Feedback on the official patch 1.02.

[RickooClan]

Hi everyone, I would like to start a thread collecting some quick feedbacks from the official 1.02 patch.

Before i start the game i expect much of the content will be similar with leaked patch 1.02, as the fix/feature list are "exactly" the same. (or at least i cant spot any different yet)

I have then start a new game base on patch 1.02 with a clean reinstallation. I started as French on VH/VH.

1. Sally out in Siege.

You can easily set this up with french on VH as the Scilian will attack Marseille on turn 6. The passive AI bug have been completely gone compare with leak patch 1.02. The AI will no longer stupidly holding their siege equipment.

I try to march my archers and attacking their infantry line. The AI respond with 2 cavalry charging up, with 1 spear supporting. While my cavalry and infantry march up to my archers, the AI cavalry withdraw back to their formation.

A very promising respond from the AI so far!!



2. Effectiveness of Pike units

I seriously doubt if any change/fix have been made on this area compare with leak patch 1.02, and this sounds like true.

I do some testing on Scotland noble pikeman, Swisspikeman on DFK and the outcome is pretty much the same with leak patch 1.02. Seems like we have to mod accordingly to suit our game style or the like.


3. Other issues

Base on the pike test i have further assume the bugs we found post leak patch 1.02, had not been fixed if they are not on the fix list.

One of the most annoying bug remain for me will be the flooding bug which will permanently damage the province. Therefore i suggest we have to disable flooding by mod before starting a long term game.

[uanime5]

The vanilla game works. The mod I was making no longer works. The Long Road Mod I have asks me for a password everytime I load it or end a turn, and does not let me fight battles (I have to auto-resolve them) .

I find it suspicious that the official patch seems designed to prevent unofficial mods from working.

[JFC]

The vanilla game works. The mod I was making no longer works. The Long Road Mod I have asks me for a password everytime I load it or end a turn, and does not let me fight battles (I have to auto-resolve them) .

I find it suspicious that the official patch seems designed to prevent unofficial mods from working.

IT'S A CONSPIRACY!

[Forward Observer]

I haven't heard anyone mention this, but so far the patch does seem to be game save friendly. I resumed playing my saved Eygptian campaign and there doesn't seem to be any ill effects yet.

However, while I have only limited knowledge of modding, I am not sure whether I would expect any major mod to function correctly with such a large patch until the one has had a chance to review and/or correct it to make it patch compatable.

I am also not sure if I like the new battle dialogue---especially when fighting a seige assault. I fought one such assault against the Turks, and once inside the walls, as the battle ebbed and flowed, I must have heard the same "winning" dialogue alternating with the "losing" dialogue about 15 times. I wanted to tell my over anxious "color" man to simply shut up until the battle was won or lost.

Cheers

[Lusted]

I find it suspicious that the official patch seems designed to prevent unofficial mods from working.

Well mods do work with it, i've already released a 1.2 compatible version of LTC.

[gardibolt]

My 1.1 saves work great.

Vices and Virtues seem especially active; I'm getting long lists of traits. Nearly everything I do gives me Dread (winning a battle seems to do it all by itself), and my King got a special message awarding him +5 Dread for some reason I am unaware of. There seem to be more opportunities for role-playing characters here (though I'm unclear about how one is to get a Chivalrous king, since I have only managed one Chivalry point, which I received when I only occupied Riga instead of exterminating or sacking, and probably 20 Dread points among my family members from battles and use of assassins.

Siege AI is much better, both attacking and defending. AI archers shoot from the walls, then when I reach the walls, if I have a larger force they head back to the square. When I try to sally when I am besieged I am no longer able to sucker the AI into coming into range of my archers and towers (though not quite staying out of range of my trebuchets). So a sally requires actually going out to fight. Much, much more active flanking by the AI in general. I lost two battles out of 12 last night, playing on M/M, which I'm quite certain I would have won handily in 1.1.

Cannon/ballista towers are indeed fixed. Huge cathedrals produce bishops. Not earth-shattering points, but I'm glad these annoyances were taken care of. I could never remember whether it was citadels or cities that had the towers screwed up so I inevitably bungled them.

The shield bug being corrected results in battles lasting significantly longer. I haven't really checked out the 2H in detail though; maybe tonight.

I'm quite pleased with this patch.

