Latest update on 1.2 patch from Sega/CA

[Quickening]

Okay my browser (firefox 2) is constantly crashing on this forum now for some reason.

Anyway today I tried my experiment to see how well I would do by just doing whatever it takes to win. The results speak for themselves.



The last time I completed a short campaign being honourable, I had just four turns left before the campaign ended! I succeeded by the skin of my teeth.

Here, it's turn twenty-two and I have only four more provinces to take and Ive won. And even that is only because Ive been giving provinces to the Papal States to form a wall between myself, the HRE and Milan.

One of the main differences was that usually I take all rebel provinces before going for the AI. This time I attacked both France and Scotland from the off and never gave them a moments peace.

So the conclusion is obvious. Nice guys finish last.

I have to say that although Im about to beat a campaign in my fastest time ever, I do enjoy trying to be honourable much more than doing whats best to win.


NOTE: I always play on VH/VH


EDIT: Oh wait I forgot half of what I was going to say. I also got excommunicated in my game but bizarrely, I havent suffered at all for it. My people don't seem to be batting an eyelid despite them also being taxed into the ground.
Whenever Ive been honourable and been excommunicated my peasants were up in arms despite the fact I had everywhere set on low taxes.

It seems to me that it's far too easy to win being a tyrant than it is being Chivalrous. I assume that excommunication and a bad reputation was meant to balance this out but in reality, neither of these things hinder you much if at all.

[Quickening]

Heh, looks like my evil antics have finally caught up with me. Despite me giving them about five regions, the Papal States attacked me! The Pope himself has come to combat the heretical England.

But Im not sure if they declared war on me because Ive been evil or if that's what the Papal States do if you give them land.

Either way, Ive never been at war with the Pope before. Nice.

[hellenes]

This question is a bit misleading. Both MP and AI are difficult, but not because of coding problems.

Artificial Intelligence is a hard problem, meaning it's not even conceptually solved. We can't know yet how difficult it is to code a smart, human-like opponent - not just difficult to defeat, but logical, creative and unpredictable enough to make the game fun, as in playing with another human.

MP campaign has another sort of problem : human players, unlike AI, have lives outside the game. How do you synch the turns ? wait for everyone to move ? let the AI take over after a set time ? It's either going to take too long or be unfair to some players.
There are only three solutions to this : hotseat or play-by-mail (which we already have) ; and realtime campaign, which would be nice, but not really TotalWar anymore (and there's still the problem of synchronizing battles).

Ive written an idea to solve any MP campaign hinderances....:

"A Gigantic map...that has every little castle, dutchy, county that existed in Medieval times. 100 factions (Knights of Honor has as much) so any player will have the choice to choose any faction he likes.
A living world that is in REAL time and runs 24/7.

Whenever a player starts he makes an account and chooses a faction.
Now he can pick up an army from the available pool depending on the buildings his faction has at that time. Hes allocated with set amount of cash to start. After that he has many options: Either manage his castle/province or engage in diplomacy with the neighbours or or even start a war by attacking a nearby settlement or army.

Any action he is doing is represented as his character as a general and his army as his tool of destruction. His army grows or dwindles depending on his actions.
Now the most important factor (IMO) is what happens when the player is absent? Well his army simply loggs off the game! And his castle is manned by the "PO" garrison of a decent amount of archers/crossbows and militia OR if his faction has more than one players (mostly the popular factions like Byzantium or England) that player is notified to fight to defend the castle. The diplomacy in the case of multiple players that picked up the same faction is treated on a presence/rank level meaning that any negotiations will be engaged with the highest ranking player (meaning clan/faction leader and lower) present at that time OR on a pre set basis or "guidelines" that are given by the absent leader.

All players will be free enough to go wherever they want in real time on a scaled movement rate however with the appropriate consequences like a war declaration or annoyance...
There will be rebel armies in a quide abudant numbers with plenty of little catsles and provinces to expand to...
The characters themselves would aqcuire parameters same as the SP game based on the player's actions with the death of the character the player would either get the heir of that character (so he must make sure that his character gets married) or if there is no heir the player gets to fight a mini civil war and pickes the side, and if that side wins he gets a new character spwaning from the ranks....

