Rome 2 Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such (patch 17 live!)

[CaptainCrunch]

"Negative bonuses now apply from level 2 in a small form so you can see what those are earlier"... anyone care to elaborate on this one a bit?

Haven't been able to play in quite some time, but some of these changes, to the politics in particular, have me seriously intrigued! Won't get to try it out for another month, so I hope it all works out well. Maybe there's hope for this game yet

In the meantime, Slaists I'll be looking out for your detailed reports

[Myth]

Well the new rebalanced starting regions are great. Pella, Macedon's capital starts with a military wharf, holosideros barracks and a travellers lodge. This will make Macedonian early game much more enjoyable

[Slaists]

"Negative bonuses now apply from level 2 in a small form so you can see what those are earlier"... anyone care to elaborate on this one a bit?

Haven't been able to play in quite some time, but some of these changes, to the politics in particular, have me seriously intrigued! Won't get to try it out for another month, so I hope it all works out well. Maybe there's hope for this game yet

In the meantime, Slaists I'll be looking out for your detailed reports

As to that "negative bonuses start to apply from level 2". Prior to patch 15, level 2 city centers gave no food/unhappiness malus. They gave -4 food malus at level 3 (unless they were food towns); don't remember what was the unhappiness malus.

Now cities give -1 food malus at level 2 already. However, at level 3, they give the old -4 food malus. This applies, of course, unless local resources change that picture (olive producing regions, for example, have no food malus, they give extra food). It seems, unhappiness malus has been completely removed from towns/cities.

In total though, the food malus from city center development has been reduced by -2. Previously, a fully upgraded city center cost -10 in food; now, level IV city costs -8 in food.

So:

-1 food at level II. (previously 0 food effect; 0 unhappiness)
- 4 food at level III. (previously -4 food effect & some unhappiness)
- 8 food at level IV. (previously -8 food effect & -10 unhappiness)

[BroskiDerpman]

Be tested patch 15 beta 100% vanilla and to me it seems nice. :)

[Slaists]

done. patch 15, vanilla, legendary Junia campaign:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

p.s. never encountered those fancy troops some folks call legionaries... no civil wars either.

[Hooahguy]

Very nice, military victory?

[Slaists]

yes, military. Was holding out (hoped for a civil war; or relationship souring with Egypt) but Iceni offered MA all of a sudden. Could not resist :)

Here is the diplo map, btw, for those who say diplomacy is impossible on legendary:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Slaists]

The same campaign, continued post victory screen, still no civil war:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Hooahguy]

So here are the new fixes/additions that the patch brings, along with the previous patch notes from the beta.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Additional Changes with the Emperor Edition


The Imperator Augustus Campaign

Set during the 2nd Triumvirate and starting in 42 BC, this campaign covers the same areas as the Grand Campaign but with revisions to what settlements and provinces there are. There are 10 playable factions:


Antony’s Rome
Lepidus’ Rome
Octavian’s Rome
Pompey’s Rome
Iceni
Marcomanni
Dacia
Egypt
Parthia
Armenia have also been made playable in the Grand Campaign.


UI Graphical tweaks – Updating the look of the UI to improve immersion and the feel of the game.
Faction Colour Changes – All factions that were in the Grand Campaign have had their colours and icons updated generally to more naturalistic tones.
Trait Changes – lots of changes to what triggers traits, which ones will trigger and their effects.
Character Ages – Changes have been made that mean in the Grand Campaign characters should tend to live for an extra 20-25 years on average.


Known Issues:
If you continue an old Grand Campaign save, during or after a Civil War, the new Politics screen in the Faction Overview will not display correctly, due to the civil war mechanics changing to allow multiple civil wars. These saves can still be continued, but the Politics screen will not be useful in this case.


Technical and performance improvements:


Campaign
Fix for some end of turn hangs.
Fixed several crashes that could occur during the end turn sequence.
Fixed an issue related to politics that could cause an end turn crash.
Fix for campaign map stuttering when double-clicking on the terrain to move the camera long distances.
Improved the loading times, loading into Campaigns.
Updated diplomacy for when the Roman factions speak to each other.


AI improvements


Battle AI improvements:
Optimisations for Battle AI tactics for attacking walls.
AI controlled elephant units will no longer kill their elephant as soon as it begins to rampage.


