Patch 3!

[nafod]

Well, on my part: the game post-patch runs fine (no zero tax issue). On the same note I wanted to state the following before my mind gets clouded by any negative stuff.

So far, played a few turns as France (on H, just to test what's going on). It's WONDERFUL! The campaign AI does all kinds of "stuff" now... Wars are happening left and right and even the barbary pirates have started to raid my trade ports in earnest...

As a highlight of the day: the pesky Dutch declared war on Spain (hoping to take Belgium). I guess, they did not expect France to join. Anyway, France (me) is besieging the capital in Holland. The Dutch sally. There is a small Spanish outfit in the nearby town, but the do not join the fight. "Cowards!" I think to myself...

I soundly defeat the Dutch, but... alas, a few battered militia units escape. Siege continues. What do you think, happens on the Spanish turn? They attack the town with their small outfit that refused to fight the big battle. Even with me backing out of the battle they take the city!

Sneaky Spaniards! ...

I say: it's a wonderful patch! Great work CA! Great work, Lusted!

Just so you know, the event you just described occurred often prior to the patch. In fact there are a few threads complaining about this behaviour....

[Ethelred Unread]

People will complain about anything it would appear. Seems perfectly reasonable behaviour to me.

The next thing will be a load of posts complaining that the AI is too aggressive on VH/VH.

[anweRU]

The next thing will be a load of posts complaining that the AI is too aggressive on VH/VH.

Judging from other posts, the AI is far too aggressive on any setting now. I was hoping for a more intelligent AI, not a more suicidal one. Based on my hour or so of playing a VH French campaign I had in progress, the AI is simply now even more suicidal. And the NA factions are going on a rampage. They were bad before, now they are ridiculous. There is a NA DoW on me and at least one other colonial power every turn.

On a positive side, at least the Barbary pirates have come back to life in the Med. They used to get blasted out of the sea in the first couple of turns, then remain stagnant for the rest of the campaign.

I'll have to start a fresh campaign to see if the NA factions will be affected by the changes in recruitment costs. The fact that even the Pueblos had three full stacks already before the patch hit might have something to do with their current rampage.

[Beskar]

Geez, I went to continue my campaign from yesterday and went from +40,000 louis or whatever to -35,000. Had no idea I had downloaded and installed update. Not sure I like STeam downloading auto like that. Love the game though.

That doesn't seem like too much fun to me.

[Graphic]

i always wondered why usa was the only faction to get long range unit in early... but instead of taking it away perhaps it would be better off giving all factions range... early will be for cav spammers and campers... not a great decision imho...

It's because the US campaign starts in 1783. Early US campgin = late GC.

[Prodigal]

Someone else, in this or another thread, has pointed out a very important point.

The game's not called Happy Fatty Trader, its called total war, the AI in any setting should be going at it hammer & tongs.

That aside, very, very happy with the fixes my two bug bears have/are being tackled.

[Graphic]

The games feels a lot smoother now, although there is still some stuttering on the campaign map. I have almost 1.5 times more FPS now.

What driver version are you running?

[Beskar]

LOL, this is amazing in a way.

Foreign policy = Far Easier
Home Management = Harder

I am playing on a Russia game and everyone is Friendly with me or above, apart from Barbary States. Everyone is at war at each other and killing each other, so when I have to fight, I can easily defeat them. Because of this, I am not getting massive territorial expansion penalties like I used to get which used to be a massive thorn in the side.

Problem is, all my home regions seem far more prone to revolt, which I can handle and I used to handle things like this easy by just lowing the tax slider however, with the changes in tax, I am also getting far less money per province than I used to anyway.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

What driver version are you running?

Nvidia 182.06. I have been running this one from the start although CA stated that this one was not tested. Since my performance was OK and I didn't have a lot of CTD's, I never installed a previous driver version. On campaign map I have an average of 60 FPS with a lot of options on ultra etc. My battles seem to look better and run smoother.

My specs:
Intel E 6600
Nvidia 9800GTX
Windows XP
2 GB Ram


@Beskar

I haven't seen the easier foreign policy. Where I usually started a GB campaign with buying Ceylon from the UP in exchange for Rupert's land, today that didn't work. My long lasting trade with Maratha was stopped by them. I don't know why. My be they didn't like it that I wanted to trade with the Mughals as well. Now I am not trading with any one in India .