[Gorm]

I am happy with this patch. The biggest change is in diplomacy. Unless you ignore a faction for a long time, you can have a steady alliance. Sure, you may get someone backstabbing you, but not as often as with the previous patch. Keep 'em happy with a gift now and then, even if you just give them map info.

Merchants work better now. Acquisitions really work now.

Princesses start with good charm.

There are also some new graphics, eg. when a guild is offered.

A good patch!

[sapi]

Agreed

The diplomacy changes are my favourite part of the patch, tbh

[RickooClan]

Just find a possible bug in patch 1.02.

Incorrect Numerical battle odd in pre-battle screen.

First of all i spot the bug by the following VnV trigger:

Trigger battle3Dread_PickingOnWeak
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition WasAttacker
and WonBattle
and BattleOdds > 1.5
and PercentageEnemyKilled > 50
and not Trait BattleChivalry > 0

Affects BattleDread 1 Chance 100

I have find out in one occasion, even the battle odd shown was 3:2 in the pre-battle screen, i keep picking the Winning First trait after battle. [I have made sure i didnt trigger anyother thing which gain battle dread]

Then, i edit the trigger and test the battle again:

Trigger battle3Dread_PickingOnWeak
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition WasAttacker
and WonBattle
and BattleOdds > 2.0
and PercentageEnemyKilled > 50
and not Trait BattleChivalry > 0

Affects BattleDread 12 Chance 100

And now, even the battle odd shown is still 3:2 [battle odd = 1.5], and the new trigger of this VnV is 2.0, i still get 12 battle dread after the battle.

And if you look at the battle-odd colour chart closely [The Blue-red ratio bar], you can notice that it does not match the numerical figure shown.[eg. 3:2]

I have try some other battle and i have seen even the colour chart is on a 3:2 ratio, the numerical figure shown is 1:1.

I am not too sure if this bug is exist before patch 1.2 or not. (and hopefully if someone could check this out in their game and see if thats the case too)

[rookie7]

Sorry for the piggy back post, but I have a small/dumb question. During a battle, you can change the speed of the movement from 1.0, 2.0,...then 6.0. What happened to 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0. How do I change to those speeds?

Thanks, and sorry for the dumb question.

[RickooClan]

You can hold "shift" and click on those arrow icon to make 0.1 adjustment.

Sometimes i will make it to speed 0.2 to watch the guys fighting closely and thats cool!

[Xehh II]

So, is the actual official 1.02 patch out?

[sapi]

Yes.

[Xehh II]

So, where can I get it and how big is it?

[Zim]

So, where can I get it and how big is it?

Here, among other places:

http://www.gamershell.com/download_19011.shtml

And very big, something like a gig I believe. On the thread for the patch on the twcenter site Lusted said that part of the reason for the size is a lot of new sound files.

Takes a while both to download and install (don't worry is the install bar seems to stop moving for a while, nothing's wrong), but it's very well worth it.

[Deus Le Volt!]

Hello all!

I just finished my first campaign with the new patch. I played as England on Medium/Medium.

I think they did a great job, the "Grand Campaign" plays like a different game. I married into an alliance with France in turn 4 and they never betrayed me. Even Denmark was friendly for a while.

I have to say the AI diplomacy is much better when it comes to ceasefires. I never understood why they wouldn't want the war to end when I've got 2 full stacks marching on their last territory.

Are Billmen usually included in the list of the "2H bug" ? I thought they were fairly effective.

I like the way it displays every trait your characters acquire now.

One of my generals did get a trait I'd never seen before. He went off on the crusades and ended up conquering all of Asia Minor, but in the span of about 10 turns he went from "Henry the Crusader" to "Henry the Cuckold."

There was a trait progression that started with "Problems at Home" and went all the way up to him being a "cuckold" with -4 authority (and included a line about men passing water in his shoes after having relations with his wife). Embarrassing for such a hero, but worse for the Turks, who were utterly destroyed by him.

I thought that made sense since he was away from home for so long. But then his son came of age with the "A Little Odd" trait and I got really worried.

...Anyways I have to say great job on the patch.

[Quickening]

Yep I agree that the patch is a vast improvement. It's just a shame that the taste for Med 2 has been very much tainted since I bought it way back in December. I feel Ive pretty much played it to death already (200+ hours now) and at the moment, have no inspiration to really play the game much which is a shame.
There are still problems of course. Pathfinding in settlements is still annoying. One of the weirdest things that still happens is that two or three troops from AI formations appear to get stuck beside a building while the rest of their formation is christ knows where. The AI is still as hit and miss as ever at assaulting settlements and I'll still often find myself fast forwarding for ages while the AI struggles to get its troops up siege towers and ladders.

