The Daily Update at the Com

[Durallan]

out of curiosity what kind of computer do you have dead guy? I have a really old computer but I have only had the fleet clicky CTD the occaisonal other CTD but not recently, this link will give you a good idea how well your computer could handle ETW http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest

[Dead Guy]

I bought new components for my rig right when ETW was released, because GTA IV wouldn't run on my old AMD Athlon something-or-other. It's ironic how the intro video says it runs great on an i7 processor, cause that's what I have now. Well, it could be a number of other things of course...

Nifty tool, that. Thanks for the link.

[Discoman]

18th August:

Hello everyone, today's update is about the upcoming 1.4 update.

The focus for the update has been AI, both campaign and battle along with improvements to sieges and the naval rebalancing. A lot of work has been put into the campaign and diplomacy AI, focusing on how it wages war, makes alliances and peace as well as use of naval invasions. Battle side improvements have been made to most areas of the AI with the focus on the siege AI which has had major changes made to it. Sieges have also had a lot of work done on them with a lot of bugs fixed, improvements made to pathfinding and how guns and troops on walls work.

Below is a list of some of the fixes that will be in 1.4:

- Fix for auto unlimbering causing the attack order to terminate prematurely resulting in an inability to stop the unit from firing.
- Fix for troops on fort walls not using fort gun range when judging when to fire on enemy troops.
- Fix for fort guns using wrong targeting formula.
- Fixes to fort pathfinding and use of ropes.
- Multiplayer soft lock fixes.
- Fix crash in quotes table.
- Cumulative updates to improve AI invasion behaviour.
- Bug fixes and improvements to AI counter offers.
- Improvements to AI diplomatic valuation of military access and alliances.
- Fix for wind sounds not working in naval battles
- Fixed ship wakes not always working.
- Fixed potential crash disembarking agents from navies.
- Fixed armies not being booted out of regions when losing military access gained by joining an ally in war.
- Improved AI diplomacy valuation of technologies.
- Fixed reinforcements from unreachable positions.
- Balance of power fix for attack of opportunity.
- Fixed bug that was causing issues with embarking an army containing multiple characters.
- Minor tweak to stop some ship sails endlessly play furling sound.
- Fixed path blocked bug (pathing into ZoC).
- Diplomacy counter-offer improvements.
- Fix for fast forward not working as intended on some PCs. Will always speed up if camera is still, if camera moves fast forward will be as fast as possible on each PC.

p.s. Mark say's hi everyone

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/srepl...he-Update.html

Some CTD fixes and Diplomacy changes.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

I can't believe they are still intending to rebalance the naval game. There was no request to do so and a significant outcry against it.
Stopping the sloop/brig spam was about the only thing that I expected them to do.

[Durallan]

and that didn't even have anything to do with the naval engine itself, just the AI pumping out redundant ships lol, if they want sloops and brigs to be more useful, they should have started the game in the 1600's and then everyone would have more time to play with them

[Peasant Phill]

A lot of rebalancing of the diplomacy but unfortunatly I can't find a mention of something done about the 'black knight' behavior. I'm still hopefull but it doesn't look good.

[Husar]

I can't believe they are still intending to rebalance the naval game. There was no request to do so and a significant outcry against it.
Stopping the sloop/brig spam was about the only thing that I expected them to do.

Seconded.

[Slaists]

CA, fix the diplomatic triggers! A faction should NOT get a global diplo hit for "dishonoring treaties" when it joins a defending ally. Especially, there should be no such hit applied to the very ally the faction is defending...

[Durallan]

CA, fix the diplomatic triggers! A faction should NOT get a global diplo hit for "dishonoring treaties" when it joins a defending ally. Especially, there should be no such hit applied to the very ally the faction is defending...

20th July:

Hi guys,

We have stopped the "Backstabber" and "Dishonouring Treaties" diplomatic factors being applied when joining an ally in war. We have also checked in the first pass of diplomacy improvements. This consists of updating some of the diplomacy calculations to use new functionality that has been added to the AI since release and tweaking some of the factors. In addition, we have made changes to increase AI counter offers.