Questions
1. Has anyone had a small faction willing to accept a peace deal? I usually had to destroy them to get rid of them. At the moment I can't even make peace with Prussia (a major faction), although we are hardly fighting.
2. Has anyone seen that peace was restored after years of fighting between two AI factions?

[Graphic]

Nvidia 182.06. I have been running this one from the start although CA stated that this one was not tested. Since my performance was OK and I didn't have a lot of CTD's, I never installed a previous driver version. On campaign map I have an average of 60 FPS with a lot of options on ultra etc. My battles seem to look better and run smoother.

My specs:
Intel E 6600
Nvidia 9800GTX
Windows XP
2 GB Ram

Before you replied I got excited and went to see what it's like on the latest official drivers. It does seem a fair bit bet better. I clicked the shiny ULTRA button, then went and made a custom battle with 2 full armies. It was playable, if choppy. Before that would have been a total mess I think. I'll go back to custom settings though...HDR in ETW is actually pretty annoying and distracting.

[crpcarrot]

Deleted and re-downloaded patch and stratpos.esf file 2 more times, it just ctd's on start-up. It seems like this patch ruined the game for me.

i'm sorry but you mods reuined the game for you CA is not resposible for how you mod your game

its a wonder that Luted was was helpig you saolve the problem if it was any other developer they would have jsut told u to reinstall from scratch.

[anweRU]

The game's not called Happy Fatty Trader, its called total war, the AI in any setting should be going at it hammer & tongs.

Yeah, and CA is doing the exact same thing it did with METW2. Force the player to become a blitzer. My METW2 games used to last into the 150 turns or so, but because I wanted to build up my regions. I would get the requisite 45 victory regions before the Mongols came. Entirely because of AI DoWs on me.

As for the current patch: My income in my current VH French campaign went down from 16K / turn to 7K / turn due to increased upkeep and reduced tax income, something I can live with. The techs have been rebalanced, which is fine.

The AI is more aggressive - to its own peril. The Iriquois are no more. The Cherokee will provide a challenge - having taken Florida and Upper Louisiana. Will it make the game more enjoyable? Nah, just another dozen or so repetitive battles.

The Barbary states are more active as I mentioned in my prior post, again stupidly suicidal. A two-ship stack raided my trade lanes. I forgot about it, being preoccupied with the Iriquois - and it was destroyed by a full-stack Papal fleet.

A pirate fleet from Windward isles blockaded Martinique's port - I destroyed it with one of my two naval stacks in the Carib, then blockaded T&T with the other one. Two turns later a single pirate fluyt blockades Martinique. I quickly captured it with my fleet @ T&T (1 5th, 3 6th, 1 xebec, 1 sloop), and sent it to a trade theater. Thank you CA for a never ending supply of free fluyts!

So, to recap: More aggressive doesn't mean more intelligent. I have hopes for the promised re-balancing with the next patch, but they are not very high.

[Darth Venom]

Two things I like to add to the already mentioned things:

- The nerfed economy came as quite a nasty surprise. I loadad up my very late game (~1830) Prussian campaign and my income went from +300.000/turn to -50.000/turn with taxes on minimum everywhere. I assume that new campaigns will be much more difficult economy-wise on vh.

- In the same campaing the Marathas had been offering me trade rights + 30.000 payed by me every turn for 30 years or so. Now they keep pestering me but their money demand has gone down to 1.000! Which seems more reasonable.

[crpcarrot]

maybe you should try aplying at a different setting before generalising which everyone a lot of the complainers seem to be doing.

[Darth Venom]

The Barbary states are more active as I mentioned in my prior post, again stupidly suicidal. A two-ship stack raided my trade lanes. I forgot about it, being preoccupied with the Iriquois - and it was destroyed by a full-stack Papal fleet.

A pirate fleet from Windward isles blockaded Martinique's port - I destroyed it with one of my two naval stacks in the Carib, then blockaded T&T with the other one. Two turns later a single pirate fluyt blockades Martinique. I quickly captured it with my fleet @ T&T (1 5th, 3 6th, 1 xebec, 1 sloop), and sent it to a trade theater. Thank you CA for a never ending supply of free fluyts!

