Hope(s) for the SP Patch

[mfberg]

I found threads for MP patch, and Mod Patch, but I would like to see things for a SP and Campaign patch.

1. Better control or choice of control of generals/reinforcements (I want to control my 1900 man army in a battle, not just the 80 man unit that was attacked).

2. Better end turn reporting of rebels/brigands/neutral armies. (I want to know that there is a rebel army in my province.)

3. More interesting Senate missions. (I have only seen blockade or take an area, never destroy this generals army or build roads from A to Z or sail around the world)

4. More interesting bribery (i.e. 1 of their generals and their 2 closest units to him are yours, but only after the battle starts).

mfberg

[Servius]

5. cued units and strucutres will NO LONGER drain population and money. It makes no sense and the cue is just a build plan, but no work is taking place yet, nor have any citizens been called up for the 2nd unit in the cue.

6. Forts and Watchtowers can be built right next to non-faction units on the Strat map.

7. Sanitation buildings not only increase happiness and pop growth rate, but also reduce Squallor.

[Akka]

My biggest wishes for the patch :

- Make the cities less prone to revolt, so we don't have to use "exterminate" in a systematical manner.

- Make so the AI does not have rules advantages at medium difficulty, only at higher.

- Stop the suicide general pandemia.

- Greatly speed up how romans throw their pilum before the charge.

- An option to remove the timer.

- NO MORE AI-CONTROLLED REINFORCEMENT ! I want to control my own units !

- Diplomacy more realistic (no more the same suicidal attacks and systematical refusal of ceasefire than in MTW, please !).

- INCREASE THE COST OF BRIBING ! It should be more costly to bribe a unit than to build it, not the opposite...

And last but not least :

- FIX THE FRIENDLY FIRE, so archers only fire where they won't slaughter your own men.

[Sethik]

5. cued units and strucutres will NO LONGER drain population and money. It makes no sense and the cue is just a build plan, but no work is taking place yet, nor have any citizens been called up for the 2nd unit in the cue.

I think this is an improvement from MTW. In MTW I'd que up a bunch of buildings, but then not have anything built for 10-15 years because I don't have enough money. I think this is too prevent the same problem.

[Colovion]

- Be able to move armies onto spaces with Diplomats/Spies and have them become part of the army (because you can merge Diplomats into armies but you can't merge armies into diplomats)

[Lord Ovaat]

I think this is an improvement from MTW. In MTW I'd que up a bunch of buildings, but then not have anything built for 10-15 years because I don't have enough money. I think this is too prevent the same problem.

Seems like. However, I seldom que anything ahead of time unless there's an "urgent" problem that needs correcting and I'm afraid I'll forget about it. Paying in advance does have some advantages, though. I help control troublesome provinces that are getting ready to reach the next level--they always seem to get testy about then--by queing-up some peasants until I reach the happy 100% level. That actually will keep the folks at home happy until you can get them some necessary improvements. Once the happy stuff is built, just un-que the peasants and you get your money back, but in the meantime, no revolt.

Also, to comment on the friendly fire snafu in this game, someone said in another thread that it's better than MTW. No way. You could still zap your own people in MTW if you weren't careful with placement, particularly crossbows, which have a more level tragectory than bows. But you should still be able to shoot bows over the heads of your front line, as long as the enemy isn't right in front. But IF the enemy is right in front, then your archers shouldn't fire. They wouldn't in MTW, why now? It is soooooooo bad, that I have long since taken to restricting my infantry to sword attack only, 'cause they are also very careless with their pila. And when the melee actually starts, I double-quick my archers to the rear. They will continue to slaughter your own people, even with fire at will off, unless you get them out of there. I also keep them off of skirmish unless I can get them FAR in front of my infantry, else they'll immediately fall back into the safety of the ranks and IMMEDIATLY START TO SLAUGHTER THEM! The problem with placing them way out in front is the possible presence of enemy cav. Though, sacrificing some of those idiots to cav feels good after they've depleted a legionaire unit for no good reason. Still, about 25 to 30% of my casualties are due to friendly fire. That is absurd. You just don't carelessly injure friendly troops.

