May 9th gameplay and DX11 patch feedback thread

**frogbeastegg** · 05-10-2011, 14:37

Discuss away.

Lots of gameplay changes. Most of them look quite promising although there are a few I don't feel I understand, particularly "Removed passive ‘encourage friendly morale’ bonus from General’s units". Does that mean the blue circle doesn't give a boost now? Or did the general used to give a minor boost to units nearby but outside the circle as per the old days?

Those of you with posh DX11 super computers, this is your chance to show off how amazing the game now looks to those of us stuck with DX9

**TheLastDays** · 05-10-2011, 15:45

I'm guessing it meanst that the blue circle doesn't give moral anymore all the time (thus passive), only when "Inspire" is on

**Dead Guy** · 05-11-2011, 15:17

Inspire only affects a single unit as far as i know. Rally is a different story though.

The most positive thing I've noticed: Sieges! Assaulting a castle with a good garrisson is no longer a walk in the park. Archers reposition to return fire, though the AI is kind of bad at responding to attacks from the side he's decided to ignore. Still lost a fair amount of men taking a fully manned castle yesterday, even with archer superiority. I was also unable to destroy a tower with mangonels, which I don't know if I like really... Should one need to bring two just to take down a single tower? An improvment overall, in any case.

(note: I even Inspired the Mangonels to better hit the tower, only got it to 60% damage)

**frogbeastegg** · 05-11-2011, 16:52

I have found that steam is finally awarding achievements it has owed me from my earliest days of play. I was awarded the one for using a balanced army with at least 1 unit of each type, so I tried some custom battles. I managed to get the one for having my entire army hidden for 30 seconds, and the one for having nothing but hero units as well.

Maybe now the game will admit that I've won 25 battles, and all those others I earned and didn't receive. Good thing I was never bothered about collecting them or I'd have gone crazy

**Barkhorn1x** · 05-11-2011, 17:45

I have a DX11 card and I love the patch! Battles are so smooooth and everything looks so nice.

**Nelson** · 05-11-2011, 21:10

Originally Posted by Barkhorn1x

I have a DX11 card and I love the patch! Battles are so smooooth and everything looks so nice.

Ditto. I invested in hardware and now the dividends have arrived.

Fires are especially vibrant.

SP improvements: check
MP improvements: check
DX11 support: check

Kudos to CA for promises kept.

**Nelson** · 05-16-2011, 23:31

I wonder if the OS is a big factor here. DX11 has been fine for me with a GTX460 and Win7. Is anyone with Win7 having problems?

**Forward Observer** · 05-17-2011, 03:17

Originally Posted by Nelson

I wonder if the OS is a big factor here. DX11 has been fine for me with a GTX460 and Win7. Is anyone with Win7 having problems?

I think you may be correct in this assumption. One of the posts at the official forums indicated that they had tried the game on both Vista and Win 7 and only encountered the issue with Vista. However another poster who had Win 7 reported the issue, but then they had an ATI card instead of NVidia.

I bought my gaming rig in March of 09 from Cyberpower in anticipation of Empire. Unfortunately, it was just a month or two before all the retailers started selling their PC's with free upgrades to Win 7. I guess I should go ahead and take the plunge to upgrade, but after this long with the same OS, I have to really force myself to step out of my comfort zone.

Come to think of it, just about every upgrade in systems or GPU's I have made over the years has been in anticipation of the next TW game.

Cheers

**Forward Observer** · 05-20-2011, 19:01

Just thought I would post that I went ahead and upgraded my OS to Windows 7. I just finished about an hour ago and the problem with Shogun2 crashing at exit seems to have gone away. In addition--an issue that I had with Empire not starting after my previous GPU upgrade has also been fixed.

I had put off going Win 7 until now, and just like i mentioned, I was really prompted to do so because of a TW game. I think this officially makes me Creative Assembly's b*tch now.

Cheers

**econ21** · 05-21-2011, 10:52

Originally Posted by Forward Observer

...like i mentioned, I was really prompted to do so because of a TW game.

Hah, yes, I think that's the ultimate test of one's love - or is it desire? - for a game - would you upgrade your rig for it? For me in the past, it was RTW and Morrowind. (They may not have been the ultimate games, but boy were they beautiful in their day.) A new computer has greatly enhanced my view of ETW (literally and metaphorically).