So, to recap: More aggressive doesn't mean more intelligent. I have hopes for the promised re-balancing with the next patch, but they are not very high.

In regards to the Barbary States and the Pirates this behaviour seems pretty much correct to me. They are there to pester and annoy you! Would you rather have them leave them a 4 brig fleet in port or go out and raid trade routes / attack ports ?

[anweRU]

They are acting no differently than land-based AI attacks of 1-2 units raiding farms, etc. It is annoying, but doesn't make the game challenging. In the case of the pirates, the AI knew I had a much more powerful force within half a move distance, blockading its port.

It would have been more challenging if: (i) the pirates recruited more ships and tried to lift my blockade on T&T, or (ii) sent that lone fluyt up north, and blockade my trade ports up there, which are currently defenseless.

Lets face it: we all know the AI blatantly cheats, and is not affected by fog-of-war. It uses its knowledge to a limited extent - e.g. when pirate fleets appear from nowhere to attack a weak stack of ships in the middle of the ocean, far from any trade lane, at the start of the game. If it is going to cheat anyway, why can't it use its knowledge to plan a more effective strategy?

[Beskar]

*the message with more spelling errors than correct*

What are you even talking about? It was because the new patch damaged the userdata folder in my case which was fixed when I deleted it and the game made a new one.

[Prodigal]

So, to recap: More aggressive doesn't mean more intelligent. I have hopes for the promised re-balancing with the next patch, but they are not very high.

True, the AI's never been very intelligent, but pre patch the game became tedious alot faster than I'd expected based on all the previous games.

The massive mood swing is a good early move, we've only had two months of patches, & this is the first with serious tweaks in, admittedly too much aggression has the potential to become boring too but at least something will always be happening.

The whole AI is tricky, so far the AI has appeared to generally build balanced armies, some cav, heavy on the troops with supportin arty, rather than simply churing out stacks of cannon or militia. I'd be happy if they finessed the diplomacy and put in some randomly generated intelligent objectives for each faction, & they worked toward those goals allying with factions that could best help achieve them.

[Lemur]

Well, I've noticed that the AI is no longer hell-bent on raiding your territory, which is a welcome change. I remember having a full stack army outside of Norway, and Denmark made a runner with its four-troop stack, abandoning the city so that it could raid Sweden. The imperative to raid, raid, raid was paramount! No more. Now the AI seems to make sure that it can actually defend itself before launching suicide raid parties. I call that an improvement.

[nafod]

It also seems trade functions more on a supply vs demand then previous, where it seemed to focus more on your proportion of available resources.

I control all but one of the Ivory trade nodes, and Ivory is trading at 15. I never saw it this low pre-patch. Spice and Sugar are also around 13. Highest are Tobacco and Cotton at 19 and 20 respectively.

[anweRU]

@ what difficulty level? I'll need to load some of my old GB & UP campaigns to see how they changed.

[FactionHeir]

Two things I like to add to the already mentioned things:

- The nerfed economy came as quite a nasty surprise. I loadad up my very late game (~1830) Prussian campaign and my income went from +300.000/turn to -50.000/turn with taxes on minimum everywhere. I assume that new campaigns will be much more difficult economy-wise on vh.

- In the same campaing the Marathas had been offering me trade rights + 30.000 payed by me every turn for 30 years or so. Now they keep pestering me but their money demand has gone down to 1.000! Which seems more reasonable.

That's a pet peeve of mine with ETW:
The AI bases its demands on your total treasury and income. So the richer you are, the more they want from you. And if you are too rich, then the demands get to a certain level where they want say 200k, but at the same time are programmed to reject all your offers above 200k with "Your money smells".

Things should have a set value, not be based on how much money you have really. I can't see why when I have 24000 the AI will sell me the breeding tech for 23500 but when I have 50k, they will demand 48k for the same tech.

[Babblearossa]

That's a pet peeve of mine with ETW:
The AI bases its demands on your total treasury and income. So the richer you are, the more they want from you. And if you are too rich, then the demands get to a certain level where they want say 200k, but at the same time are programmed to reject all your offers above 200k with "Your money smells".

Things should have a set value, not be based on how much money you have really. I can't see why when I have 24000 the AI will sell me the breeding tech for 23500 but when I have 50k, they will demand 48k for the same tech.

