Doing ourselves a disservice

[Fisherking]

I know that I have come to conclusions much too soon with too much in this game. After one or two goes I thought that there were a lot of things wrong that I later found seemed to work very well indeed.

The forum is full of threads about this is wrong, that is broken, such and such is bugged to the point that someone not owning the game would get the idea that it is totally unplayable. Which is definitely not the case?

Now I find no problem with complaining, I have even done my shear of it. But what I would note is that this game has a bit more depth and perhaps a higher learning curve than would be apparent on the surface.

I am thankful there fore that the patch has not come out among all the hysterics we have thus far been whipping up.

I know that in the past CA has made changes not because something was broken but because they thought that everyone else did. I think we are reaching that point with this game, and while there are a few things that are a bit bugged I am almost afraid of the unbroken things that will be changed.

I know that I have been seriously disappointed in patches that changed mechanics in the past.

I agree that there are historical inaccuracies in the game, but then I have never seen a game or even a book for that matter that was 100% accurate. If that is a problem then they should lower bribery to ridiculously low amounts and have units changing sides even once battle is joined… I can hear those screams now…

I must admit that I am afraid of too much heavy handed rebalancing of play when no amount of it is going to please everyone and most of us will only be able to suffer in silence (because once changed they will never change it back) at what has been done to a very good game.

And if you say I am whining, then yes I am, but I remember the changes I so hated in RTW because some one whined louder than I did.

CA! are you listening?

[Reapz]

I agree wholeheartedly. There is a balance between CA responding to good feedback and being trigger happy and responding to every issue raised in the forms with a tweak. I do believe the feedback in the forums can make for a better game - some of it. I bet the Dev's have a hysteria filter

If you are unhappy with the game stop for a minute and take a look at the forest not the trees. Are there other strategy games, set in this game era, remotely close to this one (other than other TW series)? EU II (III out next month!) - maybe better campaign strategy but if you have issues with unit animation and battles - forgedaboudit - there are none in that game to speak of. Knights of Honor - fun but hardly historically accurate and has cartoon graphics. AoE III - same. etc., etc.

CA are breaking new ground with this series of games. They take pains to create historically appropriate game elements and they deserve recognition of that. If you didn't know anything about Medieval History or warfare and you play M2, or M1, you may actually learn a few things. They also support the community in various ways, read the forums, issue patches, support game modification. They're not perfect, the game's not perfect, but it is definitely playable. When I think of all the junk games I wasted money on over the years I still think this was $50 well spent.

[Cranky Hobbit]

Good lord man, please read the bugs thread before you make complaints like this. Most of the posts in there are not just frivolous complaints, they are about serious bugs that seriously affect gameplay suh as: the passive AI bug, the siege slowdown bug, defective units(billmen), and so on. This game has serious flaws and a patch is badly needed.

[Handel]

I don't think you can call "tweaks" the bugged merchants, the bugged 2-handed weapons, the bugged cannon towers, the bugged passive AI, the begged charge... Actually every respect of the game has serious bugs.
Tweaks are I like/don't like inquisitors/spies/longbows... no one will care for those for now. But the bugged things are pleasure killing.

[Kadagar_AV]

actualy, IMHO we are doing ourselves a "disservice" by not just claiming the game is broken and asking for money back (that way the companies would start actualy releasing playable games).

What irritates me is when they let OBVIOUS game-breaking bugs still reach the release version.

Like, you'd think the bug-testers at least tried this before giving thumbs up for release:

"Is the AI moving in battles: Yes/No"

I mean, c'mon... I REFUSE to believe such a bug went unnoticed... The gaming industrie needs to shape up IMHO, I'm sooo damn tired of buying to be a beta-tester.

[Carl]

Random Point. The Cav Charge was intended and the AI and Billman bugs seem to be the result of littrially last minute changes.

Thus they would have made the game no matter how much testing was done. Take those away and tell me how many big bugs their are...

Not many.

On top of that, since the Caverly thing was intended it IS NOT A BUG. Weather it's balanced is a tottaly seperate issue here.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Carl, there are hundreds of bugs in the game. Just check the bug thread and then add another couple hundred that as yet haven't been noticed or reported.

Granted many are minor but a lot are not. I don't know how you came to the conclusion not many!

As for the cavalry not being a bug! We'll see if CA fix it on a patch. If not then your right, its not a bug.

