The Daily Update at the Com

[Quickening]

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

Yes, as Prussia the British landed nearby.

[Prodigal]

Yes, as Prussia the British landed nearby.

Ta, started to freak after reading the update muse, (can anyone at CA spell M-E-M-O-R-Y L-E-A-K), then realised that I hadn't seen one invasion since the patch.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

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

Yup. Seems much more frequent this time. Not having seen a single one in a campaign and a half in 1.2, I'm now frequently seeing fleets with troops on them travel to and fro. Only saw three landings as I obviously don't have eyes everywhere so can't be sure what most of those loaded fleets eventually get up to.
But I reckon naval invasions are about where they should be now.

[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.

[Sheogorath]

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

Not personally, but in one of my campaigns the British have taken over Tripoli.

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.

I've noticed that, unlike all other factions as far as I know, Russian line infantry still use the militia marching/idle animations.

[FactionHeir]

Russian line are more or less the same but other line had their accuracy reduced.

[Hosakawa Tito]

Seems it's best not to ally with or become a protector of any nation. The AI seems to deliberately pit one of your allies against the other just to screw you, no matter whether that war makes any strategic sense or if they have a common border. My carefully crafted alliance with Sweden & UP in my Prussian campaign has just blown up in my face, and the huge negative diplomacy penalty with the other factions on the continent, some of whom should be happy that I've sided with one or the other, have cancelled most all of my trade agreements and totally borked my campaign. Doesn't matter if I reload and chose option B to see if there's a better outcome to allow me to continue. This campaign is dead and stinking.

[econ21]

Seems it's best not to ally with or become a protector of any nation.

Yes, I was coming to that conclusion even before 1.3. Is there a penalty to cancelling an alliance in peacetime? As I am tempted to do that on turn 1 and revel in splendid isolation. (Well, maybe keeping ONE ally or protectorate...)

It's a shame, as standing by your allies or using alliances to maintain a balance of power are much more appealing to me than going it alone and conquering the world.

[FactionHeir]

Back on the June 3rd update, the mention was on cahnged effects for governments. What it doesn't mention is something I just noticed with AM:
Supposedly (!) early buildings are cheaper with AM. No idea if thats true or not tho. Anyone got stats?

[Husar]

Seems it's best not to ally with or become a protector of any nation. The AI seems to deliberately pit one of your allies against the other just to screw you, no matter whether that war makes any strategic sense or if they have a common border. My carefully crafted alliance with Sweden & UP in my Prussian campaign has just blown up in my face, and the huge negative diplomacy penalty with the other factions on the continent, some of whom should be happy that I've sided with one or the other, have cancelled most all of my trade agreements and totally borked my campaign. Doesn't matter if I reload and chose option B to see if there's a better outcome to allow me to continue. This campaign is dead and stinking.

I've stopped making alliance since my ally France (I was spain) declared war on me and didn't when i reloaded and cancelled the alliance.
It's not like I'd even need allies in the first place and when they're likely to declare war on you anyway that makes them even more useless.

[Mailman653]

Britain took Paris in my game, then I took it and gave it back to France lol!

[al Roumi]

7th July:

A new fix is going to the beta group tonight which should fix the hang in the menu, possibly caused by audio/hard drive issues. If we get the all clear on this one we can roll it out in good time.
We're also looking to future PDLC items and potential packages.

As per Jack's post above all other major issues, naval invasions and siege AI are receiving ongoing attention.
There will be a next patch, and we're currently planning our list of 'achievables' for it.

Kind regards,
Kieran

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/reply...l#reply-775700

That'll be another 2 months before the next patch then...

[Quickening]

"There will be a next patch..."

Hmm I think most of us assumed that went without saying. The fact that it has to be stated worries me slightly.

[Slaists]

"There will be a next patch..."

Hmm I think most of us assumed that went without saying. The fact that it has to be stated worries me slightly.

Yup, quite worrysome indeed... Given, the game is nowhere near complete (yet).

[TB666]

Or he simply stated it because some people assume that they will stop supporting the game.

[Sheogorath]

So they're fixing the naval and siege AI, but not the strategic AI.

[Fisherking]

So they're fixing the naval and siege AI, but not the strategic AI.

The Campaign AI is much more important at this stage than the siege and naval AI. It leaves the most to be desired.

It is now nearly imposable to get a peace settlement of any kind from the game. AI factions still remain at war for the whole game or until eliminated. Diplomatic Status still counts for nothing. Some of the diplomatic penalties are outrageous. The game does not consist of 50 or so AI factions. There is the Game vs. the player and the rest is just window dressing. The factions don't really play the game the AI god is just out to screw the player and makes use of the factions, both friendly, hostile, and neutral to hinder the player. It is all rather ludicrous.

