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

[Jacque Schtrapp]

That is something I'd like to check : in my post patch 5 campaign with the Seleucid, at turn 50, Egypt, Carthage and Rome are slowly expanding. Anybody noticed the same ?

At turn 125 of my Seleucid campaign, Egypt is allied with everyone and had no where to expand to, Garamantia eliminated Carthage and controls that area of North Africa, and Rome is at war with several barbarian tribes, but hasn't conquered any territory.

[Bramborough]

That is something I'd like to check : in my post patch 5 campaign with the Seleucid, at turn 50, Egypt, Carthage and Rome are slowly expanding. Anybody noticed the same ?

Well, my Pontus campaign has been rolling since late in Patch3. All three of these large factions flamed out early. Egypt cannot come back, all their former territory is now mine. Carthage still pops up but gets pummeled quickly.

Since Patch 5, however, Rome has reappeared and is doing okay. They've only got a few settlements, but these appear to be functioning well. They've built several large non-starving armies (I don't have a spy close enough to see what kind of composition). My hope is that they take the fight back to the Veneti (who originally bumped them off) and reclaim the Italian peninsula.

[Subedei]

I'd recommend starting from the scratch then. With patch V, the starting campaign is miles better than what it used to be (even with patch IV). You missing out on some fun there.

Thanks for the recomendation. What are the most notable improvements?

[Myth]

Why is Egypt even alive at turn 50 or 125 with the Seleucids? Aegyptus has 3 resources in its minor settlements, it's easily one of the richest and most valuable provinces in the game! Eearly Egyptian armies cannot stand to even a signle well composed Seleucid stack. Letting Egypt live means you give the AI leave to exploit 2 grain + 1 iron resources, not to mention two wonders of the world. There is literally nothing better for one stack to do than conquer Egypt and then with reinforcements - Lybia and Carthage (two verry good, 4 settlement provinces there too)

[Alcibiade]

Why is Egypt even alive at turn 50 or 125 with the Seleucids? Aegyptus has 3 resources in its minor settlements, it's easily one of the richest and most valuable provinces in the game! Eearly Egyptian armies cannot stand to even a signle well composed Seleucid stack. Letting Egypt live means you give the AI leave to exploit 2 grain + 1 iron resources, not to mention two wonders of the world. There is literally nothing better for one stack to do than conquer Egypt and then with reinforcements - Lybia and Carthage (two verry good, 4 settlement provinces there too)

I prefer to focus on my eastern front for now. I sent a full stack to help Persia and Media and I help Sardes against Bythinia and Pergamon. Rhodes, Sparta and Athens are helping me on the West. When those two fronts will be taken care of I'll proceed with Cyprus and Egypt. But yeah, it might not be the more logical and strategic plan. Nor the most historical one. I just do it for roleplay purpose. My three dynastic leaders had the love-greeks trait from the beginning so their first purpose is to crush any rebelling attitude from the easterners and strengthen bonds with the greek factions. In the meantime Spartan AI managed to be conquered by Knossos, so I'll have to liberate them.... I might be embroiled in a spiral here

I'm disappointed, CA doesn't want to take care this "no future for major AI factions" trouble. THat and the family tree doesn't seem to be in their priorities. A mix of the family tree and the actual system where family members would be concretely represented when they command an army and would only interact through the faction screen when they rule as statesmen could be awesome ! But I'm rambling again.

[Slaists]

Thanks for the recomendation. What are the most notable improvements?

You'll see much more active diplomatic AI at the start of the campaign (which can heavily affect the player's chances of expansion, trade, etc.). You'll see AI's forming defensive blocks (with the player and against the player and against other AI's). All in all, it is a much more engaging campaign than it used to be before patch 5.

[Slaists]

That is something I'd like to check : in my post patch 5 campaign with the Seleucid, at turn 50, Egypt, Carthage and Rome are slowly expanding. Anybody noticed the same ?

My original post was too optimistic. Now i am near turn 100 with the same Macedon campaign. I purposely avoided expanding into Italy AND the East [instead steam-rolling towards the Northern seas via Germany] to see how the major AI factions will be doing without my interference. At this point, AI Seleucids have been destroyed by Media Atropene (they control territory all the way to the Mediterranean, but nothing really "empire like"; with close to 40 settlements, I am by far the biggest faction on the map); Carthage has been destroyed by desert folks who even hold some territory in Italy. Rome is still around, but mostly spends time at the seas (with its armies) losing territory to one or another minor (then retaking it; then losing again). So, all in all, it is still "no future for major AI factions": just with a little delay (compared to the game before patch 5).

[Seyavash]

Started a new Carthage campaign with patch 5 and it seems that while the major factions don't have large empires a number of factions across the entire map have consolidated in a series of local powerhouses. So rather than a mess of individual factions and one or two very large minor faction empires there is real competition between several mid size empires. So long as it doesn't settle into a stalemate I prefer this to no empires or major factions always winning.

