The Daily Update at the Com

[Lemur]

Latest:

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Hi guys,

We will shortly be releasing a number of free new units for Empire: Total War. Today I would like to reveal the first of these - Russian Grenadiers. This new Russian unit is great for assaults and their grenades pack a mighty punch!



The team is still working hard on the next update, and will be implementing many new fixes.

Thanks,

Mark O'Connell
(aka SenseiTW)

[AussieGiant]

Lovin it!!!

Give me a Big Mac!!

[Marquis of Roland]

Oh god, more crazy Russian guys with bombs? It's bad enough they have those grenade launching bastards, you gotta love the range on those

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Pavlov grenadiers, by the look of them.


*edit to add*
I hope the Dutch get a infantry and/or cavalry unit. They were IMHO rather hard done by when it came to making faction specific units.

[Slaists]

A nice picture but... no word about a huge breakthrough in regards to CAI or BAI...

[FactionHeir]

Throwing kids some candy huh?

By the looks of it, just your standard grenadiers with a different hat.

[TB666]

But it's a cool looking hat tho.

[mmk]

Very nice! Like the grenadier caps!

[Servius]

Last night I hit my first campaign-killing CTD bug. I almost made it to 1799, by far the furthest I've been able to get in a campaign. Before the most recent patch, I'd encounter one of the CTD bugs much ealier in the campaign. After the patch, I encountered them much less frequently, and I was always able to get around them by simply restarting. The CTD that got me last night happens at the end of the AI turns, and there's nothing I can do to get around it. I know a few of the Daily Updates early after the most recent patch said they had identified a few other causes and had fixed them, plus better utilization of multi-core processors should prevent other CTDs too. I have high hopes that I'll actually be able to finish a campaign perhaps after the upcoming patch :-)

Oh, and the grenadier's hat looks cool.

[Slaists]

Last night I hit my first campaign-killing CTD bug. I almost made it to 1799, by far the furthest I've been able to get in a campaign. Before the most recent patch, I'd encounter one of the CTD bugs much ealier in the campaign. After the patch, I encountered them much less frequently, and I was always able to get around them by simply restarting. The CTD that got me last night happens at the end of the AI turns, and there's nothing I can do to get around it. I know a few of the Daily Updates early after the most recent patch said they had identified a few other causes and had fixed them, plus better utilization of multi-core processors should prevent other CTDs too. I have high hopes that I'll actually be able to finish a campaign perhaps after the upcoming patch :-)

Oh, and the grenadier's hat looks cool.

This has happened to me too a couple times post patch 1.02. Interestingly enough, reloading an earlier save-game does not solve the problem. The crash happens once the same turns reached during the AI cycle.

[Barkhorn1x]

Nice grendiers and free content always welcome. And they did state that they continue to work on fixes. So this next patch should be the one that really gets the game on a firm footing.

[mmk]

This has happened to me too a couple times post patch 1.02. Interestingly enough, reloading an earlier save-game does not solve the problem. The crash happens once the same turns reached during the AI cycle.

Unfortunately it does. Just got a quite successful early Spanish campaign crashed beyond repair.

[TinCow]

A nice picture but... no word about a huge breakthrough in regards to CAI or BAI...

The AI coders are almost certainly not the same people who create units and graphics. The addition of new units shouldn't have any impact on that aspect of the patches.

[al Roumi]

The AI coders are almost certainly not the same people who create units and graphics. The addition of new units shouldn't have any impact on that aspect of the patches.

We don't seem to hear much from those who are working on the CAI and BAI though... New bits are nice, but there's a fair ammount to fix... back in the pressure-cooker now please boys.

[Discoman]

May 21st

Hello everyone,

Yesterday we announced the first free unit. Today I would like to talk about them. The aim of the free units is to increase the graphical and unit variety of several factions rosters. We will also be using them to introduce more balance variety between factions as well. Some are new, some are replacement for existing units in some factions rosters. There will be 11 free units that have brand new models and textures, there are also several units that already exist in-game but are not used in the release version that are being added into rosters, and some factions will be gaining access to units they currently cannot get.

Some people have been asking why we are working on these free units whilst there are still fixes to be done. The work on the free units is not taking away time for fixes, the free units do not require any work from coders just work by artists and by a designer(me). So we can, and are working both on fixes, and on this extra free content for you all.