For crying out loud, if two countries are still at war after 15 years someone should be looking for a way out of it! Five years of war is a very long time. And countries only excepting death to peace is utterly foolish. Every single faction except the pirates should be seeking peace before they are totally wiped out!

[Slaists]

The Campaign AI is much more important at this stage than the siege and naval AI. It leaves the most to be desired.

It is now nearly imposable to get a peace settlement of any kind from the game. AI factions still remain at war for the whole game or until eliminated. Diplomatic Status still counts for nothing. Some of the diplomatic penalties are outrageous. The game does not consist of 50 or so AI factions. There is the Game vs. the player and the rest is just window dressing. The factions don't really play the game the AI god is just out to screw the player and makes use of the factions, both friendly, hostile, and neutral to hinder the player. It is all rather ludicrous.

For crying out loud, if two countries are still at war after 15 years someone should be looking for a way out of it! Five years of war is a very long time. And countries only excepting death to peace is utterly foolish. Every single faction except the pirates should be seeking peace before they are totally wiped out!

Have you tried Imperial Splendor? The modder has done pretty good job with the CAI. I don't like his unit changes though.

[Quickening]

As Prussia I was just attacked by an army belonging to Poland Lithania at a city. Aside from the fact that the battle ran like treacle when it really shouldn't, and that even on fast forward I sat there bored for fifteen minutes waiting for the enemy to arrive, they all just huddled round a corner of my fort and lamely tried to climb the walls.
Victory was inevitable of course, but it would require me sitting there for about an hour until enough of them had died to convince them that their approach was stupid and they should probably just run away. What's the point of this? Despite the fact that I think Empire is a massive step in the right direction in terms of the campaign map, it really does suck hard in a lot of respects. Moreso than Medieval 2 ever did.

Edit: Just to clarify the treacle bit, I can have two gigantic armies ranged against each other and the game will run perfectly but as soon as buildings come into play, even if it's a handful of units fighting, the game just crumbles for some reason. I don't know if it's connected to the glitch that causes the buildings to flash.

[Durallan]

I have to say the major problem with sieges is that the enemy doesn't let me range them at all, they just send all their units to scale the walls, they run around the sides and climb up the walls and then run to the flag in the middle, Now I don't know how else the enemy should go about it but it means your fighting off his units one at a time and there must be a more efficient way for the AI to attack and win, theres only so much you can do against a fort but yea, I wanna be able to pound him with alot of mortars before he attacks :P ruins my fun just rushing everytime, and then sometimes the artillery won't do anything and sometimes he won't do anything except shoot his artillery at the indestructable parts of your fort... it certainly can be improved.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Update from today

8th July:

Hi guys,

Today we fixed an issue where you would order artillary to stop firing and they would continue.

Jack will be back tomorrow with a more detailed update...

Thanks,

Mark O'Connell
(aka SenseiTW)

[antisocialmunky]

To quote a fictional space marine:

"Hell, its about time."

Seriously, this has been annoying. I can't believe its taken this long! Glad they finally got to it...

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Curiously, my cannons stopped doing that.
I checked first thing with 1.3 and they did still fire when they shouldn't have, but since then I haven't seen them do it at all and I've been using the cease fire option regularly again. Think it might have been 1.3.1, though why this should be is a mystery to me.
Oh well...

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Today a huge update:

9th July:

The Naval Gameplay Enhancement

Empire introduced real-time naval battles to the Total War series for the first time. The reaction to them on the forum has generally been very positive, and we are very proud of our first foray into naval warfare.

However as they are our first effort, naturally we feel we could do more. Therefore one of the things we're focussing on in update 1.4 is naval battle balancing.

Whilst on the land you have quite clear lines between different unit types, naval battles at releasing were mostly lacking in that area, there was no rock, paper, scissor balance. Whilst there were differences, they were not really big enough to encourage mixed fleets.

So for update 1.4 there has been a rebalancing of ships to create greater diversity between different ship types along with improving the overall game play of the battles.

The balance that now exists for naval battles is like this:

Ships of the Line beat Frigates who beat Small Ships who beat Ships of the Line who beat Ships of the Line

Now of course this is not the complete extent of it. Ships of the Line are still the best at taking on other Ships of the Line. Special ships such as rocket ships, bomb ketches and galleys fill special niches on the battlefield.

This new balance has been achieved by adjusting the hull strength, marksmanship (accuracy), reload rate, ranges, morale and damage of various ships.