Thanks,

Mark O'Connell
(aka SenseiTW)

Its meant to be fixed for 1.4... but that remains to be seen at least they have now said the upcoming 1.4 patch which means it must be getting closer, although its going to be hard to upgrade because while the AI and diplo and that is meant to be getting a fix, we will be losing our ship battle stuff, still its a case of whats needed more desperately to make the game enjoyable and AI sits above their naval battle rebalancing.

[Servius]

The initial paragraphs sounded good for CAI and DAI improvements, but the bulletted list didn't. I'm assuming that perhaps I just didn't understand their lingo. In case it's not clear to CA yet, at least as I see it, the Black Knight issue is the most pressing. The core features of the Black Knight DAI that need to change are:

- AI will declare war on you without the means to gain anything from it. Sometimes they can't even reach you. For example, the emergant nation of Hungary declares war on Great Britain, even though Hungary is landlocked, surrounded by nations it's at war with, and has no port or a navy. GB has no continental regions. In this situation, it is physically impossible for Hungary to do anything to GB. Thus, this DOW is pointless. It is a problem of ability. In situations like this, the AI should not have declared war in the first place. In addition, if war is already being waged, and the AI gets put into this position, it should seek peace.

- AI will declare war on you and then not do anything. It has armies, and they could march on your regions, but they don't. The most often experienced example I get like this as GB is the Huron. When the game starts, they attack Rupert's Land. Once you take Huron Territory, they still have that other region way to the northwest. They build up armies there, and could march them down to Rupert's Land, but they don't. This is not a problem of ability, it's a problem of willingness. Again, if the CAI is not willing to attack nations it's at war with, the AI should not declare war in the first place, and if war is already joined and the AI hits this position, it should seek peace.

In short, the DAI should have to pass the following tests before it declares war, and should seek peace whenever it can't meet these tests. In them, "I" is the AI talking to itself.

Test 1) The other nation has something I want.
Test 2) I've tried to obtain the thing I want through diplomacy (trading techs, money, etc.) at least once in the last X turns, but my offer was declined.
Test 3) I have the military means to take what I want, including sufficient, excess (as in, not needed for defense) land forces to take and defend the region I want and sufficient, available naval forces capable of delivering my land forces to the target (if necessary).
Test 4) My CAI will actually use the aforemention land and naval units to execute the forceful capture of what I want.
Test 5) I am currently Hostile towards the other nation.

NOTE TO CA: I don't actually know if there are two different AIs (one for diplomacy and one for campaign unit movement). This assumption is based on situations where a nation will declare war on me, and seemily have the military power and physical access to attack me, but won't. That, to me, seems to be a disconnect between a decision-making AI (diplomatic) and an executive AI (campaign).

Associated DAI issues include:
- Faction disposition towards you provides no reliable guidance about the liklihood they will declare war on you. For example, nations that are Very Friendly towards you, will DOW you. If the dispositions don't reflect the liklihood of DOWs then they're useless. This is addressed in Test 5 above.

- Rejecting AI proposals (like, to trade Region A for techs B and C or something) should lead to worsening dispositions between those two nations.

- The disposition penalites applied to expansion should be somewhat balanced by disposition awards under 'The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend'. For example, GB and France are at war with Spain. If GB takes Grenada, France won't like GB as much because it fears GB's territorial expansion. That's understandable. But at the same time, France should be happy with GB for weakening Spain. Right now I feel the penality for expansion is far greater than the boost you get through 'The Enemy of My Enemy...'. I think those two should be closer in value.

[Slaists]

From that Sensei's post of July 20th it seems, CA is doing it "with a sledgehammer" again (NO "dishonoring treaties" and "backstabber" when joining an ally)...

