The Daily Update at the Com

[TB666]

well to be fair he never promised the patch would be out today.
Still it looked like it would have since there wasn't any issues with the actual patch which was the thing that could have caused a delay.
Instead it turned out to be STEAM that caused the issue.
Sad but I guess waiting one day won't kill us.

[Lemur]

I'd rather have more communication than less. If that means that we will sometimes have expectations raised and then deferred, so be it. Better than a black wall of "when it's done."

[AussieGiant]

I'd rather have more communication than less. If that means that we will sometimes have expectations raised and then deferred, so be it. Better than a black wall of "when it's done."

110% behind that comment.

[TB666]

I'd rather have more communication than less. If that means that we will sometimes have expectations raised and then deferred, so be it. Better than a black wall of "when it's done."

Indeed.
If you go by TWC(unfortunately) they make it seem like it's best just to keep their mouth shut because they will threaten with lawsuits if you don't release it, since they think they said "it will be out tomorrow" instead of the what they really said "We hope that it will be out tomorrow", thus treating it like a verbal contract or something.
Happy that the .orgians(or something) is more calm in this matter.

[Balbus]

Indeed.
If you go by TWC(unfortunately) they make it seem like it's best just to keep their mouth shut because they will threaten with lawsuits if you don't release it, since they think they said "it will be out tomorrow" instead of the what they really said "We hope that it will be out tomorrow", thus treating it like a verbal contract or something.
Happy that the .orgians(or something) is more calm in this matter.

No kidding. It's pretty scary over at TWC. Some of the posters there seem to be genuinely deranged. I'm not joking. You'd think CA had murdered their entire families or something. I've never seen anything quite like it.

[TB666]

No kidding. It's pretty scary over at TWC. Some of the posters there seem to be genuinely deranged. I'm not joking. You'd think CA had murdered their entire families or something. I've never seen anything quite like it.

It was the same during the RTW era(which again the .org was the more reasonable site back then).
All the forums were pretty much hot-zones back then.
TWC handled itself well during M2TW due to a zero tolerance being issued on CA-bashing.
Some people got banned for simply looking at the CA-logo the wrong way but overall we had a more reasonable discussion and far more productive.
Today there is none, any thread being created is usually derailed after a few posts resulting in whining about bugs and other issues.
I have been flamed quite alot of times for simply trying to put things into perspective.
Hopefully the patch will calm things down a bit but I can promise you that some of them will complain regardless, no doubt about the same issues despite them being fixed(some of people complaining about the load-save bug in RTW complained about it even after it was fixed).
Kinda strange that CA doesn't post here that often despite being a better forum to communicate with their customers.

[Ordani]

Kinda strange that CA doesn't post here that often despite being a better forum to communicate with their customers.

Where-ever CA people are will be the forum perceived as most desirable to be using to most people.

[Phog_of_War]

I find it funny that some of the same people who said

"Take your time CA, we are willing to wait for even 2 to 3 months."

Are the same people who now say

"Wut? No patch today?!? That is just wrong CA!! You promised!!!!!!!"


Side note: post #100

[TB666]

I find it funny that some of the same people who said

"Take your time CA, we are willing to wait for even 2 to 3 months."

Are the same people who now say

"Wut? No patch today?!? That is just wrong CA!! You promised!!!!!!!"


Side note: post #100

Even more funny is that people that screamed out "OMG CA you released a non-tested patch that made the sound bugged, why don't you test your patches CA !!!111" are the same ones that are screaming out "Stop testing the patches and release the patch now, you can always fix it later !!11"

[Elmar Bijlsma]

TB666, Phog_of_War, is that even true or are you saying it to make yourself look cooler by comparison?

On the daily updates thing, sure, it's lots better then it was during the RTW days when communications were infrequent, later then promised (that were just the announcements, not a patch!) and used as many words as possible to tell us as little as he could get away with including pre-announcing announcements and worst of all resorting to direct untruths.
I got so fed up with Shogun/Richie, and also the people who kept profusely thanking him for any bit of non info being drip fed. Back in the STW days he was far more open, less prone to PR spin.
Don't miss Shogun/Richie one bit.

By comparison, a big two thumbs up to the recent comms. It's been getting better ever since SEGA grabbed the reigns. While the news/circumstances haven't been all that good, the generally frank communication (excepting Kierans off site post-release interview which put a bit too rosy hue on things) allows me to be a bit more understanding towards CA and the people that work there, and be more accepting of the current situation.

