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

[Myth]

So now I'm ashamed that I spent what appears to be 500 euro on a stripper but I'm still stingy and have not gotten CIG...

[Sp4]

I thought you had to buy that and all.

[Slaists]

It seems, diplomatic reliability checks have been improved. Yesterday, I canceled a war that I had started because the target had become a client state of an ally of mine. Before patch 9, this would have resulted in a reliability hit. Now: no change in reliability.

Tech trees have been rebalanced. Rome, for example, no longer has a tech that gives +50% to ammo (or I might be missing something, LOL). Others (players of different factions) report similar techs having been move higher up the tech tree.

[Alcibiade]

Hey, new content from steam ! The african elephants are here and camel arcchers and stuff fror the epirote roster. A gift from CA !

[Makrell]

Hey, new content from steam ! The african elephants are here and camel arcchers and stuff fror the epirote roster. A gift from CA !

Patches are not gifts :D

That said it seems quite nice. Havent updated since october, maybe i should.

[Slaists]

Hmm, sparing the elephant part, it seems they just cut and pasted some extra units from Macedon's roster :)

[easytarget]

Tech trees have been rebalanced. Rome, for example, no longer has a tech that gives +50% to ammo (or I might be missing something, LOL). Others (players of different factions) report similar techs having been move higher up the tech tree.

Yep, I noticed that tech for extra ammo go missing in my current CIG campaign as Rome, I was looking for it after my last tech research had finished and spent awhile looking for it before giving up in a bit of confusion thinking maybe I just imagined it.

[Alcibiade]

Patches are not gifts :D

That said it seems quite nice. Havent updated since october, maybe i should.

Well, I forgot to add the ironic accent. For the glory of those cute elephant ears I can't play my favorite mod for a while.

Stupid Dumbo patch.

[Myth]

I thought you had to buy that and all.

Yeah but they priced it as much as a standalone game

Here is the info from the official thread:



If you’re wondering why there’s a small ROME II update downloading via Steam today, wonder no more. We thought it was high time for some additional content!

We now have a beautifully-designed African elephant model, which you can see here in all its large-eared majesty. This model replaces the generic elephant model in ROME II currently used by all African Elephant units.

We’ve also rounded out the unit-roster of Epirus with some tasty extras. They can now recruit Thessalian Cavalry, Royal Peltasts and Illyrian Coastal Levies to bolster their forces. Plus, you’ll find Epirus gets a brand-new Mercenary Indian War Elephant unit to hire.

You’ll see these in action when you face off against Epirus, or be able to use them yourself if you have the Greek States Culture Pack DLC.

Enjoy the update, and see you on the field of battle!

[Slaists]

Diplomatic lose-lose situations are still in the game post patch 9.

Example:

Turn 1: Steadfast Rome joins its ally Sparta in the latter's war against Epirus. Rome takes Apollonia. Rome's allies Syracuse and Sparta are happy campers.

Turn 2: Epirus sues for peace with Sparta and becomes a client state of the latter. Rome observes that its ongoing war with Epirus will erode Rome's relationship with Sparta. Rome offers Epirus a peace deal. Epirus accepts. Rome is still steadfast.

Turn 3: Epirus declares war on its new-found master: Sparta. Rome is offered two choices: A) join the ally, Sparta in its defensive war; B) break the alliance. Rome chooses A and goes from "steadfast" to "untrustworthy" globally (for breaking the truce with Epirus despite the latter being the aggressor). The effect of this reliability drop is that allies Sparta and Syracuse break their trade agreements with Rome even though "on the paper" they both are happy (very green and friendly)...

That's just .... if you ask me. This makes any diplomatic efforts in R-2 totally un-enjoyable since it is a given constant that allies will declare war on allies (or factions that have treaties with you).

This "mechanism" was also present in release versions of Empire Total War and Shogun 2 but was fixed with later patches so that siding with one of the allies did not affect diplomatic reliability.

[Sp4]

Yeah but they priced it as much as a standalone game

Here is the info from the official thread:



If you’re wondering why there’s a small ROME II update downloading via Steam today, wonder no more. We thought it was high time for some additional content!

We now have a beautifully-designed African elephant model, which you can see here in all its large-eared majesty. This model replaces the generic elephant model in ROME II currently used by all African Elephant units.

We’ve also rounded out the unit-roster of Epirus with some tasty extras. They can now recruit Thessalian Cavalry, Royal Peltasts and Illyrian Coastal Levies to bolster their forces. Plus, you’ll find Epirus gets a brand-new Mercenary Indian War Elephant unit to hire.

You’ll see these in action when you face off against Epirus, or be able to use them yourself if you have the Greek States Culture Pack DLC.

Enjoy the update, and see you on the field of battle!

High time for additional content... yes. I think they meant it was high time to finish working on the game they released half a year ago.

