fewer galleons though in the starting pirate fleets. phew!

[AussieGiant]

I'm getting absolutely pawned on the trade nodes. Pirates and other nations are trashing anything they can reasonably handle, either en route or on the trade nodes themselves.

I'm scrambling to introduce an escort system!!

[Marquis of Roland]

Yea on my new Prussian campaign, I was forced to re-route trade ships from Africa to South America, where apparently someone's navy sank the Pirate fleet.

On my new British campaign however, my frigates are going to town on those galleons

[al Roumi]

Am i going crazy or do pirate fleets respawn in the trade theatres?

I just cleared the starting fleet of Xebecs and a 5th rate and 2 turns later, a fleet of 2 Fluyts and a brig or two just appeared! ouch!

The er, "Pirates of the Carribean" seem a bit nerfed though. Their recruitment seems more consistent with the low budget you'd get from thsoe two islands. Not really got past 1706 yet though!

I'm playing on H and bloody hell if it doesn't seem like I am playing on hard... so far so good for v1.3

[A Very Super Market]

The pirates spawn a galleon or fluyt (Over powered in their own regard) every few turns, and bunch them together in massive fleets.

Uhh.....

This post is a mirror image of one of my other ones, but I don't care. Pirates need to be nerfed. They should at most, have a sixth rate, and not an entire fleet of them. Frankly, as Venice, I had to use all my naval bases to make third-rates in order to defeat that massive stack of galleons in the strait of Madagascar.

[Marquis of Roland]

Am i going crazy or do pirate fleets respawn in the trade theatres?

I just cleared the starting fleet of Xebecs and a 5th rate and 2 turns later, a fleet of 2 Fluyts and a brig or two just appeared! ouch!

The er, "Pirates of the Carribean" seem a bit nerfed though. Their recruitment seems more consistent with the low budget you'd get from thsoe two islands. Not really got past 1706 yet though!

I'm playing on H and bloody hell if it doesn't seem like I am playing on hard... so far so good for v1.3

They're building them on the caribbean islands, grouping them up, and sending fleets into the trade theatres. I've seen them do it. Unless you have a fleet parked over by their islands you won't notice it.

You know what would be more realistic (but A LOT more annoying), is rather than grouping up in huge fleets, Pirates should group in 2's and 3's and spread all over the map, raiding ports and indiamen. Man, that'd almost force you to build a squadron of frigates to deal with that.

[Husar]

That wouldn't be bad, but I like how they provide nice naval battles as it is already.

And I don't find galleons and fluyts overpowered at all, the galleons are designated as warships with a little trade capability, which doesn't even pay for their own upkeep though from what I've seen.
I haven't had any big problems dealing with them once I got access to third rates and above, you can get a drydock relatively early if they bother you that much.

[Zarky]

The entire point is that you need to group Galleons and Fluyts with indiamen for protection. I'm not complaining that pirates are kicking my ass in trade theaters as I am Prussia, but when I chose to retreat, my fleet sank immidietly and another time I reatreated but portuguese ships on the node next to me blocked my escape route and pirates attacked again... :D

[Prodigal]

Zark, If you're blockading or I guess on a trade spot & want to run, fight, (retreat in these situations always seem to mean fleet loss), run your ships to the edge of the battle map & hit retreat, you will get to keep your fleet. Also doesn't take as long as it sounds.

[FactionHeir]

Not really Prodigal - even if you withdraw/flee that way, your ships often just end of completely lost (usually when they already withdrew once and its their second engagement) Doesn't happen to land armies on the other hand.

[al Roumi]

Not really Prodigal - even if you withdraw/flee that way, your ships often just end of completely lost (usually when they already withdrew once and its their second engagement) Doesn't happen to land armies on the other hand.

Yep, I'm afraid I've tried what prodigal said and it doesn't work for me. After the first retreat of a given fleet in a turn, any further engagement int hat turn that you don't win results in your fleet being completely lost.

[Luddite]

Whats the trade income like when balanced with maintaining the fleets to protect the trade spots?

[al Roumi]

That's very difficult to say given the variability of trade profitability. Remember you've got factors such as quantity of supply, price of goods, number of trade partners and importantly, their population and level of development/enlightenment.

The easiest thing to do is a turn by turn analysis of how much trade is costing you (upkeep of trade ships & escort) and how much you are making from specific goods (harder), or trade as a whole (easier).

[Husar]

Well, when you hover the mouse over a certain ware in the trade screen, it shows you how many units you get and how much they're worth at the currenty market price, if that value is considerably lower than what your trading fleet in the respective theater costs, I'd say you're not really earning a lot with that fleet, unless you could somehow sell more units of that ware than the ships ship to your homeland.
With galleons and fluyts only you'd probably make a big deficit while indiamen generate some nice profit, usually I'd put two to four of the former and four or more of the latter onto a trade spot, too many of them and the market price goes down too much I guess but I haven't experienced that much with it either.

[Luddite]

Based on that I would think that; when assessing cost and time of producing trade and escort fleets, balancing against the loss of early invetsment in other economic infrastructure, probably means that trade spots come to be profitable mid to late game with the rises in population and tech.

Do the trade spots cause DoW with AI factions, just wondering whether they are a general killing zone or mainly conflict there is with pirates and conflict drops once they are knocked out? Just wondered whether it is better to focus on dominating one arena or spread across the theatres to reduce the effect of over-supply.

Guess if it is combat heavy it can be profitable in prize money if nothing else.

[Cheetah]

Do the trade spots cause DoW with AI factions, just wondering whether they are a general killing zone or mainly conflict there is with pirates and conflict drops once they are knocked out? Just wondered whether it is better to focus on dominating one arena or spread across the theatres to reduce the effect of over-supply.

I have not got DoWs for trade spots but other factions attacked me like Prussia and the Maratha. It seems though that neither the pirates not the other factions seem to refill their depleated fleets and thus the fleets will wear down with time, thought the pirates will send in new ones. So if you want trade your first step should be definitely capturing the pirate islands on the Carribean.

[antisocialmunky]

Its too bad you can't bribe the pirates to attack your opponents instead and vice versa.

[Fisherking]

Okay, newest update!

June 29th:

First, apologies for the delay in updates. With the release of the recent patch, the PDLC and the work that's currently going into the hotfix, it's been rather busy here.

On that note the hotfix to fix the game crash caused by the asynchronous sound issue for a few of you is currently in beta testing and we hope to have it out shortly.
Providing all goes well with it, we can then look to our next patch.


Kind regards,
Kieran

[Sheogorath]

Its too bad you can't bribe the pirates to attack your opponents instead and vice versa.

I wonder if it would be possible to implement a system like in Sins of a Solar Empire where you can put bounties on your enemies ships...

[Wausser]

Hmm hope that sound problem is the same as the problem I'm curently having

[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.

[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.

[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)

[FactionHeir]

Eh, invisible defences are on field battles too, not just settlement battles....

In fact, the artillery emplacements are invisible too