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic...te.html?page=2

Hopefully they'll eventually add pre-order units into the game.

[Slaists]

The AI coders are almost certainly not the same people who create units and graphics. The addition of new units shouldn't have any impact on that aspect of the patches.

I understand that aspect of the CA teamwork. Unfortunately, the updates mostly relate to unit design (which is nice) with utter silence from the AI department. Hey, I even have not heard CA acknowledge that the AI IS moronic. :)

Tell me if I am imagining things, but some time before ETW was released, didn't CA hint that the stupidity of the AI in the previous titles was due to the fact that in the previous platforms strategic map diplomatic and military decisions were made separately from military and tactical map decisions. The new engine was supposed to blend them together producing a more sensible overall AI decision making process.

Hmm... the current (game) evidence, for some reason, indicates otherwise.

[TinCow]

Tell me if I am imagining things, but some time before ETW was released, didn't CA hint that the stupidity of the AI in the previous titles was due to the fact that in the previous platforms strategic map diplomatic and military decisions were made separately from military and tactical map decisions. The new engine was supposed to blend them together producing a more sensible overall AI decision making process.

Hmm... the current (game) evidence, for some reason, indicates otherwise.

You're not imagining things, that's exactly what they've said. I do think the ETW CAI is a significant improvement over the RTW/M2TW CAIs. Yeah, it may still declare war randomly, but at least when it does it attacks you and the CAI is perfectly willing to accept a fair peace deal in many situations, even if it will never propose one itself. It still needs a lot of improvement to achieve the level it should be at, but it's still better than it used to be.

I feel the same about the BAI. In RTW, it was possible to defeat a full enemy stack while taking less than a dozen casualties. In ETW, victory is still easy if you know how to play, but casualties are much higher, especially in serious battles, and the AI can regularly win battles if it has numbers on its side. After only a few months of ETW, I've already lost far more battles than I have ever lost in both RTW and M2TW combined. Again, major improvement is still needed on the BAI, but I do feel like it's improper to say that CA hasn't made any improvement at all

[Marquis of Roland]

I've had problems getting peace treaties when the cause of war was a campaign objective region. For example, with Prussia, after taking Rhineland and Flanders (owned by Westphalia at the time), the French, who were very friendly with me, declared war. I wiped out their stacks in France and besieged Paris. I made a peace proposal, but it was rejected. I tried again, this time with a few tech thrown in, still rejected. My last offer, 100k in cash, Flanders region (the reason why they went to war in the first place), and the techs I threw in earlier. Still, rejected emphatically. Oh well, captured Paris and didn't bother to stick around, the following revolution bought me about 10 turns of peace and quiet.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Todays update

May 22nd

We're currently experimenting with a new campaign AI technique called 'faction focus'. This causes the AI factions to assess certain nations as a threat at startup and then focus their efforts on eliminating or defending against that country. This makes the aggression process more streamlined and more 'proactive' on the part of the AI, in the sense that it makes a judgement on its national neighbours and others and focuses aggression based on that and subsequent world events.

This is in very early stages and is really a test tech at this stage, so we can't say with certainity whether it will make it into any forthcoming update.

We're now entering a British bank holiday weekend which means the next daily update will be posted on Tuesday 26 May. Naturally some of us will be working on fixes and issues over that time. We continue to focus the majority of our effort on addressing the remaining issues with Empire whilst increasing performance.

More details of the free units will appear shortly.

Enjoy your weekends!

Kind regards,
Kieran

Nice to know that they are working on the AI

[Servius]

These updates still make me much more patient and hopeful about the patching/improvement process.

[Barkhorn1x]

These updates still make me much more patient and hopeful about the patching/improvement process.

Word.

[antisocialmunky]

And the fact that they seem to be based on the responses on threads like these so they actually answer some of our questions.

A nice picture but... no word about a huge breakthrough in regards to CAI or BAI...

"We'll give them some AI even though were are nowhere ready:"

May 22nd

We're currently experimenting with a new campaign AI technique called 'faction focus'. This causes the AI factions to assess certain nations as a threat at startup and then focus their efforts on eliminating or defending against that country. This makes the aggression process more streamlined and more 'proactive' on the part of the AI, in the sense that it makes a judgement on its national neighbours and others and focuses aggression based on that and subsequent world events.