[Myth]

Way to be positive about it Seriously though, Epirus needed some love. As does Sparta. But the Spartan update will come when the 300 sequel comes out, I'm sure of it.

[Slaists]

Played some more with 9.1, a VH Roman campaign started fresh. Interesting observations regarding AI expansion: I finally see larger AI states forming.

This is pleasant for the eye (the map is less colorful) but has an (un?)-expected consequence though.

Before patch 9.1., my Roman legions would face 6 to 7 foaming-mouth AI mini-factions in and around Northern Italy (South and North of the mountains). Each of those would field up to 4 armies for a whooping 28 army total. Now, with patch 9.1, when I arrived in Northern Italy, Liguria had consolidated it all (all of Gallia Cisalpina + 4 regions on the Northern side of the Alps). So, instead of 28 armies I had to face only 4... :) I suppose, Liguria could have trained up to 6 armies at that point, but had not caught up yet. Still, even with 6 armies, the difference is huge relative to the 28 armies I'd have to face in earlier versions of the game.

[Slaists]

It would seem, with patch 9.1, pikes are spaced closer together again ;)

[CaptainCrunch]

Diplomatic lose-lose situations are still in the game post patch 9...

Yeah, they need to get that sorted already. Not to mention introducing greater overall diplomatic influence for powerful factions. Isn't it about time we were able to command our subjugated territories to stop their wars against our allies?! If I'm asked to join a defensive war by an allied state, then decide that the best way to support my allies without compromising my empire's efforts elsewhere is to simply go and put down the hostile faction and quickly subjugate it, shouldn't I now have near total control over their diplomacy? Especially a satrap? At least immediately after subjugation and for a period of years after while hostility towards me (the conqueror) either subsides or rises to the level of belligerence or revolt.

These are essentially my territories now, I let them continue their existence with the condition that my empire is in now in control. Instead I suffer dip penalties with my allies now because I made a treaty with the enemy, then get asked by my allies again to join their war against my new satrap. - Or how about the fact that you let a faction live then you have to be extra nice to them for years just to get a trade agreement out of them for a few coins? They need to fix that mess... make it nice!

[nearchos]

Not to mention introducing greater overall diplomatic influence for powerful factions. Isn't it about time we were able to command our subjugated territories to stop their wars against our allies?! If I'm asked to join a defensive war by an allied state, then decide that the best way to support my allies without compromising my empire's efforts elsewhere is to simply go and put down the hostile faction and quickly subjugate it, shouldn't I now have near total control over their diplomacy? Especially a satrap? At least immediately after subjugation and for a period of years after while hostility towards me (the conqueror) either subsides or rises to the level of belligerence or revolt.

These are essentially my territories now, I let them continue their existence with the condition that my empire is in now in control. Instead I suffer dip penalties with my allies now because I made a treaty with the enemy, then get asked by my allies again to join their war against my new satrap. - Or how about the fact that you let a faction live then you have to be extra nice to them for years just to get a trade agreement out of them for a few coins? They need to fix that mess... make it nice!

Yes, this is very anoying with the satrapies, since they are practicaly litle more than a province of your faction, they shouldnt have options to deny their overlord a trade agreement, which is something that since the game release hasnt been fixed yet.
In my current campaign and for more than 30 turns my satrapy Rome, with attitude very friendly doesnt want to trade no mater what.

[nearchos]

It would seem, with patch 9.1, pikes are spaced closer together again ;)

Also i think that they now fall in grater numbers from missile fire.

[nearchos]

I feel a little idiot to ask, but has anyone ever managed to use arti in a defensive siege battle?
Every time im defending a walled city with balistae or scorpion towers ive never actualy seen them in battle, does anyone now how ths works??

[Slaists]

I feel a little idiot to ask, but has anyone ever managed to use arti in a defensive siege battle?
Every time im defending a walled city with balistae or scorpion towers ive never actualy seen them in battle, does anyone now how ths works??

@nearchos, you have to deploy those before the battle. The deployables appear on a separate tab similar to fleets in combined land+navy battles. However, I have to warn you, the deployable wall artillery is pretty useless. There is only 1 artillery piece per unit and the firing arch is very narrow.

Also i think that they now fall in grater numbers from missile fire.

It appears the missile damage has been raised across the board and armor piercing damage as well. Probably, it is now back to where it was upon RTW 2 release. Alas, historically the period was dominated by machine-gunner slinger hordes ;)

Dunno, where did the CA got the idea missiles had to be boosted again. I had not seen anyone complaining about weak missiles before patch 9, LOL...

[CaptainCrunch]

... Dunno, where did the CA got the idea missiles had to be boosted again. I had not seen anyone complaining about weak missiles before patch 9, LOL...

Let me venture a guess that it was people in multiplayer crying about not being able to deal with pike spam.