One other point about archers. Why has CA given them bonuses for fighting in woods? Have any of you ever tried to fly an arrow in woods? It ain't easy. Arrows have a high tragectory because of their relatively low speed and heavy missle weight. Trees, on the other hand, have low branches. After almost forty years hunting with bows, I can honestly say that trees and arrows are NOT compatible. I would like to see that bonus go the way of the War Dogs. (I hope.) Though, it is fun to chase down rebels with a doggy gift from the Senate.

[Midnight]

I'd like to see some balance changes:

1) Fix the bizarre Egyptian units - units receiving the bonuses of shields they don't have, units receiving the bonuses of bigger shields than they possess, and those ridiculous heavily-armoured shirtless axemen.

2) Make Carthage the power it was! Make it so it can actually threaten Rome's existence (not just be an obvious target for the Scipiones, but actually able to inflict noticeable damage on the Romans).

[Tamur]

"Cry haddock and let slip the cats of war!" hehe Midnight.

I had a few suggestions on a thread at some point, have lost the thread along with my marbles. All boring diplomacy stuff, very reserved and stuffy suggestions at that.

Err... move along, nothing to see here.

[jeffreyLebowski]

5. cued units and strucutres will NO LONGER drain population and money. It makes no sense and the cue is just a build plan, but no work is taking place yet, nor have any citizens been called up for the 2nd unit in the cue.

i hope they either make this an option, or don't do it at all. this is one of my favorite things about the new interface. i couldn't stand all the damn COULD NOT START TRAINING BECAUSE OF INSUFFICIENT BLAH BLAH BLAH you used to see in MTW.

[Sam Adams]

1) GET RID OF THE SHORT RANGE FRIENDLY FIRE

2) make pilum(thrown while advancing) and phalanxs work.

and in game explanation of which temples do what would be nice but isnt critical.

commanding all your own troops on the battlefield is pretty important.

[Red Harvest]

My additions:

--Make phalanx formations more usable, be able to weld them into long lines, have better ability to hold formation, get rid of undersize phalanx units (80 man on "large" default is too small)

--slow the kill rate and rout rates down

--slow movement down, cut by 1/3rd or even 1/2

--reduce accuracy/killing power of high end archer/slinger units, they are too common and too effective

--fix the shield ratings of many cav with small shields that are getting +4 when they should have +2. Several light cav have this including auxilia and numidians.

--take away shield rating on whatever Egyptian infantry unit it was that lacked a shield but got the bonus.

--make chariot movement realistic (slow to turn), not fast except over open ground, terrible in the woods, or around boulders.

--terrain should have more of an impact on units such as spears and archery than what I presently see, it could be the maps, but terrain rarely plays a part in my battles other than height advantage

--elephants still pack a lot more whollop than they should, units are probably too large, and hitpoints still too high (making them difficult to kill with ranged attack, ironically.) Either that or the purchase and upkeep should be much, much higher.

--spears should be more effective vs. cav, or cav should be less successful in charging them frontally.

--onagers...my one experience against them suggests their lethality is ludicrously high

--make friendly fire make sense, units should not willingly fire into friendlies in "fire at will" mode. It should be possible for the human to disable fire at will and order them to fire into a zone containing friendlies, but not in fire at will.

--the suicide daimyo must go!

--more weather in the southern half of the map, there is almost none until you get in the northern half.

--rain/snow are not visually impressive in the map (MTW/STW did it better.)

--Explain squalor! Public health buildings should actually reduce it to some extent

--Have usable full army control commands like "advance" and "engage." Right now we must micromanage battles

--ambushes should be more frequent (I still have yet to see one, and I'm playing as Germania at the moment; I did "bust up" one accidentally)

--Have the computer show pathing on the strategic map BEFORE the move commences. This is to avoid those insane walk around the volcano/city/Earth moves that force a save reload as you foam at the mouth and spit curses at the screen

--Improve the AI ability to build proper generals up, and make sure they are actually marching about WITH AN ARMY

--Have the AI send more full armies commanded by generals rather than piece meal attacks

--fix pathing on the siege maps

--fix the black hole in the plaza

--get rid of the bridge drowning bugs (some drowning makes sense when routing)

--have the AI fight from the plaza rather than standing there being annihilated by ranged units

--have AI attackers stay out of the range of wall towers as much as possible when defending vs. a sally

--get rid of order delays, doesn't fit with the super high speed of the game

--make group commands work consistently and properly

--rank effects should be more pronounced

--Game speed toggle buttons should be larger (fill up their whole square, not just the symbol) and SHOULD RESPOND INSTANTLY when in higher speed modes.