[Kadagar_AV]

Random Point. The Cav Charge was intended and the AI and Billman bugs seem to be the result of littrially last minute changes.

Thus they would have made the game no matter how much testing was done. Take those away and tell me how many big bugs their are...

Not many.

Not many huh?

When the AI has a spy inside a settlement that opens the gates for them, they don't use rams to break down the gates but they also don't make use of them being open.

The game can get stuck in a loop, apparently when both the faction leader and heir are killed in the same battle. Further investigation indicates that this occurs when they are taken prisoner, but the ransom is refused.

Aztec cities sometimes have egyptian architecture !

Some key mapping doesn't work correctly (specifically that to do with binding keys to different speeds).

Sometimes textboxes fail to display correctly during battles, so that only a few letters are readable.

Once a unit has begun to climb a ladder, it can no longer be targeted by cavalry (even though most of the unit is still on the ground.

If new units are added to a jihad (or a crusade?) and it takes the settlement within the next few turns, the game does not count those units (and thus the entire stack) as a jihad army and the mission is failed.

The AI doesn't understand that being in spear wall formation prevents units from hiding, and will operate as if those units were hidden when to the player they are not.

In many cases, ballista towers shoot cannon balls, and cannon towers shoot ballista bolts.

There is an exploit wherein you can move all garrisons with generals in them as part of a crusade on the last turn before its completion and thus get the experience bonus despite not having moved anywhere.

If any of the Timur elephant units lose men in a battle, the game will crash when you try to fight them in the next battle (presumably because the unit won't work without its full compliment of men).

The AI won't sally out of forts.

The AI often doesn't do sea landings, causing a lot of trouble for factions such as the British and the Scots. It also means that they are unable to capture island territories.

Armourer buildings are not giving the correct bonuses (please see post #42 in the new Org buglist for a full explanation, but basically they all add +1 armour despite the different armour levels actually giving far more than that.

Reinforcement units sometimes get 'stuck', half on, half off the map. This mostly occurs with generals bodyguard units and may be to do with the king/heir having a larger unit size than the game allows for with theautodeployment.

Pathfinding for routing/withdrawing units in siege battles is horrible, with men that are literally ten metres from the border of the map running past the defences to withdraw on the other side.

Natural Disasters sometimes prevent you from building forts and watchtowers in the affected province.

Cavalry don't seem to get the experience bonus when trained at castles with jousting/training grounds during initial training (they need to be retrained to get the bonus.

You/the AI are still counted as a faction's ally even if that faction has been destroyed (ie the game is not erasing the ally information for that faction), causing significant problems with attempting to secure future alliances.

Pathfinding in mountain terrain is horrible.

You can often see the hit animation play out for units with only one hitpoint and yet not see them die.

Diplomats/Princesses lose all trait points in their diplomatic ability trait if they fail a negotiation instead of just getting a trait decrease by 1.

Agents and armies can move on top of each other and thus displace the other character that was on that coordinate, preventing characters such as merchants from earning an income and moving your characters away from their intended targets.

The 'wary of rebels' trait's description reads 'no effect'.

When you've ordered a spy to move into a city (over multiple turns) and that city is besieged, the spy can still move in and bypass the siege restriction during your automated movement phase at the end of your turn.

Captured captains show up as a member of the unit of which they were a part on the ransom screen.

Generals bodygurads without a leader show up for ransom (as an aside to this point, it'd be nice to have an option to 'ransom nobility' to keep the price down).

The 'annex settlement' mission doesn't seem to work correctly.

Generals can get traits about wives when they're not married.

Spelling error in the details of "Your forces melt away"

Grammar error in the details of a successful Regicide mission.

Like the diplomatic traits, the 'chivalrous ruler' trait can be lost very quickly (for example by leaving him in a town with high tax rates)

Knight Hospitaler trained from a HQ do not gain the promised experience bonus.

Militia cavalry sometimes can't be retrained in the city they have been recruited in.

A successful regicide mission doesn't raise the relations between the factions as it should.

Attacking Orthodox factions while on crusades will drastically kill your relations with the pope.

Cancelling an alliance lowers your reputation, defeating the point of doing so (it's the same as just attacking without warning).

Retraining a full strength unit (to improve its armour, for example) will still take a unit away from the recruitment pool.

