TROM2 - Feedback and Suggestions

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

TROM2 1.9 is released! Since the file has become to big you will get it over Megaupload (may take some time until it's up) or alternatively from Filefront. See the release thread for the links. Enjoy!

[Pdguru]

New 1.9 French campaign incorrectly gives free experience each turn to all French units - Yarkis will be fixing this shortly.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

*Cough* I hate when such things happen. Small oversight by me in the script for the French story campaign. I have a hotfix attached to the v1.9 release thread. Please download it from there.

[Pope_Fred_I]

I'm not sure what the differences are between the latest two versions of TROM2, but I just played as Britain for the first time with the newer version (I've been on a heavy Prussian kick the last fair while), and Lord Nelson's entire fleet was left a burning wreck! I don't really think I'm so incompetent of an admiral that I made kindling out my entire fleet and left half the French fleet laughing at me...am I missing something? I don't mean to gripe...just a bit of frustration is all...

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Hi Pope! No changes to the naval side of the game beside lower chances of ships catching fire, which should affect both parties equally. I guess you had bad luck.

[Pdguru]

Is anyone else getting these characters pop up?

[Pope_Fred_I]

Hi Pope! No changes to the naval side of the game beside lower chances of ships catching fire, which should affect both parties equally. I guess you had bad luck.

We'll chalk it up to shoddy seamanship, then.

If you need any help, Yarkis, feel free to give me a holler. I know NOTHING about modding NTW, but am always willing to learn. Love this game and this mod. Now, if you'll excuse me, Her Majesty's Royal Navy is about to land Lord Wellington on Spanish soil...

[The Juggernaut]

Is anyone else getting these characters pop up?

Yep, I've been getting those guys since the last version, I just figured they were observers.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Yep, I've been getting those guys since the last version, I just figured they were observers.

Btw I just released a patch (v1.91), which hopefully fixes above problem. Get it from the release thread.

[LordVaynard]

When i play as Prussia, building military barrack didn't add bonus exp to line infantry. Instead only admin buildings add bonus exp to the line infantry. Other units have the bonus exp as they should from both military and admin buildings. I don't have any other mods installed by the way. Oh other factions have the same problem.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

When i play as Prussia, building military barrack didn't add bonus exp to line infantry. Instead only admin buildings add bonus exp to the line infantry. Other units have the bonus exp as they should from both military and admin buildings. I don't have any other mods installed by the way. Oh other factions have the same problem.

That's how the game engine works. You always will get the least bonus from multiple buildings.

[Edax]

Well, I'll admit that at the moment, I'm 2 versions behind, but ship fires are pretty common. I tired to film a First-Rate ship of the line sinking, but I wasn't able to do it, because 10 out of 10 First Rates succumbed to fire. I even had one of the 1st rate's starboard hull damaged to the point that it was nonexistant, but it wouldn't sink. A cannon ball struck it in the hull, and somehow caused a fire in all 3 sections of the ship, and caused an instant inferno, and the crew didn't even bother to fight it, they just jumped ship. I'm not even sure 1st rates CAN sink...they just seem to magicly catch fire at the last moment. I swear, it's like all the cannon balls are coated with napalm or something...

[Pdguru]

The TROM 2 casualty rates are hard for me to get used to - but they make for some interesting (if grim) after-battle scenery...

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Well, I'll admit that at the moment, I'm 2 versions behind, but ship fires are pretty common. I tired to film a First-Rate ship of the line sinking, but I wasn't able to do it, because 10 out of 10 First Rates succumbed to fire. I even had one of the 1st rate's starboard hull damaged to the point that it was nonexistant, but it wouldn't sink. A cannon ball struck it in the hull, and somehow caused a fire in all 3 sections of the ship, and caused an instant inferno, and the crew didn't even bother to fight it, they just jumped ship. I'm not even sure 1st rates CAN sink...they just seem to magicly catch fire at the last moment. I swear, it's like all the cannon balls are coated with napalm or something...

I think we used vanilla rates before 1.9. In 1.9+ the rate of ships catching fire should be 10 times lower, but I haven't tested it myself yet, and probably you have more experience.

@Pdguru
I would prefer to have more historic casuality rates in battle, and other detrimental effects for loosing armies like moral reduction, supply losses and more. But NTW is not a wargame like Forge of Freedom for example. If you want to keep up a high difficulty for the player without giving the AI even more armies on the campaign map, you have to make battles costly for the player too. The problem is that CA added something like a after battle mob up program. The looser gets additional casualities and many units get wiped out completely. Personally I think of the battles as only showing the center piece of the action, where most casualities happen.

[Pope_Fred_I]

I think we used vanilla rates before 1.9. In 1.9+ the rate of ships catching fire should be 10 times lower, but I haven't tested it myself yet, and probably you have more experience.

I haven't played extensively with 1.9 yet (just started a campaign as Great Britain last night), but so far fires seem to be less common. I would agree, however, that I have yet to see a 1st rate ship of the line actually sink. in all my battles so far they either burn or are boarded. I guess I can't speak to it too much, however, as I tend to board all the vessels I can, and so they rarely sink (it's cheaper to build navies this way ).

[Pdguru]

I think we used vanilla rates before 1.9. In 1.9+ the rate of ships catching fire should be 10 times lower, but I haven't tested it myself yet, and probably you have more experience.

@Pdguru
I would prefer to have more historic casuality rates in battle, and other detrimental effects for loosing armies like moral reduction, supply losses and more. But NTW is not a wargame like Forge of Freedom for example. If you want to keep up a high difficulty for the player without giving the AI even more armies on the campaign map, you have to make battles costly for the player too. The problem is that CA added something like a after battle mob up program. The looser gets additional casualities and many units get wiped out completely. Personally I think of the battles as only showing the center piece of the action, where most casualities happen.

I hope I haven't offended you old chap. I am not complaining at all. As I say above, the casualties are just "hard for me to get used to" - but they are an essential differenting feature of TROM2 and I fully understand why . The scenes like the one above are a grim reminder of the reality of war. Lots of dead soldiers... and TROM2 is the one to best visually show this!

[Edax]

I hope I haven't offended you old chap. I am not complaining at all. As I say above, the casualties are just "hard for me to get used to" - but they are an essential differenting feature of TROM2 and I fully understand why . The scenes like the one above are a grim reminder of the reality of war. Lots of dead soldiers... and TROM2 is the one to best visually show this!

The casualty rates I like, I feel they make for interesting and bloody battles, what I can't stand is how the AI artillery will always stay behind just to prolong the battle by twenty minutes and cause needless casualties when realistically, they would have packed up their cannons and took them with them in a retreat, as they were as valuable as the Colors. It's a shame cannons weren't made capturable as enemy ships were in Napoleon. I only hope we're able to capture artillery in Shogun II. Might make the AI more inclined not to have undefended artillery crews fight to the death.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

I haven't played extensively with 1.9 yet (just started a campaign as Great Britain last night), but so far fires seem to be less common. I would agree, however, that I have yet to see a 1st rate ship of the line actually sink. in all my battles so far they either burn or are boarded. I guess I can't speak to it too much, however, as I tend to board all the vessels I can, and so they rarely sink (it's cheaper to build navies this way ).

From what I know ships of the line hardly sank. Usually they would simply go out of action and strike their colors after loosing any manouvering cababilities or guns. For the sake of gameplay it would be better they would sank more or repairs would at least cost much more, because it's to easy for the player to dominate the seas with captured ships. However, I don't know yet how to make ships sink more often.

I hope I haven't offended you old chap. I am not complaining at all. As I say above, the casualties are just "hard for me to get used to" - but they are an essential differenting feature of TROM2 and I fully understand why . The scenes like the one above are a grim reminder of the reality of war. Lots of dead soldiers... and TROM2 is the one to best visually show this!

No problem. I know very well that adjusting to the difficulty of TROM2 is not easy. Two years ago I redesigned the AI for another game (Star Wars Empire at War). The very lazy AI of that game was suddenly very aggressive after I removed some brakes the developers had deliberately build in to slow down the AI and even prevent the AI from winning. The first testers told me, that the game is impossible to win now. Of course it wasn't, people were just not used to the aggressive AI. Later on the mod was quite a success exactly because it was a challenge many people were missing from the vanilla game. It's a pity that we can't access the AI programming routines in TW games. Empire at War had many AI components in lua scripts and xml files. In NTW we have nothing beside some hard to understand variables.

The casualty rates I like, I feel they make for interesting and bloody battles, what I can't stand is how the AI artillery will always stay behind just to prolong the battle by twenty minutes and cause needless casualties when realistically, they would have packed up their cannons and took them with them in a retreat, as they were as valuable as the Colors. It's a shame cannons weren't made capturable as enemy ships were in Napoleon. I only hope we're able to capture artillery in Shogun II. Might make the AI more inclined not to have undefended artillery crews fight to the death.

Couldn't agree more. If the battle is lost, the AI should retreat. I usually send a unit of light cavarly to mod them up halfway through the battle and most of the time the AI artillery even does not target this immediate threat.

[Edax]

I've just updated, and I'm loving all the new guard units. I've just been wondering...could you *steal* the skins of the French Grenadiar and Voltiger from the All-In-One mod? Those were what I thought were the best features of that mod, everything else was just...too much.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

I've just updated, and I'm loving all the new guard units. I've just been wondering...could you *steal* the skins of the French Grenadiar and Voltiger from the All-In-One mod? Those were what I thought were the best features of that mod, everything else was just...too much.

L'aigle is working on reskins for all the standard French units. You will see them probably in the next release.