The Daily Update at the Com

[mmk]

Wow, no CTD anymore when disbanding those Prussian Pikemen west of Koenigsberg! What a nice surprise!

[Devastatin Dave]

So, no mention of a fix for the broken inter AI diplomacy? I mean, currently, AI factions never make peace with each other. By mid-game, pretty much everyone (in a theater) is at war with everyone else and the player faction is the only one that can trade in a meaningful way.

It is called "Total War" you know....

[Monsieur Alphonse]

An extra note from CA on save game compatible:

April 29th

Dear All,

An additional point of note is that you'll find the most difference on the campaign map playing at normal difficulty or above with a new campaign. This is because we balance against the 'normal' value of AI.

For those of you having issues with older save games. Save game compatible, does not necessarily mean that you can load a previous save which has reached a critically bugged/flawed point and have it work as a result. If certain metrics are involved although the game will load (i.e. Is compatible) the new code cannot be applied as other conditions have already been set by your save.

The idea of save game compatability means that for the majority of players who have been playing without incident and saving, they can continue from their last save after patching.

Some saves with errors will be fixed, others will not. If yours is not, we'd urge you to start a new campaign if possible.

Kind regards,
Kieran

And they have started at update 1.3

April 30th

Hi guys,

With Update 1.2 released, the team have turned their attention to our next update which they are now busily working on.

Please continue to post any issues that you may find in our Empire: Total War Support section.

Thanks,

Mark O'Connell
(aka SenseiTW)

[crpcarrot]

I understand the anti-piracy advantage of steam, and I can see how it might offer an advantage in patching in making sure everyone who plays has the current patch, but it doens't make patching easier or faster.

Downloading a patch exe from a developer and double-clicking it to install the patch is pretty easy. In this case, the use of Steam causes a delay in patching, even if it's (hopefully) only for 1 day.

well i jsut wanted to say i found steam much simpler than this cos when i got home last night the patch was already doeanloaded and ready to go with no user intervention at all.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

More news from Mark.

May 1st
Hi guys,
There will be discussions opened up next week on the forums regarding balancing changes for the next update. Jack Lusted will keep you posted on these and we are keen for your feedback.
For those wondering, the issue where you cannot recruit the Grenzers or 18-lber Horse Guard Artillery in the Campaign just missed the update 1.2 deadline. This will be fixed for the next update.
I hope you all have a fantastic weekend. FYI - Monday 4th May is a bank holiday the UK, so we will be back in the office Tuesday with your next daily update. In the meantime, I have posted a short video of some of the outtakes during the production of Empire: Total War. Click here to check it out!
Take care,

Mark O'Connell
(aka SenseiTW)

[maestro]

[-]May 1, 2009 - Empire: Total War Update Released

Updates to Empire: Total War have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Crash Fixes


Fix deployed for error with greyed out background and no interface selections being possible when clicking tick box on Failed to Join Game message in multiplayer

Nice to see they're still busy

[Lemur]

More news from Mark.

Here's the video link he refers to in that post, the outtakes from Empire Total War.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Nice to see they're still busy

Yup. Six updates already. I love steam.

[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.

[Veresov]

No kidding. It's pretty scary over at TWC. Some of the posters there seem to be genuinely deranged. I'm not joking. You'd think CA had murdered their entire families or something. I've never seen anything quite like it.

You must be new to the internet and its forums. Angry posts and contention are a trademark of game forums particularly when a game is released in an unfinished and buggy manner. There are enough acknowledgements from CA on .COM on this to ensure that no sane person argues that point.

TWC is more of a hardcore gamer site than the .ORG in fairness. You can see that by the huge number of mods and posts over there. At any time there can be hundreds of users on there. There are more veterans there and a high percentage of them are unhappy with Empire. They have high standards and higher expectations. A lot of the issues and clamour being raised have merit. I myself couldn't play the game until the latest 1.2 patch.

[TB666]

You must be new to the internet and its forums. Angry posts and contention are a trademark of game forums particularly when a game is released in an unfinished and buggy manner.

