What do you think of Empire TW?

[Dachs]

Are you sure about this Dachs? 'cause if that's true, it's like the holy grail of discoveries or something. No one seems to have witnessed that happen even once out at the TWC forums.

Found another one in an earlier save: France grabbed the Dutch island of Curacao.

 

[Rub'Rum]

I don't understand how that's possible. Most people on TWC are seriously saying that naval invasions are not even coded in at the moment and that Creative Assembly flat out lied about this being just an "issue". Their new patch apparently will "lay the groundwork for naval invasions, although they will be rare and will need more work" (I'm quoting a CA representative from memory).

You have the only working copy of the game. Maybe you should post about in on TWC and see what they have to say, hehe.

Mods? Although I think even mods can't fix this.

Maybe they traded the regions Dachs. I know they at least do that sometimes.

 

[Dachs]

I don't understand how that's possible. Most people on TWC are seriously saying that naval invasions are not even coded in at the moment and that Creative Assembly flat out lied about this being just an "issue". Their new patch apparently will "lay the groundwork for naval invasions, although they will be rare and will need more work" (I'm quoting a CA representative from memory).

You have the only working copy of the game. Maybe you should post about in on TWC and see what they have to say, hehe.

Mods? Although I think even mods can't fix this.

Mods fixed it for the other games, AFAIK. You know a lot more about this, but I know what I saw in Portugal, and what I hope I'm seeing here. Maybe it worked at Portugal because the Spanish weren't sailing to another island or anything, just staying in Europe.

Maybe they traded the regions Dachs. I know they at least do that sometimes.

I guess that's possible. Way to rain on my parade.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Maybe it worked at Portugal because the Spanish weren't sailing to another island or anything, just staying in Europe.

That's a possibility, although no one ever sets foot in England. I thought they didn't even know how to climb in a boat to start with. I'm not that well informed, I just have to wade through so much rant on the TWC forums to get to information that I've become acquainted with all the problems of the game, hehe. If I hadn't known about all of this, maybe I'd still be playing right now instead of waiting for the patch that's coming early this week...

 

[Maniacal]

Dachs they probably traded that island. Proof needs ships and troop movement

 

[Maniacal]

Major patch today apparently;

Updates to Empire: Total War have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

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

 

[LightSpectra]

That patch shafted my game. I held every province in Europe, and was sieging Persia, but they increased the upkeep of units, so I was immediately in horrible bankruptcy.

Not that I think it's a bad change, I just wish that it wasn't cumulative on save games.

 

[Rub'Rum]

You want to start a new game anyway because the first turn is quite important for AIs in this game apparently. They take a lot of important decisions in their first turn, so if you just keep playing an old game you won't notice these changes. Plus continuing a game where you're already dominating because of the broken balance just isn't that fun, hehe.

 

[LightSpectra]

Good point.

When the patch says "tweaks to diplomacy," I hope that doesn't mean that factions with zero soldiers will still refuse to accept peace unless you give them Europe, and that you can't bribe factions into becoming protectorates anymore.

 

[Captain Carnage]

When they say "Armies now placed correctly on battlefields in relation to campaign" does that mean that now the enemy reinforcements won't sneak up behind you? Or is that how it is intended to be?

 

[Dachs]

When they say "Armies now placed correctly on battlefields in relation to campaign" does that mean that now the enemy reinforcements won't sneak up behind you? Or is that how it is intended to be?

Yes, if you're being attacked by an enemy with the reinforcements in the same direction as the enemy on the campaign map, they will not appear behind you in tactical map, and so forth.

 

[Leonel]

Yes, if you're being attacked by an enemy with the reinforcements in the same direction as the enemy on the campaign map, they will not appear behind you in tactical map, and so forth.

Aah! That's what that is. I get annoyed by that a lot and have to kind of turtle in a corner.

 

[Dachs]

Aah! That's what that is. I get annoyed by that a lot and have to kind of turtle in a corner.

The point is that the patch fixed that. Or you could be smart and be able to predict how it's going to happen, because it's just a simple reverse of the inbound direction generally, and plan accordingly.

 

[Leonel]

The point is that the patch fixed that. Or you could be smart and be able to predict how it's going to happen, because it's just a simple reverse of the inbound direction generally, and plan accordingly.

Well apparently I'm not smart according to you!

 

[Dachs]

Well apparently I'm not smart according to you!

Doesn't follow...it's just one way of demonstrating intelligence. Cornering up makes sense too.

 

[Captain Carnage]

Ah ok, that's good, thanks (I hadn't been able to test it.)

 

[LightSpectra]

Here's another difficulty I noted. Those one-region factions, especially in central Europe (which is a pain if you're playing as France, since they start next to four different ones) have nothing to do, so they simply build up full armies. Which is a bit silly; Savoy shouldn't be more financially able to raise a legion than Paris. Though gameplay wise, this is difficult, since it means I have to invest a large amount of my budget into simply having a large legion on my border -- or, I simply bribe these tiny states into becoming protectorates, which I don't think ever happened in history.

 

[Murky]

Why is everyone pouring the hate on Steam? Do you have a limited number of installs with this game? If I end up liking the game, this is something that will be a problem as I upgrade my computer over time. For example, Shogun is still one of my favorite games. I still have the box.

Steam may become a victim of it's own success.

No game server can be expected handle billions of simultaneous connections.

They should make offline mode the default and online mode only for multiplayer. There should be no need for license/ID verification to play in offline mode.

 

[Maniacal]

Here's another difficulty I noted. Those one-region factions, especially in central Europe (which is a pain if you're playing as France, since they start next to four different ones) have nothing to do, so they simply build up full armies. Which is a bit silly; Savoy shouldn't be more financially able to raise a legion than Paris. Though gameplay wise, this is difficult, since it means I have to invest a large amount of my budget into simply having a large legion on my border -- or, I simply bribe these tiny states into becoming protectorates, which I don't think ever happened in history.

Which is why the game needs more regions, but you're in luck - sort of - naval invasions are now guarenteed to happen, albeit rarely.

 

[LightSpectra]

I don't know if I've asked this before, but do alliances do anything other than have a buddy that sometimes declares war on whoever you go to war with?

The Road to Independence keeps bugging you to ally with France, though I don't really see the point; they don't seem to declare war on Britain, and I don't see any other benefits hidden in there.