Also the world that surrounds the player can be set in the battle engine of the TW games WITHOUT any boundaries and if the sizes of armies are too big for the server to cope with it, the strategic layer can be used in real time as |I said before.
On the unit sizes the player can pick up ANY size he wants the cost of the units will be based on per soldier capita....So if 100 spearmen cost 100 florins to buy and 50 florins to upkeep, 200 spearmen will cost 200 florins to buy and 100 florins to upkeep.
Speaking of which the castle that the player is allocated with generates a fixed amount of money that pays the upkeep cost of anything that the player has in his army.
If the castle of the player is lost his army turns into "bandits" and he will not pay any upkeep for them until he recovers his castle or takes the castle from another player. In the case that the player belongs to a bigger faction he can become a general in the service of the monarch but his army will have to be paid from the crown's coffins but will have the option to recruit soldiers from the crown's castles/cities at his expense (the player generates wealth through looting enemie territories/castles or from booty from the battles and has his personal money).

The crown itslef is an entity thats allocated to the faction/clan leader it recieves a "crown tax" from the other clan members engages in state level diplomacy and generally operates the "big picture" of the clan/faction.
Naval battles will be made controllable and the troops that are present on board will participate in any engagement. No agents will be present in the game since the diplomacy would be dealt through a chat and any other character would be simply part of an agreement (marriage would be agreed through a chat no need for a princess character)...

If at any later point a new player joins the game he will be allocated soldiers/castle etc scalable to the point that the game is at that time so there are no phaenomena like a newbe with peasants against a veteran with gothic troops.
Armour upgrades and soldiers will be tradable, like the player can "upgrade" his byzantine infantry to varangians by "disbanding" the infantry in the castle and having the worth of that unit back (again based on per soldier capita) and by purchasing a unit of varangians the same size (or bigger with extra cost) as the byzantine infantry by paying any difference...

Events will take place in the game at a chronological time through "upgrades" that the developers will release (like chronicles in La2) like the high era upgrade after a year or the mongol invasion patch....
Speaking of UNPLAYABLE factions the mongols or the astecs will be mainly the PvE element that will require HUGE alliances to be forged to deal with them.
The Pope will be a GM character in the game regulating the catholic factions and launching crusades. The orthodox factions will have the patriarch of costantinople as the spiritual leader and most importantly will play major role in the reunification of churchers attempts that will be voted by orthodox players (players that control orthodox factions).
The crusades will be deal in the sense of raids with huge alliances forged to march to the holy land..."

This ^^^ IMO solves any problems...Both suitable for casual and hardcore gamer...No grinding or any leveling up...NO hinderous PvE element (just Mongol Invasion which even can be manned by random MP generals)...
You want to play couple of battles and log off? Fine...
You want to engage in dimplomacy? Fine log on and negotiate...
Youre a faction/clan leader and you need generals to man the battles? Just open a "reqruitment" announcement on the chat and any one that wants to fight a battle jumps in...
Of course this idea isnt perfect (nothing is) and will need refinement but its the only way to solve the "AI" problem once and for all...

[SoxSexSax]

Perhaps the use of the word "only" was wrong, but I stand by general point of my statement. As I see it, even if the bugs in the AI's battle and strategic AI were fixed, it would still be beaten regularly by humans. It might take a game or two for people to adapt to the new AI, but the most basic flaw with the AI is that it is predictable. In certain situations, it will use certain styles. All AIs are like this. It may get better (and it should, I'm not saying CA should stop working on it) but in order for it to be truly challenging, something more is required.

You mentioned the Civ 4 Warlords AI and I think that is the perfect illustration of my point. It is a very good AI, but on Noble level (AI has no bonuses or penalties) it is still very, very easy to beat. Few people regularly lose to it unless they are new players who haven't spent much time with the game. The levels of difficulty above Noble quickly become VERY difficult to beat, and that is entirely due to the bonuses given to the AI. The Civ AI systems have always relied on giving the AI bonuses at higher levels, and that is one reason why they have always been extremely challenging for most people at the higher difficulties.

The Civ 4 Warlords 2.61 patch AI on Noble is MUCH better than the M2TW AI on Normal. And when I say much, I mean so much it's not even comparable. And it's not a lack of bonuses causing the issue for the M2 AI...it's an inability to perform on the tactical map and it's inability to produce high-tech armies when it has the funds and facilities available that screws it, both of which are script issues not lack of resource issues.

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

The Civ 4 Warlords 2.61 patch AI on Noble is MUCH better than the M2TW AI on Normal. And when I say much, I mean so much it's not even comparable. And it's not a lack of bonuses causing the issue for the M2 AI...it's an inability to perform on the tactical map and it's inability to produce high-tech armies when it has the funds and facilities available that screws it, both of which are script issues not lack of resource issues.

