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

[Slaists]

Some interesting things I've noticed playing with the 8.1 beta, the CAI seems to be making more post battle adjustments after suffering losses. This was most evident for me in the early game as Epirus on Hard. Initial clashes against Sparta where my levy phalangites and cavalry made the difference, had the Spartans come back with a force composed almost entirely of peiriokoi pikes with some mercenary citizen cavalry. I've literally never seen such a composition in a Spartan army before. When Athens got into the mix, they suffered a catastrophic loss where my cavalry tore their flanks to pieces. They came back with forces led by hippeus heavy lancers with several units of Tarantine merc cav as well.

The AI also seems to be sallying out of non-walled settlements more often to fight in the open ground. CAI allies also seem to come to each others aid faster. Some well played agent actions as well, I've definitely been pleasantly surprised in some regards. Of course it still struggles abysmally in any siege-related affairs, but for the most part I've never noticed this other stuff I mentioned before. Don't know if anyone else has, but I'd be interested to know.

I think, I've seen this before the patch 8.1. I suspect it is not related to AI trying a different composition but rather to the AI rebuilding its destroyed army to the very latest standards (higher tier barracks, etc.). So, you destroy the AI's starting army and they come back with a stronger one since their barracks had an upgrade.

[Sp4]

AI armies recruiting a ton of mercs after a loss is also not really new.

[Slaists]

By the way, guys, what do you see as your current game version? I have beta enabled but I see it as 1.8.0 not 1.8.1... hmm... wondering if the seige patch has made it through for me.

[CaptainCrunch]

It's correct, I saw a post about it on .com and somebody from CA confirmed it.

[Seyavash]

I seem to be having problems with the faction events since patch 8.1 beta. The game seems to be ignoring the choices I make. For example, a slave was kidnapped by a rival faction, I choose to buy her back rather than kill her or do nothing, but the actual result is that she is assassinated. This has happened on at least 2 other events so I know the game is not using the choices I make.

[Bramborough]

I seem to be having problems with the faction events since patch 8.1 beta. The game seems to be ignoring the choices I make. For example, a slave was kidnapped by a rival faction, I choose to buy her back rather than kill her or do nothing, but the actual result is that she is assassinated. This has happened on at least 2 other events so I know the game is not using the choices I make.

I've noticed this a few times as well. Pre-patch 8, too.

[gedingradski]

Just noticed something screwey with archer towers after patch 8...

I'm defending in a siege (Level 1 barb fort) and when the AI comes up to burn my gate (the main gate in the middle), the archer towers either side stopped, first one then the other a minute later. I thought that maybe they introduced ammo for the towers...

So after waiting 10 minutes for them to set fire to the gate in the rain, they succeed and run away to let it burn down - suddenly the archer towers come back to life and start firing again!

All I can think of is the towers prioritise the closest unit to the gate if it is being attacked and maybe didn't have line-of-sight for that unit, so they just did nothing and ignored all the other enemies milling around until that one closest unit stops attacking... but I've never noticed the towers stop firing no matter how close the walls they are...

Anyone else seen this? Didn't Shogun 2 let you set targets for towers? ..or maybe I'm imagining things... anyway, they should!

[Bellicin]

Never thought about the thing with the towers but I'll keep an eye out. Line of sight-issues sounds reasonable, not sure how that works in general.

On a different topic: the longer I get into my campaign (or possibly more with every patch) after a new turn starts the game "freezes" as the Events pop up. The window is marked in gray and I can move the arrow but not open up anything except the chat window (?), and so far I haven't found out a way to get past it. This happens with all sorts of events, for instance characters gaining a trait or cancellation of a trade agreement. I've tried pressing escape, clicking a hundred times on the "OK"-button in the middle of the popup and pretty much facerolled the keyboard to find a way out but nothing seems to work. Does anyone else experience this? Is it a bug or a feature I'm not getting?

Kind regards

[Nelson]

Bellicin, I’m playing Rome and this happens now when I get a triumph. Grey panels and a freeze. I’m able to do a CNTL-S save, reload and then proceed. You do loose the turn events, though.