[Slaists]

Started a new Carthage campaign with patch 5 and it seems that while the major factions don't have large empires a number of factions across the entire map have consolidated in a series of local powerhouses. So rather than a mess of individual factions and one or two very large minor faction empires there is real competition between several mid size empires. So long as it doesn't settle into a stalemate I prefer this to no empires or major factions always winning.

The problem is that no matter what faction the player picks, as soon as size of 30-40 settlements is reached the sense of danger completely disappears from the game: and that's pretty much still early game... Don't know. I feel I miss realm divide, LOL...

[Alcibiade]

Started a new Carthage campaign with patch 5 and it seems that while the major factions don't have large empires a number of factions across the entire map have consolidated in a series of local powerhouses. So rather than a mess of individual factions and one or two very large minor faction empires there is real competition between several mid size empires. So long as it doesn't settle into a stalemate I prefer this to no empires or major factions always winning.

What do you mean by powerhouses ? How many provinces or settlements ? Because if the AI really knows how to maintain an empire without collapsing under its own weight, then, the major Ai faction's trouble can be taken care of through mods...

@ Slaists: missing realm divide, it says a lot :-(

[Empire*Of*Media]

but i think they have not fixed this issue that by starting a new campaign and going for it on and on........but again great kingdoms & empires fall easily like Carthage & Rome & .........
besides< still the shortages of food will easily destroy MOST of the factions !! a very boring easy campaign to complete!!

[Alcibiade]

but i think they have not fixed this issue that by starting a new campaign and going for it on and on........but again great kingdoms & empires fall easily like Carthage & Rome & .........
besides< still the shortages of food will easily destroy MOST of the factions !! a very boring easy campaign to complete!!

It's a pity cause I'm very positively impressed by some of the CAI moves and the interactions between AI factions on the diplomatic scale are starting to give life to te campaign map ! But yeah, a simgle mod can take care of that issue I suppose.

[AntiDamascus]

Part of it is, I think, that we know these were great kingdoms who survived for long times but in the game world these are just factions. Carthage can fall because of bad luck or bad decisions and so on. No one really complains that you take Sparta and rule the world so to speak so it shouldn't be odd that Rome can, in fact, fall early on.

[Alcibiade]

I think Patch 5 corrected the army composition's trouble ! The eastern's factions I fight as the Seleucids brought many thorax units (pikemen and swordmen) and a perfect ratio of inf, missile, cav troops !
And there's this 4 star enemy general, couldn't spell his name properly, who annihilated one of my stacks and succeeded in escaping when I destroyed his stack ! All my generals on the eastern front must dream of choping his head now ! That's the TW I love : I was so pissed that I couldn't have any mortal tenacious enemies in Shogun 2 ! At first occasion they were comitting suicide in some fortress assault.

@ AntiDamascus : I see your point. It's just that I'd prefer to fight a powerfull Roman empire, playing as Carthage, and have to deal with rebellious african's tribe, than the opposite. Maybe, it's a lack of imagination. But as I love to read antiquity historic books I love when the course if events stay close tp it with some variations though.

When I play EU4, I see various scenari, but the main empires are ususally the same we saw in history, with slight variations.

.

[Slaists]

RTW 2 starvation post patch 5

It's a pity cause I'm very positively impressed by some of the CAI moves and the interactions between AI factions on the diplomatic scale are starting to give life to te campaign map ! But yeah, a simgle mod can take care of that issue I suppose.

After patch 5, I see the AI starving only in the cases when it has been left with one region which happens to be the capital (walled) settlement. In that case, the AI is likely to starve due to lack of farms. In any case, the incidence of starving seems to be quite reduced compared to patch 3 for example.

EU4 versus RTW 2

@ AntiDamascus : I see your point. It's just that I'd prefer to fight a powerfull Roman empire, playing as Carthage, and have to deal with rebellious african's tribe, than the opposite. Maybe, it's a lack of imagination. But as I love to read antiquity historic books I love when the course if events stay close tp it with some variations though.

When I play EU4, I see various scenari, but the main empires are ususally the same we saw in history, with slight variations.

.

In EU4, 8 historically well performing AI nations get "lucky nation bonus" (better morale, better battle stats, better monarchs; the latter one is actually a huge bonus in EU4). This practically ensures these nations succeed if the game is played long enough (and the human player does not "take care" of the lucky ones early). The historical lucky nations feature can be turned off at the game start. With this feature turned off, the AI universe collapses in a random mess in EU4 same as in RTW-2. One can elect to have "random lucky nations" instead of "historical lucky nations": this results in a random pick of nations becoming large and strong.

RTW 2 WAD?