Campaign AI improvements
Campaign AI army management and recruitment adjustments.
Improved Campaign AI budgeting for construction.
Improved Campaign AI army management and recruitment.
Campaign AI controlled armies will no longer remain in forced march stance after being sabotaged.
Campaign AI will no longer ignore threats when attempting to reach their last settlement to defend it from imminent capture.
AI controlled armies on the Campaign map are now less likely to stand in forced march nearby players settlements for several turns.
Increased AI research bonus on Hard and Very Hard difficulty levels.

General improvements


General battle improvements
Added Noble Horse Archers, Kartli Axemen, Persian Hoplites, Persian Cavalry and Elite Persian Archers to Armenia's unit roster.
New custom/multiplayer battle map presets added.
Tweaked mercenary unit caps in multiplayer.
Fixed Hoplite Wall exploit.
Removed Camulodunum and Oracle of Amun Ra battle preset maps.
Added in loose formation to all Iberian melee and spear infantry.
Added new pelt helmets to Germanic Officers and Elite units.
Fix for Bithynian infantry holding swords instead of axes.
Fixed bug with siege holdout skill giving negative effect.
Added Mercenary Dacian Spears to Odrysian multiplayer roster.


General Campaign improvements
Fix for Armenian/Eastern tech military building unlocks.
Updated Imperium Effect bundles.
Fix for a Multiplayer Campaign exploit.
Lots of building effect bug fixing, and religious buildings received big adjustments to their effects.
Quartered base political action costs, but quadrupled the increases from Imperium.
Fix for Epona religious chain for Iberians giving the wrong culture type.
Added replenishment rate bonus for Fortify Stance.
Fix for Remuneration Reform technology giving bigger bonuses than Cohort Organisation; their bonuses have been swapped.
The Egypian victory conditions in the Grand Campaign have been updated.
Certain political actions e.g. "Reduce senators" would increasing characters gravitas and thus power / influence. The influence cost of these political actions has been set to 0 to make it clearer what is happening, instead of showing an increase.
Improved Civil War warning message.
The Rosmerta religious chain bonus to public order from the tax edict will now apply correctly.
The "Good Looking" character trait has been given an effect, and the trigger has been restricted to agents.
Improved the portrait lighting for the advisors and Roman, Barbarian, Eastern, Hellenistic generals.
Fix for oracle event outcomes having the wrong target.
Removed movement range bonuses/penalties from season effects.
Adjustments to eastern building unit recruitment.
Added missing faction income bonuses to Getae and Odrysian Kingdom in Grand Campaign.
Fixed multiplayer campaign exploit regarding taxes and public order.
Added in glass resource to Caesar in Gaul campaign.
Added auxiliaries to Chorasmia province.
Removed happiness bonus from Field of Mars.
Swapped generic Mine Chain penalty from food to squalor.
Fix for missing political parties for Caesar in Gaul Campaign.
Fix for Persian Hoplites not being recruitable for Seleucids.
Fix for Nabia Temple increasing recruitment costs instead of decreasing them.
Bactria region will now colour correctly.
Fixed several text bugs.


Usability Improvements


Battle
Updates to battle grass colours.
Fix for some tree graphical issues on battlefields.
Improved battlefield lighting ambiance.
Updated weather environments for Mediterranean climate, dry and rainy conditions on the battlefield.
Briton Levy Freemen now look less like Celts.


Campaign
Various Multiplayer desyncs have been fixed.
Sea colours edited for all campaigns
Updates to the looks of the campaign map trees.
Fix for Seleucids speaking with Roman voices in the Grand Campaign.
Fixed some character names in the Hannibal at the Gates Campaign
Fixed a bug in Multiplayer Campaign Diplomacy, which allowed the player to accept an offer before it had been made, and in some cases caused the game to lock up when doing so.
The Coliseum now has the correct long description.
Fix for Grand Campaign Persia having wrong mini-map colour.
Reduced the strength of the sun during sandstorms in desert, reduced saturation of night-time environments.
Shrank the font size for unit names when displayed in objectives, so they fit better in the available space in the UI.
Fix for missing % in great marksmen faction trait


General
Fix when opening browser for Twitch EULA agreement.
Various UI tweaks.