That is more correct.
Just look at the left4dead forum when they released the free expansion pack.
People were whining all over the place demanding their money back.
It looked exactly like TWC and yet Left4dead is a well-made game.

[Marquis of Roland]

W00T, there it is, the SFX loading thing, if they fix that I'll have no more crashes! Frickin' Awesome

[Fisherking]

May 7th

Dear all,

The new multi-threading support was made more stable today, resulting in proper four core utilisation in large naval battles. This has yielded some great performance boosts. We've also edited the way farm structures are handled for land battle loading, shaving a few seconds off of loading times for battles using these objects.
The graphics team are also working on restructuring the underlying code framework that handles unit variation, resulting in a possible move from 8 varities to up to 64 on ultra settings.

All of these things we hope to feature in the next patch, or the one beyond that making Empire more stable, more rich and more fun.

Kind regards,
Kieran

today's

[Servius]

Excellent, excellent news. I like the windows error reporting thing a lot. I hope that tool is able to provide useful information about crashes. Also keen to enjoy any improvement in stability, better use of multi-core processors, and shorter load times.

The last patch sorta fixed the cursed unit bug for me. While I will still occasionally CTD with the WSOD when clicking a unit, a simple restart of the game allows me to continue (whereas before any action involving the cursed unit would cause another CTD). I think I may be able to finish a campaign now. Only once the game is completely stable will I start inquiring about things like greater randomization in troop skins and more faction-specific units at the lower tech levels. First things first.

[NimitsTexan]

Still no sign that they have considered reimplementing selectable AI control of reinforcement armies so nations can have multiple 20 unit stacks on the field at once, as in RTW and M2TW. That is my one biggest wish/issue.

[TB666]

May 8th

For the first part of this update I would like to clarify an issue that seems to be causing confusing and talk a bit about the AI.

Technical v game play patches

Some people seem to have got the impression that we are going to do a cycle of game play patch then technical patch then game play patch etc. So as 1.2 was a game play patch 1.3 won't have any game play improvements in it. This is not true. All patches will include bug fixes and game play/balance improvements. Hot fixes of course are done for specific issues we feel need to be addressed more quickly. So there is no wait for a long time between balance improvements or for bug fixes, patches will include both.

Patch 3/1.3/Patch 4

There has also been confusion about the naming/numbering of patches, which really stems from the disconnect between our internal branch names and the version number you see in game.

1.2, the large that came out on the 29th of April was referred to as Patch 3 on the forums for a while before being called 1.2. Now the next patch has been referred to as Patch 4 in some places leading some people to think we are talking about 1.4. Patch 3 and Patch 4 are simply the internal project branch names for what was patch 1.2 and what will be patch 1.3. Of course this has caused confusion and is merely a result of devs referring to internal branch names instead of using the version numbers that will be used for the patches on public release.

AI

One of the hot topics on the forums lately have been discussions about several battle and campaign AI issues, and people have been asking whether we are going to address them or make any further improvements to the AI. I would like to repeat something I said in the first Daily Update I posted (exactly one month ago in fact). There will be continual work and improvements done to the AI with each patch.

The big topic of discussion in relation to battle AI is a new problem people have spotted where the AI units constantly try to move out of the way of each other resulting in them just walking into the player's line and engaging in melee instead of sensibly standing at range and shooting. This has occurred as a result of a change we made to try and prevent the AI from blobbing its units together presenting a nice easy target for the player. Obviously it has not worked as well as we would like, but rest assured improvements are being made so this problem will not exist in 1.3.

We do not want to put out a hot fix for this as we want to do thorough testing of this issue; both internally and with the beta testers so as to make sure there have been improvements. Battle AI will have a bigger testing focus amongst the beta testers for the next patch.

For the campaign AI, the big issues are AI factions making peace with each other and naval invasions still as whilst they do now occur, they are rare as we said they would be pre-patch. There have been improvements to both of these made for the next patch, and as said earlier the campaign AI is constantly being worked on.

Balancing Changes

The second part of this update is about the balance changes for land battles that will be in the next patch.

I know there were some discussions amongst the multiplayer community who wondered why some changes were made when balance was already decent in the release version of Empire and they felt that only slight changes were perhaps needed.