My annoyance as expressed in the previous post wasn't so much about CA naming a date and not making it. I took more issue that they couldn't get the release right when it shouldn't be all that hard. I mean, the patch was ready Friday, probably earlier. You'd have thought they'd be getting everything ready then, merely waiting to flip the switch after testing. Instead they seemed to have done it the way I do my chores... at the last possible moment. And got it wrong.

[TB666]

TB666, Phog_of_War, is that even true or are you saying it to make yourself look cooler by comparison?

I wish I was joking.

I mean, the patch was ready Friday, probably earlier.

While true the patch was ready friday indeed however they didn't know that and took the weekend to test the patch and make sure there are not issues.
Luckily there doesn't seem to have been any issues but they didn't know that at the time.
Better to be safe then sorry I suppose.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

I wish I was joking.

I reckon you were over egging the pudding, painting anyone exasperated over the sound bug in a bad light. Atleast Phog had the good sense to apply his statement to the nebulous "some". You applied a blanket statement that I am confident doesn't bear scrutiny.

While true the patch was ready friday indeed however they didn't know that and took the weekend to test the patch and make sure there are not issues.
Luckily there doesn't seem to have been any issues but they didn't know that at the time.
Better to be safe then sorry I suppose.

Uhm, the "better safe then sorry method" was to upload the patch in advance, continue QA, then flick the switch to activate Steam update on the desired date. That way you don't get any last minute surprises.
Or, if the test found something, do not to flick the switch, fix, then re-upload.

[Phog_of_War]

TB666, Phog_of_War, is that even true or are you saying it to make yourself look cooler by comparison?

Not in the slightest.

I am in total agreement that the communication between CA and their customers is better than it was during the RTW days, by the way.


The point that I'm trying to make is that some people at the .Com and here at the .Org (not as bad as at TW.com) are.....overeacting (sp?)


As far as your previous post Elmar regarding Steam, I am on the fence, but am leaning towards agreeing with you. I personally LOVE Steam but, it was easier to get patches "early" before CA/SEGA decided to go with Steam. However, I for one think the benifits we recieve from Steam outweigh the necessity of us having to have it. (I had it anyway so it was a moot issue for me) I am going to guess that the delay had to do with a scheduling conflict or something of that nature.

All in all, it wont matter in a few hours when the patch is available far and wide.

[TB666]

I reckon you were over egging the pudding, painting anyone exasperated over the sound bug in a bad light. Atleast Phog had the good sense to apply his statement to the nebulous "some". You applied a blanket statement that I am confident doesn't bear scrutiny.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned or atleast implied that I was naturally not refering to everyone.
The people doing this is just the minority however they are unfortunately the very loud minority.

[Phog_of_War]

Some people still think that the "squeaky wheel gets the grease".

But on the internet, the vast majority either want you to shut up and go away, or simply ignore said squeaky wheel.

[Husar]

Downloading a patch exe from a developer and double-clicking it to install the patch is pretty easy.

Have you ever seen topics like "do I install 1.12 before 1.13 and then can I install 1.6 right away or do I need 1.5 first?" or maybe even "help, I tried to install 1.8 before 1.7 and now I can't start the game anymore!!!"?

Well, now you say patches that include all previous versions are the best option, so you get topics like "Why are they not respecting us 56k users?" "Can't they offer it in like 500000 seperate zip files?".

So you say releasing it both ways is the solution so you get topics like "I want to download patch 1.5, do I need to download just patch 1.5.exe or do I also need 1.5_0.zip, 1.5_1.zip, 1.5_2.zip.....?"

And let's not forget "my virus scanner says patch 1.5_234.rar contains a virus, can anyone confirm this? Why are CA trying to infect us?!?!?!".

So i guess it just sounds easy but in practice it might cause even more problems than Steam's automatic process, though that isn't perfect either.

[Servius]

Back on topic, CA is based where? When they thought the patch might be out yesterday, they said it might be out at 1900 GMT, which is 7:00pm in England and 2:00pm on the US east coast. Do you think that, if it comes out today (or whenever it comes out), that it will be released around the same time?

I need to know, you see, because I was going to get married at 1:00pm EST today, but now that the patch might be coming out, I may have to reschedule :-)

Actually, I got married on the 18th!