I do not see, why "dishonoring treaties" and "backstabber" should not apply in the cases when a faction joins an ally who is an aggressor in that particular conflict. Of course, these penalties should not apply in the relationship with the ally that the faction is joining, but I do not see why there should be no global diplo-hit (sparing that one ally) for joining an aggression. A defensive war would be a different matter. That's when no penalty should be applied.

The devil is in the details. And it's not too complicated to code these cases for applying/not applying the trigger. Games like Europa Universalis prove that.

- The disposition penalites applied to expansion should be somewhat balanced by disposition awards under 'The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend'. For example, GB and France are at war with Spain. If GB takes Grenada, France won't like GB as much because it fear's GB's territorial expansion. That's understandable. But at the same time, France should be happy with GB for weakening Spain. Right now I feel the penality for expansion is far greater than the boost you get through 'The Enemy of My Enemy...'. I think those two should be closer in value.

For some reason, in 1.3.1 (playing on VH and H), I do not see much in terms of "territorial expansion" penalty. For example, playing as Austria, I have 30 provinces by 1760. My expansion-related diplomatic penalty with the European factions that I am not at war with is in the range of -4 to -10 (negligible) and shrinking (since I am not expanding anymore). Maybe I tend to expand too slow for the penalty to really kick in, but that's my experience with playing other European factions too.

Test 1) The other nation has something I want.
Test 2) I've tried to obtain the thing I want through diplomacy (trading techs, money, etc.) at least once in the last X turns, but my offer was declined.
Test 3) I have the military means to take what I want, including sufficient, excess (as in, not needed for defense) land forces to take and defend the region I want and sufficient, available naval forces capable of delivering my land forces to the target (if necessary).
Test 4) My CAI will actually use the aforemention land and naval units to execute the forceful capture of what I want.
Test 5) I am currently Hostile towards the other nation.

I agree with the whole list except the bolded part. I think, there are plenty of historical examples when friendly nations went to war because the other had something that the nation declaring war wanted. Of course, attacking a friendly nation should have penalties (like public discontent at home, at least).

[Husar]

Its meant to be fixed for 1.4... but that remains to be seen at least they have now said the upcoming 1.4 patch which means it must be getting closer, although its going to be hard to upgrade because while the AI and diplo and that is meant to be getting a fix, we will be losing our ship battle stuff, still its a case of whats needed more desperately to make the game enjoyable and AI sits above their naval battle rebalancing.

I can already see it, for 1.5 they will fix the naval battles because everybody complains about the rebalancing and then announce that they want to "streamline" the tecnology tree or something else nobody wants.

[Durallan]

lol this will probably be true Husar,

The only thing with a nation you thought was friendly going to declare war on you is you don't want it to happen a whole lot, there are alot more AI's out there than the player, probably a 25% chance on the friendly routine or just some way that its not too often unless the friendly AI forms an alliance of nations to crush you and divide your territories amongst themselves.

[Husar]

Pretty much, I'd even think when you have an ally and your relations are friendly and you may even have fought some wars together(you know, like wars that are actually over at some point before either side is annihilated...) then it should be very, very unlikely that they'd just go and declare war on you out of the blue.
If they really want to introduce something new and fresh instead of rebalancing naval battles, how about non-aggression pacts that run for a certain amount of turns and mean that both signatories either:
a) cannot attack the other at all
or
b) get a really big hit on relations across the world and are thus likely to end up in a multi-front war, making this very unlikely.
Compared to an alliance the signatories would not help eachother out in war though and would be considered neutral towards eachother.

[Seyavash]

I can already see it, for 1.5 they will fix the naval battles because everybody complains about the rebalancing and then announce that they want to "streamline" the tecnology tree or something else nobody wants.

Do you guys think there will be a fix after 1.4? Given that they have a new game coming out in February which will undoubtedly need fixes of it's own, I could see this being the final patch or near final patch while they refocus on their new product. Except perhaps some additional DLC

[Slaists]

Do you guys think there will be a fix after 1.4? Given that they have a new game coming out in February which will undoubtedly need fixes of it's own, I could see this being the final patch or near final patch while they refocus on their new product. Except perhaps some additional DLC

Unfortunately, that's exactly what I think too...