Special naval supplement:

--blockades should require a number of boats dependent on the size of the port (you can't blockade major ports with single boats...) I think blockading is too easy.

--AI should be more aggressive about blockades on attack and defense

--AI should not build so many boats, particularly in the Red Sea when unopposed. It is a waste of money for boats the AI rarely uses effectively.

--transporting armies should require a number of boats somehow related to the army size.

--Naval autoresolve difficulty should be set separately from other difficulties.

--Admiral stars would be nice...fleets don't make sense at the moment

--Boats should be more likely to sink.

--Storms should sink boats/fleets periodically (I've never seen this in RTW in the Med, haven't built boats elsewhere yet)

--AI should stop attacking fleets just for the heck of it to start self destructive wars (MTW anyone?)

[Red Harvest]

Forgot to add to naval section:

Attacking a boat or boat(s) in port should be very tough on the attacker. The assumption being that the harbor defenses/defenders will heavily discourage such an attack.

[Osbot]

One other point about archers. Why has CA given them bonuses for fighting in woods? Have any of you ever tried to fly an arrow in woods? It ain't easy. Arrows have a high tragectory because of their relatively low speed and heavy missle weight. Trees, on the other hand, have low branches. After almost forty years hunting with bows, I can honestly say that trees and arrows are NOT compatible. I would like to see that bonus go the way of the War Dogs. (I hope.) Though, it is fun to chase down rebels with a doggy gift from the Senate.

Havent you ever seen Robin Hood? ;p

[bmolsson]

I heard there is a patch in the works. Anyone else seen anything ??

[Colovion]

Forgot to add to naval section:

Attacking a boat or boat(s) in port should be very tough on the attacker. The assumption being that the harbor defenses/defenders will heavily discourage such an attack.

Also - are they supposed to be able to build ships once they are blockaded? Sure I understand blockading trade routes isn't the same thing - but when you have 20 Ships sitting right outside of the enemy port wouldn't it be in your best interest to stop them from churning out boats?

[Medieval Assassin]

Yup, I dev confermed patch 1.02.

[LordKhaine]

I don't think it's a matter of if there's a patch, it's a matter of when the patch will be.

[bmolsson]

I don't think it's a matter of if there's a patch, it's a matter of when the patch will be.

Makes sense, so has anyone heard WHEN we might expect a SP patch...

[Lonewarrior]

Boy i wonder after the release of the game with so many bugs why they even bothered realising it. The should have finish it first before giving it to manufactoring.

[Red Harvest]

Also - are they supposed to be able to build ships once they are blockaded? Sure I understand blockading trade routes isn't the same thing - but when you have 20 Ships sitting right outside of the enemy port wouldn't it be in your best interest to stop them from churning out boats?

I'm not sure that you could stop them from building boats with a blockade. Why couldn't you build new boats on the shore and slip them into the harbor? The blockade would keep boats for entering or exiting (and thereby reduce money available to build boats.) You control the water around the port, but not the water in the port, or the land around the port.

Another thing I meant to add:

--Consider capping fleet sizes based on the number of ports and upgrade level. (If you were above the cap after losing a port you might either lose the lowest end boats or pay some extra money for upkeep, or have the fleets start to deplete to a sustainable level, etc.) This could help the AI control its fleet sizes and to make the naval portion of the game more meaningful.

[Colovion]

I agree Red Harvest - you need more Ports/upgraded ports to maintain larger fleets.

[fenir]

My Little wish list. NOTE: I play on very hard/very hard so only going off this.

1. Leave FF on. It adds to realism, and makes you think about how to use, and where to place your units. Or a "FF on"; "FF off" at the game options screen.
But it also needs the friendly units to be aware of hitting your own units. Because at the moment your own units can get wiped out by a silly missile unit.

2. Atleast half the trait V and V for a named member to 10 or 12 with offices to list after that. And I think it needs to be looked at, as bad traits seem to have the advantage, or be more prevalant.
I think to many named members get bad traits for nothing, and few get good traits. MTW i feel had a good balance, mainly because you actually had to do something silly to get a bad trait, or you had it given as a base trait at coming of age.
I do however miss not having a good steward, or great steward etc... or good builder.
Please also fix triats that are not giving the full information and full benefit of the trait, example good commander is not showing up. with the benefit for one.