[maestro]

Actually ... it's 20:00hrs in the UK just thought i'd point that out in case any Brits start to get upset at five past seven

We're on BST (british Summer Time) so an hour ahead of GMT

[Slaists]

Back on topic, CA is based where? When they thought the patch might be out yesterday, they said it might be out at 1900 GMT, which is 7:00pm in England and 2:00pm on the US east coast. Do you think that, if it comes out today (or whenever it comes out), that it will be released around the same time?

I need to know, you see, because I was going to get married at 1:00pm EST today, but now that the patch might be coming out, I may have to reschedule :-)

Actually, I got married on the 18th!

Well, my presumption is that originally they were planning to post the patch on close-of-their-business in the UK (7 PM, GMT) yesterday because they had to do some pre-posting work on the batch files. If the "distribution issues" was the real cause for the delay, then my simple mind would suggest they should have ALREADY been able to resolve those with Steam and the patch should be available as we speak.

However, it's drawing closer to COB in the UK TODAY but the patch is nowhere to be seen. So why do I have that cold-sweat producing, nagging suspicion, it actually was NOT a distribution issue that caused the delay. So, now you can throw stuff at me.

[Grumfoss]

Servius1234 - Congratulations on your wedding

Me, i'm looking forward to the patch, however I won't become crazy and froth at the mouth if it doesn't happen today

it would be nice to have it today but not the end of the world.

[Lemur]

Hope I'm not stepping on any toes by reprinting this here:

---------------------------------------------------------

Hi guys,

Update 3 for Empire: Total War will be available to download later tonight. In the mean time, below is a list of all the major fixes included with the release.

Many thanks,

Mark O'Connell
(aka SenseiTW)

CRASH FIXES
- Fixed crash when disbanding generals unit.
- Fix for crash on trying to merge ships from port into ships next to port.
- Fixed rare crash relating to boarding.
- Fixed crash to do with reinforcing armies.
- Fixed crash on revolution video attempting to play.
- Fixed crash for double clicking on sinking ship on campaign map.
- Fix for crash on merging units but moving into fort before army arrives.
- Fixed several crashes related to rakes.
- Fixed crashes relating to battles when running Czech or German versions of the game.
- Fixed crash on moving army into region of faction player has military access and then cancelling military access.
- Fixed crash on trying to exchange ships between 2 fleets.
- Fixed crash on spamming move orders to puckle guns locked in melee combat.
- Fixed hard lock on inviting host to their own MP game.
- Fix to prevent loading of mod causing crash post patch.
- Various end turn crash bugs fixed.
- Fixes to crash bugs relating to completion of revolutions.
- Some fixes relating to merging and disbanding.
- Fix for several crashes in land battles.
- Several crashes relating to attacking cities fixed.
- Several load save game crashes fixed.

CAMPAIGN
- Armies now placed correctly on battlefields in relation to campaign.
- Fix for nearby ships sometimes not being included as reinforcements for battles.
- Fix for incorrect numbers sometimes showing on trade routes.
- Units with limits on how many can be recruited now show how many are available.
- Various fixes relating to rakes and infiltrating.
- Fixes relating to problems moving armies/merging into army's right next to settlements.
- Various trade bug fixes.
- Fix for moving agent from settlement moving army instead of agent.
- Fix for several bugs relating to military access and armies being in regions.
- Fix for tattered flags appearing on fleet/armies even when at full strength/fully repaired.
- Fix for sallying out armies breaking siege at times even when losing the battle.
- Fix for bugs relating to capturing ships on returning to campaign map from naval battle.

LAND BATTLE
- Improvements to path finding have been made.
- Some fixes to units not garrisoning buildings.
- Fort gate ownership made clearer with faction flags appearing at the gatehouse.
- Fix for problem relating to artillery unlimbering after being ordered to limber.
- Fix for puckle guns moving on their own in some circumstances.
- Fix for big slowdown in unit movement on some battle maps in the Road to Independence episodes.
- Fix for missile cavalry not reloading when out of combat.
- Jaegers now have muskets instead of incorrect rifles, Prussian Jaegers keep rifles.
- Quebec episodic land battle fixed ground type in deployment area
- Fix for unrealistic numbers when ending a land battle by quitting on the battle results screen.

NAVAL BATTLE
- Several fixes for ships clipping into each other.
- Improvements to boarding have been made. Crew is more fluid in attack and more resolute in defence. Men survive long fall and officers join in the boarding attack.
- Crew uniforms improved to make identification of the crew type and faction easier.
- Defending ship is not allowed to fire cannons anymore during boarding procedure.
- Improved naval grouping UI and group movement made.
- Improvements made to ship collisions to reduce chance of ships getting stuck.
- Fix for sail damage not being shown when volumetric effects turned on.