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Actually, I'm thinking the opposite. Since it's practically the same game there is a good chance that some improvements or fixes for NTW will be retrofitted back in to ETW.

[Slaists]

Actually, I'm thinking the opposite. Since it's practically the same game there is a good chance that some improvements or fixes for NTW will be retrofitted back in to ETW.

Well, improvements made in the Kingdom's version of the MTW2 never made it into MTW2.

[Lemur]

Has anybody from CA posted anything anywhere about the AI?

[sassbarman]

Has anybody from CA posted anything anywhere about the AI?

nope! and until it is confirmed that significant work has been done on the CAI and DAI i will be taking a pass on this one(NTW). I have been a firm supporter of CA for a long time and have faithfully purchased every game and expansion on release day without hesitation, but with the prospect of more shoddy game play merely repackaged with a shiney new map and units, that streak maybe over and I fear my blind trust has been compromised.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Well, improvements made in the Kingdom's version of the MTW2 never made it into MTW2.

Clearly not all features of Kingdoms would have gone towards the patch. They'd want people to buy the expansion. Yet there was a patch released hot on the heels of Kingdoms release that contained some of what had been improved in Kingdoms.

Having said that, I will require a great deal of patching before I can consider purchasing NTW. CA, if you are reading, more then the current figleaf of support for ETW is required.

[peacemaker]

Having said that, I will require a great deal of patching before I can consider purchasing NTW. CA, if you are reading, more then the current figleaf of support for ETW is required.

The focus for the update has been AI, both campaign and battle along with improvements to sieges and the naval rebalancing. A lot of work has been put into the campaign and diplomacy AI, focusing on how it wages war, makes alliances and peace as well as use of naval invasions. Battle side improvements have been made to most areas of the AI with the focus on the siege AI which has had major changes made to it. Sieges have also had a lot of work done on them with a lot of bugs fixed, improvements made to pathfinding and how guns and troops on walls work.

It seems to me they are doing a great deal of work. Give them time, they're trying to sort things out. I think that sooner or later they're going to end up with some competition and therefore start trying to fix all these things.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Unsurprisingly, I'm less interested in what they tell me of improvements then in the improvements they show me. It's been too many months, too many claims made and not realized.

Give them time? It would seem I have no other option.

[Durallan]

being the game was released in march, it is now august, quite a few people would have hoped by now the AI problems were fixed, CA take note, there is alot more discontent out than anyone obviously first previously thought, I think there will be more patches after 1.4, at least because they will be releasing the multiplayer campaign mode before Napoleon TW

[peacemaker]

I think lots of people are waiting for the multiplayer campaign. I'm planning to team up with someone and just conquer the entire world :) I can't do it alone.

The alternative to waiting for patches is of course modding; I'm sure there are tons of threads about tutorials.

[Servius]

Fixing the CAI and DAI, and multiplayer campaigns, are the two biggest things I'd like to see. Both would be a significant improvement to the game. However, fixing the CAI and DAI are far more important than an MP campaign in my view. This is because fixed CAI and DAI would affect all players and not just those interested in MP. Also, improvements to CAI and DAI would have a value-added effect on said MP campaign. For both reasons, fixing the CAI and DAI should be the priority.

Regarding my last rule in fixing the DAI...

Test 5) I am currently Hostile towards the other nation.

I think that is very important. The reason is that, right now, the disposition of other nations seems to have no impact on the game at all. When Very Friendly nations can declare war on you, the disposition system is useless. I'd be willing to say that an AI could be Hostile or Unfriendly towards you before they can declare war, but they can't like you and war with you at the same time. It's completely illogical. Also, you can't compensate for the lack of such a rule by saying that DOWing a nation you're Very Friendly with will come with a big reputation hit because, as I said above, if friendly nations can declare war on each other, then disposition means nothing, and thus you can make the reputation penalty as high as you like because it doesn't mean anything anyway.