That's called charging what the market will bear, try pricing the same meal in aspen co. and cleveland oh. Or san francisco vs. detroit, in my not-so-nice SF neighborhood that has gang shootings 2 bedroom house is 800k - 1.5 mill, in detroit it's 30k - 130k. Or the special cut rate price of windows for china, 66 vs. 200. It's not fair but it's realistic.

[FactionHeir]

Sure, but you can't do the same thing to a rich AI. Only they can do it to you.

For instance try selling it trade rights, a region or techs. You won't get more than 10k at most, while you'll be charged at between 10-100x the rate if you try to buy the exact same thing regardless of relations.

[Veresov]

The new patch seems to have fixed the game enough for me to get past the first turn. Empire did shunt to desktop but a reinstall seems to have fixed it. I am up to turn 25 without an ctd, a record.

I have seen some bizarre behavior with the battle AI. It seems to like shuffling units back and forth. Is that new behavior or old? I am also seeming the AI doing a lot more melee than I would expect for the period. I have no idea whether this is new with the patch or not.

[FactionHeir]

Anyone got news on navy crashes yet? (The click to crash one)
Does it still occur if you get any of the movement increasing techs? (Basically almost any fleet would insta crash if it had top gallants and was in north america, especially if it also had an army loaded in it - regardless of turn number)

[Graphic]

http://screenshot.xfire.com/screensh...5dd96b9b3a.png

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Well, I've noticed that the AI is no longer hell-bent on raiding your territory, which is a welcome change. I remember having a full stack army outside of Norway, and Denmark made a runner with its four-troop stack, abandoning the city so that it could raid Sweden. The imperative to raid, raid, raid was paramount! No more. Now the AI seems to make sure that it can actually defend itself before launching suicide raid parties. I call that an improvement.

I have seen quite the opposite. Denmark kept raiding Norway instead of capturing it. It was totally undefended!. Since Sweden declared war on me (GB) I captured Norway while a Danish stack stood nearby. I think that the AI still is yo keen on raiding. When I captured Sweden, they send kept raiding their own towns instead of preparing to recapturing it. This was the same during the Indian wars in North America. Raiding and leaving your cities undefended. I finally saw a naval invasion. Sweden landed an army in a fishery and marched up to Stockholm. Very good AI you are learning the trade. To sad for them my army was already in Finland which was undefended and Sweden was no more.

I think that the AI is lacking a purpose as to why it is declaring war. It should have a goal: "lets start a war and capture region X. If this succeeds we will call it a day and if it fails will ask (or beg) for peace." At the moment the AI is declaring war without a plan. France attacked me in North America and kept sending raiding parties. Only after a some turns they send an small invasion force. By then it was too late and although they had some initial success they lost all their Colonies because I was able to reinforce my army there.

I am now in the year 1750 and my income isn't near as high as it used to be. The AI is also struggling for money because it isn't sending stack after stack against me. Sweden had two stacks and some minor ones when I invaded. When I destroyed the Cherokee they had only minor stacks and France had mainly Natives defending New France. It seems that the AI has problems upgrading its armies because Sweden still had demi-cannons while it could field twelve pounders.

And to quote Cato: "And the Crimean Khanate is still alive"

Edit: @Faction Heir. I had never CTD's while clicking on a fleet. The game would freeze for a while. It is still doing that but it isn't as bad as it used to be. Clicking on a fleet in heavily contested waters like the Channel is no longer causing a coffee break. So may be it is fixed for you.

[FactionHeir]

Thanks, can you try at some point to put a fleet near the carib or a bit east and/or north of that? Small army, 3-6 ships, all 3rd or higher rate. Best to have several of this same set up in the area and then click on them, and then (if you survive that) select a single ship in the fleet.

Make sure you got top gallants and all the other movement enhancers for ships

[Grumfoss]

I have found a small problem with naval battles I think.
I have been putting my fleet into a double line and then grouping them. this works fine until one ship was pretty damaged so I tried to take it out of the group and get it out of harms way. However once I clicked to remove it from the group the whole group disbanded and when I tried to reform the group it ended up with all of the ships taking off in random directions no matter where I clicked them to move. The only way I could get them to go in the right direction was to click on each ship in turn and give it directions.
I have also noticed that AI ships fire so much faster and seem to be much more accurate. Has anyone else seen this since the patch?