Im actually now starting to think that Medieval 2 was just too ambitious for the technology available. I think this is as good as it's going to get really.

[Bob the Insane]

I did notice one improvement in the AI assaulting a multi-wall fortress. When it took the outer wall and I had dropped my archers back to the second ring, once my guys where safely behind a closed gate the AI brought it's army own army inside the settlement but kept them all really close to the outer wall and out of range of the inner towers and archers. It then pushed it's siege engines forward. My archers took care of them so then it advanced it main force in column (general at the rear) with the constructed items, Ram and Ladders... I thought this might lead to excessive casualties for the attacking force, but actually it seemed to do a pretty good job of screening the ram and ladder carriers from the towers and archers...

I also noted that in assaults and sallies the main force it based substantually further from the walls than before, but if it has no siege engines (catapluts and the like) then it places a single unit and ram a close as it can and rushes them for the gate...

Finally I had a spy opent he gate for a AI assault. That was scary, troops all over the place with not chance to deploy and the AI attacked immediately charging through the gate. I won the battle due the second ring of walls which I managed to pull my troops back to thanks again the the sacrifice of a unit of DFK at the gate and the enemy having no heacy cavalry to ride them down, just HA which I forced into melee at the gate. Once I got my longbows on the inner wall and billmen and last DFKs inside the inner gate things where in my favour again, but onle because of the force composition. Fortunately the Mongol horde does not come with spies as that would be really scary...

One item i noted in the AI assaulting behavior, it will clear each ring of defenses of your soldiers, even routers before it switches to assaulting the inner ring(s)...

[Memnoch]

My 1.1 saves work great.

Is the patch retroactive then?

[Omisan]

While the patch is supposed to add more commentaries for the "battle narrator". In my case, the patch made him completely silent. Which is a good thing I guess.

[Wikiman]

The vanilla game works. The mod I was making no longer works. The Long Road Mod I have asks me for a password everytime I load it or end a turn, and does not let me fight battles (I have to auto-resolve them) .

I find it suspicious that the official patch seems designed to prevent unofficial mods from working.

Believe me there is nothing in there that deliberately prevents mods from working, quite the opposite, we added functionality so that you can launch mods from the launcher and released information on how to set this up this for mod builders. In patching the game, this undoubtedly breaks peoples mods all over the place, but with there being no standard way of modding this game unfortunately this was unavoidable.

If you are autoresolving and you are being asked for a password, it sounds like you have enabled hotseat mode somehow. Hope this helps.

-wikiman

[dopp]

Vices and virtues are vastly improved. Most inconsistencies and typoes have been addressed, more positive trait triggers have been added (as compared to vanilla where a large percentage of positive traits could only be gained at birth), princess traits and triggers have been expanded, and many triggers revised. It is easier to get traits such as Just and Upright (previously incredibly rare) from the presence of 'moral' buildings (churches etc), which will block out most of the negative traits. On the whole, the system makes much more sense now as compared to the relentless moral corrosion in vanilla. A few bugs/typoes remain but I applaud whohever revised the VnVs for v1.2. The only issue I might have is that the three 'corruption' triggers were not altered, which heavily punish a player for being too successful/rich, but the system as a whole is tremendously more consistent and thus fun.

[darsalon]

Yep I agree that the patch is a vast improvement. It's just a shame that the taste for Med 2 has been very much tainted since I bought it way back in December. I feel Ive pretty much played it to death already (200+ hours now) and at the moment, have no inspiration to really play the game much which is a shame.

I think that's my problem at the moment. Played up until Feb when the 1.2 patch was originally supposed to be due out and stopped, waiting for it. Now it's May and it's quite tough to get back into the game for me. Having had a quick go with the Egyptians on a short campaign (an alternative faction for me) the AI does seem to be better though so I'll do my best to persist. I'll start again as them with a long campaign and see how it goes.

[Empirate]

Great work on Update 2, CA!
I especially like the new diplomacy, which actually seems to work this time around. The AI faction will often bite off more than they can chew, picking fights against superior odds and so on. Now, you can decisively hand their butts to them once or twice, after which they're usually very much OK with an armistice. I was able to break a French siege on Metz (playing HRE) without having to attack; the AI army withdrew when my relieving army showed up. I pressed my advantage, gave chase and destroyed the offenders. Then I laid siege to Reims. Two turns after I had taken it (thereby destroying a large part of French forces in the northeast), a French princess knocks on my door and offers a ceasefire. I haggled her up to a tribute of 1600 for 7 turns, map info, trade agreement! This was never possible before Update 2! A similar thing happened to me when the Venetians wanted a piece of me, and I beat one smaller and one large army in the field - they sued for peace and have since remained carefully neutral, picking other fights instead. Great!

[Doug-Thompson]

I'm thoroughly pleased so far:

1. Getting into a city with a rookie spy now has some element of risk: 25 percent chance of getting caught or greater. If you don't want to risk your spy early on, "opening blitz" strategies are riskier. Sieges take more planning and thought. As a cavalry nut, I was forever rushing around and taking major fortifications with spies and horses in 1.01.

This really impacts the balance and the challenge. I'm still a "blitz opening" player, and I'm still not in much danger of losing, but it's a real and effective change.

2. Diplomacy and related behavior is seriously improved. Playing as the Moors and beating the stuffing after the Portugese, they very sensibly accepted a ceasefire and have stuck with it after I drove them out of Lisbon. I've also been able to dissuade factions from attacking me by putting armies in sensible defensive postitions and watched my would-be invaders retreat from my territory. You still have the one-turn naval blockade from one faction, but there appeared to be some logic to it.

3. Spear units and religious fanatics are worthwhile now.

4. Straggling is much less of a problem, and so is chasing routed units. I haven't had that much of a problem getting a cavalry charge, either.

5. I've had no problems with installation, crashes or slowdowns. I have an AMD/Nvidia processor/video card configuration and installed 1.02 over 1.01 with no mods.

6. With the obvious fixing of the shield bug, infantry battles take longer. Even if an infantry unit is getting crushed, it takes a while to kill or rout it. A "holding action" is now possible, allowing you time to make maneuvers, reinforce and use combined-arms tactics that require some time.

[Jambo]

My favourite unexpected change is how population growth in cities and castles has been reworked in 1.2. It's now much slower meaning you now actually have to upgrade farms and town houses in your settlements to prevent them from stagnating. Previously, the farm upgrades were completely unnecessary and huge cities and castles were everywhere by the mid-game. Thumbs up.

There's still a few battle-map AI idiosyncracies that CA could perfect and there's definitely some stat rebalancing required, but otherwise it's a first rate patch.

[Furious Mental]

That is lame. It's only when every settlement is a huge city or a citadel that the AI actually consistently fields armies of decent soldiers, and the sooner it happens the better.

[Daveybaby]

That is lame. It's only when every settlement is a huge city or a citadel that the AI actually consistently fields armies of decent soldiers, and the sooner it happens the better.

Alternatively: One of the reasons the AI doesnt field decent armies early on is because it (not unreasonably) spends all of its cash upgrading cities/castles, since the rapid pop growth means they turn up too often. Once the cities are all maxed out it can then afford to buy decent units.

So increasing the gap between city upgrades should mean that the AI doesnt spend so much cash upgrading, and so will field better armies consistently throughout the game.

[Jambo]

That is lame. It's only when every settlement is a huge city or a citadel that the AI actually consistently fields armies of decent soldiers, and the sooner it happens the better.

Err, it works for the human and AI...

Since there's now a longer period between when one can upgrade the castle levels, this affords both the AI and human more time to build the other structures. Previously with the super fast growth, while the AI would be busy building other structures, the human would just tech up the castle level which is arguably the most important structure for troop quality (they give DFKs and cavalry). I found myself sometimes being able to tech up to the citadel almost straight after teching up the castle, and then I'd have all the top end troops at my disposal way before 100 turns and while the AI was busy building markets, etc....

[Slaists]

My favourite unexpected change is how population growth in cities and castles has been reworked in 1.2. It's now much slower meaning you now actually have to upgrade farms and town houses in your settlements to prevent them from stagnating. Previously, the farm upgrades were completely unnecessary and huge cities and castles were everywhere by the mid-game. Thumbs up.

There's still a few battle-map AI idiosyncracies that CA could perfect and there's definitely some stat rebalancing required, but otherwise it's a first rate patch.

Interesting, I didn't notice it myself. Will pay attention tonight. Sounds good to me.