[Slaists]

Fixing the CAI and DAI, and multiplayer campaigns, are the two biggest things I'd like to see. Both would be a significant improvement to the game. However, fixing the CAI and DAI are far more important than an MP campaign in my view. This is because fixed CAI and DAI would affect all players and not just those interested in MP. Also, improvements to CAI and DAI would have a value-added effect on said MP campaign. For both reasons, fixing the CAI and DAI should be the priority.

Regarding my last rule in fixing the DAI...


I think that is very important. The reason is that, right now, the disposition of other nations seems to have no impact on the game at all. When Very Friendly nations can declare war on you, the disposition system is useless. I'd be willing to say that an AI could be Hostile or Unfriendly towards you before they can declare war, but they can't like you and war with you at the same time. It's completely illogical. Also, you can't compensate for the lack of such a rule by saying that DOWing a nation you're Very Friendly with will come with a big reputation hit because, as I said above, if friendly nations can declare war on each other, then disposition means nothing, and thus you can make the reputation penalty as high as you like because it doesn't mean anything anyway.

I disagree. Things are not white and black in life. There are no certainties, but there are likelihoods. I suggest making "a friendly nation declaring war on you" very unlikely, but still possible as long as your items 1-4 are satisfied. So, you, as a player, would like to build friendly relationships with the nations that you are scared of to minimize the LIKELIHOOD of them declaring war on you. That's very different from CERTAINTY of having peace. With the "no war on a friend" certainty, the world would be the player's oyster (it already is).

Let me give you an example. If I play as Britain and take French Guiana, I do not see why my very friendly ally, the Dutch, would not declare war on me at some point to take that territory (if they have the military capacity to do so). French Guiana is one of their game winning goal provinces. Actually, I have seen it happen very reasonably in 1.3. I take French Guiana, in the next turn the Dutch offer me a province and some techs for it. I refuse. The Dutch declare war on me. I see nothing unreasonable in this case.

I also do not see why declaring a war on a friendly nation should have any diplomatic reputation hits (unless some treaty was broken). Declaring a war on a friendly nation should cause significant public discontent at home. And that discontent should grow as long as the nation is fighting the friend.

[Servius]

So long as the way other nations feel towards you has clear, significant, logical impacts on things like...
1) Liklihood other nation will DOW you
2) Liklihood other nation will accept trade proposal
3) Liklihood other nation will accept offer of alliance
4) Liklihood other nation will accpet offer of protection
5) Liklihood other nation (if allied to you) will maintain alliance with you in the event war breaks out between you and another ally of theirs
6) Terms other nation offers you for things like regions, techs, etc. (the better your relations, the more such offers will be tipped in your favor)

...then I'm fine with disposition not being a Yes/No switch and instead being a liklihood thing.

I still believe that if a nation is your ally/protectorate, they should not be able to declare war on you. If an ally/protectorate wants to declare war on you, they should first have to cancel the alliance during one turn and declare war on you the next turn.

[Sheogorath]

I would say something like this:

1: Do I have a reason to attack (X)? (Territory, money, historical grievances, etc.)
2: Can I reach (X)? (By land or sea)
3: Am I a match for (X)? (Will their land forces instantly crush my single town?)
4: Is my army deployed in a fashion suitable to attack (X)? (Is my single stack of militia on the wrong side of the continent?)
5: What are my current relations with (X)? (Am I hostile to them? Friendly? Neutral?)

The last check shouldn't be a complete deciding factor, of course, but the probability of the AI declaring war on you should drop significantly the more friendly you are.

Theoretically such an AI would still declare war on you even if there was little reason to attack, they could only reach you via a long and dangerous route, they were no match for you, their military was on the wrong theater, and they were quite friendly, but it would be the sort of thing that happens once in a hundred games, not every other turn.

[Beskar]

They should borrow some concepts from Knights of Honor, having things like "White Peace" (when you are at war, but nothing has happened for ages) and asking an ally to join you in a war (if they didn't join initial, or you allied later, for example).