If a family member comes of age in a fleet which already has 20 units in it, the fleet vanishes, and can only be recovered by moving another ship close by and using the faction members panel to locate and move the prince.

An AI army that is forced to fight to the death sometimes tries to withdraw (and is destroyed).

Several options in the config file (such as editor and movies) are overwritten by the exe on game startup and thus cannot be changed for good.

Elephants can capture a gatehouse from outside the city.

AI reinforcements rarely work together with the main force and often let themselves be defeated in detail.

The AI doesn't move their general out of artillery range when he's under attack, so he often gets killed before the battle is joined.

The 'man of the hour' event never seems to trigger in sallies, siege battles and when the army never moves out of the town (ie for an enemy/rebel army within one step of the settlement).

There seems to be a significant balance issue with 'forlorn hope' (see post #69)

Buildings can get damaged in a siege battle that is autoresolved despite the absence of artillery.

There seems to be no real reason not to sack a settlement rather than occupy it. If it does generate unrest then the penalties seem to be too small.

The vices that can be gained from being in cities have a ridiculously high chance of being gained when how many a general is eligible for and how long he stays in the city are taken into effect.

Losing to the aztecs can make your general hate Denmark !

Generals are still suicidal in sieges.

The AI sometimes 'freezes' during sieges, and their units simply stand still for the remainder of the battle.

Adding agents to a crusade removes its movement bonus.

Religious unrest and general unrest sometimes behave strangely (see post #79)

The description for Holy warrior is the same as for Grand Crusader and mentions crusades.

There are numerous ancillaries with no triggers, eg. armour_custom, armour_ornate, black_stallion, faithful_servant

AI has lots of trouble withdrawing artillery units, They withdraw then run back pickup the artillery and withdraw again never getting anywhere.

AI can't besiege any fortification with cannon towers as they will willingly let themselves get slaughtered on a sally. Should they only be assaultable due to the towers range?

On a merchant mission from the Merchant's Guild to takeover an enemy merchant, the mission states, if you succeed you will receive 500 Florins and the Merchant's Guild will be pleased with you and if you fail or don't do it, the Merchant's Guild will be pleased with you. Obviously they've been trading too much wine and they'll be pleased either way!!!

Assassination missions (such as assassinate witch x) fail if you kill the unit in any other way (such as burning it at the stake or killing it in battle).

The trigger that promotes priests produced in cathedrals to bishops doesn't extend to huge cathedrals.

(the next three are quoted from post #94)
There's no way to get a whole bunch of princess-related traits. Lack of a CharmStarter trait to give princesses some charm to begin with. This is important since there are only 2 ways to gain and lose charm for princesses through actions (diplomatic success and getting assassinated).

ReligionStarter trigger for adopted generals, married-in generals and men of the hour is not giving the trait properly, resulting in them all having no piety (starter trait is supposed to give default 3). This may be due to the triggers being cluttered with other traits. The only one that works is the coming of age trigger, and only sometimes. This is most likely due to the fact that LoyaltyStarter is above ReligionStarter in the trigger and both are at 100% chance. The game checks for LoyaltyStarter, awards it and stops. If this is true, then all triggers with 100% chance traits buggy as well, since the game may stop before it hits the 100% trait and will definitely stop after it hits the 100% trait.

Pagan magician ancilliary is given when a region is less than 90% of the controlling faction's religion. This results in everyone getting one. Might be a simple typo from too many late nights up.

The Hashashim guild building description doesn't mention any bonus to law.

When artillery has 2 shots left it fires all of its ammo, but when it is down to one shot left it can never fire that last shot. Does the game consider the ammunition empty?

If you sally and enemy has artillery, you lose the battle if you exit, even when you destroy all of their artillery. This is including the fact that all men are back in the city (their artillery is destroyed but unit is left). It's also a loss if they fired all shots from thier artillery.

There are several bugs with choosing the city you call a crusade upon (see post #103)

Passive AI bug - seemingly triggered by a lack of missile troops and thus prevalent in sieges, the AI has a tendency to stand still and allow its troops to get shot to pieces by archers that could have been easily eliminated by a charge

Siege lag bug - the game lags severely when the ai has only one set of ladders/attempts to only use the one set; or when the ai attempts to use one major method to enter the castle; or from a myriad of other factors. Whatever they are, it needs to be looked at.