It is precisely because the balance was decent, and not good or great that balancing changes are continuing to be made, as Empire can and will be better balanced.

So, what is changing?

This patch pretty much covers every aspect of land battles to improve game play and balancing. Summed up, the changes are as following:

- Slight slowdown in unit movement speed.

- Increased differences between unit types.

- Balancing improvements made to morale system to improve battles.

- Big changes to projectiles to provide more diversity between shot types and to make more shot types viable.

- Better survivability for guns and carriages in artillery units.

- Better balancing and costs for units.

- Addition of mob formation for native infantry, skirmishers and some irregulars and light infantry.

So as you can see quite a lot is changing.

Unit Diversification

A big part of the balance changes have been more about trying to give clearer differences between unit types through both stats and other changes.

For an example of a change, light infantry, skirmishers, irregulars, light cavalry and missile cavalry can now spot hidden units at longer distances making them more useful for scouting on the battlefield.

I will be posting threads in the multiplayer forums here, at TWC, CSS and at .org for more detailed discussion of these changes as there are a lot and I don't want to bog this post down with statistics.

Shot Types and Artillery

Currently, some shot types are very useful and some are not very useful at all. Artillery is also very vulnerable and it is too easy to knock out guns. Round shot for foot and horse artillery has been improved to make it more useful, range of shrapnel has been decreased, howitzer range has been decreased. Mortars have also had the accuracy of their more exotic shot types reduced.

All the changes are aimed at making all shots have their use and to encourage the use of different shots within a battle. And to make sure artillery is no longer very easy to take out; their survivability has been increased a lot.

Morale

At the moment it is very difficult to break most units unless they have taken a very large amount of casualties, resulting in some melees lasting too long and decisive rear/flanks charges not having the impact they should. No I'm not saying long melees shouldn't happen, and that combat should be over really quickly, just at the moment it is a bit too long. So some morale factors have been tweaked to improve the flow and feel of combat.

This is just a brief summary of the changes that have been made, as said earlier I will be posting threads in the multiplayer forums here, at TWC, CSS and at .org for more detailed discussion of these changes as there are a lot and I don't want to bog this post down with statistics.

[anweRU]

I hope the campaign AI improvements will include more than just inter-AI peace making and naval invasions.

As for the battle tweaks - I auto-calc 9 out of 10 battles anyway, so I hope they reflect those modifications in the auto-calc routines as well. While technology research impacts auto-calc, I'm not sure that the unit special abilities have any effect on auto-calc battles.

[Fisherking]

I am becoming jaded as to the changes made.

The balance was better before they tweaked it. Now we are playing a game where Prussia Pawns All.

Game play is becoming tedious and unenjoyable unless you just love to blitz with Prussia…Win the game in 10 years and just expand for the next 90.

The upkeep costs prevent most factions from building an army worth the name or having a fleet even if you are a major trade power.

The balance now is terrible! No improvement, it has gone in the other direction.

So pardon my skepticism.

[AussieGiant]

I don't want to come across as too much of an optimist...but these updates give me the impression we are collectively looking at this entire year being allocated to E:TW updates.

I'd say people need to be careful what you wish for. Because if the ai is constantly worked on the bitching and moaning about the game being too hard will be heard all the way to Timbuktu.

Great update for the next patch...should be a cracker.

[Slaists]

I am becoming jaded as to the changes made.

The balance was better before they tweaked it. Now we are playing a game where Prussia Pawns All.

Game play is becoming tedious and unenjoyable unless you just love to blitz with Prussia…Win the game in 10 years and just expand for the next 90.

The upkeep costs prevent most factions from building an army worth the name or having a fleet even if you are a major trade power.

The balance now is terrible! No improvement, it has gone in the other direction.

So pardon my skepticism.

Let me disagree. The post-patch 1.2 game sure has many issues still, but it IS way better than it was before. Before the patch it was a foregone conclusion cake-walk for the player on any difficulty level, boring as hell. Now, at least, start to early mid-game is engaging.