[nearchos]

Let me venture a guess that it was people in multiplayer crying about not being able to deal with pike spam.

If thats the case then they shouldnt, unless they flank it or hit it from behind, thats the use of the pike phalanx, to present an imbreagnable wall.

[nearchos]

@nearchos, you have to deploy those before the battle. The deployables appear on a separate tab similar to fleets in combined land+navy battles. However, I have to warn you, the deployable wall artillery is pretty useless. There is only 1 artillery piece per unit and the firing arch is very narrow.

Thanks for the advise.



[/QUOTE]It appears the missile damage has been raised across the board and armor piercing damage as well. Probably, it is now back to where it was upon RTW 2 release. Alas, historically the period was dominated by machine-gunner slinger hordes ;)

Dunno, where did the CA got the idea missiles had to be boosted again. I had not seen anyone complaining about weak missiles before patch 9, LOL...[/QUOTE]
Well, the one day i was taking casualties during the battles from missile fire, slingers mostly as the AI continues to employ them in great numbers, the next day, the pike phalanxes were anihilated in a matter of minutes.

[Alcibiade]

Thanks for the advise.

It appears the missile damage has been raised across the board and armor piercing damage as well. Probably, it is now back to where it was upon RTW 2 release. Alas, historically the period was dominated by machine-gunner slinger hordes ;)

Dunno, where did the CA got the idea missiles had to be boosted again. I had not seen anyone complaining about weak missiles before patch 9, LOL...

[/QUOTE[/QUOTE]]

Yes those OP missile are troublesome. And the deadly-slinger trend too. Now that the efficiency of slingers has been discovered you've got a whole bunch of slingers fanatics who preach on the official forum. My legionnary cohort have found their nemesis : a bunch of farmers with slings. Thx for the historicity.

I'm going back in my cryogenic cabin until patch 20.

[Grin]

I really don't understand all the complaints about slingers.

I tend to play barbarian factions and even tier 2 units in shield wall/screen can stand under slinger fire until doomsday with minimal causalities. Some of the high end mercs are more dangerous but I can put 3 Celtic Warriors on the field for the same price.

Now javelins... those'll do some damage.

[nearchos]

Also, there was a post some days ago, about the non responsivenes of units in orders during battle, during weakend i notised that also, that units are given order to attack and they just standing there.
In one of the ocasions, a unit of hoplites have engaged an other hoplite, i order a ubit of pikes to move just behind the enemy and engage and the pikes are just standing without doing anything.
And also they must fix ASAP the problem with the units in phalanx formation, that breaking the formation to attack.
This destroys the game for a player of hellenic factions.
If you have armies with phalanxes of hoplites or pikes as a core, whats the use if when are ordered to engage they break the phalanx formation and if ordered to formation again they stop engaging.
I think this must be a priority for CA.

[The Outsider]

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...ublic-beta-now
Hi all,

Patch 10 is now available for public beta by opting in through your Steam client.

You can find full patch notes here:
http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Total_War...I:_Patch_Notes

Patch 10 brings additional AMD Crossfire support, improvements to CPU bottlenecks and a series of battle and general gameplay improvements.

Please consider un-installing all Mods (until confirmed compatible from the mod creator) before playing and you may wish to start a new campaign to see the full effect of all balance changes. It may not just be sufficient to disable mods in some cases, and you may have to completely uninstall them if you're having crash issues.

Patch 10 is Build 10069.512334 - you can opt into it by selecting the Patch 10 Beta option in your Steam client (look under the betas tab).

1) In the Steam Games Library, right-click “Total War: ROME II” and select “Properties”.
2) In the properties window, select the “BETAS” tab.
3) In the “Select the beta you would like to opt into:” drop-down box, select “patch10beta”.

If you experience any issues - PLEASE do not post in this thread but take them over to the Support Forums where you may be properly assisted!

Thank you!

== '''Performance improvements''' ==

'''General performance improvements:'''

* Additional Support for AMD Crossfire multi-GPU configs.
* Further improvements to GPU performance and reduction in CPU-bottlenecks for all configs.
* Improved core Battle performance scenarios.
* Resolved CPU core-affinity threading issue.
* Implemented borderless window when running at desktop resolution in Windowed mode.
* There is no longer an upper limit on the graphics settings that a user can select in the frontend. Previously if the game determined that a user’s machine was low-end then it would not allow them to select high graphics settings. This limitation is now gone. Note that selecting high graphics settings on low-end machines will negatively affect performance.
* Improved consistency of reflections on shiny textures.

'''‘Unlimited Video Memory’ option improvements:'''

* Unlimited Video Memory is now selectable for all integrated GPUs running on 64-bit operating systems from Windows Vista onward. Integrated GPUs use system memory as video memory at all times, as they have no dedicated video memory of their own. This code change now allows our integrated GPU customers to use all of their system memory as video memory. When Unlimited Video Memory is enabled, discrete GPUs use system memory as an extension of their dedicated GPU video memory, when their dedicated video memory is not enough to run at their chosen graphics quality settings. Please be advised that in both cases, using system memory as GPU video memory can impact performance as it is generally not as fast as dedicated GPU video memory. Also, if system memory runs low (or out), the user’s hard drive will be paged, resulting in reduced framerates.
* For users running on an integrated GPU in 64-bit Windows (Vista onwards), with Unlimited Video Memory available but not selected, we have increased the amount of video memory that the game sees from 800MB to 1024MB.
* Fixed an issue causing Unlimited Video Memory to be unavailable for users with certain discrete video cards.
* Fixed an issue that was causing Unlimited Video Memory to become disabled on some multi-GPU configurations.

'''Battle performance improvements:'''

* Eliminated battle pathfinding performance spike which caused battles to stutter.
* Addressed a crash in siege battles which occurred on some maps after breaching walls with artillery.
* Addressed a crash in Egyptian Large City battle caused by the map data.
* Addressed a crash caused by squads within the same unit attempting to use different formations.
* Fixed a UI lock-up when opening the steam overlay during the introduction sequence at the start of an ambush battle (while defending).


=='''Gameplay Improvements''' ==

'''Battle AI improvements:'''

* Fixed an issue which could cause the attacking siege AI to stall when attempting to breach the walls with artillery.
* Improved coordination of AI defenders in city, port and town battles when they are outside the settlement. This improves the behaviour of disembarked naval units and reinforcement armies.
* Addressed an issue which caused disembarked naval AI defenders in siege battles to become inactive.
* Improved the battle AI's ability to predict the outcome of combat actions, allowing it to better commit its troops in combat.
* Battle AI in field battles is now encouraged to outflank earlier when necessary.


'''General battle improvements:'''

* Improved ladder docking in Rome city map.
* Addressed collision gaps in fort walls caused by auxiliary buildings, which sometimes allowed units to pass through walls.
* Prevented siege ladders/towers being pushed into the wall of a settlement on the battlefield.
* Settlement gates no longer close on friendly units during battles.
* Smoothed uneven terrain under a dockable wall in Egyptian port battle map.
* Fixed wall in large Barbarian city map.
* Fixed floating buildings in some Roman City and Barbarian battle maps.

'''General Campaign improvements:'''

* Improvements made to the campaign auto-resolver's modelling of melee-based infantry, which corrects a wide range of auto-resolver imbalances.
* In campaign mode, garrisoned Hastati will now upgrade correctly after researching the 'Cohort Organization' technology, which converts Hastati to Legionaries.
* Slave army leaders will no longer always look Hellenic in Campaign mode.
* Unit cards no longer appear outside of the merge window UI while merging units in campaign modes.
* Settlement labels in Campaign modes now consistently display the diplomatic relationship status that is currently held with the owning faction. Red = War, Blue = Allied With, Grey = neutral.
* Improvements made to the accuracy of the unit tooltip threat indicator in the battle UI.
* Cinematic Mode shortcut key now works consistently in different languages.

'''Usability Improvements'''
* Addressed a number of minor audio issues.
* Battlefield death animations no longer with the victim in a kneeling pose.
* Category icon no longer incorrectly appears on elephant units once the unit is out of control.

[easytarget]

Sigh, I see nothing about toning down the AI agent spam.

[Slaists]

Sigh, I see nothing about toning down the AI agent spam.

To be honest, I spam them too ;) Always at max+ agents. The "+" comes from me converting the AI's agents.

[The Outsider]

Well unfortunately there is nothing substantial in this "patch". No siege ai fix, no path finding, no campaign improvements no nothing. And supposedly they have been working on it for quite a while now. This only means one thing :more dlc is coming soon. That has been the drill since release, minor patch that's mostly useless, some free eye candy that was already made pre release and soon after dlc. I am seriously getting tired of this charade. No way I am buying the next total War title before I see some proper community reviews. Enough is enough.

[CaptainCrunch]

Wow, this patch is pretty light considering the length of time it took them to get it into beta. Although I notice a few positives in terms of fixes, I'm actually pretty disappointed that there was no gameplay overhaul to the politics or something. They recently hinted that they were 'working on something that would keep us playing for a long time' (paraphrasing), in the last Rally Point I think, and that they were considering making some changes to the politics system 'in the future' in a recent interview posted somewhere (I know, my fact finding is forensics level ).

After CA (Trish) stated that 'they ran into some problems with the update and that's why the long delay', the rumor-mill started with speculation that the update may in fact include a gameplay overhaul of some sort. I never pay attention to crap like that, but considering the time it took and the aforementioned scraps from CA, I'm actually pretty let down that nothing of the sort happened. How will I ever get over this travesty? Disappointment is such an unfamiliar feeling with this game