This is what I found hiding in the bushes outside the city:



AND



Now I think that is as good as it gets around 1200 and that city is toast barring a minor miracle. Of course if you take all the AI's castles then you'll get spear militia armies (or fight the italians): the Danes and the French are sending about 50% elites in their armies too so mebbe you need to repatch your game install instead.
Edited to resize images

[Durallan]

they should be sending 100% elite armies if they can afford it, although those sword militia seem pretty nasty stat wise.

[RickooClan]

But even human player will have some "left over" old troops/militia, unless you disbanding them.

And for me i wont disband them by considering the recruiting cost i have paid. Instead, i will group them into a stack and use them in siege or auto-resolving the rebels camping around.

Sometimes i think the AI (post 1.02) will intentionally group up a stack of outdated troops to attack my city in order to clear the mantainance cost on them. Since i can see the AI stack have either majority of outdated troops, or majority of latest troops, instead of a mix of both.

[Foz]

they should be sending 100% elite armies if they can afford it, although those sword militia seem pretty nasty stat wise.

Not necessarily. By fielding some militia units as part of armies, the AI is actually able to have more units total floating around. That in turn means that its forces are more liquid, since a larger number of units inherently means it is easier to split them up to tackle multiple things at once. Especially for such endeavors as settlement defense, the AI is far better off having more units of a lower caliber: they can more easily react to multiple threats. If you've got 2 DFKs and have to defend against 2 siege towers and a ram, you can't. With say 4 spear militia, though, you actually have a chance to plug all the holes. It's worth noting that the AI really does think like that in defending a siege, too: it analyzes threats, designates different zones (with priorities assigned) to defend from those threats, and then allocates resources to do the defending.

And that of course is to say nothing of the increased production capacity an empire has if you utilize cities and castles both for military production. Granted some of the time the faction (human or AI) cannot afford to do so, but in so far as possible, it's clearly beneficial to recruit both since you'll have larger armies available sooner. I certainly agree with your sentiment about the value of high quality castle troops, but waiting around to build them exclusively is simply a waste of city recruitment slots.

It's also worth noting that even poor militias typically end up with 7 or 13 (the shield varieties have 13) defense when fully upgraded, which is more than enough to give them substantial bang for the low bucks you pay for them.

I don't contest that the AI often recruits far too many non-elite units, but it should recruits some to avoid wasting the resources its cities could be contributing to the war effort, and to help create more balanced stacks instead of the 1-dimensional stacks you can get from strictly elites.

[edyzmedieval]

It's kind of weird really. France spams those elites, same with the Danes, and Milan and Venice spams those militia sissies!

[SoxSexSax]

Let me get this straight, you think that two general-less half stacks are going to somehow survive a fight against any general led army I would actually march with?

With a general, 3 horse archer units, 4 swordsmen and 4 spears I'd crush both those armies with 20% losses. And, BTW, the second army is feeble. It is nowhere NEAR elite. The first is credible granted. Do you accept that those are NOT the norm? Because we both know they aren't...the 10 geonese crossbow militia and 10 italian spearmen militia stacks are FAR more common.

Providing one or two semi examples of competence on the strat map in no way changes the fact that the AI can't compete on the battlefield, especially when conducting a siege attack.

[Lusted]

the 10 geonese crossbow militia and 10 italian spearmen militia stacks are FAR more common.

That is only really a problem if the ai only has cities and no castles. If it just hasd cities, that is the best army it can produce.

[TinCow]

With a general, 3 horse archer units, 4 swordsmen and 4 spears I'd crush both those armies with 20% losses. And, BTW, the second army is feeble. It is nowhere NEAR elite. The first is credible granted. Do you accept that those are NOT the norm? Because we both know they aren't...the 10 geonese crossbow militia and 10 italian spearmen militia stacks are FAR more common.

Ok, Genoese Crossbow Militia and Italian Spear Militia aren't elite, but they're definitely not bad. Those units are as good as several factions best ranged and spear castle units. In fact, the entire strength of the Venetian and Milanese factions is in the high quality of their militia units. If you want to talk about the computer spamming weak units, you need to reference something else.

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

Let me get this straight, you think that two general-less half stacks are going to somehow survive a fight against any general led army I would actually march with?

With a general, 3 horse archer units, 4 swordsmen and 4 spears I'd crush both those armies with 20% losses. And, BTW, the second army is feeble. It is nowhere NEAR elite. The first is credible granted. Do you accept that those are NOT the norm? Because we both know they aren't...the 10 geonese crossbow militia and 10 italian spearmen militia stacks are FAR more common.

Providing one or two semi examples of competence on the strat map in no way changes the fact that the AI can't compete on the battlefield, especially when conducting a siege attack.