Before the patch, the game-play was 'kicking a dead-man in the guts' from turn 4 or so... Now it's 'kicking a dead man in the guts' from turn 60 or so and onwards...

So, improvement is there but a lot needs to be done still.

By the way, the battle AI becomes quite deadly once they get shrapnel and percussion shells... I wish it happened earlier for them than in the 'dead man on the ground' late game stage...

[anweRU]

My only complaint with patch 1.2 is the going back to METW2 style "AI declares war on neigboring human regardless of relations" diplomacy. That makes the game tedious, and the diplomacy screen essentially moot.

My H GB campaign has proven to be more challenging than my cake-walk pre-patch H GB campaign. I'm finally somewhere in the early 1720s, but I'm gathering steam and finally managed to complete the 13 colonies mission.

So balance-wise, GB is much better now than it was pre-patch.

[Fisherking]

Please get this straight. The game is not too hard for the most part. It is to a certain extent easier.

The minors and especially the NA Tribes lack the units to be on the attack. The DoWs are just a silly annoyance for the largest part.

The player just has to slug through until there is some money if you are a trade nation. Meanwhile three land based factions have an easy time just marching from one region to the next.

The trade game is now tedious and not having money for ships means you are seeing red every few turns. There is no enjoyment in that. If the money were there it would be just like Prussia. No one is a real threat to the player, just an annoyance.

Before the tribes could be a threat. Now only to other AI factions.

Before, it was a matter of balancing troops and development. Now most development other than farms and second level upgrades is way too much to warrant the investment. It is a good turn when you have 2200 to 2500. But that will get you four line infantry and use up half the amount in upkeep the next turn.

That is not entertaining. There is only so much you can do besides hit the return key.

Combat is improved and the game runs smoother. But I have not seen anything in the early game that I would call fun.

[AussieGiant]

Please get this straight. The game is not too hard for the most part. It is to a certain extent easier.

The minors and especially the NA Tribes lack the units to be on the attack. The DoWs are just a silly annoyance for the largest part.

The player just has to slug through until there is some money if you are a trade nation. Meanwhile three land based factions have an easy time just marching from one region to the next.

The trade game is now tedious and not having money for ships means you are seeing red every few turns. There is no enjoyment in that. If the money were there it would be just like Prussia. No one is a real threat to the player, just an annoyance.

Before the tribes could be a threat. Now only to other AI factions.

Before, it was a matter of balancing troops and development. Now most development other than farms and second level upgrades is way too much to warrant the investment. It is a good turn when you have 2200 to 2500. But that will get you four line infantry and use up half the amount in upkeep the next turn.

That is not entertaining. There is only so much you can do besides hit the return key.

Combat is improved and the game runs smoother. But I have not seen anything in the early game that I would call fun.

Fisherking,

why don't you just stop playing if things are so bad in your opinion?

I think everyone can see your point and I certainly got it sometime ago. I'm not sure repeating and repeating is going to get anywhere.

[Slaists]

Please get this straight. The game is not too hard for the most part. It is to a certain extent easier.

The minors and especially the NA Tribes lack the units to be on the attack. The DoWs are just a silly annoyance for the largest part.

The player just has to slug through until there is some money if you are a trade nation. Meanwhile three land based factions have an easy time just marching from one region to the next.

The trade game is now tedious and not having money for ships means you are seeing red every few turns. There is no enjoyment in that. If the money were there it would be just like Prussia. No one is a real threat to the player, just an annoyance.

Before the tribes could be a threat. Now only to other AI factions.

Before, it was a matter of balancing troops and development. Now most development other than farms and second level upgrades is way too much to warrant the investment. It is a good turn when you have 2200 to 2500. But that will get you four line infantry and use up half the amount in upkeep the next turn.

That is not entertaining. There is only so much you can do besides hit the return key.

Combat is improved and the game runs smoother. But I have not seen anything in the early game that I would call fun.

I am playing Ottomans on VH right now. Fighting for the trade spots (and capturing AI's indiamen in the process) with a nation that has very little sea advantages (none actually once Persia declares war and blocks the Indian Ocean access of Ottomans) was quite fun. Fighting multiple enemies off the borders of the huge starting empire with very little finances was quite fun too.

I am now at a point in late midgame when I can generate 20K of profits per turn with 3 large armies + a dominant fleet and that's exactly the point when the game has become boring (for me) despite me still having to take 10 provinces to win and face Austria that has 'eaten up' all of Prussia, Poland and half of Russia.

So, I disagree, the starting game now is quite engaging for certain factions. I agree, it's quite boring for GB though.

[Fisherking]

Fisherking,

why don't you just stop playing if things are so bad in your opinion?

I think everyone can see your point and I certainly got it sometime ago. I'm not sure repeating and repeating is going to get anywhere.

I want to see the game meet its potential.


Certain parts of the game are not that great. I don’t want to see it go in that direction.

People made noise that the tribes were too strong. They got nerffed.

They were not to strong at the time. I saw it as a challenge. If you lost it was usually due to lack of funds for troops.

People complained that it was too easy to make money. So trade was reduced.

People complained that the minors were too strong. (same as with the tribes only not as massive) and they became weak.

Some said the AI didn’t declare war enough. We know what it is like now.

I can go on and on but the bottom line is that all those complaints got addressed and if you thought things were not so bad and kept quiet then you kind of lost out.

At the present time everyone is poor except a few factions. Troop upkeep is prohibitive and the building costs seem exorbitant.

Now granted I have not made it into mid game as I have been looking at all the factions. But if it is tedious to start out how many people are you going to loose due to lack of interest?

Shouldn’t the game be engaging at all points? Some factions are saddled with never ending DoWs, but after a time it becomes apparent that none of them have any more troops than you do and are unlikely to attack.

If you have a ship or two at sea you will be attacked almost every turn by some one. But if you mishandle it that diversion is soon gone.

With so little resources most factions have too little to do in a turn. Most felt much more engaging when there was a bit of money to do something with.

I will eventually get into a mid game campaign and things may look different from that point but still the beginnings should not be tedious and strained.

[Slaists]

I want to see the game meet its potential.


Certain parts of the game are not that great. I don’t want to see it go in that direction.

People made noise that the tribes were too strong. They got nerffed.

They were not to strong at the time. I saw it as a challenge. If you lost it was usually due to lack of funds for troops.

People complained that it was too easy to make money. So trade was reduced.

People complained that the minors were too strong. (same as with the tribes only not as massive) and they became weak.

Some said the AI didn’t declare war enough. We know what it is like now.

I can go on and on but the bottom line is that all those complaints got addressed and if you thought things were not so bad and kept quiet then you kind of lost out.

At the present time everyone is poor except a few factions. Troop upkeep is prohibitive and the building costs seem exorbitant.

Now granted I have not made it into mid game as I have been looking at all the factions. But if it is tedious to start out how many people are you going to loose due to lack of interest?

Shouldn’t the game be engaging at all points? Some factions are saddled with never ending DoWs, but after a time it becomes apparent that none of them have any more troops than you do and are unlikely to attack.

If you have a ship or two at sea you will be attacked almost every turn by some one. But if you mishandle it that diversion is soon gone.

With so little resources most factions have too little to do in a turn. Most felt much more engaging when there was a bit of money to do something with.

I will eventually get into a mid game campaign and things may look different from that point but still the beginnings should not be tedious and strained.

Well, you definitely seem to be on the opposite end of the 'game enjoyment spectrum' relative to me, for example. I find that the beginning of the game is the most enjoyable part now (post patch 1.2); arguably, early mid-game too. Once I am generating enough money to get all the armies I want the game just becomes boring for me, lol.

So, for my part, I definitely pray the game does not go in the direction you suggest rather I hope they can make the end-game as engaging as the start of the game struggling is now.

[FactionHeir]

So if artillery becomes even more survivable (its difficult enough to kill and tends to result in the loss of your unit you send across the field), I guess we can completely ignore cavalry outside of dragoons...
They should rather make the AI defend its artillery better than just buff it up to the extent of M2TW artillery crews who can take down your heavy cavalry in melee and refuse to rout.

[Jack Lusted]

The survivability of the guns and carriages is being increased, not the crew.