Balancing Changes


Campaign
Fix for some wives missing effects.
Tweaks to ancillary effects
Tweaks to when corruption will reach max level.
Reduced anti-corruption bonuses from technology.
Reduced cumulative culture GDP bonuses from technology.
Added hull upgrade bonuses to Poseidon temple line.
Increased Macedon and Seleucid faction income bonuses.
Adjusted public order penalties/bonuses from Influence and Imperium to be more in-line with buildings. These happiness effects are now listed as Faction on the happiness tooltip in the settlement details panel.
Adjusted cost of Legionaries, Principes and Legionary Cohort.
Eastern Horse Archers are now recruitable from level 2 Light Stables.
Balkan factions now have Cultural Affinity bonus with each other.
Adjusted happiness penalty from Imperium to one based on presence of foreign cultures.
Reduced experience gain per turn for agents being deployed or in armies.
Adjusted recruitment of Painted Ones, Naked Swords and Naked Warriors to be earlier.
Adjusted the stats for the branches of the Roman city, Eastern city and Eastern generic town chains to give more clear differentiation between the choices.


Battle
Hoplites speed has been adjusted.
Adjusted pike balancing.
Increased melee cavalry attack.
Big adjustments to unit ability assignments - now fewer units have abilities, and their distribution has been edited.
Increased the ammo of Scorpion and Polybolos units.
Reduced reload time of Scorpion units.
Reduced "attacked in rear" morale penalty to -30.
Reduced winning combat significantly morale factor to 20.
Reduced pike attack cool-down timer to 2.1.
Reduced acceleration and turn speed of super heavy (cataphract) mount.
Increased elephant hit points.
Reduced chariot hit points.
Reduced melee defence of pike units.
Reduced morale of most Peltasts units.
Improved attack of Agrianian Axemen.
Increased melee defence of Round Shield Swordsmen.
Increased attack and charge of Falxmen and Thracian Warriors.
Increased attack and charge of Carthaginian Noble Cavalry.
Removed disciplined trait from Illyrian Thureos Spears.
Increased attack and charge of Sword Band.
Reduced melee defence and hit points of Milita Hoplites, Libyan Hoplites and Late Libyan Hoplites.
Increased attack and defence of Hastati.
Changed shield of Cantabrian Cavalry to one with a bigger missile block chance.
Increased morale and hit points for Etruscan Hoplites.
Reduced cost of Noble Spearmen.
AP damage of Kopis increased by 1.
Reduced damage of recurve bows.
Removed melee defence bonus from Fighting Spirit ability.
Removed unbreakable morale from Force Concentration ability.
Removed fatigue freeze from Relentless ability.
Reduced fatigue penalty from Rapid Advance ability.
Duration of the Spirit of the 10th ability reduced by half.
Reduced speed penalties from fatigue.
Fixed armour type for Naked swords unit (set to no armour).
Reduced stats of higher level pikes by -1 attack and -2 melee defence.
Increased melee attack of Chosen Sword Band, Chosen Swordsmen, Sword Followers, Tribal Warriors, Gallo-Thracian Infantry.
Increased melee defence of Fierce Swords.
Reduced melee attack of Axemen and Kartli Axemen.
Increased melee attack of Scale Throax Hoplites.
Increased melee attack and charge of Naked Swords.
Increased melee defence of Ambushers.
Increased melee attack and charge bonus of Painted Ones and reduced melee defence.
Increased armour of Elite Persian Archers.
Increased charge of Kartli Axemen.

Only another 8 hours until I can get home and try this out!

[CaptainCrunch]

For those that never tried the beta, the update came in at 1.2Gb for me.

[easytarget]

Build number:
Mac: 14120.589209
PC: 14116.589209


The changes are:

• Fix for Civil War triggering at under 50% influence for 2 party factions.
• Fix for wrong minimum Political Influence causing a Civil War in a 4 Party Faction.
• The Mac Steam version of the game will no longer crash, when the Macs system language is set to Turkish, Polish, Russian or Czech.
• In-game movies will now play correctly at 1380x768 resolution.
• Added traditions to Egypt faction in the Imperator Augustus Campaign.
• Reduced Campaign AI priority for recruiting dog units.
• Added description to Armenias political party in Grand Campaign mode.
• A few incorrect effect icons have been corrected.
• Fix for shadows not being cast properly by barbarian fort walls on the battle map.