[Hooahguy]

Patch 9 now in beta!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Technical and performance improvements:
Performance and memory optimisations in Campaign modes.
Further work to reduce the CPU costs during battles.
Improved framerates when units clash in battles.
Siege battle performance optimisations.
Eliminated several rare crashes found in battle scenarios.
Support for AMD switchable graphics:
Game now correctly detects and reports the discrete GPU on an AMD switchable graphics configuration (primarily laptops with an Intel integrated GPU and a discrete AMD mobility GPU).
This fix ensures that the ‘unlimited video memory’ graphics option is enabled correctly on AMD switchable configs.
Note that the Catalyst Control Centre Switchable Graphics UI must be used to select between the discrete and integrated GPUs for each application that the player wants to run.
Support for ‘Virtu MVP’ Desktop Switchable Graphics:
Virtu MVP is a common OEM-installed application for selecting GPUs in a multi-GPU desktop configuration e.g. a desktop with an Intel integrated GPU and a discrete desktop GPU – both typically routed to the same motherboard display output connector.
We now correctly detect and report the correct GPU used in this scenario.
Note that the Virtu MVP Control Panel application must be used to select between the discrete and integrated GPUs for each application that the player wants to run.
New option in the Advanced Graphics Settings menu, for selecting between graphics cards / GPUs when more than 1 is available.
Support for multi-GPUs with multi-monitor configurations:
Game now detects multiple GPUs and allows the player to pick which GPU is used to render the game.
In this configuration multiple GPUs are shown in a combo-box in the Advanced Graphics Options UI.
Improved video-memory detection to prevent the game from sometimes detecting the video memory limit from the wrong/lower graphics card in a multi-GPU configuration.

Battle AI and behavioural improvements:
Improved pathfinding of siege vehicles near walls.
Improved multiple siege ladder functionality parameters.
Improved siege vehicle docking placement.
Units now consistently disembark from ships with raised bows.
Improved AI infantry awareness of cavalry, making infantry brace when threatened by a charge.
AI controlled units are now more likely to use flaming arrows against elephants where available.
Improved logic of multiple battle maps, to allow the AI to interact with these maps better and cause fewer behavioural issues.
Improved AI General's use of special abilities.
Rebalanced AI's battle-plan analyser/attack-or-defend decision making, to take into account that the enemy alliance may have weaker but longer-range missile units, to prevent static behaviour under missile fire.
In ambush battles, the defender’s units which are under missile fire that outranges their own are now more likely to respond by moving to intercept the missile unit attacking them.
Altered some of the AI's usage of various ammo types.
Pike Phalanx now reform properly once engaged in melee.
Idle units attacked when set to Formed Attack attempt to keep their current facing.
Formed attack charges will now penetrate less than free attack barbarian charges.
Attacks from units in formation are now more powerful than attacks from unformed units.
Reduced the chance of units walking while routing from the battlefield.
Routing units no longer turn around/play matched combat animations as they are being killed.
Units now no longer head through breach in a wall rather than using the siege engine they are attached to.
Artillery with special ammo now show the correct model while loading the weapon: e.g. animal carcasses.
Reduced instances of unit collision which caused jittering on the battlefield.
Eliminated a battle replay desync caused by presence of war dogs units.
Units now correctly stop firing at a building if they take ownership of it.
During multiplayer siege battles, the defender can now see the attacker's units during deployment.
Rebalanced hit-point bonuses for officers and standard bearers.
During battles, units can now burn down open gates with torches.
Men positioned on a gatehouse will no longer die when the gate is destroyed.
Artillery ships can now consistently disembark.
Added more effective collision detection to barbarian watch towers in encampment battles.
Charging at Pikemen now consistently selects the correct matched combat animation, keeping pikemen in line more effectively.
When dog handlers unleash their dogs, the handlers will no longer attack as well.
Added blood to chariot horses and drivers, and to attackers and defenders during knockdowns. (Only active if the player owns the Blood and Gore DLC.)
Artillery on ships can no longer be picked up (previously resulted in loss of unit control).
Improved unit reforming on the battlefield.
Projectiles no longer remain in mid-air when the siege weapon that fired them is destroyed.
Improvements to naval disembarking functionality.
Technical improvements across a range of battle maps (including pathfinding, deployment, general unit interaction, walls, gates, battle tooltips etc).
Multiple minor unit behavioural improvements.