Cavalry stop charging when the first man hits, robbing the charge of its impact. Sometimes they don't lower their lances at all, but instead just charge in with swords drawn.

Units have cohesion problems - often, only the first ten or so men of a unit will attack, with the rest hanging back and only filling the gaps caused by casualties.

Archer Issues - Archers refuse to obey your orders with respect to targets (one suggestion is that this is to do with the fire at will command having a higher priority than your manual orders) and seemingly enjoy charging the enemies you've ordered them to shoot. This seems to happen more with missile cavalry, but sometimes one or two men out of the unit will charge straight at the enemy to engage meele combat instead of shooting as ordered, and others will just run around in circles. In addition, archers sometimes take forever to fire as a group and thus only get one full volley off against charging enemies. Archers also operate too far in front of their army to be saved by friendly cavalry in the event of an enemy charge.

Passive Friendly AI - your units won't always react to threats and will often just sit there being slaughtered instead of turning around and fighting

Papal Bugs - there is inconsistent excommunication, and the papacy doesn't seem to be able to distinguish between the aggressor and the defender. It's also been suggested that it shouldn't be an act of war to attack another catholic faction's army that is in your territory without leave.

Armies (both friendly and ai) occasionally spawn on inaccessible cliffs.

Infantry still have trouble navigating and fighting on walls and often get stuck with half the unit on the wall, and half off it, making movement next to impossible.

The AI can't deal with longbow stakes properly, and will either line up before them to get shot or bizarrely change formation to a deep column and stand to one side of the stakes.

Troops in loose formation can better resist cavalry charges and are otherwise inexplicibly superior to those in tight formation.

It is very hard to accurately place troops in cities, castles and forts. As a matter of fact, it is very hard to place units at all in them!

Relocating your capital causes errors in merchant earnings. According to reports, "When you first start a campaign, the resource trading is calculated correctly. After you load the game, it fails to correctly calculate the distance to the capital, resetting ALL resources values to their base value, with NO regard to distance to capital. If you relocate your capital, the game will be forced to recalculate distance to the capital. Workaround for now is to relocate your capital back and forth immediately following loading a game." (thanks ralek)

Men desert from crusades far too easily, either after a small change in course or after sailing around Spain.

There is no weather option for non-settlement maps in multiplayer.

Giving orders to groups sometimes results in only one or two units obeying that order and the rest standing around having a smoko.

Inquisitors are felt to be unbalanced in the sense that they enjoy killing heirs, and that they'll attempt to root out heresy on a crusade (which historically was pointless as the crusade cleansed you of sin), causing the entire army to desert.

Troops with two handed weapons (eg. billmen, varangian guard) don't seem to fight well in melee(at all, in fact - from what i can see they'll only make a kill if they're attacked and the enemy fails to make one), but work effectively on the opening charge.

Multiplayer balancing issues with musketeers and cavalry.

Siege battles in multi-walled castles automatically end when you run out of ammo for your siege weapons despite the walls being linked and thus infantry being able to get through.

Agents and ships get stuck into loops on the campaign map, generally involving 'get on, sail somewhere, get off, sail somewhere, get back on, sail to place one, get off, repeat'

Men sometimes run for a corner of the walls in siege battles without player orders.

Archers seemingly do no damage in heavy rain.

Sometimes crusades don't move anywhere.

Pathfinding for units chasing routers is terrible.

Ships sometimes have unlimited movement.

Your gates open for routing enemy units, allowing the remaining units to march in.

Longbow stakes can be deployed in fortresses to massacre cavalry.

Faction missions sometimes state that they were completed by another faction when they weren't.

Units have pathfinding issues in attacking artillery from the front.

In diplomacy, ai sometimes counter offer with the exact same thing that you offered.

Men are auto-placed on sections of wall that are cut off thanks to a previous battle destroying sections of the wall.

Cavalry or infantry will not attack a unit that is attempting to climb a ladder that is currently busy with another unit.

The gatehouse is reported as taken when you are defending on a siege. This is not the case, as the gates are still locked and the enemy does not attempt to go through them.

Missile units have difficulty firing on units inside the castle while on the wall, sometimes they will not fire at all.

Ordering more then one unit off the walls during a siege, will result in them getting stuck in the tower and unable to do anything, even though it still displays them as moving towards the destination.