3. The suicide daimyo must go! Same problem as the unpatched MTW generals. Also in this would be the ability to control you own armies on the battle field.

4. Fix the Egyptians. Too many problems to list.

5. I feel that the movement rates between the infantry, and cavalry units is somehow unbalanced.

6. Julli not having family members in their 4th generation. Children should be more prevelant in the 30 to 40 years for a male member, i feel they need to have alteast 1 child.

7.The Elephants need to be fixed also, espeically for the egyptians.

8. I feel the cities are too prone to unrest. Sqaulor having a lot to do with this. Perhaps also bringing loyalty back for tribunes and named members, and this having an effect on the province to which they are assigned?

9. why take out the save battle button at the start of the battle screen. The Missus hates it when my 2 hour battle must be played out when she thinks it's bed time. Or when the boss wants me to do something and i am playing in my lunch hour .......1/2 hour. ok 10 mins

10. Make the province not just the city feel the effects of a friendly army on it's territory.

11. really do need assigned titles as MTW. As when you have named members running around the map, you really need them to have a province. and the effects of the named member must be felt in the province. As was the case in real life.
Title could go same place like MTW, as this made things nice and easy, and a de-assign button to change titles in one turn. eg: take tile from 1 add to another, ok end turn.
Titles Dux, Comes........et cetera...
This also would be good if the Office titles from the senate where at the top of the page for a character, and can we get a character page like in MTW, as the scroll down is annoying and tedious.

12. with this comes the idea of using Tribune for non named members that we can use to assign titles to provinces. This allows the ability also for the AI to attack us while not depleting their named members for their cities.
The ideal I feel would be allowing us to raise a tribune to the status of a family tribune, that a province can be assigned to.
In essence allowing them to act like a named member, but with out the family tree. And then allowing them to die out, as flavis Pokeus, and be name Gauis Jobus like in MTW. They would be able to say have a 2 or 4 man retinue and have 6 to 8 triats. And maybe limiting their army to say only 4 to 6 units.
Also just had a tought, maybe also link them to a named member as a lose legion group.
Maybe allowing the title also for producing assigned titles to legion command.
Assign title "enter" legion ....type "I Africanus" or Legion IX to a named member? With 1 or two tribune Legio assigns.
So named members will have Title assigned province, Title assigned Legio.
And allow 1 or 2 tribunes to have a 4-6 unit stack under there control in a particular area.
Therefore allowing the named members to still be your main leaders etc.. but adding to the overall immerison.

13. Units need to be faster at firing there pila/pilum, and when they don't have any, don't wait to find out when the ai waits for 5 secs to find non existant pila.

14. something needs to be done about the ai starting naval attacks for fun. or building so many boats for nothing. This was also a problem in MTW, where attacks were not in the AI's interest but they happened anyway.
But overall, the naval aspects need to be reworked.

15. There needs to be more true to history units for some factions. EG: Romans made great use of slingers before the Marius reforms. They had archers, but alot more slingers. Gauls also had slingers. And the units names, eg: for the Hellenes/Greeks there are alot more units than are currently in game.
Cathago, for instant is the main pain in the Roman side for years, yet they are very weak in game. They should be a power house.
Corduba was not founded until ~164BC by the Romans after taking the Iberian provinces. I think the town you need to be looking at there is Cadiz. Can't remember the name it was called though.
Things like Caledonia, where the non celtic Picts lived before the Scotii Celtics turned up. Remember they are the ones that painted their bodies and faces in a blueish dye.

16. Need to make the idea of peace between warring parties more attractive to the AI. Or the idea of becoming a protectorate a better idea than being wiped out. Espeically when faced with military might and one or two provinces.

17. when conducting a seige, can we please have ladders??? As they don't show up when you have built them, only the ram and siege tower are present when you go into battle.

18. Auxlia Spearman are almost useless against enemy cavalry, these need to be revamped, along with many of the spear/polearmed troops.

19. Please atleast make the AI units guarding the central flag attack or defend rather than sit their and be wiped out by a group of missle troops.

20. please include the trade etc... stats on the same page as the city stats, its annoying that you have to go to another page to access it, when there is so much space on the first page.

anyway thats all i can think of at present, I have had some complain about the financial screen but it doesn't really both me at the moment.

fenir

[Samurai Waki]

Boy i wonder after the release of the game with so many bugs why they even bothered realising it. The should have finish it first before giving it to manufactoring.

