Patch 3!

[Skott]

Sorry this thread is rather confusing. Has the patch broken the game or improved it?

As far as the bugs and CTD goes I think its an improvement but some people dont like how they changed the costs of buildings, units and the amount of money now made with trade and taxes. I guess its all in how you look at it.

[joe4iz]

Had my first CTD since installing the patch. 1740 time frame on a long campaign. This is genereally where I started to run into problems prior to the patch. Offloading troops into a friendly port and the game crashed when I clicked the units off the ship. Never had that happen before. All of my crashes were due to sealanes and second rates (or so it would appear).

[Skott]

I noticed when I want to hire a general or admiral now for one of my stacks it says I cant (there's a sentence saying why this may be because of) but it lets me do it anyway. Kinda weird. Anyone else run into that? Its not a problem as far as I'm concerned as long as I can hire them, which I can, but I didnt have this issue before the patch.

Oh, and for the first time ever the Barbary States offered me a peace treaty! They wanted 41,000 though but still they offered! Never had them offer in a campaign before. I like that.

[anweRU]

Here are a few observations 8 turns into a GB H/M campaign:

- The Artificial Intelligence is declaring war in a Non-Intelligent manner, in fresh games as well as old ones. As GB, I was surprised when Holland declared war on me at the end of Turn 7. I thought it was becasue I had Flanders. I reloaded the autosave, and re-tried. This time, Holland declared war on Courland instead. Huh? Apparently, we're back to the non-sensical wars of METW2.

- As GB (Hard/Medium), I'm somewhat behind where I was at the same turn. I can't blitz this time. I am not recruiting as many units so I can invest in my economy. I'm also constrained by the increased resistance, which is tying down my armies. Also, I couldn't unload Flanders to UP, like I did pre-patch, so I'm stuck with it. Hence, I have not been able to launch an attack on India.

- The Ottomans actually captured Moldovia back from the Poles, yeah! They lost Bosnia and Serbia to Austria, boo. But Bosnia's capital is under siege, I don't know by whom. I'll find out in a couple of turns (rebels or Ottomans). I don't see as many Turkish naval stacks - I think the Ottoman AI is finally recruiting land units, instead of useless ships.

- The AI is capturing regions, but losing them promptly due to the increased resistance & rebellions. Russia destroyed the Crimean Khanate by turn 3, but the Crimean Khanate re-emerged by turn 7! Sweden lost Karelia to rebels.

- The massive native stacks have not yet made an appearance. The Iriquois and Cherokee declared war on the 13 colonies on turn 1, but have not been able to capture anything yet. I just started to send military techs over to the 13, so I hope they'll be able to hold the line.

[Skott]

Another thing I have noticed. Every time I take a region that puts me next to a region controlled by a another faction that I wasnt next door to before, or not at war with, that faction now turns around and declares war on me real quick. Not sure if this is now a common thing to expect or just particular to my current GB campaign. I need to test it more to find out. Past TW games had this happen alot and ETW didnt do this until the latest patch. If this is going to be the common occurance then this will make it hard to stay out of wars. Good or bad depending on how one looks at it I guess.

[Fisherking]

Declarations of War now seem to be where they were in M2TW.

If they are indifferent to you then they will likely go to war.

Some my like this at the upper difficulty levels, but I was doing a post patch game set on easy to see how it goes.

There are some positive things to note in the game mechanics but I will leave that for later.

Right now the belligerence and aggressively of the other factions is over the top.

[AussieGiant]

It certainly takes me a moment to get passed the: "It's too easy and the AI isn't agressive enough."

To now:

"The AI is too aggressive and is not not behaving sensibly."

I mean for god sake, without outlining anyone's specific requirements set on the topic how is CA meant to magically "know" just what is too hard or too easy for everyone?

Maybe the difficulty settings are relevant now.

Anyway:

I certainly noticed a surprise which fits in with what Skott said. In my Prussian H/M Prestige campaign, UP and I traded for decades and were friendly, although they never took the offer to ally, which was interesting. Keep in mind I have never been allied with anyone in the entire campaign (year 1760) on Hard campaign settings.

So I finally took Hannover and gained a common boarder with them...bang they declared war on me and parked a nice well compiled army with a 5 star general just on my side of the boarder in Hannover... bastards

I'm on Hard...so it's been hard.

What can I say...maybe everyone needs to readjust their own skills to the definitions of what the words Easy, Normal, Hard and Very Hard mean.

[Dead Guy]

Well I have to say I'm pretty pleased with the changes, even though saying it's save game compatible is a real stretch, as many have pointed out. I went from earning almost 150k to -60k per turn after patching. I had to ditch nearly all my fleets, managed to keep about 2 stacks in america and maybe 3 stacks in India and maybe 6 stacks in Europe. The first turn Spain and Marathas declare war on me, I've been trading with them for the entire campaign. Quebec declared too. It was basically impossible to continue without retreating from an entire theater or something on that scale.

Starting a new campaign, however, works very well I think. Lots of wars very early but the alliances seem to hold, I like it so far. I think it's sad that the american factions always seem to join their protectors after at most 10 turns...

[loony]

In my last campaign as Poland (started after patch), the nastiest agressor is Courland. The bastards managed to get into a war with most of Europe and I have NO IDEA where they get the cash to fund all that. They have a full stack in sweden, another one running around moscow and the third one banging me in Vilnius :-(

[anweRU]

Some positive observations from my post-patch scratch H/M GB campaign:
- The minor factions are not super-powers anymore. By 1711, they seem to have enough units for a single full stack to defend their home countries. Wurtemburg & Savoy are not steam-rollering France anymore. And they have been able to defend themselves, so they haven't been nerfed too much either.
- France is still alive and kicking.
- The Native American factions are much more realistic. Still a tad too aggressive early in the game, but the 13 Colonies managed to protect themselves for most of the time, losing only the Carolinas and Virginia.
- I probably have conquered only half the provinces I did in my pre-patch GB campaign. I can fund only two full stacks, though I am slowly putting together two half-stacks (one each in India and NA) to support the main stacks.

Back to my pet peave about this patch: The AI is back to METW2 - all AI factions will declare war on you eventually, if you have a bordering province. Holland should not attack GB on turn 7; France and Spain breaking their alliances early on is plain silly. The AI should try some diplomacy first to get the province it needs for its victory conditions, as it tried to pre-patch. The pre-patch problem with AI diplomacy was that it was stuck in an endless loop, and there were no penalties for refusing an AI offer.

I would like to see the AI offers back, with relations worsening until they become hostile, then the AI declares war.

[AussieGiant]

That sounds similar to my H/M Prestige Campaign with Prussia.

Although when UP declared war on me I did have 14 provinces in central Europe and was clearly the biggest threat on the continent. So now that I think about it, it does start to make sense.

I also had about the same amount of military power as you mention and was far and away greater than any other single Empire.