Princesses often gain useless ancillaries that are designed for family members such as Governors and Generals.

The 'bad taxman' trait is awarded in castles, where you can't adjust the tax rate.

Master guilds don't award basic guildhouse bonuses to agents trained in their city (so it is actually more effective to train an agent at a city with a basic guildhouse than one with a master, provided you have a master one elsewhere)

Some people are having a bug where a crusading army gets stuck on the bridge by venice once another faction takes the crusade target. The army stays there forever until someone attacks it.

Sometimes the mongols fail to appear.

Ballista towers fire during a siege despite being destroyed by sabotage

Muskateers only fire effectively when in a formation two lines deep.

In multiplayer, map names are shown in the host's language rather than that of the player.

Sometimes troops will play their animations in slow motion for no reason.

Bizarre and/or unobtainable missions. eg Council of Nobles such as send emissary to Venice to establish trade rights when you already have trade rights with them, or being ordered to establish diplomatic relations with a hostile faction.

Agents lose their skill far too easily due to failed missions (whether this is a bug or not is another question).

Byzantine archers have a skinning issue on their arms.

Holding space to see unit positions doesn't stick, but instead flashes on and off.

There are occasionally texture issues on siege equipment, stopping them from showing up

Arrows hit the gates as if they're in closed position when they're open due to a spy

Faction heir doesn't return to king's son once he comes of age, but stays with the brother/whatever

Town square flags don't change to reflect the current owner.

Units change formation on rough terrain and don't change back

The 'let the ai control these reinforcements' option doensn't stay checked when you browse unit stats, army composition etc.

Byzantine spearmen are too weak in comparison to those of other factions.

Gothic knights appear to be too weak.

Crossbowmen are too powerful and the ai seems to use them far too much in its armies

The 'start battle' option obscures the unit description card

There are sound bugs (see post #60 of the Org bugs thread)

Battle replay files sometimes show completely different battles to what actually happened

Agents can't pass armies on the campaign map

With a large number of spies in a city, the chance to open the gates in the event of a siege will go beyond 100%.

Catapults (the men, not the weapon) are overpowered

Experience bonuses are sometimes not awarded correctly (see post #86 of the Org bugs thread)

Free Company heavy Infantry reply with 'heavy calvary' when you click on them

Muslim archers will join a sicilian crusade against muslims

Native archers have the peasant picture in the stats screen

Pope names seem odd - perhaps the incorrect file is being referenced?

Holding mouse4 to activate free look mode sometimes results in the camera simply spinning anti-clockwise.

Destroying your own gate due to friendly fire causes the 'enemy gate is destroyed' sound + movie to play.

Faction notices appear after their extermination. eg Faction reconciled notices appear after extermination and broken alliances notices even if both or one faction have been exterminated.

If your assassain is caught trying to kill the pope, you get the message (on the left of the screen) which says, paraphrased, 'do not translate this text. It should not appear in game"

Venice mounted sergents information scroll show empty "Abilities at a glance"

No mission expired notice when faction heir requesting regicide mission and faction is later destroyed.

When attacking an enemy city with allied reinforcements and their ram breaks through you hear "Enemy rams are through our gates".

During triple speed can see Byzantine Infantry alternate 3 versions of armour.

When you open and then close the negotiation scroll (either because you changed your mind or you were just checking current treaties) is considered a failed negotiation leading to influence loss. Consider adding a close option without penalty rather than "end negotiation".

'Relations with x have worsened' notices appear when you're at war with faction x.

'm2tw has to close because of an unspecified error' sometimes occurs.

There is an invisible general bug (posted by rothe, the Org buglist post #19)

Family trees sometimes only show the faction leader (Org buglist, post #24)

Game seemingly stuck in a loop (probable hardware issue) (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72147)

AI armies disappearing (Org buglist, post #30)

Crusades unjoinable (Org buglist, post #41)

Ransomed general 'floating on water' and blocking land bridge (Org buglist, post #42)

Faction switching bug (Org buglist, post #92)

Game hanging issues (Org buglist, post #105)

Some units have incorrect numbers of men in them (Org buglist, post #124)

Clicking 'attempt a night attack' sometimes causes the enemy to rout and/or the game to crash (Org buglist, post #134)

[econ21]

We have a bug list for constructive criticism. And we have a surfeit of recent threads on "complaining about complaining".