[Sp4]

Build number:
Mac: 14120.589209
PC: 14116.589209


The changes are:

• Fix for Civil War triggering at under 50% influence for 2 party factions.
• Fix for wrong minimum Political Influence causing a Civil War in a 4 Party Faction.
• The Mac Steam version of the game will no longer crash, when the Macs system language is set to Turkish, Polish, Russian or Czech.
• In-game movies will now play correctly at 1380x768 resolution.
• Added traditions to Egypt faction in the Imperator Augustus Campaign.
• Reduced Campaign AI priority for recruiting dog units.
• Added description to Armenias political party in Grand Campaign mode.
• A few incorrect effect icons have been corrected.
• Fix for shadows not being cast properly by barbarian fort walls on the battle map.

They added in game mini video things?

[Hooahguy]

Certain events like generals dying, civil wars starting/ending, and capturing certain cities as certain factions (like the Suebi sacking Rome) have small videos that play when it occurs. Apparently they didnt play correctly at certain resolutions so now that seems fixed.

[Myth]

Certain events like generals dying, civil wars starting/ending, and capturing certain cities as certain factions (like the Suebi sacking Rome) have small videos that play when it occurs. Apparently they didnt play correctly at certain resolutions so now that seems fixed.

I only know of the "Rome falls" and "Rome recaptured" videos. Do the Suebi get a unique one?

[Hooahguy]

Nope.

[Hooahguy]

Patch 16 was released today.

Patch notes:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Technical and performance improvements
Battle
Fixed a rare projectile crash in battles.
Campaign AI improvements
Adjustment to Campaign AI to force factions that have just become known / discovered to take on the current attitude towards the player, rather than be neutral.
General battle improvements
Fixed bug with Celtic Linothorax armour on units in battle.
Fixed misaligned settlement walls in Tigranocerta city battle map.
Stopped infantry user triggering "riders into wedge" voiceover during battles.
Armies moving from a settlement will no longer trigger "move completed" dialogue lines before their move has begun.
Armenia can no longer use large onagers when defending in a custom siege battles.
General Campaign improvements
Fixes for seasonal effects and adjustments to income types and amounts from buildings in the campaign so subsistence is more favoured.
Diplomatic scores have been lowered in general, and It is now harder to make client states.
Usability Improvements
Battle
Factions are now listed in 2 columns in the Custom Battle and Multiplayer *Lobbies, to prevent the faction list going off the bottom of the screen.
Fixed a Roman minor port coastal battle map, where units could disembark on an out-crop of land at the edge of the map, and therefore would get stuck and no longer be able to fight the navies in the battle.
Fix for broken deployment area on port tile near the Dolmens in France.
Campaign
Faction Trait Icons fix - adjust to newer Emperor Edition colour scheme.
Balancing Changes
Unit Stats
Increased armour of Foot Companions.
Increased melee attack of Thracian Slingers, Bowmen, Skirmishers.
Increased charge bonus of Carthaginian Noble Cavalry.
Increased damage of longbows but reduced reload rate.
Increased health of First Cohort and Eagle Cohort.
Removed square from noble Spearmen and Persian Hoplites.
Increased range of Nubian Bowmen to 150.
Increased the health, attack and melee defence of Egyptian Cavalry.
Increased the health of Thureos Spears by 5.
Karian Axemen ranged weapon swapped for the same javelins as used by Thureos Spears.
Increased the attack, armour and health of Mercenary Leopard Warriors.
Increased the morale and armour of Camel Spearmen.
Increased the morale of Camel Archers.
Attack and charge bonus increased for Agrianian Axemen.
Increased the armour of Thessalian Cavalry.
Changed weapon of Hippeus Lancers so they do more damage.
Increased the morale and health of Elite Persian Archers.
Increased the armour, charge and melee defence of Etruscan Hoplites.
Increased the morale of Light Hoplites.
Increased the health of Heroes of Sparta.
Increased the range of Gallic Hunters.
Increased the health of Celtic Skirmishers.
Increased the melee attack, charge bonus and melee defence of Celtiberian Cavalry.
Increased the melee attack and charge bonus of Iberian Noble Cavalry
Cantabrian Cavalry have been given higher damage javelins..
Increased the armour of Veteran Riders.
Increased the hit points of Horse Runners.
Increased the armour of Bloodsworn.
Increased the armour and morale of Spear Wall.
Increased the morale and melee defence of Night Hunters.
Increased the melee attack and melee defence of Fierce Swords.
Increased the range of Dacian Heavy Bowmen.
Increased the health and melee attack of Dacian Heavy Skirmishers.
Increased the armour of Thracian Peltasts.
Increased the morale of Thracian Warriors.
Increased the health of Tribal Warriors and reduced speed.
Increased the morale and melee defence of Illyrian Cavalry.
Increased the morale of Parthian Foot Archers.
Swapped the shield type of Scythian Royal Skirmishers and Sarmatian Horsemen to one with more armour.
Increased armour and health of Sarmatian Royal Lancers.
Reduced the mass of chariots.
Increased the mass of elephants.
Increased the attack of Briton Scout Riders to 38*
Decreased the attack of Hastati to 35
Unit Abilities and Attributes
Added hoplite wall to Persian Hoplites.
Rapid Advance for Gorgo's Skirmishers replaced with Rapid Reload.
Added Frenzied Charge to Mighty Horse.
Added Frenzied Charge to Illyrian Cavalry.
Added Hoplite Wall for Noble Spearmen.
Added Drago to Saka Noble Armoured Lancers.
All camel units have gained the resistant to fatigue attribute.
Unit Costs and Caps
Thureos Hoplites cost decreased to 600.
Illyrian Thureos Spears cost increased to 380.
Iberian Swordsmen cost increased to 350.
Thureos Spears cost increased to 560.
Riders of the Hunt cost decreased to 570.
(Mercenary) Rhodian Slingers cost decrease to 590.
Evocati Cohort cost increased to 890.
Triarii cost decreased to 790.
Steppe Archers cost increased to 330
Nubian Bowmen, Hippeus Lancers, Dacian Heavy Bowmen, Mercenary Thracian *Warriors and Illyrian Cavalry cost increased
Steppe Archers cost increased to 330
Egyptian cavalry increased to 600.
Celtic Warhounds cost reduced by 50
Increased the custom/multiplayer battle cap of Mercenary Axe Warriors to 4.
Unit Availability
Mercenary Thracian Warriors added to custom/multiplayer battle roster for *Macedon and Athens.
Mercenary Samnite Warriors added to custom/multiplayer battle roster for Epirus.
Mercenary Italian Cavalry added to custom/multiplayer battle roster for Syracuse.
Mercenary Cappadocian Cavalry, Mercenary Skirmisher Cavalry and Mercenary *Syrian Archers added to custom/multiplayer roster for Galatia.
Mercenary Germanic Scout Riders added to custom/multiplayer battle roster for Nervii.
Mercenary Veteran Hoplites added to custom/multiplayer battle roster for the Odrysian Kingdom.
Factional mercenaries for Tylis swapped from Dacian to Celtic units.
Mercenary Tarantine Cavalry added to custom/multiplayer roster for Ardiaei.
Mercenary Persian Cavalry added to custom/multiplayer roster for Pontus.
Cappadocian Cavalry added to campaign and battle roster for Pontus.
Mercenary Naked Swords added to custom/multiplayer battle roster for Pontus.
Mercenary Amazonian Riders added to custom/multiplayer battle roster for *Roxolani and Massagetae.
Known Issue
In the Mac Steam version of the game, some changes to the games options during play will not be kept once the game is restarted.

[fallen851]

CA has really made some progress with Rome II, I have to admit.

Has anyone heard if they will be working on naval battles at all, fixing the problems boarding, the strange troop movements, troops jumping off ships, ect...

[Slaists]

I'll be damned, but it seems there is a hidden fix which the patch notes are silent about: it concerns left-click, hold + drag (while holding down CTRL key). Now, all units seem to match speeds while doing so... Great!

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...xed-for-armies

At least they just did in my Galatia battle. Hope this holds in general.

EDIT

This turned out to be a fluke. Galatian infantry walks almost at the same speed as light cavalry that's the reason why I saw the whole army move at the same speed.

Units still walk at their own respective speeds when using left click move commands.

[Hooahguy]

Ok so the Wrath of Sparta DLC has been released, and with it comes a small patch for the base game. I wont bother putting all the changelogs for the new campaign here, just the ones pertinent to the main game.

Link

Changes to ROME II

-Optimisation campaign memory usage by loading less campaign character / general models into campaigns where they are not needed.
-Land units on transport ships will no longer be able to ram in battle; navies will be needed to escort these extremely vulnerable ships at sea.
-Improvements to animations for charging shock cavalry.
-Improved unit bracing in shield wall formation for the units in the rear of the ranks.
-Fixed the white loading screen which appeared when changing graphics settings during a battle.
-Fix for some battle terrain bugs in the Caesar in Gaul Campaign.
-Disabled ramming for barbarian ships.
-Added a fix to the "Continue Campaign" button on the launcher, which in some very rare cases didn't work for a few users with unexpected file path to appdata.
-Added a new Spartan loading screen.
-Improved axe-men animations, to replace "stabbing" animations in synced combat.
-Fixed a flooded area in a Barbarian minor port battle map.

[Slaists]

There is a sneak-change also, pertaining to the politics and influence. The government sizes of factions like Sparta have been boosted in GC. Now Sparta has 300 gerontes instead of 30. This might fix the late-game influence (lack of its increase) issue.

Unfortunately, this change is not save-game compatible. Old campaigns still have the smaller government sizes.

[deigratia]

The game failed to launch after I install patch 16.1 from Steam. Be careful.

[Slaists]

The game failed to launch after I install patch 16.1 from Steam. Be careful.

I had something weird happen when I was trying to launch right after the update. I had to reboot Steam to get everything working. Also, I had to close the launcher via CTRL ALT DEL interface; it was lingering among ghost processes even after I had closed Steam.

Anyway, after the reboot all was fine.

[Barkhorn1x]

I had something weird happen when I was trying to launch right after the update. I had to reboot Steam to get everything working. Also, I had to close the launcher via CTRL ALT DEL interface; it was lingering among ghost processes even after I had closed Steam.

Anyway, after the reboot all was fine.

Steam is horrible when it comes to updating (both Steam itself and specific games). It takes forever and often entails multiple attempts and reboots. Just crap.

[Slaists]

Steam is horrible when it comes to updating (both Steam itself and specific games). It takes forever and often entails multiple attempts and reboots. Just crap.

There is a file in steam folder that sometimes needs to be deleted for the updates to kick in. I forgot the name of it. But when you get the error that says "Steam servers are too busy" or something like it, grab that error tag and google it. The solution that suggests deleting something from the Steam folder works.

[hoom]

Got an 8.8MB patch today, not finding any notes about it anywhere.
Pretty sure this is new since I had done a Steam Cache verification just yesterday & it didn't try to download anything when opening Rome2 after it.

My gameversion is now 2.2.0 build 15558.627558*

[hoom]

Well apparently nobody else got this, no updates at https://steamdb.info/app/214950/history/ or http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Total_War...I:_Patch_Notes
So apparently the next day & while open for the 2nd time after the cache verification it decided to redownload some bit?

[Bramborough]

I didn't see any evidence of a download (which possibly just means I didn't know where on the steam page to look...). Nor did I notice any difference in the game as I continued my current campaign over the past couple of days (again, hardly conclusive).

[hoom]

Another 20.5MB update.
Now 2.2.0 build 15666.640460.

[Hooahguy]

The patch seems to just add three new achievements for Valentines day:

Make War, Not Love
Win at least one battle on 14/02/2015, Valentine’s Day. (any battle type in single player campaign, or multiplayer campaign)

Company of Zeroes, more like…
Win a single battle during MWNL2, between 00:01GMT on 12/02/2015 to 23:59 GMT on 15/02/2015. (any battle type in single player campaign, or multiplayer campaign)

A Relic of the Past
Declare war on a faction in Single player or Multiplayer Campaign during MWNL2, between 00:01GMT on 12/02/2015 to 23:59 GMT on 15/02/2015.

[Crandar]

Very disappointed, I expected something similar with the Halloween update, like the ravens turnt into flying angels and the sky having a pink colour.