Back to RTW 2, here are a few features that seem to be bugged. I am wondering what other folks here think about them (I have posted these in the official support forum too):

1. diplomatic reliability (for the player): no matter what the game difficulty this stays "steadfast" for the player with all of the AI factions except the one the player is directly at war with. Even in the latter case, it fast reverts to steadfast or close to steadfast within a few turns. Last night I tested it by declaring war on a long term military ally. Sure, I became untrustworthy with the target, but I was still steadfast with all of the target's allies and 'friends'. Surely a word should have gotten out that I was an untrustworthy scumbag...

2. dignitaries get a random trait called "military administrator" (or something sounding similar). From the name of the trait, it would seem like a good trait for the dignitary in the military administrator role. However, in the game, it gives a whooping +10% to army upkeep. All the military administrator skills give the opposite (reduction in upkeep costs).

3. corruption reduction (the 5% bonus that's supposed to accrue from completing 3 skills in each level of the academic research area; for example, the first level is supposed to give corruption reduction of 5%). However, it gives much less than that. In my last game, I checked it on a few provinces and the reduction was closer to 0.05% (could be an issue with misplaced zeroes or the decimal point, or a multiplication applies where addition was supposed to happen) than 5%. At least on the tax side, it appears a 3% bonus from technology is applied as a +3% to the tax rate; not tax rate x 0.03.

p.s. I suspect, if #1 is not working as intended, this could be a factor in the current state of AI's peacefulness with respect to the player in the late game. Also, someone on the official forum suggested the diplomatic reliability display for the player is bugged. Even though it shows as steadfast, the real value applies is lower than that. Hmm, got to explore that further.

[AntiDamascus]

I'm sure the military thing is just a whoopsie that someone put in wrong.

[nearchos]

I dont know if others have noticed this, but when autoresolving a battle and have elephant units in my army with percentage between 85 and 90% or lower, sometimes even with over 90%, all units are having their % of casualties but the elephant units are totaly destroyed.

Same happened often with chariot units.

Im not sure wy this happens but i think it needs a fix here, perhaps the autoresolve mechanism, counts quandities and desides that with a low no of "items" a unit should be destroyed.

[FesterShinetop]

Just had a 150MB download for Rome II and the version number in game is now at 1.6? Though I have no idea what number it was before, I assume it was 1.5 after Patch 5? Anyone know if this was a patch or just an update for the blood and gore DLC?

[Slaists]

I dont know if others have noticed this, but when autoresolving a battle and have elephant units in my army with percentage between 85 and 90% or lower, sometimes even with over 90%, all units are having their % of casualties but the elephant units are totaly destroyed.

Same happened often with chariot units.

Im not sure wy this happens but i think it needs a fix here, perhaps the autoresolve mechanism, counts quandities and desides that with a low no of "items" a unit should be destroyed.

It is a known glitch with the autoresolve now. Not only the elephants: cavalry is affected by this as well. Cavalry suffers way more casualties in autoresolve than the infantry. I suspect, the autoresolve damage is applied to the maximum unit size (for any type), not the actual. The maximum default unit size on ultra, for example, is 160 infantry. Let's say the autoresolve suggests 10% loss. That suggests 16 infantry should die. I guess, 16 gets blanket-style applied to all units not the relative 10% loss. Just, in the case of elephants: 16 means a wipeout, not a 10% loss.

[Myth]

AR gives me horrible predictions when I use pike heavy armies. It favours sword units for some reason. When I actually lead the battle I win with 100-200 men lost.

[nearchos]

That suggests 16 infantry should die. I guess, 16 gets blanket-style applied to all units not the relative 10% loss. Just, in the case of elephants: 16 means a wipeout, not a 10% loss

.
Yes, thats the general formula but its not that strict i think, since not all units in an army suffer the same,even same type of units taking different no of casualties but any way, since i think a lot of players, choose to AR some battles for various reasons, perchaps CA should see if there is something to re balance here, because its very frustrating, to pay more than 2000 to get 48 armoured elephands, upgrade them, use them in battles to get exp, and in AR a battle, with minimal loses they just get destroyed.

[Empire*Of*Media]

Please i need HELP !

i have problem playing Multiplayer in tunngle they said u should only have patch4

so this is my question:

by updating to patch 4 or maybe future 5, WHITHOUT updating patch 1- 2 - 3, will i miss good things like high frame rate that was in other patches?!
i mean will i loose some features and fixes when i ONLY install Update/Patch 4 ?!

please help me!
Thanks !

[Myth]

Since these are not standalone patches I assume they don't include the previous patch in the new one. So you have to go through their order of release.

[Empire*Of*Media]

Since these are not standalone patches I assume they don't include the previous patch in the new one. So you have to go through their order of release.

can u tell me what GREAT features that have real influence on AI & Campaign & Battle & Specially Frame Rate and Performance, i will loose when i only install update4 ?!