This is in very early stages and is really a test tech at this stage, so we can't say with certainity whether it will make it into any forthcoming update.

We're now entering a British bank holiday weekend which means the next daily update will be posted on Tuesday 26 May. Naturally some of us will be working on fixes and issues over that time. We continue to focus the majority of our effort on addressing the remaining issues with Empire whilst increasing performance.

More details of the free units will appear shortly.

Enjoy your weekends!

Kind regards,
Kieran

[Monsieur Alphonse]

And today an other update:

May 26th

Several smaller fixes today including:

1. Battle - Routing units will now no longer seek to garrison structures if they have utterly shattered. This was caused by conflicting priorities.

2. Campaign diplomacy - Repeated make deal/break deal actions by the AI have been eliminated. This was caused by a similair logic issue as the repeated region attempts issue.

3. Campaign diplomacy - Added weight/potency to the 'backstabbing' variable. When AI/player makes an alliance and breaks it shortly afterwards this now has a more significant effect.

4. Campaign map - Trade route bug where small ships indicating trade animations 'jumped' across theatres has now been fixed.


Hope you all had a good weekend.

Kind regards,
Kieran

[Servius]

Thanks Kieran, keep up the good work!

[Lemur]

Posts like that make me feel loved.

[Fisherking]

and for today

May 27th

Today's fixes include:

1. Campaign AI - The campaign AI now properly garrisons towns after capturing them, reducing the likelihood of the captured region immediately falling into rebellion. Thereby increasing expand and hold tactics from the AI. This issue was originally caused by improper balancing of future unrest values.

2. Audio - Updated the miles dll in order to fix an issue causing 'popping' sounds on the low pass filter.

3. Audio - Group movement and unit melee sounds fixed so that noticeable phasing is reduced.

4. Campaign AI - Crash bug on AI turn identified and fixed.

There's also a point to be made on AI peace making. It can appear at current that the AI isn't making peace with neighbours. The AI does in fact make peace with other nations, but the player is not notified directly of these events. The status of relationships between AI nations can be found in the diplomatic screens, and AI nations are in fact making peace as well as declaring war. However there is no 'event message' for this.

The balance at which AI nations do this is also being examined, in line with previous updates about 'backstabbing traits' and the like.

Kind regards,
Kieran

edit:

note this!

There's also a point to be made on AI peace making. It can appear at current that the AI isn't making peace with neighbours. The AI does in fact make peace with other nations, but the player is not notified directly of these events. The status of relationships between AI nations can be found in the diplomatic screens, and AI nations are in fact making peace as well as declaring war. However there is no 'event message' for this.

Well if you have it now than that is a change but cut the BS

We know how to read the diplomatic section and once at war they have stayed at war!

Let‘s hope it has changed!

[Hooahguy]

good to hear that they are still working on this!

[Servius]

Good. I think the last campaign killing CTD (one I can't get around by just restarting) is when it happens during the AI turns. If that's been fixed, I might be able to finish a campaign!

[Slaists]

There's also a point to be made on AI peace making. It can appear at current that the AI isn't making peace with neighbours. The AI does in fact make peace with other nations, but the player is not notified directly of these events. The status of relationships between AI nations can be found in the diplomatic screens, and AI nations are in fact making peace as well as declaring war. However there is no 'event message' for this.

Yes, really, cut the BS... I have had several campaigns where I dragged an AI nation (my ally) into war with some remote faction at the start of the game. After a few turns, I make peace with the target nation. However, my allies stay in the state of war with the target nation indefinitely in the game terms despite not carrying out any hostile actions (actually fighting). I have even stopped bothering 'inviting my allies' when I declare war on the target faction for the second/third/fourth time since I always know, my allies would still be at war with the target...

[Dayve]

Agreed. The AI doesn't make peace, and if it does, it's once every 40-50 years. You should see my UP campaign right now, it's 1730 thereabouts and everyone is at war with everyone. Trade is so fickle that the only partners i know i can rely on are my neighbours bordering me in Europe, which are Wurtemburg and Hannover. The rest, Britain, Ottomans, Mughals, and the other overseas partners are constantly blocked. One turn i can be making 6k a turn and have 15-20k in my treasury, the next i can be -4000 in deficit because France is blockading Britain and Morocco is blocking a path in that tiny strait between Morocco and Gibraltar, cutting off Ottoman trade.