The Daily Update at the Com

[Sheogorath]

Well, it's nice they fixed the invisible cavalryslaughtering sticks of terror, but what about the psychotic AI and massive penalty for even the slightest breach of any treaty, ever?

EDIT:
I think those would be far more 'impactful' than the AI garrisoning ports. Frankly, I have to sit through the 'tug of war' between two factions garrisoning/raiding a port way too much.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

That's it, hotfix wise? My campaign CTDs to a halt all of a sudden.

Sure hope the next patch to fix isn't 2 months away, as it's completely pointless to play if the game grinds to a halt again. They seemed to have had this fixed in 1.2, what happened?! Hopefully a few more hotfixes get deployed along the way. That was the whole upside of going with Steam in the first place.

[Slaists]

Well, it's nice they fixed the invisible cavalryslaughtering sticks of terror, but what about the psychotic AI and massive penalty for even the slightest breach of any treaty, ever?

EDIT:
I think those would be far more 'impactful' than the AI garrisoning ports. Frankly, I have to sit through the 'tug of war' between two factions garrisoning/raiding a port way too much.

Well that massive penalty applies in some interesting instances, not always. For example, I (France) decided to side with my protectorate (Wurtenberg) when my ally (Spain) attacked it. The next thing I noticed: I got HUGE -200 relationships with every Western faction INCLUDING my protectorate I was defending...

Definitely, seems like some faulty logic implemented here, especially that latter part.

I reloaded the game and instead of siding with my protectorate, I sided with Spain (the aggressor). There was no global penalty (none whatsoever) in that case... The only penalty was that my former protectorate started hating me.

It seems, the game considers 'protectorate' alliances differently than regular alliances, valuing the latter more.

[TB666]

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

Yes and that's what is fixed.

[FactionHeir]

Yes and that's what is fixed.

Grand Campaign - Settlement battle - Fixed instances of invisible deployable defenses

[Fisherking]

Well that massive penalty applies in some interesting instances, not always. For example, I (France) decided to side with my protectorate (Wurtenberg) when my ally (Spain) attacked it. The next thing I noticed: I got HUGE -200 relationships with every Western faction INCLUDING my protectorate I was defending...

Definitely, seems like some faulty logic implemented here, especially that latter part.

I reloaded the game and instead of siding with my protectorate, I sided with Spain (the aggressor). There was no global penalty (none whatsoever) in that case... The only penalty was that my former protectorate started hating me.

It seems, the game considers 'protectorate' alliances differently than regular alliances, valuing the latter more.

No that is not quite it. I had a huge penalty for siding with the Dutch rather then Hanover. Now every single European faction is hostile toward me.

This may have sounded like a good idea when it was thought up but the implementation leaves a great deal to be desired.

When two allies go to war you are in a loose/loose situation. Some times I think the game goes looking for your allies and protectorates just to cause those situations.

It needs changed ASAP and so does the “Monty Python’s Black Knight” AI.

The only way to off set any of the penalties is with the state gift which has a max of 100 points and not other gifts or considerations have any impact at all.

The AI no longer asks for peace nor will it except it. This is exactly counter to what some of the CA staff posted in the updates.

Fine! they fix some stuff and then go and totally foul up things that should be easy!

What is it all about?

[TB666]

considering that it's either fort battles or field battles, which do you think it is ??

[Slaists]

No that is not quite it. I had a huge penalty for siding with the Dutch rather then Hanover. Now every single European faction is hostile toward me.

This may have sounded like a good idea when it was thought up but the implementation leaves a great deal to be desired.

When two allies go to war you are in a loose/loose situation. Some times I think the game goes looking for your allies and protectorates just to cause those situations.

It needs changed ASAP and so does the “Monty Python’s Black Knight” AI.

The only way to off set any of the penalties is with the state gift which has a max of 100 points and not other gifts or considerations have any impact at all.

The AI no longer asks for peace nor will it except it. This is exactly counter to what some of the CA staff posted in the updates.

Fine! they fix some stuff and then go and totally foul up things that should be easy!

What is it all about?

Was Hannover your protectorate? The case I described involved my protectorate and my ally attacking my protectorate. When I sided with the protectorate I got -200 to my relationships with all of Europe (including the protectorate I was trying to protect). When I reloaded the game and sided with the aggressor, I got no "diplo-hit" whatsoever... So, either this is an inconsistently implemented feature, or CA considers "protectorate alliances" inferior to "regular alliances"... Of course, this is not documented so we have to learn about it "the hard way". My "hardship" was to replay a long battle that preceded the Spanish DOW on my protectorate.