I don't think CA had a choice, Activision gave them a deadline to have the game ready, and whether or not everything was completed they had to release it. If you've ever played LOMAC(Lock-On Modern Air Combat) you know exactly what I mean, because Ubisoft forced that company to release the game almost 6 months too early and the game was almost unplayable for a year because of all the patches that were needed.

[Colovion]

I don't think CA had a choice, Activision gave them a deadline to have the game ready, and whether or not everything was completed they had to release it. If you've ever played LOMAC(Lock-On Modern Air Combat) you know exactly what I mean, because Ubisoft forced that company to release the game almost 6 months too early and the game was almost unplayable for a year because of all the patches that were needed.

The strange thing about this argument is that Activision gave CA an extra year to develope the hell out of RTW because they knew it was going to be huge. So perhaps they put in a load of new features that wouldn't have been in there but weren't able to test them?

[fenir]

post stuffed up

[Mikemyers64]

id like to see unit micro management on the strat map, i.e. getting a list of say 80 men and seeing their expierence and being able to put them into a group with more expierenced group there by making a better unit. also testudo needs to be more effective against missle, faster move rate, faster time into getting into testudo and less fatigue from it. i would also like to see the use of individual archers firing when the command 'fire at will' is givin rather than a volly of arrows. also only train urban cohorts in rome, and be able to make first legions but not to the extent where this can be an entire army of them.

[Khan of ED]

Sam Adams said:

And in game explanation of which temples do what would be nice but isnt critical.

You can do that before you build any temples you go into the tab that show how the building will evolve and see bonus that gives the final stage of every temple and for all stages in between.

Fenir said:

5. I feel that the movement rates between the infantry, and cavalry units is somehow unbalanced.

Me to hopes that but plz don't solve that by making cav. quicker slow down the ruing speed of inf.

Fenir said:

9. why take out the save battle button at the start of the battle screen. The Missus hates it when my 2 hour battle must be played out when she thinks it's bed time. Or when the boss wants me to do something and i am playing in my lunch hour .......1/2 hour. ok 10 mins

You still can quick save by control+s.

The thing that bothers me is:
that you can see the composition of the enemy army when you attack it or you are attacked by right clicking on army pic or pic of the family member even thou you don't have any spies near. And when you see what the enemy has you can still retreat.

[The_Emperor]

Campaign battle replays that actually show what we want! (yay!)

Squalor unrest is too high. In one of my campaigns I had to exterminate a city that still had room for growth in it... Squalor was rampant even though all of the health and happiness buildings were present and it had an almost full garisson! I was trying to get it up to the "Huge City" upgrade point, yet squalor crippled me when it shouldn't have.

CA Fix the ridiculous Squalor Unrest!!

[GFX707]

9. why take out the save battle button at the start of the battle screen. The Missus hates it when my 2 hour battle must be played out when she thinks it's bed time. Or when the boss wants me to do something and i am playing in my lunch hour .......1/2 hour. ok 10 mins

Press Ctrl-S at the battle screen (or at any time on the campaign map) and it will quicksave.

[Lord Ovaat]

Press Ctrl-S at the battle screen (or at any time on the campaign map) and it will quicksave.

Ooops. I thought everyone knew that, but obviously not. I used to auto-calc a lot in MTW if I had good gens, just to eliaviate some of the tedium of the little or huge battles. I've found with RTW that I CAN NOT AFFORD to auto-calc anything! It's horrendous. Auto-calc seemed so bad, that I performed some experiments by saving at the initial battle screen, auto-calculating, reloading, then fighting the battle. Lordy! Now, I can't possibly be the world's best tactician, but there is no comparison. An honest average for me with auto-calc, even with good gens, leaves me heavily damaged, sometimes losing, sometimes drawing. By fighting them out, I've only lost one major battle in my first four campaigns, even when outnumbered 2-3 to 1. I guess I wouldn't mind fighting them all so much, but it seems you must also fight two or three rebel groups in each turn. Bull! They couldn't breed that fast, nor get recruits of bad guys. I have found that if I can destroy the rebels to the last man, they usually don't come back for a while, but if you leave even ONE, he's immediately out hustling up more thieves.