[Slaists]

can u tell me what GREAT features that have real influence on AI & Campaign & Battle & Specially Frame Rate and Performance, i will loose when i only install update4 ?!

The AI diplomacy is simply broken before patch 5. Since patch 5, the AI's form alliance blocks that sometimes are tricky to deal with (a good thing).

[Empire*Of*Media]

The AI diplomacy is simply broken before patch 5. Since patch 5, the AI's form alliance blocks that sometimes are tricky to deal with (a good thing).

no i said what good things i will loose by not installing update 1 to 3, when i ONLY WANT TO INSTALL UPDATE 4! not 5!

[Myth]

You will probably mess up your game.

[Hooahguy]

Update on the patches:

Hi all,
There’s been a bit of confusion over the various updates to ROME II recently and what’s coming next, so here’s a quick summary.
First a bit of technical detail on what happens when we update a TW game, because that will hopefully help with the explanation.
When we release a patch or DLC for our games, we are of course making changes to the game. Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of changes; code changes (changes to the games executable file, i.e. Rome2.exe) and content changes (changes to the assets that the game uses, including models, audio, text, the database etc. that come in the form of .pack files in the game’s data folder).
Code changes need to go to all players, to keep the version and experience of the game the same for everybody. This also ensures that everybody’s version of the game is compatible with new content. This is especially important for multiplayer, so that all players are playing the same version of the game. This means that sometimes when we release DLC everyone downloads the data in a patch even if they don’t buy the DLC so that their version of the game is current and they can see the new units or factions when they play against someone using them in multiplayer.
Content changes can be made without code changes. Different players can also own different content of course. For example, one player may own the Total War: ROME II Nomadic Tribes Culture Pack DLC, and another may not. However, in this case, both players will still need to have the same version of the game, and so the same code changes. All players will have received an update when Total War: ROME II Nomadic Tribes Culture Pack DLC was released, which included fixes and code to make the game aware of the new content, and some of the graphics/data to ensure that the new units show up in multiplayer correctly even if that player hasn’t purchased that DLC (or picked it up for free in the giveaway week).
Most of the time, when we release a patch or DLC, we release both code changes and content changes at the same time, so all players will experience an update, whether they get new content changes or not. If a player gains ownership of new content (by buying DLC for example), and already has the latest version of the game (latest code changes to Rome2.exe), only the extra data pack(s) of content changes will be downloaded, and not any code changes (changes to the games executable file Rome2.exe). Depending on the DLC and how much of it has already been downloaded as part of the update for the above reasons, the size of this download on purchase can vary greatly.
Patch 6
As explained in posts before, not all patches are equal in size, when we name them they are just given the next ascending number so we can track them internally as they are built and published. Patch 6 was effectively the update that allowed the game to recognise the Blood & Gore DLC yesterday, so that when you buy the DLC it works correctly with the game and, even if you choose not to buy it, we have made sure that everyone has the very latest version, so that when we patch in the future we are sure that everyone’s is at the same point.
It did also include some very minor fixes (correction for black terrain and issues running in non-administrator mode in windows for some people, namely), and we will update the patch notes page on the wiki to reflect this.
Patch 7
The core team’s main focus since patch 5 has been patch 7, which is currently being prepared for open beta. So expect to see some news on this soon.
As we’ve mentioned before, the TW team work on multiple different patches and new game content in parallel at the same time, it’s not always required that the whole team work on one specific tech issue at the same time.
Please note that we won’t specify dates on when patches will enter open beta or go live as we may decide that they need further work or content added at the last moment and we don’t want to cause disappointment.
Patch 7 certainly won’t be the last update we make to the game, as we announced before ROME II launched we have an extensive plan for post-release updates including free additional content and features: http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...al-War-ROME-II[1] !
But as Mike Simpson mentioned recently, the interval between updates will increase as deeper gameplay and AI changes take longer to test. It would be fair to say though that the frequency of updates will be higher than any TW game to date for the foreseeable future.
Thanks!

[Bramborough]

This is probably one of those posts where I demonstrate once again how I've completely missed something simple and fundamental...but here goes...

Is Steam not required to run R2? And if running via Steam, don't the patches load automatically once they go live, whether one desires or not?

If this is the case, I don't see how any typical player can possibly be running the game without Patches 1-5.

I say "typical" because I'm sure there's a few computer whizzes out there who can tinker the game however they like, and could run R2 without the patches. I'm at a loss to come up with any rational reason why they would want to do so in the first place.

@EasternSpartakus, I strongly suspect you've already got Patches 1-5 loaded. If I'm in error, well, just load them all up anyway. They've done nothing except improve the game. Immensely.

[Slaists]

no i said what good things i will loose by not installing update 1 to 3, when i ONLY WANT TO INSTALL UPDATE 4! not 5!

I don't think, you can do that. If you install the latest patch, the earlier ones get loaded automatically.