Campaign AI improvements:
AI no longer underestimates its strength when ending a move in Forced March stance within a settlement.
Campaign AI now considers maintaining sieges for longer, in order to build more siege equipment.
Campaign AI now less likely to sue for peace shortly after declaring a war.
AI factions now recruit more siege units.
Revised the Campaign AI settlement occupation decision system.
Adjustments to Campaign AI Financial Management.
AI factions are now much less likely to declare war on distant factions.
Adjustments to composition of recruited forces.
Improvement to Campaign AI food management.

General Battle Improvements:
Eliminated an exploit allowing players to bypass unit-caps in custom and multiplayer battles by modifying a saved army setup.
Units can no longer use loose formation when manning siege equipment.
Buhen (Egyptian battle map) is now playable in custom battle mode.
Caltrops are now placed in more uniform rows.
Tortoise formation is now unlocked in the Seleucid faction when the player owns the Greek States DLC.
Improved multiplayer responsiveness: movement paths and attack arrows are now shown instantly upon giving the order. (Previously the game waited for all clients to confirm the issued order, causing a small delay).
Multiple combat animation blending tweaks.
Orders issued on lower framerate machines now register more effectively.
Added a horse bonus upgrade icon to show different levels of horses on their unit cards.
Improvements to group collision sounds during battles.
Pre-battle voiceover no longer occasionally cuts out.
Tweaks to some Hellenic unit looks to make them more distinct.

General Campaign Improvements:
Added a countdown timer to the Exchange Panel in Multiplayer Campaign mode.
Settlements on the campaign map will no longer continue to emit smoke from damage or construction when they are no longer damaged/under construction.
Right-clicking the mouse during the end-turn cycle in campaign while an agent/army is selected will no longer trigger audio responses from the selected agent/army.
Opening and closing the pause menu, while the Declare War On *Overlord/Make Peace With Satrapies panel is open in Campaign mode, will no longer close the panel and make peace with the satrapies.
An army in Forced March stance will now have their Recruit Units button reactivate immediately when they are put back into the Default stance.
Replacing an immortal general will no longer trigger a General Wounded message in Campaign modes.
The Zoom To Location button no longer pans the camera to the bottom-left corner of the Multiplayer Campaign map when pressed with an army selected.
The Nervii faction is now immune to snow attrition in the Grand Campaign.
If a general reaches level 25 in a statistic, all of the attribute increases and abilities granted by that statistic will consistently remain.
Addressed a rare issue during campaign ambush battles where, if the user conceded defeat, they might suffer no losses and could then retreat.
When recruiting a unit on the same turn as a researched technology that replaces that unit type is completed, the unit recruitment will no longer be cancelled.
Fix to allow Praetorians to be upgraded to Praetorian Guards once the appropriate technology has been researched.

Battle rebalancing:
Improved behaviour and benefits of Formed Attack ability.
Slightly reduced the spacing of melee units.
Widened the pike cone-of-engagement, so they can hold off units more effectively.
Reduced pike damage.
Reduced the mass (and therefore impact) of chariots and elephants.
Major adjustments to unit costs, to better reflect the combat value of units; there is a much greater spread of values now. For example Oathsworn now cost 1340, Celtic Warriors 350.
Adjustments to unit speeds, stats, and more to help diversify the unit rosters, and give more distinct roles on the battlefield.
Improved AI army compositions in campaign mode, when a faction doesn’t have access to early land or navy units.
Campaign AI is now more focused on acquiring early military technologies.
Certain total casualty morale penalties have been set to 0 so there is less stacking of morale effects.
Reduced minimum hit chance, base hit chance and maximum hit chance for melee combat.

Campaign rebalancing:
Auto-resolver balancing:
Smaller defensive bonus in minor settlement battles
A small global penalty for the player in autoresolved battles
Unit threshold has been increased, so severely damaged units are less likely to survive an auto-resolved battle.

[Myth]

Looks good! Nothing awe inspiring but steady work such as this will polish Rome II and I'm all up for that! I like the change to unit costs. Maybe now it will make sense to stick with tier 1 and 2 units for reasons other than roleplaying and handicapping oneself.