Yes but i don't have the 3 horse archer 4 swords 4 spears I got billmen and lots of left over archers that i plan to send in as shock infantry once the the enemy missile troops are destroyed I could slug it out in a siege and sally the crap out of them but I would miss a close, possibly exciting battle.
And yes I am getting elite half stacks thrown at me non stop by france and portugal/spain denmark: even tho i win most of the time I take horrible losses cos the billmen have 60-80% casualty ratio against DFKs. They are getting phased out but i only have 2 castles in europe so i have to make do with cheap cannon fodder. Besides horse archer warfare in heavily forrested northern europe strikes me as highly unnatural and possibly illegal.

[RickooClan]

Just checked that out at .com (no idea how to create a link to the .com forum...)

Anyway, its an excellent news!

Cheers.

[RickooClan]

Hi guys,

As promised - here is the latest news regarding the Update. The final release candidate is currently in testing at CA Oz and (all going well), is expected to be submitted to SEGA Europe so they can begin their round of testing within the next 24 hours. There is no word of release date of yet, but we will keep in touch with progress.

In other news, you might be interested to know that Brendan Rogers from CA Oz has taken the time to answer a whopping 31 of your questions in our Official CA Discussion thread. For convenience I have also posted this Q&A up on our official Blog.

Thanks,

Mark O'Connell
(aka SenseiTW)

This is the quote of the news from http://totalwarforums.com/

[pike master]

they only said that because everyone was getting

[Martok]

Threads merged.

[IrishArmenian]

I saw this again and I thought the patch came out. Talk about bad shorterm memory.

[RickooClan]

The list will remain largely the same as the one posted on 22nd Feb, so that is a good starting off point to work on any feedback. If there any significant changes to the list upon release of Update 2, I will let you know.

Thanks,
Mark O'Connell
(aka SenseiTW)

A little bit worry isnt?

Since there are quite a lot bugs/faults found by the community after the 1.02 leaked patch. If the up coming fix list is pretty much the same with the list on 22nd feb, will they actually picked and fixed, such as the bugs on the buglist here?

[Bob the Insane]

A little bit worry isnt?

Since there are quite a lot bugs/faults found by the community after the 1.02 leaked patch. If the up coming fix list is pretty much the same with the list on 22nd feb, will they actually picked and fixed, such as the bugs on the buglist here?

I believe the issues with the patch where the install problem and that there was still issues with the AI being passive... I was not aware that additional items where being resolved...

[Lusted]

But we do know, thanks to Caliban at TWC, that the cannon/ballista tower bug will be fixed in the official 1.2.

I never expected them to fix all the bugs on the bug list for the unofficial 1.2 patch, that would take months, all i expected was them to fix the last of the passive ai, sort out the installer, and then release the patch.

[FactionHeir]

Hopefully they fixed the defensive attacker AI with reinforcements. Thats my main gripe at the moment. And the campaign map lag of course.

[sapi]

I'm happy that they're not trying to fix everything on the buglist, tbh.

The last thing we need is a tricke effect, delaying the official patch even more...

[Slicendice]

Ok I didn't really read all the posts here. I read about half and I skipped through haphazardly until I got to the end. Kind of like CA writes code? Oooh, wouldn't want to be mistaken for a troll now.

I hope the patch is as good as some have said. It will be nice to be able to play the game the way it was intended.

That said, I'm not happy with spending my money on a game and then waiting 6+ months to start getting full value for my money.

I realize there are around a million and a half lines of code, and bugs beget more bugs and whatnot. I realize that CA has a bottom line to make and releasing a game that isn't truly finished is the norm for game developers these days.

I am not going to blast them for what is the status quo. We all know this is what developers do and despite having access to the Internet and the countless forums, blogs, fansites, and official sites all giving us the scoop on games we are interested in and their problems, we still go out and buy the game bugs and all. If we all go out on the release day and buy them who can blame the developer if they sold us an incomplete product?

That said, I will never buy another game on release day. It took me a few times to learn my lesson. Now I'm going to wait until a game gets a couple of patches. I'm going to listen to the forums when people say a game is unplayable. And most importantly I'm going to save my money. In fact if I wait long enough I might even be able to get the game on sale. So not only will I get a game that works, but I will pay less for it than the poor schmucks that had to have it on the release date.

If enough people do this then what will happen? For starters games may not reach #1 in sales. The profitability of releasing incomplete games will decrease and badly needed cash flows will come in a trickle rather than a flood.

