What is different in 1.3?

[Lucius Verenus]

Line infantry does not use fire by rank against cavalry anymore, only the first rank fires as if you hadn't researched fire by rank, against infantry etc they still use fire by rank.
I guess it makes sense since you wouldn't want to kneel down facing a bunch of horses.

Couldnt let that go by - it is, in fact, exactly what you would do if threatened by cavalry in Line formation and couldn't, (or so far in this game can't be bothered to), form a square.

As long as your flanks are secured then a line of kneeling infantry holding grounded muskets with the bayonet pointed up and out and another rank standing behind them would deter any cavalry. Unlike in this game horses will NOT charge a dense line of pointy things

Sig..

[hoom]

Round shot definitely is feeling more useful.
I've gotten in a bunch of magnificent enfilade shots that took out nearly the entire rank they ran through & thats on ultra unit size.

Isn't the pre-battle screen significantly different?! I'm pretty sure it used to be old style single screen over the top of the battle location, now its split out & you can see the actual location/armies in the middle :D
(Or I'm a bit thick & didn't notice this change previously...)

[FactionHeir]

Noticed two more things:

1. With selected priest, you can now tell a region's religion rating (your own religion). Good that it finally got implemented from M2TW

2. Anti-cavalry stake barriers (deployment) are now completely invisible. In fact, I was wondering why my infantry were climbing stuff in the midst of nowhere. I found out the hard way what it was when my general went over it a bit later.
I think its problematic that they are don't become visible even after you impale yourself or your infantry walk over it.

[Sheogorath]

I think it's just ENEMY anticavalry barriers that are invisible.

This patch REALLY needs a hotfix.


A few things I've noticed that have remained the same:
1. The AI can still bypass interception, apparently whenever it feels like it.

2. AI armies still retreat away from their own territory and, usually, into yours. This results in some extremely annoying chases where the AI traipses around your territory for years sacking everything in sight and, when it gets lucky on occasion, taking a city you didn't garrison because it was fifteen provinces behind the lines.

3. Agents still can't cross the Hellespont. Easy to solve, but somewhat annoying.

4. While the AI has stopped spamming singleship traide route raiders, there are still a lot of fleets from a single nation in fairly small areas. Fortunately the AI no longer parks ships in choke points.



Something else I've noticed, Scholars can't challenge other scholars to duels. I seem to recall that in previous versions gentlemen and scholars could both duel, but only with equivalents from other factions. As in: no Scholar vs. Gentleman duels.

[FactionHeir]

Nope, scholars could never duel anyone. However, if you hover your mouse over scholars (at least when I was playing as UP), it will tell you that they can duel

And barbary states and savoy still single ship raid my trade route as spain.

[Sheogorath]

Huh. Oh well.

At least they've fixed artillery's limber/unlimber issues. It's nice that they do what I tell them now :P

[FactionHeir]

Most of the time, still borks up a bit when you do it in quick succession.
And of course they still fire parting shots, which may well decimate your own ranks.

Also, is it just me or does double click attack/run not work as smoothly as it used to do in 1.2? I find that my units always end up walking when I clearly double clicked.

[Marquis of Roland]

2. AI armies still retreat away from their own territory and, usually, into yours. This results in some extremely annoying chases where the AI traipses around your territory for years sacking everything in sight and, when it gets lucky on occasion, taking a city you didn't garrison because it was fifteen provinces behind the lines.

I defeated an Austrian stack and it retreated into Venetian territory. Austria and Venice were NOT allies. Venice doesn't do anything about the 3 Austrian units using their region as a base to raid my territory; they'd pop in, raid Graz or Trieste, and they're back in Venice all on the same turn. I have a trade agreement with Venice so I don't want to attack them.

Finally after 5 turns of this, the Venetians finally declare war on Austria and wipe out those 3 units.

Invisible stakes pissed me off to the point where I never attack an army that can fortify. I've played 1 battle vs. Venetians where I literally played it 4 times to map out all the invisible stakes. It took like 2 hours.

WHEN are they going to fix the light infantry bugs? It's gotta be like the easiest frickin' thing to fix yet it managed to slip past 3 major patches and all its hotfixes? Crazy.

PLUS:
Why did they change 1st rate cannon range back to 400?? 1.2 fixed it by changing to 500 like the rest of the ships but now its back to 400 again??? Why would you "unfix" something you already fixed??? LOL

[FactionHeir]

AI seems to also get massive amounts of cash in 1.3. France can field 3 full stacks with just 4 American and 1 European holding (Saxony, producing 1.1k in taxes) without breaking a sweat.
And before you ask, no, they are at war with just about everyone and have 0 trading partners (and no European port either)

In 1.2, it would be bankrupt by now.

[Durallan]

Ironically however those full 3 stacks are most of the time entirely in europe and all if not most of their american holdings have little to NO troops guarding them!

[Slaists]

AI seems to also get massive amounts of cash in 1.3. France can field 3 full stacks with just 4 American and 1 European holding (Saxony, producing 1.1k in taxes) without breaking a sweat.
And before you ask, no, they are at war with just about everyone and have 0 trading partners (and no European port either)

In 1.2, it would be bankrupt by now.

I can second that. At least on VH AI now seems to have HUGE cash injections. Playing as French I was blockading ALL British ports in Europe (zero trade for them), but they still could afford 6 full stacks (many featuring colonial line infantry + artillery) running around North America. They even could afford to replenish those stacks after they were depleted from fighting...

Bottom line: post 1.03, economically, it does not make any sense blockading the AI on VH. You should still blockade though, for it stops the AI from building ships and raiding YOUR trade...

[al Roumi]

WHEN are they going to fix the light infantry bugs? It's gotta be like the easiest frickin' thing to fix yet it managed to slip past 3 major patches and all its hotfixes? Crazy.

Don't get me started, what about behaviour of units on fort walls or in cover behind the "garden" walls? That's still broke.