MULTIPLAYER
- Various fixes for joining games/game lobby issues.
- Fixes for problems relating to spectators being kicked/locking up on other players joining games in certain instances.
- Long riflemen and winged hussars removed from early era battles.
- Fix for insufficient funds always showing on unit cards even when enough money is available.
- Player name is now displayed on unit tooltips.
- Team chat is now displayed in a different colour.

AI
- Basic fix for AI being unable to move army by fleet.
- Aggression of factions in campaign improved, as well as tweaks to diplomacy.
- Improvements to campaign AI relating to its waging of wars, recruitment and movement of armies.
- Improvements made to battle AI to make it more reactive, use buildings better as well as squares and rakes.
- Siege battle AI improvements made.
- Improvements to naval AI to make it bunch up less, its use of galleys and long range units such as bomb ketches.

MISCELLANEOUS
- Delete save game button added to save game list.
- View replays button added to single player Play Battle menu.
- Various sound fixes and improvements.
- Various incorrect text messages fixed.
- Fixes to various graphical glitches with display of walls.
- Fixes made for stuttering videos.
- Fix for several game option settings not being saved correctly, including settings such as floating flags.
- Fix for unit voices/attack confirmation being heard for all units in an alliance instead of just for the player's army.
- Armour and shield values are now added into melee defence value shown on unit cards.
- Lots of other small and minor bug fixes.

BALANCING
- Land unit recruitment cost in campaign has been increased, with higher cost on higher difficulty level.
- Ship recruitment and upkeep costs have been increased in campaign.
- Various balancing and cost adjustments to improve multiplayer land battle balance.
- Ship costing improvements made for both campaign and multiplayer.
- Economic tweaks have been made to campaign to reduce amount of money made in later part of campaign.

EXTRA NOTE:
- We are aware of an issue with community created maps that results in a crash when someone without the map tries to join the game. This crash will be fixed in the next patch.
- Further work is being done on improving AI Naval invasion behaviour and this will be included in the next upgrade patch.
- Please also note that this update is save game compatible but you should start a new game to see all of the benefits.

[johnhughthom]

That's a nice, long list.

- Armies now placed correctly on battlefields in relation to campaign.

The main one I was looking for.

[Majora1988]

These are all great news, especially the improvements to boarding, and reinforcements.

[Barkhorn1x]

A very nice list of items. This combined with the testing to get it right has me very optimistic about the future.

BTW, on the subject of TWC posters, TB666 was NOT exaggerating one iota. I was over there yesterday and it was surreal.

[johnhughthom]

Yep, they are already complaining about what is not on the patch list. I usually just check the EB forum when I go there, the rest is depressing.

[Servius]

Will someone post once they actually are able to download the patch? I assume CA means "later tonight" in GB, where it's 7:00pm now (on BST!), rather than "tonight" in the US. I would assume he means in the next 1-2 hours, but it would still be good to get a post from a player when it's actually out to make sure Steam is working.

[Lemur]

Addendum:

-------------------------

Dear All,

To reiterate, this patch is savegame compatible but you'll see a lot more of the gameplay benefits and AI behaviour if you start a new campaign. This is to do with the what we call 'start pos'ing' where the AI calculates a strategy at the outset.

Additionally, as with the recent note on naval invasions. The basic fix is in, meaning the AI can now choose this tactic and may do so. However, it will likely be rare until we've played with all the associated values (There are a lot). We started work on the next upgrade patch in parallel a few weeks ago and I can say for certain this area will continue to improve, so please stay with us.

Thanks again for being so patient, hopefully you'll find as our community beta testers did, that this patch really adds a lot to Empire.

Kind regards,
Kieran

[Slaists]

So, no mention of a fix for the broken inter AI diplomacy? I mean, currently, AI factions never make peace with each other. By mid-game, pretty much everyone (in a theater) is at war with everyone else and the player faction is the only one that can trade in a meaningful way.

[mmk]

Will someone post once they actually are able to download the patch? I assume CA means "later tonight" in GB, where it's 7:00pm now (on BST!), rather than "tonight" in the US. I would assume he means in the next 1-2 hours, but it would still be good to get a post from a player when it's actually out to make sure Steam is working.

Updating just now from Steam...

[Servius]

FYI, Steam just informed me that it had finished downloading the update at 1:35pm EST