[CaptainCrunch]

"During battles, units can now burn down open gates with torches."

Looks like things have now become desperate. I get the feeling that R2/Warscape will never live this particular weakness down.

[Seyavash]

AI factions are now much less likely to declare war on distant factions.

Good, maybe this will reduce some of the ridiculous hate for Carthage. It just boggles the mind that factions on the other side of the mediterranean or even landlocked factions immediately declare war as soon as contact is made especially on an empire known for trade.

[CaptainCrunch]

Well, after a night of playtesting 9beta I can say that my battles have now become plagued with units becoming non-responsive after initiating flanking maneuvers. I have to continuously babysit any units I've sent to attack the flanks of the enemy forcing me to repeatedly pause the battle. Common example; I give orders to attack the flanks of an engaged enemy, my unit closes at first, but then soon after contact they stop attacking. They just stand there looking at the enemy 2 feet away. I click to attack again, sometimes they respond, sometimes they don't. I double-click and they then shuffle around a bit reorganizing and attack. Spear units in particular can stop attacking yet again even after these measures.

Another example, I attack an enemy in the flank and they turn around to a man (ie not just the rear of the formation, but everyone) to fight off the attack. Meanwhile my unit that was already engaged with them just stops attacking them altogether and watches, so I have to issue attack orders again. Now this enemy unit is getting attacked from the rear with no one fighting back, which would be bad enough, but somehow their loss rate doesn't reflect it (as if they're not actually being attacked from behind). This has happened even after they get attacked by heavy shock cav while pinned against pike units. Many men get knocked down, then after they all turn around to deal with the cav while my pike unit previously holding them in place just stops attacking. Probably the reason the attacked enemy unit can turn around in the first place, it's like status between the 2 previously engaged units switches to disengaged when one gets hit in the rear.

Yet another example, attacking engaged enemy spear units on both flanks. My flanking units either stop attacking altogether, or they never close enough to actually make contact with weapons, even after repeated attack-clicking. The problem here is that you often can't tell that this is happening while you're trying to watch the entire battlefield cuz the units look like they're engaged from the distance. I first noticed it when units I had flanked seemed to have remarkable morale, holding out long after what I've become accustomed to seeing. After close inspection to see what the hell was going on I noticed the problem, then afterwards I found instances of it happening in every battle that I attack the enemy in the flanks, so now I check for it as SOP.

Has anyone else experienced this? Don't see anything in the patch notes that would indicate they changed any behavior for units getting attacked in the flanks, but from what I've seen so far the 'bug' (I hope) only affects units attacking enemies in the rear/sides. I'll take some screens next time.

[CaptainCrunch]

So here's another example of the problem, but under different circumstances. This happened during a test in a custom battle. In the first screen (a composite to show unit info), a unit of triarii was engaged with my unit of pikemen on the far left, just like the other 4 units are also engaged with pikes right on down the short battle line. It so happened that as I moved a unit of coastal levies around to flank them they were attacked by the Roman general's cav right off to the left. The triarii then proceeded to disengage from my pikemen and turn around to assist their general (indicated in yellow).

Not only did they manage to turn their backs on my pikes without losing a single man, but my pikemen never even attempted to attack them from behind, even after repeated attack orders. The yellow curve indicates where the triarii were redeployed, and the red engagement arrow from my pikes is still clearly visible even after they're long gone (after that they ran off to chase my shock cav back in the distance). As you can see they still have 154 men, which was the same amount they had when they disengaged from my pikes.

I then tried to attack the cav with no luck. It wasn't until I moved them a bit that I could finally get them to attack the general. The problem seems to have something to do with how units are interacting with the back of other units, even after already being engaged with them from the front.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This next one is a new bit of comedy I noticed as well, in the same test. A unit of triarii decided to chase off some peltasts come Hell or high water, so I decided to have some fun and let them go for a run. The distance in the screen is the closest they would get, but every few seconds one of my axemen would decide to turn around and commit suicide, like the fool under the arrow. My unit was full strength at the start of the chase, but as you can see they already lost 8 men from this behavior. Remember, no contact was ever made between the 2 units, but even my unit's status indicates that they've been "attacked in the rear." Incidentally, even though the triarii never got closer than in the screen, every time they stuttered to kill someone that turned around, they caught right back up to my peltasts. Triarii can run down Agrianian axemen?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Fridge]

Haven't noticed this myself (but I'll keep an eye out for it...), but could it be something to do with the patch changes to formation attack? Could you test it with formation attack switched on/off?

I suppose you could look at it one of two ways; either it's another example of one of CA's changes breaking more than it fixes, or, if you're being generous, this is what beta patches are for... ;)

[Hooahguy]

New hotfix:


Multiplayer battle-replay desync addressed.
Issues with trees in battle-maps addressed.
Additional cost-balancing to Chariots and Elephants.
Units no longer mistake bastions for wall breaches in settlement battles.
Further battle map technical and performance improvements.

[Slaists]

My heart almost skipped a beat upon reading this, LOL. then I realized that I had misread it and that the hotfix has addressed multiplayer battle replay desync rather than multiplayer campaign desync... Sigh...

New hotfix:


Multiplayer battle-replay desync addressed.
Issues with trees in battle-maps addressed.
Additional cost-balancing to Chariots and Elephants.
Units no longer mistake bastions for wall breaches in settlement battles.
Further battle map technical and performance improvements.

[CaptainCrunch]

Haven't noticed this myself (but I'll keep an eye out for it...), but could it be something to do with the patch changes to formation attack? Could you test it with formation attack switched on/off? ...

I'll keep testing and trying different combinations, but it's often difficult to test the way you want cuz the AI behaves so inconsistently at times and ruins the tests. I'm of the same mind as you in regards to the possible cause being the changes to formation attack, and possibly just their continuous work with trying to keep units in formation during battle. Maybe this has come as an unintended consequence of trying to keep everyone pleased with all the complaints of units losing formation. I'm finding the behavior so rampant now that I'm getting paranoid as to whether any of my units are actually fighting to their fullest capability. With spear units, even when they seem to be attacking each other I frequently see only a couple of men actually fighting while the great portion of the unit just stands perfectly still (yes, I'm talking about men simply standing right in front of their enemy as well at the point of contact, not just the back of the unit).

Here are 2 more examples, with new variables; In the first screen, a unit of Parthian cataphracts charged into my battle line and fell into a unit of thorax pikemen. The yellow bracketed line indicating where the pikemen were deployed at the time. The cataphracts attacked in wedge and were bunched up to the left of the center of the screen. Shortly after, I sent a unit of thorax swords, that were positioned behind the phalanx to the right, to attack a unit of Parthian swords descending to attack a unit of cav off to the right (yellow arrow on the right).

When this happened the cataphracts that were engaged with my pikemen began to slide along the battle line to the right to attack my thorax swords. As this happened my pikemen just stopped attacking them (even though the cataphract unit card says "attacked in flank") . Every time I clicked attack thereafter the entire unit would shuffle a few steps to the left, without actually attacking (yellow arrow indicating). Like a carriage return on a typewriter, they just kept shuffling to the left until they just opened a huge door in the battle line. The red attacking arrow still clearly visible.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This next screen is a closeup of what was happening on the right flank in the first screen. I had sent 2 units of cav into the rear of a unit of Parthian swords and noble blood cavalry that were engaged with my pikes there. They eventually routed, but in the meantime a unit of Parthian swords had attacked one of those cav units which I mentioned in the first screen, and I in turn sent a unit of thorax swords to attack their flank (red arrows indicating). That scrum has 2 units of my thorax pikes and 2 units of my cav in it that are now sitting and doing nothing even though each one had been given attack orders. They made no effort to chase off the routing units, the red attack arrow still clearly seen going off in the distance for the unit of cav (I moved 1 unit of cav out for better visibility). The cav unit left behind has been getting attacked in its flank and not reacting to it (card indicating), except for 1 or 2 horsemen on the edge facing the Parthians. In the meantime, my unit of swords that was supposed to be attacking the Parthians from the left would never make contact, no matter how many times I gave an attack order. They just sat nearby until they started mixing it up with the cataphracts from the first screen.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I can't be the only one experiencing this, I think everybody should observe their battles carefully, cuz this bug is huge as far as I'm concerned and needs to be addressed before Patch 9 goes live. I saw some mention on the official forum from people issuing attack orders to cavalry and then having them stop right before contact. This too has happened to me.

Videos would be a lot easier for demonstration purposes, but Fraps doesn't play nice with R2 on my machine.

[Mhantra]

I commonly see odd AI behavior described above since the beta patch.

Many times it seems that a couple enemy troops stray from their formation, and it holds your entire formation away from engaging. Furthermore, then they and your other units start to slide around in very odd ways. I am having to micromanage them a lot more.

[Sp4]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I can't be the only one experiencing this, I think everybody should observe their battles carefully, cuz this bug is huge as far as I'm concerned and needs to be addressed before Patch 9 goes live. I saw some mention on the official forum from people issuing attack orders to cavalry and then having them stop right before contact. This too has happened to me.

Videos would be a lot easier for demonstration purposes, but Fraps doesn't play nice with R2 on my machine.

I'll have a look at it later. I have not played with the new patch yet. Didn't have a lot of time but I should be able to tonight.

[CaptainCrunch]

I commonly see odd AI behavior described above since the beta patch.

Many times it seems that a couple enemy troops stray from their formation, and it holds your entire formation away from engaging. Furthermore, then they and your other units start to slide around in very odd ways. I am having to micromanage them a lot more.

Can definitely confirm this as well.

Another problem that happens often once the battlefield is littered with units is that a significant portion of a unit (sometimes more than half) charging to attack, especially cavalry, just stops in place completely leaving the charge bonus severely diminished. And it's very difficult to tell why they've stopped, it's not as if they get attacked by another unit while they're charging. Might have something to do with the problem Mhantra mentioned.

All in all, I'm finding combat with this new patch pretty frustrating.

[Hooahguy]

Patch 9 went live today, just a heads up.

[Buzghush]

Patch 9 is just great, especially for MP players. You can't spam ele&chariot or elite inf etc. All units' recruitment cost increased and that makes you think twice when you building an army.

[Myth]

Patch 9 has greatly improved the game for me. Battles are much faster now (performance wise). The campaign AI is now more challenging. A test game as Rome revealed that one can no lonegr afford not to finish off the Etruscan league (letting them huddle on Corsica). They WILL take Rome if left to their own devices. Carthage is sending stacks into Magna Graecia and retreating back out to sea, where their warships will cover their transports. The Venetii came down with almost 2 full stacks to raid and generally be a pain in my butt. Looks great so far!

[Slaists]

LOL, looks promising. I should give Rome another try over this weekend.

[Slaists]

OK, jumped into it ;)

An undocumented change (seemingly): when you ambush an army in the forced march stance, now, your reinforcements do join the battle (was not true before patch 8: an ambush was a 1 on 1 fight). Not sure about the standard ambush situation: whether armies in range join or not.

[easytarget]

I'm finding agents are quite aggressive in the CIG campaign I'm playing, and frankly pretty freaking dangerous. I've flipped a good half dozen early in this campaign at the front and still some got through, isolated one of my two main stacks and then shuffled in units that were so far off map I never saw them and proceeded to decimate one well made and seasoned armies.

And this was with me using bunches of spies on recon to avoid this very scenario, yet to no avail.

While I can handle this agent spam thing that CA has going, I do not however consider it well balanced. Agents should have some impact on campaigns but not be the decisive factor in it, they are a component of war, not the thing itself.

When in the early course of a campaign I have no less than a dozen spies when my imperium should allow me only four proves the absurdity of this onslaught. In my main campaign as Greece I have like 40 or 50 agents, it's really rather comical.

[easytarget]

I should add though that I do find the most recent patches have vastly improved the game, and quite frankly made it a lot harder, all to the good.

So we're talking game balancing now. The main items still a bit broken that I hope they still look at are sieges and the politics module which I still feel needs a complete overhaul.

But still, I'm having some pretty good times in both the main campaign and CIG, in fact in many ways, I like CIG better than the main campaign, it's so nice to have weather back and as much as I hate agent spam, it is nice having them live long enough to flesh out their skills completely and put them to use (and same for generals).

[Alcibiade]

Yes patch 9 is a good one but is it just me or the zombie faces have returned ? In the distance all my legionnaries have this blank face and I haven't seen that since before the first patch.