The ship types now work like this:

Ships of the Line
Pros:
- Best morale
- Strongest hulls
- Best firepower

Cons:
- Slow speed
- Large turning circle
- Low accuracy and slow reload time
- Shorter range guns

Frigates
Pros:
- Good accuracy and reload speed
- Long range guns
- Good speed and turning rate

Cons
- Relatively weak hulls
- Not much firepower

Small Ships (sloops and brings)
Pros:
- Fastest ships
- Very manoeuvrable
- Best accuracy and reload time
- Long range guns like frigates

Cons:
- Very weak hulls
- Lowest amount of firepower

Now of course there is variance within each ship type, and especially within Ships of the Line there are now more noticeable differences in firepower and other stats between ships such as 4th rates and 3rd rates.

And with the above changes, you can see how the new balance dynamic works. Ships of the Line are very strong and have large amounts of firepower, but low accuracy, slow turn speed and lower range compared to frigates and small ships makes them vulnerable to fast small ships like sloops. Frigates are also a threat, but being bigger targets than small ships means they are vulnerable if they wander into the Ships of the Line range.

Small ships, being very fast and manoeuvrable can keep at range of Ships of the Line and hit them with their longer guns whilst out-turning them. As chain shot has received a boost in damage, even with their low amount of fire power ships such as sloops can be a threat to even the biggest Ships of the Line. It may take a few of them or a long time, but they can wear them down.

Frigates sit in between the other two types. Still fast and nimble, they have long range guns like the small ships. But because they are bigger in size, they are more vulnerable against Ships of the Line if they wander into their gun range. They have good accuracy and quite quick reload rate, and this combined with their nimble nature allows them to take on the even fast sloops and brigs.

All ships have been adjusted to have overall more accurate gun types, and the sterns of all ships have been weakened a lot in order to make raking shots more damaging. Various modifiers have tweaked to reduce the amount of random ship sinking whilst the health bars only showed little damage. Now it is pretty much always clear when a ship is likely to sink.

The turn rate whilst stopped has also been reduced for most ships to prevent them from turning quickly on the spot and acting like turrets.

Rocket ships have also had some changes made to their rockets to make them less powerful.

----


All these changes combined add a new dynamic to naval battles. The best fleet will still be mostly Ships of the Line with a few frigates in support, but now there is the possibility of a wider range of tactics.

So with 1.4 you will be getting a new gameplay experience for naval battles which adds a new dynamic and rock, paper, scissors element to them.

[FactionHeir]

I'm interested in what they did to galleys, bomb ketches and steamships then.

[Sheogorath]

...And WHY would frigates have more accurate guns than ships of the line?

[A Very Super Market]

It seems a bit arbitrary. I just hope they do change something about the pirates, so I odn't need to wait for a steam drydock before taking them on.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Sure looks like a artificial way to balance ships. And that's being kind.

I wish CA would learn that if you stay close to history you usually get far better balance because then you'll see the true reason why different unit types were used alongside each other.

[al Roumi]

I'm happy to see the efforts being made to get away from the race to 1st rates (or heavy 1st rates) that currently drives the Naval aspect of my games.

Having to defend trade nodes was a good step made in v1.3, meaning you have to use lower tech ships to defend early/mid game trade. Greater emphasis on differentiating the ship types and abilities should further the depth of the naval game.

Maybe it's just my understanding of a (neccessarily) wordy description of something easier to describe (or understand -if you are a geek like me) mathematicaly. It looks like a swarm of small ships (inevitably) micro-d would perform best against all other categories, unless the weight of fire of Frigates is really that much of a differentiator.

I'm not convinced that ships of the line (SOTL) would have slower firing -or less accurate gun crews... Surely, as mentioned in CAs post, lacking speed and maneuverability, as well as being intended to fight other large capital ships, would only further emphasise the need for good gunnery eg accuracy and reload rate. If anything other than a comparable ship came into their field of fire, surely it would have been toast. The challenge for SOTLs was getting things into their field of fire. Is it too unforgiving/boring for a PC game that battles be won mostly by maneuvre?

[Daveybaby]

I, for one, welcome these changes from a gameplay perspective (though i bet the realism brigade will shortly be having kittens).

However, I am curious about how this rock-paper-scissors mechanism is supposed to work. Ships of the line are vulnerable to sloops because sloops are faster and have longer range guns, and can thus supposedly keep out of range of the ships of the line's short range guns while sniping away at them, and I can see that frigates beat sloops, because even though they are slower they have the same range guns, thus a sloop has to come within range of frigate's guns in order to engage it, but the frigate has more guns and a stronger hull.

But how are ships of the line supposed to be able to beat frigates, which are (like sloops) faster with longer range guns? If a sloop can beat a ship of the line then surely so can a frigate.