Playing on VH I have had AI accept ceasefire several times. I did not offer much in exchange neither: just returned a province, or paid some (1000 or two) cash or, in several instances', just offered ceasefire right after having trashed the AI in a battle or taken a province from them. True, it does not seem to work always. Some factions seem to be in a 'berserk' mode and would accept no peace, no matter what. Maybe it's due to randomly generated 'province psychological profiles'. Not sure they are in ETW, but they were present in the previous TW games.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Just had a field battle against the Brits. The British light infantry deployed stakes who were visible on the battle map

[AussieGiant]

Does anyone know if a hotfix requires a new game to get the changes in?

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Does anyone know if a hotfix requires a new game to get the changes in?

Yes. No. The update was downloaded while playing the game. I noticed that my game was updated and that the fix worked because the stakes were visible during a battle.

[AussieGiant]

Yes. No. The update was downloaded while playing the game. I noticed that my game was updated and that the fix worked because the stakes were visible during a battle.

So that's a "no", it doesn't require a new game to take affect?

[FactionHeir]

Doesn't seem to

[al Roumi]

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)

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/srepl...ly-Update.html

[Monsieur Alphonse]

So that's a "no", it doesn't require a new game to take affect?

Indeed. You don't have to start a new game.

[AussieGiant]

Excellent!!

[Wausser]

My problem wasn't solved by the hotfix

[Fisherking]

Well here is today’s new update. It explains a bit...

2nd July:

Dear all,

Todays update concerns the 'fast forward' problem that several people have reported. Hopefully this information will give you some background as to whats occuring and why.

With the introduction of multi-threading in battles the game logic and the display of the game now updated simultaneously. This has had an effect on the time speed up. Previously on 4x speed the game logic would do 4 logic updates before the display would render a single frame, meaning movement of the camera and animation became jerky.

With multi-threading this logic speed up occurs whilst the display is still rendering, the advantage of this is that the camera moves smoothly, so you can survey the battlefield whilst the game is running faster, the downside is that the logic must sync with the display every update, meaning that your display frame rate effects the amount of speed-up and that running with 4x speed-up with multi-threading on may result in a battle lasting longer than with multi-threading turned off, even though your frame rate may be (significantly) higher.

You're still in fast forward, but it's tied to a different maximum meaning in some cases this may appear or actually be slightly slower.

Hope this sheds some light on the issue.

Kind regards,
Kieran

[Cultured Drizzt fan]

wait what? I am not sure I get this. All I know is that when I click fast forward the game goes at EXACTLY the same rate, there is no speed up what-so ever......

I am not a computer expert at all, could someone explain this to me?

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Here's as I understand it.
It used to be that if you fast forwarded the game for every time the game updated your screen (your FPS) the game would make it's calculations as if four screen updates took place. So for four moments of game calculation it can draw one screen. So a total of 5 tasks on the CPU.
With the multi-threading, the game calculations and drawing the screen are now linked together to make them more efficient in normal play. But a side effect is that you can't have one without the other. So if you want four moments of game calculations, the game now has to draw four screens too. That's 8 tasks the CPU for the same length of time that previously need 5. If that's too much for your computer too handle, the game has to slow down the action, resulting in little or no acceleration.

Basically, the multi-threading means the game can no longer "cut corners" by dropping screen updates in favour of game updates.

[Cultured Drizzt fan]

thanks that makes sense.....

stills annoying when you have to sit and watch your 4th rate chase after a sloop and you cant fast forward.

[Sheogorath]

So...basically they're ignoring the AI and diplomacy issues?

[Durallan]

AI campaign is probably considered 'game balance' there fore not important for them to look at until theyve fixed crashes and the like, so itll probably be fixed last if they think it needs fixing at all.

[Daveybaby]

So...basically they're ignoring the AI and diplomacy issues?

Yes, that's exactly what they said. Posting a fix for one problem definitely means that they arent going to fix any other problems. I can't see any other way that this could be interpreted.

[FactionHeir]

Thats's how it certainly went for M2TW

[Daveybaby]

Thats's how it certainly went for M2TW

Oh, were there hotfixes for M2?

[al Roumi]

Oh, were there hotfixes for M2?

No, but hot fixes seem now to be used to clear up bugs created by new patches.

I'd be happy to download patches and not run through Steam if it meant not having to play with so many glitches and bugs. That's not an actual trade off though, so I don't think waving hot fixes around like a flag is much use. IMO.

Apologies if that seems a little blunt.

[Prodigal]

Has ANYBODY seen/had a sea invasion since the patch?

[Seyavash]

Does anyone know what was changed for the Russian Line Infantry in the patch?

They were supposed to be improved to bring into line with other factions, but the stats seem the same to me so far. Accuracy is still less (35) than others (40-45) and nothing else seems to stand out to me.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Does anyone know what was changed for the Russian Line Infantry in the patch?

They were supposed to be improved to bring into line with other factions, but the stats seem the same to me so far. Accuracy is still less (35) than others (40-45) and nothing else seems to stand out to me.

They have a higher mêlée (attack) and charge value.