I realize if enough people do what I suggest it might hurt game developers, but given the choice of sticking it to them or letting them stick it to me I choose to stick it to them. Do they deserve better? They don't think we deserve better.

[sapi]

Unfortunately for you, that idea is extremely unlikely to work.

A miniscule percentage of gamers read forums, and only a small proportion of those who do will boycot the game. Such actions simply won't make a big enough difference to change anything.

[Whacker]

Unfortunately for you, that idea is extremely unlikely to work.

A miniscule percentage of gamers read forums, and only a small proportion of those who do will boycot the game. Such actions simply won't make a big enough difference to change anything.

OK, this is starting to annoy me now. I'd really like to see some hard facts to back this up, about people not reading these forums. No "logic", hard facts and stats please.

[Foz]

Unfortunately for you, that idea is extremely unlikely to work.

A miniscule percentage of gamers read forums, and only a small proportion of those who do will boycot the game. Such actions simply won't make a big enough difference to change anything.

That's exactly the same false logic people use to justify the fact that they do not vote. "What difference can I possibly make?" It's bull. Elections are the sum total of each seemingly insignificant vote, just as a game's success is the sum total of each seemingly insignificant consumer. You just do not realize how much power we have, because no one has ever tried to exercise that power. Between us, the power of the Internet, and word of mouth, it's practically guaranteed that we could reach the majority of gamers out there for this (or any other) reason. For instance how many gamers do you know that are familiar with the "All Your Base" phenomenon? It's hard to find any that aren't, which is my point: the communication tools are in place and working. The biggest roadblock is not communication per se, it is rather getting the key elements (like forum mods and webmasters) to support the issue so they can actually get the communication engine working. A very small handful of the right people, if convinced to support it, could easily get (and keep) a large portion of gamers informed and involved, and empower the entire community as a result. At the heart of everything, I guess the biggest point is that we need infrastructure if we want power.

[sapi]

I'm sorry, but that just doesn't cut it.

It's a simple fact that the vast majority of gamers do not visit online forums.

If you're looking for proof, consider the fact that only 847 members have visited these forums in the past 24 hours.

Take a very conservative estimate of that as 10% of the total number of people visiting these forums, and you still only have an audience of under ten thousand people.

Say, multiply that by two or three to take into account the other TW sites, and you're still looking at a tiny percentage of the hundreds of thousands of people who have brought the game.

All you need to do is have a look around your friends, and you'll see what I mean. Sure, around half of them play games semi-seriously. But of that half, only a handful would even consider visiting a forum for that game.

You can talk all you like about affirmative action and the tricke effect and so on and so forth, but you'll never get enough people to make a difference.

I can even use your example of the 'all your base' phenomenon as proof for my case: put simply, if I asked any of the rl gamers I knew, you'd be lucky to even get 10% who've heard of it, despite 'widespread' coverage.

You're welcome to try your strategy - no one can stop you from doing that - but it might be worth while taking a nice dose of common sense as you do so.

[Temujin]

It's a simple fact that the vast majority of gamers do not visit online forums.

No it isn't.

If you're looking for proof, consider the fact that only 847 members have visited these forums in the past 24 hours.

Take a very conservative estimate of that as 10% of the total number of people visiting these forums, and you still only have an audience of under ten thousand people.

What exactly is this "conservative estimate" based on, then? Because you can't multiply integers and hot air like that, it's simply not mathematically correct.

All you need to do is have a look around your friends, and you'll see what I mean. Sure, around half of them play games semi-seriously. But of that half, only a handful would even consider visiting a forum for that game.

I have a bunch of gamer friends, too, and with the exception of the one guy-with-no-internet-access, they ALL visit forums to keep up with the games they are playing. All of them.

My unsourced, empirical datapoint is bigger than your unsourced, empirical datapoint. So there.

You're welcome to try your strategy - no one can stop you from doing that - but it might be worth while taking a nice dose of common sense as you do so.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

So, how old are you, then? Time for an update, perhaps?

[Husar]

I realize if enough people do what I suggest it might hurt game developers, but given the choice of sticking it to them or letting them stick it to me I choose to stick it to them. Do they deserve better? They don't think we deserve better.

I don't think that's the case.
When I program myself, it usually takes some times before I get rid of all the compiler errors, then I have to see whether the function works the way I want it, which is usually done with test data, once that works, all is fine, but what if the "test data" somehow didn't cover all possible cases? Well, that's a bug... And I'm talking about "projects" with less than 100 lines, even the professors etc. at our university know that programming without bugs is almost impossible. Let me give you a common metaphor to underline that: